Chapter 11

THE GATES OF CHANCE

Markham had finished the portrait of his antiquated countess in Havre and abandoning the luxuries of the Hotel Frascati had taken to the road with his knapsack and painting kit for a two months' jaunt along unfrequented Norman byways. This had been his custom since his first year in Paris, when his means were small and the _wanderlust_ drove him forth from the streets of Paris. He had walked from the Savoie to Brittany, from Belgium to Provence and the vagabond instinct in him had grown no less with advancing years. He liked the long days in the open. The slowly moving panorama of hill and dell, which was lost upon the touring motorists who continually passed him, filling the air with their evil smells and clouds of dust. He liked the odor of the loam in the early morning, the clean air washed by the dew and redolent of burning wood, the drowsy hour of noon with its meal of cheese and bread eaten at the shady brink of some musical stream and the day-dream or doze that followed it; the long mellow afternoons under the blue arch of sky where the pink clouds moved as lazily as he, in vagabond procession, across the zenith. His aimlessness and theirs made them brothers of the air, and he followed them under the trackless sky, aware that his destination for the night lay somewhere ahead of him, leaving the rest to chance and the patron saint of Nomads. He liked the rugged faces he saw on the road, the Norman welcome of his host and the deep sleep of utter weariness and content which defied the tooth of time and discomfort.

After a few days in Rouen, where he always lingered longer than he intended to, he had crossed the river at Sotteville an had followed main roads which led him to the south and east through the heart of the historic Eure.

He had given Trouville a wide berth; for he knew some people there, friends of Olga Tcherny's, people of fashion who would have looked askance at his dusty clothes and general air of disrepute. He was not in the humor for Olga's kind of friends or indeed for Olga, if as the last note from her had indicated she, too, had arrived on this side of the water. He was sufficient unto himself and gloried in his selfishness. Song he would have and did often have at night with his chance companions of the road, and wine or the sound Norman cider which was better--but no women--no women for him!

It was on the road beyond Evreux that he thus congratulated himself for the twentieth time. His path passed near the brink of a river fringed with trees and to the right the hills mounted abruptly to a rocky eminence, crowned with an ancient castle which stolidly sat as it had done for a thousand years and guarded the peaceful valley beneath. It had looked down upon the pageantry of an earlier day when knights in armor had ridden forth of its portals for the honor of their ladies, had listened to the hoof-beats of more than one army, and had heard in the distance the clash of Ivry. To-day a railroad wound around the base of its pedestal, reminding it of the new order of things and of its own antiquity.

As Markham approached the railroad crossing, from the opposite direction, in a cloud of dust, came an automobile. But as it neared the track a woman waving a red flag and blowing a horn came running from a small house by the roadside and pulled the gates across the road. The automobile, which had only one occupant, came to a sudden stop and an argument followed. Markham was too far away to hear what was said, but the gestures of the disputants could be easily understood. There was no train in sight and plenty of time to cross, said the motorist. The peasant waved her flag and pointed down the track. More words, more gesticulations, but the gate-keeper was obdurate. The motorist looked up the track and at the gate and road, and then followed explosives, smoke and dust from the impatient machine, which slowly moved backward a short distance up the road again. Markham, slowly approaching, watched the comedy with interest. An impatient Parisian, jealous of the passing minutes, and an obstinate peasant--to whom passing minutes had no significance--could any two humans be more definitely antagonistic?

What was the person in the car about? More explosions and the blue of burning oil as the car came forward, its cutout open, turning to the left off the road over a ditch and into a field. The gate-keeper ran forward shaking her flag and screaming as she guessed the motorist's intention. But it was too late. The car was hidden for a moment from Markham's view in the declivity upon the other side of the railroad embankment, the exhaust roaring furiously, and leaped into sight, the front wheels high in the air as it took the near rail and then fell heavily with a complaining groan across the track and moved no more, its rear axle snapped in two.

Of all the fool performances! Markham ran forward crying in French to the chauffeur to jump, for around the profile of the hill the locomotive of the oncoming train was emerging. The motorist looked at Markham and then at the advancing train in bewilderment; then jumped clear of the track beside Markham as the freight train, its brakes creaking, its steam shrieking, crashed into the unfortunate machine, turning it over and then crumpling it into a shapeless mass, through which it tore, its impetus carrying it well down the road and scattering the torn fragments of nickel and steel on both sides of the tracks.

It was not until the train had been brought to a stop that Markham had had time to notice that the motorist was a woman--not until she turned a rather wan face in his direction that he saw that the victim of this misfortune was Hermia Challoner.

"You, child!" he gasped. "What in the name of all that's impossible--"

"John Markham!"

"Good Lord, but you had a close call for it! Couldn't you have waited a moment--"

"It was a new machine," she stammered. "I was trying for a record to Trouville from Paris."

"It was a d--n fool thing to do," he blurted forth angrily. "You might have been killed."

She looked at him, her lips compressed, but made no reply.

The gate-woman, who for a few moments had stood as though petrified with fright, now resumed her screams and gesticulations as the crew of the train descended. In a few moments they surrounded Hermia, all shouting at once, and waving their arms under Hermia's nose. She attempted replies, but the noise was deafening and no one listened to her. Peasants working in the fields nearby who had heard the crash came running and added their numbers and temperaments to the Babel. The gate-keeper thrust herself violently into the midst of the group pointing at the wreck of the machine and at Hermia, her remarks as unintelligible to the train crew as they were to Markham.

Hermia stood her ground, but when one of the train crew seized her by the arm and thrust his grimy face close to her own she grew pale and drew back. Markham stepped between and gave the fellow a shove which sent him sprawling. There was a pause and for a moment matters looked difficult. But Markham mounted the embankment, drew Hermia up beside him, put his back against a car, held up his hand and in French demanded silence. His voice rang true and they listened. He had seen the accident from the road and would bear witness. It was not the fault of the gate-keeper or of the lady who drove the car. It was simply an accident tin which lives had fortunately been spared. The axle of the machine had broken upon the track. If there was any claim for damages he would testify that the engineer was not to blame.

A man in a peasant's smock from a neighboring field, who, it appeared, held some local office of authority, now took a hand in the investigation and, after a number of questions of Hermia and the gate-keeper, sent the train upon its way.

Amid the turmoil of the gate-keeper's voice who was recounting the affair to the latest arrivals Hermia watched the train as it passed between the fragments of what a few minutes before had been a new French machine. Some of the peasants had already gathered around the wreck and one of them restored her leather bag, which had been tossed some distance into the ditch. To all appearances this was the only salvage and she took it gratefully. A walk down the track convinced Markham that what was left of the car was only fit for the scrap-heap. And as the crowd still surrounded Hermia he put his arm in hers and led her away. She followed him silently up the road by which she had come until they had left the gaping crowd behind them. Then he made her sit on a bank by the roadside and unslinging his knapsack dropped beside her. "Well?" he asked.

She looked down the road toward the scene of her misfortune, the smile, half plaintive, half whimsical, that had been hovering on her lips suddenly breaking.

"If you scold me I shall cry."

"I'm not going to scold," he said kindly. "That wouldn't help matters."

"It was such a beautiful piece of mechanism--so human--so intelligent--" a tear trembled on her lashes and fell--"and I've only had it two days."

She was the child with a broken toy. It was the child he wanted to comfort.

"I'm sorry," he said genuinely. "I wish I could put it together for you again."

"It's gone--irretrievably. There's nothing to be done, of course." And then, "Oh! it seems so cruel! The thing cried out like a wounded animal. You heard it, didn't you? And it was all my fault. That's what hurts me so."

"One gets over being hurt, but one doesn't get over being dead. You only missed being killed by the part of a second."

She dashed the tears form her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Oh, I know. And I'm awfully grateful. I really am. I don't know why I didn't jump sooner. I saw the train, too. I simply couldn't move. I seemed to be glued there--until you shouted. It was lucky you were there."

She buried her face in her hands a moment and when she straightened was quite calm again.

"It's all over now, Mr. Markham, and I'm awfully obliged," she said with a laugh. "You seem fated to be the recording angel of my maddest ventures."

"It _was_ madness," he insisted.

"I know it," she sighed. "And yet I'm quite sure I would do it again."

"I don't doubt that in the least," he replied gravely, concealing a smile as one would have done from a mischievous child.

There was a silence.

"The world is very small, isn't it, Mr. Markham?" she asked. "What on earth are you doing here?

"I? Oh, vagabonding. It's a habit I have, I'm doing Normandy."

She examined him from top to toe and then said amusedly:

"Did you know that for the past week Olga has been searching Havre high and low for you?"

"No. I didn't know it. Where is she now?"

"At Trouville. And I was to have dined with her tonight."

"I'm afraid you'll hardly get there," he said, looking at his watch. "This line doesn't connect."

"Doesn't it? Oh, some line will, I suppose." And then irrelevantly, "Do you know, Mr. Markham, I've often wondered what it would be like to be a vagabond? I think I really am one deep down in my heart."

"Vagabonds are born--not made, Miss Challoner. They belong to the immortal Fellowship of the Open Air, an association which dates from Esau--an exclusive company, I can tell you, which black-balled brother Jacob, and made François Villon its laureate. It is the only club in the world where the possession of money is looked on with suspicion. Imagine a vagabond in a six thousand-dollar motor car!"

She opened her eyes wide and threw out her hands with a hopeless gesture.

"But I'm not responsible for the money. _I_ didn't make it. I don't see why I haven't just as much right to be a vagabond as you have."

He examined her amusedly.

"You would have the right perhaps if it wasn't for your unfortunate millions. It's too bad. I'm really very sorry for you."

His irony passed beyond her.

"I _am_ a vagabond," she insisted. "I haven't a single conventional instinct. I've never had. I hate convention. It fetters and stifles me. My money! If you only knew how I loathe the responsibilities, the endless formalities, the people who prey upon me and those who would like to, the toadying of the older people, the hypocrisy of the younger ones. It isn't me that they care for. I have no friends. No one as rich as I am _can_ have friends. I distrust everyone. Sometimes I've thought of going away from it all--disappearing and never coming back again. I'm so tired of having everything I want. I want to want something I can't get. I am weary of everything that life can offer me. I have to choose unhealthy excitements to keep my soul alive. Speed--danger--they're the only things that seem to make life worth while."

He shook his head as she paused for breath.

"Oh, I know you think I'm mad. I seem so by contrast to your content. You seem so happy, Mr. Markham."

"I am," he said. "All vagabonds are happy."

She looked at him enviously as though she might by chance discover his secret of life, but he lit his pipe and puffed at it silently.

"What is your secret of happiness, Mr. Markham?" she asked wistfully. "Tell me, won't you?"

"'An open hand, an easy shoe and a hope to make the day go through,'" he quoted with a quick laugh.

"What else?"

"Thirst--and a good inn to quench it at."

"Yes--"

"A conscience," he finished, "with little on it--a purse with little in it. You see the Ancient Order of Vagabonds never used purses--unless they were other people's."

He stopped with a laugh and glanced down the road toward the scene of Hermia's accident. "All of which is interesting," he said with a practical air, "but doesn't exactly solve the problem of how we're to get you to Trouville in time for dinner with the Countess Tcherny." He took a road map from his pocket and spread it out on his knapsack between them, while Hermia peered over his shoulder and followed his long forefinger.

"Evreux, Conches, Breteuil--we must be about here--yes--and there's your crooked railroad. It goes around to Evreux, where there's a through line to the coast. You might hire a horse and wagon--but even then you would hardly get to Evreux before sunset. Miss Challoner, I'm afraid you'll not reach Trouville to-night--"

"Oh, I don't care," she said. "It's a matter of indifference to me whether I reach Trouville at all--"

"But your friends will worry."

"Oh, no--I could wire them, I suppose--"

"Oh yes. And there's a good inn at Evreux. But we had better be going at once."

He folded his map, put it in his pocket and rose, slinging his knapsack across his shoulder and offering her a hand to rise. But she didn't move or look at him. She had plucked a blade of grass and was nibbling at it, her gaze on the distant landscape to the southward.

"Wait a moment, please. I--I've something more to say to you."

He looked at her keenly, then leaned against the bole of a tree, listening.

"I--I don't know just what you'll think of me, but if I--I didn't feel pretty sure that you'd understand what I mean I don't think I'd have the courage to speak to you. You once told me you liked me a great deal, Mr. Markham, and I--I know you meant it because you're not a man to say things you don't mean."

"That's true," he confirmed to her. "I'm not."

"And I think that's one of the reasons I believe in you," she went on, smiling, "and why I thought your friendship might be worth while. You're the only person I've ever met in my world or out of it whose opinions were not tainted with self-interest. Can you wonder that I value them?"

"I'm glad of that," he said genuinely. "I'd like to help you if I can."

"Would you?" she asked, "would you really?" She rose and faced him. "Then teach me the secret of your happiness, John Markham," she cried. "Show me how to live my life so that I can get as much out of it as you get out of yours. There is--there must be some way to learn. I've always wanted to be happy, but I've never known how to be. When I grew up, people told me how much better off I was than other people, how happy I would be--that anything I wanted was mine for the asking, measuring my future happiness--as the world will--in terms of dollars and cents. I'm only twenty-three, John Markham, but I've bought from life already all it has to offer. Isn't there something else? Isn't there something that one can't buy?"

"Yes," he said. "Freedom."

"That's it," she cried. "Freedom--I'm a slave. I've always been-a slave to my lawyers and trustees, a tool in the hands of the people who fatten on me, the servants who rob me, the guests who flatter and use me, the people of society to invite me to their houses and take my character when my back is turned. I'm a slave, John Markham, a moral coward, afraid of my enemies--afraid of my friends, afraid to hate, afraid to love--distrusting everyone--even myself."

He did not speak, but as she turned toward him she saw that his eyes were alight with comprehension. She thrust out her hands impulsively and caught his in her own.

"Take me with you, John Markham. I want to learn what makes you happy--I want to learn your secret of living."

"Impossible!" he stammered.

She dropped his hands and turned away.

"You refuse then?"

"I--I didn't say so. But I can't believe--"

"You must. I've paid you the high compliment of thinking you'd understand."

He tangled his brows in perplexity. "Yes--I'm flattered--but have you thought? I'm afoot--eating and drinking where and what I can get, sleeping where I may. It wouldn't be easy--for a girl."

"I'm not made of tender stuff--" she broke off and turned toward him with an impulsive gesture.

"If you don't want me," she cried, "tell me so. I'll believe you and go."

"No," he muttered. "I won't tell you that. But have you thought of the consequences? Of what people will think?"

"Let them think what they choose," she said.

She met the inquisition of his eyes frankly and the thought which for a moment had troubled him went flying to the winds in the treetops. For all her experience with the world she was a child--with a trust in him or an innocence which was appalling.

"The roads of France are free," he laughed gaily. "How should _I_ stop you."

She looked up at him in delight. "You mean it? I may go? Oh, John Markham, you're a jewel of a man."

"Perhaps you won't think so when we're vagabonds together; for vagabonds you must be--taking what comes without complaint--sour wine--a crust--"

"Here's my hand on it--a vagabond--with vagabond's luck--vagabond's fare."

He studied her a moment again, soberly testing her with this gaze, but she did not flinch.

"This," he said at last, "is the maddest thing--you've ever done."