Chapter II: Part 2

"Of course they know, Louis!" retorted Brierley in mock dejection. "Doesn't a crow keep a watch out for the flock? Can you get near one of them with a gun unless you are lucky enough to shoot the sentry first? You can call it instinct if you choose--I call it reason--the same kind of mental process that compels you to look out for an automobile before you cross the street, with your eyes both ways at once. When you talk of their helplessness and want of common sense, and inability to look out for themselves, you had better lie under a hedge as I have done, the briars scraping your neck, or scrunched down in a duckblind, with your feet in ice water, and study these simple-minded creatures. Explain this if you can. Some years ago, in America, I spent the autumn on the Housatonic River. The ducks come in from Long Island Sound to feed on the shore stuff, and I could sometimes get five--once I got eleven--between dawn and sunrise. The constant banging away soon made them so shy that if I got five in a week I was lucky. On the first of the month and for the first time in the State a new law came into force making it cost a month's wages for any pot-hunter to kill a duck or even have one in his possession. The law, as is customary, was duly advertised. Not only was it published in the papers but stuck up in bar-rooms and county post-offices, and at last became common gossip around the feeding-ground of the ducks. At first they didn't believe it, for they still kept out of sight, flying high--and few at that. But when they found the law was obeyed and that all firing had ceased, not a gun being heard on the river, they tumbled to the game as quick as did the pot-hunters. When the shooting season opened the following year, hardly a duck showed up. Those that came were evidently stragglers who rested for a day on their long flight south; but the Long Island Sound ducks--the well-posted ducks--stayed away altogether until, with the first of the month, the law for their protection came into force again. Then, so the old farmer, a very truthful man with whom I used to put up, wrote me, they came back by thousands; the shore was black with them."

"And you really believe it, Brierley?" Louis' head was shaking in a commiserating way.

"Of course I believe it, and I can show the farmer's letter to back it," he answered, with a wink at me behind his hand; "and so would you if you had been humbugged by them as many times as I have. Ask Peter--he'll tell you the same thing. And I'll tell you something else. On the edge of that same village was a jumble of shanties inhabited by a lot of Italians who had come up from New York to work a quarry near by. On Sundays and holidays these fellows went gunning for the small birds, especially cedar birds and flickers, hiding in the big woods a mile away. After these birds had stood it for a while they put their dear little innocent heads together and thought it all out. Women and children did not shoot, therefore the safest place for nesting and skylarking was among these very women and children. After that the woods were empty; the birds just made fools of the pot-hunters and swarmed to the gardens and yards and village trees. No one had ever seen them before in such quantities, and--would you believe it?--they never went back to the woods again until the Italians had left for New York."

Lemois, having also missed the humor in Brierley's tone, rose from his place beside the coffee-table, leaned over the young writer, and, with a characteristic gesture, patted him on the arm, exclaiming:

"How admirably you have put it, my dear Monsieur Brierley; I have to thank you most sincerely. Ah! you Americans are always clear and to the point. May I add one more word? That which made these birds so cunning was the fact that you were out to _kill_ them." Here he straightened up, his back to the fire, and stood with the light of its blaze tingeing his gray beard. "It's a foolish fancy, I know, but I would have liked to have lived, if only for one day, with the man Adam, just to see how he and Madame Eve and the Noah's ark family got on before they began quarrelling and Cain made a hole in the head of the other monsieur. I have an idea that the lion and the lamb ate out of the same trough, with the birds on their backs for company--all the world at peace. My Coco rubs his beak against my cheek, not because I feed him, but because he trusts me; he would, I am sure, bite a piece out of Monsieur Louis' because he does not trust him--and with reason," and the old man smiled good-naturedly. "But why don't they all trust us?"

Herbert, who had also for some reason entirely missed Brierley's humor, fumbled for an instant with the end of a match he had picked from the cloth, and then, tossing it quickly from him as if he had at last framed the sentence he was about to utter, said in a thoughtful tone:

"I have often wondered what the world would be like if all fear of every kind was abolished--of punishment, of bodily hurt, and of pain? Everything that swims, flies, or walks is afraid of something else--women of men, men of each other. The first thing an infant does is to cry out--not from the pain, but from fright--just as a small dog or the cub of a bear hides under its mother's coat before its eyes are open. It is the ogre, Fear, that begins with the milk and ends with the last breath in terror over the unknown, and it is our fault. Half the children in the world--perhaps three-fourths of them--have been brought up by fear and not by love."

"How about the lambasting your father gave you, Herbert, when you hooked it from school? 'Spare the rod and spoil the--' You know the rest of it. Did you deserve it?"

"Probably I did," laughed Herbert. "But, all the same, Louis, that foolish line has done more harm in the world than any line ever written. Many a brute of a father--not mine, for he did what he thought was right--has found excuse in those half-dozen words for his temper when he beat his boy."

"Oh, come, let us get back to dry ground, gentlemen," broke in Brierley. "We commenced on birds and we've brought up on moral suasion with the help of a birch-rod. Nobody has yet answered my argument: What about the birds and the way they play it on Peter and me?" and again Brierley winked at me.

"It's because you tricked them first, Brierley," returned Herbert in all seriousness and in all sincerity. "They got suspicious and outwitted you, and they will every time. A beast never forgets treachery. I know of a dozen instances to prove it."

"Now I think of it, I know of one case, too," remarked Louis gravely, in the voice of a savant uncovering a matter of great weight; "that is, if I may be allowed to tell it in the presence of the big Nimrod of the Congo--he of a hundred pairs of tusks, to say nothing of skins galore."

Herbert nodded assent and with an air of surprise leaned forward to listen. That the jovial painter had ever met the savage beast in any part of the world was news to him.

"A most extraordinary and remarkable instance, gentlemen, showing both the acumen, the mental equipment, and the pure cussedness, if I may be permitted the expression, of the brute beast of the field. The incident, as told to me, made a profound impression on my early life, and was largely instrumental in my abandoning the pursuit and destruction of game of that class. I refer to the well-known case of the boy who gave the elephant a quid of tobacco for a cake, and was buried the following year by his relatives when the circus came again to his town--he unfortunately having occupied a front seat. Yes, you are right, the beast forgives anything but treachery. But go on, Professor Herbert; your treatment of this extremely novel view of animal life is most exhilarating. I shall, at the next meeting of the Academy of Sciences, introduce a----"

Brierley's hand set firmly on Louis' mouth, who sputtered out he would be good, would have ended the discussion had not Lemois moved into an empty chair beside Herbert, and, resting his hand on the sculptor's shoulder, exclaimed in so absorbed a tone as to command every one's attention:

"Please do not stop, Monsieur Herbert, and please do not mind this wild man, who has two mouths in his face--one with which he eats and the other with which he interrupts. I am very much interested. You were speaking of the ogre, Fear. Please go on. One of the things I want to know is whether it existed in the Garden of Eden. Now if you gentlemen will all keep still"--here he fixed his eyes on Louis--"we may hear something worth listening to."

Louis threw up both hands in submission, begging Lemois not to shoot, and Herbert, having made him swear by all that was holy not to open either of his mouths until his story was told to the end, emptied his glass of Burgundy and faced the expectant group.

"We don't need to go back to the Garden of Eden to decide the question, Lemois. As to who is responsible for the existence of this ogre, Fear, I can answer best by telling you what happened only four years ago on a German expedition to the South Pole. It was told me by the commander himself, who had been specially selected by Emperor William as the best man to take charge. When I met him he was captain of one of the great North Atlantic liners--a calm, self-contained man of fifty, with a smile that always gave way to a laugh, and a sincerity, courage, and capacity that made you turn over in your berth for another nap no matter how hard it blew.

"We were in his cabin near the bridge at the time, the walls of which were covered with photographs of the Antarctic, most of which he had taken himself, showing huge icebergs, vast stretches of hummock ice, black, clear-etched shore lines, and wastes of snow that swept up to high mountains, their tops lost in the fog. He was the first human being, so he told me, to land on that coast. He had left the ship in the outside pack and with his first mate and one of the scientists had forced a way through the floating floes, their object being to make the ascent of a range of low rolling mountains seen in one of the photographs. This was pure white from base to summit except for a dark shadow one-third the slope, which he knew must be caused by an overhanging ledge with possibly a cave beneath. If any explorers had ever reached this part of the Antarctic, this cave, he knew, would be the place of all others in which to search for records and remains.

"He had hardly gone a dozen yards toward it when his first mate touched his arm and pointed straight ahead. Advancing over the crest of the snow came the strangest procession he had ever seen. Thirty or more penguins of enormous size, half as high as a man, were marching straight toward them in single file, the leader ahead. When within a few feet of them the penguins stopped, bunched themselves together, looked the invaders over, bending their heads in a curious way--walking round and round as if to get a better view--and then waddled back to a ridge a few rods off, where they evidently discussed their strange guests.

"The captain and the first mate, leaving the scientist, walked up among them, patted their heads, caressed their necks--the captain at last slipping his hand under one flipper of the largest penguin, the mate taking the other--the two conducting the bird slowly and with great solemnity and dignity back to the boat, its companions following as a matter of course. None of them exhibited the slightest fear; did not start or crane their heads in suspicion, but were just as friendly as so many tame birds waiting to be fed. The boat seemed to interest them as much as the men had done. One by one, or by twos and threes, they came waddling gravely down to where it lay, examined it all over and as gravely waddled back, looking up into the explorers' faces as if for some explanation of the meaning and purpose of the strange craft. They had, too, a queer way of extending their necks, rubbing their cheeks softly against the men's furs, as if it felt good to them. The only thing they seemed disappointed in were the ship's rations--these they would not touch.

"Leaving the whole flock grouped about the boat, the party pushed on to the dark shadow up the white slope. It was, as he had supposed, an overhanging cliff, its abrupt edge and slant forming a shallow cave protected from the glaciers and endless snows. As he approached nearer he could make out the whirling flight of birds, and when he reached the edge he found it inhabited by thousands upon thousands of sea fowl--a gray and white species common to these latitudes. But there was no commotion nor excitement of any kind--no screams of alarm or running to cover. On the contrary, when the party came to a halt and looked up at the strange sight, two birds stopped in their flight to perch on the mate's shoulder, and one hopped toward the captain with a movement as if politely asking his business. He even lifted the young birds from under their mother's wings without protest of any kind--not even a peck of their beaks--one of the older birds really stepped into his hand and settled herself as unconcerned as if his warm palm was exactly the kind of nest she had been waiting for. He could, he told me, have carried the whole family away without protest of any kind so long as he kept them together.

"The following week he again visited the shore. This time he found not only the friendly penguins, who met him with even more than their former welcome, but a huge seal which had sprawled itself out on the rock and whose only acknowledgment of their presence was a lazy lift of the head followed by a sleepy stare. So perfectly undisturbed was he by their coming, that both the captain and the first mate sat down on his back, the mate remaining long enough to light his pipe. Even then the seal moved only far enough to stretch himself, as if saying, 'Try that and you will find it more comfortable.'

"On this visit, however, something occurred which, he told me, he should never cease to regret as long as he lives. That morning as they pushed off from the ship, one of the dogs had made a clear spring from the deck and had landed in the boat. It was rather difficult to send him back without loss of time, and so he put him in charge of the mate, with orders not to take his eyes off him and, as a further precaution, to chain him to the seat when he went ashore. So fascinated were the penguins by the dog that for some minutes they kept walking round and round him, taking in his every movement. In some way, when the mate was not looking, the dog slipped his chain and disappeared. Whether he had gone back to the vessel or was doing some exploring on his own account nobody knew; anyhow, he must be found.

"It then transpired that one of the penguins had also taken a notion to go on a still hunt of its own, and alone. Whether the dog followed the penguin, or the penguin the dog, he said he never knew; but as soon as both were out of sight the dog pounced upon the bird and strangled it. They found it flat on its back, the black-webbed feet, palms up, as in dumb protest, the plump white body glistening in the snow. From its throat trickled a stream of blood: they had come just in time to save any further mutilation. To hide all traces of the outrage, the captain and his men not only carried the dead penguin and the live dog to the boat, but carefully scraped up every particle of the stained snow, which was also carried to the boat and finally to the ship. What he wanted, he told me, was to save his face with the birds. He knew that not one of them had seen the tragedy, and he was determined that none of them should find it out. So careful was he that no smell of blood would be wafted toward them, that he had the boat brought to windward before he embarked the load; in this way, too, he could avoid bidding both them and the seal good-by.

"The following spring he again landed on the shore. He had completed the survey, and the coast lay on their homeward track. There were doubters in the crew, who had heard the captain's story of the penguins walking arm and arm with him, so he landed some of the ship's company to convince them by ocular demonstration of its truth. But no penguins were in sight, nor did any other living thing put in an appearance. One of his men--there were six this time--caught a glimpse of a row of heads peering at them over a ridge of snow a long way off, but that was all. When he reached the cave the birds flew out in alarm, screaming and circling as if to protect their young."

Herbert paused, moved his cup nearer the arm of his chair, and for a moment stirred it gently.

Lemois, whose grave eyes had never wandered from Herbert, broke the silence.

"I should have learned their language and have stayed on until they did understand," he murmured softly. "It wouldn't have taken very long."

"The captain did try, Lemois," returned Herbert, "first by signs and gentle approaches, and then by keeping perfectly still, to pacify them; but it was of no use. They had lost all confidence in human kind. The peace of the everlasting ages had come to an end. Fear had entered into their world!"

IV

THE ARRIVAL OF A LADY OF QUALITY

One of the delights of dressing by our open windows at this season is to catch the aroma of Mignon's roasting coffee. This morning it is particularly delicious. The dry smell of the soil that gave it birth is fast merging into that marvellous perfume which makes it immortal. The psychological moment is arriving; in common parlance it is just on the "burn"--another turn and the fire will have its revenge. But Mignon's vigil has never ceased--into the air it goes, the soft breeze catching and cooling it, and then there pours out, flooding the garden, the flowers, and the roofs, its new aroma and with it its new life.

And the memories it calls up--this pungent, fragrant, spicy perfume: memories of the cup I drank in that old posada outside the gate of Valencia and the girl who served it, and the matador who stood by the window and scowled; memories of my own toy copper coffee-pot, with its tiny blue cup and saucer which Luigi, my gondolier, brings and pours himself; memories of the thimblefuls in shallow china cups hardly bigger than an acorn shell, that Yusef, my dragoman, laid beside my easel in the patio of the Pigeon Mosque in Stamboul, when the priests forbade me to paint.

Yes!--a wonderful aroma this which our pretty, joyous Mignon is scattering broadcast over the court-yard, hastening every man's toilette that he may get down the earlier where Leà is waiting for him with the big cups, the crescents, the pats of freshly churned butter, and the pitcher of milk boiling-hot from Pierre's fire.

Another of the pleasures of the open window is being able to hear what goes on in the court-yard. To-day the ever-spontaneous and delightful Louis, as usual, is monopolizing all the talk, with Lemois and Mignon for audience, he having insisted on the open garden for his early cup, which the good Leà has brought, her scuffling sabots marking a track across the well-raked gravel. The conversation is at long range--Louis sitting immediately under my window and Lemois, within reach of the kitchen door at the other side of the court, busying himself with his larder spread out on a table.

"Monsieur Lemois! Oh, Monsieur Lemois!" Louis called; "will you be good enough to pay attention! What about eggs?--can I have a couple of soft-boiled?"

"Why, of course you can have eggs! Leà, tell Pierre to----"

"Yes, I know, but will it endanger the life of the chickens inside? After your sermon last night, and Herbert's penguin yarn, I don't intend that any living thing shall suffer because of my appetite--not if I can help it."

Lemois shrugged his shoulders in laughter, and kept on with his work, painting a still-life picture on his table-top--a string of silver onions for high lights and a brace of pheasants with a background of green turnip-tops for darks. To see Lemois spread his marketing thus deliberately on his canvas of a kitchen table is a lesson in color and composition. You get, too, some idea as to why he was able to reproduce in real paint the "Bayeux" tapestry on the walls of the "Gallerie" and arrange the Marmouset as he has done.

My ear next became aware of a certain silence in the direction of the coffee-roaster which had ceased its rhythm--the coffee is roasted fresh every morning. I glanced out and discovered our Mignon standing erect beside her roaster with flushed cheeks and dancing eyes. Next I caught sight of young Gaston, his bronze, weather-beaten face turned toward the girl, his eyes roaming around the court-yard. In his sunburned hand he clutched a letter. He was evidently inquiring of Mignon as to whom he should give it.

"Who's it for?" shouted Louis, who, as godfather to Mignon's romance, had also been watching the little comedy in delight. "All private correspondence read by the cruel parent! I am the cruel parent--bring it over here! What!--not for me? Oh!--for the High-Muck-a-Muck." The shout now came over his left shoulder. "Here's a letter for you, High-Muck, from Marc, so this piscatorial Romeo announces. Shall I send it up?"

"No--open and read it," I shouted back.

Louis slit the envelope with his thumb-nail and absorbed its contents.

"Well!--I'll be--No, I won't, but Marc ought. What do you think he's been and gone and done, the idiot!"

"Give it up!"

"Invited a friend of his--a young--the Marquise de la Caux--to dine with us to-night. Says she's the real thing and the most wonderful woman he knows. Doesn't that make your hair curl up backward! He's coming down with her in her motor--be here at seven precisely. A marquise! Well!--if that doesn't take the cake! I'll bet she's Marc's latest mash!"

Herbert put his head out of an adjoining window. "What's the matter?"

"Matter! Why that lunatic Marc is going to bring a woman down to dinner--one of those fine things from St. Germain. She's got a château above Buezval. Marc stayed there last night instead of showing up here."

"Very glad of it, why not?" called Herbert, drawing in his head.

Lemois, who had heard the entire outbreak, nodded to himself as if in assent, looked at Gaston for a moment, and, without adding a word of any kind, disappeared in the kitchen. What he thought of it all nobody knew.

There was no doubt as to the seriousness of the impending catastrophe. Marc, in his enthusiasm, had lost all sense of propriety, and was about to introduce among us an element we had hitherto avoided. Indeed, one of the enticing comforts at the Inn was its entire freedom from petticoat government of any kind. A woman of quality, raised as she had been, would mean dress-coats and white ties for dinner and the restraint that comes with the mingling of the sexes, and we disliked both--that is, when on our outings.

By this time the news had penetrated to the other rooms, producing various comments. Herbert, with his head again out of the window, advanced the opinion that the hospitality of madame la marquise had been so overwhelming, and her beauty and charm so compelling, that Marc's only way out was to introduce her among us. Louis kept his nose in the air. Brierley, from the opposite side of the court, indulged in a running fire of good-natured criticism in which Marc was described as the prize imbecile who needed a keeper. As for me, sitting on the window-sill watching the by-plays going on below--especially Louis, who demanded an immediate answer for Gaston--there was nothing left, of course, but a--"Why certainly, Louis, any friend of Marc's will be most welcome, and say that we dine at seven."

And yet before the day was over--so subtly does the feminine make its appeal--that despite our assumed disgust, each and every man of us had resolved to do his prettiest to make the distinguished lady's visit a happy one. As a woman of the world she would, of course, overlook the crudities of our toilettes. And then, as we soon reasoned to ourselves, why shouldn't our bachelor reunions be enlivened, at least for once, by a charming woman of twenty-five--Marc never bothered himself with any older--who would bring with her all the perfume, dash, and chic of the upper world and whose toilette in contrast with our own dull clothes would be all the more entrancing? This, now that we thought about it, was really the touch the Marmouset needed.

It was funny to see how everybody set to work without a word to his fellow. Herbert made a special raid through the garden and nipped off the choicest October roses--buds mostly--as befitted our guest. Louis, succumbing to the general expectancy, occupied himself in painting the menus on which Watteau cupids swinging from garlands were most pronounced. Brierley, pretending it was for himself, spent half the morning tuning up the spinet with a bed-key, in case this rarest of women could sing, or should want any one else to, while Lemois, with that same dry smile which his face always wears when his mind is occupied with something that amuses him, ordered Pierre to begin at once the preparation of his most famous dish, Poulet Vallée d'Auge, spending the rest of the morning in putting a final polish on his entire George III coffee service--something he never did except for persons, as he remarked, of "exceptional quality."

Not to be outdone in courtesy I unhooked the great iron key of the wine-cellar from its nail in Pierre's kitchen, and swinging back the old door on its rusty hinges, drew from among the cobwebs a bottle of Chablis, our heavier Burgundies being, of course, too heating for so dainty a creature. This I carried in my own hands to the Marmouset, preserving its long-time horizontal so as not to arouse a grain of the sediment of years, tucking it at last into a crib of a basket for a short nap, only to be again awakened when my lady's glass was ready.

When the glad hour arrived and we were drawn up to receive her--every man in his best outfit--best he had--with a rosebud in his button-hole--and she emerged from the darkness and stood in the light of the overhead candles--long, lank Marc bowing and scraping at her side, there escaped from each one of us, all but Lemois, a half-smothered groan which sounded like a faint wail.

What we saw was not a paragon of delicate beauty, nor a vision of surpassing loveliness, but a parallelogram stood up on end, fifty or more years of age, one unbroken perpendicular line from her shoulders to her feet--or rather to a brown velvet, close-fitting skirt that reached to her shoe-tops--which were stout as a man's and apparently as big. About her shoulders was a reefing jacket, also of brown velvet, fastened with big horn buttons; above this came a loose cherry-red scarf of finest silk in perfect harmony with the brown of the velvet; above this again was a head surmounted by a mass of fluffy, partly gray hair, parted on one side--as Rosa Bonheur wore hers. Then came two brilliant agate eyes, two ruddy cheeks, and a sunny, happy mouth filled with pearl-white teeth.

One smile--and it came with the radiance of a flashlight--and all misgivings vanished. There was no question of her charm, of her refinement, or of her birth. Neither was there any question as to her thorough knowledge of the world.

"I knew you were all down here for a good time," she began in soft, low, musical tones, when the introductions were over, "and would understand if I came just as I was. I have been hunting all day--tramping the fields with my dogs--and I would not even stop to rearrange my hair. It was so good of you to let me come; and I love this room--its atmosphere is so well bred, and it is never so charming as when the firelight dances about it. Ah, Monsieur Lemois! I see some new things. Where did you get that duck of a sauce-boat?--and another Italian mirror! But then there is no use trying to keep up with you. My agent offered what I thought was three times its value for that bit of Satsuma, and I nearly broke my heart over it--and here it is! You really _should_ be locked up as a public nuisance!"

We turned instinctively toward Lemois, remembering his queer, dry smile when he referred to her coming, but his only reply to her comment was a low bow to the woman of rank, with the customary commonplace, that all of his curios were at her disposal if she would permit him to send them to her, and with this left the room.

"And now where shall I sit?" she bubbled on. "Next to you, I hope, my dear Monsieur Herbert. You do not know me--never heard of me, perhaps--but I know all about you and the wonderful things you have accomplished. And you too, Monsieur Louis. I remember your first success as I do those of most of the young men who have won their medals for twenty years back. And you, Monsieur Brierley--and--can I say it?--Monsieur High-Muck"--and she nodded gayly at me. "And now you will all please give your imagination free rein. Try and remember that I am not a hideous old woman in corduroys and high boots, but a most delightful and bewitching demoiselle; and please remember, too, that I can wear a décolleté gown if I please, only I don't please, and haven't pleased for ten years or more."

Her perfect poise and freedom from all conventionality put us at once at our ease, making us forget she had only been among us a few minutes.

"And how clever you are to have chosen this room for these delightful meetings, of which Monsieur Marc has told me," she continued, her eyes wandering again over the several objects, while her personality completely dominated everything. "Nobody but Lemois would have brought them all together. What a genius he is! Think of his putting that wooden angel where its golden crown can become an aureole in the candle-light: he has done that since my last visit. And that other one--really the rarest thing he owns--in the dark corner by the fireplace. May I tell you about it before he comes back? It is of the fifteenth century, and is called the 'Bella Nigra'--the Black Virgin. Look at it, all of you, while I hold the candle. You see the face is black, the legend running, 'I am beautiful though black because the sun has looked at me so long.' You notice, too, that she has neither arms nor legs--a symbol of nobility, showing she need neither work nor walk, and the triple crown means that she is Queen of Heaven, Earth, and Sea. Why he pokes her in a dark corner I cannot imagine, except that it is just like him to do the queerest things--and say them too. And yet, he is _such_ a dear--and _so_ funny! You cannot think what funny things he does and says until you watch him as I have. Why is it, Monsieur Brierley, that you have never put him into one of your books--you who write such charming stories of our coast? Only this summer something occurred which I laugh over every time I think of it. The Cabourg races were on and the court-yard outside was packed with people who had come for luncheon before the Prix Lagrange was run. They were making a good deal of noise--a thing the old gentleman hates, especially from loudly dressed women. I was at the next table, sheltered from the others, and was enjoying the curious spectacle--such people always interest me--when I noticed Monsieur Lemois rubbing his hands together, talking to himself, his eyes fixed on the group. I knew one of his storms was brewing, and was wondering what would happen, when I saw him start forward as another uproarious laugh escaped one of the most boisterous.

"'Mademoiselle,' he said in his softest and most courteous tone, hat in hand, bowing first to her and then to her male companions; 'mademoiselle, I love to hear you laugh; I built this place for laughter, but when you laughed so _very_ loud a moment ago my flowers were so ashamed they hung their heads,' and then he kept on bowing, his hat still in his hand, his face calm, his manner scrupulously polite. Nobody was offended. They seemed to think it was some kind of a compliment; the rebuked woman even turned her head toward the big hydrangeas as if trying to find out how they really felt about it. Oh!--he is too delicious for words."

And so it went on until before the dinner was over she had captured every man in the room--both by what she said and the way she said it--her eyes flashing like a revolving light, now dim, now brilliant with the thoughts behind them, her white teeth gleaming as she talked. Marc seemed beside himself with pride and happiness. "Never was there such a woman," he was pouring into Herbert's ear; "and you should see her pictures and her stables and her gun-room. Really the most extraordinary creature I have ever known! Does just as she pleases--a tramp one day and a duchess the next. And you should watch her at the head of her table in her château--then you will know what a real 'Grande Dame' is."

While the others were crowding about her, Marc eager to anticipate her every wish in the way of cushions, footstools, and the like, I went to find Lemois, who was just outside, his hands laden with a tray of cordials.

"You know her then?"

"Oh, for years," he whispered back. "I did not tell you, for I wanted to see your surprise and surrender. It is always the same story with her. She does not live here except for a month or so in the autumn, when the small villa on the bluff above Buezval--two miles from here--is opened; a little box of a place filled with costly bric-à-brac. Her great château--the one in which she really lives--is on an estate of some thousands of acres near Rouen, and is stocked with big game--boar and deer. The marquis--and a great gentleman he was--died some twenty years ago. Madame paints, carves ivories, binds books, shoots, fishes, speaks five languages, has lived all over the world and knows everybody worth knowing. No one in her youth was more beautiful, but the figure has gone, as you see--and it is such a pity, for it was superb; only the eyes and the teeth are left--and the smile. That was always her greatest charm, and still is--except her charities, which never cease."

Her musical voice was still vibrating through the room as I re-entered.

"No, I don't agree with you, Monsieur Herbert," she was saying. "It is shameful that we do not keep closer to the usages and requirements of the old régime. In my time a woman would have excited comment who did not wear her finest gown and her choicest jewels in so select a company as this; and often very extraordinary things happened when any one defied the mandate. I remember one very queer instance which I wish I could tell you about--and it resulted in all sorts of dreadful complications. I became so adept a fibber in consequence that I wasn't able to speak the truth for months afterward--and all because this most charming girl wouldn't wear a low gown at one of our dinners."

Herbert beat the air with his hand. "Keep still, everybody--madame la marquise is going to tell us a story."

"Madame la marquise is going to do nothing of the kind. She has enough sins of her own to answer for without betraying those of this poor girl."

"Hold up your hands and swear secrecy, every one of you!" cried Louis.

"But who will absolve me from breaking the commandment? You will never have any respect for me again--you remember the rule--all liars shall have their portion--don't you?"

"If madame will permit me," said Lemois with a low bow, "I will be her father-confessor, for I alone of all this group know how good she really is."

"Very well, I take you at your word, Fra Lemois, and to prove how good _you_ are, you shall send me the Satsuma with your compliments, and pick from my collection anything that pleases you. But you must first let me have a cigarette. Wait"--she twisted back her arm and drew a gold case from the side pocket of her jacket--"yes, I have one of my own--one I rolled myself, and I cure my own tobacco too, if you please. No! no more Burgundy" (she had declined my carefully selected Chablis and had drank the heavier wine with the rest of us). "That Romanée Conti I know, and it generally gets into my head, and I don't like anything in my head except what I put there myself. What did you want me to do? Oh, yes, tell you that story of my youth.

"Well, one day my dear husband received a letter from an English officer, a dear friend of his with whom he had had the closest relations when they were both stationed in Borneo. This letter told us that his daughter, whom, as we knew, had been captured by the Dyaks when she was a child of eight, had been found some three years before by a scouting party and returned to the English agent at the principal seaport, the name of which I forget. Since that time she had been living with a relative, who had sent her to school. She had now completed her education, the letter went on to say, and was on her way back to England to join him, he being an invalided officer on half-pay. Before reaching him he wanted her to see something of the world, particularly of French life, and knew of no one with whom he would be more willing to trust her than ourselves. She was just grown--in her eighteenth year--and, although she had passed seven years of her life among a wild tribe, was still an English girl of prepossessing appearance.

"Well, she came--a beautifully formed, graceful creature, with flashing black eyes, a clear skin, and with a certain barbaric litheness when she moved that always reminded me of a panther, it was so measured, and had such meaning in it. She brought some expensive clothes, but no décolleté dresses of any kind, which surprised me, and when I offered to lend her my own--we were of about the same size--she refused politely but firmly, which surprised me all the more, and went right on wearing her high-necked gowns, which, while good in themselves--for her people were not poor--were not exactly the kind of toilettes my husband and my guests had been accustomed to--certainly not at dinners of twenty.

"At every other function she was superb, and for each one had the proper outfit and of the best make. She rode well, danced well, sang like a bird, could shoot and hunt with any of us, and, with the exception of this curious whim--for her form was faultless--was one of the most delightful creatures who ever stayed with us--and we had had, as you may suppose, a good many. The subjects she avoided were her captivity and the personnel of those with whom she had lived. When pressed she would answer that she had told the story so often she was tired of it; had banished it from her mind and wished everybody else would.

"Then the expected happened. Indeed I had begun to wonder why it had not happened before. A young Frenchman, the only son of one of our oldest families, a man of birth and fortune, fell madly in love with her. The mother was up in arms, and so was the father. She was without title, and, so far as they knew, without fortune in her own right; was English, and the match could not and should not take place.

"How the girl felt about it we could not find out. Sometimes she would see him alone, generally in the dusk of the evening on the lawn, but though she was English, and we had given the full limit of her freedom, she always kept within sight of the veranda. At other times she refused to see him altogether, sending word she was ill, or engaged, or had friends, all of which I found extraordinary. This went on until matters reached a crisis. She knew she must either send him about his business or succumb: this was _her_ problem. _His_ problem was to win her whether or no; if not here, then in England, where he would follow her; and he took no pains to conceal it. His persistence was met by a firm refusal, and finally by a command to leave her alone. The dismissal was given one night after dinner when they were together for a few minutes in the library, after which, so my maid told me, she went to her room and threw herself on her bed in an agony of tears.

"But there is nothing for sheer obstinacy like a Frenchman in love. Indeed he was too far gone to believe a word she said or take no for an answer, and as my grounds were next to his mother's, and the two families most intimate, he still kept up his visits to the house, where, I must say, he was always welcome, for my husband and I liked him extremely, and he deserved it. His mother, objecting to the marriage, wanted to keep him away. She insisted--all this I heard afterward--that the girl was half savage and looked and moved like one; that she had doubtless been brought up among a lawless tribe who robbed every one around them; that there was no knowing what such a girl had done and would not do, and that she would rather see her son lying dead at her feet--the usual motherly exaggeration--than see him her victim. This brought him at last to his senses, for he came to me one day and wanted me to tell him what I knew of her antecedents as well as the story of her captivity and life with the savages. This was a difficult situation to face, and I at first refused to discuss her private affairs. Then I knew any mystery would only make him the more crazy, and so I told him what I knew, omitting the more intimate details. Strange to say, Frenchman-like, it only maddened him the more--so much so that he again waylaid her and asked her some questions which made her blaze like coals of fire, and again the poor girl went to bed in a flood of tears.

"Then the most puzzling and inexplicable thing happened. I had a very deep topaz of which I was passionately fond--one given me by my dear husband shortly after we were married. I generally kept it in my small jewel case, to which only my maid and I had the key. This night when I opened it the jewel was gone. My maid said she remembered distinctly my putting it, together with the chain, in the box, for my guest was with me at the time and had begged me to wear it because of its rich color, which she always said matched my eyes. At first I said nothing to any one--not even my husband--and waited; then I watched my maid; then my butler, about whom I did not know much, and who was in love with the maid, and might have tempted her to steal it. And, last of all--why I could not tell, and cannot to this day, except for that peculiar pantherlike movement about my guest--I watched the girl herself. But nothing came of it.

"Then I began to talk. I told my husband; I told the young man's mother, my intimate friend, who told her son, she accusing the girl, of course, without a scintilla of proof; I told my butler, my maid--I told everybody who could in any way help to advertise my loss and the reward I was willing to pay for its recovery. Still nothing resulted and the week passed without a trace of the jewel or the thief.

"One morning just after luncheon, when I was alone in my little boudoir and my husband and the young man were having their coffee and cigarettes on the veranda outside, the girl walked in, made sure that no one was within hearing, and held out her hand. In the palm was my lost topaz.

"'Here is your jewel,' she said calmly; 'I stole it, and now I have brought it back.'

"'You!' I gasped. 'Why?'

"'To disgust him and make him hate me so that he will never see me again. I love him too much to give myself to him. In my madness I thought of this.'

"'And you want him to know it!' I cried out. I could hardly get my breath, the shock was so great.

"'Yes--_here!_--NOW!' She stepped to the door. 'Monsieur,' she called, 'I have something to tell you. I have just brought back her jewel--I stole it! Now come, madame, to my room and I will tell you the rest!'

"I followed her upstairs, leaving the horror-stricken young man dazed and speechless. She shut the door, locked it, and faced me.

"'I have lied to both of you, madame. I did not steal your jewel; nobody stole it. I found it a few minutes ago under the edge of the rug where it had rolled; you dropped it in my room the night you wore it. In my agony to find some way out I seized on this. It came to me in a flash and I ran downstairs clutching it in my hand, knowing I would be lost if I hesitated a moment. It is over now. He will never see me again!'

"I stood half paralyzed at the situation; she erect before me, her eyes blazing, her figure stretched to the utmost, like an animal in pain.

"'And you deliberately told him you were a thief!' I at last managed to stammer out. 'Why?'

"'Because it was the only way to escape--it was the only way out. I never want him to think of me in any other light--I want to be dead to him forever! Nothing else would have done; I should have yielded, for I could no longer master my love for him. Look!'

"She was fumbling at her dress, loosening the top buttons close under her chin; then she ripped it clear, exposing her neck and back.

"'This is what was done to me when I was a child!'

"I leaned forward to see the closer. The poor child was one mass of hideous tattoo from her throat to her stays!

"'Now you know the whole story,' she sobbed, her eyes streaming tears; 'my heart is broken but I am satisfied. I could have stood anything but his loathing.'

"With this she fastened her dress and walked slowly out of the room, her head down, her whole figure one of abject misery."

Madame leaned forward, picked up her goblet of water, and remarking that walking in the wind always made her thirsty, drained its contents. Then she turned her head to hide her tears.

"A most extraordinary story, madame. Did the young fellow ever speak of the theft?" asked Herbert, the first of her listeners to speak.

"No," she answered slowly, in the effort to regain her composure, "he loved her too much to hear anything against her. He knew she had stolen it, for he had heard it from her own lips."

"And you never tried to clear her character?"

"How could I? It was her secret, not mine. To divulge it would have led to her other and more terrible secret, and that I was pledged to keep. She is dead, poor girl, or I would not have told you now."

"And what did you do, may I ask?" inquired Brierley.

"Nothing, except tell fibs. After she had gone the following morning I excused her to him, of course, on every ground that I could think of. I argued that she had a peculiar nature; that owing to her captivity she had perhaps lost that fine sense of what was her own and what was another's; that she had many splendid qualities; that she had only yielded to an impulse, just as a Bedouin does who steals an Arab horse and who, on second thought, returns it. That I had forgiven her, and had told her so, and as proof of it had tried, without avail, to make her keep the topaz. Only my husband knew the truth. 'Let it stay as it is, my dear,' he said to me; 'that girl has more knowledge of human nature than I credited her with. Once that young lover of hers had learned the cruel truth he wouldn't have lived with her another hour.'"

"I think I should have told him," remarked Louis slowly; the story seemed to have strangely moved him. "If he really loved her he'd have worn green spectacles and taken her as she was--I would. Bad business, this separating lovers."

"No, you wouldn't, Louis," remarked Herbert, "if you'd ever seen her neck. I know something of that tattoo, although mine was voluntary, and only covered a part of my arm. Madame did just right. There are times when one must tell anything but the truth."

Everybody looked at the speaker in astonishment. Of all men in the world he kept closest to the exact hair-line; indeed, one of Herbert's peculiarities, as I have said, was his always understating rather than overstating a fact.

"Yes," he continued, "the only way out is to 'lie like a gentleman,' as the saying is, and be done with it. I've been through it myself and know. Your story, madame, has brought it all back to me."

"It's about a girl, of course," remarked Louis, flashing a smile around the circle, "and your best girl, of course. Have a drop of cognac, old man," and he filled Herbert's tiny glass. "It may help you tell the _whole_ truth before you get through."

"No," returned Herbert calmly, pushing the cognac from him, a peculiar tenderness in his voice; "not my best girl, Louis, but a gray-haired woman of sixty--one I shall never forget."

Madame laid her hand quickly on Herbert's arm; she had caught the note in his voice.

"Oh! I'm so glad!" she said. "I love stories of old women; I always have. Please go on."

"If I could have made her young again, madame, you would perhaps have liked my story better."

"Why? Is it very sad?"

"Yes and no. It is not, I must say, exactly an after-dinner story, and but that it illustrates precisely how difficult it is sometimes to speak the truth, I would not tell it at all. Shall I go on?"

"Yes, please do," she pleaded, a tremor now in her own voice. It was astonishing how simple and girlish she could be when her sympathies were aroused.