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back never once looked uncomfortable.
"You must allow me to see you home," said Bert to the girl, in a
gruff and almost stifled voice; "I think we have only a little
way to go."
"Only a little way," she said, and smiled once more that night,
in spite of fatigue and fear and the world and the flesh and the
devil. The glowing and transparent blue of twilight had long been
covered by the opaque and slatelike blue of night, when he
handed her into the lamp-lit interior of her home. He went out
himself into the darkness, walking sturdily, but tearing at his
black beard.
All the French or semi-French gentry of the district considered
this a case in which a duel was natural and inevitable, and
neither party had any difficulty in finding seconds, strangers as
they were in the place. Two small landowners, who were careful,
practising Catholics, willingly undertook to represent that
strict church-goer Camille Burt; while the profligate but
apparently powerful Count Gregory found friends in an energetic
local doctor who was ready for social promotion and an accidental
Californian tourist who was ready for anything. As no particular
purpose could be served by delay, it was arranged that the affair
should fall out three days afterwards. And when this was settled
the whole community, as it were, turned over again in bed and
thought no more about the matter. At least there was only one
member of it who seemed to be restless, and that was she who was
commonly most restful. On the next night Madeleine Durand went to
church as usual; and as usual the stricken Camille was there
also. What was not so usual was that when they were a bow-shot
from the church Madeleine turned round and walked back to him.
"Sir," she began, "it is not wrong of me to speak to you," and
the very words gave him a jar of unexpected truth; for in all the
novels he had ever read she would have begun: "It is wrong of me
to speak to you." She went on with wide and serious eyes like an
animal's: "It is not wrong of me to speak to you, because your
soul, or anybody's soul, matters so much more than what the world
says about anybody. I want to talk to you about what you are
going to do."
Bert saw in front of him the inevitable heroine of the novels
trying to prevent bloodshed; and his pale firm face became
implacable.
"I would do anything but that for you," he said; "but no man can
be called less than a man."
She looked at him for a moment with a face openly puzzled, and
then broke into an odd and beautiful half-smile.
"Oh, I don't mean that," she said; "I don't talk about what I
don't understand. No one has ever hit me; and if they had I
should not feel as a man may. I am sure it is not the best thing
to fight. It would be better to forgive--if one could really
forgive. But when people dine with my father and say that
fighting a duel is mere murder--of course I can see that is not
just. It's all so different--having a reason--and letting the
other man know--and using the same guns and things--and doing it
in front of your friends. I'm awfully stupid, but I know that men
like you aren't murderers. But it wasn't that that I meant."
"What did you mean?" asked the other, looking broodingly at the
earth.
"Don't you know," she said, "there is only one more celebration?
I thought that as you always go to church--I thought you would
communicate this morning."
Bert stepped backward with a sort of action she had never seen in
him before. It seemed to alter his whole body.
"You may be right or wrong to risk dying," said the girl, simply;
"the poor women in our village risk it whenever they have a baby.
You men are the other half of the world. I know nothing about
when you ought to die. But surely if you are daring to try and
find God beyond the grave and appeal to Him--you ought to let Him
find you when He comes and stands there every morning in our
little church."
And placid as she was, she made a little gesture of argument, of
which the pathos wrung the heart.
M. Camille Bert was by no means placid. Before that incomplete
gesture and frankly pleading face he retreated as if from the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]