Chapter 11

"'I wonder,' said Vaucher, and drank his wine. He was much my friend, a man with the courage and innocence of a good child; but his thought was not easy to follow. He gave Bertin's group another look under puckered brows, and then turned his back on it and began to talk of other matters. I might have known then that--but I must tell my tale in order."

"Bertin was not wise--if it were nothing more--to bring such a wife to Algiers. It turned eyes upon him. Those who had been aware of him merely as a man of low tastes now began to notice his particular actions. He had a house in a certain impasse, and one night there was a brawl there--an affair of a man drunk and angry, of a knife drawn and some one stabbed. Before, it might have passed; our discipline was indulgent; but now it took on the shape of a scandal. It was brief and ugly, but it marked a stage passed in Bertin's career. And it was only two days later that Vaucher came to me in my quarters with a manner at once deprecating and defiant. He sat in my arm-chair and laughed quietly before he spoke."

"'I am looking for friends,' he said; 'for a pair of friends.'"

"Then, of course, I understood. I bade him count on me. 'And there is also de Sailles,' I reminded him. 'He has a very just taste in these affairs. But who is our opponent?'"

"'It is Bertin,' he answered."

"I was astonished, and he told me all. It was an episode of quixotry, a thing entirely imprudent and altogether lovable in him. It chanced that on the evening of Bertin's little--er--fracas, Vaucher had passed by the impasse in which Bertin lived. He had heard the scream of the man with the knife in him and paused. It was a dark night, and in the impasse there was but one lamp which stood near Bertin's door. There was a babble of many voices after that scream--shouts of fury, the whining of the would-be assassin, and so on; he was about to pass on, when Bertin's door opened and a woman slipped out and stood listening on the pavement. Her attitude was that of one ready to flee, terrified but uncertain. As the noises within died down she relapsed from her tense pose and showed her face to Vaucher in the light of the lamp. It was Madame Bertin. She did not see him where he waited, and all of a sudden her self-possession snapped like a twig you break in your fingers. She was weeping, leaning against the wall, weeping desolately, in an abandonment of humiliation and impotence. But Vaucher was not moved when he told me of it."

"'That I could have endured,' he said. 'I held my peace and did not intrude upon her. But presently they brought the wounded man downstairs, and Bertin came forth to seek a fiacre to take him away. She heard him ere he came out and gained thus the grace of an instant. There was never anything in life so pitiful, so moving, as the woman's strength that strangled down her sobs, dried the tears at their source, and showed to her husband a face as calm as it was cold. He spoke to her and she gave him a word in answer. But'--and he leaned forward in my chair and struck his fist on the arm of it--'but that poor victory is sore in my memory like a scar."

"All that was comprehensible. Vaucher was a man of heart. 'But what is the quarrel?' I demanded."

"'The quarrel!' he repeated. 'Let me see; what was it, now?' He had actually forgotten. 'Oh yes. He spoke to me. That was it. He spoke to me, and I desired him not to speak to me for the future, of course.'

"Madame, up to the time when I went with Vaucher to the ground I had not given a thought to the issue of the affair. I had taken it for granted that Bertin would go down; at such seasons, one is blinded by one's sense of right. It lasted not two minutes. They fought with the saber--our custom at that time. Though it was early in the morning, there was a strong sun; it made a flame on the blades as they saluted before engaging. Bertin was very sober and serious, but one had only to glance at him to perceive a very heat of wrath masked under his heavy countenance. Vaucher was intent, wary, full of careful purpose. Their blades touched. 'All'ez!' There were a couple of moments of fencing, of almost formal escrime, and then Vaucher lengthened his arm and attacked. Bertin stepped back a pace, and, as Vaucher advanced, he slashed with a high open cut, and it was over. Vaucher threw up both hands and came to his knees. I remember that I stood, unable to move, staring aghast at this end to the affair; while Bertin threw down his sword, turned his back, and went to where his clothes lay. At that moment he seemed as vast against the morning sky as a monument, as a sphinx carved out of a mountain. He had spoken no word."

"We took Vaucher back to the city. It was a cut in the head. Madame shall be spared the particulars. I think he is living yet, but it was the end of him, none the less."

The little Colonel's voice dropped on the last words. He did not take the sympathy and friendship that waited for him in Elsie's grey eyes; he looked with a somber gaze at the Comtesse. She still held her favorite attitude, leaning a little to one side in her great chair, so that she could watch the shifting shapes in the fire. She was smiling slightly, but her smile vanished as the Colonel paused.

"He was a gallant gentleman," she said softly. Elsie turned her head to look at her, surprised, for the thing was said perfunctorily, in the manner of a commonplace of politeness.

Colonel Saval bowed. "Madame la Comtesse is only just," he said. But he glanced sharply at her serene, preoccupied face with a manner of some dissatisfaction.

He resumed his tale with a sigh. "After all," he said, "there is not much to tell. I was not fortunate enough to meet Madame Bertin frequently during the two years that followed. From time to time I saw her, always with some wonder, for she preserved to the end that delicate and superb quality which so distinguished her. The scandal of the brawl was the small thing that was needed to turn Bertin's course downhill; almost from that day one could mark his decline. It was not a matter of incidents; it was simply that within a year most of us were passing him without recognition, and there was talk of debts that troubled him. He had deteriorated, too; whereas of old he was florid, now he was inflamed and gross; where he had been merely loud, he was now coarse. Within eighteen months the Colonel had made him a scene, had told him sour truths, and shaken his finger at him. That power of his, Madame, was not the power that enables a man to hold his level. Even with the companions of his leisure, his ascendancy faded. I recollect seeing him once, at the corner of the Place du Gouvernement, in the centre of a group of them, raging almost tearfully, while they laughed at him. The horrible laughter of those outcasts, edged like a saw, cruel and vile! And he was purple with fury, shaking like a man in an ague, and helpless against them. I was young in those days and not incapable of generous impulses; I recollect that as I passed I jostled one of those creatures out of the path, and then turned and waited for the remonstrance which he decided not to make."

The Comtesse nodded at the fire, like one well pleased. The little Colonel gave her another of his shrewd glances and went on.

"As you see, Madame, it is not possible to describe to you the steps by which Bertin sank. The end came within two years of the duel. One knew--somehow--that it was at hand. There were things dropped in talk, things overheard and pieced together--a whole atmosphere of scandal, in which there came and went little items of plain fact. The trouble was with regimental funds; again I will spare Madame the details; but certain of them which should have passed through Bertin's hands had not arrived at their destination. Clerks from a bank came to work upon the accounts; strange, cool young men, who hunted figures through ledgers as a ferret traces a rat under a floor. You must understand that for the regiment it was a monstrous matter, an affair to hide sedulously; it touched our intimate honor. There was a meeting of the rest of us to consider the thing; finally, it was I that was deputed to go forthwith to Bertin and persuade him to leave the city, to vanish, to do his part to save our credit. And that evening, as soon as it was dark enough to be convenient, I went."

"There was still that light in the impasse by which my poor friend Vaucher had seen Madame Bertin weeping; but from the windows of the house there came none. It was shuttered like a fort. It was not till I had knocked many times upon the door that there came any response. At last I heard bolts being withdrawn--bolt after bolt, as if the place had been a prison or a treasury; and Madame Bertin herself stood in the entry. The one lamp in the impasse showed her my uniform, and she breathed like one who had been running."

"I saluted her and inquired for Bertin."

"'Captain Bertin?' she repeated after me. 'I do not know--I fear----'"

"'My business with him is urgent,' I told her, and at that she whitened. 'And unofficial,' I added, therefore."

"At that she stood aside for me to enter. I aided her to fasten the door again, and she led me up the stairs to a small room, divided by large doors from an inner chamber."

"'If you will please be seated,' she said, 'I will send Captain Bertin in to you.'"

"She was thinner, I thought, and perhaps a trifle less assured; but that was to be understood. For the rest, she had the deliberate tones of the salon, the little smile of a convention that is not irksome. Her voice, her posture, had that grace one knows and defers to at sight. It was all very wonderful to come upon in that house. As she left the room, her profile shone against the wall like a cameo, so splendid in its pallor and the fineness of its outline."

"She must have gone from the passage by another entrance to the room beyond the double doors, for I heard her voice there--and his. They spoke together for some minutes, she at length, but he shortly; and then the doors slid apart a foot or so, and he came through sideways. He gave me a desperate look, and pulled at the doors to close them behind him. They stuck and resisted him, and he ceased his efforts at once."

"'You wanted to speak to me?' he asked. He seemed to be frowning as a child will frown to keep from bursting into tears. 'But not officially, I believe? It is not official, is it?'"

"'No,' I answered. 'It is a message--quite private.'"

"He ceased to frown at that, staring at me heavily, and chewing his moustache."

"'Sit down,' he said suddenly, and came nearer, glancing over his shoulder at the aperture of the doors. Something in that movement gave me the suggestion that he was accustomed to guard against eavesdroppers; all those poor forlorn gamesters and wastrels are full of secrets and privacies. One sees them for ever in corners with furtive eyes for listeners, guiding their business like conspirators."

"I gave him my message at once. There was a need upon me for plain speech with the man, like that need for cold steel which came upon poor Vaucher."

"'There is time for you to make your packages and be gone,' I said. 'Time for that and no more, and I recommend you to let the packages be few. If you go, you will not be sought for. That is what I have to say to you.'"

"He glanced over his shoulder again and came a step nearer. 'You mean----'he said, and hesitated."

"'The money? Yes,' I answered. 'That is what I mean. You will go?"

"He stared at me a moment in silence. I felt as if I had struck him and spat in his face. But he had no such thought."

"'How long have I?' he asked suddenly."

"'You have to-night,' I answered."

"It seemed as if he were going to ask further questions, but at that moment Madame Bertin appeared in the doorway behind him. I knew she had heard our talk.

"'Your business is finished?' she asked carelessly, coming forward into the room."

"'It is quite finished,' I replied."

"She nodded, smiling. 'Captain Bertin has to catch a train,' she said, 'and if I did not watch the time for him, he would surely lose it. He has no idea of punctuality.'"

"'I hope he has not much packing to do,' I said."

"'I have seen to that,' she replied."

"'Then I will not intrude upon your adieux,' I said, preparing to depart. Ma foi, I was ready to weep, as Vaucher had wept, at the gay courage of her. But she stopped me."

"'Oh, the adieux are complete like the packing,' she said. 'And if you should have anything further to say to Captain Bertin, you can drive with him to the station.'"

"I could see her meaning in that; my company would guard him till he left. So I bowed."

"'I shall be very happy,' I said."

"'Then if you will send for a fiacre,' she suggested to her husband. He was standing between us, wordless and dull. He gave her a look of inquiry; she returned it with a clear, high gaze, and he went at once."

"'It is a good season for traveling, I believe!' she said, when the door had closed behind him."

"'Captain Bertin could not have chosen a better,' I assured her."

"Her composure was more than wonderful; by no sign, no hint of weakness or ill ease, did she make any appeal to me. To my sympathy, my admiration, my devotion, she offered only that bright surface of her schooled manner and disciplined emotions. While her house crumbled about her ears, while her world failed her, she deviated not a hairbreadth from the line of social amenity."

"'But he is hardly likely to have company?' she asked again."

"As for me, I had visions of the kind of company that was due to him --a formal sons-officer with a warrant of arrest, a file of stolid soldiers, with rigid faces and curious eyes."

"But I answered her in her own manner."

"'There is certainly that drawback,' I said, and I thought--I hoped-- I saw gratitude in her answering look."

"Then Bertin returned, with the hat of a civilian and a cloak that covered him to the ears. I saw their farewell--his look of appeal at her, the smile of amusement which answered it. And next I was seated beside him in the fiacre and she was framed in the door, looking after us, slender and erect, pale and subtle, smiling still with a manner as of weariness. It is thus that I remember her best."

"It was not till we were out of her sight that Bertin spoke. He lit a cigarette and stared up at the great white stars."

"'She spoilt my luck from the first,' he said."

"I don't know why, but I laughed. At the moment it seemed to be a very droll saying. And at the sound of my laughter he grinned in sympathy. He was a wonderful man. When he was established in the train, he held out his hand to me."

"'Adieu,' he said. 'You have been kind in your way. You didn't do it for me, you know--so adieu!"

"I took his hand. It was a small thing to grant him, and I bad no other answer. As the train moved away, I saw his face at the window of the carriage, full of a kind of sly humor--gross, amiable, and tragic! He waved me a good-bye."

The Colonel paused, staring at his trimly booted toe. Madame la Comtesse looked at him thoughtfully.

"You saw him again? she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "But possibly the tale becomes too painful."

The Comtesse passed a hand over her eyes. "I must hear the rest," she said. "You saw her, too, again?"

"Yes," said the Colonel.

"She was very hard," said the Comtesse thoughtfully. "Very hard always. As a girl I remember----"

The Colonel was looking at her intently, as though some thought had suddenly brought him enlightenment. Both he and the Comtesse seemed quite to have forgotten Elsie, listening on her stool in bewilderment and compassion. She saw them now exchange guarded glances, as though measuring each other's penetration.

The Comtesse leaned back. "I beg you to proceed," she said, with a sigh. Elsie reached over the arm of the chair and took her hand and held it.

The little Colonel shrugged his shoulders.

"Since Madame la Comtesse wishes it," he said. "But some years elapsed before I saw either of them again. Madame Bertin had said nothing which could encourage me to call at the house in the impasse, and there was no message from him to carry thither. I heard--it was said--that she, too, left the city; Bertin's exit from the service was arranged, and thus the matter seemed to close. I preserved certain memories, which I still preserve; I was the richer by them. Then came active service, expeditions to the interior, some fighting and much occupation. It chanced that I was fortunate; I gained some credit and promotion; and by degrees the affair of Bertin sank to rest in the background of my life. It was a closed incident, and I was reconciled never to have it reopened. But it seems one can never be sure that a thing is ended; possibly Bertin in his hiding-place thought as I did and made the same mistake. I heard the news when I visited Algiers on my way to a post up-country at the edge of the desert. New powers had taken charge of our business; there was a new General, an austere, mirthless man, who knew of Bertin's existence, and resented it. He had been concerned here and there in more than one enterprise of an unpleasant flavor, and it was the General's intention to put a period to him. My friends in barracks told me of it, perfunctorily; and my chief sense was of disgust that Bertin should continue to be noticeable. And then I went away up-country, in a train that carried me beyond the borders of civilization, and set me down at last one dawn at a point where a military line trickled out into the vast yellow distance, against an undulated horizon of sandhills. It was in the chill hour of the morning; a few sentries walked their beats, and beyond them there was a plot of silent tents. The station was no more than planks laid on the ground beside some locked iron sheds, a tank for the engine, and a flagstaff. It was infinitely forlorn and empty, with an air of staleness and discomfort. At some distance, a single muffled figure sat apart on a seat; I thought it was some Arab waiting for the day. Be judge, then, of my amazement when it rose, as I would have passed it, and spoke."

"'This, also, is a good season for traveling?' it said, and I spun on my heel to face it. From the hood of a bernouse there looked out at me, pale and delicate still, the face of Madame Bertin."

"In my bewilderment and my--my joy, I caught at both her hands and held them for a moment. She smiled and freed herself gently, and her eyes mocked me. She was the same as ever, impregnably the same; stress of mind, sorrow, exile, loneliness--they could not avail to stir her from her pedestal of composure. That manner--it is the armor of the woman of the world."

"'I came here on a camel,' she told me, in answer to my inquiries. 'On a camel from my home. I understand now why chameau is a word of abuse.'"

"'I am not very sure that the season is good for traveling,' I said."

"She shrugged her shoulders. 'When one is acclimatized, seasons are no longer important.'"

"'And you are acclimatized, Madame?' I asked her."

"She showed me the bernouse. 'Even to this,' she said."

"Across the slopes of sand, one could hear the engine of the little military train grunting and wheezing as it collected its cars, and the strident voice of a man cursing Arab laborers."

"'You go by that train?' she asked me."

"'To Torah,' I answered."

"'I also,' she said, looking at me inquiringly.

"I said I was fortunate to have her company, and it was plain that she was relieved. For I guessed forthwith that it was at Torah that Bertin was, and she knew that if my going thither were to arrest him, I would spare her. I am sure she knew that."

"It was a journey of a day and a night, while that little train rolled at leisure through a world of parched sand, beyond the sandhills to the eye-wearying monotony of the desert. Sometimes it would halt beside a tank and a tent, while a sore-eyed man ran along the train to beg for newspapers. Over us, the sky rose in an arch from horizon to horizon, blue and blinding; the heat was like a hand laid on one's mouth. I had with me my soldier-servant and a provision of food; there was something of both ecstasy and anguish in serving her needs, in establishing her comfort. She talked little and always so that I stood at a distance from her, fenced apart by little graceful formalities, groping hopelessly and vainly towards her through the clever mesh of her adroit speech and skilful remoteness. I was already fifteen years in the country, and fifteen years her inferior in those civilized dexterities. But she thanked me very sweetly for my aid."

"Another dawn, and we were at Torah. A half-circle of dusty palms leaned away to one side of the place, the common ensign of a well on a caravan route. The post was but a few structures of wood and mud, and, a little way off, the tents of the camp. In the east, the sky was red with foreknowledge of the sun; its light already lay pale over the meanness of all the village. I helped her from the train, and demanded to know whither I should conduct her."

"'I will not give you further trouble,' she said; and though I protested, she was firm. And at last she walked away, alone, to the huddle of little buildings, and I saw her pass among them and out of my sight. Then I turned and went over to the camp, where my duty lay."

"That was a sorrowful place, that Torah. The troops were chiefly men of the Foreign Legion, of whom three in every four expressed in their eyes only patience and the bitterness of men whose lives are hidden things. With them were some elderly officers, whose only enthusiasms showed themselves in a crazy bravery in action, the callous courage of men who have already died once. From some of these I heard of Bertin. It was a brown, sun-dried man who told me."

"'Yes, we know him,' he said. 'He passes under various names, but we know him. A man wasted, thrown away, my friend! He should have joined us.'"

"'You would have accepted him?' I asked."

"'Why not?' was the answer. 'It is not honest men we ask for, nor true men, nor even brave men--only fighting men. And any man can be that.'"

"It made me wonder if it were yet too late for Bertin, 'and whether he might not still find a destiny in the ranks of that regiment where so many do penance. But when I saw him, a week later, I knew that the chance had gone by with his other chances, It was in a cafe in the village, a shed open at one side to the little street of sand, and furnished only with tables and chairs. A great Spahi, in the splendid uniform of his corps, lounged in one corner; a shrouded Arab tended the coffee apparatus in another; in the middle, with a glass before him, sat Bertin. The sun beat in at the open front of the building and spread the shadows in a tangle on its floor; he was leaning with both elbows on the table, gazing before him with the eyes of a dead man. He had always promised to be stout, but he was already fat--a flabby, blue-jowled heap of a man, all thick creases and bulges; and his face had patches of blue and purple in its hollows. He was ponderous, he was huge; and with it there was an aspect of horror, as though all that flesh were diseased."

"I paused by his table and slowly he looked up to me. His features labored with thought, and he recognized me."

"'Saval!' he ejaculated hoarsely. 'You--you want me?'"

"I sat down at his table. 'I haven't come to arrest you,' I told him. 'But you had better know that the authorities have decided to arrest you.'"

"He gasped. 'For--for----'"

"'I don't know what for,' I told him. 'For whatever you have been doing.'"

"He had to blink and swallow and wipe his brow before he mastered the fact. His mind, like his body, was a shameful ruin. But the fact that he was not to be arrested at the moment seemed to comfort him. He leaned over the table to me."

"'My wife's here,' he said, in a raucous whisper."

"'Yes; she knows,' I answered."