IV

EVE

When she had graciously permitted d.u.c.h.emin to a.s.sist her to a place in the carriage, Madame Sevenie turned immediately to comfort her granddaughter. It was easy to divine an attachment there, between d'Aubrac and Louise de Montalais; d.u.c.h.emin fancied (and, as it turned out, rightly) the two were betrothed.

But Madame de Montalais was claiming his attention.

"Monsieur thinks--?" she enquired in a guarded tone, taking advantage of the diversion provided by the elder lady to delay a little before entering the barouche.

"Monsieur d'Aubrac is in no immediate danger. Still, the services of a good surgeon, as soon as may be ..."

"Will it be dangerous to wait till we get to Nant?"

"How far is that, madame?"

"Twelve miles."

d.u.c.h.emin looked aside at the decrepit conveyance with its unhappy horses, and summed up a conclusion in a shrug.

"Millau is nearer, is it not, madame?"

"But Nant is not far from the Chateau de Montalais; and at La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite our automobile is waiting, less than two miles below. The chauffeur advised against bringing over the road from La Roque to Montpellier; it is too rough and very steep."

"Oh!" said d.u.c.h.emin, as one who catches a glimmering of light.

"Pardon, monsieur?"

"Madame's chauffeur is waiting with the automobile, no doubt?"

"But a.s.suredly, monsieur."

He recollected himself. "We shall see what we shall see, then, at La Roque. With an automobile at your disposal, Nant is little more distant than Millau, certainly. Nevertheless, let us not delay."

"Monsieur is too good."

Momentarily a hand slender and firm and cool rested in his own. Then its owner was setting into place beside Madame de Sevenie, and d.u.c.h.emin clambering up to his on the box.

The road proved quite as rough and declivitous as its reputation. One surmised that the Spring rains had found it in a bad way and done nothing to better its condition. Deep ruts and a liberal sprinkling of small boulders collaborated to keep the horses stumbling, plunging and pitching as they strained back against the singletrees. d.u.c.h.emin was grateful for the moonlight which alone enabled him to keep the road and avoid the worst of the going--until he remembered that without the moon there would have been no expedition that night to view the mock ruins of Montpellier by its unearthly light, and consequently no adventure to entangle him.

Upon this reflection he swore softly but most fervently into his becoming beard. He was well fed up with adventures, thank you, and could have done very well without this latest. And especially at a time when he desired nothing so much as to be permitted to remain the footloose wanderer in a strange land, a bird of pa.s.sage without ties or responsibilities.

He thought it devilish hard that one may never do a service to another without incurring a burden of irksome obligations to the served; that bonds of interest forged in moments of unpremeditated and generous impulse are never readily to be broken.

Now because Chance had seen fit to put him in the way of saving a hapless party of sightseers from robbery or worse, he found himself hopelessly committed to take a continuing interest in them. It appeared that their home was a chateau somewhere in the vicinity of Nant. Well, after their shocking experience, and with the wounded man on their hands--and especially if La Roque-Sainte-Marguerite told the story one confidently expected--d.u.c.h.emin could hardly avoid offering to see them safely as far as Nant. And once there he would be definitely in the toils. He would have to stop in the town overnight; and in the morning he would be able neither in common decency to slip away without calling to enquire after the welfare of d'Aubrac and the tranquillity of the ladies, nor in discretion to take himself out of the way of the civil investigation which would inevitably follow the report of what had happened in Montpelier.

No: having despatched a bandit to an end well-earned, it now devolved upon Andre d.u.c.h.emin to satisfy Society and the State that he had done so only with the most amiable motives, on due provocation, to save his own life and possibly the lives of others.

He had premonitions of endless delays while provincial authorities wondered, doubted, criticised, procrastinated, investigated, reported, and--repeated.

And then there was every chance that the story, thanks to the prominence of the persons involved, for one made no doubt that the names of Sevenie and Montalais and d'Aubrac ranked high in that part of the world--the story would get into the newspapers of the larger towns in the department. And what then of the comfortable pseudonymity of Andre d.u.c.h.emin? Posed in an inescapable glare of publicity, how long might he hope to escape recognition by some acquaintance, friend or enemy? Heaven knew he had enough of both sorts scattered widely over the face of Europe!

It seemed hard, indeed....

But it was--of course! he a.s.sured himself grimly--all a matter of fatality with him. Never for him the slippered ease of middle age, the pursuit of bourgeois virtues, of which he had so fondly dreamed in Meyrueis. Adventures were his portion, as surely as humdrum and eventless days were many another's. Wars might come and wars might go: but his mere presence in its neighbourhood would prove enough to turn the Palace of Peace itself into Action Front.

Or so it seemed to him, in the bitterness of his spirit.

Nor would he for an instant grant that his lot was not without its own, peculiar compensations.

At La Roque, a tiny hamlet huddled in the shadow of Montpellier and living almost exclusively upon the tourists that pa.s.s that way, it was as d.u.c.h.emin had foreseen, remembering the American uniform and the face smudged with soot--that favourite device of the French criminal of the lower cla.s.s fearing recognition. For there it appeared that, whereas the motor car was waiting safe and sound enough, its chauffeur had vanished into thin air. Not a soul could be found who recalled seeing the man after the barouche Tiad left the village. Whereupon d.u.c.h.emin asked whether the chauffeur had been a stout man, and being informed that it was so, considered the case complete. Mesdames de Sevenie et de Montalais, he suggested, might as well then and there give up all hope of ever again seeing that particular chauffeur--unless by some mischance entirely out of the reckoning of the latter. The landlord of the auberge, a surly sot, who had supplied the barouche with the man to act as driver and guide in one, took with ill grace the charge that his employee had been in league with the bandits. But this was true on the word of Madame de Montalais; it was their guide, she said, whom d.u.c.h.emin had driven over the cliff. And (as d.u.c.h.emin had antic.i.p.ated) her name alone proved enough to silence the landlord's virtuous protestations. One could not always avoid being deceived, he declared; he knew nothing of the dead man more than that he had come well recommended. With which he said no more, but lent an efficient if sullen hand to the task of transferring d'Aubrac to the motor car.

D'Aubrac came to, while this was being accomplished, begged feebly for water, was given it with a little brandy to boot and, comfortably settled in the rear seat, between Louise de Montalais and her grandmother, relapsed once more into unconsciousness.

Learning that Madame de Montalais would drive, d.u.c.h.emin dissembled a sigh of relief and, standing beside the car, doffed his cap to say good-bye. He was only too happy to have been of such slight service as the circ.u.mstances had permitted; and if at any time he could do more, a line addressed to him at Nimes, poste restante ....

"But if Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin would be good enough," Madame de Sevenie interposed in a fretful quaver--"and if it would not be taking him too far out of his way--it is night, anything may happen, the car might break down, and I am an old woman, monsieur, with sorely tried nerves--"

Looking down at him from her place at the wheel, Madame de Montalais added: "It would be an act of charity, I think, monsieur, if it does not inconvenience you too greatly."

"On the contrary," he fabricated without blushing, "you will be obliging a weary man by putting him several miles on his way."

He had no cause to regret his complaisance. Seated beside Madame de Montalais, he watched her operate the car with skilful hands, making the best of a highway none too good, if a city boulevard in comparison with that which they had covered in the barouche.

Following the meandering Dourbie, it ran snakily from patches of staring moonlight to patches of inky shadows, now on narrow ledges high over the brawling stream, now dipping so low that the tyres were almost level with the plane of broken waters.

The sweep of night air in his face was sweet and smooth, not cold--for a marvel in that alt.i.tude--and stroked his eyelids with touches as bland as caresses of a pretty woman's fingers. He was sensible of drowsiness, a surrender to fatigue, to which the motion of the motor car, swung seemingly on velvet springs, and the shifting, blending chiaroscuro of the magic night were likewise conducive. So that there came a lessening of the tension of resentment in his humour.

It was true that Life would never let him rest in the quiet byways of his desire; but after all, unrest was Life; and it was good to be alive tonight, alive and weary and not ill-content with self, in a motor car swinging swiftly and silently along a river road in the hills of Southern France, with a woman lovely, soignee and mysterious at the wheel.

Perhaps instinctively sensible of the regard that dwelt, warm with wonder, on the fair curve of her cheek, the perfect modelling of her nose and mouth, she looked swiftly askance, after a time, surprised his admiration, and as if not displeased smiled faintly as she returned attention to the road.

d.u.c.h.emin was conscious of something like a shock of emotion, a sudden surging of some hunger that had long lain dormant in his being, unsuspected, how long he could not surmise, gaining strength in latency, waiting to be awakened and set free by one careless, sidelong look and smile of a strange woman.

"Eve," he whispered, unheard, "Eve de Montalais ..."

Then of a sudden he caught himself up sharply. It was natural enough that one should be susceptible to gentler impulses, at such a time, under circ.u.mstances so strange, so unforeseen, so romantic; but he must not, dared not, would not yield. That way danger lay.

Not that he feared danger; for like most of mankind he loved it well.

But here the danger held potentialities if not the certainty of pain--pain, it might be, not for one alone.

Besides, it was too absurd ....

V