Lorraine Part 4

"Exactly! What?" said Jack. "Do they want a story? What do 'expenses' mean? I'm not going to Africa again if I know it."

"It sounds as though the _Herald_ wanted you for some expedition; it sounds as if everybody knew about the expedition, except you.

n.o.body ever hears any news at Morteyn," said Molly Hesketh, dejectedly. "Are you going, Jack?"

"Going? Where?"

"Does your telegram throw any light on Jack's, Ricky?" asked Sir Thorald.

But Rickerl von Elster turned away without answering.

III

SUMMER THUNDER

When the old vicomte was well enough to entertain anybody at all, which was not very often, he did it skilfully. So when he filled the Chateau with young people and told them to amuse themselves and not bother him, the house-party was necessarily a success.

He himself sat all day in the suns.h.i.+ne, studying the week's Paris newspapers with dim, kindly eyes, or played interminable chess games with his wife on the flower terrace.

She was sixty; he had pa.s.sed threescore and ten. They never strayed far from each other. It had always been so from the first, and the first was when Helen Bruce, of New York City, married Georges Vicomte de Morteyn. That was long ago.

The chess-table stood on the terrace in the shadow of the flower-crowned parapets; the old vicomte sat opposite his wife, one hand touching the black knight, one foot propped up on a pile of cus.h.i.+ons. He pushed the knight slowly from square to square and twisted his white imperial with stiff fingers.

"Helen," he asked, mildly, "are you bored?"

"No, dear."

Madame de Morteyn smiled at her husband and lifted a p.a.w.n in her thin, blue-veined hand; but the vicomte had not finished, and she replaced the p.a.w.n and leaned back in her chair, moving the two little coffee-cups aside so that she could see what her husband was doing with the knight.

From the lawn below came the chatter and laughter of girls. On the edge of the lawn the little river Lisse glided noiselessly towards the beech woods, whose depths, saturated with suns.h.i.+ne, rang with the mellow notes of nesting thrushes.

The middle of July had found the leaves as fresh and tender as when they opened in May, the willow's silver green cooled the richer verdure of beach and sycamore; the round poplar leaves, pale yellow and orange in the sunlight, hung brilliant as lighted lanterns where the sun burned through.

"Helen?"

"Dear?"

"I am not at all certain what to do with my queen's knight. May I have another cup of coffee?"

Madame de Morteyn poured the coffee from the little silver coffee-pot.

"It is hot; be careful, dear."

The vicomte sipped his coffee, looking at her with faded eyes.

She knew what he was going to say; it was always the same, and her answer was always the same. And always, as at that first breakfast--their wedding-breakfast--her pale cheeks bloomed again with a subtle colour, the ghost of roses long dead.

"Helen, are you thinking of that morning?"

"Yes, Georges."

"Of our wedding-breakfast--here--at this same table?"

"Yes, Georges."

The vicomte set his cup back in the saucer and, trembling, poured a pale, golden liquid from a decanter into two tiny gla.s.ses.

"A gla.s.s of wine?--I have the honour, my dear--"

The colour touched her cheeks as their gla.s.ses met; the still air tinkled with the melody of crystal touching crystal; a golden drop fell from the br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses. The young people on the lawn below were very noisy.

She placed her empty gla.s.s on the table; the delicate glow in her cheeks faded as skies fade at twilight. He, with grave head leaning on his hand, looked vaguely at the chess-board, and saw, mirrored on every onyx square, the eyes of his wife.

"Will you have the journals, dear?" she asked presently. She handed him the _Gaulois_, and he thanked her and opened it, peering closely at the black print.

After a moment he read: "M. Ollivier declared, in the Corps Legislatif, that 'at no time in the history of France has the maintenance of peace been more a.s.sured than to-day.' Oh, that journal is two weeks' old, Helen.

"The treaty of Paris in 1856 a.s.sured peace in the Orient, and the treaty of Prague in 1866 a.s.sures peace in Germany," continued the vicomte; "I don't see why it should be necessary for Monsieur Ollivier to insist."

He dropped the paper on the stones and touched his white mustache.

"You are thinking of General Chanzy," said his wife, laughing--"you always twist your mustache like that when you're thinking of Chanzy."

He smiled, for he was thinking of Chanzy, his sword-brother; and the hot plains of Oran and the dusty columns of cavalry pa.s.sed before his eyes--moving, moving across a world of desert into the flaming disk of the setting sun.

"Is to-day the 16th of July, Helen?"

"Yes, dear."

"Then Chanzy is coming back from Oran. I know you dread it. We shall talk of nothing but Abd-el-Kader and Spahis and Turcos, and how we lost our Kabyle tobacco at Bou-Youb."

She had heard all about it, too; she knew every etape of the 48th of the Line--from the camp at Sathonay to Sidi-Bel-Abbes, and from Daya to Djebel-Mikaidon. Not that she cared for sabres and red trousers, but nothing that concerned her husband was indifferent to her.

"I hope General Chanzy will come," she said, "and tell you all about those poor Kabyles and the Legion and that horrid 2d Zouaves that you and he laugh over. Are you tired, dear?"

"No. Shall we play? I believe it was my move. How warm it is in the sun--no, don't stir, dear--I like it, and my gout is better for it. What do you suppose all those young people are doing?

Hear Betty Castlemaine laugh! It is very fortunate for them, Helen, that I married an American with an American's disregard of French conventionalities."

"I am very strict," said his wife, smiling; "I can survey them en chaperone."

"If you turn around. But you don't."

"I do when it is necessary," said Madame de Morteyn, indignantly; "Molly Hesketh is there."

The vicomte laughed and picked up the knight again.

"You see," he said, waving it in the air, "that I also have become a very good American. I think no evil until it comes, and when it comes I say, 'Shocking!'"