Lorraine Part 25

"American," said Jack, guardedly.

The man was apparently much relieved. He made a frank, manly apology for his intrusion, looked appealingly at Lorraine, and said, with a laugh: "The fact is, I'm astray in the wrong camp. I rode out from the Spicheren and got mixed in the roads, and first I knew I fell in with Frossard's Corps, and I can't get away. I thought you were an Englishman; you're American, it seems, and really I may venture to feel that there is hope for me--may I not?"

"Why, yes," said Jack; "whatever I can do, I'll do gladly."

"Then let me observe without hesitation," continued the man, smiling under his crisp mustache, "that I'm in search of a modest dinner and a shelter of even more modest dimensions. I'm a war correspondent, unattached just at present, but following the German army. My name is Archibald Grahame."

At the name of the great war correspondent Jack stared, then impulsively held out his hand.

"Aha!" said Grahame, "you must be a correspondent, too. Ha! I thought I was not wrong."

He bowed again to Lorraine, who returned his manly salute very sweetly. "If," she thought, "Jack is inclined to be nice to this st.u.r.dy young man in tweeds, I also will be as nice as I can."

"My name is Marche--Jack Marche," said Jack, in some trepidation.

"I am not a correspondent--that is, not an active one."

"You were at Sadowa, and you've been in Oran with Chanzy," said Grahame, quickly.

Jack flushed with pleasure to find that the great Archibald Grahame had heard of him.

"We must take Mr. Grahame up-stairs at once--must we not?--if he is hungry," suggested Lorraine, whose tender heart was touched at the thought of a hungry human being.

They all laughed, and Grahame thanked her with that whimsical but charming courtesy that endeared him to all who knew him.

"It is awkward, now, isn't it, Mr. Marche? Here I am in France with the army I tried to keep away from, roofless, supperless, and rather expecting some of these sentinels or police agents may begin to inquire into my affairs. If they do they'll take me for a spy. I was threatened by the villagers in a little hamlet west of Saint-Avold--and how I'm going to get back to my Hohenzollerns I haven't the faintest notion."

"There'll surely be some way. My uncle will vouch for you and get you a safe-conduct," said Jack. "Perhaps, Mr. Grahame, you had better come and dine in our salon up-stairs. Will you? The Emperor occupies the large dining-room, and General Frossard and his staff have the breakfast-room."

Amused by the young fellow's doubt that a simple salon on the first floor might not be commensurate with the hospitality of Morteyn, Archibald Grahame stepped pleasantly to the other side of the road; and so, with Lorraine between them, they climbed the terrace and scaled the stairs to the little gilt salon where Lorraine's maid Marianne and the old house-keeper sat awaiting her return.

Lorraine was very wide-awake now--she was excited by the stir and the brilliant uniforms. She unconsciously took command, too, feeling that she should act the hostess in the absence of Madame de Morteyn. The old house-keeper, who adored her, supported her loyally; so, between Marianne and herself, a very delightful dinner was served to the hungry but patient Grahame when he returned with Jack from the latter's chamber, where he had left most of the dust and travel stains of a long tramp across country.

And how the great war correspondent did eat and drink! It made Jack hungry again to watch him, so with a laughing apology to Lorraine he joined in with a will, enthusiastically applauded and encouraged by Grahame.

"I could tell you were a correspondent by your appet.i.te," said Grahame. "Dear me! it takes a campaign to make life worth living!"

"Life is not worth living, then, without an appet.i.te?" inquired Lorraine, mischievously.

"No," said Grahame, seriously; "and you also will be of that opinion some day, mademoiselle."

His kindly, humourous eyes turned inquiringly from Jack to Lorraine and from Lorraine to Jack. He was puzzled, perhaps, but did not betray it.

They were not married, because Lorraine was Mademoiselle de Nesville and Jack was Monsieur Marche. Cousins? Probably.

Engaged? Probably. So Grahame smiled benignly and emptied another bottle of Moselle with a frank abandon that fascinated the old house-keeper.

"And you don't mean to say that you are going to put me up for the night, too?" he asked Jack. "You place me under eternal obligation, and I accept with that understanding. If you run into my Hohenzollerns, they'll receive you as a brother."

"I don't think he will visit the Hohenzollern Regiment," observed Lorraine, demurely.

"No--er--the fact is, I'm not doing much newspaper work now,"

said Jack.

Grahame was puzzled but bland.

"Tell us, Monsieur Grahame, of what you saw in the Spicheren,"

said Lorraine. "Is it a very bad defeat? I am sure it cannot be.

Of course, France will win, sooner or later; n.o.body doubts that."

Before Grahame could manufacture a suitable reply--and his wit was as quick as his courtesy--a door opened and Madame de Morteyn entered, sad-eyed but smiling.

Jack jumped up and asked leave to present Mr. Grahame, and the old lady received him very sweetly, insisting that he should make the Chateau his home as long as he stayed in the vicinity.

A few moments later she went away with Lorraine and her maid, and Jack and Archibald Grahame were left together to sip their Moselle and smoke some very excellent cigars that Jack found in the library.

"Mr. Grahame," said Jack, diffidently, "if it would not be an impertinent question, who is going to run away in this campaign?"

Grahame's face fell; his sombre glance swept the beautiful room and rested on a picture--the "Battle of Waterloo."

"It will be worse than that," he said, abruptly. "May I take one of these cigars? Oh, thank you."

Jack's heart sank, but he smiled and pa.s.sed a lighted cigar-lamp to the other.

"My judgment has been otherwise," he said, "and what you say troubles me."

"It troubles me, too," said Grahame, looking out of the dark window at the watery clouds, ragged, uncanny, whirling one by one like tattered witches across the disk of a misshapen moon.

After a silence Jack relighted his half-burned cigar.

"Then it is invasion?" he asked.

"Yes--invasion."

"When?"

"Now."

"Good heavens! the very stones in the fields will rise up!"

"If the people did so too it might be to better purpose,"

observed Grahame, dryly. Then he emptied his gla.s.s, flicked the ashes from his cigar, and, sitting erect in his chair, said, "See here, Marche, you and I are accustomed to this sort of thing, we've seen campaigns and we have learned to judge dispa.s.sionately and, I think, fairly accurately; but, on my honour, I never before have seen the beginning of such a tempest--never! You say the very stones will rise up in the fields of France. You are right. For the fields will be ploughed with solid shot, and the sh.e.l.ls will sow the earth with iron from the Rhine to the Loire. Good Lord, do these people know what is coming over the frontier?"

"Prussians," said Jack.

"Yes, Prussians and a few others--Wurtembergers, Saxons, Bavarians, men from Baden, from Hesse, from the Schwarzwald--from Hamburg to the Tyrol they are coming in three armies. I saw the Spicheren, I saw Wissembourg--I have seen and I know."

Presently he opened a fresh bottle, and, with that whimsical smile and frank simplicity that won whom he chose to win, leaned towards Jack and began speaking as though the younger man were his peer in experience and age:

"Shall I tell you what I saw across the Rhine? I saw the machinery at work--the little wheels and cogs turning and grinding and setting in motion that stupendous machine that Gneisenau patented and Von Moltke improved--the great Mobilization Machine! How this machine does its work it is not easy to realize unless one has actually watched its operation. I saw it--and what I saw left me divided between admiration and--well, d.a.m.n it all!--sadness.