"Well met!" he said. "You find me, count, taking a professional and business-like survey of the laud that you promised to sell me."
"You are welcome to take the survey," answered Lory, taking the outstretched, cordial hand, "but I must ask you to let me keep the land.
I did not take your offer seriously."
"It was intended seriously, I a.s.sure you."
"Then it was my mistake," answered Lory, quite pleasantly.
He tapped himself vigorously on the chest, and made a gesture indicating that at a word from the colonel he was ready to lay violent hands upon himself for having been so foolish. The colonel laughed, and shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were but a small one. The pitiless Mediterranean, almost African, sun poured down on them, and one of those short spells of absolute calm, which are characteristic of these lat.i.tudes, made it unbearably hot. The colonel took off his cap, and, sitting down in quite a friendly way near de Va.s.selot on a rock, proceeded to mop his high forehead, pressing back the thin smooth hair which was touched here and there with grey.
"You have come here at the wrong time," he said. "The heats have begun.
One longs for the cool breezes of Paris or of Normandy."
And he paused, giving Lory an opportunity of explaining why he had come at this time, which opportunity was promptly neglected.
"At all events, count," said the colonel, replacing his cap and lighting a cigarette, "I did not deceive you as to the nature of the land which I wished to buy. It is a desert, as you see. And yet I cannot help thinking that something might be made of this land."
He sat and gazed lazily in front of him. Presently, leaving his cigarette to smoulder, he began to buzz through his teeth, in the bucolic manner, an air of Offenbach. He was, in a word, entirely agricultural, and consequently slow of speech.
"Yes, count," he said, with conviction, after a long pause; "there is only one drawback to Corsica."
"Ah?"
"The Corsicans," said the colonel, gravely. "You do not know them as I do; for I suppose you have only been here a few days?"
De Va.s.selot"s quick eyes glanced for a moment at the colonel"s face, but no reply was made to the supposition. Then the colonel fell to his guileless Offenbach again. There is nothing so innocent as the meditative rendering of a well-known tune. A popular air is that which echoes in empty heads.
Colonel Gilbert glanced sideways at his companion. He had not thought that this was a silent man. Nature was singularly at fault in her mouldings if this slightly made, dark-eyed Frenchman was habitually taciturn. And the colonel was vaguely uneasy.
"My horse," he said, "is up at Olmeta. I took a walk round by the river.
It is my business to answer innumerable questions from the Ministry of the Interior. Railway projects are still in the air, you understand. I must know my Corsica. Besides, as I tell you, I thought I was on my own land."
"I am sorry that I cannot hold to my joke, for it was nothing else, as you know."
"Yes, yes, of course," acquiesced the colonel. "And in the mean time, it is a great pleasure to see you here, as well as a surprise. I need hardly tell you that your presence here is quite unknown to your neighbours. We have little to talk about at this end of the island now that the Administration is centred more than ever at Ajaccio; and were it known in the district that you are at Va.s.selot, you may be sure I should have heard of it at the cafe or at the hotel where I dine."
"Yes. I came without drum or trumpet."
"You are wise."
The remark was made so significantly that Lory could not ignore it even if such a course had recommended itself to one of his quick and impulsive nature.
"What do you mean, colonel?"
Gilbert made a little gesture of the hand that held the half-burnt cigarette. He deprecated, it would appear, having been drawn to talk on so serious a topic.
"Well, I speak as one Frenchman to another, as one soldier to another. If the emperor does not die, he will declare war against Germany. There is the situation in a nutsh.e.l.l, is it not? And do you think the army can afford to lose one man at the present time, especially a man who has made good use of such small opportunities of distinction as the fates have offered him? And, so far as I have been able to follow the intricacies of the parochial politics, your life is not worth two sous in this country, my dear count. There, I have spoken. A word to the wise, is it not?"
He rose, and threw away his cigarette with a nod and a smile.
"And now I must be returning. You will allow me to pa.s.s up that small pathway that leads past the chateau. Some day I should, above all things, like to see the chateau. I am interested in old houses, I tell you frankly."
"I will walk part of the way with you," answered Lory, with a stiffness which was entirely due to a sense of self-reproach. For it was his instinct to be hospitable and open-handed and friendly. And Lory would have liked to ask the colonel then and there to come to the chateau.
"By the way," said the colonel, as they climbed the hill together, "I did not, of course, mean to suggest that you should sell me the old house which bears your name--only a piece of land, a few hectares on this south-west slope, that I may amuse myself with agriculture, as I told you. Perhaps some day you may reconsider your decision?"
He waited for a reply to this suggestion, or an invitation in response to the hint that he was interested in the old house. But neither came.
"I am much obliged to you for your warning as to the unpopularity of my name in this district," said Lory, rather laboriously changing the subject. "I had, of course, heard something of the same sort before; but I do not attach much importance to local tradition, do you?"
The colonel paused for a few minutes. He had the leisurely conversational manner of an old man.
"These people have undergone a change," he said at length, "since their final subjugation by ourselves--exactly a hundred years ago, by the way.
They were a turbulent, fighting, obstinate people. Those qualities--good enough in times of war--go bad in times of peace. They are a lawless, idle, dishonest people now. Their grand fighting qualities have run to seed in munic.i.p.al disagreements and electioneering squabbles. And, worst of all, we have grafted on them our French thrift, which has run to greed. There is not a man in the district who would shoot you, count, from any idea of the vendetta, but there are a hundred who would do it for a thousand-franc note, or in order to prevent you taking back the property which he has stolen from you. That is how it stands. And that is why Pietro Andrei came to grief at Olmeta."
"And Mattei Perucca?" asked Lory, thereby causing the colonel to trip suddenly over a stone.
"Oh, Perucca," he answered, "that was different. He died a more or less natural death. He was a very stout man, and on receiving a letter, gave way to such ungovernable rage that he fell in a fit. True, it was a threatening letter; but such are common enough in this country. It may have been a joke or may have had some comparatively harmless object. None could have foreseen such a result."
They were now near the chateau, and the colonel rather suddenly shook hands and went away.
"I am always to be found at Bastia, and am always at your service," he said, waving a farewell with his whip.
Lory found the door of the chateau ajar, and Jean watching behind it. His father, however, seemed to have forgotten upon what mission he had gone forth, and was sitting placidly in the little room, lighted by a skylight, where they always lived. The sight of Lory reminded him, however.
"Who was it?" he asked, without showing a very keen interest.
"It was a man called Gilbert," answered Lory, "whom I have met in Paris.
An engineer. He is stationed at Bastia, and is connected with the railway scheme. A man I should like to like, and yet--He ought to be a good fellow. He has every qualification, and yet--"
Lory did not finish the sentence, but stood reflectively looking at his father.
"He has more than once offered to buy Va.s.selot," he said, watching for the effect.
"You must never sell Va.s.selot," replied the old man. He did not seem to conceive it possible that there should be any temptation to do so.
"I do not quite understand Colonel Gilbert," continued Lory. "He has also offered to buy Perucca; but there I think he has to deal with a clever woman."
CHAPTER XI.
BY SURPRISE.
"C"est ce qu"on ne dit pas qui explique ce qu"on dit."