A gruff voice sounded behind him, rude, authoritative, as if trying to banish the doubts of the audience. It was the Herr Comerzienrath who was speaking.
"Young man, these notices are sent us by the first agencies of Germany ... and Germany never lies."
After this affirmation, he turned his back upon them and they saw him no more.
On the following morning, the last day of the voyage. Desnoyers" steward awoke him in great excitement. "Herr, come up on deck! a most beautiful spectacle!"
The sea was veiled by the fog, but behind its hazy curtains could be distinguished some silhouettes like islands with great towers and sharp, pointed minarets. The islands were advancing over the oily waters slowly and majestically, with impressive dignity. Julio counted eighteen. They appeared to fill the ocean. It was the Channel Fleet which had just left the English coast by Government order, sailing around simply to show its strength. Seeing this procession of dreadnoughts for the first time, Desnoyers was reminded of a flock of marine monsters, and gained a better idea of the British power. The German ship pa.s.sed among them, shrinking, humiliated, quickening its speed. "One might suppose," mused the youth, "that she had an uneasy conscience and wished to scud to safety." A South American pa.s.senger near him was jesting with one of the Germans, "What if they have already declared war! ... What if they should make us prisoners!"
After midday, they entered Southampton roads. The Frederic August hurried to get away as soon as possible, and transacted business with dizzying celerity. The cargo of pa.s.sengers and baggage was enormous.
Two launches approached the transatlantic and discharged an avalanche of Germans residents in England who invaded the decks with the joy of those who tread friendly soil, desiring to see Hamburg as soon as possible.
Then the boat sailed through the Channel with a speed most unusual in these places.
The people, leaning on the railing, were commenting on the extraordinary encounters in this marine boulevard, usually frequented by ships of peace. Certain smoke lines on the horizon were from the French squadron carrying President Poincare who was returning from Russia. The European alarm had interrupted his trip. Then they saw more English vessels patrolling the coast line like aggressive and vigilant dogs. Two North American battleships could be distinguished by their mast-heads in the form of baskets. Then a Russian battleship, white and glistening, pa.s.sed at full steam on its way to the Baltic. "Bad!" said the South American pa.s.sengers regretfully. "Very bad! It looks this time as if it were going to be serious!" and they glanced uneasily at the neighboring coasts on both sides. Although they presented the usual appearance, behind them, perhaps, a new period of history was in the making.
The transatlantic was due at Boulogne at midnight where it was supposed to wait until daybreak to discharge its pa.s.sengers comfortably. It arrived, nevertheless, at ten, dropped anchor outside the harbor, and the Commandant gave orders that the disembarkation should take place in less than an hour. For this reason they had quickened their speed, consuming a vast amount of extra coal. It was necessary to get away as soon as possible, seeking the refuge of Hamburg. The radiographic apparatus had evidently been working to some purpose.
By the glare of the bluish searchlights which were spreading a livid clearness over the sea, began the unloading of pa.s.sengers and baggage for Paris, from the transatlantic into the tenders. "Hurry! Hurry!" The seamen were pushing forward the ladies of slow step who were recounting their valises, believing that they had lost some. The stewards loaded themselves up with babies as though they were bundles. The general precipitation dissipated the usual exaggerated and oily Teutonic amiability. "They are regular bootlickers," thought Desnoyers. "They believe that their hour of triumph has come, and do not think it necessary to pretend any longer." ...
He was soon in a launch that was bobbing up and down on the waves near the black and immovable hulk of the great liner, dotted with many circles of light and filled with people waving handkerchiefs. Julio recognized Bertha who was waving her hand without seeing him, without knowing in which tender he was, but feeling obliged to show her gratefulness for the sweet memories that now were being lost in the mystery of the sea and the night. "Adieu, Frau Rath!"
The distance between the departing transatlantic and the lighters was widening. As though it had been awaiting this moment with impunity, a stentorian voice on the upper deck shouted with a noisy guffaw, "See you later! Soon we shall meet you in Paris!" And the marine band, the very same band that three days before had astonished Desnoyers with its unexpected Ma.r.s.eillaise, burst forth into a military march of the time of Frederick the Great--a march of grenadiers with an accompaniment of trumpets.
That had been the night before. Although twenty-four hours had not yet pa.s.sed by, Desnoyers was already considering it as a distant event of shadowy reality. His thoughts, always disposed to take the opposite side, did not share in the general alarm. The insolence of the Counsellor now appeared to him but the boastings of a burgher turned into a soldier. The disquietude of the people of Paris, was but the nervous agitation of a city which lived placidly and became alarmed at the first hint of danger to its comfort. So many times they had spoken of an immediate war, always settling things peacefully at the last moment! ... Furthermore he did not want war to come because it would upset all his plans for the future; and the man accepted as logical and reasonable everything that suited his selfishness, placing it above reality.
"No, there will not be war," he repeated as he continued pacing up and down the garden. "These people are beside themselves. How could a war possibly break out in these days?" ...
And after disposing of his doubts, which certainly would in a short time come up again, he thought of the joy of the moment, consulting his watch. Five o"clock! She might come now at any minute! He thought that he recognized her afar off in a lady who was pa.s.sing through the grating by the rue Pasquier. She seemed to him a little different, but it occurred to him that possibly the Summer fashions might have altered her appearance. But soon he saw that he had made a mistake. She was not alone, another lady was with her. They were perhaps English or North American women who worshipped the memory of Marie Antoinette and wished to visit the Chapelle Expiatoire, the old tomb of the executed queen.
Julio watched them as they climbed the flights of steps and crossed the interior patio in which were interred the eight hundred Swiss soldiers killed in the attack of the Tenth of August, with other victims of revolutionary fury.
Disgusted at his error, he continued his tramp. His ill humor made the monument with which the Bourbon restoration had adorned the old cemetery of the Madeleine, appear uglier than ever to him. Time was pa.s.sing, but she did not come. Every time that he turned, he looked hungrily at the entrances of the garden. And then it happened as in all their meetings.
She suddenly appeared as if she had fallen from the sky or risen up from the ground, like an apparition. A cough, a slight rustling of footsteps, and as he turned, Julio almost collided with her.
"Marguerite! Oh, Marguerite!" ...
It was she, and yet he was slow to recognize her. He felt a certain strangeness in seeing in full reality the countenance which had occupied his imagination for three months, each time more spirituelle and shadowy with the idealism of absence. But his doubts were of short duration.
Then it seemed as though time and s.p.a.ce were eliminated, that he had not made any voyage, and but a few hours had intervened since their last interview.
Marguerite divined the expansion which might follow Julio"s exclamations, the vehement hand-clasp, perhaps something more, so she kept herself calm and serene.
"No; not here," she said with a grimace of repugnance. "What a ridiculous idea for us to have met here!"
They were about to seat themselves on the iron chairs, in the shadow of some shrubbery, when she rose suddenly. Those who were pa.s.sing along the boulevard might see them by merely casting their eyes toward the garden. At this time, many of her friends might be pa.s.sing through the neighborhood because of its proximity to the big shops... . They, therefore, sought refuge at a corner of the monument, placing themselves between it and the rue des Mathurins. Desnoyers brought two chairs near the hedge, so that when seated they were invisible to those pa.s.sing on the other side of the railing. But this was not solitude. A few steps away, a fat, nearsighted man was reading his paper, and a group of women were chatting and embroidering. A woman with a red wig and two dogs--some housekeeper who had come down into the garden in order to give her pets an airing--pa.s.sed several times near the amorous pair, smiling discreetly.
"How annoying!" groaned Marguerite. "Why did we ever come to this place!"
The two scrutinized each other carefully, wishing to see exactly what transformation Time had wrought.
"You are darker than ever," she said. "You look like a man of the sea."
Julio was finding her even lovelier than before, and felt sure that possessing her was well worth all the contrarieties which had brought about his trip to South America. She was taller than he, with an elegantly proportioned slenderness. "She has the musical step,"
Desnoyers had told himself, when seeing her in his imagination; and now, on beholding her again, the first thing that he admired was her rhythmic tread, light and graceful as she pa.s.sed through the garden seeking another seat. Her features were not regular but they had a piquant fascination--a true Parisian face. Everything that had been invented for the embellishment of feminine charm was used about her person with the most exquisite fastidiousness. She had always lived for herself. Only a few months before had she abdicated a part of this sweet selfishness, sacrificing reunions, teas, and calls in order to give Desnoyers some of the afternoon hours.
Stylish and painted like a priceless doll, with no loftier ambition than to be a model, interpreting with personal elegance the latest confections of the modistes, she was at last experiencing the same preoccupations and joys as other women, creating for herself an inner life. The nucleus of this new life, hidden under her former frivolity, was Desnoyers. Just as she was imagining that she had reorganized her existence--adjusting the satisfactions of worldly elegance to the delights of love in intimate secrecy--a fulminating catastrophe (the intervention of her husband whose possible appearance she seemed to have overlooked) had disturbed her thoughtless happiness. She who was accustomed to think herself the centre of the universe, imagining that events ought to revolve around her desires and tastes, had suffered this cruel surprise with more astonishment than grief.
"And you, how do you think I look?" Marguerite queried.
"I must tell you that the fashion has changed. The sheath skirt has pa.s.sed away. Now it is worn short and with more fullness."
Desnoyers had to interest himself in her apparel with the same devotion, mixing his appreciation of the latest freak of the fashion-monger with his eulogies of Marguerite"s beauty.
"Have you thought much about me?" she continued. "You have not been unfaithful to me a single time? Not even once? ... Tell me the truth; you know I can always tell when you are lying."
"I have always thought of you," he said putting his hand on his heart, as if he were swearing before a judge.
And he said it roundly, with an accent of truth, since in his infidelities--now completely forgotten--the memory of Marguerite had always been present.
"But let us talk about you!" added Julio. "What have you been doing all the time?"
He had brought his chair nearer to hers, and their knees touched. He took one of her hands, patting it and putting his finger in the glove opening. Oh, that accursed garden which would not permit greater intimacy and obliged them to speak in a low tone, after three months"
absence! ... In spite of his discretion, the man who was reading his paper raised his head and looked irritably at them over his spectacles as though a fly were distracting him with its buzzing... . The very idea of talking love-nonsense in a public garden when all Europe was threatened with calamity!
Repelling the audacious hand, Marguerite spoke tranquilly of her existence during the last months.
"I have pa.s.sed my life the best I could, but I have been greatly bored.
You know that I am now living with mama, and mama is a lady of the old regime who does not understand our tastes. I have been to the theatres with my brother. I have made many calls on the lawyer in order to learn the progress of my divorce and hurry it along ... and nothing else."
"And your husband?"
"Don"t let"s talk about him. Do you want to? I pity the poor man!
So good ... so correct. The lawyer a.s.sures me that he agrees to everything and will not impose any obstacles. They tell me that he does not come to Paris, that he lives in his factory. Our old home is closed.
There are times when I feel remorseful over the way I have treated him."
"And I?" queried Julio, withdrawing his hand.
"You are right," she returned smiling. "You are Life. It is cruel but it is human. We have to live our lives without taking others into consideration. It is necessary to be selfish in order to be happy."
The two remained silent. The remembrance of the husband had swept across them like a glacial blast. Julio was the first to brighten up.
"And you have not danced in all this time?"
"No, how could I? The very idea, a woman in divorce proceedings! ...
I have not been to a single chic party since you went away. I wanted to preserve a certain decorous mourning fiesta. How horrible it was! ...
It needed you, the Master!"
They had again clasped hands and were smiling. Memories of the previous months were pa.s.sing before their eyes, visions of their life from five to seven in the afternoon, dancing in the hotels of the Champs Elysees where the tango had been inexorably a.s.sociated with a cup of tea.
She appeared to tear herself away from these recollections, impelled by a tenacious obsession which had slipped from her mind in the first moments of their meeting.