After Toni had gone, Paul smoked and looked for a long time at the pretty little note. He got one almost every day. Lucie wished him to come to dinner, or to ride with her, or to send her a book, or to do something which was an excuse to get Paul to the Château Bernard.
And it was impossible that Madame Bernard should not know of all this; but Paul remembered, with a groan, that Lucie had always been able to wrap that imposing-looking person around her little finger. And would it be right—would it be a manly thing—for a poor sublieutenant of dragoons to take advantage of this childish fancy? Paul, resting his blond head in both his hands, remembered that sometimes these youthful attachments, which begin, as it were, with one’s first look at life, last throughout the whole play until the curtain goes down at the end. This puzzled him still more, and he suddenly thrust Lucie’s letter, and her sweet image, and Toni, and Bienville and the whole business out of his head, and, taking up a book on Strategy, studied until midnight.
The note from Lucie was to ask him to ride with her the next afternoon as she had a new horse and Madame Bernard was not quite willing to trust her alone with a groom. No French girl would have sent such an invitation, but Lucie had acquired, during her two years in America, all the directness, the habit of command, the insight into a man’s mind of an American girl. Among the number of things which amazed but charmed Paul was the astonishing invention Lucie displayed in bringing Paul to her side. Of course, there was nothing for him to do but to accept this invitation to protect Lucie’s life, so the next afternoon they were cantering gaily through the park toward the highroad, with a groom in attendance. As they passed the place where Count Delorme’s body had been found, Lucie turned her head away with something like a shudder.
“I always hated him,” she said, “until he was killed, but you can’t hate a dead man.”
“I can hate a scoundrel dead or alive,” replied Paul stoutly. “He ruined your sister’s young life, he deserved to die a bad death.”
“I don’t think Sophie’s life is quite ruined,” said Lucie.
They had brought their horses down to a walk and the groom, who had neither eyes nor ears, had fallen a little way behind.
“Sophie is married to the man she loves—I am sure she would not change Captain Ravenel for a Marshal of France if she could get him. She has had great sorrows, but she has had great happiness, too. I know perfectly well what Sophie did, and it was not right, but she was cruelly punished for it.”
Paul, who was thoroughly French in his ideas of young ladies, was much scandalized at this speech of Lucie’s, but Lucie was more American than French, and Paul knew the limpid innocence of her mind. Still he thought that Lucie should be more guarded in her speech, and thought that if he had the rare good fortune of marrying her, he would make her a little more prudent.
They soon struck the highroad and presently were passing through a forest which was intersected by many roads. A crackling of shots was heard in the distance—the troopers were practising at the rifle butts. Paul turned to the groom and told him to ride forward and find out where the butts were, and just then Toni appeared. Saluting Paul, Toni said:
“Pardon, sir, but the orders are that no one shall be allowed to cross this road, and you will have to remain sir, if you please, on this side.”
“But this lady’s groom is on the other side. He will be back presently,” urged Paul.
“Very sorry, sir,” said Toni, with an air of polite determination, “but those are the orders,” and then Paul and Toni saluted gravely, and Toni backed off.
This meant that Paul and Lucie would have to take their ride alone through the woods. Paul turned to Lucie and said:
“You see, Mademoiselle, how it is—it can not be helped.”
“And I am sure I don’t wish it to be helped,” responded Lucie, in that daredevil American manner of hers which shocked and charmed Paul. “Now we can talk freely.”
There was, however, a road by which they could get back to the highway, and along this they rode in the bright autumn afternoon. Presently they came to a rivulet into which a little spring bubbled. They stopped to let the horses drink, and when they were on the other side Lucie suddenly raised up and cried:
“I want some water, too,” and before Paul could say a word she had slid off her horse and, gathering up the skirt to her habit, ran to the spring. She pulled off her gloves, and dipping up the water in the hollow of her little hand, pretended to drink it, while it splashed all over her fresh, fair face. Paul swung himself off his horse, and, leaning up against a tree, watched Lucie with adoration in his eyes. She had the unconscious grace of a child, but Lucie was no child—she was a woman of gentle, yet fixed resolve, of strong and tender feelings. She was in love with Paul and had been ever since she took his English book away from him that summer afternoon in the park at Bienville so many years ago; and reading Paul’s mind, as she had read that English book, she saw exactly what was in it,—that he was in love with her and withheld by pride, diffidence and generosity, all three excellent qualities in a man’s love. And Lucie, having much practical American sense in her charming head, had realized that an heiress has to be very prudent in the man she marries, and that of all who professed to love her, Paul was the only one who loved her well and would not tell her of it.
She looked at him, her face dimpling with laughter. He was such a great goose, standing there, his eyes devouring her, and gnawing his mustache for fear the words would come out that he wished to hold in.
“Paul,” she said, in a soft little voice, and Paul, against his will, was forced to respond, “Lucie.”
“Come here,” said Lucie. Paul came—he could no more have held back than he could have stopped breathing. “Lend me your handkerchief.” Paul look his handkerchief out and Lucie wiped her hands upon it, and then, without so much as saying, “By your leave,” stuck it back in the breast of his coat. This Paul thought delightful, but it was not propriety.
“Paul,” said Lucie, “suppose war were raging now and you knew there would be a desperate battle to-morrow, what would you say to me now, if you thought this were the very last interview we were to have before you went out on the firing line?”
Paul Verney was a man, after all, and his reply to this was very obvious.
“I should say, ‘Lucie, I love you,’” he replied, holding out his hand in which Lucie put hers.
“Thank Heaven,” cried Lucie, “at last! I would have proposed to you long before if you had given me the least encouragement, for I made up my mind to marry you just as soon as you made up your mind that you loved me.”
She was laughing, but her eyes were dark with feeling and bright with tears.
“I have not asked you to marry me,” whispered Paul, his voice trembling a little. “I told you I loved you—no man ever loved a woman more than I love you—but I don’t think that I am any match for you, Lucie, and it never seemed to me quite right that I should take advantage of all the childish things you said to me when we were boy and girl, or of your rashness and imprudence now, for Lucie, you are a very rash and imprudent girl.”
“I am the most prudent person living,” whispered Lucie, sidling up to him. “I don’t wish to be married for my money and you are the only man I know who would marry me quicker without my fortune than with it—so Paul—”
Paul made one last hopeless and quite desperate stand.
“Oh, Lucie,” he said, “what a villain I am ever to have gone near you after I saw—”
“So you saw it, did you?” said Lucie, smiling, but still trembling. “Everybody else saw it—the groom knows it, actually—it’s quite ridiculous”—and then Paul surrendered. A sudden revelation came to him from Lucie’s eyes that his two thousand francs a year mattered no more than her millions—that it was not a question of francs, but of the great master passion, which, when it enters lordly into the abode of a man’s or a woman’s heart, drives out everything else and reigns supreme.
They sat on a fallen tree and talked in whispers, those echoes of the heart, until the shadows grew long, and it was Lucie who had to remind Paul that it was time to go home. The horses, which had stood still meanwhile, cocked their ears knowingly at Paul when he swung Lucie into her saddle. They never saw the belated groom at all, nor cared what had become of him as they rode back through the dying glow of the autumn afternoon to the Château Bernard. Lucie ran up the stone steps of the château, followed by Paul. At the prospect of meeting Madame Bernard, this dashing young sublieutenant of dragoons felt as hopeless and helpless as a drenched hen. It was one thing to tell Lucie of his love in the forest glade, to the music of the silvery rippling spring, with the red sun making a somber glory all around them and with no one except the horses to listen, but to tell the chatelaine of the Château Bernard about his two thousand francs the year was almost more than Paul could stand. Lucie led the way into Madame Bernard’s little drawing-room. A wood fire was crackling on the hearth, for the evening had grown chilly, and Madame Bernard, stately and timid, imposing and nervous, with her everlasting embroidery, sat by the table on which stood candles in tall silver candlesticks. Lucie went up and, putting her arm around the neck of the fierce-eyed and craven-hearted old lady, and seating herself on the arm of the chair, tipped the handsome old face up and kissed her.
“Grandmama,” she said, “I have proposed and have been accepted. Paul says he will marry me.”
Paul glared at Lucie. She was such an unconscionable joker. He came forward, however, and said in his best manner, which was a very fine manner:
“Madame, it is I who proposed to Mademoiselle Lucie. If I did not love her so much I should apologize for it, because I feel that she is entitled to more of birth and of fortune and of rank than I can give her. But I can give her more devotion and loyalty than any other man living—of that I feel sure.”
Paul fully expected Madame Bernard to box his ears and call a footman to throw him out of the house, but Madame Bernard did nothing of the sort. She sighed a little and looked at Paul. She would have liked a duke, at least, for Lucie—she had got a count for Sophie, but how wretchedly had that match turned out. The habit of obedience was strong upon Madame Bernard, and Lucie was of a nature so willing to take responsibility for herself that it was always difficult to take responsibility for her. Madame Bernard knew she was helpless, but, as Paul had done, she made a feint of resistance.
“Of course, Monsieur,” she said in a voice and manner which she vainly tried to make commanding, “in the event this marriage comes off I shall expect you to resign from the army.”
Paul turned pale. This thought had never occurred to him before. Resign from the army! And become gentleman usher to a rich wife! Never!
“Madame,” he said, “I have little to offer Mademoiselle Lucie, and the best thing, in a worldly point of view, is the career that I hope to make in my profession. That, I may say, if you will permit me, will not be unworthy of Mademoiselle Lucie’s acceptance, I trust.”
“Good for you, Paul,” cried Lucie, “what you say is quite right, and, grandmama, you might as well make up your mind to it. When Paul and I are married I shall have to live in all sorts of dull little towns and poky little holes and perhaps go to Algiers. I shall have to do just what any other sublieutenant’s wife has to do, and I shall like it above all things. It will be like a masquerade, for we shall know when Paul is a lieutenant-colonel, then we can live handsomely and enjoy our money.”
Lucie’s quick and comprehensive mind had already gone forward and spanned the gulf between a sublieutenant and a lieutenant-colonel. Madame Bernard sighed again. All womanly women are natural romancers and love a lover, and she did not think less of Paul for his determined stand. She began to see dimly that this prompt and quiet decision in Paul’s character was one of the reasons why Lucie loved him, and it would be the most wholesome corrective possible to the faults in Lucie’s temperament.
“As to the question of my consent, Monsieur,” said Madame Bernard grimly, “that seems to have been settled in advance by Lucie and yourself.”
Lucie chased away the grimness from the old lady’s face by kissing her.
“Suppose we postpone consideration of this for a short time—a week, perhaps, you will allow me.”
Paul was about to say, “Certainly, Madame,” when Lucie interrupted him.
“Say yes, Paul, it will amuse grandmama and won’t hurt us the least in the world.” And then she kissed Madame Bernard all over her face and cried: “Go home, Paul, and come early to-morrow. Grandmama will be dying to see you!”
Paul left the château in much better case than he expected and had a rapturous ride back in the twilight with a shy young moon looking and laughing at him.
As he rode into the barracks yard he passed Toni, carrying a big bucket of water in either hand. As he rode past he said in a whisper:
“You brought me good fortune to-day.”
“And it’s all settled?” asked Toni, in another whisper.
“Quite so, I think,” replied Paul, flinging himself off his horse. “I will do a good turn by you with the sergeant to-morrow morning.”
When he got back to his quarters Powder, who had spent a lonely afternoon, rushed at him with yaps of delight. Paul, twisting the dog’s ears, whispered: “My lad, you and I have just got a new commanding officer. Hurrah, you rascal!”
And Powder immediately gave a series of terrific yelps which he had been taught to believe were hurrahs!
The next morning Paul had two errands which took him out very early. One was to send a bouquet to Lucie, and the other was to have an interview with Sergeant Duval. He caught the sergeant just coming out of the riding-hall. Everything had gone well that day and the sergeant was smiling.
“Well, sergeant,” cried Paul, coming up to him, “so I understand that my old friend Toni and Mademoiselle Denise are to be married.”
“I had not heard the news, sir,” responded Sergeant Duval, stiffening. “I thank you for acquainting me with it.”
“The fact is,” said Paul, “Toni is terribly afraid of you, and he asked me to make the communication. I thought perhaps something had passed between your sister and Toni’s mother, but, at all events, you know as much about Toni as anybody. He is an excellent fellow, a fine soldier, and has been in love with Mademoiselle Denise ever since he was a small boy.”
“There were more small bad boys in Bienville than any place I ever saw, sir,” was the sergeant’s discouraging reply, “and Toni was about the worst of the lot.”
“Come, now, sergeant, you are too hard on Toni. He was no worse than I was. All small boys are bad, but all of them that I have ever seen had something good about them. Madame Marcel, you know, is well-to-do, and when Toni’s time is up he can get a place, I know, as instructor in a riding-school at three hundred francs the month. I don’t think Mademoiselle Denise will do ill if you take Toni for a son-in-law.”
The sergeant twisted his mustache reflectively.
“And beside that,” continued Paul, who had become a marvel of duplicity, “I understand that Madame Marcel is smiling on you. A remarkably fine, handsome man you are, sergeant, and I am not surprised that Madame Marcel likes you, but she would like you a great deal better if you would give Denise to Toni. You see, it would be a nice, family arrangement.”
A pleased grin overspread the sergeant’s face.
“Well, sir,” he replied, “a man does not take a husband for his only child without looking well about him. It is true that Madame Marcel is well-to-do, and I could tie up Denise’s dowry so that Toni couldn’t touch it, and perhaps I will think it over, sir, and let you know.”