To Shane Campbell Ma.r.s.eilles had been all this for two years while he journeyed from Liverpool for silk and scented soaps--a landmark familiar as the Giant's Causeway, a strange, motley human circus, a veil behind which hid gigantic ghosts.... Until he met _La Mielleuse_ on the road to Aix.

-- 2

For six years now, since the day they had buried his wife in the green divots of Louth, women had been alien to him. It was not that he hated them, not that he was uncomfortable among them; but the thought of close mental or spiritual or physical contact with them put him in a panic, as one might be in a panic at the thought of contact with some Chinaman, or Eskimo. The women of the better cla.s.s in ports importuned him, but he pa.s.sed with a grave humorous smile and an unexpected courtesy. His friends' wives or acquaintances could get nothing out of him but a grave answer to any questions they might put, so that they characterized him as a stick. And at home in Ulster, whither he went after occasional voyages, where Robin More still drowsed over his books; where Alan Donn still hunted and fished and golfed, haler at five and fifty than a boy in his early twenties; and where his mother sat and did beautiful broidery, dumbly, inimically, cold as a fish, secretive as a badger, there he would meet the women of the Antrim families, women who knew of the disaster of his marriage, and they would look approvingly at his firm face and smiling, steady eyes, and they would say: "A man, thon! He could be a good friend. You could trust him, a woman could." They were unco good folk, Antrim folk.

For the peasant girls around he had always a laugh and a joke. And for the young girls from school he had always a soft spot in his heart somehow, appreciating them as one appreciates the first primrose or a puppy dog playing on the lawn or the lark in the clear air. There came such a current of beauty and freshness from them.... New from the hand of the Maker.... They were pausing now, as the wind pauses on the tide.... And in a little while the world, the d.a.m.ned world!... And so he treated them with a great gravity, answering their questions on geography, telling them what an estuary was, and what the trade-winds, and how a typhoon came and paused and pa.s.sed: and how jute and grain and indigo were taken from Calcutta, and of the Hooghly, the most difficult river in the world to navigate, and of the shoal called "James and Mary".... And they listened to him with wide-open, violet eyes....

And there were two women, Leah Fraser, a slight woman with hair smooth and reddish like a gold coin, and eyes that thought and saw back of things, and slender, beautiful hands, and she moved with the dignity of a swan.... And there was Anne MacNeill, who handled a horse as a man would, and was a great archer--she could shoot as far as Alan could drive a golf-ball with a spoon.... Shane could always see her, a Diana on the greensward, leaning forward, listening to hear the smack of the arrow on the target.... And both these women were his good friends, the thought of them filling his mind like sweet lavender.... But when they were each alone with him, and a little silence would come, then panic would fall on him, and he would make an undignified escape from their company proffering any old excuse.... And they would watch him go, with little twisted smiles.... Poor Leah! Poor Anne!

All the love in him, that some sweet, gracious woman should have had, was anesthetized, or it was deflected, perhaps, to the great three-masted schooner he was now owner and master of, a beautiful boat that had been christened the _Ulster Lady_, and came from the yards at Belfast, taking the water as n.o.bly as a swan. From truck to keelson there was no part of her imperfect; from stem to stern. Barring a little tendency to be cranky before the wind in a seaway, nothing better sailed. Jammed, or on the wind, she was like a hare before the hounds, so quickly did she go. Her slim black body, her white, beautifully set sails--not a strake or an inch of canvas on her that he did not know and love. And more thought was given by him to the proper peaking of a spar and the exact setting of a leech than to the profits of the cargo. It was like having one's own country, and his cabin aboard was like his own castle--the little stateroom with the swinging-lamps, and the compa.s.s above the fastened bed, the row of books, the Aberdeen terrier, _Duine Uasal_, who slept peacefully on the rug, and who would go on deck and sniff the wind like a connoisseur.... And there was a ma.n.u.script poem of his father's in the Irish letter, _Leaba Luachra_, "The Bed of Rushes,"

which he had discovered and had framed. And there was a prized thing of his boyhood there, a dagger the Young Pretender wore in his stocking, and he in Highland dress, as he swung toward London with pipe and drum.

Alan Donn had given it to him, and he after getting it on a visit to Argyll. "Not only is it Charlie's, but it's a nice handy thing, thon!"

... A beautiful piece of work it was, perfectly balanced, keen as a razor, with a handle of the stag's horn.... It was the only weapon Shane had, and about it curled romance and the smoke of dead, royal hopes....

A bonny, homy place that cabin, peaceful as a garden of bees, when the water slipped past the beam. It was like a warm hearth-fire to come down there after a strenuous time on deck while the sou'wester crashed on the Welsh coast. Or in the roll of the Bay of Biscay, after a s.p.a.ce watching the swinging fields of stars, to come down there was to drop into a welcoming circle of friends, to throw one's self down and pick up a book, the Laureate's "In Memoriam" or Mr. Thackeray's latest--and to glance from the pages of "Henry Esmond" to Prince Charlie's dagger lying peacefully on the desk.... How near! how near!... And up forward the lookout paced, or leaned over the bows, humming in Gaidhlig:

_'S tric me sealtuinn do'n chnoc is airde D'fheac a faic mi fear a bhata An dtig tu andiu no'n dtig tu 'maireach? Is mur dtig tu eader gur truagh mar ta mi!_

Will you come to-day or will you come to-morrow?

If you never come how piteous for me!

_Fhir a' bhata, na horo eile!_ _Hi horo, fhir a bhata--_

All the nostalgia of the Scottish isles was in the minors of that song.... And it was like a lullaby.... And the wind hummed through the rigging.... And underneath was the flow and throb of the immense circulation of the sea.... And overhead the helmsman rang the ship's bell. _Tung-tung, tung-tung, tung-tung, tung._ And all was well on board the _Ulster Lady_. And she was his only sweetheart and delight ... until he met _La Mielleuse_ on the road to Aix....

-- 3

The babble of the Greek merchants in the Cafe Turc at last began to bore him, and hiring a horse and sort of gig he decided to drive to Aix. He had always wished to see the old Provencal capital, but somehow the opportunity had always pa.s.sed by, or something.... But on this bright September afternoon it seemed such a pity to go back on board ship....

He examined the old white horse with interest.

"Are you sure he'll take me there? You see his--" Shane wanted to say suspensory ligaments, but his French didn't quite go that far--"his legs--"

"But, Monsieur, he has won several races--"

"Well, in that event"--Shane grinned, "K-k-k-k!"

The white horse trotted steadily out the Prado, the Rue de Rome, trotted out in the country, pa.s.sed Bains de la Mediterranee. A northerdly breeze was out rippling the gulf and giving promise of autumn, and the heavy heat of the Midi had disappeared for the instant. Soon they would be plucking the grapes of Provence. The olive-trees were black on the white road. The white horse trotted on....

There were peasants on the road going into town, and townspeople going out to the country.... And children who insulted one another shrilly....

But the white horse plodded on. On a stretch of level road he pa.s.sed a pair talking, noting casually that the woman was a lady from her carriage, and from his threatening cringe that the man was a cad.

Italian riff-raff of some kind....

"But you are mistaken," the woman was saying. "You are making an error."

The man's reply was low, inaudible.

"But I a.s.sure you, you are mistaken."

The white horse plodded on.

"Please, please"--the woman's voice followed Shane, and there was embarra.s.sed fear in it--"please let me pa.s.s! You are mistaken."

And then again: "I swear to you ... please ... please!"

The white horse was surprised at a firm pull on his mouth, a crack of the whip, and a turn.... He broke in a lolloping canter.... Shane jumped down....

"Madame, is this man annoying you?"

"_Sirvase, Signor_--"

But one look at the woman's face was sufficient. Shane turned on the fawning Sicilian with a snarl.

"Get to h.e.l.l out of here, quick!" The man shuffled off, walked quickly, ran, disappeared....

The great dark eyes had agony in them. Her mouth quivered. Shane knew her knees were shaking as she stood.

"Better get in here. I'll drive you home." He helped her into the trap.

"I ought to have held that fellow," he grumbled. "Ma.r.s.eilles? No! Oh, Les Bains! We'll be there in a minute. You're all right now, Madame."

"He mistook me--for--somebody else--" She had a voice deep and sweet as a bell, but there was a tremor in it now--a marked accent of fear, past, but not recovered from.

He was aware of a great vibrant womanhood beside him, as some people are aware of spirits in a room, or a mother is aware of a child. He was aware, though he hardly saw them, though he didn't know he saw them, of the proud Greek beauty of her face, so decisively, so finely chiseled, so that it seemed to soar forward, as a bird soars into the wind; of the firm, dark ellipsis of the eyebrows; of the mouth that quivered, and yet in repose would be something for a master of line and color to draw; the little hands that plucked nervously at the dark silk gown, unquiet as b.u.t.terflies. Her eyes, he knew, were wide with fear, great black pupils, deep, immensely deep. And he was aware, too, of something within her that vibrated, as a stay aboard ship vibrates in a gusty, angry wind, or as an ill-plucked harpstring will vibrate to and fro, unable to stop.

"I live here, Monsieur."

It was a little white villa, with green jalousies such as the Midi has in thousands. He pulled up, and she was down before he could help her.

Her face was quiet now but for the tremor of her eyes.

"Thank you ever so much," she said.

"But this man, Madame. Are you safe? Ought not one to--the police?"

"It was nothing, Monsieur." She laughed, but her voice still quivered.

"Some good-for-nothing who took me for some one else, whom he had seen somewhere else, and knew--something--about. Nothing at all, a bagatelle, that might happen to any one. But I thank you so much! You were going somewhere?"

"To Aix, Madame."

"But your horse is lame!"

"So he is, poor old boy! I hadn't noticed."

"Then--_adieu, Monsieur_. And thanks again."

He drove back to town. "I shall never get to Aix," he thought. "Perhaps I shouldn't go.... Some fate...." At the livery post he got down and examined the horse's fetlock.

"So you won several races, eh?" But the white horse seemed to shake its head. "No! Oh, well, no matter, old codger!" And he stroked the long lugubrious muzzle....

And thus, casually as he would light a match for his cigarette, casually as he would stumble over something, casually as he would pick up a book, he met _La Mielleuse_ on the road to Aix....