Chapter III: Book I: Bernay-Sur-Mer (3)

"Mademoiselle," said the old priest, his eyes twinkling, "may I say it?--you are charming! As for the arrangements, have no fear. I would go this evening, only I have some sick to visit. But very early in the morning I will see Marie-Louise, and by the time mademoiselle and her father have had breakfast the house will be at their disposal."

She reached her hand across the gate to thank Father Anton and bid the cure good evening--but Jean no longer heard a word. His mind seemed to be clashing discordantly; his thoughts in dissension, in open hostility one to another. She was to live in the house on the bluff. Marie-Louise was to stay there, too. One moment he saw no objection to the plan; the next moment, for a thousand vague, fragmentary reasons, that in their entire thousand would not form a single concrete whole that he could grasp, he did not like it at all.

He answered Father Anton's "_au revoir_" mechanically, as they started back for the Bas Rhone. She was in a hurry now, all life, all excitement--half running.

"Did I not tell you, Jean, that I would find just what I wanted?" she called out in gay spirits.

She had told him nothing of the sort.

"Yes," said Jean.

They reached the Bas Rhone, and there, in the doorway, she turned.

"I must find my father, and tell him," she said. There was a smile, a flash of the grey eyes, a glint from the bronze-crowned head, a quick little impetuous pressure on his arm, a laugh soft and musical as the rippling of a brook; and then: "Until to-morrow, Jean."

And she was gone.

Until to-morrow! The words were strangely familiar. Papa Fregeau was hurrying through the cafe. Jean turned away. He had no wish to talk to Papa Fregeau--or any one else. He walked down to the beach--and his eyes, across the bay, fixed on the headland. Yes, that was it! Until to-morrow--that was what Marie-Louise had said--until to-morrow.

He went on along the beach, his brain feverishly chaotic. She had been like a vision, a glorious vision, suddenly gone, as she had stood there in the doorway. Her name was Myrna Bliss. Why not, since Father Anton could not go that night, why not go to Marie-Louise himself and tell her about the house? Yes; he would do that.

He crossed the beach to the road again, and started on--walking rapidly. As he neared the little bridge, his pace slowed. At the bridge he halted. Perhaps it would be better not to go--it would be better left to Father Anton, that!

"_Sacre bleu_!" cried Jean suddenly aloud. "What is the matter with me? What has happened?"

But he went no further along the road; for, after a moment, he turned, retracing his steps slowly toward Bernay-sur-Mer.

And so that night Jean did not go to Marie-Louise. But there, at the house on the bluff, later on, Marie-Louise, after Mother Fregeau had gone to bed, took the beacon that Jean had made and placed it upon the table in the front room where, before, that other beacon, the great lamp, had stood. And for a long time she sat before it, her elbows on the table, now looking at the little clay figure, now staring through the window to the headland's point where sometimes she could see the surf splash silver white in the moonlight. It had been a happy afternoon in many ways; but there was something that would not let it be all happiness, for there was confusion in her thoughts. The house was lonely now, and Uncle Gaston had gone; it did not seem true, it did not seem that it could be he would not open that door again and come thumping in with the nets over his shoulders and the wooden floats bumping on the floor--and the tears unbidden filled her eyes. And her talk with Jean somehow had not satisfied her, had not dispelled that intuition that troubled her, for all that he had laughed at her for it; and they had not, after all, settled what she was to do now that Uncle Gaston was gone, for, instead of talking more about it, Jean had forgotten all about her for ever so long while he had worked at the little clay figure.

Her eyes, from the window, fastened on the beacon with its open, outstretched arms--and, suddenly, confusion went and great tenderness came. He had made it for her, and he had said that--that it _was_ her.

"Jean's beacon," she said softly.

And presently she went upstairs to the little attic room, and undressed, and blew out the candle; and, in her white night-robe, the black hair streaming over her shoulders, the moonlight upon her, she knelt beside the bed.

"Make me that, _mon Pere_," she whispered; "make me that--Jean's beacon all through my life."

-- V --

"WHO IS JEAN LAPARDE?"

The mattress was of straw--and the straw had probably been garnered in a previous generation, if not in a prehistoric age! It was so old that it was a shifting, lumpy mass of brittle chaff, whose individual units at unexpected moments punctured the ticking and, nettle-wise, stuck through the coarse sheet. It was not comfortable. It had not been comfortable all night. Truly, the best that could be said for the Bas Rhone was that, as Father Anton in his gentle way had taken pains to make it clear, its proprietors were well-intentioned--and that was a source of comfort only as far as it went!

Myrna Bliss wriggled drowsily into another position--and a moment later wriggled back into the old one. Then she opened her eyes, and stared about her. The morning sun was streaming in through the window. She observed this with sleepy amazement. After all then, she must have slept more than she had imagined, in spite of the awful bed.

The _lap-lap-lap_ of the sea came to her. In through the open window floated the voices of children at play in the street; from down on the beach the sound of men's voices, shouting and calling cheerily to each other, reached her; from below stairs some sort of a family reunion appeared to be in progress. She could hear that absurd Papa Fregeau talking as though he were a soda-water bottle with the cork suddenly exploded!

"Ah, _mignonne--cherie_! You are back! You will go away no more--not for a day! I have been in despair! It is the Americans! I have been miserable! _Tiens, embrasse-moi_, my little Lucille!"

There was the commotion of a playful struggle, then the resounding smack of a kiss--and then a woman's voice.

"Such a simpleton as you are, _mon_ Jacques!"--it was as though one were talking to a child. "So they have put you in despair, these Americans! Well, then, I am back. And listen!"--importantly. "What do you think?"

"Think?" cried Papa Fregeau excitedly. "But I do not think!"

"That is true," was the response; "so I will tell you. They are going away this morning."

"_Merci_!" exclaimed Papa Fregeau fervently. "I am very glad!"

"They are going to Marie-Louise's."

"To Marie-Louise's!"--incredulously. "You tell me that they are going to Marie-Louise's?"

"Yes; to Marie-Louise's, stupid! Father Anton came an hour ago to make the arrangements. They are to rent the house, and Marie-Louise is to remain there _en domestique_. Now what have you to say to that?"

"_Mon Dieu_!" ejaculated Papa Fregeau, with intense earnestness. "That I am sorry for Marie-Louise!"

Myrna Bliss laughed softly, delightedly to herself--and then, with a sudden little gasp, sat bolt upright in bed. The whole thing, everything since yesterday afternoon had been inconceivably preposterous--and she herself preposterous most of all! If her father ever heard the truth of it, what a scene there would be!

She got out of bed impulsively, walked to the window, and leaned her elbows on the sill, her brows gathered in a perplexed little frown. Just what had happened anyway? She had decided ten minutes after they had arrived in Bernay-sur-Mer that she would die of ennui if she stayed there. They had started for a walk, she and her father, and, without saying anything to him, she had turned back and taken it upon herself to inform this fat, effervescent little hotel proprietor that they would go on that afternoon. She had intended, during the walk, to tell her father what she had done, and, in fact, had told him; and then on her return after that--yes, that meeting on the bridge--she had countermanded her orders, and not only countermanded them but had even rented a cottage! Her father had seen nothing extraordinary in it, which was natural enough--since he left all travelling arrangements to her. Indeed, on the contrary, as Bernay-sur-Mer had seemed to appeal to him, he had been rather taken with the idea--if perhaps a trifle sceptical as to the success of the housekeeping plan. In a word, if the discovery of what she believed to be suitable accommodations had induced her to change her mind and stay in Bernay-sur-Mer, it was perfectly satisfactory to him. The brows smoothed out. As far as her father was concerned, that was all there was to it. She had been the practical manager ever since her mother had died five years before.

The brows puckered up again. Her father would never give it a second thought, he would never for an instant imagine there was any ulterior motive for what she had done. How could he--when the real reason was so utterly absurd, ridiculous and unheard of! Fancy! What would that select and ultra-exclusive set in Paris say? What if it ever came to the ears of New York! Myrna Bliss to bury herself alive in a little Mediterranean village that was probably not even on the map, and all at a glance from the eyes of a--fisherman! They wouldn't believe it. Who would believe it! It was unimaginable!

Dainty little fingers reached up and drummed with their pink tips on the window pane; the pucker became more pronounced. Well, she _had_ done it, nevertheless. And why was it so absurd, so ridiculous, so impossible after all? She would do exactly the same thing over again without an instant's hesitation. It was quite true the man was a fisherman--but he did not _look_ like a fisherman. He was magnificent! It was not ridiculous at all--it was piquantly delightful. Neither was it so absurdly impossible--if she did not stay in Bernay-sur-Mer, it would only be to choose some other place equally as tiresome--and without even a "fisherman" to compensate for it. What a face the man had! It was not merely handsome, it was--well, it was the prototype of what the artist coterie that buzzed around her father day and night was forever attempting to give expression to, but which, until now, she had never believed could exist in real life. He would be a refreshing change this astounding man-creature, this Jean Laparde, after the vapid attentions of the vapid men who made up her life in the social whirl of Paris--Count von Heirlich and Lord Barnvegh, for examples, out of a host of satellites who were constantly at her heels, because, of course, she was an heiress; and whose attentions she endured because, of course, some day she must marry, and because, of course again, to marry anything less than a title, a name, fame, was quite out of the question. As for that, no one expected anything but a brilliant match for her--and certainly she expected nothing less for herself. What a pity that they were not like Jean Laparde, those men of her world!

The fingers, from the window pane, tossed back a truant coil of hair; the white shoulders lifted in a little shrug. Paris--New York! That was all the world she knew. New York once a year--Paris the rest of the time. Expatriates--for art! That's what they were! Art--her father was obsessed with it. It was a mania with him; it was the last thing in the world that interested her. As a matter of fact, she couldn't seem to think of anything that particularly interested her. One tired quickly enough of the social merry-go-round--after a season it became inane. One surely had the right to amuse one's self with a new sensation--if one could find it! The man had the physique of a young god. A fisherman--well, what of it? He was splendid. He was more than splendid. Even the crude dress seemed to enhance him. It was a face that had made her catch her breath in that long second when their eyes had met. Yes, of course--why not admit it?--he interested her. He was rugged, he was strong, and above all he was supremely a man. Of course, it was only a matter of a week, a month, the time they chose to stay there; but it would be a decided novelty while it lasted.

She laughed suddenly aloud--a low, rippling little laugh. Actually the man was already her slave! Imagine a man like that her slave! Certainly it would be a new sensation. What a strange thrill it had given her when she had first caught sight of him on the bridge the afternoon before. Well, why shouldn't it have done so--a fisherman with a face like that? It was amazing! Think of finding such a man in such a situation! Was it any wonder that she had thrilled--even if he were only a fisherman? In Paris, of course, she could not have done what she had done, it would have been quite out of the question, there were the conventions--but then in Paris one didn't see men like that!

"And since," confided Myrna Bliss to a little urchin running in the street below, who neither saw nor heard her, "we are not in Paris, but in Bernay-sur-Mer, which is quite another story, you see it is not absurd or ridiculous at all, and I and my fisherman--"

She turned abruptly from the window at the sound of a knock and the opening of her door. It was Nanette, her maid, with a tray.

"I have mademoiselle's _dejeuner_," announced Nanette. "Monsieur Bliss has already finished his, and asks if mademoiselle will soon be ready. He is waiting with Monsieur le Cure for you."

"Waiting--with Monsieur le Cure?"--Myrna's eyebrows went up in well-simulated surprise.

"To visit the cottage mademoiselle has taken," amplified Nanette, and her retrousse nose was delicately elevated a trifle higher. Nanette, very evidently, was one at all events who was not in favour of the plan.

"Oh, the cottage--of course!" exclaimed Myrna, as though suddenly inspired. "I had forgotten all about it. Dress me quickly then, Nanette."

Nanette tossed a shapely dark head.

"Is mademoiselle going to stay here long?"--Nanette at times felt privileged to take liberties.

"Gracious, Nanette!" complained Myrna sweetly. "What a question! How can you possibly expect me to know?"

Nanette arranged the tray perfunctorily.

"There was a man who left a message with that imbecile proprietor for mademoiselle early this morning," she observed. "Mademoiselle has engaged a boatman?"

"A boatman? Certainly not!" declared Myrna Bliss. "Not without seeing the boat--and I have seen no boat!"

"But mademoiselle engages a cottage without seeing the cottage," murmured Nanette slyly.

"That will do, Nanette!" said Myrna severely. "There was but one cottage; there are dozens of boats. It is quite a different matter. What did the man say?"

"That he was obliged to go out for the four o'clock fishing this morning," said Nanette, pouting a little at the rebuke; "but that he would go to mademoiselle at the cottage early in the forenoon."

A row of little white teeth crunched into a piece of crisp toast.

"Very well, Nanette." Myrna's brows pursed up thoughtfully. "You may get out that new marquisette from Fallard's; and, I think"--she glanced out of the window--"my sunbonnet. And, Nanette"--suddenly impatient--"hurry, please--since father is waiting."

Myrna's impatience bore fruit. In ten minutes she was ready, and, running down the stairs, went out to the street, where her father and the cure, deep in conversation--on art undoubtedly, since her father was doing most of the talking!--were pacing slowly up and down, as they waited for her.

Her sunbonnet was swinging in her hand, the big grey eyes were shining, the glow of superb health was in her cheeks.

"Good morning, Father Anton!" she called out gaily. "What a shame to have kept you waiting!"

The old priest turned toward her with unaffected pleasure, as he held out his hand.

"Good morning to you, mademoiselle"--he was smiling with eyes as well as lips. "What a radiant little girl! It makes one full of life and young again; you are, let me see, you are--a tonic!"

She laughed as she turned to her father.

"'Morning, Dad! Sleep well?"

Henry Bliss removed his cigar to survey his daughter with whimsical reproach; then he patted her cheek affectionately.

"Fierce, wasn't it?" he chuckled. "Those beds are the worst ever! I was telling the cure here about them."

"It is too bad," said Father Anton solicitously. "It is regrettable. I am so very sorry. But"--earnestly--"you must not think too hardly of the Fregeaus. Since no guests sleep here, I am sure they can have no idea that--"

"No; of course not!" agreed Henry Bliss heartily, and laughed. "The hard feelings are all in the beds--and we'll let them stay there. Now, then, Myrna, are you ready to inspect this new domain of yours? And shall we walk, or take the car? Father Anton says it is not far."

"We will walk then," decided Myrna.

It was the walk she had taken yesterday, at least it was the same as far as the little bridge; and for that distance she walked beside her father and the cure, chatting merrily, but there she loitered a little behind them. Half impishly, half with a genuine impulse that she rather welcomed than avoided, she told herself that it was quite unfair to pass the little spot so indifferently. Was it not here that this most bizarre of adventures had begun? She had stood here by the railing, and he had stood there across on the other side, and--the red leaped suddenly flaming into her cheeks. She had never looked at a man like that before--no man had ever looked at her like that before! And it had been spontaneous, instant, like a flash of fire that had lighted up a dark and unknown pathway, which, in the momentary blaze of light, was full of strange wonder; and which, because it was an unknown way, and because the glimpse had shown so much in so brief an instant that the brain fused all into confusion and nothing was concrete, resulted, not in illuminating the way, but, the flash of light gone again, in transforming the pathway only into a bewildering maze.

She laughed a little after a while, shaking her head. Such an absurd fancy! But what an entrancing, alluring little fancy! Decidedly, it would be a new sensation to be lost in a maze like that--for a time. She would tire of it soon enough--the thrill probably would not even last as long as she would want it to. No thrill ever did! She bit her lip suddenly in pretty vexation. It was stupid of the man to go off fishing! Had he done it to pique her? The idea! He certainly could not have the temerity to imagine that it lay within his power to pique her. The sunbonnet swung to and fro abstractedly from its ribbon strings. Wasn't it strange that he had--piqued her!

She went on after her father and the cure. They were quite a way ahead now, and she hastened to catch up with them. As she drew near, she caught her father's words.

"... Peyre on the _Histoire Generale des Beaux-Arts_, Monsieur le Cure, I recommend it to you heartily. It is a most comprehensive little volume, embracing in a condensed form the story of the arts from the time of the Egyptians down to the present day, and--"

Myrna, in spite of herself, laughed outright, at which both men turned their heads. Her father, incorrigible, was at it again; and, once started, there was no stopping him. Poor Father Anton! For the rest of the way he would listen to art!

"Did I not tell you to beware, Father Anton?" she cried out in comical despair--and waved them to go on again.

She had no desire to listen to art, its relation to nature, its relation to science, its relation to civilisation, nor, above all, to a dissertation on the modern school. She had heard it all before; and, if it had not passed as quickly through one ear as it had come into the other, her head, she was quite sure, would have driven her to distraction. Besides, it was much more important to think about something else--no, not what she had been thinking about a moment ago; but, for instance, to be practical, about this menage whose wheels, without knowing whether they were oiled or not, she had impulsively set in motion. Would the cottage be at all habitable? Would this Marie-Louise be at all suitable? Would Marie-Louise and Nanette get along together? Nanette was insanely jealous of Jules--nothing but the fact that Jules was with them would have induced Nanette, to whom Paris was the beginning and the end of all things, to have come on such a trip. Yes, there was a very great deal to think about--now that it occurred to her! Myrna fell into a brown study, quite oblivious to her surroundings.

When she joined her father and the cure again, they had stopped at the edge of the little wood on the headland, and a cottage, almost as prettily vine-covered as Father Anton's, lay before them.

"Well, Myrna," her father called, with a smile, "I must say your plunge in the dark looks propitious so far."

"No, no! Not a plunge in the dark!" protested Father Anton quickly, his eyes full of expectant pleasure on Myrna. "That is not fair, Monsieur Bliss! It was on my recommendation, was it not, mademoiselle? And now--eh?--what does mademoiselle think of it?"

It was like the imaginative conception of some painter. The cottage, green with climbing vines, spotlessly white where the vines were sparse, nestled in the trees--in front, as far as the eye could reach, the glorious, deep, unfathomable blue of the Mediterranean; nearer, the splash of surf, like myriad fountains, on the headland's rugged point; while a tiny fringe of beach, just peeping from under the edge of the cliff at the far side of the cottage, glistened as though full of diamonds in the sunlight.

"Father Anton--you are a dear!" Myrna cried impetuously.

Her eyes roved delightedly here and there. There was a little trellis with flowers over the back door--that little outhouse would do splendidly as a garage. And then the front door opened, and her eyes fixed on a girl's figure on the threshold--and somehow the figure was familiar.

"Who is that, Father Anton?" she demanded.

"But it is Marie-Louise--who else?" smiled the priest. "I will call her."

"No," said Myrna; "we will go in."

Of course! How absurd! She recognised the girl now. It was the girl who had passed them on the bridge--Myrna's sunbonnet swung a little abstractedly again--with Jean Laparde.

Father Anton bustled forward.

"Marie-Louise," he said, as they reached the door, "this is the lady and gentleman who are to take the house, and--"

"Oh, but I think we have seen each other before," interposed Myrna graciously. "Was it not you, Marie-Louise, who passed us on the bridge yesterday afternoon?"

Marie-Louise's dark eyes, deep, fearless, met the grey ones--and dropped modestly.

"Yes, mademoiselle," she said.

"Certainly!" said Henry Bliss pleasantly. "I remember you too, and--ah!" With a sudden step, quite forgetting the amenities due his daughter, he brushed by her into the room, and stooped over the clay figure of the beacon. He picked it up, looked at it in a sort of startled incredulity, as though he could not believe his eyes; then, setting it down, went to the window, threw up the shade for better light, and returned to the clay figure. And then, after a moment, he began to mutter excitedly. "Yes--undoubtedly--of the flower of the French school--Demaurais, Lestrange, Pitot--eh?--which? And--yes--here--within a day or so--it is quite fresh!" He rushed back to the doorway to Father Anton. "Who has been in the village recently?"--his words were coming with a rush, he had the priest by the shoulders and was unconsciously shaking him. "Was it a man with long black hair over his coat collar and a beak nose? Was it a little short man who always jerks his head as he talks? Or was it a big fellow, very fat, and, yes, if it were Pitot he would probably be drunk? Quick! Which one was it?"

Father Anton, jaw dropped, dumb with amazement, could only shake his head. This American! Had he gone suddenly mad?

"Good heavens, dad, what is the matter?" Myrna cried out.

He paid no attention to her.

"You, then!"--he whirled on Marie-Louise, grasping her arm fiercely. "Who has been here?"

"But--but, m'sieu," stammered Marie-Louise, shrinking back in affright, "no one has been here."

Myrna pressed forward into the room.

"Dad, what _is_ the--" She got no further.

"It is true--I am a fool. I was wrong. Look, Myrna!"--his face flushed, his eyes lighted with the fire of an enthusiast, he was at the table, lifting up the little clay figure of the fisherwoman with the outstretched arms, the beacon, in his hands again. "Look, Myrna! No, I am not mad--I am only a fool. I, who pride myself as a critic, was fool enough for a moment to think this the work of perhaps Demaurais, or Lestrange, or Pitot--when no one of the three even in his greatest moment of inspiration could approach it! There is life in it. You feel the very soul. It is sublime! But it is more than that--it is a stupendous thing, for, since it has been freshly done, and no stranger to these people has been here, the man who did it must be one of themselves. Don't you understand, Myrna, don't you understand? The world will ring with it. It is the discovery of a genius. I make the statement without reservation. _This is the work of the greatest sculptor France will have ever known_!"

Father Anton had come forward a little timorously, lacing and unlacing his fingers. Upon Myrna's face was a sort of bewildered stupefaction. Marie-Louise, her breath coming in little gasps, was gazing wide-eyed at the man who held in his hands her beacon, the clay figure she had seen Jean make.

"Is--is it true--what you say?" she whispered.

Henry Bliss looked at her for a moment, startled--as though he was for the first time aware of her presence.

"You--yes, of course, you must know about this, as it is in the house here," he burst out abruptly. "You know who made it?"

"But, yes," said Marie-Louise, and now there was a sudden new note, a trembling note of pride that struggled for expression in her voice. "But, yes--it was Jean Laparde."

"Laparde--Jean Laparde?"--his voice was hoarse in its eagerness. "Quick!" he cried. "Laparde--Jean Laparde? Who is Jean Laparde?"

A flush crept pink into Marie-Louise's face.

"He is my fiance," she said.

-- VI --

THE GIFT

Father Anton, with a smile, his eyes twinkling, looked from one to the other of the group as much as to say: "There! Is that not an altogether charming denouement?" Myrna had yet to discover herself in a situation to whose command she did not rise--inwardly a sudden confusion upon her, her face expressed a polite interest. As for Henry Bliss, the words were without any significance whatever--it was not what he wanted to know.

It was Marie-Louise, embarrassed, who broke the silence.

"Will mademoiselle and monsieur look through the house now, and tell me what rooms they will occupy?"

Henry Bliss, for answer, caught Father Anton again by the shoulder.

"This Jean Laparde," he flung out excitedly, "you ought to know all about him! He must have done other things besides this"--he swept his hand toward the beacon, which he had now very carefully replaced on the table.

"But, of course!" declared Father Anton, still smiling. "Mother Fregeau will assure you--forever little faces and figures out of her dough and the inside of her loaves."

"No, no--good Lord!" exclaimed Henry Bliss. "I mean--"

"I am telling you," interrupted Father Anton mildly. "He has been forever at that since he was a boy, and then there are the clay dolls for the children, of which there would be very many, at least a hundred."

"A hundred! A hundred clay _dolls_ by the man who did this!" shouted Henry Bliss eagerly. "And do you mean to say you never realised--oh, good Lord! Where are they?"

Father Anton's eyebrows went up in almost pitying astonishment.

"But, monsieur," he said patiently, "where would they be? They do not last long; and, even if the children did not break them almost immediately, they would soon crumble to pieces like their own mud pies."

"Mud!" Henry Bliss bent quickly over the beacon again. "Yes, so it is! It is mostly mud. It is unbelievable! The man did not even have modelling clay to work with!" He swung again on the cure. "Well, where is this Jean Laparde? I want to see him at once!"

Myrna's laugh rippled suddenly through the room.

"Dad--don't get so excited. Your Jean Laparde won't run away. He's out fishing now, but he said he would come out here this morning."

"Out fishing--come out here this morning?" repeated her father, staring at her. "How do you know?"

Myrna shook her finger at him in playful severity.

"If you had paid any more than the merest pretence of attention to me last night, you would have remembered the name--no"--she laughed again--"no, perhaps after all I didn't mention it, I'm not sure I hadn't forgotten it myself; but he is the fisherman who took me to Father Anton here, you know--the one I told you might possibly do as a boatman for us while we were here."

"Great grief! Do as a--_boatman_!" ejaculated Henry Bliss weakly. "You, Monsieur le Cure, what time do these fishermen return?"

"But anytime, now," Father Anton answered. "The boats go out very early in the morning."

"Good!" Henry Bliss pushed the cure impetuously toward the door. "Then, you and I, Father Anton, will go right back to the village and be there when he comes in."

"But"--Father Anton was quite bewildered--one was literally carried off one's feet--were they all alike, these Americans! "But," he protested helplessly, as he was being pulled through the door, "but if the boats are already in, and since mademoiselle said he was coming here, then--"

"Then we will meet him on the road"--they were already out of the house. "Now, then, Monsieur le Cure, if you are a loyal Frenchman, step out quickly, for this is the greatest day in the history of France, the greatest day, I tell you, in the"--the voice died away in the distance.

Marie-Louise had not moved. She was still standing in the centre of the room, a strangely spellbound, dumfounded little figure.

"Mademoiselle," she ventured timidly, "what--what is--"

"I am sure I do not know," said Myrna languidly. "Have you no shoes or stockings?"

Marie-Louise glanced perplexedly at her small, bare feet.

"But, yes, mademoiselle--for the village sometimes, and when one walks in the fields."

"Go and put them on, then," directed Myrna. "And remember always to wear them while we are here. When you come back, I will go through the house with you and tell you what to do."

"Yes, mademoiselle," said Marie-Louise nervously--there was a sense of guilt upon her, but wherein lay the enormity of her offence she did not understand. Nevertheless, was not mademoiselle of the great world, and since mademoiselle was displeased, surely mademoiselle must know. She turned hastily from the room.

"No--wait!" Myrna's brain, for all her outward composure, was far from calm. It seemed as though the little stone she had started rolling down the hill in a--well, was it a whim?--was gathering many other stones in its course and developing into an avalanche. She had no desire to go into the details of the house with this Marie-Louise at that moment; on the contrary, it was absolutely impossible. The one thing she wanted was to be alone--to clear all this muddle out of her head. "No--wait!" she repeated. "There will be quite time enough to attend to that when Nanette and Jules arrive; and in the meantime you had better go down to the Bas Rhone and help Nanette if you can. When they are ready, come back with them."

"Nanette, mademoiselle? But I do not know who Nanette is."

"My maid," said Myrna tersely.

"Yes, mademoiselle"--Marie-Louise, with a quick nod, was running from the room. "At once, mademoiselle--as soon as I have put on my shoes and stockings."

Myrna tossed her sunbonnet on a chair, and walked over to the table to inspect the little clay figure. For ten minutes she stood in front of it, now frowning, now with unconscious admiration the dominant expression upon her face, now with puzzled bewilderment in her eyes. Of the technique of any art she not only knew nothing, but secretly held it in contempt; but she could not have been her father's daughter to have lacked a sense of appreciation for the beautiful. At the end of the ten minutes she picked up her sunbonnet again, and walked slowly out of the house.

At the headland's point, two hundred yards away, she sat down upon the rocks. She could not seem to get that little clay figure out of her head now. It was amazing how it took form before her eyes as realistically as though it were still in front of her! What a wonderful charm and appeal there was in it! She could see that for herself, even if her father had not grown so excited over it. "The greatest sculptor in France"--well, perhaps that was a little exaggerated! But her father was nevertheless acknowledged to be a critic second to none in the world of art, and he was far too chary of his reputation to sacrifice it on a myth. Certainly then, there was at least a promise in the man's work. What did her father mean to do? He had not rushed off that way for nothing. It was really charming, that little figure. She would get Jean to let her have it, buy it from him. Imagine possessing the first piece of his work, if the man ever amounted to anything!

She threw a stone out into the water, watched it splash, watched the spray of the breaking waves on what seemed like a reef away out to one side of the headland, and watched a boat coming shoreward from out beyond the reef again. There was a disturbed little gathering of her brows. But suppose she did buy it, the thing would crumble to pieces in a few days, and--stupid! Of course! Had she not been often in those dirty _ateliers_ that were always in a mess with their clay and their plaster? One could send it to Marseilles to have a cast made; and, afterwards, the cast could be sent home to Paris.

What was her father going to do with this "discovery" of his, as he called it? Discovery--_his_! A little thrill ran through her. It was not his discovery--it was _hers_! It was she who had discovered Jean Laparde--in that one look. The man's soul, a great smouldering volcano of emotion, was in his face, his eyes. It was amazing that this had happened; amazing almost beyond credence that, hidden in the little village, a fisherman, untaught, unconscious even of his own power, had produced a piece of work that had aroused her father, one of the great art critics in France, to such a pitch of elated excitement--but somehow it was not in the least bit amazing that it was _Jean Laparde_ who had done it!

Her eyes fixed again on the boat, that was well in now between the reef and the headland; and, with a sudden little gasp, she rose quickly to her feet--it was Jean Laparde himself. What splendid width of shoulder, what strength, and ease, and assurance in the sweep of the oars that bent the blades backward from swirling little eddies, that lifted the heavy boat to send it bounding forward as though it were a feather-weight. It was Jean Laparde--the fiance of Marie-Louise!

It was to the front at last, that thought! It had been dominant from the moment Marie-Louise had uttered the words, only she had attempted to ignore it, lose it in the other phases of this bewildering morning. But it was out now! Well, what of it? It was an impossible situation this that she had created, was it not? There was no use in denying even to herself that the man had aroused in her--what should she call it?--a desire to cultivate him a little, since he would be so new, so fresh, so quite different. And Marie-Louise was at the moment now actually in her employ as--one could not call her a servant, it was Marie-Louise's own house, and she was only there to help for a little while at the cure's request--but still--the colour burned red in Myrna's cheeks.

The next instant, she smiled a little. What a simpleton she was! What on earth did it matter! What could it possibly matter! Good heavens, she wasn't going to take this Jean Laparde away from Marie-Louise! _She_ wasn't going to marry him! There wasn't the slightest reason in the world why, just when the man turned out to be an embryonic genius and promised to prove really interesting, she should change her attitude toward him--and, anyway, it was almost a foregone conclusion that her father now would monopolise Jean Laparde morning, noon and night.

She glanced at the boat--and started abruptly for the house. To remain there would have been almost too obviously--a meeting. Jean had evidently not gone to the village at all with the other boats--she supposed there were other boats since the cure had spoken of them--but had come directly in from wherever he had been fishing.

She reached the house and through the window watched Jean send the boat sweeping up to the beach, leap from it, and, seemingly without exertion, pull it higher over the sand. He turned then, searching the house with his eyes; and suddenly placed his hands trumpet-fashion to his lips.

"Marie-Louise! Ho, Marie-Louise!" she heard him shout, as he came running up the cliff path from the beach.

Virile in movement, a striking figure, there seemed all of command, something heroic even in the rugged strength, something absolutely undauntable about the man. And then she laughed merrily to herself, as she stepped to the door. What a change! Who would have believed it! Jean, at sight of her, had stopped as though he had been struck, self-consciousness mocked at the air of command, and through the brown tan of his face crept the red.

"Oh, it is you, Jean!" she exclaimed.

Mechanically he reached up for his cap.

"I--I did not think that mademoiselle had got here yet," he said, the dark eyes in their steady gaze disconcertingly at variance with his stammering speech.

"We've been here ages," she told him quickly. "But the others have gone back again. Marie-Louise has gone to help Nanette with the things. And my father rushed off with that delightful old cure of yours to look for you."

"Rushed off to look for me?" echoed Jean in astonishment. "But I told Jacques Fregeau to tell you that I would come here as soon--"

"Yes, of course, to look for you--but not for the purpose you imagine!" she broke in smiling, and shook her head reproachfully at him. "Jean, do you know that I am quite angry with you! Come here!" She led the way into the house. "Now!"--pointing to the clay figure on the table. "Is not that your work?"

"But, yes, mademoiselle"--there was only a cursory glance at the beacon; his eyes were on this fresh, glorious, wonderful woman, whose white dress of some marvellous texture draped about her with such exquisite, dainty grace ... and the throat was bare, and full, and white as ivory is white ... that glint of bronze that was always playing over the massive coils of hair ... the playful severity in the pursed lips ... it was intoxication, it was fire ... he had been drunk with it all the night, all that morning in the boat while he had fished.

"Then why did you not tell me about it last night?" she demanded.

With a start, he shrugged his shoulders--and perplexity came.

"But it is nothing--that," he said slowly. "What was there to tell, mademoiselle?"

"Nothing!" She stared at him in amazement. "Do you really mean to say that you think it is--nothing?"

"But, of course!" he said simply.

And then suddenly she smiled, and shook her head at him again.

"Did I not tell you last night, Jean, that you were less like a fisherman than any man I had ever seen?"

"Yes; mademoiselle said that." Was there a word of hers that he had forgotten!

"Very well, then," she began magisterially, "since you think nothing of that little statue, I will tell you what I think. It is so much more than 'nothing' that I am going to buy it from you. It is"--her voice changed suddenly, soft in abandon, full in admiration--"oh, Jean, it is superb, magnificent; it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen; and--and I think I want it more than I have ever wanted anything before."

She had come closer to him, touched him, her hand was on his sleeve, her cheeks were flushed. That look--God, was he mad?--that _same_ look was in her eyes again. Yes, he was mad--with a madness that bade him sweep her into his arms and crush her there in all her alluring beauty. He was white--he felt the blood leave his face. She wanted that--wanted that bit of clay that _he_ had made!

"It is not for sale, mademoiselle," he said hoarsely; "it is yours."

"No, no, Jean!" she cried. "You do not understand. It is worth--oh, I do not know how much--ever so much money. Father will be able to tell us. It is on account of this that he rushed off to try and find you. He is terribly excited about it."

His hand at his side was clenched; his arm was rigid--he dared not move it for fear she might draw her hand away--it would not come often, a touch of intimacy like that. What did it matter about her father! What did anything matter--but that fiery tide that was whipping through his veins.

"It is good of monsieur, it is good of mademoiselle to praise it," he muttered.

"But it is not good of us!" she asserted earnestly. "Really, I must try to make you understand, Jean. I can't take it under false pretences, you know--you might hate me for it afterwards. I am sure you would. My father says it is a wonderful piece of work--that you are a great artist."

"I?" said Jean--and suddenly in a sweep of passion laughed a little fiercely. "Impossible! But it is enough that mademoiselle, for some reason that I cannot understand, thinks so much of it. It is hers."

"And I tell you that it is not impossible!" she insisted seriously. "Listen, Jean"--her hand closed a little tighter on his arm. "Suppose that I took it, accepted it, and some day you should find that it had become a tremendously famous thing--what then?"

"It would still be unworthy of mademoiselle," he answered, in a low tone.

With a little gasp, she drew back a step and looked at him--but it was the grey eyes that dropped, and for a moment to Jean, unconscious of his own tense poise, the rapt burning in his eyes, she seemed all glorious with that play of colour now that was even in the pulsing throat. But the next instant she was smiling radiantly.

"Thank you, Jean," she said naively. "I will take it very gladly, and I will always keep it. Father will have a cast of it made at once, and--" she stopped suddenly, turning quickly toward the door. "Listen!" she said. "That's the motor, isn't it? Marie-Louise must have met it on the road."

An automobile had come to a stop by the side of the house; and, a moment later, a girl's voice, high-pitched in sarcasm, reached them.

"_Ma foi_! Fancy! She owns the house! What an aristocrat! No doubt she will expect mademoiselle and monsieur to invite her to table with them next! Oh, _la, la_, but you have lots to learn, _ma petite paysanne_!"

"Oh, let her alone, Nanette!" exclaimed a man's voice sharply. "She has done nothing but answer your own questions, except"--with a laugh--"that she has ridden on the front seat!"

It seemed to come with a shock to Jean that snatch of conversation, as something cold, chilling the fire that but an instant gone had been raging within him. It was an arraignment of himself, a slap in the face, sharply, curtly given, a reminder that for all his temerity he was--a fisherman. Myrna had gone to the front door. He swept his hand in a dazed way across his eyes, then straightened suddenly--it was a spell that he had been under. Nor was the spell gone; but now, at least, he was in control of himself. He walked across the room to where Myrna stood.

"Mademoiselle," he offered quietly, "can I help with the baggage?"

She turned to him, smiling.

"Oh, if you will, Jean!" she cried gratefully. "Please help Jules with the trunks. And afterwards"--her hand was on his sleeve again--"though I must see about arranging things, you mustn't go away. Father will be back shortly, and you must wait."

"I will wait," said Jean.

-- VII --

WHERE GLORY AWAITS

His back to the cliff, and leaning against the gunwale of his boat, which on landing a little while ago he had drawn up on the beach, Jean dug abstractedly at the sand with the toe of his boot. He had helped Jules, the chauffeur, to carry the baggage into the house, where Myrna Bliss, her maid and Marie-Louise were now busily engaged within--occasionally he could hear one or other of their voices--and he was waiting. What for? He did not know. He had promised her that he would wait. Her father wanted to see him because he made _poupees_ out of clay, and because he had made that little statue which, somehow, had so delighted her. It was very curious--very curious that a little thing like that should have taken their fancy!

His hand passed nervously across his forehead. But that was of no account, the statue! There were other things. He was living in a dream--no, not a dream--something much more vital than a dream. From a dream one awoke, and the dream was dispelled. He was awake now and the spell was still upon him. In her presence he lost his reason, his being seemed to become a seething furnace of passion that consumed him; away from her, some strange, magnetic power kept bidding him return, kept his mind picturing her, kept his thoughts upon her. It was but half an hour ago that, alone with her in the cottage, he had almost utterly lost control of himself.

A hot flush was on his cheeks. It was bad, that! Some day he would lose control of himself completely; some day the impulse to crush that ravishing form in his arms, to look deep into those laughing, self-possessed grey eyes until the laughter and the self-possession were gone and he was master, would prove too strong for him. And then--what?

His hands clenched at his sides, the broad shoulders sloped a little forward. Well--what then? His brain would not answer him, save only with that persistent "she was a woman and he was a man." He laughed shortly aloud. Was that true? How true was it? He glanced mockingly at his clothes; his hands unclenched, and, feeling in a sort of tentative way, slid along the gunwale of the boat. Yes; it was quite evident that he was what he had always been, what he always would be--a fisherman. It was quite evident too that he was mad. It was only last night that he had seen her for the first time, only since last night that this enchantment had fallen upon him--and now it possessed him, mind, soul and body. One could not credit that! He laughed out again--and suddenly the laugh died on his lips.

He had heard no step upon the sand, but a hand now touched his arm. He turned quickly. It was Marie-Louise. He had forgotten all about Marie-Louise--since yesterday evening. He had seen her of course since then, had walked home with her after that meeting on the bridge, had called out for her when he had landed here on the beach a little while ago, but for all that Marie-Louise had been forgotten.

"Jean"--she was speaking in a low, anxious voice--"it's--it's not true, is it, Jean?"

The dark eyes were trying to smile through a troubled mist; the lips, that he remembered he had likened yesterday to the divinely modelled lips of that dream statue, were quivering now.

Jean stared at her. What would she be like if she were dressed in clothes, marvellous, dainty things, such as Myrna Bliss wore, with little shoes and silken ankles? She was pretty of course, Marie-Louise had always been pretty; but there was not the physical thrill, the witchery in the eyes that turned his head. She was more sober--yes, that was it--more sober. Marie-Louise took things more seriously, and--

"Jean!" She seemed almost frightened now in her appeal. "Did you not hear me? Jean--it isn't true, is it?"

"True?" Jean roused himself with a little start. "What is not true? I do not know what you are talking about."

"The beacon, Jean"--she spoke hurriedly, breathlessly now. "A few minutes ago mademoiselle told me to put it in the room she has chosen for herself, and to be very careful of it because--because"--her voice broke suddenly--"because she said that you had given it to her. Jean--it's not true, is it?"

For a moment Jean did not speak. There were tears in her eyes! A twinge of guilty confusion seized him. Yes, it was so--Marie-Louise had been forgotten. Yesterday he had given it to Marie-Louise. But who would have thought it would make any difference to her--a thing like that! She was perhaps angry for the moment, but it would be only for the moment.

"_Mais, sacre nom_!" he exclaimed, and forced a laugh. "And what of it? It is nothing! I will make you another."

She did not answer; but into the brown eyes came a miserable hurt, and into the face a sudden whiteness. It was only the day before that he had given it to her, and had said it was a beacon, and that the beacon was herself with arms outstretched to welcome him always. It had meant so much to her--and now it seemed to have meant so little to Jean.

Jean shifted uneasily, as she did not speak.

"I will make you another, Marie-Louise," he blurted out appeasingly. "To-day--to-morrow--whenever you like, I will make you another. Then it will be all right, eh, _petite_?"

She shook her head--and the words came very slowly.

"You can never make another beacon, Jean."

"How--not another?" he cried impetuously. "I can make a thousand! Did I not tell you that it was you--has it not those lips that I could fashion even in the dark, even if you were far away from me! _Tiens_, do you not see--I could make a thousand! And to-morrow you shall have another."

The dark eyes were full.

"Was it yours to give, Jean?" she asked.

It was true! He had nothing to say to that. She was crying. He was angry now because he could say nothing, because there was no excuse for what he had done--and yet he would do it again. But he could not tell Marie-Louise that though, _pardieu_! She would only cry the harder. And because she was right and he had nothing to say, he groped, angry with himself, for some defence.

"Ah!" he burst out sharply. "So that is it! Yesterday you would have thought nothing of it, but now you have been listening to what they say, and you believe it all--that it is worth a great deal of money, maybe a hundred francs, eh? Well, it is not--it is worth nothing! You have nothing to cry over."

Wide-eyed, as though a whip-lash had curled across her face, she drew back, her small hands shut tightly at her sides, as she looked at him. And then somehow that little prayer that she had prayed to the _bon Dieu_ last night came back to her--"make me that, _mon Pere_; make me that--Jean's beacon all through my life"--and the bitter words that were on her lips were crowded back, and she turned slowly away.

But now Jean caught her arm.