CHAPTER I

TEUFF-TEUFF! TEUFF! BRRR!

We should need words from the old, old time, worn from long use, to give an idea of Mme. de Grojean’s house in her little corner of the provinces. It was typical of its kind and just the opposite of any truly Parisian corner. The latter would have been a populous, noisy street, with odors from the markets, from horses, from tobacco. The former was a deserted street, where you could hear sparrows chattering on the housetops and breathe the fragrance of mignonette and new-mown hay.

The house of Mme. de Grojean—“grand’mère,” as Yvonne called her—formed the angle of a street on a very provincial place. It was on an open space, in the middle of which a water-jet, long since dry, marked on its basin a turning shadow like a sun-dial.

The house and garden wall formed one of the sides of the place as far as the river, which was crossed by a bridge; and, beyond, the plain stretched out.

Place and house, and trees overhanging the wall, and the street where grass grew between the paving-stones—all had the look of having always been there, of being there forever,—changeless as the hills of the horizon. But worthiest of description was the salon where grand’mère with her daughter and her granddaughter Yvonne were seated in the dim light, amid tapestries of old silk and brown furniture, with glints of brass and portraits in their frames.

Grand’mère sat squarely back in her wheeled chair, knitting a pair of stockings. The younger Mme. de Grojean was looking through a fashion-paper. Yvonne, by the half-opened blinds, glanced from time to time out on the place while continuing her work. Her little table was encumbered with ribbons and light stuffs. She was finishing a gown, with a heap of patterns around her; and her little scissors traveled slowly through the muslin.

“It’s this ribbon that gives me trouble,” Yvonne said, half aloud, as if speaking to herself. “Why, this ribbon should go on the right!” she went on, with a comical air of surprise.

“By no means, my daughter!” Mme. de Grojean protested.

“Yes, yes! I assure you. Look at the fashion-paper. I must find out for myself,” Yvonne concluded gravely, with her chin in her hand and her eyes fixed on the engraving. “I shall have to ask Cousin Henri, who was present at the last ball of the prefecture.”

“Yvonne,” said the grandmother, stopping her knitting, “Yvonne, really, you have nothing but dresses in your head. Rather than lose your time on such trifles, you’d do better to finish picking the lint for the soldiers.”

“Grand’mère, here’s the circus coming!” Yvonne interrupted suddenly, as she looked out on the place.

“Those mountebanks?” grand’mère said, looking in her turn. “They are coming to the fair, just as they do every year. It must be they—I can tell by the dust they make. Only the big drum is lacking to make it complete.”

In fact, an odd-looking vehicle had drawn up in the place. It was an immense auto, like a top-carriage behind and torpedo-like in front. In the carriage part two ladies were seated; two men occupied the torpedo-end. They wore big smoked glasses, which made them look like frogs, while the enormous auto, spitting and snorting, shook up its passengers, and rattled the canes and umbrellas in the wicker basket behind.

“It is near four o’clock,” grand’mère said, consulting the familiar shadow of the water-jet. “They must be crazy to be exposing themselves to the heat; but such people fear nothing.”

“They’re brought up to rough it,” Yvonne remarked.

“But people are saluting them, on my word,” grand’mère said. “There is the _adjoint_, who must be there for the license; and there’s Mme. Riçois also, and others besides. It looks as if they were personal acquaintances; they are shaking hands!”

Grand’mère in astonishment saw the ladies in the carriage-end part holding out their hands like princesses. One of them, the younger, got down and moved about to stir herself. As far as could be seen at that distance, between dust and sun, she was dressed in a light silk, very becoming in color. The plaits of the skirt molded her form, and fell to a level with the ground. Her head, enveloped in a cloud of gauze, was not to be seen.

“Where will elegance end, my poor Yvonne?” said grand’mère. “There’s a gown worth five times as much as your ball-dress.”

“Oh, here are the horses!” Yvonne cried, pointing to magnificent animals which grooms were leading by the bridle from the direction of the railway station. As they passed by the auto the young girl went up to one of them, patted him on the neck, and, putting her hand in her pocket, gave him a lump of sugar.

“She must be the circus-rider,” Yvonne guessed.

On the place there was now a little group of curious onlookers drawing near. The proprietor of the Lion d’Or made himself important. They could imagine him at that distance saying: “The Lion d’Or is the tourists’ rendezvous—every one puts up at my place—every one. I do this—I have that—”

He had not the time to finish before the young girl had quickly climbed back into the auto, given orders to the groom, pointed to the inn, and made a sign of farewell to everybody.

Teuff-teuff! teuff! The auto swung into movement—teuff-teuff! brrrr! and off it went at high speed.

“Bon voyage!” grand’mère wished them. “How can people be allowed to race about like that! and all these do-nothings who salute them,—they couldn’t be more polite to ambassadors!”

No doubt it was an event. Every one along the road stared at the disappearing column of dust.

“It’s a strange world,” said grand’mère. “But here comes Mme. Riçois; she may tell us something about them.”

Grand’mère had scarcely finished when the bonne opened the salon door and announced Mme. Riçois, the banker’s wife, a little woman all fire and motion, alert and dimpled and forever laughing.

“My compliments, dear Mme. Riçois. You have fine acquaintances!” grand’mère began. “You can tell us, I suppose, what has been turning our place upside down.”

“But you ought to know,” Mme. Riçois answered; “Yvonne is better acquainted with them than I am.”

“Yvonne is acquainted with them?” grand’mère asked severely. “Who are they?”

“The Rowrers.”

“Goodness gracious!” cried grand’mère, “in all this dust—and in such heat?”

“The Rowrers—what luck!” Yvonne cried. “I shall see Miss Ethel again; and I did not recognize her! All those dusters and masks and veils—they didn’t wear anything like that in Paris the day I went in their auto, with Mr. Will Rowrer to conduct us.”

“Are they going to stay in our town?” Mme. de Grojean asked.

“For several weeks, it seems.”

“Where are they stopping?” grand’mère asked. “At the Hôtel de France or at the Hôtel d’Eurôpe?”

“They are not at a hotel,” answered Mme. Riçois, with an important air, as one having a great piece of news to communicate.

“Where are they going, then?” grand’mère persisted.

“To nobody’s house.”

“But where are they going to sleep? Not in the fields, I suppose?”

“Exactly-in the fields,” Mme. Riçois said, looking in turn at grand’mère, Mme. de Grojean, and Yvonne, to enjoy their astonishment.

“You mean a house in the country?” grand’mère said. “What house?”

“No house,” Mme. Riçois answered.

“Not in the open air, I suppose?”

“Exactly; in the open air!”

The effect which Mme. Riçois had missed with “the fields” was produced by her “open air.”

“Is it possible!” grand’mère said, as she let her knitting fall. “People as rich as that sleep out of doors?”

“Rich!” observed Mme. Riçois. “They could buy the town and turn it into wheat-fields!”

“Then they must be crazy!”

“For that matter,” Mme. Riçois went on, “when I say that they sleep out of doors—”

“Do tell us—you’re laughing at us!”

“No, no! Let me explain. They are going to sleep out of doors, but under tents—camping out, they call it in America. I know all about it. My husband has been in correspondence with the Rowrers and has had all the arrangements to make. The Comtesse de Donjeon asked them to come to her château for the summer. Miss Rowrer simply begged the comtesse to put at her disposal a corner of her estate, the most deserted and the most picturesque. She has taken the part she wished and set up her camp in it. She wanted to have it a surprise, and that is why I kept it a secret. It seems that camping out is delightful and Miss Rowrer intends starting the fashion of it in France.”

“Poor France!” grand’mère exclaimed. “We needed only that! It’s just like the automobiles. I’d rather be dragged about all my life in a cripple’s go-cart than get into one.”

“Not I!” said Yvonne. “I should love going in an auto!”

“Yvonne!” expostulated grand’mère.

Yvonne was silent, but thought, all the same, how delightful it would be to go here and there in the country and live under one’s tent, by the bank of the river, along with Ethel. She listened absently to the remainder of the conversation, and looked far away at the highroad, golden with dust and with the green grass beside it.

Grand’mère took up the discourse.

“What is camping out, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s all very simple,” Mme. Riçois answered. “I have heard my husband talking about it.”

“And I have heard Miss Ethel,” said Yvonne. “She describes it so well!”

“But explain it to me,” grand’mère said.

They gave her an explanation, in all its details, of camping out and summer touring and fishing, of chaperons and boys and girls.

“What!” grand’mère cried, “young men and young girls go camping out like that in the woods for weeks together, simply accompanied by a chaperon, and you consider that proper?”

“_Ma foi_, yes,” said Mme. Riçois. “I should have been delighted with anything of the kind.”

Yvonne kept silence, but she asked herself what harm there could be in walking through the country with Monsieur Will or Monsieur Phil. Miss Ethel did it—why should not she?

“So that is what you call progress,” grand’mère observed. “Milliardaires making their horses travel by express train and lodging them at the hotel, while they themselves wander along the highroads and sleep out of doors like vagabonds—you must acknowledge it does not sound well!”

“Perhaps you like that kind of thing better,” Mme. Riçois retorted, pointing to the place.

An omnibus was driving up from the station, loaded with trunks and packages, with its horses prancing heavily. A traveler, with a single glass in his eye, was looking out.

The emotion aroused by the auto had scarcely calmed down. People were standing in the place in front of the hotel, which the last of the Rowrers’ horses had just entered. A few curious faces were still to be seen at the windows. The traveler, evidently thinking that all this was in his honor, bowed all around in his satisfaction at their welcome. As he got out of the omnibus at the Lion d’Or, amiable smiles were awaiting him—a politeness which he repaid with a nod, as if to say, “Greatly flattered, believe me!”

“Him I recognize,” said Yvonne. “I saw him two or three times in Paris. That is M. Caracal.”

But grand’mère no longer listened. She had returned to her knitting. The place no longer interested her; too many people were passing there. All this movement annoyed her. Why do not people stay at home? Meanwhile Caracal’s manœuvers were amusing Yvonne.

“Poor M. Caracal,” she thought; “there he is, politely bowing to every one. Really, he seems persuaded that they’ve all come out to welcome him! If he knew that it was all for horses and an auto, his vanity as a writer would be wounded.”

Yvonne sympathized with him, but she could not help being amused at the sight of Caracal jumping about like a puppet, giving orders about his trunks, and at last, when the crowd had seen enough of him, entering the Lion d’Or behind the Rowrers’ horses.