Robert grasped his companion"s hand warmly.
"I shall never forget your friendship, Gaillard."
"You may remember it as long as you like if you will not refer to it. I can never repay you for your many acts of friendship toward me."
"But your profession," interrupted Tournay, "how can you leave the theatre all this time? How will your place be filled?"
"Oh, it will be filled very well. I arranged all that before leaving; whether I shall find it vacant or not when I return is another matter.
But it does not trouble me; let it not trouble you, my friend." And with a cheerful wave of the hand, Gaillard departed.
CHAPTER VIII
PeRE LOUCHET"S GUESTS
In the southern part of the province of Touraine, in the village of La Haye, lived Pierre Louchet, or as his neighbors called him, Pere Louchet.
Logically speaking, Louchet, being a bachelor, had no right to this t.i.tle, but as he took a paternal interest in all the young people of the village, they had fitted him with this sobriquet, partly in a spirit of gentle irony and partly in affectionate recognition of his fatherly att.i.tude toward them.
Pere Louchet lived alone in a little cottage that was always as neat and well-kept as if some feminine hand held sway there. Indeed, if he fell sick, or was too busy with the crops on his small farm to pay proper attention to his household duties, there were plenty of women from the neighboring cottages who were glad to come in and make his gruel or sweep up his hearth, so it was not on account of any unpopularity with the gentler s.e.x that he lived on in a state of celibacy.
In a society where marriage was almost universal, such an eccentricity as that exhibited by Pierre Louchet in remaining single did not escape comment. Indeed at the age of fifty he was as often bantered on the subject as he had been at thirty. But neither the raillery and innuendoes of the neighbors nor the entreaties, threats, and cajoleries of his sister, Jeanne Maillot, had ever moved him to take a wife.
"It"s a family disgrace," said Jeanne, putting her red hands on her hips, and regarding her elder brother with a look of scorn. "Here am I ten years younger than you, and with five children. And Marie who lives at Fulgent has eight. And you, the only man in our family, sit there by the chimney and smoke your pipe contentedly, and let the young girls of La Haye grow up around you one after another, marry, settle down, and have daughters who are old enough to be married by this time; and you do nothing to keep up the name of Louchet."
""T is not much of a name," replied Pierre.
"It is one your father had, and was quite good enough for me, until I took Maillot."
"If I should marry, there would be less for your own children when I am gone."
"I"m sure it was your happiness I was thinking of before all," replied Jeanne, mollified at this presentation of the case.
"If it"s my happiness you are thinking about, let me stay as I am. I and my pipe are quite company enough, and if I want more I only have to step across a field and I can find you and your good husband Maillot." And Pere Louchet"s eyes would twinkle kindly while his pipe sent up a thicker wreath of smoke.
One young woman once declared maliciously that Pere Louchet squinted.
But those who heard the remark declared that it was because he was always endeavoring to look in any direction except towards her who sought to attract his attention, and after that the slander was never repeated.
One morning in December the neighborhood of La Haye was set all in a flutter of curiosity by a sudden increase in the family in Pere Louchet"s cottage.
As an explanation of it he remarked with his eyes twinkling more than usual: "I am getting old and need help about the place, and that is why a nephew and a niece of my brother-in-law Maillot have come to live with me."
Paul and Elise Durand were natives of "up north" and had never before been as far south as La Haye. The woman was about twenty-five years old, brown as a berry, with a st.u.r.dy figure and strong arms. Her brother was tall and slender. He said he was nearly twenty, yet he was small for his age and his entire innocence of any beard gave him a still more boyish appearance. He spoke with a softer accent than most country lads in those parts, but that was because he came from the neighborhood of Paris; and then he and his sister had both been in the service of a great "Seigneur" before the Revolution.
In the neighboring province of La Vendee the peasants, led by the priests and n.o.bles, were threatening to take up arms in support of the monarchy. But the inhabitants of La Haye took little interest in political affairs, and although they shared somewhat the sentiment of opposition in La Vendee to the new government in Paris, they busied themselves generally with their vineyards and their crops and took no active part in politics. Paul and Elise were content in the fact that their new home was so quiet and so remote from the strife that was raging so fiercely all about them.
One morning, shortly after her arrival, Elise was resting by the stile which divided the field of Pere Louchet from that of his brother-in-law.
She had placed on the stile the bucket containing six fresh cheeses wrapped in cool green grape leaves, while she herself sat down upon the bottom step beside it, to remove her wooden sabot and shake out a little pebble that had been irritating her foot. The wooden shoe replaced, she took up her pail and was about to spring blithely over the stile, when she drew back with a little cry of surprise mingled with alarm. Standing on the other side, his arm resting on the top step, leaned a young man who had evidently been watching her closely.
Drawing a short pipe from between a row of white teeth, his mouth expanded in a wide grin.
"Did I frighten you?" he said, in a slight foreign accent but with an extremely pleasant tone of voice.
"Not at all," answered Elise, looking at him frankly. "I"m not easily frightened. If you will move a little to one side, I can cross the stile and go about my affairs."
"What have you in the pail?" asked the man, as he complied with her request.
"Cheeses," she answered, as he came lightly over the wall. "It"s clear you"re not of this part of the country or you would never have asked that question."
"I am not from this part of the country," said the stranger. "You ought to know that by my accent."
"Where is your native place?" asked Elise, her curiosity aroused.
"A long distance from here--Prussia. Have you ever heard of that country?"
"Yes."
"We are most of us against the Republic--there," said he. "I am, for one," and he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. She made no reply. "Let me carry your cheeses," he said, laying his hand upon the bucket.
"They are not heavy," said Elise, "and I must hurry home."
"All ways are the same to me and I will go along with you," he said, taking the bucket from her. "It"s heavy for you."
"It"s no burden for me, and as I don"t know you I prefer to go home by myself," she said frankly.
"Oh, I"m a merry fellow--you need not fear me. I am your friend."
"I have no way of being sure of that," was the reply, "though you don"t look as if you could be an enemy."
"I should be glad for an opportunity to prove myself your friend. And I could prove that I am no stranger by telling you a good deal about yourself and your brother Paul."
"Indeed," was all Elise vouchsafed in reply, but she looked a little uncomfortable.
"I might tell you of an order of arrest that was not carried out; of a chateau burned; of the midnight flight of two women and the arrival at La Haye of a woman and her younger brother; all this I might tell you, with the a.s.surance that these secrets are safe in the keeping of a friend."
"How will you prove that you are a friend?" Elise said in a low voice with apparent unconcern, although she felt her heart beating with fear.
"The fact that I have just told you what I know and shall tell no one else, should be one proof," he said. Elise did not answer, but looked at him with a keen expression as if she would read his thoughts.
He had a frank, open face, the very plainness of which bespoke the honesty of the man.
"Suppose I should say that I came from Hagenhof in Prussia and that I was sent here by friends of your brother who have gone there. Suppose I should say that they wanted you to join them and that I could take you there with little risk to yourselves, would you be inclined to trust me then?"
"What risk do we incur by remaining where we are?" inquired Elise, without answering his question.
"You will always run the risk of discovery while in France," he replied.