Chapter 17

PERE GUEGOU'S ROSES

Had Yvonne needed encouragement in her career as a bread-winner her success of the morning had filled her with confidence. She had earned the right to live for this day at least, and looked forward to the morrow with joyous enthusiasm. Philidor, who still confessed to the possession of a few francs of their original capital, was for putting up at a small hotel or inn and paying for this accommodation out of principal. But Yvonne would not have it so. The sum they had earned for the _ragoût_ had filled her with pride and cupidity, had developed a niggardly desire to hoard their sous against a rainy day. They had earned the right to lunch. They must also earn the right to dine and sleep!

Late in the afternoon they came to a small village where a crowd of idlers soon surrounded them. Philidor unpacked Clarissa and recited in a loud tone the now familiar inventory of their artistic achievements and Yvonne, smiling, donned her orchestra, tuned her mandolin and played. The audience jested and paid her pretty compliments, and joined with a good will in the familiar choruses. And for his part, Philidor made a lightning sketch of an _ancien_ who stood by, leaning upon his stick, which brought him several other commissions at ten sous the portrait. "Reduced rates!" he cried. "_Bien entendu_!" For to-morrow at Verneuil would the people not pay him two francs fifty? This final argument was convincing to their frugal souls, and he sat upon a chair until sunset making Vallécy immortal. Philidor was too busy even to pass the hat for the musical part of the performances, so Yvonne did it herself, returning with two francs, all in coppers. When this was added to the earnings of Philidor, they found that in just two hours the princely sum of six francs had been earned.

"To-night," whispered Philidor, "you shall sleep in a chamber once occupied by the Grand Monarch at the very least. We are tasting success, Yvonne."

"Yes--and it's good--but I've learned a healthy scorn of beds. You, of course shall rest where you please, but as for me--I've an ungovernable desire to sleep in a hay-mow."

"But hay-mows are not for those who can earn six francs in two hours. We are rich," he cried, "and who knows what to-morrow may bring besides!"

They compromised. The _ancien_ to whom Markham applied in this difficulty offered them bed and board for the small sum of two francs each, and accordingly they made way to his house. The _ancien_ was a person of some substance in the community as they soon discovered, for his house, the last one at the end of the street, was a two storied affair and boasted of a wall at the side which inclosed a vegetable patch and a small flower garden at the back. Mère Guégou, a woman younger than her lord, looked at them askance until her good man exhibited the portrait by Monsieur Philidor, when she burst into smiles and hospitality.

_Oui, bien sûr_, there were rooms. This was no _auberge_, that was understood, but the house was very large for two old people. Yes, they rented the spare rooms by the month. Just now they were fortunately empty. Did Monsieur desire two rooms or one?

"Two," said Philidor promptly. "We will pay of course."

He hesitated and Mère Guégou examined them with new interest, but Yvonne, with great presence of mind, flew to the rescue.

"We--we are not married yet, Madam," she said flushing adorably. "One day--perhaps--"

"Soon--Madame," put in Philidor, rising to the situation with alacrity. "We shall be married soon."

Madame Guégou beamed with delight.

"_Tiens! C'est joli, ça! Guégou!_" she called. "We must kill a chicken and cut some haricots and a lettuce. They shall dine well in Vallécy--these two."

Guégou grinned toothlessly from the doorway of the shed where he was stabling Clarissa, and then hobbled his way up to the garden.

When Mère Guégou went into the kitchen to prepare the dinner, Yvonne and Philidor walked through the garden to a small rustic arbor at the end which looked down over a meadow and a stream.

"I hope the _bon Dieu_ will forgive me that fib," she laughed.

"It was no fib at all." And as her eyes widened, "You merely said that we hadn't been married yet. We haven't you know," he laughed.

Her look passed his face and sought the saffron heavens across which the swallows were wheeling high above the tree tops.

"Obviously," she said coolly. "Nowadays one only marries when every other possibility of existence is exhausted."

He examined her gravely.

"The _bon Dieu_ will not forgive you _that_," he said slowly.

"Why not?"

"Because you don't mean what you say. Whatever Hermia was--Yvonne at least is honest. She knows as I do that she will not marry for the reasons you mention."

She accepted his reproof smilingly and thrust out her hand--a browner hand now, a ringless, earnest little hand--and put it into his.

"You are right, Philidor, I shall marry--if I may--for love. Or--I shall not marry at all."

He turned his palm upward, but before he could seize her fingers she had eluded him.

"But I'm not ready yet, Philidor," she laughed, "and when I am I shall not seek a husband on the highroads of Vagabondia."

Her speech puzzled him for a moment. In it were mingled craft and artlessness with a touch of dignity to make it unassailable. But in a moment she was laughing gaily. "Whom shall it be? Cleofonte is married. Luigi? He has a temper--"

"Marry _me_! You might do worse," he said suddenly.

Her face changed color and the laughter died on her lips.

"_You_? O Philidor!"

She turned away from him and looked up at the sky.

"I--I mean it," he repeated. "I think you had better."

He sought her hand and she trembled under his touch.

"Fate has thrown us together--twice. Its intention is obvious. Let Fate look after the rest--"

"You, Philidor. Oh--"

She buried her head in her arms still quivering, but he only held her hand more tightly.

"Don't child. I did not mean to frighten you. I would not hurt you for anything in the world. I thought you needed me--"

At that she straightened quickly, turned a flushed face toward him and he saw that she was shaking, not with sobs, but with merriment.

"O Philidor--_such_ a wooing! You'd marry me because I need you. Was ever a dependent female in such a position!" And she began laughing again, her whole figure shaking. "I need you--forsooth! How do you know I do? Have I told you so?" she asked scornfully.

"You need me," he repeated doggedly.

"And that is why I should marry you? You who preach the gospel of sincerity and love for love's sake?"

"I--I love you," he stammered.

But she only laughed at him the more.

"_You_. You wear your passion lightly. _Such_ a tempestuous wooing! You ask me to marry you because you fear I might do worse--because you believe that I'm irresponsible, and that without you I'll end in spiritual beggary. I appreciate your motives. They're large, ingenuous and heroic. Thanks. Love is not a matter of expediency or marriage a search for a guardian. If they were, _mon ami_, I should have long ago married my Trust Company. _You_--John Markham!"

He sat silent under her mockery, his long fingers clasped over his knees, his gaze upon the field below them, his mind recalling unpleasantly a similar incident in his unromantic career. Hermia had stopped laughing, had left him suddenly and was now picking one of Père Guégou's yellow roses. Her irony had cut him to the quick, as Olga's had, her mockery dulled his wits and rendered him incapable of reply, but curiously enough he now felt neither anger nor chagrin at her contempt--only a deep dismay that he had spoken the words that had risen unbidden to his lips, that placed in jeopardy the joy of their fellowship which had owed its very existence to the free, unsentimental character of their relations. He knew that, however awkwardly he had expressed it, he had spoken the truth. He loved her, had loved her since Thimble Island, when she had spoiled his foreground by eliminating every detail of foreground and background by becoming both. Since then to him she had always been Joy, Gayety, Innocence, Enchantment and he adored her in secret.

Since they had met in France he had guarded the secret carefully--often by an air of indifference which fitted him well, a relic of his years of seclusion, and a native awkwardness which was always more or less in evidence before women. Whatever his secret misgivings, he had blessed the opportunity which chance and her own wild will had thrown in his way. And now--she would leave him, of course. There was nothing left for her to do.

Slowly, fearfully, he raised his eyes until she came within the range of their vision, first to her shoes, then to her stockings, her skirt, gaudy jacket and at last met her eyes, which were smiling at him saucily over the rosebud which she was holding to her lips. But he only sat glowering stupidly at her.

"O Philidor!" she cried. "You look just as you did on the night when I slipped down through the pergola."

"Hermia!" He rose and approached her. "I forbid you."

She retreated slowly, brandishing the blossom beneath his nose.

"Without--er--the face powder!"

"You have no right to speak of that."

"Oh, haven't I? You've just given it to me."

"How?"

"By proving to me that I wasn't mistaken in you. O Philidor, did you propose to her, too, from purely philanthropic--"

"Stop!" He seized her by both wrists and held her straight in front of him, while he looked squarely into her eyes. "You _shall_ not speak--"

"Or was it because she 'needed' you, Philidor, as I do?"

"There's nothing between Olga and me," he said violently. "There never was--"

"Face powder," she repeated.

"Listen to me. You shall," fiercely. "You've got to know the truth now. There's no other woman in the world but you. There never has been another. There won't be. I love you, child. I always have--from the first. I wanted to keep it form you because I didn't want to make you unhappy, because I wanted you here--in Vagabondia. When the chance came to take you, I welcomed it, though I knew I was doing you a wrong. I wanted to meet you on even terms, away from the reek of your fashionable set--to see the woman in you bud and blossom under the open skies away from the hothouse plants of your vicious circle. Even there at 'Wake Robin,' I wanted to tear you away from them. They were not your kind. In the end you would have been the same as they. That was the pity of it. Perhaps it was pity that first taught me how much you were to me--how much you were worth saving from them--from yourself. I seemed impossible. I was nothing to you then--less than I am now--a queer sort of an amphibious beast that had left its more familiar element and taken to walks abroad among the elect of the earth. But I loved you then, Hermia, I love you now, and I've told you so. I hadn't meant to, but I'm not sorry. I'm glad that you know it--even though your smiles deride me; even though I know I've spoiled your idyl here and made a mockery of my own Fool's Paradise."

Her head was lowered now and he could not see her eyes, but he was sure they must be still laughing at him. When he had finished he released her and turned away.

"To-morrow we shall be in Verneuil," he said quietly. "I will give you money to buy clothes and put you on the train for Paris."

There was a long silence, broken by the sound of Père Guégou's chickens flapping to their roosting bars. The saffron heavens had changed to purple, and in the spire of the village campanile a bell tolled solemnly the strokes of Philidor's doom. He did not see her face. He had not dared to look at it. But when the bell stopped ringing, Hermia's voice was speaking softly.

"Do you want me to go, Philidor?"

Her tone still mocked and he did not turn toward her.

"No--but you had better," he murmured.

"Suppose I refused to go to Paris. What would you do?"

He did not reply.

"Could you treat me so? Is it _my_ fault that you--you fell in love with me? _I'm_ not responsible for that--am I? I didn't _make_ you do it, did I? Would you have me give up all this? Think a moment, Philidor. Wouldn't it be cruel of you--after letting me be what I am--after letting me know what I _can_ be--after giving me an ego, an individuality, and making me a success in life--to send me back to Paris to be a mere nonentity? You couldn't, I'll not go."

Her voice, half mocking, half tender, rose at the end in a note of stubbornness.

"Of course, you will do as you please," he muttered.

He felt rather than heard her coming toward him.

"Don't be cross with me," she pleaded. "I--I don't want to go away--from this--from _you_, Philidor."

He turned quickly--but she thrust out her hand with a frank gesture which he could not misinterpret.

"You're the best friend I have in the world," she said.

He took her hand in both of his and held it a moment.

"That's something," he muttered. "I'll try to be--to deserve your faith in me."

He looked so woebegone that her heat went out to him, but she only laughed gaily.

"You'll not be rid of me so easily, Monsieur. I'm not going, do you hear?"

He shrugged and smiled.

"There!" she smiled. "I knew you wouldn't refuse me. You're an angel, Philidor, and I shall reward you."

She touched Père Guégou's blossom to her lips, then put it deftly into the lapel of his coat.

"It is the Order of the Golden Rose, _mon ami_, and its motto is _Sincere et Constanter_. You will remember that motto, Philidor, and however mad, however inconsistent or incomprehensible I may be, know that I am bound to you, apprenticed to learn the trade of living and that not until you send me away will I ever leave you."

He smiled and lifted the blossom to his lips.

"Friendship?" he asked.

"Yes, that always--whatever else--"

She stopped suddenly as his eyes eagerly alight sought her face, and then turning quickly she fled to the kitchen of Mère Guégou and upstairs away from him.

The Guégou family made good its promise, and they supped upon the fat of Vallécy, Mère Guégou waiting upon them, her good man bringing from the cellar a cob-webbed bottle which dated from a vintage which was still spoken of in the valley with reverence. A brave wine it was, such as one remembers in after days, and a brave night for Philidor whose heart was singing.

"Ah! _la jeunesse_!" sighed Madame Guégou, setting down her glass when the healths were drunk. "I, too, Mademoiselle, was once young."

Yvonne patted her cheek gently.

"Age is only in the heart, Madame," she said.

"_Non, ma belle_," cackled Guégou from his corner. "It's in the joints."

"_Tais-toi_, Jules," scolded his wife. "What should lovers care about thy joints."

"My joints are my joints," he creaked stubbornly. "When one has ninety years--"

"Ninety!" cried Yvonne. "Monsieur carries his years lightly. I should not have said that he had over sixty."

"Say no more, Mademoiselle," put in Mère Guégou. "You will render him conceited."

Indeed it seemed that the old man had already forgotten his joints, for he poured out another glass of wine and was pledging Yvonne with toothless gayety.

"_Vos beaux yeux_, Mademoiselle," he creaked gallantly, "and to your good fortune, Monsieur Philidor."

"To your roses, Monsieur Guégou," replied Philidor. "In the whole of the _Eure et Oise_ there are not such roses. To your omelette, Madame. In the country there is not such another!"

With these compliments and in others like them the minutes passed quickly. Yvonne's eyes avoided Philidor's, though he frequently sought them. Nor was he dismayed when, in response to Madame Guégou's interest query as to when they would marry, Yvonne shrugged her shoulders indifferently and sighed.

"Oh, I do not know, Madame. Often I think--never. One marries and that is the end of romance. One lover--pouf! When one may have many."

She tossed her chin in the direction of Philidor, who looked at her over his chicken bone.

"If one has but one lover," she went on, "he must have all the virtues of the many and none of the faults. He must sing when we are gay, weep when we are sad, and make love to us while doing either. _Enfin_, he must be what no man is. _Voyez-vous_?" and she pointed the finger of scorn at Philidor. "He eats just as you or I."

Madame Guégou laughed.

"What you require is no man at all. Mademoiselle Yvonne, but a saint."

"Perhaps," she finished, yawning. "But, _bien entendu_, I'm in no hurry."

When the dinner was finished, Yvonne helped Mère Guégou with the dishes, and when that was done went straightway to her room, with no other word for Philidor than a "_Bon soir_," and a nod of the head.

Philidor sat for a long while in the arbor smoking a pipe. He had much to think about. One by one the lights went out, and the village grew quiet. The moon rose over the forest on the hilltop beyond the stream, and he stretched his limbs and smiled at it in drowsy content. He was so wrapped in his reflections that he hardly heard a voice which came to him over the yellow roses.

"_Bonne nuit_, Philidor."

"Hermia!"

"You're to go to bed--at once."

"I couldn't. Imagine a saint going to bed."

"You're _not_ a saint. You're a prowler."

"Let me prowl. I'm happy."

"Why should you be?"

"I love you."

The shutter above him closed abruptly. He waited in the shadow of the wall looking upward. There was no sound.