Lorraine Part 29

"Everything?"

She looked at him, but did not answer.

Then he deliberately sat down and made love to her, not actual, open, unblushing love--but he started in to win her, and what his tongue refused to tell, his eyes told until trepidation seized her, and she sat back speechless, watching him with shy blue eyes that always turned when they met his, but always returned when his were lowered.

It is a pretty game, this first preliminary of love--like the graceful sword-play and salute of two swordsmen before a duel.

There was no one to cry "Garde a vous!" no one to strike up the weapons that were thrust at two unarmoured hearts, for the weapons were words and glances, and Love, the umpire, alas! was not impartial.

So the timid heart of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that, if not utter treachery, was giving aid and encouragement to the enemy.

Besieged, threatened, she sat there in the arm-chair, half frightened, half smiling, fearful yet contented, alarmed yet secure, now resisting, now letting herself drift on, until the result of the combination made Jack's head spin; and he felt resentful in his heart, and he said to himself what all men under such circ.u.mstances say to themselves--"Coquetry!"

One moment he was sure she loved him, the next he was certain she did not. This oscillation between heaven and h.e.l.l made him unhappy, and, manlike, he thought the fault was hers. This is the foundation for man's belief in the coquetry of women.

As for Lorraine, she thrilled with a gentle fear that was the most delightful sensation she had ever known. She looked shyly at the strong-limbed, sunburned young fellow opposite, and she began to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head, every gesture, every change in his face she knew now--knew so well that she blushed at her own knowledge.

But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not, although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then--But it is always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love.

So the morning wore away.

The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying on the lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy to sleep.

He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.

"DEAR JACK,--I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to come back. You're the only person on earth I can write this to.

"Faithfully yours, MOLLY HESKETH."

Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could read between the lines--a man in love is less dense than when in his normal state--and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing amid a shower of bricks and bursting sh.e.l.ls, staring at war through a monocle.

"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment, that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to the 11th Uhlans.

"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this war lasts."

Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered whether any other troops were between him and Saarbruck. The truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the Germans should pa.s.s that way; not at all likely--but suppose they should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No, he could never go away and leave Lorraine--that was out of the question.

He lighted a match and moodily burned Molly's letter to ashes in the fireplace. He also stirred the ashes up, for he was honourable in little things--like Ricky--and also, alas!

apparently no novice.

Dorothy's letter lay on the table--her third since she had left for Paris. He opened his knife and split the envelope carefully, still thinking of Lorraine.

"MY OWN DEAR JACK,--There is something I have been trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so if you do not read carefully between every line, you may not find it, after all.

"I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and ill--the excitement in the city and that horrid National Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald is away on business, she says--where, I forgot to ask her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday.

Some ragam.u.f.fins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her.

Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the English papers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear.

"The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there?

Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren.

Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and write me _at once_. Don't forget--the _11th Uhlans_. Oh, Jack, darling! can't you understand?

Your loving sister, DOROTHY."

"Understand? What?" repeated Jack. He read the letter again carefully.

"I can't see what the mischief is extraordinary in that," he mused, "unless she's giving me a tip about Sir Thorald; but no--she can't know anything in that direction. Now what is it that she has hidden away? Oh, here's a postscript."

He turned the sheet and read:

"My love to aunt and uncle, Jack--don't forget. I am writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out.

There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to the _Berlin Post_ and the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ and the _Munich Neueste Nachrichten_, but the horrid creature at the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her place. I hope the _Herald_ will give particulars of losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?

"DORRIE.

"P. P. S.--Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."

"Now, what on earth interests Dorrie in all these battle statistics?" he wondered; "and what in the name of common-sense can she find to interest her in the 11th Uhlans? Ricky? Absurd!"

He repeated "absurd" two or three times, but he became more thoughtful a moment later, and sat smoking and pondering. That would be a nice muddle if she, the niece of a Frenchman--an American, too--should fix her affections on a captain of Uhlans whose regiment he, Jack Marche, would avoid as he would hope to avoid the black small-pox.

"Absurd," he repeated for the fourth time, and tossed his cigarette into the open fireplace. And as he rose to go up-stairs something out on the road by the gate attracted his attention, and he went to the window.

Three hors.e.m.e.n sat in their saddles on the lawn, lance on thigh, eyes fixed on him.

They were Uhlans!

XVI

"IN THE HOLLOW OF THY HAND"

For a moment he recoiled as though he had received a blow between the eyes.

There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points, schabraques edged with yellow--aye, and tunics also, yellow and blue--those were the colours--the colours of the 11th Uhlans.

Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done--death even though the man he had shot were not dead--death though he had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its most awful form--hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian, foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling, informing, or otherwise, was hung--sometimes with a drum-head court-martial, sometimes without.

Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he leaned back against the table, cold with fear.

This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the needle-guns sent a shower of lead over his rocky observatory; the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle hors.e.m.e.n.

Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did not understand ropes.

He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back from the open window. Had they seen him?

All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled like cattle shying at a pa.s.sing train, and away went the Uhlans, plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were gone.