"Because they do not know you, mademoiselle," replied the colonel, with perhaps a second meaning in his blue eyes.
And, after a pause, he explained further.
"Because they do not understand you. They belong to one of the strongest clans in Corsica, and it is the ambition of every one to belong to a strong clan. But the Peruccas are in danger of falling into dissension and disorder, for they have no head. You are the head, mademoiselle. And the work they expect of you is not work for such hands as yours."
And again Colonel Gilbert looked at Denise slowly and thoughtfully. She did not perceive the glance, for she was standing with her head half turned towards the trees.
"Ah!" he said, noting the direction of her glance, "they will throw no more stones, mademoiselle. You need have no anxiety. They fear a uniform as much as they hate it."
"And if you had not come at that moment?"
"Ah!" said the colonel, gravely; and that was all. "At any rate, I am glad I came," he added, in a lighter tone, after a pause. "You were going to the Mairie, mesdemoiselles, when I arrived. Take my advice, and do not go there. Go to the abbe if you like--as a man, not as a priest--and come to me whenever you desire a service, but to no one else in Corsica."
Denise turned as if she were going to make an exception to this sweeping restriction, but she checked herself and said nothing. And all the while Mademoiselle Brun stood by in silence, a little, patient, bent woman, with compressed lips, and those steady hazel eyes that see so much and betray so little.
"The abbe is not at home," continued the colonel. "I saw him many miles from here not long ago; and although he is quick on his legs--none quicker--He cannot be here yet. If you are going towards the Casa Perucca, you will perhaps allow me to accompany you".
He led the way as he spoke, leading loosely by the bridle the horse which followed him, and nuzzled thoughtfully at his shoulder. The colonel was, it appeared, one whose gentle ways endeared him to animals.
It was glaringly hot, and when they reached the Casa Perucca, Denise asked the colonel to come in and rest. It was, moreover, luncheon-time, and in a thinly populated country the great distances between neighbours are conducive to an easier hospitality than that which exists in closer quarters. The colonel naturally stayed to luncheon.
He was kind and affable, and had a hundred little sc.r.a.ps of gossip such as exiles love. He made no mention of his offer to buy Perucca, remembered only the fact that he was a gentleman accepting frankly a lady"s frank hospitality, and if the conversation turned to local matters, he gracefully guided it elsewhere.
Immediately after luncheon he rose from the table, refusing even to wait for coffee.
"I have my duties," he explained. "The War Office is, for reasons known to itself, moving troops, and I have gradually crept up the ladder at Bastia, till I am nearly at the top there."
Denise went with him to the stable to see that his horse had been cared for.
"They have only left me the decrepit and the half-witted," she said, "but I am not beaten yet."
Colonel Gilbert fetched the horse himself and tightened the girths. They walked together towards the great gate of solid wood which fitted into the high wall so closely that none could peep through so much as a crack.
At the door the colonel lingered, leaning against his great horse and stroking its shoulder thoughtfully with a gloved finger.
"Mademoiselle," he said at length.
"Yes," answered Denise, looking at him so honestly in the face that he had to turn away.
"I want to ask you," he said slowly, "to marry me."
Denise looked at him in utter astonishment, her face suddenly red, her eyes half afraid.
"I do not understand you," she said.
"And yet it is simple enough," answered the colonel, who himself was embarra.s.sed and ill at ease. "I ask you to marry me. You think I am too old--" He paused, seeking his words. "I am not forty yet, and, at all events, I am not making the mistake usually made by very young men. I do not imagine that I love you--I know it."
They stood for a minute in silence; then the colonel spoke again.
"Of what are you thinking, mademoiselle?"
"That it is hard to lose the only friend we have in Corsica."
"You need not do that," replied the colonel. "I do not even ask you to answer now."
"Oh, I can answer at once."
Colonel Gilbert bit his lip, and looked at the ground in silence.
"Then I am too old?" he said at length.
"I do not know whether it is that or not," answered Denise; and neither spoke while the colonel mounted and rode slowly away. Denise closed the door quite softly behind him.
CHAPTER XII.
A SUMMONS.
"One stern tyrannic thought that made All other thoughts its slave."
All round the Mediterranean Sea there dwell people who understand the art of doing nothing. They do it unblushingly, peaceably, and of a set purpose. Moreover, their forefathers must have been addicted to a similar philosophy; for there is no Mediterranean town or village without its promenade or lounging-place, where the trees have grown quite large, and the shade is quite deep, and the wooden or stone seats are shiny with use. Here those whom the French call "worth-nothings" congregate peacefully and happily, to look at the sea and contemplate life from that reflective and calm standpoint which is only to be enjoyed by the man who has nothing to lose. To begin at Valentia, one will find these human weeds almost Oriental in their apathy. Farther north, at Barcelona, they are given to fitful lapses into activity before the heat of the day. At Ma.r.s.eilles they are almost energetic, and are even known to take the trouble of asking the pa.s.ser for alms. But eastward, beyond Toulon, they understand their business better, and do not even trouble to talk among themselves. The French worth-nothing is, in a word, worth less than any of his brothers--much less than the Italian, who is quite easily roused to a display of temper and a rusty knife--and more nearly approaches the supreme calm of the Moor, who, across the Mediterranean, will sit all day and stare at nothing with any man in the world. And between these dreamy coasts there lie half a dozen islands which, strange to say, are islands of unrest. In Majorca every man works from morn till eve. In Minorca they do the same, and quarrel after nightfall. In Iviza they quarrel all day.
In Corsica they do nothing, restlessly; while Sardinia, as all the world knows, is a hotbed of active discontent.
At Ajaccio there are half a dozen idlers on the Place Bonaparte, who sit under the trees against the wall; but they never sit there long, and do not know their business. At St. Florent, in the north of the island, which has a western aspect--the best for idling--there are but two real, unadulterated knights of industry, who sit on the low wall of that which is called the New Quay, and conscientiously do nothing from morning till night.
"Of course I know him," one was saying to the other. "Do I not remember his father, and are not all the de Va.s.selots cut with the same knife? I tell you there was a moon, and I saw him get off his horse, just here at the very door of Rutali"s stable, and unstrap his sack, which he carried himself, and set off towards Olmeta."
The speaker lapsed into silence, and Colonel Gilbert, who had lunched, and was now sitting at the open window of the little inn, which has neither sign nor license, leant farther forward. For the word "Olmeta"
never failed to bring a light of energy and enterprise into his quiet eyes.
The inn has its entrance in the main street of St. Florent, and only the back windows look out upon the quay and across the bay. It was at one of these windows that Colonel Gilbert was enjoying a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and the loafers on the quay were unaware of his presence there.
And for the sixth time at least, the story of Lory de Va.s.selot"s arrival at St. Florent and departure for Olmeta was told and patiently heard. Has not one of the great students of human nature said that the _canaille_ of all nations are much alike? And the dull or idle of intellect a.s.suredly resemble each other in the patience with which they will listen to or tell the same story over and over again.
The colonel heard the tale, listlessly gazing across the bay with dreamy eyes, and only gave the talker his full attention when more ancient history was touched upon.
"Yes," said the idler; "and I remember his father when he was just at that age--as like this one as one sheep is like another. Nor have I forgotten the story which few remember now."
He pressed down the tobacco into his wooden pipe--for they are pipe-smokers in a cigarette lat.i.tude--and waited cunningly for curiosity to grow. His companion showed no sign, though the colonel set his empty coffee-cup noiselessly aside and leant his elbow on the window-sill.
The speaker jerked his thumb in the direction of Olmeta over his left shoulder far up on the mountainside.
"That story was buried with Perucca," he said, after a long pause.
"Perhaps the Abbe Susini knows it. Who can tell what a priest knows?
There were two Peruccas once--fine, big men--and neither married. The other--Andrei Perucca--who has been in h.e.l.l these thirty years, made sheep"s eyes, they told me, at de Va.s.selot"s young wife. She was French, and willing enough, no doubt. She was dull, down there in that great chateau; and when a woman is dull she must either go to church or to the devil. She cannot content herself with tobacco or the drink, like a man.
De Va.s.selot heard of it. He was a quiet man, and he waited. One day he began to carry a gun, like you and me--a bad example, eh? Then Andrei Perucca was seen to carry a gun also. And, of course, in time they met--up there on the road from Pruneta to Murato. The clouds were down, and the gregale was blowing cold and showery. It is when the gregale blows that the clouds seem to whisper as they crowd through the narrow places up among the peaks, and there was no other sound while these two men crept round each other among the rocks, like two cats upon a roof. De Va.s.selot was quicker and smaller, and as agile as a goat, and Andrei Perucca lost him altogether. He was a fool. He went to look for him. As if any one in his senses would go to look for a Corsican in the rocks!