"I know already that you can be very brave and generous," she
answered.  "What I WANT to know is whether I can serve you - now or
afterwards," she added, with a quaver.

"Most certainly," he answered with a smile.  "Let me sit beside you
as if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget
how awkwardly we are placed to one another; make my last moments go
pleasantly; and you will do me the chief service possible."

"You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper sadness . . .
"very gallant . . . and it somehow pains me.  But draw nearer, if
you please; and if you find anything to say to me, you will at
least make certain of a very friendly listener.  Ah! Monsieur de
Beaulieu," she broke forth - "ah!  Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I
look you in the face?"  And she fell to weeping again with a
renewed effusion.

"Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, "reflect on
the little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into
which I am cast by the sight of your distress.  Spare me, in my
last moments, the spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the
sacrifice of my life."

"I am very selfish," answered Blanche.  "I will be braver, Monsieur
de Beaulieu, for your sake.  But think if I can do you no kindness
in the future - if you have no friends to whom I could carry your
adieux.  Charge me as heavily as you can; every burden will
lighten, by so little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you.  Put it
in my power to do something more for you than weep."

"My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for.
My brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in
error, that will content him amply for my death.  Life is a little
vapour that passeth away, as we are told by those in holy orders.
When a man is in a fair way and sees all life open in front of him,
he seems to himself to make a very important figure in the world.
His horse whinnies to him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out
of window as he rides into town before his company; he receives
many assurances of trust and regard - sometimes by express in a
letter - sometimes face to face, with persons of great consequence
falling on his neck.  It is not wonderful if his head is turned for
a time.  But once he is dead, were he as brave as Hercules or as
wise as Solomon, he is soon forgotten.  It is not ten years since
my father fell, with many other knights around him, in a very
fierce encounter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor so
much as the name of the fight, is now remembered.  No, no, madam,
the nearer you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty
corner, where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after
him till the judgment day.  I have few friends just now, and once I
am dead I shall have none."

"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you forget Blanche de
Maletroit."

"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
little service far beyond its worth."

"It is not that," she answered.  "You mistake me if you think I am
so easily touched by my own concerns.  I say so, because you are
the noblest man I have ever met; because I recognise in you a
spirit that would have made even a common person famous in the
land."

"And yet here I die in a mouse-trap - with no more noise about it
than my own squeaking," answered he.

A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for a little
while.  Then a fight came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke
again.

"I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself.  Any one who
gives his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the
heralds and angels of the Lord God.  And you have no such cause to
hang your head.  For . . . Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she
asked, with a deep flush.

"Indeed, madam, I do," he said.

"I am glad of that," she answered heartily.  "Do you think there
are many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a
beautiful maiden - with her own lips - and who have refused her to
her face?  I know you men would half despise such a triumph; but
believe me, we women know more of what is precious in love.  There
is nothing that should set a person higher in his own esteem; and
we women would prize nothing more dearly."

"You are very good," he said; "but you cannot make me forget that I
was asked in pity and not for love."

"I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head.
"Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu.  I know how you must
despise me; I feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature
to occupy one thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die
for me this morning.  But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and
indeed, it was because I respected and admired you, and loved you
with my whole soul, from the very moment that you took my part
against my uncle.  If you had seen yourself, and how noble you
looked, you would pity rather than despise me.  And now," she went
on, hurriedly checking him with her hand, "although I have laid
aside all reserve and told you so much, remember that I know your
sentiments towards me already.  I would not, believe me, being
nobly born, weary you with importunities into consent.  I too have
a pride of my own:  and I declare before the holy mother of God, if
you should now go back from your word already given, I would no
more marry you than I would marry my uncle's groom."

Denis smiled a little bitterly.

"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little pride."

She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.

"Come hither to the window," he said, with a sigh.  "Here is the
dawn."

And indeed the dawn was already beginning.  The hollow of the sky
was full of essential daylight, colourless and clean; and the
valley underneath was flooded with a grey reflection.  A few thin
vapours clung in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding
course of the river.  The scene disengaged a surprising effect of
stillness, which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once
more to crow among the steadings.  Perhaps the same fellow who had
made so horrid a clangour in the darkness not half-an-hour before,
now sent up the merriest cheer to greet the coming day.  A little
wind went bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the
windows.  And still the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of
the east, which was soon to grow incandescent and cast up that red-
hot cannon-ball, the rising sun.

Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver.  He had
taken her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.

"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then, illogically
enough:  "the night has been so long!  Alas, what shall we say to
my uncle when he returns?"

"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.

She was silent.

"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance,
"you have seen whether I fear death.  You must know well enough
that I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air
as lay a finger on you without your free and full consent.  But if
you care for me at all do not let me lose my life in a
misapprehension; for I love you better than the whole world; and
though I will die for you blithely, it would be like all the joys
of Paradise to live on and spend my life in your service."

As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior
of the house; and a clatter of armour in the corridor showed that
the retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were
at an end.

"After all that you have heard?" she whispered, leaning towards him
with her lips and eyes.

"I have heard nothing," he replied.

"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his
ear.

"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his
arms and covering her wet face with kisses.

A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Maletroit wished his new
nephew a good morning.




PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR




CHAPTER I



Monsieur Leon Berthelini had a great care of his appearance, and
sedulously suited his deportment to the costume of the hour.  He
affected something Spanish in his air, and something of the bandit,
with a flavour of Rembrandt at home.  In person he was decidedly
small and inclined to be stout; his face was the picture of good
humour; his dark eyes, which were very expressive, told of a kind
heart, a brisk, merry nature, and the most indefatigable spirits.
If he had worn the clothes of the period you would have set him
down for a hitherto undiscovered hybrid between the barber, the
innkeeper, and the affable dispensing chemist.  But in the
outrageous bravery of velvet jacket and flapped hat, with trousers
that were more accurately described as fleshings, a white
handkerchief cavalierly knotted at his neck, a shock of Olympian
curls upon his brow, and his feet shod through all weathers in the
slenderest of Moliere shoes - you had but to look at him and you
knew you were in the presence of a Great Creature.  When he wore an
overcoat he scorned to pass the sleeves; a single button held it
round his shoulders; it was tossed backwards after the manner of a
cloak, and carried with the gait and presence of an Almaviva.  I am
of opinion that M. Berthelini was nearing forty.  But he had a
boy's heart, gloried in his finery, and walked through life like a
child in a perpetual dramatic performance.  If he were not Almaviva
after all, it was not for lack of making believe.  And he enjoyed
the artist's compensation.  If he were not really Almaviva, he was
sometimes just as happy as though he were.

I have seen him, at moments when he has fancied himself alone with
his Maker, adopt so gay and chivalrous a bearing, and represent his
own part with so much warmth and conscience, that the illusion
became catching, and I believed implicitly in the Great Creature's
pose.

But, alas! life cannot be entirely conducted on these principles;
man cannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having
failed upon several theatres, was obliged to step down every
evening from his heights, and sing from half-a-dozen to a dozen
comic songs, twang a guitar, keep a country audience in good
humour, and preside finally over the mysteries of a tombola.

Madame Berthelini, who was art and part with him in these
undignified labours, had perhaps a higher position in the scale of
beings, and enjoyed a natural dignity of her own.  But her heart
was not any more rightly placed, for that would have been
impossible; and she had acquired a little air of melancholy,
attractive enough in its way, but not good to see like the
wholesome, sky-scraping, boyish spirits of her lord.

He, indeed, swam like a kite on a fair wind, high above earthly
troubles.  Detonations of temper were not unfrequent in the zones
he travelled; but sulky fogs and tearful depressions were there
alike unknown.  A well-delivered blow upon a table, or a noble
attitude, imitated from Melingne or Frederic, relieved his
irritation like a vengeance.  Though the heaven had fallen, if he
had played his part with propriety, Berthelini had been content!
And the man's atmosphere, if not his example, reacted on his wife;
for the couple doated on each other, and although you would have
thought they walked in different worlds, yet continued to walk hand
in hand.

It chanced one day that Monsieur and Madame Berthelini descended
with two boxes and a guitar in a fat case at the station of the
little town of Castel-le-Gachis, and the omnibus carried them with
their effects to the Hotel of the Black Head.  This was a dismal,
conventual building in a narrow street, capable of standing siege
when once the gates were shut, and smelling strangely in the
interior of straw and chocolate and old feminine apparel.
Berthelini paused upon the threshold with a painful premonition.
In some former state, it seemed to him, he had visited a hostelry
that smelt not otherwise, and been ill received.

The landlord, a tragic person in a large felt hat, rose from a
business table under the key-rack, and came forward, removing his
hat with both hands as he did so.

"Sir, I salute you.  May I inquire what is your charge for
artists?" inquired Berthelini, with a courtesy at once splendid and
insinuating.

"For artists?" said the landlord.  His countenance fell and the
smile of welcome disappeared.  "Oh, artists!" he added brutally;
"four francs a day."  And he turned his back upon these
inconsiderable customers.

A commercial traveller is received, he also, upon a reduction - yet
is he welcome, yet can he command the fatted calf; but an artist,
had he the manners of an Almaviva, were he dressed like Solomon in
all his glory, is received like a dog and served like a timid lady
travelling alone.

Accustomed as he was to the rubs of his profession, Berthelini was
unpleasantly affected by the landlord's manner.

"Elvira," said he to his wife, "mark my words:  Castel-le-Gachis is
a tragic folly."

"Wait till we see what we take," replied Elvira.

"We shall take nothing," returned Berthelini; "we shall feed upon
insults.  I have an eye, Elvira:  I have a spirit of divination;
and this place is accursed.  The landlord has been discourteous,
the Commissary will be brutal, the audience will be sordid and
uproarious, and you will take a cold upon your throat.  We have
been besotted enough to come; the die is cast - it will be a second
Sedan."

Sedan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only from
patriotism (for they were French, and answered after the flesh to
the somewhat homely name of Duval), but because it had been the
scene of their most sad reverses.  In that place they had lain
three weeks in pawn for their hotel bill, and had it not been for a
surprising stroke of fortune they might have been lying there in
pawn until this day.  To mention the name of Sedan was for the
Berthelinis to dip the brush in earthquake and eclipse.  Count
Almaviva slouched his hat with a gesture expressive of despair, and
even Elvira felt as if ill-fortune had been personally invoked.

"Let us ask for breakfast," said she, with a woman's tact.

The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gachis was a large red
Commissary, pimpled, and subject to a strong cutaneous
transpiration.  I have repeated the name of his office because he
was so very much more a Commissary than a man.  The spirit of his
dignity had entered into him.  He carried his corporation as if it
were something official.  Whenever he insulted a common citizen it
seemed to him as if he were adroitly flattering the Government by a
side wind; in default of dignity he was brutal from an overweening
sense of duty.  His office was a den, whence passers-by could hear
rude accents laying down, not the law, but the good pleasure of the
Commissary.

Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini hurry
thither in quest of the requisite permission for his evening's
entertainment; six several times he found the official was abroad.
Leon Berthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the
streets of Castel-le-Gachis; he became a local celebrity, and was
pointed out as "the man who was looking for the Commissary."  Idle
children attached themselves to his footsteps, and trotted after
him back and forward between the hotel and the office.  Leon might
try as he liked; he might roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he
might cock his hat at a dozen different jaunty inclinations - the
part of Almaviva was, under the circumstances, difficult to play.

As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excursion the
Commissary was pointed out to him, where he stood, with his
waistcoat unbuttoned and his hands behind his back, to superintend
the sale and measurement of butter.  Berthelini threaded his way
through the market stalls and baskets, and accosted the dignitary
with a bow which was a triumph of the histrionic art.

"I have the honour," he asked, "of meeting M. le Commissaire?"

The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his address.  He
excelled Leon in the depth if not in the airy grace of his
salutation.

"The honour," said he, "is mine!"

"I am," continued the strolling-player, "I am, sir, an artist, and
I have permitted myself to interrupt you on an affair of business.
To-night I give a trifling musical entertainment at the Cafe of the
Triumphs of the Plough - permit me to offer you this little
programme - and I have come to ask you for the necessary
authorisation."

At the word "artist," the Commissary had replaced his hat with the
air of a person who, having condescended too far, should suddenly
remember the duties of his rank.

"Go, go," said he, "I am busy - I am measuring butter."

"Heathen Jew!" thought Leon.  "Permit me, sir," he resumed aloud.
"I have gone six times already - "

"Put up your bills if you choose," interrupted the Commissary.  "In
an hour or so I will examine your papers at the office.  But now
go; I am busy."

"Measuring butter!" thought Berthelini.  "Oh, France, and it is for
this that we made '93!"

The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid
on the dinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected
at one end of the Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Leon
returned to the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.

"He is like Madame Benoiton," thought Leon, "Fichu Commissaire!"

And just then he met the man face to face.

"Here, sir," said he, "are my papers.  Will you be pleased to
verify?"

But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.

"No use," he replied, "no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied.
Give your entertainment."

And he hurried on.

"Fichu Commissaire!" thought Leon.



CHAPTER II



The audience was pretty large; and the proprietor of the cafe made
a good thing of it in beer.  But the Berthelinis exerted themselves
in vain.

Leon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of smoking a
cigarette between his songs that was worth money in itself; he
underlined his comic points, so that the dullest numskull in
Castel-le-Gachis had a notion when to laugh; and he handled his
guitar in a manner worthy of himself.  Indeed his play with that
instrument was as good as a whole romantic drama; it was so
dashing, so florid, and so cavalier.

Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and romantic songs
with more than usual expression; her voice had charm and plangency;
and as Leon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her
arms bare to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in
her corset, he repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that
she was one of the loveliest creatures in the world of women.

Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the golden youth of
Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly.  Here and there a single
halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never
exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different
applications, had contributed exactly twopence.  A certain chill
began to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they
were singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with
such an audience.  The Berthelinis struggled against the
impression; they put their back into their work, they sang loud and
louder, the guitar twanged like a living thing; and at last Leon
arose in his might, and burst with inimitable conviction into his
great song, "Y a des honnetes gens partout!"  Never had he given
more proof of his artistic mastery; it was his intimate,
indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gachis formed an exception
to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and was peopled
exclusively by thieves and bullies; and yet, as I say, he flung it
down like a challenge, he trolled it forth like an article of
faith; and his face so beamed the while that you would have thought
he must make converts of the benches.

He was at the top of his register, with his head thrown back and
his mouth open, when the door was thrown violently open, and a pair
of new comers marched noisily into the cafe.  It was the
Commissary, followed by the Garde Champetre.

The undaunted Berthelini still continued to proclaim, "Y a des
honnetes gens partout!"  But now the sentiment produced an audible
titter among the audience.  Berthelini wondered why; he did not
know the antecedents of the Garde Champetre; he had never heard of
a little story about postage stamps.  But the public knew all about
the postage stamps and enjoyed the coincidence hugely.

The Commissary planted himself upon a vacant chair with somewhat
the air of Cromwell visiting the Rump, and spoke in occasional
whispers to the Garde Champetre, who remained respectfully standing
at his back.  The eyes of both were directed upon Berthelini, who
persisted in his statement.

"Y a des honnetes gens partout," he was just chanting for the
twentieth time; when up got the Commissary upon his feet and waved
brutally to the singer with his cane.

"Is it me you want?" inquired Leon, stopping in his song.

"It is you," replied the potentate.

"Fichu Commissaire!" thought Leon, and he descended from the stage
and made his way to the functionary.

"How does it happen, sir," said the Commissary, swelling in person,
"that I find you mountebanking in a public cafe without my
permission?"

"Without?" cried the indignant Leon.  "Permit me to remind you - "

"Come, come, sir!" said the Commissary, "I desire no explanations."

"I care nothing about what you desire," returned the singer.  "I
choose to give them, and I will not be gagged.  I am an artist,
sir, a distinction that you cannot comprehend.  I received your
permission and stand here upon the strength of it; interfere with
me who dare."

"You have not got my signature, I tell you," cried the Commissary.
"Show me my signature!  Where is my signature?"

That was just the question; where was his signature?  Leon
recognised that he was in a hole; but his spirit rose with the
occasion, and he blustered nobly, tossing back his curls.  The
Commissary played up to him in the character of tyrant; and as the
one leaned farther forward, the other leaned farther back - majesty
confronting fury.  The audience had transferred their attention to
this new performance, and listened with that silent gravity common
to all Frenchmen in the neighbourhood of the Police.  Elvira had
sat down, she was used to these distractions, and it was rather
melancholy than fear that now oppressed her.

"Another word," cried the Commissary, "and I arrest you."

"Arrest me?" shouted Leon.  "I defy you!"

"I am the Commissary of Police,' said the official.

Leon commanded his feelings, and replied, with great delicacy of
innuendo -

"So it would appear."

The point was too refined for Castel-le-Gachis; it did not raise a
smile; and as for the Commissary, he simply bade the singer follow
him to his office, and directed his proud footsteps towards the
door.  There was nothing for it but to obey.  Leon did so with a
proper pantomime of indifference, but it was a leek to eat, and
there was no denying it.

The Maire had slipped out and was already waiting at the
Commissary's door.  Now the Maire, in France, is the refuge of the
oppressed.  He stands between his people and the boisterous rigours
of the Police.  He can sometimes understand what is said to him; he
is not always puffed up beyond measure by his dignity.  'Tis a
thing worth the knowledge of travellers.  When all seems over, and
a man has made up his mind to injustice, he has still, like the
heroes of romance, a little bugle at his belt whereon to blow; and
the Maire, a comfortable DEUS EX MACHINA, may still descend to
deliver him from the minions of the law.  The Maire of Castel-le-
Gachis, although inaccessible to the charms of music as retailed by
the Berthelinis, had no hesitation whatever as to the rights of the
matter.  He instantly fell foul of the Commissary in very high
terms, and the Commissary, pricked by this humiliation, accepted
battle on the point of fact.  The argument lasted some little while
with varying success, until at length victory inclined so plainly
to the Commissary's side that the Maire was fain to reassert
himself by an exercise of authority.  He had been out-argued, but
he was still the Maire.  And so, turning from his interlocutor, he
briefly but kindly recommended Leon to get back instanter to his
concert.

"It is already growing late," he added.

Leon did not wait to be told twice.  He returned to the Cafe of the
Triumphs of the Plough with all expedition.  Alas! the audience had
melted away during his absence; Elvira was sitting in a very
disconsolate attitude on the guitar-box; she had watched the
company dispersing by twos and threes, and the prolonged spectacle
had somewhat overwhelmed her spirits.  Each man, she reflected,
retired with a certain proportion of her earnings in his pocket,
and she saw to-night's board and to-morrow's railway expenses, and
finally even to-morrow's dinner, walk one after another out of the
cafe door and disappear into the night.

"What was it?" she asked languidly.  But Leon did not answer.  He
was looking round him on the scene of defeat.  Scarce a score of
listeners remained, and these of the least promising sort.  The
minute hand of the clock was already climbing upward towards
eleven.

"It's a lost battle," said he, and then taking up the money-box he
turned it out.  "Three francs seventy-five!" he cried, "as against
four of board and six of railway fares; and no time for the
tombola!  Elvira, this is Waterloo."  And he sat down and passed
both hands desperately among his curls. "O Fichu Commissaire!" he
cried, "Fichu Commissaire!"

"Let us get the things together and be off," returned Elvira.  "We
might try another song, but there is not six halfpence in the
room."

"Six halfpence?" cried Leon, "six hundred thousand devils!  There
is not a human creature in the town - nothing but pigs and dogs and
commissaires!  Pray heaven, we get safe to bed."

"Don't imagine things!" exclaimed Elvira, with a shudder.

And with that they set to work on their preparations.  The tobacco-
jar, the cigarette-holder, the three papers of shirt-studs, which
were to have been the prices of the tombola had the tombola come
off, were made into a bundle with the music; the guitar was stowed
into the fat guitar-case; and Elvira having thrown a thin shawl
about her neck and shoulders, the pair issued from the cafe and set
off for the Black Head.

As they crossed the market-place the church bell rang out eleven.
It was a dark, mild night, and there was no one in the streets.

"It is all very fine," said Leon; "but I have a presentiment.  The
night is not yet done."



CHAPTER III



The "Black Head" presented not a single chink of light upon the
street, and the carriage gate was closed.

"This is unprecedented," observed Leon.  "An inn closed by five
minutes after eleven!  And there were several commercial travellers
in the cafe up to a late hour.  Elvira, my heart misgives me.  Let
us ring the bell."

The bell had a potent note; and being swung under the arch it
filled the house from top to bottom with surly, clanging
reverberations.  The sound accentuated the conventual appearance of
the building; a wintry sentiment, a thought of prayer and
mortification, took hold upon Elvira's mind; and, as for Leon, he
seemed to be reading the stage directions for a lugubrious fifth
act.

"This is your fault," said Elvira:  "this is what comes of fancying
things!"

Again Leon pulled the bell-rope; again the solemn tocsin awoke the
echoes of the inn; and ere they had died away, a light glimmered in
the carriage entrance, and a powerful voice was heard upraised and
tremulous with wrath.

"What's all this?" cried the tragic host through the spars of the
gate.  "Hard upon twelve, and you come clamouring like Prussians at
the door of a respectable hotel?  Oh!" he cried, "I know you now!
Common singers!  People in trouble with the police!  And you
present yourselves at midnight like lords and ladies?  Be off with
you!"

"You will permit me to remind you," replied Leon, in thrilling
tones, "that I am a guest in your house, that I am properly
inscribed, and that I have deposited baggage to the value of four
hundred francs."

"You cannot get in at this hour," returned the man.  "This is no
thieves' tavern, for mohocks and night rakes and organ-grinders."

"Brute!" cried Elvira, for the organ-grinders touched her home.

"Then I demand my baggage," said Leon, with unabated dignity.

"I know nothing of your baggage," replied the landlord.

"You detain my baggage?  You dare to detain my baggage?" cried the
singer.

"Who are you?" returned the landlord.  "It is dark - I cannot
recognise you."

"Very well, then - you detain my baggage," concluded Leon.  "You
shall smart for this.  I will weary out your life with
persecutions; I will drag you from court to court; if there is
justice to be had in France, it shall be rendered between you and
me.  And I will make you a by-word - I will put you in a song - a
scurrilous song - an indecent song - a popular song - which the
boys shall sing to you in the street, and come and howl through
these spars at mid-night!"

He had gone on raising his voice at every phrase, for all the while
the landlord was very placidly retiring; and now, when the last
glimmer of light had vanished from the arch, and the last footstep
died away in the interior, Leon turned to his wife with a heroic
countenance.

"Elvira," said he, "I have now a duty in life.  I shall destroy
that man as Eugene Sue destroyed the concierge.  Let us come at
once to the Gendarmerie and begin our vengeance."

He picked up the guitar-case, which had been propped against the
wall, and they set forth through the silent and ill-lighted town
with burning hearts.

The Gendarmerie was concealed beside the telegraph office at the
bottom of a vast court, which was partly laid out in gardens; and
here all the shepherds of the public lay locked in grateful sleep.
It took a deal of knocking to waken one; and he, when he came at
last to the door, could find no other remark but that "it was none
of his business."  Leon reasoned with him, threatened him, besought
him; "here," he said, "was Madame Berthelini in evening dress - a
delicate woman - in an interesting condition" - the last was thrown
in, I fancy, for effect; and to all this the man-at-arms made the
same answer:

"It is none of my business," said he.

"Very well," said Leon, "then we shall go to the Commissary."
Thither they went; the office was closed and dark; but the house
was close by, and Leon was soon swinging the bell like a madman.
The Commissary's wife appeared at a window.  She was a thread-paper
creature, and informed them that the Commissary had not yet come
home.

"Is he at the Maire's?" demanded Leon.

She thought that was not unlikely.

"Where is the Maire's house?" he asked.

And she gave him some rather vague information on that point.

"Stay you here, Elvira," said Leon, "lest I should miss him by the
way.  If, when I return, I find you here no longer, I shall follow
at once to the Black Head."

And he set out to find the Maire's.  It took him some ten minutes
wandering among blind lanes, and when he arrived it was already
half-an-hour past midnight.  A long white garden wall overhung by
some thick chestnuts, a door with a letter-box, and an iron bell-
pull, that was all that could be seen of the Maire's domicile.
Leon took the bell-pull in both hands, and danced furiously upon
the side-walk.  The bell itself was just upon the other side of the
wall, it responded to his activity, and scattered an alarming
clangour far and wide into the night.

A window was thrown open in a house across the street, and a voice
inquired the cause of this untimely uproar.

"I wish the Maire," said Leon.

"He has been in bed this hour," returned the voice.

"He must get up again," retorted Leon, and he was for tackling the
bell-pull once more.

"You will never make him hear," responded the voice.  "The garden
is of great extent, the house is at the farther end, and both the
Maire and his housekeeper are deaf."

"Aha!" said Leon, pausing.  "The Maire is deaf, is he?  That
explains."  And he thought of the evening's concert with a
momentary feeling of relief.  "Ah!" he continued, "and so the Maire
is deaf, and the garden vast, and the house at the far end?"

"And you might ring all night," added the voice, "and be none the
better for it.  You would only keep me awake."

"Thank you, neighbour," replied the singer.  "You shall sleep."

And he made off again at his best pace for the Commissary's.
Elvira was still walking to and fro before the door.

"He has not come?" asked Leon.

"Not he," she replied.

"Good," returned Leon.  "I am sure our man's inside.  Let me see
the guitar-case.  I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am
angry; I am indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I thank my
Maker I have still a sense of fun.  The unjust judge shall be
importuned in a serenade, Elvira.  Set him up - and set him up."

He had the case opened by this time, struck a few chords, and fell
into an attitude which was irresistibly Spanish.

"Now," he continued, "feel your voice.  Are you ready?  Follow me!"

The guitar twanged, and the two voices upraised, in harmony and
with a startling loudness, the chorus of a song of old Beranger's:-


"Commissaire! Commissaire!
Colin bat sa menagere."


The stones of Castel-le-Gachis thrilled at this audacious
innovation.  Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose and
nightcaps; and now what was this?  Window after window was opened;
matches scratched, and candles began to flicker; swollen sleepy
faces peered forth into the starlight.  There were the two figures
before the Commissary's house, each bolt upright, with head thrown
back and eyes interrogating the starry heavens; the guitar wailed,
shouted, and reverberated like half an orchestra; and the voices,
with a crisp and spirited delivery, hurled the appropriate burden
at the Commissary's window.  All the echoes repeated the
functionary's name.  It was more like an entr'acte in a farce of
Moliere's than a passage of real life in Castel-le-Gachis.

The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last of the
neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and furiously throw
open the window of his bedroom.  He was beside himself with rage.
He leaned far over the window-sill, raying and gesticulating; the
tassel of his white night-cap danced like a thing of life:  he
opened his mouth to dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his
voice, instead of escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and
choked and tottering.  A little more serenading, and it was clear
he would be better acquainted with the apoplexy.

I scorn to reproduce his language; he touched upon too many serious
topics by the way for a quiet story-teller.  Although he was known
for a man who was prompt with his tongue, and had a power of strong
expression at command, he excelled himself so remarkably this night
that one maiden lady, who had got out of bed like the rest to hear
the serenade, was obliged to shut her window at the second clause.
Even what she had heard disquieted her conscience; and next day she
said she scarcely reckoned as a maiden lady any longer.

Leon tried to explain his predicament, but he received nothing but
threats of arrest by way of answer.

"If I come down to you!" cried the Commissary.

"Aye," said Leon, "do!"

"I will not!" cried the Commissary.

"You dare not!" answered Leon.

At that the Commissary closed his window.

"All is over," said the singer.  "The serenade was perhaps ill-
judged.  These boors have no sense of humour."

"Let us get away from here," said Elvira, with a shiver.  "All
these people looking - it is so rude and so brutal."  And then
giving way once more to passion - "Brutes!" she cried aloud to the
candle-lit spectators - "brutes! brutes! brutes!"

"Sauve qui peut," said Leon.  "You have done it now!"

And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the other, he led
the way with something too precipitate to be merely called
precipitation from the scene of this absurd adventure.



CHAPTER IV



To the west of Castel-le-Gachis four rows of venerable lime-trees
formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles
of pitch darkness.  Here and there stone benches were disposed
between the trunks.  There was not a breath of wind; a heavy
atmosphere of perfume hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood
stock-still upon its twig.  Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn
or two, the Berthelinis came at length to pass the night.  After an
amiable contention, Leon insisted on giving his coat to Elvira, and
they sat down together on the first bench in silence.  Leon made a
cigarette, which he smoked to an end, looking up into the trees,
and, beyond them, at the constellations, of which he tried vainly
to recall the names.  The silence was broken by the church bell; it
rang the four quarters on a light and tinkling measure; then
followed a single deep stroke that died slowly away with a thrill;
and stillness resumed its empire.

"One," said Leon.  "Four hours till daylight.  It is warm; it is
starry; I have matches and tobacco.  Do not let us exaggerate,
Elvira - the experience is positively charming.  I feel a glow
within me; I am born again.  This is the poetry of life.  Think of
Cooper's novels, my dear."

"Leon," she said fiercely, "how can you talk such wicked, infamous
nonsense?  To pass all night out-of-doors - it is like a nightmare!
We shall die."

"You suffer yourself to be led away," he replied soothingly.  "It
is not unpleasant here; only you brood.  Come, now, let us repeat a
scene.  Shall we try Alceste and Celimene?  No?  Or a passage from
the 'Two Orphans'?  Come, now, it will occupy your mind; I will
play up to you as I never have played before; I feel art moving in
my bones."

"Hold your tongue," she cried, "or you will drive me mad!  Will
nothing solemnise you - not even this hideous situation?"

"Oh, hideous!" objected Leon.  "Hideous is not the word.  Why,
where would you be?  'Dites, la jeune belle, ou voulez-vous
aller?'" he carolled.  "Well, now," he went on, opening the guitar-
case, "there's another idea for you - sing.  Sing 'Dites, la jeune
belle!'  It will compose your spirits, Elvira, I am sure."

And without waiting an answer he began to strum the symphony.  The
first chords awoke a young man who was lying asleep upon a
neighbouring bench.

"Hullo!" cried the young man, "who are you?"

"Under which king, Bezonian?" declaimed the artist.  "Speak or
die!"

Or if it was not exactly that, it was something to much the same
purpose from a French tragedy.

The young man drew near in the twilight.  He was a tall, powerful,
gentlemanly fellow, with a somewhat puffy face, dressed in a grey
tweed suit, with a deer-stalker hat of the same material; and as he
now came forward he carried a knapsack slung upon one arm.

"Are you camping out here too?" he asked, with a strong English
accent.  "I'm not sorry for company."

Leon explained their misadventure; and the other told them that he
was a Cambridge undergraduate on a walking tour, that he had run
short of money, could no longer pay for his night's lodging, had
already been camping out for two nights, and feared he should
require to continue the same manoeuvre for at least two nights
more.

"Luckily, it's jolly weather," he concluded.

"You hear that, Elvira," said Leon.  "Madame Berthelini," he went
on, "is ridiculously affected by this trifling occurrence.  For my
part, I find it romantic and far from uncomfortable; or at least,"
he added, shifting on the stone bench, "not quite so uncomfortable
as might have been expected.  But pray be seated."

"Yes," returned the undergraduate, sitting down, "it's rather nice
than otherwise when once you're used to it; only it's devilish
difficult to get washed.  I like the fresh air and these stars and
things."

"Aha!" said Leon, "Monsieur is an artist."

"An artist?" returned the other, with a blank stare.  "Not if I
know it!"

"Pardon me," said the actor.  "What you said this moment about the
orbs of heaven - "

"Oh, nonsense!" cried the Englishman.  "A fellow may admire the
stars and be anything he likes."

"You have an artist's nature, however, Mr.-  I beg your pardon; may
I, without indiscretion, inquire your name?" asked Leon.

"My name is Stubbs," replied the Englishman.

"I thank you," returned Leon.  "Mine is Berthelini - Leon
Berthelini, ex-artist of the theatres of Montrouge, Belleville, and
Montmartre.  Humble as you see me, I have created with applause
more than one important ROLE.  The Press were unanimous in praise
of my Howling Devil of the Mountains, in the piece of the same
name.  Madame, whom I now present to you, is herself an artist, and
I must not omit to state, a better artist than her husband.  She
also is a creator; she created nearly twenty successful songs at
one of the principal Parisian music-halls.  But, to continue, I was
saying you had an artist's nature, Monsieur Stubbs, and you must
permit me to be a judge in such a question.  I trust you will not
falsify your instincts; let me beseech you to follow the career of
an artist."

"Thank you," returned Stubbs, with a chuckle.  "I'm going to be a
banker."

"No," said Leon, "do not say so.  Not that.  A man with such a
nature as yours should not derogate so far.  What are a few
privations here and there, so long as you are working for a high
and noble goal?"

"This fellow's mad," thought Stubbs; "but the woman's rather
pretty, and he's not bad fun himself, if you come to that."  What
he said was different.  "I thought you said you were an actor?"

"I certainly did so," replied Leon.  "I am one, or, alas!  I was."

"And so you want me to be an actor, do you?" continued the
undergraduate.  "Why, man, I could never so much as learn the
stuff; my memory's like a sieve; and as for acting, I've no more
idea than a cat."

"The stage is not the only course," said Leon.  "Be a sculptor, be
a dancer, be a poet or a novelist; follow your heart, in short, and
do some thorough work before you die."

"And do you call all these things ART?" inquired Stubbs.

"Why, certainly!" returned Leon.  "Are they not all branches?"

"Oh!  I didn't know," replied the Englishman.  "I thought an artist
meant a fellow who painted."

The singer stared at him in some surprise.

"It is the difference of language," he said at last.  "This Tower
of Babel, when shall we have paid for it?  If I could speak English
you would follow me more readily."

"Between you and me, I don't believe I should," replied the other.
"You seem to have thought a devil of a lot about this business.
For my part, I admire the stars, and like to have them shining -
it's so cheery - but hang me if I had an idea it had anything to do
with art!  It's not in my line, you see.  I'm not intellectual; I
have no end of trouble to scrape through my exams., I can tell you!
But I'm not a bad sort at bottom," he added, seeing his
interlocutor looked distressed even in the dim starshine, "and I
rather like the play, and music, and guitars, and things."

Leon had a perception that the understanding was incomplete.  He
changed the subject.

"And so you travel on foot?" he continued.  "How romantic!  How
courageous!  And how are you pleased with my land?  How does the
scenery affect you among these wild hills of ours?"

"Well, the fact is," began Stubbs - he was about to say that he
didn't care for scenery, which was not at all true, being, on the
contrary, only an athletic undergraduate pretension; but he had
begun to suspect that Berthelini liked a different sort of meat,
and substituted something else - "The fact is, I think it jolly.
They told me it was no good up here; even the guide-book said so;
but I don't know what they meant.  I think it is deuced pretty -
upon my word, I do."

At this moment, in the most unexpected manner, Elvira burst into
tears.

"My voice!" she cried.  "Leon, if I stay here longer I shall lose
my voice!"

"You shall not stay another moment," cried the actor.  "If I have
to beat in a door, if I have to burn the town, I shall find you
shelter."

With that he replaced the guitar, and comforting her with some
caresses, drew her arm through his.

"Monsieur Stubbs," said he, taking of his hat, "the reception I
offer you is rather problematical; but let me beseech you to give
us the pleasure of your society.  You are a little embarrassed for
the moment; you must, indeed, permit me to advance what may be
necessary.  I ask it as a favour; we must not part so soon after
having met so strangely."

"Oh, come, you know," said Stubbs, "I can't let a fellow like you -
"  And there he paused, feeling somehow or other on a wrong tack.

"I do not wish to employ menaces," continued Leon, with a smile;
"but if you refuse, indeed I shall not take it kindly."

"I don't quite see my way out of it," thought the undergraduate;
and then, after a pause, he said, aloud and ungraciously enough,
"All right.  I - I'm very much obliged, of course."  And he
proceeded to follow them, thinking in his heart, "But it's bad
form, all the same, to force an obligation on a fellow."



CHAPTER V



Leon strode ahead as if he knew exactly where he was going; the
sobs of Madame were still faintly audible, and no one uttered a
word.  A dog barked furiously in a courtyard as they went by; then
the church clock struck two, and many domestic clocks followed or
preceded it in piping tones.  And just then Berthelini spied a
light.  It burned in a small house on the outskirts of the town,
and thither the party now directed their steps.

"It is always a chance," said Leon.

The house in question stood back from the street behind an open
space, part garden, part turnip-field; and several outhouses stood
forward from either wing at right angles to the front.  One of
these had recently undergone some change.  An enormous window,
looking towards the north, had been effected in the wall and roof,
and Leon began to hope it was a studio.

"If it's only a painter," he said with a chuckle, "ten to one we
get as good a welcome as we want."

"I thought painters were principally poor," said Stubbs.

"Ah!" cried Leon, "you do not know the world as I do.  The poorer
the better for us!"

And the trio advanced into the turnip-field.

The light was in the ground floor; as one window was brightly
illuminated and two others more faintly, it might be supposed that
there was a single lamp in one corner of a large apartment; and a
certain tremulousness and temporary dwindling showed that a live
fire contributed to the effect.  The sound of a voice now became
audible; and the trespassers paused to listen.  It was pitched in a
high, angry key, but had still a good, full, and masculine note in
it.  The utterance was voluble, too voluble even to be quite
distinct; a stream of words, rising and falling, with ever and
again a phrase thrown out by itself, as if the speaker reckoned on
its virtue.

Suddenly another voice joined in.  This time it was a woman's; and
if the man were angry, the woman was incensed to the degree of
fury.  There was that absolutely blank composure known to suffering
males; that colourless unnatural speech which shows a spirit
accurately balanced between homicide and hysterics; the tone in
which the best of women sometimes utter words worse than death to
those most dear to them.  If Abstract Bones-and-Sepulchre were to
be endowed with the gift of speech, thus, and not otherwise, would
it discourse.  Leon was a brave man, and I fear he was somewhat
sceptically given (he had been educated in a Papistical country),
but the habit of childhood prevailed, and he crossed himself
devoutly.  He had met several women in his career.  It was obvious
that his instinct had not deceived him, for the male voice broke
forth instantly in a towering passion.

The undergraduate, who had not understood the significance of the
woman's contribution, pricked up his ears at the change upon the
man.

"There's going to be a free fight," he opined.

There was another retort from the woman, still calm but a little
higher.

"Hysterics?" asked Leon of his wife.  "Is that the stage
direction?"

"How should I know?" returned Elvira, somewhat tartly.

"Oh, woman, woman!" said Leon, beginning to open the guitar-case.
"It is one of the burdens of my life, Monsieur Stubbs; they support
each other; they always pretend there is no system; they say it's
nature.  Even Madame Berthelini, who is a dramatic artist!"

"You are heartless, Leon," said Elvira; "that woman is in trouble."

"And the man, my angel?" inquired Berthelini, passing the ribbon of
his guitar.  "And the man, M'AMOUR?"

"He is a man," she answered.

"You hear that?" said Leon to Stubbs.  "It is not too late for you.
Mark the intonation.  And now," he continued, "what are we to give
them?"

"Are you going to sing?" asked Stubbs.

"I am a troubadour," replied Leon.  "I claim a welcome by and for
my art.  If I were a banker could I do as much?"

"Well, you wouldn't need, you know," answered the undergraduate.

"Egad," said Leon, "but that's true.  Elvira, that is true."

"Of course it is," she replied.  "Did you not know it?"

"My dear," answered Leon impressively, "I know nothing but what is
agreeable.  Even my knowledge of life is a work of art superiorly
composed.  But what are we to give them?  It should be something
appropriate."

Visions of "Let dogs delight" passed through the undergraduate's
mind; but it occurred to him that the poetry was English and that
he did not know the air.  Hence he contributed no suggestion.

"Something about our houselessness," said Elvira.

"I have it," cried Leon.  And he broke forth into a song of Pierre
Dupont's:-


"Savez-vous ou gite,
Mai, ce joli mois?"


Elvira joined in; so did Stubbs, with a good ear and voice, but an
imperfect acquaintance with the music.  Leon and the guitar were
equal to the situation.  The actor dispensed his throat-notes with
prodigality and enthusiasm; and, as he looked up to heaven in his
heroic way, tossing the black ringlets, it seemed to him that the
very stars contributed a dumb applause to his efforts, and the
universe lent him its silence for a chorus.  That is one of the
best features of the heavenly bodies, that they belong to everybody
in particular; and a man like Leon, a chronic Endymion who managed
to get along without encouragement, is always the world's centre
for himself.