Madcap Part 31

"If you should see t.i.tine, Georgette, will you not inquire where and with whom Miss Challoner has gone automobiling?"

The eyes of the maid showed a look of comprehension, quickly veiled.

"I shall make it a point to do so, Madame."

Olga yawned and looked out the window.

"Oh, it isn't so important as that--but, Georgette, if you could--discreetly, Georgette--"

"I comprehend, Madame."

When she was gone Olga threw herself on a couch upon the terrace and read a French Play just published. There was a heroine with a past who loved quite madly a young man with a future and she succeeded in killing his love for her by the simple expedient of telling him the truth. At this point Olga dropped the book upon the flagging and sat up abruptly, her face set in rigid lines.

Silly fool! What more right had he to her past than she had to his.

The world had changed since _that_ had been the code of life. That code was a relic of the dark ages when the Tree of Knowledge grew only in the Garden of Eden. Now the Tree of Knowledge grew in every man's garden and in every woman's.

She marveled that a dramatist of modern France could have gone back into the past for such a theme. It was the desire to seem original, of course, to be different from other writers--an affectation of na?vet?, quite out of keeping with the spirit of the hour--unintelligent as well as uninteresting. (You see Olga didn't believe in the double standard.)

She got up, spurning the guilty volume with her foot and walked out into the rose garden. But their odor made her unhappy and she went indoors. She began now to regret that she had not gone down to the house party of Madeleine de Cahors at Alenon. At least Pierre de Folligny would have been there--Chandler Cus.h.i.+ng, and the Renauds--a jolly crowd of people among whom there was never time to think of one's troubles--still less to brood over them as she had been doing to-day.

The return of her maid from Paris added something to the sum of her information. Miss Challoner had left her hotel at ten in the morning in her new machine with an intention of making a record to Trouville.

t.i.tine was to follow her there when the shopping should be finished.

In the meanwhile a telegram had come dated at Pa.s.sy, telling of the change in plans, with orders for t.i.tine to remain in Paris until further notice. Several days had pa.s.sed and t.i.tine still waited in Miss Challoner's apartment at the hotel which was costing, so t.i.tine related, three hundred francs a day. It was all quite mystifying and t.i.tine was worried, but then Mademoiselle was no longer a child and, of course, t.i.tine had only to obey orders.

Olga listened carelessly, examining Georgette's purchases, and when the maid had gone she sat for a long time in her chair by the window thinking.

At last she got up suddenly, went down into the library and found the paper booklet of the _Chemins de Fer de l'?tat. In this there was a map of Normandy and Brittany and after a long search she found the name she was looking for--Pa.s.sy--south from Evreux on the road to Dreux--this was the town from which Hermia's telegram to t.i.tine had been sent.

Olga's long polished finger nail shuttled back and forth. Here was Paris, there Rouen, here Evreux--there Alenon. Curious! Hermia with her machine doing in half a day from Paris what John Markham had taken four days from Rouen to do afoot. What more improbable? And yet entirely possible!

She took the _livret_ to her room where she could examine it at her ease and sent to the garage for a road map which had been left in the car of the d.u.c.h.esse. The _livret_ and map she compared, and diligently studied, arriving, toward the middle of the afternoon, at a sudden resolution.

CHAPTER XVII

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 princ.i.p.al. But Yvonne would not have it so. The sum they had earned for the _rago?t_ had filled her with pride and cupidity, had developed a n.i.g.g.ardly desire to h.o.a.rd 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 Vall?cy immortal. Philidor was too busy even to pa.s.s 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. Mre Gu?gou, 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 s?r_, 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 Mre Gu?gou 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 flus.h.i.+ng adorably. "One day--perhaps--"

"Soon--Madame," put in Philidor, rising to the situation with alacrity.

"We shall be married soon."

Madame Gu?gou beamed with delight.

"_Tiens! C'est joli, a! Gu?gou!_" she called. "We must kill a chicken and cut some haricots and a lettuce. They shall dine well in Vall?cy--these two."

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

When Mre Gu?gou 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 pa.s.sed 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 una.s.sailable. 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.