Part 6

There was no one there to see. Some day, perhaps, in the far distant future, this part of the world would be thickly populated. But this was not yet the case. Gaspard brought his bride close to his breast, smiled gravely into her upturned face. He kissed her tears away. Sweet Susette! She was such a child! How little she knew of life!

And yet what was that fragile, fluttering, elusive, tiny suggestion of a regret in the back of his brain? Now he saw it; now it was gone--a silver moth of a thought, yet one, some instinct warned him, was there to gnaw a hole in his happiness.

He said nothing about this to Susette, of course; he chased it from his own joy. And this joy was a beautiful, tumultuous thing.

"It's like the source of the Rhone, which I saw one time--this joy of ours," he said with placid rapture. "All sparkling it was, and wild cataracts, and deep places, clean and full of mystery."

"Ah, I want it to be always like this," said Susette.

Gaspard let himself go in clear-sighted thought. They were seated on a grassy shelf that overhung the great river. The forest hemmed them in on three sides like a wedding-bower fashioned to order; but here they could follow the Rhone for miles--with its drifting barges, its red-sailed shallops, its hamlets, and villages.

"Yes, ever like the Rhone," he said; "but growing, like the Rhone, until it's broad and majestic and strong to carry burdens--"

Susette interrupted him.

"Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me again. No--not like that; like you did a while ago."

And Gaspard, laughing, did as he was bidden. But what was that silver glint of something like a regret, something like a loss, that came fluttering once more across the atmosphere of his thought? Susette, though, kept him diverted. She was forever popping in upon his reflections with innocent, childish questions; and he found this infinitely amusing.

"Did you desire me--more than the princess?"

"Beloved, I have desired you for years."

"Did you think me more beautiful--than she?"

Again Gaspard laughed; but it set him to thinking. He liked to think. He thought at his forge, at his meals, nights when he happened to be awake.

"Love and beauty," he said, "these are created by desire. As a stone-cutter desires what is hidden in the rock, and hews it out and loves the thing he shapes, though it be as ugly as a gargoyle, because of the desire that brought it forth--"

"Do you think that I'm a gargoyle?" queried Susette hastily.

"Certainly not."

"Then, why did you call me one?"

So he had to console her again, and took a certain joy in it, although she protracted the dear, silly dispute by telling him that he had chained her to him simply so that he could torture her, and that he had wanted to spare the princess such suffering, and that therefore it was clear that he loved the princess more.

"Why, no," said Gaspard; "as for that, she's really in love with that young Sieur de Mâcon."

But thereupon Susette wanted to know how he came to be so well informed as to the contents of the lady's heart. So the smith gave over any attempt to reason, except in the silences of his brain; and just confined his outer activities to cooings and caresses, as Susette would have him do.

Yet his thought would persist.

That was the trail of a great truth he had almost stated back there, about the place held by desire in the origins of love and beauty. He had watched a certain Italian named Botticelli do a mural painting in the duke's private chapel. Lord, there was a passion! He had helped in the building of the cathedral at Sens. Lord, what fervor the builders put into their work! They were all like young lovers.

The smith sat up. It was almost as if he had cornered that glinting moth of doubt.

Yes, they had been like young lovers--Sieur Botticelli, in pursuit of the beautiful; the church-builders in pursuit of God. But--and here was the point--what if their desire had been satisfied? The quest would have stopped. The vision of the artist would have faded. The steeple would have fallen down. For desire would have ceased to exist.

"I'm hungry and I'm thirsty," said Susette.

He kissed her pensively. They started home.

IV.

"Gaspard! Gaspard!"

The smith sat up swiftly on his couch.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

All the same, in spite of certain disquieting dreams, it struck him as sweet and curious to be awakened like that by Susette. But he perceived that she was alarmed.

"Some one hammers at the door," she said.

Then he heard it himself, that thing he had already been hearing obscurely in his sleep.

"Coming!" he yelled. And he smilingly explained to Susette: "It's my old friend, Joseph, the carter. He'd bring his work to me if he had to travel five leagues." And he was for jumping up and running to the door.

"Wait," cried Susette. "I'll have to go with you, and I can't be seen like this."

"That's right," said Gaspard. "That confounded chain! I'd forgotten all about it." So he called out again to his friend, and the two of them held quite a conversation while Susette tried to make herself presentable. But Gaspard turned to her as she shook her hair out for the third time, starting to rearrange it. "Quick!" he urged. "He's in a hurry. One of his horses has cast a shoe."

"You can't show yourself like that, either," cried Susette, playing for time.

"Me?" laughed Gaspard. "I'm a smith. I'd like to see a smith who couldn't show himself in singlet and apron!"

"You look like a brigand."

But he merely laughed: "Joseph won't mind."

And, indeed, Joseph the carter did appear to have but little thought for anything except the work in hand. For that matter, neither, apparently, did Gaspard. After the first few brief civilities and the inevitable jests about the chain, their attention was absorbed at once by the horses. There were four of these--Percherons, huge monsters with shaggy fetlocks and massive feet; yet Joseph and Gaspard went about lifting these colossal hoofs, and considering them as tenderly as if the two had been young mothers concerned with the feet of babes.

At last Susette let out a little cry, and both men turned to look at her.

"I faint," she said weakly.

And Gaspard sprang over and caught her in his arms. He was filled with pity. He was all gentleness.

"Are you sick?" he asked.

"It was the odor of the horses," Susette replied in her small voice.

Joseph the carter seemed to take this as some aspersion on himself. "Those horses don't smell," he asserted stoutly.

But Gaspard signaled him to hold his place. "You'll be all right in a second or so," he told his wife. He spoke gently; although, as a matter of fact, he himself could find nothing about those magnificent animals to offend the most delicate sensibility. "You'll be all right. You can come into the forge and sit down while I shoe the big gray."

"That will be worse than ever," wailed Susette.

Joseph the carter was an outspoken man, gruff and honest.

"And there's a woman for you," he said, "to be not only wed but welded to a smith! _Nom d'un tonnerre!_ Say, then, Gaspard, I'm in a hurry. Shall we start with the gray?"

"Yes," Gaspard answered softly, as he continued to support Susette.

"No, no, no!" cried Susette. "Not to-day! I'm too sick."

"_Mais, chérie_," Gaspard began.

"You love your work better than you do me," sobbed Susette.

"_Nom d'un pourceau!_" droned Joseph.

"But this work is important," Gaspard argued desperately. "The gray has not only cast a shoe, but the shoes on the others are loose. They've got to be attended to. It's work that will bring me in a whole _écu_."

"I don't care," said Susette. "I can't stand the smell of those horses, and I could never, never bear the smell of the hot iron on their hoofs."

"But I'm a smith," argued Gaspard.

It was his ultimate appeal.

"I told you that you loved your work more than you did me," whimpered Susette, beginning to cry. "'_I'm a smith; I'm a smith_'--that's all you've talked about since you got me in your power."

Joseph the carter went away. He did so shaking his head, followed by his shining Percherons, which were as majestic as elephants, but as gentle as sheep. There was a tugging at Gaspard's heart as he saw them go. Such horses! And no one could shoe a horse as could he. He looked down at Susette's bowed head as she lay there cuddled in his arms. That despairing cry was again swelling in his chest: "But I'm a smith." He silenced it. He stroked the girl's head.

As he did so, he was mindful as never before of the clink and jangle of the chain.

V.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked that afternoon as they lay out in the shade of the poplars along the river bank.

"I want you to love me," she answered.

"I do love you. But we can't live on love--can we, Susette?--however pleasant that would be. I've got to work."

"Ah, your _sacré_ work!"

"Still, you'll admit that you can't pick up _écus_ in the road."

"You're thinking still of that miserable carter."

"No; but I'm thinking of his horses. Somebody's got to shoe them. You can't let them go lame--or be lamed by a bungler. I could have done that job as it should have been done."

"But I tell you," declared Susette, pronouncing each word with an individual stress, "I can't support the grime and the odors and the racket of your forge. You ought to find some work that I do like. We could collect wild salads together--pick wild-flowers and sell them--something like that."

Gaspard sighed.

"But a man's work is his work," he averred.

"There you go again," said Susette, and the accusation was all the more damning in that it was spoken not in anger, but in grief. "Now that I've given myself to you--done all that you wished--you want to get rid of me; you want me to die."

"Haven't I told you a thousand times," cried Gaspard softly and passionately, "that I love you more than any man has ever loved any woman? Haven't I spent whole days and nights--yes, years--of my life desiring you? Haven't I proven it? Come into my arms, Susette. Ah, when I have you in my arms like this--"

"And it's only like this that I know happiness, my love," breathed the girl. "Yes; I'm jealous! Jealous of everything that can take you from me, body or spirit, if even for a moment. All women are like that. We live in jealousy. What's work? What's ambition, honor, duty, gold as compared with love?"

But late that night Gaspard the smith roused himself softly from his couch. He lay there leaning on his elbow and stared out of the window of his cottage. Susette stirred at his side, undisturbed by the metallic clinking. Otherwise the night was one of engulfing, mystical silence.

Just outside the cottage the great river Rhone flowed placid and free in the light of the young moon. Up from the river-bottoms ran the vine-clad slopes of Burgundy as fragrant as gardens. There was no wind. It was all swoon and mystery.

"Lord God!" cried Gaspard the smith in his heart.

It was a prayer as much as anything--an inspiration that he couldn't get otherwise into words.

He was of that race of artist-craftsmen whose forged iron and fretted steel would continue to stir all lovers of beauty for centuries to come.

"It's true," that inner voice of his spoke again, "that desire is the driving force of the world. 'Twas desire in the heart of God that led to creation. 'Tis so with us, His creatures--desire that makes us love and embellish. But when desire is satisfied, then desire is dead, and then--and then--"

And yet, as he lay there, buffeted by an emotion which he either would not or could not express, his eyes gradually focused on the castle of the great Duke of Burgundy up there on top of the hill--washed in moonlight, dim and vast; and it was as if he could see the Princess Gabrielle at her casement, kneeling there, communing with the night as he was doing.

Did she weep?

He had caught that message in her eyes as she had looked at him up there in the castle hall--had seen the same message before.

But never had she looked so beautiful--or as she looked now in retrospect--skin so white, mouth so tender, shape so stately, yet so slim and graceful. Oddly enough, thought of her now filled him with a vibrancy, with a longing.

And brave! Hadn't she shown herself to be brave though--to stand up like that there before her grandfather, him whom all Europe called Louis the Terrible, and declare herself ready to be welded to the man of her choice! She wouldn't faint in the presence of horses! And where couldn't a man go if led by a guardian angel like that? Slaves had become emperors; blacksmiths had forged armies, become the architects of cathedrals.

His breathing went deep, then deeper yet. The sweat was on his brow. He sat up. He seized the chain in his powerful hands, made as if he were going to tear it asunder.

But after that moment of straining silence he again lifted his face.

"_Seigneur-Dieu_," he panted; "if--if I only had it to do over again!"

VI.

"It's Gaspard the smith," said the frightened page. "He craves the honor of an interview."

The duke looked up from his parchment.

"Gaspard the smith?"

The duke was seated before the fireplace in the hall. The forge had been removed; and instead there were some logs smoldering there, for the morning was cool. But his glance recalled the circumstances of his last encounter with the smith. The watchful page was quick to seize his cue.

"He comes alone," the page announced.

The duke gave a start, then began to chuckle.

"_Tiens! Tiens!_ He comes alone! 'Tis true, this is the time limit I set. Send the creature in."

And his highness continued to laugh all the time that the page was gone. But he laughed softly, for he was alone. Presently he heard a subdued clinking of steel. He greeted his subject with a sly smile.

Most subjects of Louis the Terrible would have been overjoyed to be received by their sovereign so graciously. But Gaspard the smith showed no special joy. He wasn't nearly so proud, either, as he had been that other time he had appeared before his lord. He bent his knee. He remained kneeling until the duke told him to get up. The duke was still smiling.

"So my three days were enough," said his highness.

"Enough and sufficient," quoth the smith.

Now that he was on his feet again he was once more the man. He and the duke looked at each other almost as equals.

"Tell me about it," said Louis.

"Well, I'll tell you," Gaspard began; "you see, I'm a smith."

"But incapable of forging a chain strong enough to hold a woman."

"I'm not so sure," Gaspard replied. "It was a good chain."

He put out his left wrist and examined it. The steel handcuff was still there. Up and back from it ran the chain which the smith had been carrying over his shoulder. He hauled the chain down. He displayed the other end of it, still ornamented by the companion bracelet.

"What happened? How did she get out of it?" queried the duke.

"She got thin," Gaspard responded with melancholy. "She didn't want me to work. She wanted the money that I could earn. Yes. She even wanted me to work. But it had to be her kind of work; something--something--how shall I say it?--something that wouldn't interfere with our love."

"And you didn't love her?"

"Sure I loved her," flared the smith. "Eh--_bon Dieu_! I wouldn't have coupled up with her if I hadn't loved her; but, also, I loved something else. I loved my work. I'm a smith. I'm a shoer of horses, a forger of iron, a worker in steel. I'm what the good God made me, and I've the good God's work to do!

"So after a certain amount of honeymoon I had to get back to my forge. Joseph the carter, his Percherons; who could shoe them but me?"

"And she didn't like that?"

"No. When I made her sit in my forge she pined and whined and refused to eat. I was crazy. But I did my work. And this morning when I awoke I found that she had slipped away."

"You were already enchained," said his highness, "by your work."

The smith misunderstood.

"You can see it was no trick chain," he said, holding up the chain he himself had forged and playing with the links.

"Aye," said the duke, for he loved these philosophic disquisitions, when he was in the mood for them. "Aye, chains are the nature of the universe. The planets are chained. The immortal soul is chained to the mortal body. The body itself is chained to its lusts and frailties."

"I'm a smith," said Gaspard, "and I want to work."

"We're not happy when we are chained," the duke continued to reflect aloud. "But I doubt that we'd be happier were our chains to disappear. No matter." He regarded Gaspard the smith with real benignancy. "At least you've proven the fatal quality of one particular chain--the thing I wanted to prove. And--you've saved the princess."

"'Twas of her I wanted to speak," Gaspard spoke up. "This is a good chain. I forged it myself."

"Yes, I know you're a smith," said the duke.

"Well, then," said Gaspard, "I've been thinking. Suppose--now that I've still got it on me--that we try it on the princess, after all." He noticed the duke's look of amazement. "I'm willing," said Gaspard. "I'm willing to have another try--"

"_Dieu de bon Dieu!_" quoth the duke. "Never content!" He recovered himself. He felt kindly toward the smith. "Haven't you heard?" he demanded. "The princess has forged a chain of her own. She eloped with that young Sieur de Mâcon the same day you declined to chain her to yourself."

Transcriber's Note:

Spelling, punctuation and grammar have been retained except as follows:

Page 18 bear of leaves _changed to_ bare of leaves

Page 36 enternal laws of logic _changed to_ eternal laws of logic

Page 47 what has love to _changed to_ what has love to do

Page 56 completely locked the hall _changed to_ completely blocked the hall

Page 76 borne a thousand times _changed to_ born a thousand times

Page 78 but the were frozen _changed to_ but they were frozen

Page 85 Flourney studied a moment _changed to_ Flournoy studied a moment

Page 86 "No!" Flourney snapped _changed to_ "No!" Flournoy snapped

Page 111 enlightened her igorance _changed to_ enlightened her ignorance

Page 116 I ain't no bayou _changed to_ "I ain't no bayou

Page 145 Its my old friend _changed to_ It's my old friend

Page 158 No, matter. _changed to_ No matter.