'Odd? Why?' She looked at him inquiringly. For a moment their eyes held each other; and all at once the blood swept through him with suffocating violence. She was so beautiful, so sumptuous, so warmly and richly feminine; and surely the circ.u.mstances were not anodyne.

Her softly rounded face, its very pallor, the curve and colour of her lips, her luminous dark eyes, the smooth modulations of her voice, and then her loose abundance of black hair, and the swelling lines of her breast, the fluent contour of her waist and hips, under the fine black cloth of her dress--all these, with the silence of the forest, the heat of the southern day, the woodland fragrances of which the air was full, and the sense of being intimately alone with her, set up within him a turbulent vibration, half of delight, half of pained suspense.

And the complaisant informality with which she met him played a sustaining counterpoint. 'What luck, what luck, what luck,' were the words which shaped themselves to the strong beating of his pulses.

What would happen next? Whither would it lead? He had savoured the bouquet, he was famished to taste the wine. And yet, so complicated are our human feelings, he was obscurely vexed. Only two kinds of woman, he would have maintained yesterday, could conceivably do a thing like this: an _ingenue_ or 'that sort.' She wasn't an _ingenue_.

Something, at the same time, half a.s.sured him that she wasn't 'that sort,' either. But--the circ.u.mstances! The situation!

'Why odd?' she repeated.

'Oh, I don't want to talk about the Queen,' he said, in a smothered voice.

'The oddity relates itself to the Queen?'

'Oh, this is where we used to waste half our lives when we were children. That's all. This was our favourite nook.'

'Perfect then for the story you're going to tell me.'

'What story?'

'You said it was a long story.'

'There's really no story at all.' His eyes were fastened upon her hands, small and tapering, in their tan gauntlets. The point of a patent-leather boot glanced from the edge of her skirt. A short gold watch-chain dangled from her breast, a cl.u.s.ter of charms at the end.

'You said it was a long story,' she repeated sternly.

'It would be a dull one. We knew each other when we were infants, and used to play together. That is all.'

'But what was she like? Describe her to me. I adore _souvenirs d'enfance_.' Her eyes were bright with eagerness.

'Oh, she was very pretty. The prettiest little girl I've ever seen.

She had the most wonderful eyes--deep, deep, into which you could look a hundred miles; you know the sort; dreamy, poetical, sad; oh, lovely eyes. And she used to wear her hair down her back; it was very long, and soft--soft as smoke, almost; almost impalpable. She always dressed in white--short white frocks, with broad sashes, red or blue. That was the fashion then for little girls. Perhaps it is still--I've never noticed.'

'Yes. Don't stop. Go on.'

'Dear me, I don't know what to say. I used to see her a good deal, because they were our neighbours. Her father used to ask me over to stay at Granjolaye. She needed a playmate, and I was the only one available. Sometimes she would come and spend a day at Saint-Graal. Do you know Granjolaye? The castle? It's worth going over. It used to belong to the Kings of Navarre, you know. We used to play together in the great audience chamber, and chase each other through the secret pa.s.sages in the walls. At Saint-Graal we confined ourselves to the garden. Her head was full of the queerest romantic notions. You couldn't persuade her that the white irises that grew about our pond weren't enchanted princesses. One day we filled a bottle with holy water at the Church, and then she sprinkled them with it, p.r.o.nouncing an incantation. "If ye were born as ye are, remain as ye are; but if ye were born otherwise, resume your original shapes." They remained as they were; but that didn't shake her faith. Something was amiss with the holy water, or with the form of her incantation.'

She laughed softly. 'Then she was nice? You liked her?' she asked.

'Oh, I was pa.s.sionately in love with her. All children are pa.s.sionately in love with somebody, aren't they? A real _grande pa.s.sion_. It began when I was about ten.' He broke off, to laugh. 'Do you care for love stories? I'm a weary, wayworn man; but upon my word, I've never in all my life felt any such intense emotion for a woman, anything that so nearly deserved to be called _love_, as I felt for Helene de la Granjolaye when I was an infant. Night after night I used to lie awake thinking how I loved her--longing to tell her so--planning how I would, next day--composing tremendous declarations--imagining her response--and waiting in a fever of impatience for the day to come. But then, when I met her, I didn't dare. Bless me, how I used to thrill at sight of her, with love, with fear. How I used to look at her face, and pine to kiss her. If her hand touched mine, I almost fainted. It's very strange that children before their teens should be able to experience the whole gamut of the spiritual side of love; and yet it's certain.'

She was looking at him with intent eyes, her lips parted a little.

'But you did tell her at last, I hope?' she said, anxiously.

He had got warmed to his subject, and her interest inspired him. 'Oh, at last! It was here--in this very spot. I had picked a lot of celandine, and stuck them about in her hair, where they shone like stars. Oh, the joy of being allowed to touch her hair! It made utterance a necessity. I fumbled and stammered, and blushed and thrilled, and almost choked. And at last I blurted it out. "I love you so. I love you so." That--after the eloquent declarations I had composed overnight!'

'And she?'

'She answered quite simply, "Et moi, je t'aime tant, aussi." And then she began to cry. And when I asked her what she was crying for, she explained that I oughtn't to have left her in doubt for so long; she had been so unhappy from fear that I didn't "love her so." She was quite unfemininely frank, you see. Oh, the ecstacy of that hour! The ecstacy of our first kiss! From that time on it was "mon pet.i.t mari"

and "ma pet.i.te femme." The greatest joy in life for me, for us, was to sit together, holding each other's hands, and repeating from time to time, "J' t'aime tant, j' t'aime tant." Now and then we would vary it with a fugue upon our names--"Helene!"--"Paul!"' He laughed.

'Children, with their total lack of humour, are the drollest of created beings, aren't they?'

'Oh, I don't think it's droll. I know, all children have those desperate love affairs. But they seem to me pathetic. How did it go on?'

'Oh, for two or three years we lived in Paradise. There were no other boys in the neighbourhood, so she was constant.'

'For three years? And then?'

'Then my grandmother died, and I was carried off to Paris. She remained here. And so it ended.'

'And when did you meet her next? After you were grown up?'

'I have never met her since.'

'You must have followed her career with a special interest, though?'

'_Ah, quant a ca_!'

'Her marriage, her coronation, her divorce. Poor Woman! What she must have suffered. Have you made any attempt to see her since you came back to Saint-Graal?'

'_Ah, merci, non_! If she wanted to see me, she'd send for me.'

'She sees no one, everybody says. But I should think she'd like to see you--her old playmate. If she _should_ send for you--But I suppose I musn't ask you to tell me about it afterwards? Of course, like everybody else in her neighbourhood, I'm awfully interested in her.'

There was a moment's silence. She looked at the moss beneath her, and stroked it lightly with a finger-tip. Paul looked at her.

'You're horribly unkind,' he said at last.

'Unkind?' She raised wide eyes of innocent surprise.

'You know I'm in an agony of curiosity.'

'About what?'

'About you.'

'Me?'

'Yourself.'

She lifted the cl.u.s.ter of charms at the end of her watch-chain. One of them was a tiny golden whistle. On this she blew, and Bezigue came trotting up. She mounted him to-day without Paul's a.s.sistance. Smiling down on the young man, she said, 'Oh, after the reckless way in which I've cast the conventions to the winds, you really can't expect me to give you my name and address.' And before he could answer, she was gone.

He walked about for the rest of the day in a great state of excitement. 'My dear,' he told himself, 'if you're not careful, something serious will happen to you.'

IX.

When he woke up he saw that it was raining; and in that part of the world it really never does rain but it pours. Needless to touch upon the impatient ennui with which he roamed the house. He sent for Andre to lunch with him.

'Andre, can't you do something to stop this rain?' he asked; but Andre stared. 'Oh, I was thinking of the priests of Baal,' Paul explained.

'I beg your pardon.' And after the coffee, 'Let's go up and play in the garret,' he proposed: at which Andre stared harder still. 'We always used to play in the garret on rainy days,' Paul reminded him.

'Mais, ma foi, monsieur, nous ne sommes plus des gosses,' Andre answered.