The Rough Road Part 30

"I explained to you--to apologize for staring rudely into your house."

"It was not because you said to yourself, 'Here is a pretty girl looking at me. I'll go and talk to her'?"

Doggie threw his leg over the corner of the table and stood on indignant feet.

"Jeanne! How could you----?" he cried.

She leaned back, her open palms on the table. The rare light came into her eyes.

"That's what I wanted to know. Now we understand each other, Monsieur Trevor."

"I wish you wouldn't call me Monsieur Trevor," said he.

"What else can I call you? I know no other name."

Now he had in his pocket a letter from Peggy, received that morning, beginning "My dearest Marmaduke." Peggy seemed far away, and the name still farther. He was deliberating whether he should say "_Appelez-moi James_" or "_Appelez-moi Jacques_," and inclining to the latter as being more picturesque and intimate, when she went on:

"_Tenez_, what is it your comrades call you? 'Doggie'?"

"Say that again."

"Dog-gie."

He had never dreamed that the hated appellation could sound so adorable. Well--no one except his officers called him by any other name, and it came with a visible charm from her lips. It brought about the most fascinating flash of the tips of her white teeth. He laughed.

"_A la guerre comme a la guerre._ If you call me that, you belong to the regiment. And I promise you, it is a fine regiment."

"_Eh bien_, Monsieur Dog-gie----"

"There's no monsieur about it," he declared, very happily. "Tommies are not _messieurs_."

"I know one who is," said Jeanne.

So they talked in a young and foolish way, and Jeanne for a while forgot the tragedies that had gone and the tragedies that might come; and Doggie forgot both the peac.o.c.k and ivory room and the fetid hole into which he would have to creep when the night's march was over.

They talked of simple things. Of Toinette, who had been with Aunt Morin ever since she could remember.

"You have won her heart with your snuff."

"She has won mine with her discretion."

"Oh-h!" said Jeanne, shocked.

And so on and so forth, as they sat side by side on the kitchen table, swinging their feet. After a while they drifted to graver questions.

"What will happen to you, Jeanne, if your aunt dies?"

"_Mon Dieu!_" said Jeanne----

"But you will inherit the property, and the business?"

By no means. Aunt Morin had still a son, who was already very old. He must be forty-six. He had expatriated himself many years ago and was in Madagascar. The son who was killed was her Benjamin, the child of her old age. But all her little fortune would go to the colonial Gaspard, whom Jeanne had never seen.

But the Farm of La Folette?

"It has been taken and retaken by Germans and French and English, _mon pauvre ami_, until there is no farm left. You ought to understand that."

It was a thing that Doggie most perfectly understood: a patch of hideous wilderness, of poisoned, sh.e.l.l-scarred, ditch-defiled, barren, loathsome earth.

And her other relations? Only an uncle, her father's youngest brother, a cure in Douai in enemy occupation. She had not heard of him since the flight from Cambrai.

"But what is going to become of you?"

"So long as one keeps a brave heart what, does it matter? I am strong.

I have a good enough education. I can earn my living. Oh, don't make any mistake. I have no pity for myself. Those who waste efforts in pitying themselves are not of the stuff to make France victorious."

"I am afraid I have done a lot of self-pitying, Jeanne."

"Don't do it any more," she said gently.

"I won't," said he.

"If you keep to the soul you have gained, you can't," said Jeanne.

"_Toujours la sagesse._"

"You are laughing at me."

"G.o.d forbid," said Doggie.

Phineas and Mo came strolling towards the kitchen door.

"My two friends, to pay their visit of adieu," said he.

Jeanne slid from the table and welcomed the newcomers in her calm, dignified way. Once more Doggie found himself regarding her as his senior in age and wisdom and conduct of life. The pathetic girlishness which she had revealed to him had gone. The age-investing ghosts had returned.

Mo grinned, interjected a British Army French word now and then, and manifested delight when Jeanne understood. Phineas talked laboriously, endeavouring to expound his responsibility for Doggie's welfare. He had been his tutor. He used the word "_tuteur_."

"That's a guardian, you silly a.s.s," cried Doggie. "He means '_inst.i.tuteur_.' Go on. Or, rather, don't go on. The lady isn't interested."

"_Mais si_," said Jeanne, catching at the last English word. "It interests me greatly."

"_Merci, mademoiselle_," said Phineas grandly. "I only wish to explain to you that while I live you need have no fear for Doggie. I will protect him with my body from sh.e.l.ls and promise to bring him safe back to you. And so will Monsieur Shendish."

"What's that?" asked Mo.

Phineas translated.

"_Oui, oui, oui!_" said Mo, nodding vigorously.