Madcap Part 44

He filled his bucket at the well and sought Clarissa, who was sleeping the sleep of satiety. She had eaten until she could eat no more.

Watered, he led her back to the lodge, fastened his. .h.i.tching strap at the door and went inside, his own appet.i.te advising him that neither he nor Hermia had eaten since yesterday afternoon. His companion had huddled into a chair and was gazing into the fireplace. She did not offer to continue their conversation, nor did he. And so he got out his spirit lamp and made coffee, unpacked some chicken sandwiches, and, helping himself freely to the crockery of the Marquis, presently served the breakfast.

She would not eat at first and he did not insist upon her doing so, but sat comfortably, and in a moment was smacking his lips. The coffee was excellent--the best that could be had in Alenon, and its odor was delicious. He saw from where he sat her eyes shifting uncertainly. He drained his cup with a great sigh of content, set it down upon the saucer and was in the act of pouring out another helping for himself when she rose and reached forward quickly, appet.i.te triumphant.

"I'd better eat, I suppose," she said jerkily.

He smiled politely and handed her the sandwiches, noting from the tail of his eye that several times during the meal her look sought his face for an explanation of his change of manner, which, not being forthcoming, she sat rather demurely at her meat, emptying the pot of coffee and finishing the last of the bread and chicken. Markham would have smiled if he had dared! What chance had any of the lighter pa.s.sions against the craving hunger of the healthy young animal? It was another triumph of his philosophy, almost its greatest--Nature at a bound eliminating art and the feminine calculus. When he had finished eating, without a word he rose, and went out to pack Clarissa, and while he was thus engaged Hermia pa.s.sed him silently with a bucket on the way to the pump for water, and in another moment he was aware that she was washing the dishes. He made no effort to help her, but sat on the door-sill, thoughtfully smoking his pipe.

She came out in a moment and announced that she was ready to go, and he saw that breakfast had done her no harm. So they followed Olga Tcherny's instructions as far as he remembered them and found a path through the woods which led northward. Clarissa had so gorged herself with the stolen fodder (which may have been sweeter on that account) that Markham had to cut a new goad to speed her upon her way. They kept a watch ahead and behind them, and emerged as Olga had prophesied without adventure or accident through a hole in a hedge upon a highroad, along which, still bending their steps northward, they took their way.

Markham's silence had a double meaning. They were at odds just now. A while back Hermia had starved for food. He meant now that she should starve for company. He wanted to think, too, to a.n.a.lyze and weigh his own culpability in the situation where they now found themselves. The imprudence of their venture had not seemed to matter so much back at Evreux, where accident had thrown them together and Hermia had linked her fate to his. She had been little more to him then than an extraordinarily interesting specimen of a genus he little understood, a rebellious slave of convention who had shown him the shackles which galled her wrists and had pleaded with him very prettily to help her strike them off. Could any man have refused her? And yet he had known from that hour that a retribution of some sort awaited them both--Hermia, for ignoring her code; himself, for having permitted her to ignore it. There was a difference now--a difference which their discovery by an outsider had made unpleasantly manifest. De Folligny's appearance at Verneuil had made Markham thoughtful, but Olga's intrusion now had paraphrased their pastoral lyric into unworthy prose.

Parna.s.sus wept with them, but no amount of weeping could destroy the ugly doggerel as Olga had written it. Their idyl was smirched, the fair robe of _Euterpe_ was trialing in the dust.

But it was too late for reproaches now. The mischief was done and one thing only left--to emerge with as good a grace as possible from a doubtful position. As the moments pa.s.sed it became more clear to Markham in which way his duty lay--and the more he thought of it, the more he was convinced that it lay out of Vagabondia. Hermia must go--this very day--and he--to beard their pretty tigress.

The shadow of his thoughts fell upon his brows, and to Hermia, who watched him, when she could do so un.o.bserved, he presented a countenance upon which gloom sat heavily enthroned.

Had he spoken his thoughts as they came to him she could not have read him more easily; and, as Markham gloomed, her own mood lightened.

Though she spoke not, a dull fire slumbered in her eye which boded him mischief. Disaster had befallen--and some one was to pay for it; but his bent head was unaware of the smile that suddenly grew, a pale wintry smile which matched the devil in her eyes.

They camped in the mellow afternoon under the trees upon a rugged mountain that guarded the defile, through which a rushing torrent, one of the tributaries of the Oire, dashed over the rocks on its swift course to Argentan. Below them in the valley were a village and a railroad along which a tiny pa.s.senger train was slowly proceeding.

Markham eyed the train with a grave and melancholy interest. They both observed that it stopped in the village to let off and take on pa.s.sengers. He built his fire with great deliberateness, gloomy and silent as though performing a last rite for one departed, and ate solemnly, his face long.

At last she could stand the stress of him no longer and burst suddenly into a fit of laughter which echoed madly among the rocks.

"Oh, John Markham!" she cried. "Why so _triste_? The melancholy sweetness of seeing Olga again?"

"No," he replied calmly. "I was thinking--of other things."

"What?"

A smile broke over his lips. He had been right. There was nothing in the world that a woman has greater pains to endure than silence. He had starved her out.

He didn't reply at once, and that angered her.

"Must I plead with you even for speech?" she asked satirically. "Has it come to this? Will you not smile and throw a crumb of comfort to your bond-woman?"

"I have had nothing to say--until now," he replied, very quietly, over his coffee cup.

She only laughed at him and swept the ground with a low curtsey.

"Thy slave listens. Speak! To what decision has my lord and master arrived?" she asked.

He swallowed his coffee deliberately, unsmiling, his gaze over the valley where the railroad track wormed its way into the North.

"That you're to go to your friends in Paris--at once," he said decisively.

And while she watched him scornfully, the slow fire in her eyes burning suddenly into brightness, he took from his pocket a wallet he had never seen before, and counted out upon the ground some money.

"This," he continued calmly, "is yours. You have earned it. I have kept count. I will owe you, too--what is realized from the sale of--of Clarissa. Or, if you prefer it, I will pay you that now. I hope you will find the arrangement satisfactory."

He had arrested her mockery and she stood silent while he spoke, her gaze upon the ground. But her mood broke forth again with even greater virulence.

"So you want to be ride of me, _Monsieur mon Ma?tre--cancel my indentures--end my apprenticeship to the school of life--turn me adrift in a wicked world, which already treats me none too kindly. Is it wise, I say? Is it kind, is it human--just because a woman crosses our path and threatens my reputation? Look at me. Am I not the same that I was before? Now have I fallen in your graces? You, who professed a while ago to love me--oh, so madly?"

He was silent and would not look at her.

"Or is it _me_ that you fear, _mon cher_?" she taunted him. "Is it that I've learned too well your lessons? That I've foresworn the conventions which stifled me, the code which enslaved me, that I've earned at last my right to live unbound, untrammeled--with no code but the love of life, no law but that of my own instincts--is it because of this that you deny me? O John Markham! What becomes of your fine philosophy? And of your natural laws? Do they fall, with me, before the first challenge from the world they profess to ignore? It is to laugh."

While she vented her joy of him he rose and faced her, but she did not flinch. Her voice only dropped a tone, and now derided, mocked and cajoled.

"Do you fear me so much, _Monsieur le Ma?tre_?" she laughed. "Is it that I love you too much to love you wisely? Why should _you_ care, _mon ami_? Is it not the lot of women to give--always to give?"

Still he turned away from her, his hands fast in his pockets, but a warning murmur broke from his lips. She did not hear it and, coming around behind him, clasped her fingers upon his arms.

"If I tell you that I do not love you, _mon ami_, will not that be enough--enough to satisfy you that my happiness is not in danger? If I do not love you, what can you fear for me? Why should I care what the world thinks of us? Have I reproached you? Did I not give myself into your keeping, without--"

He turned and caught her into his arms and stopped her mockery with kisses, the man in him triumphant, while she struggled, her lips denied him, dumb and quivering in his arms.

"Now perhaps you know----why it is that you must go," he whispered.

"Read it here. I'm mad for you, Hermia--that is why. I can't any longer be with you without reaching forth to take you----you're mine by every law of G.o.d or Nature. Philosophy! Who cares? Your lips have babbled it. Let them babble it now--if they dare--"

"Let me go, Philidor," she gasped.

"No, not yet. I've much to say and only this hour to say it in, for in a while you shall go and I will stay with Pan and mourn. The woods will sigh of you, for you will be a nymph no longer. But before you go you shall look love in the eyes and see--love full grown and masterful--here among the everlasting rocks--love so great that you shall be afraid and mock not. Look up. Look in my eyes--"

"No! No!"

"You love me."

"No!"

"You love me."

"N--no!"

As she protested he took her lips, pale lips that would have mocked again, yet dared not, for her eyes had stolen a glance through half-closed lashes and learned that what he said was true. The warm color flooded upward, staining crimson beneath the tan, and her body which had relaxed for a moment under the gust of his ardor protested anew.

"Let me go, Philidor. I-It must not be--can't you understand? Would you justify them--what they say of us? Oh, let me go. Let me--"

She wrenched away from him and stood gasping, Olga Tcherny's last laughter singing in her ears.

"You've justified her--justified her," she almost sobbed, "robbed me of my right to look her in the eyes--as I could do this morning. Why did you kiss me--like that--Philidor? Oh, you've spoiled it all--spoiled it for us both. Why couldn't you have let things be--as they were--so gentle--so sweet--so sane!"

"You mocked at love," he muttered.

"Oh, that I should have misjudged you so. You who were so strong--so kind! Who ruled me with gentleness! and now--"