The Beloved Traitor Part 11

"You, then!"--he whirled on Marie-Louise, grasping her arm fiercely.

"Who has been here?"

"But--but, m'sieu," stammered Marie-Louise, shrinking back in affright, "no one has been here."

Myrna pressed forward into the room.

"Dad, what _is_ the--" She got no further.

"It is true--I am a fool. I was wrong. Look, Myrna!"--his face flushed, his eyes lighted with the fire of an enthusiast, he was at the table, lifting up the little clay figure of the fisherwoman with the outstretched arms, the beacon, in his hands again. "Look, Myrna! No, I am not mad--I am only a fool. I, who pride myself as a critic, was fool enough for a moment to think this the work of perhaps Demaurais, or Lestrange, or Pitot--when no one of the three even in his greatest moment of inspiration could approach it! There is life in it. You feel the very soul. It is sublime! But it is more than that--it is a stupendous thing, for, since it has been freshly done, and no stranger to these people has been here, the man who did it must be one of themselves. Don't you understand, Myrna, don't you understand? The world will ring with it. It is the discovery of a genius. I make the statement without reservation. _This is the work of the greatest sculptor France will have ever known_!"

Father Anton had come forward a little timorously, lacing and unlacing his fingers. Upon Myrna's face was a sort of bewildered stupefaction.

Marie-Louise, her breath coming in little gasps, was gazing wide-eyed at the man who held in his hands her beacon, the clay figure she had seen Jean make.

"Is--is it true--what you say?" she whispered.

Henry Bliss looked at her for a moment, startled--as though he was for the first time aware of her presence.

"You--yes, of course, you must know about this, as it is in the house here," he burst out abruptly. "You know who made it?"

"But, yes," said Marie-Louise, and now there was a sudden new note, a trembling note of pride that struggled for expression in her voice.

"But, yes--it was Jean Laparde."

"Laparde--Jean Laparde?"--his voice was hoa.r.s.e in its eagerness.

"Quick!" he cried. "Laparde--Jean Laparde? Who is Jean Laparde?"

A flush crept pink into Marie-Louise's face.

"He is my fiance," she said.

-- VI --

THE GIFT

Father Anton, with a smile, his eyes twinkling, looked from one to the other of the group as much as to say: "There! Is that not an altogether charming denouement?" Myrna had yet to discover herself in a situation to whose command she did not rise--inwardly a sudden confusion upon her, her face expressed a polite interest. As for Henry Bliss, the words were without any significance whatever--it was not what he wanted to know.

It was Marie-Louise, embarra.s.sed, who broke the silence.

"Will mademoiselle and monsieur look through the house now, and tell me what rooms they will occupy?"

Henry Bliss, for answer, caught Father Anton again by the shoulder.

"This Jean Laparde," he flung out excitedly, "you ought to know all about him! He must have done other things besides this"--he swept his hand toward the beacon, which he had now very carefully replaced on the table.

"But, of course!" declared Father Anton, still smiling. "Mother Fregeau will a.s.sure you--forever little faces and figures out of her dough and the inside of her loaves."

"No, no--good Lord!" exclaimed Henry Bliss. "I mean--"

"I am telling you," interrupted Father Anton mildly. "He has been forever at that since he was a boy, and then there are the clay dolls for the children, of which there would be very many, at least a hundred."

"A hundred! A hundred clay _dolls_ by the man who did this!" shouted Henry Bliss eagerly. "And do you mean to say you never realised--oh, good Lord! Where are they?"

Father Anton's eyebrows went up in almost pitying astonishment.

"But, monsieur," he said patiently, "where would they be? They do not last long; and, even if the children did not break them almost immediately, they would soon crumble to pieces like their own mud pies."

"Mud!" Henry Bliss bent quickly over the beacon again. "Yes, so it is! It is mostly mud. It is unbelievable! The man did not even have modelling clay to work with!" He swung again on the cure. "Well, where is this Jean Laparde? I want to see him at once!"

Myrna's laugh rippled suddenly through the room.

"Dad--don't get so excited. Your Jean Laparde won't run away. He's out fis.h.i.+ng now, but he said he would come out here this morning."

"Out fis.h.i.+ng--come out here this morning?" repeated her father, staring at her. "How do you know?"

Myrna shook her finger at him in playful severity.

"If you had paid any more than the merest pretence of attention to me last night, you would have remembered the name--no"--she laughed again--"no, perhaps after all I didn't mention it, I'm not sure I hadn't forgotten it myself; but he is the fisherman who took me to Father Anton here, you know--the one I told you might possibly do as a boatman for us while we were here."

"Great grief! Do as a--_boatman_!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Henry Bliss weakly.

"You, Monsieur le Cure, what time do these fishermen return?"

"But anytime, now," Father Anton answered. "The boats go out very early in the morning."

"Good!" Henry Bliss pushed the cure impetuously toward the door.

"Then, you and I, Father Anton, will go right back to the village and be there when he comes in."

"But"--Father Anton was quite bewildered--one was literally carried off one's feet--were they all alike, these Americans! "But," he protested helplessly, as he was being pulled through the door, "but if the boats are already in, and since mademoiselle said he was coming here, then--"

"Then we will meet him on the road"--they were already out of the house. "Now, then, Monsieur le Cure, if you are a loyal Frenchman, step out quickly, for this is the greatest day in the history of France, the greatest day, I tell you, in the"--the voice died away in the distance.

Marie-Louise had not moved. She was still standing in the centre of the room, a strangely spellbound, dumfounded little figure.

"Mademoiselle," she ventured timidly, "what--what is--"

"I am sure I do not know," said Myrna languidly. "Have you no shoes or stockings?"

Marie-Louise glanced perplexedly at her small, bare feet.

"But, yes, mademoiselle--for the village sometimes, and when one walks in the fields."

"Go and put them on, then," directed Myrna. "And remember always to wear them while we are here. When you come back, I will go through the house with you and tell you what to do."

"Yes, mademoiselle," said Marie-Louise nervously--there was a sense of guilt upon her, but wherein lay the enormity of her offence she did not understand. Nevertheless, was not mademoiselle of the great world, and since mademoiselle was displeased, surely mademoiselle must know. She turned hastily from the room.

"No--wait!" Myrna's brain, for all her outward composure, was far from calm. It seemed as though the little stone she had started rolling down the hill in a--well, was it a whim?--was gathering many other stones in its course and developing into an avalanche. She had no desire to go into the details of the house with this Marie-Louise at that moment; on the contrary, it was absolutely impossible. The one thing she wanted was to be alone--to clear all this muddle out of her head. "No--wait!" she repeated. "There will be quite time enough to attend to that when Nanette and Jules arrive; and in the meantime you had better go down to the Bas Rhone and help Nanette if you can. When they are ready, come back with them."