Lucile Triumphant Part 18

"Mademoiselle has been very seek?" the voice was low, caressing, with the slightest suggestion of a foreign accent.

Lucile turned her head and found herself looking into the bright, restless eyes of the mysterious stranger.

For the first moment she was startled and a little confused, but the next instant, recovering herself, she answered, gravely, "Yes, I have been rather under the weather for a couple of days," and she added, with her bright smile, "The thing that bothers me most is the thought of what I have missed during that time."

"Mademoiselle is brave," he smiled back. "Most would think only of their sufferings. However, there are still two good days in which to see everything."

"Two days?" sighed Lucile. "It seems to me as if it would take two years to see all I'd like to."

"Ah, but it is Mademoiselle's first voyage." There was an undertone of sadness in the low voice that made Lucile steal a quick glance at him.

There was something about the man, perhaps in the tired droop of his shoulders, perhaps something in the wistful way he had of looking far out to sea, as if seeking the solution of his problem there; perhaps it was only the pathos in his low, Southern voice. Be that as it may, Lucile's heart went out to him then and there.

"When one has been back and forth, back and forth, many times," he went on, "he is bound to lose that so fresh enthusiasm and long only for the sh.o.r.e where something may be done. At such times the days, they seem to have no end. But I transgress," he interrupted himself, with a little deprecatory laugh. "Mademoiselle should have reminded me."

"You speak of having crossed the ocean many times," said Mr. Payton, who, with his wife, had approached the absorbed little group unknown to them.

Monsieur Charloix arose from his chair quickly and offered it, with a Frenchman's elaborate courtesy, to Mrs. Payton. When they were again seated, this time in a cozy little semicircle, Mr. Payton repeated his question and the girls listened eagerly for the reply.

"Didn't I tell you?" Jessie managed to whisper. "Now we are going to have the story."

"Yes," came, in the gentle, modulated tones, "Monsieur is right; I am not a stranger to America."

"And you like our country?" said Mrs. Payton, adding, with a laugh, "Do not be afraid to tell the truth; we shall not be offended."

"Ah, but that is where Madam does me great injustice," said the stranger, with a smile. "There is no country in the world for which I have so great respect and admiration as I have for your great America. It has been my misfortune that, in my flying visits, I have had so little time and opportunity to make the acquaintance of so great a nation."

"Hip-hip-hooray!" cried Phil, the irrepressible, taking possession of the chair next to Jessie. "It's good to have the old country boosted when you're so far away."

"Phil," protested his mother, "I do wish you could get along without so much slang."

"He'll be engaging an interpreter next," murmured Jessie, at which the culprit looked his reproach.

"I hope you will pardon the interruption, Monsieur Charloix," said Mrs.

Payton, apologetically, and her husband added, "Our excuse for Phil is that he is young and still has much to learn, although it is mighty hard to convince him of the truth of that last fact," at which scathing remark, delivered with a twinkle that was lost in the dark, Phil looked almost cast down, until Jessie declared in a whisper "that she loved slang," accompanying the declaration with a comforting little pat that cheered him immensely.

"No apologies, Madame and Monsieur," the Frenchman was saying. "I was once a boy myself. The slang has many advantages which the more flowery language has not; it is, at least, much to the point."

"If he would only use it, he might reach the point sooner," complained Jessie, in an aside.

"I'd be happy if I only knew what point you wanted him to get to," sighed Lucile. "You see, I am completely in the dark."

"'Listen, my children, and you shall hear,'" Jessie broke in, still in an undertone. "Methinks the story is about to unfold itself----"

"Sh-h!" said Lucile, warningly. "Listen!"

Mr. Payton was speaking. "You say the will cannot be found?"

Four pairs of bright young eyes centered upon the stranger with eager intensity as they waited for his reply.

CHAPTER XIII

ROMANCE

The moist, salt-laden breeze fanned their hot faces gratefully. The musical tap-tap of the waves against the side of the ship came to them as from a great distance, and even the voices and laughter of the pa.s.sengers seemed, somehow, strangely remote.

The stranger brought his gaze back to them with an effort, as he said, wearily, "Monsieur, I am tired--you cannot know how much. But I had not meant to bore you with my so selfish perplexities----"

"Sometimes to tell our troubles is half the cure," Mrs. Payton suggested, gently.

"You are very--good," murmured the stranger, gratefully. "If you are sure it will not tire----"

Then at their vigorous denials, he proceeded, in his low, even voice: "Sometimes I have felt the great necessity of telling all to some one--some one who would understand. If I did not, I felt I should go mad." He pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes with an infinitely weary gesture.

"You see, my father and I, we had long been estranged. Not even in my earliest childhood have I the memory of a gentle word, a fatherly pressure of the hand. So I grew to young manhood with no knowledge of a mother's or father's love--for my mother," here his voice lowered, reverently, "died when I was born. My childhood was of the utmost loneliness, for my father thought the children with whom I wished to a.s.sociate were too far beneath me in social station. My sole companion was the old dame who took care of the house--the one person in the world of whom my father seemed to have fear. So the miserable years dragged by.

When I had just begun to make some plans by which I might escape from this dungeon they so falsely called my home--just at the time I was most despairing--like a joyful, radiant rift of sunlight in a clouded sky, came--my Jeanette. Oh, if you could but see her!"

Under cover of the dark the girls' hands sought and clasped convulsively, but no one spoke.

"I cannot attempt to describe one so gay, so beautiful, so lovely. She seemed like a spirit from another world--a far dearer, happier world than I had ever thought to exist. Ah, how I loved her, and she--ah, she loved me, and for a while we were, oh, Monsieur, so divinely, so unthinkably happy----" His voice broke and again his gaze wandered dreamily out into the night.

"And who was the girl?" Lucile prompted, eagerly.

"Ah, Mademoiselle, that was the rock upon which all our dreams were wrecked. My father would but reply sourly to any question I might venture that my fair Jeanette was the ward of a friend who, on his death-bed, had bequeathed her to his clemency--the fool!"

"As for my Jeanette herself, she told me all she knew about herself, which, in fact, was little enough. She had lived with her guardian and his faithful old servant for ever since she could remember, and had been very happy. The chateau where she lived was a pretty, open place, with gardens all about and beautiful woods on either side, where one could roam for hours, becoming acquainted with the little folk of the wood--this my little Jeanette did, not feeling the need of human companionship as had I. When, upon rare occasions, she had questioned her guardian as to the ident.i.ty of her parents, he had answered with a most strange reticence that she must not bother her head about such matters, but to wait till she was twenty-one, when she would know all. Naturally, the child believed and did as she was bid, but the maiden wondered and began to brood in secret. In time she began to form great plans wherein she might discover her ident.i.ty, and perhaps, who knows, she might find herself to be a duke's daughter--such things happened with the utmost frequency in the books which she read.

"So spoke my little Jeanette, and I encouraged her in this fancy and became, if anything, more eager than herself to solve the mystery of her parentage.

"So the days and weeks fled by so happy, till once again those plans began to take form and shape that had so long laid dormant after the arrival of Jeanette. The voice of my manhood urged me insistently to throw off the fetters that bound me and advance bravely into the seething world of men and from it wrest the so well-earned fruit of my endeavor--for I was ambitious and rebelled at being shut within four walls, where each detail of my life was arranged for me as if I had still been a child.

"Yet I liked little the thought of leaving my sweet Jeanette alone in that gloomy house. But, on the other hand, how could I aspire to help if I remained at home?"

"That night Jeanette and I talked long--ah, I shall never forget it!--and it was then she urged, with tears of earnestness in her dear eyes, not to think of her, but to do as I judged best. I have seen her as she looked that night so many, many weary days!"

Here there was a long pause in the narrative, and it was not till Mr.

Payton prompted, softly, "And then----"

"Well, then, Monsieur, events flowed along easily enough till it was about a week to the time we had set for my departure. Then, one night, I came upon Jeanette suddenly and, to my great alarm and dismay, I discovered her in tears.

"'Jeanne!' I cried. 'My little Jeanne, tell me what is wrong!'

"But she would not answer me, only sobbing out in a way that broke my heart that 'I must go away, and never, never see her again!'

"Then it was, while I was still stunned and stupefied by the change in her, that a servant brought me a message from my father. He wished to see me on the instant.