The Maids of Paradise Part 70

"No, and I can't explain," I replied, thinking of Kelly Eyre. "But Sylvia Elven is running a fearful risk here. Mornac knows her record.

Buckhurst would betray her in a moment if he thought it might save his own skin. She ought to leave before the _Fer-de-Lance_ sights the semaph.o.r.e and reads the signal to land in force."

"Then you'll have to tell her," he said, gloomily.

"I suppose so," I replied, not at all pleased. For the prospect of humiliating her, of proving to this woman that I was not as stupid as she believed me, gave me no pleasure. Rather was I sorry for her, sorry for the truly pitiable condition in which she must now find herself.

As we reached the gates of Trecourt, dusty and tired from our moorland tramp, I turned and looked back. My signal was still set; the white arm of the semaph.o.r.e glistened like silver against a brilliant sky of sapphire. Seaward I could see no sign of the _Fer-de-Lance_.

"The guns I heard at sea must have been fired from the German cruiser _Augusta_," I suggested to Speed. "She's been hovering off the coast, catching French merchant craft. I wish to goodness the _Fer-de-Lance_ would come in and give her a drubbing."

"Oh, rubbis.h.!.+" he said. "What the deuce do we care?"

"It's human to take sides in this war, isn't it?" I insisted.

"Considering the fas.h.i.+on in which France has treated us individually, it seems to me that we may as well take the German side," he said.

"Are you going to?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Oh, hang it all, no! There's something about France that holds us poor devils--I don't know what. Barring England, she's the only human nation in the whole snarling pack. Here's to her--d.a.m.n her impudence! If she wants me she can have me--empire, kingdom, or republic. Vive anything--as long as it's French!"

I was laughing when we entered the court; Jacqueline, her big, furry cat in her arms, came to the door and greeted Speed with:

"You have been away a very long time, and the thorns are all out of my arms and my legs, and I have been desiring to see you. Come into the house and read--shall we?"

Speed turned to me with an explanatory smile. "I've been reading the 'Idyls' aloud to her in English," he said, rather shyly. "She seems to like them; it's the n.o.ble music that attracts her; she can't understand ten words."

"I can understand nearly twenty," she said, flus.h.i.+ng painfully.

Speed, who had no thought of hurting her, colored up, too.

"You don't comprehend, little one," he said, quickly. "It was in praise, not in blame, that I spoke."

"I knew it--I am silly," she said, with quick tears trembling in her eyes. "You know I adore you, Speed. Forgive me."

She turned away into the house, saying that she would get the book.

"Look here, Speed," I said, troubled, "Jacqueline is very much like the traditional maid of romance, which I never believed existed--all unspoiled, frankly human, innocently daring, utterly ignorant of convention. She's only a child now, but another year or two will bring something else to her."

"Don't you suppose I've thought of that?" he said, frowning.

"I hope you have."

"Well, I have. When I find enough to do to keep soul and body friendly I'm going to send her to school, if that old ruffian, her father, allows it."

"I think he will," I said, gravely; "but after that?"

"After what?"

"After she's educated and--unhappy?"

"She isn't any too happy now," he retorted.

"Granted. But after you have spent all your money on her, what then?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you'll have no child to deal with, but a woman in full bloom, a woman fairly aquiver with life and intelligence, a high-strung, sensitive, fine-grained creature, whose educated ignorance will not be educated innocence, remember that! And I tell you, Speed, it's the heaviest responsibility a man can a.s.sume."

"I know it," he replied.

"Then it's all right, if you do know it," I said, cheerfully. "All I can say is, I am thankful she isn't to spend her life in the circus."

"Or meet death there," he added. "It's not to our credit that she escapes it."

Jacqueline came dancing back to the porch, cat under one arm, book under the other, so frankly happy, so charmingly grateful for Speed's society, that the tragedy of the lonely child touched me very deeply.

I strove to discover any trace of the bar sinister in her, but could not, though now I understood, from her parentage, how it was possible for a poacher's child to have such finely sculptured hands and feet.

Perhaps her dark, silky lashes and hair were Mornac's, but if this was so, I trusted that there the aristocratic blood had spent its force in the frail body of this child of chance.

I went into the house, leaving them seated on the porch, heads together, while in a low monotone Speed read the deathless "Morte d'Arthur."

Daylight was waning.

Out of the west a clear, greenish sky, tinged with saffron tints, promised a sea-wind. But the mild land-breeze was still blowing and the ebb-tide flowing as I entered the corridor and glanced at the corner where the spinning-wheel stood. Sylvia sat beside it, reading in the Lutheran Bible by the failing light.

She raised her dreamy eyes as I pa.s.sed; I had never seen her piquantly expressive face so grave.

"May I speak to you alone a moment, after dinner?" I asked.

"If you wish," she replied.

I bowed and started on, but she called me back.

"Did you know that Monsieur Eyre is here?"

"Kelly Eyre?"

"Oui, monsieur. He returns with an order from the governor of Lorient for the balloon."

I was astonished, and asked where Eyre had gone.

"He is in your room," she said, "loading your revolver. I hope you will not permit him to go alone to Paradise."

"I'll see about that," I muttered, and hurried up the stairs and down the hallway to my bedchamber.

He sprang to the door as I entered, giving me both hands in boyish greeting, saying how delighted they all were to know that my injury had proved so slight.

"That balloon robbery worried me," he continued. "I knew that Speed depended on his balloon for a living; so as soon as we entered Lorient I went to our consul, and he and I made such a row that the governor of Lorient gave me an order for the balloon. Here it is, Mr.

Scarlett."