that night mademoiselle wrote to denise at fréjus, breaking at last her long silence. that she gave the barest facts, may be safely concluded. neither did she volunteer a thought or a conclusion. she was as discreet as she was secretive. there are some secrets which are infinitely safer in a woman's custody than in a man's. you may tell a man in confidence the amount of your income, and it will go no further; but in affairs of the heart, and not of the pocket, a woman is safer. indeed, you may tell a woman your heart's secret, provided she keeps it where she keeps her own. and mademoiselle brun had only one thought night and day: the happiness of denise. that, and a single memory—the secret, perhaps, which was such a standing joke at the school in the rue du cherche-midi—made up the whole life of this obscure woman.
two days later she gave lory susini's message; and de vasselot sent for the surgeon.
“i am going,” he said. “patch me up for a journey.”
the surgeon had dealt so freely with life and death that he only shrugged his shoulders.
“you cannot go alone,” he said—“a man with one arm and one leg.”
mademoiselle looked from one to the other. she was willing enough that lory should undertake this journey, for he must needs pass through provence to get to corsica. she did not attempt to lead events, but was content to follow and steer them from time to time.
“i am going to the south of france,” she said. “the baron needs me no longer since the hospital is to be moved to paris. i can conduct monsieur de vasselot—a part of the way, at all events.”
and the rest arranged itself. five days later lory de vasselot was lifted from the railway carriage to the baroness de mélide's victoria at frejus station.
“madame's son is, no doubt, from sedan?” said the courteous station-master, who personally attended to the wounded man.
“he is from sedan—but he is not my son. i never had one,” replied mademoiselle with composure.
she was tired, for she had hardly slept since lory came under her care. she sat open-eyed, with that knowledge which is given to so few—the knowledge of the gradual completion of a set purpose.
they had travelled all night, and it was not yet midday when mademoiselle first saw, and pointed out to lory, the white turret of the chateau among the pines.
the baroness was on the steps to greet them. like many persons of a gay exterior, she had a kind heart and a quick sympathy. she often did, and said, the right thing, when cleverer people found themselves at fault. she laughed when she saw lory lying full length across her smart carriage—laughed, despite his white cheeks and the grey weariness of mademoiselle's face. she seemed part of the sunshine and the brisk resinous air.
“ah, my cousin,” she cried, “it does the eyes good to see you! i should like to carry you up these steps.”
“in three weeks,” answered de vasselot, “i will carry you down.”
“his room is on the ground floor,” said the baroness to mademoiselle, in an aside. “you are tired, my dear—i see it. your room is the same as before; you must lie down this afternoon. i will take care of lory, and denise will—but, where is denise? i thought she was behind me.”
she paused to guide the men who were carrying de vasselot through the broad doorway.
“denise!” she cried without looking round, “denise! where are you?”
then turning, she saw denise coming slowly down the stairs. her face was whiter than mademoiselle brun's. her eyes, clear and clever, were fixed on lory's face as if seeking something there. there was an odd silence for a moment—such as the superstitious say, is caused by the passage of an angel among human beings—even the men carrying lory seemed to tread softly. it was he who broke the spell.
“ah, mademoiselle!” he said gaily, “the fortune of war, you see!”
“but it might have been so much worse,” said the baroness in a whisper to mademoiselle brun. “bon dieu, it might have been so much worse!”
and at luncheon they were gay enough. for a national calamity is, after all, secondary to a family calamity. only de vasselot and mademoiselle brun had been close to war, and it was no new thing to them. theirs was, moreover, that sudden gaiety which comes from re-action. the contrast of their present surroundings to that little hospital in a church within cannon-sound of sedan—the quiet of this country house, the baroness, denise herself young and grave—were sufficient to chase away the horror of the past weeks.
it was the baroness who kept the conversation alert, asking a hundred questions, and, as often as not, disbelieving the answers.
“and you assure me,” she said for the hundredth time, “that my poor husband is well. that he does not miss me, i cannot of course believe with the best will in the world, though mademoiselle brun assert it with her gravest air. now, tell me, how does he spend his day?”
“mostly in washing up dishes,” replied mademoiselle, looking severely at the baron's butler, whose hand happened to shake at that moment as he offered a plate. “but he is not good at it. he was ignorant of the properties of soda until i informed him.”
“but there is no glory in that,” protested the baroness. “it was only because he assured me that he would not run into danger, and would inevitably be made a grand commander of the legion of honour, that he was allowed to go. i do not see the glory in washing up dishes, my friends, i tell you frankly.”
“no; but it is there,” said mademoiselle.
after luncheon lory, using his crutches, made his way laboriously to the verandah that ran the length of the southern face of the house. it was all hung with creepers, and shaded from the sun by a dense curtain of foliage. here heliotrope grew like a vine on a trellis against the wall, and semi-tropical flowers bloomed in a bewildering confusion. a little fountain trickled sleepily near at hand, in the mossy basin of which a talkative family of frogs had their habitation.
half asleep in a long chair, de vasselot was already coming under the influence of this most healing air in the world, when the rustle of a skirt made him turn.
“it is only i, my poor lory,” said the baroness, looking down at him with an odd smile. “you turned so quickly. is there anything you want—anything in my power to give you, i mean?”
“i am afraid you have parted with that already.”
“to that—scullery-man, you mean. yes, perhaps you are too late. it is so wise to ask too late, mon cousin.”
she laughed gaily, and turned away towards the house. then she stopped suddenly and came back to him.
“seriously,” she said, looking down at him with a grave face—“seriously. my prayers should always be for any woman who became your wife—you, and your soldiering. ciel! it would kill any woman who really cared—”
she broke off and contemplated him as he lay at full length.
“and she might care—a little—that poor woman.”
“she would have to care for france as well,” said de vasselot, momentarily grave at the thought of his country.
“i know,” said the baroness, with a wise shake of the head. “mon ami, i know all about that.”
“i have some new newspapers from paris,” she added, going towards the house. “i will send them to you.”
and it was denise who brought the newspapers. she handed them to him in silence. their eyes met for an instant, and both alike had that questioning look which had shone in denise's eyes as she came downstairs. they seemed to know each other now better than they had done when they last parted at the casa perucca.
there was a chair near to his, and denise sat down there as if it had been placed on purpose—as perhaps it had—by fate. they were silent for a few moments, gathering perhaps the threads that connected one with the other. for absence does not always break such threads, and sometimes strengthens them. then lory spoke without looking at her.
“you received the letter?” he said.
“which letter?” she asked hurriedly; and then closed her lips and slowly changed colour.
there was only one letter, of course. there could be no other. for it had never been suggested that lory should write to her.
“yes; i received it,” she answered. “thank you.”
“will you answer one question?” asked lory.
“if it is a fair one,” she answered with a laugh.
“and who is to decide whether it is a fair one or not?”
“oh! i will do that,” replied denise with decision.
she knew the weakness of her position, and was prepared to defend it. her eyes were shining, and the colour had not faded from her cheeks yet. lory held his lip between his teeth as he looked at her. she waited for the question, without meeting his eyes, with a baffling little smile tilting the corners of her lips.
“well,” she said, after a pause, “i suppose you have decided not to ask it?”
“i have decided to draw conclusions instead, mademoiselle.”
“ah!”
“what does 'ah!' mean?”
“it means that you will draw them wrong,” she answered; and yet the tone of her voice seemed to suggest that she would rather like to hear the conclusions.
“one may conclude then, simply, that you changed your mind after you wrote, and claimed a woman's privilege.”
“yes—”
“that you were good enough to trust me to send the letter back unopened; and yet you would not trust me with the contents. one may conclude that it is, therefore, also a woman's privilege to be of two minds at the same time.”
“if she likes,” answered denise. to which wise men know that there is no answer.
de vasselot made a tragic gesture with his one available hand, and cast his eyes upwards in a mute appeal to the gods. he sighed heavily, and the expression of his face seemed to indicate a hopeless despair.
“what is the matter?” she asked, with a solicitude which was perhaps slightly exaggerated.
“what is one to understand? i ask you that?” said lory, turning towards her almost fiercely.
“what do you want to understand, monsieur?” asked denise, quietly.
“mon dieu—you!”
“me!”
“yes. i cannot understand you at all. you ask my advice, and then you act contrary to it. you write me a letter, and you forbid me to open it. ah! i was a fool to send that letter back. i have often thought so since—”
denise was looking gravely at him with an expression in her eyes which made him stop, and laugh, and contradict himself suddenly.
“you are quite right, mademoiselle, i was not a fool to send it back. it was the only thing i could do; and yet i almost thought, just now, that you were not glad that i had done so.”
“then you thought quite wrong,” said denise, sharply, with a gleam of anger in her eyes. “you think that it is only i who am difficult to understand. you are no easier. they say in balagna that, if you liked, you could be a sort of king in northern corsica, and i am quite sure you have the manners of one.”
“thank you, mademoiselle,” he said with a laugh.
“oh—i do not mean the agreeable side of the character. i meant that you are rather given to ordering people about. you send an incompetent and stupid little priest to take us by the hand, and lead us out of the casa perucca like two school-children, without so much as a word of explanation.”
“but i had not your permission to write to you.”
denise laughed gaily.
“so far as that goes you had not my permission to order me out of my own house; to send a steamer to st. florent to fetch me; to treat me as if i were a regiment, in a word—and yet you did it, monsieur.”
lory sat up in his desire to defend himself, winced and lay down again.
“i fancy it is your corsican blood,” said denise, reflectively. she rose and re-arranged a very sporting dustcloth which the baroness had laid across the wounded man's legs, and which his movement had cast to one side. “however, it remains for me to thank you,” she said, and did not sit down again.
“it may have been badly done, mademoiselle,” he said earnestly, “but i still think that it was the wisest thing to do.”
“and still you give me no reasons,” she said without turning to look at him. she was standing at the edge of the verandah, looking thoughtfully out at the matchless view. for the house stood above the pines which lay like a dusky green carpet between it and the mediterranean. “and i am not going to ask you for them,” she added with an odd little smile, not devoid of that deep wisdom with which it is to be presumed women are born; for they have it when it is most useful to them, and at an age when their masculine contemporaries are singularly ignorant of human nature.
“i am going,” she said after a pause. “jane told me that i must not tire you.”
“then stay,” he said. “it is only when you are not there that i find it tiring.”
she did not answer, and did not move until a servant came noiselessly from the house and approached lory.
“it is a man,” he said, “who will not be denied, and says he must speak to monsieur le comte. he is from corsica.”
denise turned, and her face was quite changed. she had until that moment forgotten corsica.
