Chapter VII Guard!

I had just arrived at this significant determination when I was roused from my reverie by Anderson making his farewells. He was holding out his hand to me.

“Your face is stern, monsieur,” he said. “Were you fighting your old battles o’er again?”

“No—new ones!” I laughed, springing up and seizing his hand.

“May you win them, as of old!” he exclaimed, with great heartiness.

“You are generous, monsieur,” I said gently, looking him in the eyes.

But this remark he took as quite the ordinary reply, and with a bright glance for us all he moved toward the door. Yvonne followed him, as it seemed was expected of her.

“Must you go so early?” she asked, with a kindness in her voice which pierced me.

“Yes,” he said, looking down at her upturned face. “The tide is just right now, and this fair 44wind must not be lost. It will be a fine run under this moon; and Pierre has the new boat over to-night.”

“It is a good night,” she assented, peering through the open door with a gesture of gay inquiry; “and how sweet the apple-blossoms smell! Have you as good air as this, Monsieur Grande, on those western rivers of yours, or at Trois Pistoles?”

As she did not turn her head or seem to require an answer, I made none. And, indeed, I was spared the necessity, for Anderson intervened with matter of his own.

“Come down to the gate with me, won’t you?” I heard him beg in a low voice.

But for some reason Mademoiselle was not disposed to be kind that night. She drew back, and looked down pointedly at her dainty embroidered moccasins.

“Oh,” she cried lightly and aloud, with a tantalizing ring in her voice, “just think how wet the path is!”

Anderson turned away with a disappointed air, whereupon she reached out her hand imperiously for him to kiss. Then she waved him a gay bon voyage, and came back into the room with a quick lightness of step which seemed like laughter in itself. Her eyes were a dancing marvel, with some strange excitement.

45“Monsieur,” she began, coming straight toward me. But I just then awoke to my purpose.

“A thousand pardons, mademoiselle and madame!” I cried, springing to my feet and hastening to the door. “I will be back in two moments; but I have a word for Monsieur Anderson before he goes.”

That I should interrupt her in this way, and rush off when she was about to speak to me, fetched a sudden little cloud of astonishment over Yvonne’s face. But I would not be delayed. I made haste down the path and caught Anderson before he reached the gate. He paused with an air of genial surprise.

“Your pardon, monsieur,” said I; “but with your permission I will accompany you a few steps, as I have something to say to you.”

“I am glad to have your company, monsieur,” said he, with a manner that spoke sincerity.

“Are you?” said I abruptly. “Well, somehow I take your words as something more than the thin clink of compliment. I like you—I liked you the moment my eyes fell upon you.”

His face flashed into a rare illumination, and without a word he held out his hand.

I could not but smile responsively, though I thrust my hand behind my back and shook my head.

“Wait!” said I. “I want to say to you that—I love—I love Mademoiselle de Lamourie!”

46His face clouded a little, and he withdrew his hand, but not angrily.

“We are very much of one mind in that, I assure you,” he said.

“The very ground she walks upon is sacred to me,” I continued.

He smiled ever so little at the passion of my speech, but answered thoughtfully:

“It is but natural, I suppose. I do not think we will quarrel upon that score, monsieur.”

“For two years,” said I, in a low voice, speaking coldly and evenly, “I have been moved night and day by this love only. It has supported me in hunger and in weariness; it has led me in the wilderness; it has strengthened me in the fight; it has been more to me than all ambition. Even my love of my country has been second to it. I came here to-day for one reason only. And I find—you!”

“None can know so well as I what you have lost, monsieur,” said he very gravely, “as none can know so well as I what I have gained.”

His kindness, no less than his confidence, hurt me.

“Are you so sure?” I asked.

“The discussion is unusual, monsieur,” said he, with a sudden resentment. “I will only remind you that Mademoiselle de Lamourie has accepted my suit.”

47No man’s sternness has ever troubled me, and I smiled slightly in acknowledgment of his very reasonable remark.

“The situation is unusual, so you must pardon me,” said I, “if I arrogate to myself a somewhat unusual freedom. I tell you now frankly that by all open and honorable means I will strive to win the love of Mademoiselle de Lamourie. I have hope that she has not yet clearly found the wisdom of her heart. I believe that I, not you, am the man whom she will love. Laugh at my vanity as much as you will. I am not yet ready to say my hope is dead, my life turned to nothingness.”

“You are weak,” said he, with some severity, “to hold your life thus, as it were, in jeopardy of a woman’s whim.”

I could hardly restrain my voice from betraying a certain triumph which I felt at this sign of imperfection in his love.

“If you hold it a weakness,” said I, “there is a point at last in which we differ. If it be a weakness, then it is one which, up to two years ago, I had scarce dared hope to attain. Few, indeed, are the women, and as few men, strong enough for the full knowledge of love.”

“Yet the greatest love is not the whole of life,” he averred disputatiously.

“You speak but coldly,” said I, “for the lover of Mademoiselle de Lamourie.”

48He started. I had stung him. “I am of the Society of Friends—a Quaker!” said he harshly. “I do not fight. I lift not my hand against my fellow-man. Yet did I believe that you would succeed in winning her love, I think I would kill you where you stand!”

I liked the sharp lines of his face as he said it, fronting me with eyes grown suddenly cruel. I felt that he meant it, for the moment at least.

“Say, rather,” said I, smiling, “that you would honestly try your best to kill me. It would be an interesting experiment. Well, now we understand each other. I will honestly try my best to do you what will be, in my eyes, the sorest injury in the world. But I will try by fair means only, and if I fail I will bear you no grudge. In all else, however, believe that I do greatly desire your welfare, and will seize with eagerness any occasion of doing you a service. You are perhaps less unworthy of Mademoiselle de Lamourie than I am, save that you cannot love her so well. And now,” I added with a smile, “will you take my hand?”

As I held it out to him he at first drew back and seemed disposed to repulse me. Then his face cleared.

“You are honest!” he exclaimed, and wrung my hand with great cordiality. “I rather like you—and I am very sorry for you. I have her promise.”

49“Well,” said I, “if also you have her love you are the most fortunate man on God’s earth!”

“I have it!” said he blithely, and strode off down the path between the apple-trees, his fine shoulders held squarely, and a confidence in all his bearing. But a wave of pity for him, and strange tenderness, went over me in that moment, for in that moment I felt an assurance that I should win.

It was an assurance doomed to swift ruin. It was an assurance destined soon to be hidden under such a vast wreckage of my hopes that even memory marvelled when she dragged it forth to light.