The Frontier Part 25

"We must behave like Frenchmen who are in the right," cried Morestal, "and who, when they are in the right, fear n.o.body and nothing in this world!"

"Not even war?"

"War! What are you talking about? War! But there can't be war over an incident like this! The way things are shaping, Germany will yield."

"Do you think so?" said Philippe, who seemed relieved by this a.s.sertion.

"Certainly! But on one condition, that we establish our right firmly.

There has been a violation of the frontier. That is beyond dispute. Let us prove it; and every chance of a conflict is removed."

"But, if we don't succeed in proving it?" asked Philippe.

"Ah, in that case, it can't be helped!... Of course, they will dispute it. But have no fear, my boy: the proofs exist; and we can safely go ahead.... Come along, they're waiting for us downstairs...."

He grasped the door-handle.

"Father!"

"Look here, what's the matter with you to-day? Aren't you coming?"

"No, not yet," said Philippe, who saw a way out and who was making a last effort to escape. "Presently.... I must absolutely tell you.... You and I start from a different point of view.... I have rather different ideas from yours ... and, as the occasion happens to present itself ..."

"Impossible, my boy! They are waiting for us...."

"You must hear me," cried Philippe, blocking the way. "I refuse to accept with a light heart a responsibility that is not in accordance with my present opinions; and that is why an explanation between us has become inevitable."

Morestal looked at him with an air of amazement:

"Your present opinions! Ideas different from mine! What's all this nonsense?"

Philippe felt, even more clearly than on the day before, the violence of a conflict which a confession would provoke. But, this time, his resolve was taken. There were too many reasons urging him towards a breach which he considered necessary. With his mind and his whole frame palpitating with his tense will, he was about to utter the irrevocable words, when Marthe hurried into the room:

"Don't keep your father, Philippe; the examining-magistrate is asking for him."

"Ah!" said Morestal. "I am not sorry that you have come to release me, my dear Marthe. Your husband's crazy. He's been talking a string of nonsense these past ten minutes. What you want, my boy, is rest."

Philippe made a slight movement. Marthe whispered:

"Be quiet."

And she said it in so imperious a tone that he was taken aback.

Before leaving the room, Morestal walked to the window. Bugle-notes sounded in the distance and he leant out to hear them better.

Marthe at once said to Philippe:

"I came in on chance. I felt that you were seeking an explanation with your father."

"Yes, I had to."

"About your ideas, I suppose?"

"Yes, I must."

"Your father is ill.... It's his heart.... A fit of anger might prove fatal ... especially after last night. Not a word, Philippe."

At that moment, Morestal closed the window. He pa.s.sed in front of them and then, turning and placing his hand on his son's shoulder, he murmured, in accents of restrained ardour:

"Do you hear the enemy's bugle, over there? Ah, Philippe, I don't want it to become a war-song!... But, all the same, if it should ... if it should!..."

At one o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday the 2nd of September, Philippe, sitting opposite his father, before the pensive eyes of Marthe, before the anxious eyes of Suzanne, Philippe, after relating most minutely his conversation with the dying soldier, declared that he had heard at a distance the cries of protest uttered by Jorance, the special commissary.

Having made the declaration, he signed it.

CHAPTER IV

THE ENQUIRIES

The tragedy enacted that night and morning was so harsh, so virulent and so swift that it left the inmates of the Old Mill as though stunned.

Instead of uniting them in a common emotion, it scattered them, giving each of them an impression of discomfort and uneasiness.

In Philippe, this took the form of a state of torpor that kept him asleep until the next morning. He awoke, however, in excellent condition, but with an immense longing for solitude. In reality, he shrank from finding himself in the presence of his father and his wife.

He went out, therefore, very early, across the woods and fields, stopped at an inn, climbed the Ballon de Vergix and did not come home until lunch-time. He was very calm by then and quite master of himself.

To men like Philippe, men endowed with upright natures and generous minds, but not p.r.o.ne to waste time in reflecting upon the minor cases of conscience that arise in daily life, the sense of duty performed becomes, at critical periods, a sort of standard by which they judge their actions. This sense Philippe experienced in all its fulness.

Placed by a series of abnormal circ.u.mstances between the necessity of betraying Suzanne or the necessity of swearing upon oath to a thing which he did not know, he felt that he was certainly ent.i.tled to lie.

The lie seemed just and natural. He did not deny the fault which he had committed in succ.u.mbing to the young girl's fascinations and wiles: but, having committed the fault, he owed it to Suzanne to keep it secret, whatever the consequences of his discretion might be. There was no excuse that permitted him to break silence.

He found, on the drawing-room table, the three newspapers which were taken at the Old Mill: the _eclaireur des Vosges_; a Paris evening-paper; and the _Borsweilener Zeitung_, a morning-paper printed in German, but French in tone and inspiration. A glance at these completely rea.s.sured him. Amid the confusion of the first reports devoted to the Jorance case, his own part pa.s.sed almost unnoticed. The _eclaireur des Vosges_ summoned up his evidence in a couple of lines.

When all was said, he was and would be no more than a supernumerary.

"A walking gentleman, at the outside," he murmured, with satisfaction.

"Yes, at the outside. It's your father and M. Jorance who play the star parts."

Marthe had entered and caught his last words, which he had spoken aloud, and was answering him with a laugh.

She put her arm around his neck with the fond gesture usual to her and said:

"Yes, Philippe, you need not worry yourself. Your evidence is of no importance and cannot influence events in any way. You can be very sure of that."