"Both from Mademoiselle Lange. See how things hinge upon a trifling chance--how much, we cannot tell! I happened to open the telegram first, and it told me to return the letter unopened."
As he spoke he handed her the grey sheet upon which were pasted the narrow blue paper ribbons bearing the text. The baroness read the message slowly and carefully. She glanced over the paper, down at his head, with a little wise smile full of contempt for his limited male understanding.
"And the letter?" she inquired.
He showed her a sealed envelope addressed by himself to Denise at Perucca. She took it up and turned it over slowly. It was stamped and ready for the post. She then threw it down with a short laugh.
"I was thinking," she explained, "of the difference between men and women. A woman would have filled a cup with boiling water and laid that letter upon it. It is quite easy. Why, we were taught it at the convent school! You could have opened the letter and read it, and then closed it again and returned it. By that simple subterfuge you would have known the contents, and would still have had the credit for doing as you were told.
And I think three women out of five would have done it, and the whole five would have wanted to do it. Ah! you may laugh. You do not know what wretches we are compared to men--compared especially to some few of them; to a Baron Henri de Melide or a Count de Va.s.selot--who are honourable men, my cousin."
She touched him lightly on the shoulder with one finger, and then turned away to look with thoughtful eyes out of the window.
"I wonder what is in that letter," said Lory, returning to his pen.
The baroness turned on her heel and looked at him with her contemptuous smile again.
"Oh," she said carelessly, "she was probably in a difficulty, which solved itself after the letter was posted. Or she was afraid of something, and found that her fears were unnecessary. That is all, no doubt."
There is, it appears, an _esprit de s.e.xe_ which prevents women from giving each other away.
"So you merely placed the letter in an envelope and are returning it, thus, without comment?" inquired the baroness.
"Yes," answered Lory, who was writing a letter now.
And his cousin stood looking at him with an amused and yet tender smile in her gay eyes. She remained silent until he had finished.
"There," he said, taking an envelope and addressing it hurriedly, "that is done. It is to the Abbe Susini at Olmeta; and it contains some of those things, my cousin, that I cannot tell you."
"Do you think I care," said the baroness, "for your stupid politics? Do you think any woman cares for politics who has found some stupid man to care for her? There is _my_ stupid in the street--on his new horse."
In a moment Lory was at the window.
"A new horse," he said earnestly. "I did not know that. Why did you not tell me?"
"We were talking of empires," replied the baroness. "By the way," she added, in after-thought, "is our good friend Colonel Gilbert in Corsica?"
"Yes--he is at Bastia."
"Ah," said the baroness, looking reflectively at Denise"s telegram, which she still held in her hand, "I thought he was."
Then that placid man, the Baron Henri de Melide, came into the room, and shook hands in the then novel English fashion, looking at his lifelong friend with a dull and apathetic eye.
"From the frontier?" he inquired.
Lory laughed curtly. He had returned from that Last Frontier, where each one of us shall inevitably be asked "Si monsieur a quelque chose a declarer?"
"I shall give you ten minutes for your secrets, and then luncheon will be ready," said the baroness, quitting the room.
And Lory told his friend those things which were not for a woman"s hearing.
At luncheon both men were suspiciously cheerful; and, doubtless, their companion read them like open books. Immediately after coffee Lory took his leave.
"I leave Paris to-night," he said, with his old cheerfulness. "This war is not over yet. We have not the shadow of a chance of winning, but we shall perhaps be able to show the world that France can still fight."
Which prophecy a.s.suredly came true.
CHAPTER XVI.
A MASTERFUL MAN.
"Tous les raisonnements des hommes ne valent pas un sentiment d"une femme."
It would seem that Lory de Va.s.selot had played the part of a stormy petrel when he visited Paris, for that calm Frenchman, the Baron de Melide, packed his wife off to Provence the same night, and the letter that Lory wrote to the Abbe Susini, reaching Olmeta three days later, aroused its recipient from a contemplative perusal of the _Pet.i.t Bastiais_ as if it had been a bomb-sh.e.l.l.
The abbe threw aside his newspaper and cigarette. He was essentially a man of action. He had been on his feet all day, hurrying hither and thither over his widespread parish, interfering in this man"s business and that woman"s quarrels with that hastiness which usually characterizes the doings of such as pride themselves upon their capability for action and contempt for mere pa.s.sive thought. It was now evening, and a blessed cool air was stealing down from the mountains. Successive days of unbroken sunshine had burnt all the western side of the island, had almost dried up the Aliso, which crept, a mere rivulet in its stormy bed, towards St. Florent and the sea.
Susini went to-the window of his little room and opened the wooden shutters. His house is next to the church at Olmeta and faces north-west; so that in the summer the evening sun glares across the valley into its windows. He was no great scholar, and had but a poor record in the archives of the college at Corte. Lory de Va.s.selot had written in a hurry, and the letter was a long one. Susini read it once, and was turning it to read again, when, glancing out of the window, he saw Denise cross the Place, and go into the church.
"Ah!" he said aloud, "that will save me a long walk."
Then he read the letter again, with curt nods of the head from time to time, as if Lory were making points or giving minute instructions. He folded the letter, placed it in the pocket of his ca.s.sock, and gave himself a smart tap on the chest, as if to indicate that this was the moment and himself the man. He was brisk and full of self-confidence, managing, interfering, commanding, as all true Corsicans are. He took his hat, hardly paused to blow the dust off it, and hurried out into the sunlit Place. He went rather slowly up the church steps, however, for he was afraid of Denise. Her youth, and something spring-like and mystic in her being, disturbed him, made him uneasy and shy; which was perhaps his reason for drawing aside the heavy leather curtain and going into the church, instead of waiting for her outside. He preferred to meet her on his own ground--in the chill air, heavy with the odour of stale incense, and in the dim light of that place where he laid down, in blunt language, his own dim reading of G.o.d"s law.
He stood just within the curtain, looking at Denise, who was praying on one of the low chairs a few yards away from him; and he was betrayed into a characteristic impatience when she remained longer on her knees than he (as a man) deemed necessary at that moment. He showed his impatience by shuffling with his feet, and still Denise took no notice.
The abbe, by chance or instinct, slipped his hand within his ca.s.sock, and drew out the letter which he had just received. The rustle of the thin paper brought Denise to her feet in a moment, facing him.
"The French mail has arrived," said the priest.
"Yes," replied Denise, quickly, looking down at his hands.
They were alone in the church which, as a matter of fact, was never very well attended; and the abbe, who had not that respect for G.o.d or man which finds expression in a lowered voice, spoke in his natural tones.
"And I have news which affects you, mademoiselle."
"I suppose that any news of France must do that," replied Denise, with some spirit.
"Of course--of course," said the abbe, rubbing his chin with his forefinger, and making a rasping sound on that shaven surface.
He reflected in silence for a moment, and Denise made, in her turn, a hasty movement of impatience. She had only met the abbe once or twice; and all that she knew of him was the fact that he had an imperious way with him which aroused a spirit of opposition in herself.
"Well, Monsieur l"Abbe," she said, "what is it?"
"It is that Mademoiselle Brun and yourself will have but two hours to prepare for your departure from the Casa Perucca," he answered. And he drew out a large silver watch, which he consulted with the quiet air of a commander.