The Old Blood Part 20

"And I shall have my trap here to take you to the first train. It goes at seven," said the Count, with a side glance of triumph at the General, who had no conveyance. "I have some influence and I shall see that you have a place--and I shall drive you myself."

Madame Ribot, completely rea.s.sured, gratified that she had not taken down her hair for the night and not unconscious that a dressing-gown became her well, smiled at the Count with a charming grat.i.tude.

"You take it all so calmly, Madame, as I knew you would," he said.

"Like a true Frenchwoman. It is women who are brave, not men."

The General was tugging at his moustache. Thanks to one dilapidated old trap, he who had led charges in '70 and fought from Gravelotte to Paris was holding a small hand; but he was still a strategist, who now had a Napoleonic flash of initiative.

"Madame, while as a soldier I think there is no danger," he said, "I feel it my duty to remain at the chateau overnight, so that you will know I am near in case there should be an unexpected crisis which in time of war only a soldier knows how to face. I shall take forty winks on the sofa here as I have done many times in my tent on campaign. Ah, those days! And you will find me here in the morning," he concluded, turning triumphantly to the Count.

Ever impartial, Madame Ribot now bestowed her smile on the General.

"But Madame is not afraid," put in the Count. "I fear she will take your offer, General, as an indication that she is."

"On the contrary," said Madame Ribot, "it takes crises like this to prove what good neighbours one has. You have a.s.sured my reaching the station"--with a smile to the Count--"and you have a.s.sured that some one is on guard," with a smile to the General.

"But you will have to pack, you forget that, _mon general_!" the _n.o.blesse_ remarked to the army, with extreme politeness.

"I pack! I go!" the General snorted. "I shall not let the Germans drive me from my house!" he said. "I remain! I know that the army will hold!"

"And I shall see Madame safely to Paris, feeling that a Frenchman can serve France best not with the Germans but with the French," remarked the Count pithily.

"Sometimes a soldier too old to fight can serve in other ways," replied the General.

"Madame, I am sorry that it is to be at such an early hour," the Count concluded, as he kissed Madame Ribot's hand and withdrew. The General also kissed it; and Madame Ribot, quite stately, ascended to her room.

"We also must pack," said Henriette to Helen.

They, too, went upstairs and left America and the French army together.

"A fine woman, Madame Ribot!" said the General. "Ah, our guns! Hear them! Our guns--and I a gouty old man--a bag of bones! But this old heart," he placed his hand over it, "has all the desire it ever had."

"You can see the guns from the upper terrace," suggested Phil.

"Come on, then, Monsieur," exclaimed the General. "You will forgive me," he added, as they started up the path, "for intruding myself when there was already a man here, a young, self-reliant man, as I see you are. But that pestiferous Count!" he exclaimed belligerently; then he chuckled philosophically. "Ah, he and I play a game which pleases Madame and pleases us, we who live on memory--though she need not if she were not so selfish. I do not like to allow the Count to score--it makes him so jealous when you score off him. Then, one must be amused in the country when time hangs idle on the hands and one grows old."

The great main road was now dark with transport and infantry under the moonlight, and across the fields squadron of cavalry could be seen going at the trot. Every gun-flash near and far, every movement, had its message for General Rousseau. He talked of '70, ran on in reminiscence as he stared out into the night; and finally was silent, as if a great weight had been laid on his heart. Phil understood that the signs which the old soldier read were not good.

"They are the lucky ones, our officers and men who are fighting," he said. "It's so simple--fighting! You forget everything. You do your all for France. I was twice wounded, Monsieur. All night I crawled and hid in a barn till I got stronger; and then I worked my way through the German lines and fought till I was too weak to stand in the siege.

Yes, that was good--so simple!"

Was it to be '70 over again? His army, his France to submit to the old fate? A second and final tragedy coming?

"Yes, yes--and," said the General, a new note in his voice, as if an inspiration had come to him, "and I may still serve not only France, but you in America--all democracy, all civilisation. Monsieur, you will tell Madame Ribot if she does not see me again that I had to look after an important affair. I am going to locate some commander of ours who will pa.s.s me onto the staff. Yes, tell Madame that I kiss her hand."

His old legs seemed to have found new life as he parted from Phil.

CHAPTER XIV

"IF I WISH IT!"

When the two sisters went upstairs, Henriette turned to go to her room, then whirled and followed Helen.

"Well, did you tell him?" she demanded, with a kind of ferocity.

"Yes," replied Helen, foreseeing fresh torture.

"And how did he take it?"

"In the mood that I gave it--good-naturedly, as a joke."

"Oh, a joke! Yes, a joke!" Henriette played on the word harshly. "He did not renew the proposal to you? Strange!" she laughed. "And did you tell him that you had told me?"

The question was so piercingly put that Helen recoiled slightly.

"Yes," she said.

"Another joke, that! Did you think of the position it put me in?"

"But he asked me. I could not lie to him!"

"No, never! You could not lie!" Henriette rejoined. "No, you did not think what kind of a position it put me in--or him. I know that he has meant to propose to me. He knows that I know. Delightful situation!

Acting for me, did you say that I would accept or refuse?"

"I said nothing. He said nothing."

"Quite nothing?" Henriette persisted. "Nothing about poor, little, plain, much-abused sisters?"

"No. I don't know what you mean, Henriette. The war is here. We are both on our nerves. And--he will propose again. He loves you."

Henriette smiled with something of her usual sweetness, touched with a bantering acidity.

"If I wish it!" she said, turning abruptly to go.

"Henriette, please not to-night! We don't know what may happen to-morrow," Helen pleaded.

"I must pack," replied Henriette rather irrelevantly, and was gone.

Irritating enough this task at all times, let alone when you may take only a small box and everything that you leave behind may fall into the hands of a conqueror. Henriette looked into the big closet at the array of gowns and the row of shoes under the drooping skirts and spread out her hands hopelessly.

"I can buy new gowns," she said. "It's the laces and jewelry and the mementoes that must go."

She unlocked an old carved chest and in turn unlocked a drawer within which was crammed full of bundles of letters, each tied with a bit of pink ribbon. There must have been a dozen bundles and she smiled at their number.

"When I am so young, too!" she mused. "Why take them? Why not leave them locked up? But the Germans might break open the chest and read them. No, they must go--at the very bottom of the trunk;" where she laid the trophies of conquest before she thought of anything else.