"let's bolt!" again said saint-quentin, who had sunk down on to a trunk and would have been incapable of making a single step.
"a splendid idea!" said dorothy in a low voice. "harness one-eyed magpie; let's all five of us hide ourselves in the caravan and hell for leather for the belgian frontier!"
she gazed steadfastly at her enemy. she felt that she was beaten. with one word he could hand her over to justice, throw her into prison, and render vain all her threats. of what value are the accusations of a thief?
box in hand, he balanced himself on one foot then on the other with ironical satisfaction. he had the appearance of waiting for her to weaken and become a suppliant. how he misjudged her! on the contrary she maintained an attitude of defiance and challenge as if she had had the audacity to say to him:
"if you speak, you're lost."
he shrugged his shoulders and turning to the inspector who had seen nothing of this by-play, he said:
"we may congratulate ourselves on having got it over, and entirely to mademoiselle's advantage. goodness, what a disagreeable job!"
"you had no business to set about it at all," said the countess, coming up with the count and raoul davernoie.
"oh yes, i had, dear cousin. your husband and i had our doubts. it was just as well to clear them up."
"and you've found nothing?" said the count.
"nothing ... less than nothing—at the most an odd trifle with which mr. montfaucon was playing, and which mademoiselle dorothy had been kind enough to give me. you do, don't you, mademoiselle?"
"yes," said dorothy simply.
he displayed the card-board box, round which he had again drawn the rubber ring, and handing it to the countess:
"take care of that till to-morrow morning, will you, dear lady?"
"why should i take care of it and not you?"
"it wouldn't be the same thing," said he. "to place it in your hands is as it were to affix a seal to it. to-morrow, at lunch, we'll open it together."
"do you make a point of it?"
"yes. it's an idea ... of sorts."
"very good," said the countess. "i accept the charge if mademoiselle authorizes me to do so."
"i ask it, madame," replied dorothy, grasping the fact that the danger was postponed till the morrow. "the box contains nothing of importance, only white pebbles and shells. but since it amuses monsieur, and he wants a check on it, give him this small satisfaction."
there remained, however, a formality which the inspector considered essential in inquiries of this kind. the examination of identification papers, delivery of documents, compliance with the regulations, were matters which he took very seriously indeed. on the other hand, if dorothy surmised the existence of a secret between the count and countess and their cousins, it is certain that her hosts were not less puzzled by the strange personality which for an hour or two had dominated and disturbed them. who was she? where did she come from? what was her real name? what was the explanation of the fact that this distinguished and intelligent creature, with her supple cleverness and distinguished manners, was wandering about the country with four street-boys?
she took from a locker in the caravan a passport-case which she carried under her arm; and when they all went into the orangery which was now empty, she took from this case a sheet of paper black with signatures and stamps and handed it to the inspector.
"is this all you've got?" he said almost immediately.
"isn't it sufficient? the secretary at the mayor's office this morning was satisfied with it."
"they're satisfied with anything in mayors' offices," he said scornfully. "and what about these names?... nobody's named castor and pollux?... and this one ... baron de saint-quentin, acrobat!"
dorothy smiled:
"nevertheless it is his name and his profession."
"baron de saint-quentin?"
"certainly he was the son of a plumber who lived at saint-quentin and was called baron."
"but then he must have the paternal authorization."
"impossible."
"why?"
"because his father died during the occupation."
"and his mother?"
"she's dead too. no relations. the english adopted the boy. towards the end of the war he was assistant-cook in a hospital at bar-le-duc, where i was a nurse. i adopted him."
the inspector uttered a grunt of approval and continued his examination.
"and castor and pollux."
"i don't know where they come from. in 1918, during the german push towards châlons, they were caught in the storm and picked up on a road by some french soldiers who gave them their nicknames. the shock was so great that they've lost all memory of the years before those days. are they brothers? were they acquaintances? where are their families? nobody knows. i adopted them."
"oh!" said the inspector, somewhat taken aback. then he went on: "there remains now sire montfaucon, captain in the american army, decorated with the croix de guerre."
"present," said a voice.
montfaucon drew himself stiffly upright in a soldierly attitude, his heels touching, and his little finger on the seam of his enormous trousers.
dorothy caught him on to her knee and gave him a smacking kiss.
"a brat, about whom also nobody knows anything. when he was four he was living with a dozen american soldiers who had made for him, by way of cradle, a fur bag. the day of the great american attack, one of the twelve carried him on his back; and it happened that of all those who advanced, it was this soldier who went furthest, and that they found his body next day near montfaucon hill. beside him, in the fur bag, the child was asleep, slightly wounded. on the battle-field, the colonel decorated him with the croix de guerre, and gave him the name and rank of captain montfaucon of the american army. later it fell to me to nurse him at the hospital to which he was brought in. three months after that the colonel wished to carry him off to america. montfaucon refused. he did not wish to leave me. i adopted him."
dorothy told the child's story in a low voice full of tenderness. the eyes of the countess shone with tears and she murmured:
"you acted admirably—admirably, mademoiselle. only that gave you four orphans to provide for. with what resources?"
dorothy laughed and said:
"we were rich."
"rich?"
"yes, thanks to montfaucon. before he went his colonel left two thousand francs for him. we bought a caravan and an old horse. dorothy's circus was formed."
"a difficult profession to which you have to serve an apprenticeship."
"we served our apprenticeship under an old english soldier, formerly a clown, who taught us all the tricks of the trade and all the wheezes. and then i had it all in my blood. the tight-rope, dancing, i was broken in to them years ago. then we set out across france. it's rather a hard life, but it keeps one in the best of health, one is never dull, and taken all round dorothy's circus is a success."
"but does it comply with the official regulations?" asked the inspector whose respect for red tape enabled him to control the sympathy he was feeling for her. "for after all this document is only valuable from the point of view of references. what i should like to see is your own certificate of identity."
"i have that certificate, inspector."
"made out by whom?"
"by the prefecture of châlons, which is the chief city of the department in which i was born."
"show it to me."
the young girl plainly hesitated. she looked at count octave then at the countess. she had begged them to come just in order that they might be witnesses of her examination and hear the answers she proposed to give, and now, at the last moment, she was rather sorry that she had done so.
"would you prefer us to withdraw?" said the countess.
"no, no," she replied quickly. "on the contrary i insist on your knowing."
"and us too?" said raoul davernoie.
"yes," she said smiling. "there is a fact which it is my duty to divulge to you. oh, nothing of great importance. but ... all the same."
she took from her case a dirty card with broken corners.
"here it is," she said.
the inspector examined the card carefully and said in the tone of one who is not to be humbugged:
"but that isn't your name. it's a nom de guerre of course—like those of your young comrades?"
"not at all, inspector."
"come, come, you're not going to get me to believe...."
"here is my birth certificate in support of it, inspector, stamped with the stamp of the commune of argonne."
"what? you belong to the village of argonne!" cried the count de chagny.
"i did, monsieur le comte. but this unknown village, which gave its name to the whole district of the argonne, no longer exists. the war has suppressed it."
"yes ... yes ... i know," said the count. "we had a friend there—a relation. didn't we, d'estreicher?"
"doubtless it was jean d'argonne?" she asked.
"it was. jean d'argonne died at the hospital at clermont from the effects of a wound ... lieutenant the prince of argonne. you knew him."
"i knew him."
"where? when? under what conditions?"
"goodness! under the ordinary conditions in which one knows a person with whom one is closely connected."
"what? there were ties between you and jean d'argonne ... the ties of relationship?"
"the closest ties. he was my father."
"your father! jean d'argonne! what are you talking about? it's impossible! see why ... jean's daughter was called yolande."
"yolande, isabel, dorothy."
the count snatched the card which the inspector was turning over and over again, and read aloud in a tone of amazement:
"yolande isabel dorothy, princess of argonne!"
she finished the sentence for him, laughing:
"countess marescot, baroness de la hêtraie, de beaugreval, and other places."
the count seized the birth certificate with no less eagerness, and more and more astounded, read it slowly syllable by syllable:
"yolande isabel dorothy, princess of argonne, born at argonne, on the 14th of october, 1900, legitimate daughter of jean de marescot, prince of argonne, and of jessie varenne."
further doubt was impossible. the civil status to which the young girl laid claim was established by proofs, which they were the less inclined to challenge since the unexpected fact explained exactly everything which appeared inexplicable in the manners and even in the appearance of dorothy.
the countess gave her feelings full play:
"yolande? you are the little yolande about whom jean d'argonne used to talk to us with such fondness."
"he was very fond of me," said the young girl. "circumstances did not allow us to live always together as i should have liked. but i was as fond of him as if i had seen him every day."
"yes," said the countess. "one could not help being fond of him. i only saw him twice in my life, in paris, at the beginning of the war. but what delightful recollections of him i retain! a man teeming with gayety and lightheartedness! just like you, dorothy. besides, i find him again in you ... the eyes ... and above all the smile."
dorothy displayed two photographs which she took from among her papers.
"his portrait, madame. do you recognize it?"
"i should think so! and the other, this lady?"
"my mother who died many years ago. he adored her."
"yes, yes, i know. she was formerly on the stage, wasn't she? i remember. we will talk it all over, if you will, and about your own life, the misfortunes which have driven you to live like this. but first of all, how came you here? and why?"
dorothy told them how she had chanced to see the word roborey, which her father had repeated when he was dying. then the count interrupted her narration.
he was a perfectly commonplace man who always did his best to invest matters with the greatest possible solemnity, in order that he might play the chief part in them, which his rank and fortune assigned to him. as a matter of form he consulted his two comrades, then, without waiting to hear their answers, he dismissed the inspector with the lack of ceremony of a grand seignior. in the same fashion he turned out saint-quentin and the three boys, carefully closed the two doors, bade the two women sit down, and walked up and down in front of them with his hands behind his back and an air of profound thoughtfulness.
dorothy was quite content. she had won a victory, compelled her hosts to speak the words she wanted. the countess held her tightly to her. raoul appeared to be a friend. all was going well. there was, indeed, standing a little apart from them, hostile and formidable, the bearded nobleman, whose hard eyes never left her. but sure of herself, accepting the combat, full of careless daring, she refused to bend before the menace of the terrible danger which, however, might at any moment crush her.
"mademoiselle," said the count de chagny with an air of great importance. "it has seemed to us, to my cousins and me, since you are the daughter of jean d'argonne, whose loss we so deeply deplore—it has seemed to us, i say, that we ought in our turn, to enlighten you concerning events of which he was cognizant and of which he would have informed you had he not been prevented by death ... of which he actually desired, as we know, that you should be informed."
he paused, delighted with his preamble. on occasions like this he loved to indulge in a pomposity of diction employing only the most select vocabulary, striving to observe the rules of grammar, and fearless of subjunctives. he went on:
"mademoiselle, my father, françois de chagny, my grandfather, dominique de chagny, and my great-grandfather, gaspard de chagny, lived their lives in the sure conviction that great wealth would be ... how shall i put it? ... would be offered to them, by reason of certain unknown conditions of which each of them was confident in advance that he would be the beneficiary. and each of them took the greater joy in the fact and indulged in a hope all the more agreeable because the revolution had ruined the house of the counts de chagny from the roof-tree to the basement. on what was this conviction based? neither françois, nor dominique, nor gaspard de chagny ever knew. it came from vague legends which described exactly neither the nature of the riches nor the epoch at which they would appear, but all of which had this in common that they evoked the name of roborey. and these legends could not have gone very far back since this château, which was formerly called the château de chagny, only received the name of chagny-roborey in the reign of louis xvi. is it this designation which brought about the excavations that were made from time to time? it is extremely probable. at all events it is a fact that at the very moment the war broke out i had formed the resolution of restoring this château de roborey, which had become merely a shooting-box and definitely settling down in it, for all that, and i am not ashamed to say it, my recent marriage with madame de chagny had enabled me to wait for these so-called riches without excessive impatience."
the count smiled a subtle smile in making this discreet allusion to the manner in which he had regilded his heraldic shield, and continued:
"it is needless to tell you, i hope, that during the war the count de chagny did his duty as a good frenchman. in 1915, as lieutenant of light-infantry, i was in paris on leave when a series of coincidences, brought about by the war, brought me into touch with three persons with whom i had not previously been acquainted, and whose ties of kin-ship with the chagny-roborey i learnt by accident. the first was the father of raoul davernoie, commandant georges davernoie, the second maxime d'estreicher, the last jean d'argonne. all four of us were distant cousins, all four on leave or recovering from wounds. and so it came about that in the course of our interviews, that we learnt, to our great surprise, that the same legend had been handed down in each of our four families. like their fathers and their grandfathers georges davernoie, d'estreicher, and jean d'argonne were awaiting the fabulous fortune which was promised them and which was to settle the debts which this conviction had led them on to contract. moreover, the same ignorance prevailed among the four cousins. no proof, no indication——"
after a fresh pause intended to lead up to an impressive effect, the count continued: "but yes, one indication, however: jean d'argonne remembered a gold medal the importance of which his father had formerly impressed on him. his father died a few days later from an accident in the hunting-field without having told him anything more. but jean d'argonne declared that this medal bore on it an inscription, and that one of these words, he did not recall it at once, was this word roborey, on which all our hopes are undoubtedly concentrated. he informed us then of his intention of ransacking the twenty trunks or so, which he had been able in august, 1914, to bring away from his country seat before its imminent pillage, and to store in a shed at bar-le-duc. but before he went, since we were all men of honor, exposed to the risks of war, we all four took a solemn oath that all our discoveries relative to the famous treasure, should be common property. henceforth and forever, the treasure, should providence decide to grant it to us, belonged to all the four; and jean d'argonne, whose leave expired, left us."
"it was at the end of 1915, wasn't it?" asked dorothy. "we passed a week together, the happiest week of my life. i was never to see him again."
"it was indeed towards the end of 1915," the count agreed. "a month later jean d'argonne, wounded in the north, was sent into hospital at chartres, from which he wrote to us a long letter ... never finished."
the countess de chagny made a sudden movement. she appeared to disapprove of what her husband had said.
"yes, yes, i will lay that letter before you," said the count firmly.
"perhaps you're right," murmured the countess. "nevertheless——"
"what are you afraid of, madame?" said dorothy.
"i am afraid of our causing you pain to no purpose, dorothy. the end of it will reveal to you very painful things."
"but it is our duty to communicate it to her," said the count in a peremptory tone. and he drew from his pocket-book a letter stamped with the red cross and unfolded it. dorothy felt her heart flutter with a sudden oppression. she recognized her father's handwriting. the countess squeezed her hand. she saw that raoul davernoie was regarding her with an air of compassion; and with an anxious face, trying less to understand the sentences she heard than to guess the end of this letter, she listened to it.
"my dear octave,
"i will first of all set your mind at rest about my wound. it is a mere nothing, no complications to be afraid of. at the most a little fever at night, which bothers the major; but all that will pass. we will say no more about it, but come straight to my journey to bar-le-duc.
"octave, i may tell you without any beating about the bush that it has not been useless, and that after a patient search i ended by ferreting out from among a pile of boots and that conglomeration of useless objects which one brings away with one when one bolts, the precious medal. at the end of my convalescence when i come to paris i will show it to you. but in the meantime, while keeping secret the indications engraved on the face of the medal, i may tell you that on the reverse are engraved these three latin words: 'in robore fortuna.' three words which may be thus translated: 'fortune is in the firm heart,' but which, in view of the presence of this word 'robore' and in spite of the difference in the spelling, doubtless point to the château de roborey as the place in which the fortune, of which our family legends tell will consequently be hidden.
"have we not here, my dear octave, a step forward on our path towards the truth? we shall do better still. and perhaps we shall be helped in the matter, in the most unexpected fashion, by an extremely nice young person, with whom i have just passed several days which have charmed me—i mean my dear little yolande.
"you know, my dear friend, that i have very often regretted not having been the father i should like to have been. my love for yolande's mother, my grief at her death, my life of wandering during the years which followed it, all kept me far away from the modest farm which you call my country seat, and which, i am sure, is no longer anything but a heap of ruins.
"during that time, yolande was living in the care of the people who farmed my land, bringing herself up, getting her education from the village priest, or the schoolmaster, and above all from nature, loving the animals, cultivating her flowers, light-hearted and uncommonly thoughtful.
"several times, during my visits to argonne, her common sense and intelligence astonished me. on this occasion i found her, in the field-hospital of bar-le-duc, in which she has, on her own initiative, established herself as an assistant-nurse, a young girl. barely fifteen, you cannot imagine the ascendancy she exercises over everyone about her. she decides matters like a grown person and she makes those decisions according to her own judgment. she has an accurate insight into reality, not merely into appearances but into that which lies below appearances.
"'you do see clearly,' i said to her. 'you have the eyes of a cat which moves, quite at its ease, through the darkness.'
"my dear octave, when the war is finished, i shall bring yolande to you; and i assure you that, along with our friends, we shall succeed in our enterprise——"
the count stopped. dorothy smiled sadly, deeply touched by the tenderness and admiration which this letter so clearly displayed. she asked:
"that isn't all, is it?"
"the letter itself ends there," said the count. "dated the 16th of january, it was not posted till the 20th. i did not receive it, for various reasons, till three weeks later. and i learnt later that on the 15th of january jean d'argonne had a more violent attack of fever, of that fever which baffled the surgeon-major and which indicated a sudden infection of the wound of which your father died ... or at least——"
"or at least?" asked the young girl.
"or at least which was officially stated to be the cause of his death," said the count in a lower voice.
"what's that you say? what's that you say?" cried dorothy. "my father did not die of his wound?"
"it is not certain," the count suggested.
"but then what did he die of? what do you suggest? what do you suppose?"
