 CHAPTER V The first thing a cat does on taking up its quarters in a new home is to make itself acquainted with its surroundings. It walks methodically with uplifted tail and quivering nose from vast monument of sideboard to common place of chair, from glittering palisade of fender to long-lying bastion of couch, creeps by defences of walls noting each comfortable issue, prowls through lanes and squares innumerable formed by intricacies of furniture, and having once gone through the grave business, why has it had no more about topography and points of interests, but settles down to surreal enjoyment of such features of the place as have appealed to its aesthetic or grosser instincts. In this respect, the average human is nearer a cat than he cares to realise. The first hour on board a strange ship is generally devoted to an exhaustive exploration, never repeated during the rest of the voyage, and doubtless a prisoner's first act on being locked into his cell is to creep round the confined space and familiarise himself with his depressing installation. Obeying this instinct common to cats and men, Martin and Corinna, as soon as they'd finished breakfast the next morning, wandered forth and explored Brantôme. They visited the great remains of the elder Abbey, begun by Charlemagne. But Vignon, writing in the fifteenth century and asking, Mayouet le pro-Charlemagne, might have asked, with equal sense of the transitory nature of human things, where is the Abbey which the nightly Charlemagne departs to build in Brantôme? For the Normans came and destroyed it, and one eleventh-century tower protecting a Roman-Escothic church alone tells where the Abbey stood. Strolling down to the river-level along the dusty, shady road, they came to the terraced hillside, past which the river once infinitely furious must have torn its way. In the sheer rock were doors of human dwellings, numbered sedately like the houses of a smug row. Above them, at the height of a cottage-roof, stretched a grassy plain from which, corresponding to with each homestead, emerged the short stump of a chimney emitting thin smoke from the half beneath. Before one of the open doors they halted. Children were playing in the one room which made up the entire habitation. They had the impression of a vague bed in the gloom, a table, a chair or two, cooking utensils by the rude chimney-piece, funks fitted into the living rock of the sides. The children might have been Peter Pan and Wendy and Michael and John, and the rest of the delectable company. And the chimney-stump above them might have been replaced by Michael's silk hat. And on the green swathe around it, pirates and Red Indians might have fought undetected by the happy denizens below. Thus announced Corona with lighter fancy. But Martin, serious exponent of truth, explained that the monks, in the desolate times when the Abbey was rebuilding, had hewn out these abodes for cells and had dwelt in the many, many years. And to prove it, having conferred before her descent to breakfast with the excellent Monsieur Bigordin, he led her to a neighbouring cave called in the district Ligrott, hence the name of Bigordin's Hotel, which the good monks, their pious aspiration far exceeding their pious of artistic execution, had adorned with grotesque and primitive carvings in bas-relief, representing the last judgement and the crucifixion. They paused to obmar the Renaissance Fontaine Medici, set in stark incontrast against the rugged background of rock, with its graceful barris-trade and its medallion enclosing the bust of the worthy Pierre de Boudet, Abbey de Brontôme, the immortal chronicler of horrific scandals. And they crossed the Pondée-Barrie, a wonder by the keys where men angled patiently for deriding fish, and women below at the water's edge beat their laundry with lusty arms. And so, past the rows of dwellings old and new huddled together, at a cain thirteenth-century house with its heavy corbellings and a bit of rounded turret lost in the masonry, jostling a perky modern café decked with armed balconies painted green, until they came to the end of the bridge that commands the main entrance to the tiny water-gird town. They plunged into it with childlike curiosity. In the rue de Pelligeau they stood in trance before the shopfronts of that wondrous thoroughfare, alive with the traffic and a vocational ox cart, a rusty one-horse omnibus labelled Cervice de Ville, and some prehistoric automobile wheezing by, a clattering in pertains. For there were shops in Brontôme of fair pretension. Is it not the Chef-Lieu de Kanton? And you could buy a article de Paris of most three years old. In the end there was a pharmacy internationale, so-called because there you could obtain pierce soap and Eno's fruit-salt, and a draper's, wherever exposed for sale, frilleries which struck Martin as marvellous, but of which Corinna curved a supercidious lip. At a shop ambitiously belazened behind whose blighted glass windows could be seen a porcelain bathtub and other adjuncts of the luxurious bathroom, on one of which sole occupant of the establishment, a little pigtailed girl was seated eating from a porringer on her knees. And there were all kinds of other shops, including one which sold cabbages and salcifies and charcoal and petrol and picture-postcards and Rustianne and vintage eggs and guano and all manner of fantastic dirt. And there was the Librarida d'Odoinia, which smiled at you when you asked for devotional pictures or tintaks, but gasped when you demanded books. And Corinna, however, demanded them with British insensibility, and marched away with an armful of cheap reprints of French classics, disinter from a tomb beneath the counter. But before they went, Martin asked, But have you nothing new? Nothing from Paris that had just appeared? Vassis, monsieur! replied the elderly proprietors of the Librarida d'Odoinia, plucking a volume from a speckled shelf at the back of the shop. On truffe ça, très joie-lis! And she had him Le Mithre-de-Forge, by Georges Oné. But this, madam, said Martin, examining the venerable unsolved copy, was published in 1882. I regret, monsieur, said the lady. We have nothing more recent. I'll buy it if it breaks me as a curiosity, cried Corinna. And she counted out two francs, seventy-five saunty. Ninety-five, said the bookseller. But he was speckled and dusty and colourless like the back of her library. But in Paris, in Paris it is different by ma zone, we are here en Provence. Corinna added the extra two pence, and went out with Martin, grasping her prize. This is the deliciousest place in the world, she laughed. 1882! Why, that's years before I was born! What on earth are we going to do for books here? Martin asked anxiously. There's always the railway station, said Corinna, and if you kiss the old lady at the bookstore nicely she will get you anything you want. The ways of Provincial France, said Martin, take a good deal of finding out. Thus began their first day in Brontaume. It ended peacefully. Another day passed, and yet another, and many more, and they lived in Lotusland. Soon after their arrival came their luggage from Paris, and they were enabled to change the aspect of the road-worn vagabond for that of neat suburban English folk, and as such gained the approbation of the small community. They had little else to do but continue to repeat their exploration. In their unadventurous wanderings, Feliz sometimes accompanied them, and shyly spoke her halting English. To Corinna alone she could chatter with quaint ungrammatical fluency, but in Martin's presence she blushed confusedly at every broken sentence. All her young life she had lived in her mother's land and spoken her mother's tongue. She had a vague notion that legally she was English, and she took mighty pride in it, but by training and mental habit she was the little French bourgeois through and through. With Martin alone, however, she abandoned all attempts at English, and gradually her shyness disappeared. She gave the first signs of confidence by speaking of her mother in Paris as of a dream-woman of wonderful excellences. �You see her off to Mamazal?� Martin asked politely. �Alas nom, monsieur Martin� she shook her head sadly and gazed into the distance. They were idling on one of the bridges, while Corinna a few feet away made a rapid sketch. �But your father? Ah, yes, he comes four times a year. It is not that I do not love him, j'adore papa. Everyone does. You cannot help it. But it is not the same thing. Her mother? �I know, Mamazal� said Martin. My mother died a few months ago. She looked at him with quick tenderness. �That must have caused you much pain.� �Yes, Mamazal� said Martin simply, and he smiled for the first time into her eyes, realizing quite suddenly that beneath them lay deep wells of sympathy and understanding. �Perhaps one of these days you will let me talk to you about her,� he added. She flushed. �Why, yes, talking relieves the heart.� She used the French word Soulage, that word of deep-mild comfort. �It does. And your mother, Mamazal, feliz? She cannot walk,� she sighed. �All these years she�s been on her bed ever since I left her when I was quite little, and so you see she cannot come to see me.� �But you might go to Paris.� �We do not travel much in Brontôme,� replied Feliz. �Then you have not seen her.� �No, but I remember her. She was so beautiful and so tender she had chestnut hair. My father says she has not changed at all, and she writes me every week, Miss Yamata. And there she lies, day after day, always suffering, but always sweet and patient and never complaining. She is an angel. After a little pause she raised her face to him. �But here I am talking of my mother when you ask me to let you talk of yours.� So Martin then, and on many occasions afterwards, spoke to her of one that was dead more intimately than he could speak to Carina, who seemed impatient of the expression of simple emotions. Carina he would never have allowed to see tears coming into his eyes, but with Feliz it did not matter. Her own eyes filled too in sympathy. And this was the beginning of a quiet understanding between them. Perhaps it might have been the beginning of something deeper on Martin's side, had not begun on taking an early opportunity of expounding certain matrimonial schemes of his own with regard to Feliz. �It had all been arranged,� said he, �many years ago. His good-neighbour, Monsieur Vidiot, Marchand-Devin, est-ce qu'il y a-g-o? Oh, a man, everything there was of the most solid, had an only son. And he, Bigoda, had an only niece, for whom he had set aside a substantial diary, a hundred thousand francs. There were not many girls in Brontôme who could hide as much as that in their bridal veils. It was the most natural thing in the world that Lucien should marry Feliz, ne, more, an ordinance of the bondure. Lucien had been absent some time during his military service. That would soon be over. He would enter in his father's business. The formal demand in marriage would be made, and they would celebrate the fiancée-le before the end of the year. �Does, mademoiselle Feliz, care for Lucien?� asked Martin. Bigoda shrugged his mountainous shoulders. �He does not displease her. What more do we want?� �She is a good little girl, and knows that she can entrust her happiness to my hands. And Lucien is a capital fellow. They will be very happy.� Thus he warned a sensitive Martin off the landering paths, and, with his French adroitness, separated youth and maiden as much as possible. This was not difficult. You see, Feliz acted as manageress in the Hôtel de Grotte, and her activities were innumerable. There was the kitchen to be ruled, an eye to be kept on the handle of the basket. If it danced too much, according to the French phrase, the cook was excelling a commission of a sue in the Frank. There were the bedrooms and clean dry linen to be seen to, and the doings of Polydor, the unclean, and of Baptiste, the haphazard, to be watched. There were daily bills to be made out, a cunt to be balanced, in patient bagment to be cajoled or rebuked, orders for pâté de foie gras and truffles to be dispatched. The Hôtel de Grotte had a famous manufacturing of these delights, and during autumn and winter supported a hive of workers, and the shelves of the cool storeroom were filled with appetizing jars. And then the laundry and the mending and the polishing of the famous bathroom. Muffoir, there was enough to keep one small manageress busy. Like a bon or délier, Begarder himself supervised all these important matters, ordering and controlling as an administrator, but Felise was the executive. And like an obedient and happy little executive, Felise did not notice a subtle increase in her duties. Nor did Martin, honest soul, in whose eyes a betrothed maiden was as sacred as a married woman, remark any change in facilities of intercourse. For him she flashed a gracious figure across the half-real tapestry of his present life. A kindly word, a smiling glance on passing, sufficed for the maintenance of his pleasant understanding with Felise. For feminine companionship of a stimulating kind there was always Carina. For masculine society he had Begarder and his cronies of the Café de l'Univers, to whom he was introduced in his professorial dignity. He was there at the café table in the midst of the notables of the little town, that he learned many things either undreamed of or uncared for during his narrow life at Margette's Universal College. It startled him to find himself in the company of men passionately patriotic. In the two, as an Englishman living remote from continental thought, he had taken patriotism for granted. His interest in politics had been mild and parochial. He had adopted a vague conservative outlook, to most likely to antipathy to his democratic Swiss relatives, who sent eight pounds to the relief of his impoverished mother, and to a nervous shrinking from democracy in general as represented by his pupils. But in this backwater of the world he encountered a political spirit intensely alive. Vital principles formed the subject of easy, yet stern, discussion. Beneath the calm of peaceful commerce and agriculture he felt the pulse of France throbbing in fierce determination to maintain her national existence. Every man had been a soldier. Some of the elders had fought in 1870, and those who had grown-up sons were the fathers of soldiers. Martin realized that whereas in England, in time of peace, the private soldier was tolerated as a picturesque, good-natured harem-skerrem sort of fellow, the picou-pure in France was an object of universal affection. The army was woven into the whole web of French life. It permeated the whole of French thought. It coloured the whole of French sentiment. It was not a machine of blood and iron, as in Germany, but the sole sacrifice of a nation. Vive la France meant vive l'armée, and that mere expression, Vive la France, how often had he heard it during his short sojourn in the country. He cuddled his brain to remember when he had heard a corresponding cry in England. It seemed to him that there was none. There was no need for one. England would live as long as the sea girded her shores and Britannia ruled the waves. We did not trouble our English heads any further. But in France conditions are different. From the Vorge to the Bay of Biscay, from Calais to the Mediterranean, every stroke on a crop anvil reverberated through France. Sovereign, when no one knows, said the comfortable citizens, but it is coming sooner or later, and then we shed the last drop of our blood. We are prepared. We have learned our lesson. There will never be another sedan. They said it soberly, like men whose eyes were set on an implacable foe. Amartin knew that through the length and breadth of the land comfortable citizens held the same sober and stern discourse. Every inch of French soil was dear to these men, and to guard it they would shed the last drop of their blood. Coroner informed of these conversations, said lightly, You haven't lived among them as long as I have. It's just their gallic way of talking. But Amartin knew better. His horizons were expanding. He began, too, to conceive a curious love for the country so earnest whose speech was the first that he had spoken. He had a vague impression that he was learning to live a corporate instead of an individual life. When he tried to interpret these feelings to Carina, she cried out upon him, To hear you talk one would think you hadn't any English blood. Isn't England good enough for you? It's because I'm beginning to understand France that I'm beginning to understand England, he replied in his grave way. Like practicing on the maid before you dare make love to the mistress. Very possibly, said he, digging the blunt end of his fork into the coarse salt there at lunch. To put it another way, if you learn Latin, you learn the structure of all languages. What a wicked of schoolmaster's simile, she remarked sconfully. He flushed. I'm no longer a schoolmaster, said he. Since when? Since I came here. Do you mean to say you're not going back to it? He paused, before replying to the sudden question which accidentally occasioned. To himself he put it many times of late, but a hitherto had evaded a definite answer. Now with a thrill he looked at her. Never, said he. She lay down her knife and fork and stared at him. Was he, after all, taking this full journey seriously? To her it had been a reckless adventure up a stolen trip into Lotusland, with the knowledge of an inevitable return to common earth, eating into her heart. Even now she dreaded to ask how much of her twenty pounds had been spent. But she knew that the day of doom was approaching. She could not live without money, neither could he. What do you propose to do for a living? God knows, said he. I don't. Anyhow the squirrel has escaped from his cage and he's not going back to it. What's he going to do? Sit on a tree and eat nuts? Oh, my dear Martin! There are worst fates," he replied, answering her laughter with a smile. At any rate he has God's free universe all around him. That's all very well, but analogous of futile. You aren't a squirrel, and you can't live on acorns and east wind. You must live on bread and beef. How are you going to get them? I'll get them somehow," said he. I'm waiting for Fort Imbras. To this determination had he come after three weeks' resident in Brontorne. The poor spirited drudge had drunk of the waters of life and was a drudge no more. He had passed into another world. Far remote as down the cloudy vista of Long Memory he saw the bare, hopeless classroom and the pale, pinched faces of the students. All that belonged to a vague past. It had no concern with the present or the future. How he had arrived at this state of being he could not tell. The chain had been wrought little by little, day by day. The ten years of his servitude had been blocked out. He had the thrilling sense of starting life afresh at thirty, as he had started it, a boy of twenty. There was so much more in the open world than he had dreamed of. If the worst came to the worst he could go forth into it, knapsack on shoulders, and seek his fortune. And every step he took were carrying him further from Marggett's universal college. When is that fraud of a Marshal de Bonheur coming? Carina cried impatiently. She put the question to be gone down the next time she met him alone, which was after the meal on the terrace. He could not tell. Perhaps to-night, to-morrow, the week after next, Fort Imbras came and went like the wind, without warning. Did Mamboiselle Corryn desire his apprival so much? I should like to see him here before I go. Before you go you are leaving us, Mamboiselle? She laughed at his look of dismay. I can't stay idling here for ever. But you have been here no time at all, said he. Just a little bird that comes and perches on this balustrade, looks this side and that side out of its bright eyes, and then flies away. We say come, sir, said Carina. Voila! He sighed and turned to throw his broad-brimmed hat on a neighbouring table. That's the worst of our infamous trade of hotel-keeping. You meet sincere and candid souls whose friendship you crave. But before you have time to win it, away they go, like the little bird, for ever and ever out of your life. But you have won my friendship, Monsieur Bigaudin, said Carina, with rising colour. You are very great, as Mamboiselle Carine. But why take it from me as soon as it is given? I don't, she reported. I shall always remember you and your kindness. Ha-ha-ha! You know I say, tut-pas, tut-kas, tut-las. It is the way of the world, the way of humanity. We say that we will remember. But other things come to dim memory, to blunt sentiment. Or far we forget, not because we want to, but because we must. If we must, laughed Grinna, you'll forget our friendship, too, so we'll be quits. Never, Mamboiselle, he cried illogically. Your friendship will always be precious to me. You came into this dollhouse with your youth, your freshness, your wit and your charm. Different from the ordinary hotel guests you have joined my little intimate family life. Felice, for example, adores you. Were it not for her mother, you would be her ideal. And I? And you, M. B. Godin? Her voice had the flat sound of a wooden mallet striking a peg. The huge man bowed with considerable dignity. I shall miscerably all that you have brought into this house, Mamboiselle." Grinna relaxed into a mocking smile. Fortinbras warned us that you were a poet, M. B. Godin. Every honest man whose eyes can see the beautiful things of life must be a poet of a kind. It is not necessary to scribble the verses. But do you? Do you write verse? Jamais de la vie, he did learn startlet. An hotelier like me counts syllables on his fingers. Ah! No! I can make X and batté de foie gras, and no one better in Périgaux. But I should make execrable verses. Ah! Voyons donc! He laughed, lustily, and Grinna laughed, too. A Martin, appearing on the veranda, asked and learned the reason of their mirth. After a word or two their host left them, fanning himself with his great hat. What on earth brought you here, Sir Grinna? I was having the flirtation of my life. CHAPTER VI A week passed, and Fortenbrass did not come. Grinna wrote to him. He replied, Have patience, cultivate Martin's sense of humour, and make Felice give you lessons in domestic economy. The cock might instruct you in the various processes whereby eggs are rendered edible, and you might also learn how to launder clothes without disaster to flesh or linen. I am afraid you are wasting your time. Remember, you are not like Martin, who needs this rest to get his soul into proper condition. I will come wither my heart draws me, for I yearn to see my little Felice, as soon as I am allowed to do so by my manifold applications and responsibilities. Grinna, in a fury, handed the letter to Martin and asked him what he thought of it. He replied that in his opinion Fortenbrass gave excellent advice. Grinna declared Fortenbrass to be an overbearing and sarcastic pig, and rated Martin for standing by and seeing her insulted. You gave him five francs for putting you on the road to happiness, he replied. He has done his best and seems to keep on doing it, without extra charge. I think you ought to be grateful. His suggestions are full of sense. Confound his suggestions! cried Grinna. I think our friend Big Gorda would be pleased if you followed them. I don't see what our friend Big Gorda has to do with it. He would give you all the help he could, and a Frenchman likes a woman to know how to do things. I won't wash clothes," said Grinna defiantly. You might rise superior to a brand of soap," retorted Martin. She turned her back on him and went her way. His gross sense of humour required no cultivation. It was a poisonous weed. And what did he mean by dragging in Big Gorda? She would never speak to Martin again after his disgraceful innuendo. It took the flavour from the sympathetic relations that had been set up between her host and herself during the past week. A twinge of conscience exacerbated her anger against Martin. She certainly had encouraged Big Gorda to fuller professions of friendship than is usual between landlord and guest. The fresh flowers he had laid by her plate at every meal she wore in her dress. Only the night before she had ever so delicately hinted that Martin was capable of visiting the Café de l'Univière without a bear-leader, and the huge and poetical man had sat with her in the moonlight, and in terms of picturesque philosophy had exposed to her the barren loneliness of his soul. She had enjoyed the evening prodigiously, and was looking forward to other evenings equally exhilarating. Now Martin had spoiled it all. She called Martin names that would have shocked Mrs. Hastings and caused her father to mention to her specially during family prayers. Then she defended herself proudly. Who was there to talk to in that nowhere of a place? The conversation of fellies stimulated as much as that of a ten-year-old child. Martin she had sucked dry as a bone during their seven weeks' companionship. He of course could hobnob with men at the Café. He also picked up a curious assortment of acquaintance, male and female, in the town, and acquired a knack of conversing with them. A day or two ago she had come upon him in one of the rock dwellings discussing politics with a desperate villain who worked in the freestone quarries, while the frowsy mistress of the house lavished on him smiles and the horrible grey wine of the country which he drank out of a bowl. She, Corinna, had no Café, nor could she find anything in common with desperadoes of quarrymen and their frowsy wives, to enter their house, savoured of district visiting a philanthropic practice which she abhorred with all the abhorrence of a Parsons rebellious daughter. Where was she to look for satisfying human intercourse? She knew enough of the French middle-class manners and customs to be aware that she might live in Blontôme a thousand years before one lady would call on her, a mere question of social code as to which she had no cause for resentment. But she craved the stimulus, the given take of talk, such as had been her daily food in Paris for the last three years. Huge, not at all commonplace, but somewhat of an enigma, Bigode a lumbered on to her horizon. His first-hand knowledge of men and things was confined to Blontôme and Lyon. But with that knowledge he had pierced deep and wide. He had read little, but astonishingly. He had a grasp of European, even of English, internal affairs, the disconcerty of Lycorina, who airily set out to expound to him the elements of world politics. Two phases of French poetry formed an essential factor of his international life, the fifteenth-century Amorists and the later Romanticists. He could quote Victor Hugo, Alfred de Mousse, Theodore de Banville by the mile. When stirred he had in his voice disquarting tones. He recited the Chanson de Fortunio and the Chanson de Barbarine in the moonlight, and Corinna caught her breath and felt a shiver down her spine. It was a new sensation for Corinna to feel shivers down her spine at the sound of a man's voice. Mais j'ai entr'o pour que je dis qui je z'aime et je veux mourir pour m'amie sans la nommer. She went to bed with the words singing in her ears like music. Altogether it was much more comforting to talk to Bigode than to take lessons in household management from Phillies. At last the day came when she plucked up courage and demanded of Martin an account of his stewardship. He tried to evade the task by flourishing in her face a bundle of notes. They had heaps said he to go on with. But Corinna pressed her into quarry with feminine insistence. Had he kept any memoranda of expenditure? Of course methodical Martin had done so. Where was it? Unlucktantly he drew a soiled notebook from his pocket, and side by side at a little table on the veranda, her fair hair brushing his dark cheek. They added up the figures, and apportioned and divided, and eventually struck the balance. Corinna was one frank seventy-five sawn team in Martin's debt. She had not one penny in the world. She had one frank seventy-five sawn teams less than nothing. She rose, white-lipped. He ought to have told me. Why, asked Martin, there's plenty of money in the common stock. There never was any such thing as a common stock. I thought there was, said Martin. I thought we had arranged it with Fortenbrass. Anyway, there's one now. There isn't, she cried indignantly, do you suppose I'm going to live on your money? What kind of a girl do you take me for? An unconventional one, said Martin. It's not dishonorable. To assert my freedom and live by myself in Paris and run about France alone with you may be unconventional, but for a girl to accept support from a man when she gives him nothing in return is a different thing altogether. They argued for some time, and at the end of the argument neither was convinced. She up-braided, Martin ought to have struck a daily balance. He continued to put forward the plea of the common stock to which she had apparently given her tacit agreement. Well, well, said Martin at last, there's no dishonoring alone. You can give me an IOU. That's a legal document. But how do you suppose I'm ever going to pay you? That, my dear Carina, said he, is a matter which doesn't interest me in the least. She turned on him furiously. Do you know what you are? Would you like me to tell you you're the most utterly selfish man in the wide, wide world? I offer, said he in effect, to share my last penny in all honour and comradeship with the young person of the opposite sex whom I have always treated with the utmost delicacy, who is absolutely nothing to me, who would scoff at the idea of marrying me, and whom I would no more think of marrying than a fifth of November box of fireworks, who has heaped on me all sorts of contumelious epithets. I offer, I repeat, to divide my last crust with her, and she calls me selfish. Eternal hills resolve the problem, but the hills enfolder themselves majestically in their autumn purple, and deign to no answer to the little questionings of man. Unsuccessful he strolled through the dining-room and vestibule, and at the hotel entrance came upon the ramshackle hotel omnibus, and the grey, raw-boned omnibus horse, standing unattended and forlorn. To pass the time the latter shivered occasionally in order to jingle the bells on his collar and scatter the magenta fly-wisk hung between his eyes. Martin went up and patted his soft muzzle, and put to him the riddle. But the old horse, who naturally thought that these overtures herited a supply of bodily sustenance, and, in good faith, had assayed an expected nibble, at last jucked his head indignantly, and refused to concern himself with such insane speculation. Martin was struck by the indifferent attitude of hills and horses towards the queer vagaries of the human female. Then, from the doorway, salad forth a flushed coroner, booted and spurred for a venture. I need not tell you that a woman's boots and spurs are on her head and not on her feet. Coroner wore the little hat with the defiant pheasant feather which she had not put on since her last night in Paris. A spot of red burned angrily on each cheek. Martin, accustomed to ask, Where are you going, was on the point of putting the mechanical question when he was checked by one of her hard glances. Obviously she would have nothing to do with him. She passed him by and walked down the hill at a brisk pace. Martin watched her retreating figure until a turn in the road hid it from his view, and then, retiring to the house, went up to his room and buried himself in Montaigne, to which genial author it may be remembered he had been recommended by Fortinbras. They did not meet until dinner when she greeted him all smiles. She apologised for wavered temper and graciously offered, should she need money, to accept a small loan for a short period. What her errand had been when she set forth in her defiant hat she did not inform him. She shrewdly surmised she had gone to the post to telegraph in the town, but he was within a million miles of guessing that she dispatched a telegram to Bordeaux. The meal begun under these fair auspices was enlivened by a final act of depravity on the part of the debauched waiter Polydor. He had, of late, given more than usual dissatisfaction, to the point of being replaced by the chambermaid and feliz when fashionable motordome halted at the Hotel des Grott. Martin himself, beholding through the terrasse doorway Philly's struggling around a large party of belated and hungry Americans, came to her assistance and lent an amused hand. The guests, taking him for a deputy landlord, explained their needs in bad French. Philly's thanked him in blushing confusion, while Bigorda, as he had done a hundred times before, gave a weak's notice to Polydor, who, acting scullion, was breaking plates and dishes with drunken persistency. And now the truth is out as regards Polydor. With the sins of sloth, ignorance, and uncleanliness he combined the sin of drunkenness. Polydor was nearly always fuddled. Yet because of the ties of blood, the foster-sisterdom of respective grandmothers, Bigorda had submitted to his inefficiency. Once more he revoked the edict of dismissal. Once more Polydor kept sober for a few days. Even once more he backslided. And he backslided irretrievably this night at dinner. All went fairly well at first. It was a slack night. Only three commis voyageurs sat at the long-table, and thus there were only seven persons on whom to attend. It is true that his eye was somewhat glazed and his hand somewhat unsteady, but under the awful searchlight of Bigorda's glance he nerfed himself to his task. Soup and fish have been served satisfactorily. Then came a long, long wait. Presently Polydor reeled in. As he passed by Bigorda's table he held up the finger of her dirty hand bound with a dripping, bloody rag. "'About all, je me suis coupé le droit,' he annunced thickly, and made a beeline to Corinna with the ostensible purpose of removing her plate. But just as he reached her, the extra dram that he must have taken to fortify himself against the shock of his wound took full effect. He staggered, and in order to save himself, clutched wildly at Corinna, leaving on her bare neck his disgusting sanguine imprint. She uttered a sharp cry, and simultaneously Bigorda uttered a roar, and, rushing across the room, in a second, had picked up on the unhappy violet in his giant arms. "'Ah, cochon!' he called in the most dreadful names, shaking him as Alice shook the Red Queen. "'Ah, voila, la fin! I will teach you to dare to spread your infamous blood. I will break your bones. I will crush your scowl, so that you'll never set foot here again. Ah, triple cochon!' A flaming picture of gigantic wrath, he swept with him to the door whence he hurled him bodily forth. There was a dull thud. And that, as far as the three commercial travellers, standing agape with their napkins at their throats, Corinna, Martin, Felice and Bigorda were concerned, was the end of Polydor. Bigorda, with an agility surprising in so a huge a man, was in an instant by Corinna's side, with finger-ball full of water and a clean napkin. And myself at such a bestial personage should have dared to sole your purity with his uncleanness, makes me mad, makes me capable of assassinating him, but made me to remove his abominable contamination. "'Let me do it, mon angler,' said Felice, who had run across. But Bigorda waved her aside, and with reverent touch, as though she were a goddess, he cleansed Corinna. She underwent the operation in her cool way, and when it was over, smiled her thanks at Bigorda. "'Mummy's a godineur,' he cried, "'what can I say to you? What can I do for you? How can I repair such an outrage as you have suffered in my house? You have only to command, and everything I have is yours. Command! Insist ordain!' He spread his arms wide, an agony of appeal in his eyes. Martin, who had started to his feet in order to save Corinna from the grip of the intoxicated polidor, but had been anticipated by the impetuous rush of Bigorda, gazed for a moment or two at his host, and then gasped as his vision pierced into the huge man's soul. This perforate declaration was not the good ink-keeper's apology for a waiter's disgusting behaviour. It was the blazing indignation of a real man at the desecration inflicted by another on the body of the woman he loved. A shiver of comprehension of things he had never comprehended before swept through Martin from head to foot. He knew with absolute knowledge that should she rise, and with a nod of her head invite Bigorda to follow her to the veranda, she could be Mistress Absolute of Bigorda's destiny. He held his breath, for the first time in his dull life conscious of the meaning of love of women, conscious of eternal drama. He looked at Corinna, smiling with ironic curl of lip, up at the impassioned man, and he had an almost physical feeling within him, as though his heart sank like a stone. But a week ago she had declared with a vulgarity which she had not fought her capable, that she had had the flirtation of her life with Bigorda. She must have known then, she must know now, that the man was in soul-strung earnest. What was her attitude to the major things of life? His brain worked swiftly. If in her middle-class English snobbery she despised the French ink-keeper, why did she admit him to her social plain on which alone flirtation, yet a sensitive gentleman's horror of the world, was possible? If she accepted him as a social equal, recognising in him as he, Martin, recognised all that was vital in modern France, if she accepted him, woman-accepting man, why that infernal smile on her pretty face? I must give you to understand that Martin knew nothing whatever about women. His ignorance placed him in this dilemma. He watched Corinna's lips eager to hear about words which issue from them. She said coolly, So long as this really is the end of Polydor, honour is satisfied. Bigorda stiffened under her gaze and, collecting himself, bowed formally. Rise to that, Mambouzel, said he, I give you my absolute assurance. He turned to the commercial travellers. Monsieur, I ask your pardon, you will not have to wait any longer. Viens, fillies! And landlord and niece took Polydor's place for the rest of the meal. Bigorda's a splendid fellow, said Martin. Elbow on table, she held a morsel of bread to her lips. He waits so well, doesn't he? she said. He shrugged his shoulders. What was the use of arguing with a being with totally different standards and conception of values? Some little wisdom he was beginning to acquire. He spent the evening at the Café de Perigot with Bigorda, who, with an unwanted cloud on his brow, abused the government in atrabiliar terms. The next morning, Carina, a tired in her daintiest, wandered off to sketch lonely and demure. At Dejeuner, she made a pretence of eating, and entertained Martin with uninteresting, and to him, unintelligible criticism of Parisian actors. Bigorda passed her memory to two of professional commonplace at the table, and retired. An inexperienced young woman of the town, with the chambermaid's assistance, replaced the villain of last night's tragedy. Carina continued her hectic conversation, and took little account of Martin's casual remarks. A mind even less subtle than her companions would have assigned some nervous disturbance as a reason for such feverish behaviour. But of what nature the disturbance? Vaguely he associated it with the sun-defied raiment. Could it be that she intended, without drum or trumpet, to fly from Brantorne? "'By the way, Martin,' she said suddenly, when the last wisened grape had been eaten, have you ever taken those snapshops of the chateau at Boudoye?' "'I'm afraid I haven't,' said he. "'You promise to get them for me?' "'I'll go over with my camera one of these days,' said Martin. "'That means au calon grec. Why not this beautiful afternoon?' "'If you'll come with me.' "'I've rather a headache, or I would,' said Carina. "'As it is, I think I'll have to lie down. But you go. It would do you good.' "'Aha!' thought Martin astutely. She wants to get rid of me, so that she can escape by the afternoon train to Paris. "'Allowed,' he said. "'I'll go to-morrow.' "'Why not today?' "'I don't feel like it,' said he. Not for the first time she struck an obstinate seam in Martin. He turned a deaf ear both to her cajolings and her reproaches. To some degree he thought himself responsible for Carina, as a man must do who acts as escort or what you will to an attractive and penniless young woman. If she had decided to rush home to England it was certainly his duty to make commodities arrangements for her journey. "'I'm going to loaf about today,' he announced. "'Like the selfish pig you always are,' said Carina. "'Come to-vot,' said Martin cheerfully. "'Can't you see I want you to go away for the afternoon?' said Carina, angry. "'Any idiot could see that,' replied Martin. "'Then why don't you?' "'I want to keep an eye on you.' She flushed a scarlet and rose from the table. "'All right. Spire as much as you like. It doesn't matter to me.' Once more she left him with a dramatic whirl of skirts. The procedure having become monotonous impressed Martin less than on previous occasions. He even smiled at the conscious smile of sagacity. "'There was something up,' he reflected with Carina, or he would eat his hat. She contemplated some idiotic action—of that there could be no doubt. It behoved him as the only protector she had in the world to mount guard. He mounted guard, therefore, over cigarette and coffee in the vestibule of the hotel, and for some time held entertaining converse with Bigorda on the decadence of Germanic culture. And while Martin was expounding the futile vulgarity of the spectacle of Sumerum, which on one of his rare visits to places of amusement he had witnessed in London, the word of Carina's enigma was suddenly and dusterly flashed upon him. Some a dusted two-seater car that drew up noisily at the door sprung a duster youth with a reddish face and a little black moustache. "'There is mademoiselle Hastings in the hotel,' he asked. "'There is, monsieur,' said Bigorda. "'Will you kindly let her know that I am here? Monsieur Carmel Fago.' "'Monsieur Fago,' repeated Bogorda. "'Mademoiselle Hastings expects me,' said the young man. "'A bien, monsieur,' said Bigorda. He retired, his duty as a good ink-keeper compelling him. Martin, comfortable in his cane-chair, lit another cigarette, and with dispassionate criticism, inspected Monsieur Carmel Fago, who stood in the doorway his back to the vestibule, frowning resentfully on the little car. This, then, was the word of Carina's enigma. To summon him by telegraph had been the object of her sortie in the hat with the pheasant's plume. To welcome him had been the reason of her festive garb. In order to hold unembarrassed converse she had tried to send Martin away to photograph Baudet. This, then, was the famous student in medicine who was supposed to have won Carina's heart. Martin, who had of late added mightily to his collection of remarkable men, thought him as commonplace a young student as he'd encountered since the far-off days of Marggette's Universal College. He seemed an indeterminate, fretful person. The kind of male over whom Carina, in her domineering way, would gallop and regallop until she had trembled the breath out of him. Being a kindly cell, he began to feel sorry for Camus Lofago. He was tempted to go up to the young fellow, lay a hand on his shoulder, and say, If you want a leader happily married life, my dear chap, drive straight back to Baudet and marry someone else. By doing so he would indutably contribute to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of human beings, and would rank among the philanthropists of his generation. But Martin still retained much of his timidity, and he also had a comradely feeling towards Carina. If she regarded this dusty and undistinguished young gentleman as the rock of her salvation, who was he, parlous himself to indicate any other rock of any kind, to offer objection? So, realising the absurdity of standing on guard against so insignificant a danger as Mr. Camus Lofago, student in medicine, and not desiring to disconcert Carina by his presence should she descend to the vestibule to meet her lover, he curtiously begged pardon of the frowning young man who blocked the doorway, and, passing by him, walked meditatively down the road. CHAPTER VII When Martin returned to the hotel a couple of hours later, he found that Mr. Camus Lofago had departed, and that Carina had entrenched herself in her room. On the way into the afternoon she sent words to any whom it might concern that, not being hungry, she would not come down for dinner. Two felices, anxious concerning her health, she denied access. Offers of comforting nourishment on a tray made on the outer side of the closed door, she curtly declined. Mystery enveloped the visit of Camus Lofago. Martin learned from a perturbed bigorda that she had descended immediately after he had left the vestibule, and had led Fargo at once into the Salon de Lecture, a moth-eaten and fusty cubby-hole in which commercial travellers who found morbid pleasure in the early stages of affixiation sometimes wrote their letters. There they had remained for some time, at the end of which Mr. Fargo, il avait l'air ébité, according to Baptiste, a witness of his excess, had issued forth alone, and jumped into his car and sped away, presumably to Bordeaux. After a moment or two, Mamois Elcorine in her turn had emerged from the Salon de Lecture, and, looking very haughty with her pretty head in the air, a game Baptiste, had mounted to her apartment. Those were the bare facts. Bigorda narrated them simply, in order to account for Corina's non-appearance at dinner. With admirable taste he forbore to question Martin as to the relations between the lady and her visitor. Nor did Martin enlighten him. An art student in Paris, like a Corina, must necessarily have a host of friends. What more natural than that one, finding himself in her neighbourhood, should make a passing call. Such was the tacit convention between Martin and Bigorda. But the breast of each harboured the conviction that the visit had not been a success of cordiality. Bigorda exhibited brighter spirits that night at the Café de l'Univers. He played his game of backgammon with Monsieur Le Maire and beat him exultantly. Around him the coterie cursed the Germans for forcing the three years' service on France. He paused, arm uplifted in the act of throwing the dives. Never mind, they seek it, they will get it. Vous l'avez voulu, George Duando. The bondeur is on our side, just as he's on mine in this battle here. Ah! The dice rattled out of the box, and they showed the number that declared him the winner. A great shout arised. The honnest burgesses cried, ''Miracle! Voyant! It was a sign from heaven to France. In hock, signe, vinquets,'' cried a professor at the Eucl Normale, and the sober company had another round of box to celebrate the augury. Martin and Bigorda walked home through the narrow, silent streets and over the bridges. There was a high wind sharpened by a breath of autumn, which ruffled the dim surface of the water, and never had a rack of cloud scudded a thwart of the stars. A light or two far up the gloomy score showed the hotel de grotte. Bigorda waved his hand in the darkness. ''It is beautiful all this,'' Martin dissented and buttoned up his overcoat. ''It is beautiful to me,'' said Bigorda, ''because it is my own country. I was born un bred hierre, and my forefathers before me. It is part of me like my legs and my arms. I don't say that I am beautiful myself,'' he added with a laugh, his French wit seeing where the logic would lead him. ''But you understand?'' ''Yes,'' said Martin, ''I can understand in a way. But I have no little corner of a country that I can call my own. I am not the son of any soil.' ''Périgord is very fruitful and motherly. She will adopt you,'' laughed Bigorda. ''But I am English of the English,'' replied Martin. Bigord would only adopt a Frenchman. ''I have heard it said, and I believe it to be true,'' said Bigorda, ''that every English artist has two countries, his own and France. And it is the artist who expresses the national feeling not of the university professors and philosophers. And all true men have in them something of the artistic, something which responds to the artistic appeal. I don't know if I make myself clear, Monsieur Marta. But you must confess that all the outside inspiration you get in England, in your art and your literature, is Latin. I say outside, for naturally you draw from your own and noble worlds. But for an earlier generation the fan esprit anglais in all its delicacy and all its subtlety and all its humanity is in every way sympathetic with the fan esprit français. Is not that true?'' Now I come to think of it, so, Martin, I suppose it is. I represent the more or less educated middle-class Englishman, and so far as I am aware of any influence on my life, everything outside of England that has moved me has been French. As far as I know, Germany has not produced one great work of art or literature during the last forty years. ''Voilà!'' cried Bigorda. How could a big of a country like that produce works of art? I have been to Berlin. But I have seen photographs of the Allée de Victoire. For sure it is terrible. It is sculpture hewn out by orders of the drill sergeant's cane. Ah, c'est-ce que du paix. But you others, you English. At last, after a hundred years of peace, you realize how bound you are to France. You realize, all the noble souls among you, that your language is half Latin. That for a thousand years, even before the Norman conquest, all your culture, all the sympathies of your poetry and your art are Roman and Greek, enfin, are Latin. Your wonderful cathedrals, Gothic. Do they get them from Teutonic barbarism? No. You get them from the Commissine masters, the little band of Latin spiritualists on the shores of Lake Como. I am an ignorant man, Monsieur Martin. But I have read a little, and I have much time to think, and voilà, those are my conclusions. In the great war that will come. It can't come in our time, said Martin. No. It will come in our time, and sooner than you expect. But when it does come, all that is noble and spiritual in England will be passionately French in its sympathies. Tiens mon ami. He planted himself at the corner of the dark uphill road that led to the hotel, and brought his great hands down on Martin's shoulders. You do not yet understand. You are a wonderful race, you English. But if you were pure Friesians like the Germans, you would not be where you are. Nor would you be if you were pure Latins. What has made you invincible is the interfusion since a thousand years of all that is best in Friesian and Latin. You emerge English after Chaucer. Saxon-born and Latin spirit. That is why, my friends, you hate all that is German. That is why you love now all that is French. And that is why we, nous autres Français, fear it last as England understands us, and is with us. Having thus analysed the psychology of the entente cordiale in terms which, proceeding from the lips of a small English innkeeper would have astounded Martin, the Godard released him, and together they mounted homewards. I was forgetting, said he, as he bade Martin good night. All of what I have said was to prove that if you were in need of a foster mother, Périgor would take you to her bosom. I'll think of it, smiled Martin. He thought of it for five minutes after he had gone to bed, and then fell fast asleep. Early in the morning he was awakened by a great thundering at his door. Convinced of catastrophe he leaped to his feet and opened. On the threshold of the Urbain figure a fort in brass confronted him. You, cried Martin, even I, having embraced fellies, breakfasties, washed and viewed pronto, proceeding to its daily labours, I thought it high time to arouse you from your unlock-like slumbers. Saying this, he passed Martin, and drew aside the curtains so that the morning light flooded the room. He was still attired in his sober black with the other way's white tie, which pulled the trace-shifters of an all-night journey. Then he sat down on the bed, while Martin, in pyjamas and barefoot, took up an irresolute position on the cold boards. I generally got up a bit later, said Martin with an air of apology. So I gathered from my excellent brother-in-law. Well, said Fortinbross, how are you fairing in Arcadia? Capitally, replied Martin, I've never felt so fit in my life. But I'm jolly glad you've come. You want another consultation? I'm ready to give you one, the usual fee, of course. Oh, not now. As Martin turned to the dressing-table, where lay a small heap of money, he raised a soft, arresting hand. The hour is too early for business, even in France. I have no doubt Coroner is equally anxious to consult me. How is she? Much the same as usual, said Martin. By which you would imply that she belongs to the present stubborn and stiff-necked generation of young English women. I hope you haven't suffered unduly. I—oh, Lord, no," Martin replied with a laugh. Coroner goes her way, and I go mine. Occasionally when there's only one way to go—well, it isn't hers. You've put your foot down? At any rate Coroner hasn't put her foot down on me. I think, said Martin, rubbing his thinly-clad sides meditatively, my journey with Coroner has not been without profit to myself. I've made a discovery. He paused. My dear young friend, said Fortebras, let me hear it. I found out that I needn't be trampled on unless I like. Fortebras passed his hand over his broad forehead and his silver mane, and regarded the young man acutely. Whatever possibilities you might have seen of a romantic attachment between the pair of derelicts no longer existed. Martin had taken cool measure of Coroner and was not in the least in love with her. The dealer in happiness smiled in his benevolent way. Although in your present ruffle and unshorn state you're not looking your best, you're a different man from my client of two months ago. Thanks to your advice, said Martin, my three-weeks journey put me into gorgeous health, and here I've been living in clover. And the environment has not seem to be unfavorable to model an intellectual development. Ha! That's big order on his friends, cried Martin. He's a splendid fellow of liberal education. He's an apostle of sanity, replied Fortebras with an approving nod. Meanwhile, sanity would not recommend your standing about in this chilly air with nothing on. I will converse with you while you dress. I'll have my tub at once, said Martin. He disappeared into the famous bathroom, and after a few moments returned and made his toilet while he gossiped with Fortebras of the things he'd learned of the Café de Lune there. It's a funny thing, said he, but I can't make Coroner see it. Oh! she's Parisianized, replied Fortebras. In Paris we see things in false perspective. All the little finicky people of the hour—artists, writers, politicians—are so close to us that they'd loom up like mountains. You learn more of France in a week at Bront-Torne than in a year at Paris, because there's nothing to confuse your sense of values. Happy young man to live in Bront-Torne! He sighed, and seeing that Martin was ready, Rose unaccompanied him downstairs. Therese, fresh and dainty, with heightened colour and gladness in her eyes due to the arrival of the adored father, poured out Martin's coffee. They were old-fashioned in the Hôtel des Grott, and drank coffee out of generous bowls without handles, besides which, on the plate, rested great spoons for such sops of bread as might be thrown therein. "'It is as you like it?' she asked in her pretty, clipped English. "'It's always the best coffee I've ever drunk,' smiled Martin. He looked up at Fortenbrass lounging in the wooden chair, usually occupied by Carina. "'Do you know, Mr. Fortenbrass, that Mamois of Therese has so spoilt me with the food and drink, that I shall never be able to face an English lodging-house meal again?' Fortenbrass passed his arm round his daughter's waist, and drew her to him affectionately. "'Now, she would spoil me, too, if she had the chance. It is astonishing what capability there is in this little body.' Feliz, yielding to the caress, touched her father's hair. "'It's like Mamois, when she was young, n'est-ce pas?' She spoke in French, which came more readily. "'Yes,' said Fortenbrass, in a deep voice, just like your mother. "'I try to resemble her. To say, every time I feel I am lazy or missing my duties, I think of Mamois, and I say, no, oh, not be unworthy of her. And so that gives me courage.' I've heard so much of Mrs. Fortenbrass have noted that I seem to know her intimately.' A smile of great tenderness and sadness crept into Fortenbrass's eyes as he turned them on his daughter. "'It is good that you still think and speak so much of her. Ideals keep the soul winged for flight. If it flies away into the Empyrean and comes to grief like Icarus and his later fellow pioneers in aviation, at least it has done something.' He released her, and she sped away on her duties. Presently she returned with a scared face. "'Monsieur Marta, what has happened? Here's Corinna going to leave us this morning.' "'Corinna going? Do she know I'm here?' asked Fortenbrass in wonderment. "'I don't know. I haven't seen her. I did not dream that she was up. She didn't really rise in so late. But she has told Baptiste to take down her boxes for the omnibus to catch the early train to her Paris. Monieu, what has happened to drive her away?' "'Perhaps the visit yesterday of Monsieur Camille de Fargo,' said Martin. "'Huh?' said Fortenbrass sharply. Then turned into Feliz. "'Go, my dear, and lay my humble homage at the feet of Mamma Zelle Corinna, and say that as I have traveled for nearly a day and a night in order to see her, I crave her courtesy so far as to defer her departure until I can have speech with her. You can also tell Baptiste that I'll break his neck if he touches those boxes.' The omnibus might also anticipate its usual hour of starting. Feliz departed. Fortenbrass lit a cigarette, and, holding it between his fingers, frowned at it. "'Camille de Fargo? What was that spawn of nothingness doing here?' "'I fancy she's sent for him,' said Martin. "'I suppose I'd better tell you all about it. I haven't as yet, but because it was none of my business.' "'Proceed,' said Fortenbrass, and Martin told him of the famous balance-striking, and of Corinna's subsequent behaviour, including last night's retirement into solitude after her mysterious interview with the spawn of nothingness.' "'Good,' said Fortenbrass, and Martin had finished. "'Very good. And what is my excellent brother-in-law to say to it?' "'Your excellent brother-in-law,' replied Martin with a smile, "'seems to be a very delicate-minded gentleman.' Fortenbrass did not press the subject. Waiting for Corinna they talked of casual things. Martin, now a creature of health and appetite, divide innumerable rolls and absorbed many bowls of coffee to the outspoken admiration of Fortenbrass. But still Corinna did not come. Then Martin filled a pipe of caporal, and, a smoky with gusto, told Fortenbrass more of what he had learned of the Café de l'Univers. He expressed his wonder of the people's lack of enthusiasm for their political leaders. "'The adventurer-politician is the curse of this country,' said Fortenbrass. "'He insinuates himself into every government. He's out for plunder, and his hand is at the throat of patriotic ministers, and he strangles France, while into his pocket through devious channels, filled as a fine stream of German gold.' "'I can't believe it,' cried Martin. "'Oh, he isn't a traitor in the sense of being suborned by a foreign power. He's far too subtle. But he knows what policy will affect the world's exchanges to his profit, and that policy he advocates.' "'A gangrene in the body-politic,' said Martin,' Fortenbrass nodded assent. "'It would only be the sword of war that will cut it out.' On this, in March to Carina, dressed for travel, with a little embroidered bag slung over her arm. She crossed the room, her head up, her chin in the air, defiant as usual, and shook hands with Fortenbrass. "'I've come as you asked,' she said, but let us be quick with the talking, as I've got to catch a train. Put it down,' said Fortenbrass, setting a chair for her. She obeyed, and there the three of them were sitting once more round a table in an empty dining-room. But this time it was a cloudy morning in early November, in the heart of France, the distant mountains across the town half veiled in mist, and a fine rain falling. Gusts of raw air came in through the open terrace window at the end of the room. "'So, my dear Carina,' said Fortenbrass, "'you have not waited for the second consultation, which was part of our program?' "'That's your fault, not mine,' said Carina. "'I expected you weeks ago.' "'And doubtless, but your expectation was no reason for my coming weeks ago. My undertaking, however, was a reason for your continuing to expect me, and being certain that sooner or later I should come.' "'All right,' said Carina. "'This is me at talk. What do you want with me?' "'To ask you, my dear Carina,' replied Fortenbrass in his persuasive tones. "'Why, you have disregarded my advice.' "'And what was your advice?' "'To do nothing headstrong, violent and lunatic, until we met again.' "'You should have come sooner. I find I am living now on Martin's charity, and the time has come to put all this rubbish aside and go home to my people with my tail between my legs. It's vastly pleasant, I assure you.' "'Oh, young woman of little faith, why did you not put your trust in me instead of in cano-medical students with ridiculous mothers?' Carina flushed crimson, and her eyes hardened in anger. "'I suppose every gossiping tongue in this horrid little hotel has been wagging. That's why I'm going off now, so that they can wag in my absence.' "'But, my dear Penthesilia,' said Fortenbrass soothingly, "'why get so angry? Every living soul in this horrid hotel is on your side. They would give their eyes and ears to help you and sympathise with you and show you that they love you.' "'I don't want their sympathy,' said Carina stubbornly. "'Or any human expression of affection or regret. You want just to pay your bill like any young woman in an automobile who has put up for the night, and go your way?' "'No, I don't, but I've been damnably treated, and I want to get away back to England.' "'Who has treated you damnably here?' asked Fortenbrass. "'Don't be idiotic,' cried Carina. "'Everybody here has been simply angelic to me, even Martin.' "'On the whole, I think I've behaved fairly decently, since we started out together,' Martin observed. "'At any rate, you've act according to the instincts of a gentleman,' she admitted. Fortenbrass leaned back in his chair and drew a breath of relief. "'I'm glad to perceive that this horrid departure is not an elopement.' "'Elopement?' she echoed. "'Do you think I'd?' Fortenbrass checked her with his uplifted hand. "'Would you like me to tell you in a few words everything that has happened?' He bent his intellectual brow upon her and held her with his patient, tarred eyes. Being at the end of your resources not designed to share in the vagabonds pool with Martin, and losing faith in my professional pledge, you bethink you of the young Popping-J with whom, in your independent English innocence, but to the scandal of his French relatives, you have flaunted it in the restaurants and theatres of Paris. Il vous a con de flourette. He has made his little love to you. All honour and no blame to him. At his age,' he bowed, I would have done the same. You correspond on the sentimental plane, but in all his correspondence you will find not one declaration in form.' Corinna mechanically peeled off her gloves. Fortenbrass drew a whiff of his cigarette. He continued, "'You think of him as a possible husband?' I'm frank, it is my profession to be so. But your heart,' he pointed dramatically to her bosom, "'has never had a flutter. You don't tonight? Good. In your extremity, as you think, you send him an urgent telegram, such as no man of human feeling could disregard. He borrows his cousin's husband's motor-car and obeys your summons. You interview him in yonder little fly-blown, suffocating cellar. You put your case before him, with no matter what feminine delicacy. He perceives that he is confronted with a claim for a demand in marriage.' He draws back. He cannot, by means of any quirk or quibble of French law, marry you without his parents' consent. This they would never give, having their own well-matured and irrefragable plans. Marriage is as impossible as immediate canonization. But, says he, we are both young. We love each other. We shall both be in the coutier for time indefinite.' Time is never indefinite, thank God, to you. Why should we not set up housekeeping together? I have enough for both, and let the future take care of itself.' Corona rose, and looked at him haggedly, and clutched him by the shoulder. How in the name of God do you know that? Who told you? Who overheard that little beast propose that I should go and live with him as his mistress? Fortenbrass patted the white-muckled hand, and smiled, as he looked up into her tense face. Do you suppose, my dear child, that I have been the father confessor of half the Rive-Gouge for twenty years, without knowing something of the ways of the Rive-Gouge? Without knowing something, not exactly of international, but say of multinational codes of social observance, morality, honour, and so forth, and how they clash, correspond, and interact? I know the two international forces, yours and Camila Fargo's, converging on the matrimonial point. And with simple certainty I tell you the resultant. It's like a schoolboy's exercise in mathematics. She freed herself, and sat down again dejectedly. Everything had happened as Fortenbrass declared. His only mission, to repair what she had not given him time, was the scene of flaming indignation instant to Camila Fargo's dismissal. And his psychology was correct. The young man's charming love-making had flattered her, had indeed awakened foolish hopes, but she never cared a button for him. Now she loathed him with a devastating hate. She thrummed with her fingers on the table. What is there left for me to do? Ah, now! said Fortenbrass, genially, where talking sends. Now we come to our famous second professional consultation. Go ahead, then, said Carina. I mentioned the word professional, Fortenbrass remarked. Martin laughed, and put a ten-franc piece into the soft open palm. I'll pay for both, said he. It's like having your fortune told at a fair, said Carina, but hurry up! She'd lanced her watch. As it is, I shall have time to pay my bill. Would you see after it? She drew from her bag one of the borrowed notes and threw it across to Martin. Well, I'm all attention. I can give you three minutes. But just then, a familiar sound of scrunching wheels came through the open doors of the vestibule and dining-room. She started. That's the omnibus going. The omnibus gone, said Fortenbrass. I'll miss my train. You will, said Fortenbrass. My luggage has gone with it. It has not, said Fortenbrass. I gave instructions that it should not be brought down. Carina gasped. Of all the cool impertinence! She looked at her watch again, and the beastly thing has started long before its time. At my request, said Fortenbrass. And now, as there is no possibility of your getting away from Brontôme for several hours, perhaps you might, with profit, abandon your attitude of indignation and listen to the voice of reason. By the way, said Martin, have you had your petit dos gennets? No, said Carina suddenly. Good God! cried Fortenbrass, holding up his hands, and they let women run about loose. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Of The Wonderful Year by William John Locke This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers Chapter 8 Carina, fortified by urgently summoned nourishment, lit a cigarette and sarcastically announced her readiness to listen to the oracle. The oracle bowed with his customary benevolence and spoke for a considerable time in florid, though unambiguous, terms. To say that Carina was surprised by the proposal which she set before her would inadequately express her indignant, stupid faction. She sat angry, with reddened cheekbones and tightly screwed lips, perfectly silent, letting the wretched man complete his amazing pronouncement before she could annihilate him. He was still pronouncing, however, when Bigordow appeared at the door. Fortenbrass broke off in the middle of a sentence and called him into the room. My good Gaspard, said he in French, for Bigordow knew little English. I am suggesting to Mamoiselle a scheme for her perfect happiness, of which I have reason to know you will approve. Sit down and join our conclave. I approve of everything in advance, said the huge man with a smile. Then I suppose you are aware of this delicious scheme, she asked. Not at all, said he, but I have boundless confidence in my brother-in-law. His idea is that I have to enter your employment as a kind of forewoman in your fabric. But that is famous, explained Bigordow with a sparkle in his eyes. He could only enter into that wise-haired yonder. The trade is getting beyond Felice and myself. Sooner or later I must get someone, a woman, to take charge of the manufacturing department. I have told Daniel my difficulties, and he comes now with his magnificent solution. He beamed all over his honest face. You would have to learn the business from the beginning, said Fortinbras quickly. That would be easy, as you would have willing instructors, and as you are not deficient in ordinary intelligence. You would rise every day in self-esteem and dignity, and at last find yourself of use in the social organism. You propose, then, to Carina, restraining the anheliatry of outbursts owing to Bigordow's presence and shaking with suppressed wrath, you propose, then, that I should spend the life that God has given me in making paté de foie gras. Better that than to spend it in making bad pictures, or a fool of yourself. I have given up painting, Carina replied, and every woman makes a fool of herself, hence the perpetuation of the human species. In your case, my dear Carina, said Fortinbras, that would be commendable folly. You're insulting, she cried, her cheeks aflame. Dear, dear, said Bigordow, laying his great hand on his brother-in-law's arm. But Fortinbras stroked back his white mane, and regarded them both with leonine serenity. To meet a cynical jive with a retort implying that marriage and motherhood are women's commendable lot cannot be regarded as an insult, Carina scoffed. How do you manage to do it? Do what? Talk like that. By means of an education not entirely rudimentary, replied Fortinbras in his blandest tone, in the meanwhile you have replied to my suggestion. Once you said you would like to take life by the throat and choke something big out of it. You still want to do it, but you can't. You know you can't, my dear Carina. Even the people that can perform this grotting feet squeeze precious little happiness out of it. Happiness comes to mortals through the most subtle channels. I suggest it might come to you through the liver of an overfed goose. And Carina's outburst, Bigordow's sunny face, had clouded over. Mum was ill, Carina, said he earnestly. If you would deign to accept such a position, which after all has in it nothing dishonorable, I assure you from my heart that you will be treated with all esteem and loyalty. The man's perfect courtesy disarmed her. Of course she was still indignant with Fortinbras. The she, Carina Hastings, last type of emancipated English womanhood, bent on the expression of a highly important self, should calmly be counseled to bury herself in a stuffy little French town and become a sort of housekeeper in a shabby little French hotel. The suggestion was preposterous, an outrage to the highly important self, regulating a thing of no account. Why not turn her into a chambermaid or a goose-herd at once? The contemptuous assumption fired her off. She was furious with Fortinbras. But Bigordow, who treated the subject from the point of view of one who asked her favour, deserved a civil answer. Moise Bigordow, she said, with a becoming air of dignity tempered by a pitying smile. I know that you are everything to this kind, and I thank you most sincerely for your offer. But for private reasons it is one that I cannot accept. You must forgive me if I return to England where my duty calls me. Your duty to whom? asked Fortinbras. She petrified him with a glance. To myself, she replied. In that case there's nothing more to be said, remarked Bigordow indismally. There's everything to be said to tear Fortinbras. But it's not worthwhile saying it. Corinna rose and gathered up her gloves. I'm glad you realise the fact. Bigordow rose too and detained her for a second. If you would do me the honour of accepting our hospitality for just a day or two, delicately he included Feliz as hostess. Perhaps you might be induced to reconsider your decision. But she was not to be moved. Even by Martin, who, having smoked the pipe of discreet silence during the discussion, begged her to postpone her departure. Anyhow wait, said he, until our good counselor tells us what he proposes to do for me. As we started in together it's only fair. Yes, said Corinna, that is here. What ordonance to bond her have you for Martin? Are you very anxious to know? asked Fortinbras. Naturally, said Martin, and he added hastily in English, being somewhat shy of revealing himself to Bigordow. Corinna can tell you that I've been loyal to you all through. I've had a sort of blind confidence in you. I've chucked everything. But I'm nearly at the end of my financial tether and something must happen. So do it, said Fortinbras. Says to bring Bigordow into range again, he continued in French. To tell you what is going to happen is one of the reasons why I am here. Well, tell us, says Corinna, I can't stand here all day. Would you sit down, members here? said Bigordow. Corinna took her vacated chair. Aren't you ever going to begin? I had prepared, replied Fortinbras benevolently, an exhaustive analysis of our young friends' financial, moral, and spiritual state of being. But as you appear to be impatient, I will forgo the pleasure of imparting to you this salutary instruction. So perhaps it is better that I should come to the point at once. He is practically penniless. He is a man of all idea of returning to his soul-stifling profession. But he must, in the commonplace way of mortals, earn his living. His soul has had a complete rest for three months. It is time now that it should be stimulated to effort that shall result in consequences more glorious than the poor human phenomenon that is, I can predict. My prescription of happiness, as you, Corinna, have so abrably put it, is that Martin shall take the place of the unclean polidor, who I understand has recently been ejected with ignominy from this establishment. His small audience gasped in three separate and particular fashions. Mon view, c'est-il-vous? cried Bigoda. What a career! cried Corinna with a laugh. I never thought of that, said Martin, thumping the table. Portebras rubbed his soft hands together. I don't deal in the obvious. Mon view, you were laughing at us! said Bigoda. Monsieur Bata, a gentleman, a scholar, a professor. A speck of human dust in search of a soul, said Portebras. Which is going to find among dirty plates and dishes, scoffed Corinna. In the eyes of the Distributing Department of the Soul Office of Olympus, where every little clerk is a juice of a high god, the clatter of plates and dishes is as important as the clash of armies. Corinna looked at Bigoda. He's raving mad, she said. Portebras rose unruffled and laid a hand on Martin's shoulder. My excellent friend and disciple, said he, let us leave the company of these obscurantists and seek enlightenment in the fresh air of heaven. Whereupon he led the young man to the terrace, and walked up and down, discoursing with philosophical plausibility, while his white hair caught by the gusty breeze streamed behind like a shaggy meteor. Bigoda, who had remained standing, sat down again and said apologetically, My brother-in-law is an oddity. I believe you, said to Corinna. There was a short silence. Corinna felt that time had come for a dignified retirement. But without repair at this unconscionably early hour. The hotel resembled now a railway station at which she was doomed to wait interminably, and one spot seemed as good as another. So she did not move. You have decided then to leave us, mademoiselle Corinna? said Bigoda, at last. I must. Is there no means by which I could persuade you to stay? I desire enormously that you should stay. Her glance met his, and lowered. The ten of his voice thrilled her absurdly. She had at once an impulse to laugh, and a queer triumphant little flutter of the heart. To make pâté de foie gras, you must have unwarrantable faith in me. Perhaps in the end, said he soberly, it might amuse you to make pâté de foie gras. Who knows? All things are possible. He paused for a moment. Then bent forward, elbow on table, and chin in hand. This is but a little hotel in a little town. But in it one might find tranquility and happiness. Enfin, the significance of things, of human things. For I believe that where human beings live, and love, and suffer, and strive, there is an eternal significance beneath the common place. And if we grasp it, it leads us to the root of life, which is happiness. Don't you think so, Mamazelle? I suppose you're right, she admitted dubiously, never having taken the trouble to look at existence from the subjective standpoint. Her attitude was instinctively objective. I thank you, Mamazelle, said he. I said that because I wanted to put something before you. And it is not very easy. I repeat, this is but a little hotel in a little town. I, too, but a man of the people, Mamazelle. But this hotel, my father added to it and transformed it, but it is the same property. This hotel has been handed down from father to son for a hundred years. My great-grandfather, a simple peasant, rose to be Jean-Laurel de Brigade in the Grand Amé of Napoleon. After Waterloo he'd accept no favour from the Bourbon, and retired to Brontôme, the home of his race. And with his little economies he bought the Hotel de Grotte, of which he reworked years before as a little vanu-pied, ternspit holder of horses. C'est chamoie. Those were days, Mamazelle, of many revolutions of fortune. And all that means, ask runner, impressed, in spite of English prejudice, by the simple, yet not-in-lorious, ancestry of the huge ink-keeper. It means, Mamazelle, C'est be gaudat, that I wish to present myself to you as an honest man. But as I am of no credit myself, I would like to expose to you the honour of my family. My great-grandfather, as I have said, was Jean-Laurel de Brigade in the Grand Amé. My grandfather, Saint-Ple-Soldat, fought side-by-side with the English in the Cranier. My father, Sergeant of Artillerie, lost a leg and an arm in the war of 1870. My younger brother was killed in Morocco. For me I have done my service-militaire. We fake a compere. It is chance that I am 40 years of age and live in obscurity. But my name is known and respected in all Périgaux, Mamazelle. And again, all that means, that if a Petite-Houtelier, like me, ventures to lay a proposition to the feet of a Jean-Fille de Famille, like herself, the Petite-Houtelier wishes to assure her of the perfect honourability of his family. In short, Mamazelle Corrine, I love you very sincerely. I can make no phrases, for when I say I love you, it comes from the innermost depths of my being. I am a simple man, he continued very earnestly, and with an air of hope as Corrine flashed out to repulse. But, sad, Sphinx-like, looking away from him across the room. A very simple man, but my heart is loyal. Such as I am, Mamazelle Corrine, and you have had an opportunity of judging, I have the honour to ask you if you will be my wife. Corrine knew enough of France to realise that all this was amazing. The average Frenchman whom Begouda represented is passionate, but not romantic. If he sets his heart on a woman, be she the angel-eyed spires of another respectable citizen, or the tawdry and nautical figurante in a provincial company, he does his honest, or dishonest, best to get her. C'est la mort, and there's an end to it. But he envisages marriage from a totally different angle. Far be it from me to say that he does not entertain very sincere and tender sentiments towards the young lady he proposes to marry. But he only proposes to marry a young lady who can put a certain capital into the business partnership which is an essential feature of marriage. If he is attracted towards a damsel of pleasing ways but devoid of capital, he either behaves like the appalling Monsieur Camille de Fargo or puts his common sense like a non-conducting material between them, and an all-simplicity doesn't fall in love with her. But here was a manifestation of freakishness. Here was Begouda, man of substance, who could have gone to any one of twenty families of substance in Périgord and chosen from it an impeccable and well-doubred bride. Here he was snapping his fingers at French bourgeois tradition, and which there is nothing more sacrosanct. Putting his common sense into his cap and throwing it over the windmills, and acting in a manner which King Cafeture himself, had he been a Frenchman, would have condemned as either unconventional or insane. Carina's English upper-middle-class pride had revolted at the suggestion that she should become an employee in a little bourgeois inn. But her knowledge of French provincial life painfully quickened by her experience of yesterday of shorter that she was a recipient of the greatest honour that lies in the power of a French citizen to offer. An English innkeeper daring to propose marriage she would have scorched with blazing indignation, and the bewildered wretch would have gone away wondering how he had mistaken for an angel such a Catherine-wheel of a woman. But against Begouda, son of other traditions so secure in his integrity, so delicate in his approach, so intensely sincere in his appeal, she could find within her not a spark of anger. All conditions were different. The plane of the relations was different. She would never have confessed to a flirtation with an English innkeeper. Besides, she had a really friendly feeling for Begouda, something of admiration. He was so big, so simple, so genuine, so intelligent. In spite of Martin's complaint that she could not realise the spirit of modern France, her shrewd observation had missed little of the moral and spiritual phenomena of Brontôme. She was well aware that Begouda, petit hotelier that he was, stood for many noble ideals outside her own narrow horizon. She respected him. She also derived feminine pleasure from his small mouth and the colour of his eyes. But the possibility of marrying him had never entered her head. She had not the remotest intention of marrying him now. The proposal was grotesque. As soon as she got clear of the place, she would throw back her head and roar with laughter at it. A leafy little devil was already dancing at the back of her brain. For the moment, however, she did not laugh. On the contrary, a queer thrill again ran through her body, and she felt a difficulty in looking him in the face. After having thrown herself at a man's head yesterday, only to be spurned, her outraged spirit found solace in having today another man suppliant at her feet. Of his sincerity there could be no possible question. This big, good man loved her. For all her independent ways and rackety student experiences, no man before had come to her with the loyalty of deep love in his eyes. No man had asked her to be his wife. Absurd as it all was, she felt its flattering deliciousness in every fibre of her being. Himia, mademoiselle Corrine, what did you answer? Waspigoda, after a breathless silence, during which, with head bent forward over the table, she'd be nervously fiddling with her loves. You are very kind, Monsieur Pigoda. I never thought you felt like that towards me. She said falteringly, like any well brought up school girl, you should have told me. To have expressed my feelings before mamoiselle would have been to take advantage of your position under my roof. Suddenly there came an unprecedented welling of tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. She sprang to her feet and with rare impulsiveness thrust out her hand. Monsieur Pigoda, you are the best man I have ever met. I am your friend, your very great friend. But I can't marry you, it is impossible. He rose too, holding her, and put the eternal question. But why? You deserve a wife who loves you. I don't love you, I never could love you. And then from the infinite spaces of loneliness there spread about her soul of frozen desolation, and she stood as one blasted by polar wind. I shall never love a man all my life long. I'm not made like that. And she seemed to shrivel in his grasp, and, flitting between the snow-clad tables like a wreath, was gone. Birre, said Pigoda, sitting down again. Soon afterwards, fought in brass and martin coming in from the terrace, found him sprawling over the table a monumental mass of dejection. But full of their own conceits they did not divine his misery. Fortebras smote him friendly-wise on his broad back, and around him from lethargy. It is all arranged, Montville gasped. He cried heartily. I have been pouring into awakening ears all the divine distillations of my philosophy. I have initiated him into mysteries. He is a near fight of whom I am proud. Pigoda, in no mood for elusive hyperbole, shook himself like a great dog. What kind of imbecility are you talking? The late Polydor, Fortebras began. Ah, finish with it, I beg you! interrupted Pigoda with an unusual air of impatience. It isn't a joke, I assure you, said Martin. I have come to the end of my resources. I must work. You will sooner or later have to fill the place of Polydor, give me the wages of Polydor, and I am ready to fit it. I could not be more incapable, perhaps I am a little more intelligent. It is serious? A serious as can be. Pigoda passed his hand over his face. I went to sleep last night in a commonplace world. I wake up this morning in a fantastic universe in which I seem to be a leaf, like those outside, in through a dramatic arm, driven by the wind. I don't know whether I am on my head or my heels. Arrange things that seem best to you. You accept me, then, as a waiter in the Hotel de Grotte? M'l share, Pigoda, in the state of upheaval in which I find myself, I accept everything. The upheaval, or rather overthrow, for he used the word bouleversmo, of the big man, was evident. He sat the dejected pitcher of defeat. No man in the throes of sea sickness ever cared less what happened to him. Fortebras looked at him shrewdly, and his thick lips formed themselves into a noiseless whistle. Then he exchanged a glance with Martin, who suddenly conjectured the reason of Pigoda's depression. She ought to be spanked, said he in English. Fortebras beamed on him. You do have something to me, don't you? A lot, said Martin. Phillies, a faceful of affairs of high importance, ran into the Salamanger. Mon oncle, la paire didier sens word that he had decided not to kill his calf till next week. What shall we do? We'll eat to Spiracus, Pigoda replied, and lumbered out into the November drizzle. Three pairs of wandering eyes sought among themselves a solution of this enigmatic utterance. Mekiscus se la verdier? cried Phillies, with pretty mouth agape. It means, my child, said Fortebras, that your uncle, with a philosopher's survey of the destiny of the brute creation, refuses to be moved either to ecstatic happiness or to ignoble anger, by the information that the life of the obscure progeny of a bull and a cow has been spared for seven days. For myself, I am glad. So is our tender heart in Martin. So are you. The calf has before him a crowded week of frisky life. Some words to Pierre Didier that we are delighted to hear of his decision, and ask him to crown the calf with flowers and send him along to a day for afternoon tea. He smiled, and waved a dismissing hand. Phillies, laughing, kissed him on the forehead, and tripped away, having little time to spare for pleasantry. The two men smoked in silence for some time. At last, Fortebras, throwing the butt-end of his cigarette into Carina's coffee-bowl, rose, stretched himself, and yawned heartily. Having now accomplished my benevolent purpose, said he, I shall retire and take some will-earned repose. In the meanwhile, Mr. Porridor Martin, you have better enter upon your new duties. So Martin, after he had procured a tray and an apron from the pantry, took off his coat, turned up his shirt-sleeves, and set to work to tear away the breakfast-things. End of Chapter 8