Madcap Part 23

"I don't doubt it. It's quite possible I wouldn't understand myself.

We're never quite so impressed with our own virtues as when we can find flaws in other people. But you know I'm not courting discovery."

"Nor I. We must leave here at dawn."

"As you please. Now I'm going to bed."

She got up and gave him her hand and he led her to the door.

"Good night, Hermia, and pleasant dreams. You shall taste the springs at their fountain head, meet the world with naked hands, learn the luxury of contentment; or else--" as he paused she put her hand before his lips.

"There is no alternative. I shall not fail you. Good night, Philidor."

"Good night, Hermia."

Markham sought out Duchanel and sent a telegram to Olga which Hermia had dictated. "Have changed my plans. Am leaving with a party for a tour of French Inns. Will communicate later."

Duchanel understood. The message would be forwarded from Paris as Monsieur directed. No one in Pa.s.sy or elsewhere should know.

Markham nodded and paid the bill, producing from a wallet which Hermia had not seen an additional amount which Duchanel found sufficient to compensate him for his trouble.

"You understand, Monsieur?" said Markham, as he went up to bed.

"Madame and I are leaving here _? pied_. We shall have coffee and _brioche_ at five. You will not remember which way we go."

"_Parfaitement, Monsieur_. You may rely upon my discretion."

CHAPTER XIII

VAGABONDIA

They took the road in the gray of a morning overcast with clouds and portentous of a storm. At the last moment, their host, with an eye upon the weather (and another upon Markham's hidden wallet), had sought to keep them until the skies were more propitious. But they were not to be dissuaded and trudged off briskly, Monsieur Duchanel and Madam Bordier accompanying them to the cross-roads and bidding them G.o.d-speed upon their journey.

Markham, pipe in mouth, his hat pulled over his eyes, his coat collar turned up, showed the way, while Hermia, her finery hidden under a long coat, followed, leading the donkey, which, after a few preliminary remonstrances, consented to accompany them. A tarpaulin covered Hermia's orchestra and Markham's knapsack which were securely packed upon the animal--a valiant, if silent company, marching confidently into the unknown, Hermia smiling defiance at the clouds, Markham smoking grimly, the donkey ambling impa.s.sively, the least concerned of the three.

A rain had fallen in the night but Hermia splashed through the mud and water joyously, like a child, thankful nevertheless for Markham's thoughtfulness which had provided her last night with a pair of stout shoes and heavy stockings. To a spirit less blithe than hers the outlook would have been gloomy enough, for all the morning the clouds scurried fast overhead and squalls of rain and fog drove into the misty south. The trees turned the white backs of their shivering leaves to the wind and dripped moisture. The birds silently preened their wet plumage on the fences or sought the shelter of the hedges.

Nature had conspired. But Hermia plodded on undismayed, aware of her companion's long stride and his indifference to discomfort. Her shoes were soaked and at every step the donkey splashed her new stockings, but she did not care; for she had discovered a motive in life and followed her quest open-eyed, aware that already she was rearranging her scale of values to suit her present condition. She was beginning to feel the "needs and hitches" of life and had a sense of the flints strewn under foot. Her mind was already both occupied and composed.

She was quite moist and muddy. She had never been moist or muddy before without the means at hand to become dry and clean. Those means lacking, mere comfort achieved an extraordinary significance--reached at a bound an importance which surprised her.

After a while Markham glanced at her and drew alongside.

"Discouraged?" he asked.

"Not a bit," she smiled at him. "But I hadn't an idea that rain was so wet."

"I promised you the fountain springs of life--not a deluge," he laughed. "But it won't last," he added cheerfully with a glance at the sky. "It should clear soon."

"I don't care. The sunshine will be so much the more welcome."

He smiled at her approvingly.

"You are learning. That's the vagabond philosophy."

He was a true prophet. In an hour a brisk wind from the west had blown the storm away and burnished the sky like a new jewel. All things animate suddenly awoke and field and road were alive with people. The birds appeared from tree and bush and set joyously about getting their belated breakfasts. A miracle had happened, it seemed to Hermia. The blood in her veins surged deliciously, and all the world rejoiced with her. And yet--it was merely that the sun had come out.

They had mounted a high hill and stopped for breath at its summit.

The country over which they were to travel was spread out for their inspection. Down there in the valley the river choosing its leisurely course northward to the Seine, and beyond it the harlequin checkerboard of vine and meadow, the sentinel poplars, and to the east-ward the blue hills that sheltered Ivry-la-Bataille. Tiny villages, each with its slender campanile, made incidental notes of life and color and here and there, afar, the tall chimneys of factories stained the sky. About them in the nearer fields were hay-wagons and workers, men and women, their shouts and songs floating up the hill refined and mellowed by the distances.

Hermia took the air into her lungs, and surveyed the landscape.

"All this," said Markham, "is yours and mine--you see, when you have nothing, everything belongs to you."

She laughed.

"You won't dare to put that philosophy to the test. There's a delicious odor of cooking food. If everything belongs to me, I'll trouble you for the contents of that coffee-pot."

"Not hungry already--!"

"Frightfully so. I haven't eaten for ages."

He looked at his watch.

"It's only eleven, but of course--"

"Oh, don't let me interfere with your plans."

"You don't. I have no plans. We'll go into camp at once."

They descended the hill and after a while found a secluded spot near the river bank. Markham quickly unstrapped the donkey's pack and to Hermia's surprise drew forth a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of red wine which he set out with some pride on a flat rock near by.

"This," he announced, "is our _djeuner ? la fourchette_. I won't apologize for it."

"Wonderful man! Somehow you remind me of the sleight-of-hand performer producing an omelette from a silk hat. I don't think I've ever been really hungry before in my life."

He opened the bottle with the corkscrew on his pocket-knife and watched her munching hungrily at the rye-bread.

"Half the pleasure in life, after all, is wanting a thing and getting it," he observed. "How can you want anything if you've already got it?"

"I can't," she mumbled, her mouth full, "unless perhaps it's this bread."

He pa.s.sed the bottle to her and she drank from it sparingly, pa.s.sing it to him again.

"Every wine is a vintage if you're thirsty enough," he added. "The trouble with our world is that most of its people are always about half full of food. You can't really enjoy things to eat or things to drink unless you're quite empty. It's the same thing with ideas. You can't think very clearly when you're half full of other people's biases."

"Or their b-bread and ch-cheese!" she said, choking. Further than that she did not reply at once. The reasons were obvious. But she munched reflectively, and when she had swallowed:

"If all your arguments are as convincing as your fare, then you and I shall never disagree," she said.

Clarissa, for that was the name she had given the beast, was turned loose in the meadow. Markham sat beside Hermia on the warm rock, and, between them, without further words, they finished both the wine and the food. Markham filled his pipe and stretched out at full length in lazy content while she sat beside him, brushing the dried cakes of mud from her skirt and stockings.