"Yes," said they, and laughed.

"Is that anything to laugh at?" said he. "I have a cousin who is an acrobat."

The ladies laughed more heartily. Frans was greatly astonished.

"I a.s.sure you he is one of the best fellows I know. And marvellously clever. The talent runs in our family. As a boy I was two whole summers in the circus with him."

The others laughed.

"What the deuce can you be laughing at? I never had a better time in my life than in the circus."

The two ladies, unable to control their merriment, hurried towards the door. Roy was obliged to follow, but was offended.

"I have not the faintest idea what is amusing you," he said, when they were all seated in the carriage. Nevertheless he laughed himself.

The little misunderstanding resulted in all three being in the best of humours when they stopped in front of Mary's house. Alice and Frans Roy drove on without her. Frans turned blissfully to Alice and asked if he had not been a good boy to-day? if he had not kept himself well in hand?

if his "affair" were not progressing splendidly? He did not wait for her answer; he laughed and chattered; and he was determined to go in with her. But this Alice had no intention of allowing. Then he demanded, as his reward for not persisting, that she should take them both for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne, in the direction of La Bagatelle. It was to be in the morning, about nine o'clock; then the scent of the trees would be strongest, the song of the birds fullest; and then they would still have the place to themselves. This she promised.

On the following Friday she called for Mary before nine in the morning, and they drove on to pick up Frans Roy.

From a long way off Alice saw him marching up and down on the pavement.

His face and bearing filled her with a presentiment of mischief. Mary could not see him until they stopped. But then a flame rushed into her face, kindled by the fire in his. He boarded the carriage like a captured vessel. Alice hastened to attract his attention in order to avoid an immediate outburst.

"How lovely the morning is," she said; "just because the sun is not shining in its full strength! Nothing can be more beautiful than this subdued tone over a scene as full of colour as that towards which we are driving."

But Frans did not hear; he understood nothing but Mary. The white veil thrown back over her red hair, the fresh, half open mouth, deprived him of his senses. Alice remarked that the woods had become more fragrant since the j.a.panese trees had grown up. Each time these flung a wanton puff in among the sober European wood scents, it was as if foreign birds with foreign screams were flying among the trees. Frans Roy at once affirmed that the native birds were thereby inspired with new song.

Never had they sung so gloriously as they were singing that morning.

Alice's fear of an explosion increased. She tried to avoid it by drawing his attention to the contrasts of colour in wood and meadow and distance. The drive out to La Bagatelle is peculiarly rich in these. But Frans was sitting with his back to the horses; he had to turn away from Mary and Alice every time to see what Alice wanted him to look at. This made him impatient, the more so as Mary and he were each time interrupted in their conversation.

"Shall we not rather get out and walk a little?" said he.

But Alice was more afraid of this than anything. What might he not take into his head next?

"Do look about you!" she exclaimed. "Is it not as if the colours here were singing in chorus?"

"Where?" said Frans crossly.

"Goodness! Don't you see all the varieties of green in the wood itself?

Just look! And then the green of the meadow against these?"

"I have no desire to see it! Not an atom!" He turned towards the ladies again and laughed. "Would it not really be better to get down?" he insisted again. "It's ever so much pleasanter to walk in the wood than to look at it. The same with the meadows."

"It is forbidden to walk on the gra.s.s."

"Confound it! Then let us walk on the road, and look at it all. That is surely better than being cooped up in a carriage."

Mary agreed with him.

"Do you suppose that it was to walk I drove you out here? It was to see that historic house, La Bagatelle, and the wood surrounding it. There is nothing like it anywhere. And then I meant to go as far into the country as possible. We can't do all this if we are to walk."

This appeal kept them quiet for a time. The owner of the carriage must be allowed to decide. But now Mary, too, was in wild spirits. Her eyes, usually thoughtful, shone with happiness. To-day she laughed at all Frans's jokes; she laughed at nothing at all. She was perpetually coveting flowers which she saw; and each time they had to stop, to gather both flowers and leaves. She filled the carriage with them, until Alice at last protested. Then she flung them all out, and insisted on being allowed to get out herself.

They stopped and alighted.

They had long ago pa.s.sed La Bagatelle. The carriage was ordered to turn and drive slowly back; they followed.

They had not taken many steps before Frans Roy began to turn cart-wheels, that is to say, to throw himself forward side-ways upon his hands, turn in the air, and fall again upon his feet--then to go off again sideways upon his hands, ever onwards, ever faster. Presently he turned and came back in the same way. "That is one of my circus tricks,"

he said, beaming. "Here is another!" He jumped up where he stood, turned round in the air, and came down again on his feet on the exact spot from which he had jumped--then did the same thing again. "Look. Exactly where I jumped from!" he exclaimed triumphantly, and did it two, three, four, five times more.

They admired. And it was a sight worthy of admiration; for the ease with which the tall, strong man performed the feat made it beautiful.

Inspired by their praise, he began to spin round at such a rate that they could not bear to look. Nor was it beautiful. They turned away and screamed. This delighted him tremendously. Annoyed by the fact, Alice called out:

"You are a perfect boy; any one would take you for seventeen!"

"How old are you?" asked Mary.

"Over thirty."

They shouted with laughter.

This they should not have done. This he must punish. Before Alice divined his intention, he seized her round the waist, turned, and was off with her in the most frantic gallop up the road, raising clouds of dust. Stout Alice struggled with all her might and screamed. But this was of no avail; it only delighted him. Her hat and her shawl fell off.

Mary ran and picked them up, helpless with laughter; for these ungainly and perfectly useless attempts at resistance were irresistibly comic. At last Frans turned, and they came back again at the same wild pace and stopped where Mary stood--Alice's face distorted, perspiring, and red.

Her breathless rage, incapable of utterance, made Mary explode. Frans sang: Hop sa-sa! hop-sa-sa! in front of the angry lady, until she could speak and abuse him. Then he laughed.

"And you--?" said Mary, now turning to Frans. "Has it not tired you at all?"

"Not much. I'm quite prepared to take the same trip with you."

Mary was horrified. She had just given Alice her hat, and was standing holding the shawl and her own hat, which she had taken off. With a cry she threw both from her and set off in the homeward direction, towards the waiting carriage.

Not for an instant had Frans Roy thought of doing what he threatened. He had spoken in jest. But when he saw her run, and with a speed for which he would have given neither her nor any other woman credit, his soldier's blood took it as a challenge. Alice saw this and said hurriedly: "Don't do it." The words flung themselves in his way so insistently that he stood doubtful. But Mary yonder on the road in the white dress with the red hair above it, running with a step so swift and light that the very rhythm of it allured him, nay, bereft him of his senses ... he was off before he knew what he was about, just as Alice called for the second time, in an agonised tone: "Don't do it!"

The strip of light above the dust of the road in front of him shone into his eyes and his imagination like the sun. It blinded him. He ran without consciousness of what he was doing. He ran as if: "Catch me!

Catch me!" were being shouted in front the whole time. He ran as if the winning of life's highest prize depended on his reaching Mary.

She had a long start of him. Precisely this incited to the uttermost exertion of all his powers. A race for happiness with one who desired to be beaten! Blood at the boiling point surged in his ears; desire burned in it. The longings of all these days and nights were tumultuously urging him on to victory. Speak they would at last. No, speech would be uncalled for; he would have her in his arms.

Now Mary turned her head--saw him, gave a cry, gathered up her dress.

She actually owned a still swifter pace, did she! Madness seized Frans.

He believed that the cry was a lure. He saw Mary make a forward sign with her hand; he believed that she was showing where she would stop and consider herself safe. He must reach her before she got there. He, too, had a last spurt in reserve; it brought him with a rush close in upon her. He seemed to perceive the fragrance exhaling from her; next moment he must hear her breathing. He was so excited that he did not know he had touched her until she looked round. She let her dress fall at once, and after one or two more swift steps, stood still. His arm went round her waist; he was on fire; he drew her tightly to him--to hear the angriest: "Let me go!" Want of breath gave it its excessive sharpness.

Frans was appalled, but felt that he must support her until she recovered breath, and therefore retained his hold. Again came with the same compressed sharpness of breathlessness: "You are no gentleman!" He let go.

The clatter of horses' hoofs was heard; the carriage was approaching rapidly. The servants on the box must have witnessed the whole occurrence; it was to them she had waved. During his wild chase he had seen her alone.

Now she walked towards the carriage. She held her handkerchief to her face; she was crying. The servant jumped down and opened the carriage door.

Frans turned away, desperate, his mind paralysed. Alice came up. She was carrying her own shawl and Mary's hat, and went straight towards the carriage without taking notice of him. When he attempted to join her, she waved him off.