(11)
When Laurent came downstairs next morning, after taking his farewell of the Vicomtesse, he was greatly surprised to find Mme de Villecresne, a little ghost in white organdie, in the hall—waiting for him as was evident by her request that he would speak to her, if he had the time. And as he went out with her into the garden, which she seemed to indicate as the scene of their interview, his conscience rather smote him for last evening's free speech. But the mantle of the avenger had not yet fallen from his shoulders. Mme de Villecresne's first words, however, gave the panoply a perceptible twitch.
"I am very grateful to you for speaking to me as you did last night, Monsieur de Courtomer," she said. "I am sure you cannot have liked doing it." (Laurent surveyed the grass at his feet.) "I want, while I still have the chance, to ask you something more."
They were now in the middle of the rose-garden, by the sundial, and here she paused; paused, too, in her speech and looked away. Whatever she was going to ask him was not easy to bring out. He supposed he must give her time, even if he had to hurry for the diligence. So he looked down in silence at the sundial, which assured him in its antiquated French "Icy ne verras que les heures sans nuages," though a later hand had scrawled on the copper of the dial the cynical proviso, "Si de telles heures existent!"
Suddenly it came out, in a voice that shook. "Is it really true that it was all done for me?"
"Yes, Madame," said Laurent.
"Then it is the other story that is not true?" said the voice still more tremblingly.
At that the young man looked at her. "Do you mean the sending of the letter as part of a plan already made?—They are both true."
Mme de Villecresne did not exclaim that that could not be, nor did she ask him how it was possible. She went very slowly to the nearest rose-hedge and picked a rose or two. Then she came back. "That was what Aymar said," she murmured as if to herself. "If I could only see how the two stories are compatible—if I could only see it!" And the roses were clutched in her two hands as if they wore no thorns.
"Shall I try to explain it to you?" suggested Laurent gently. She seemed so young suddenly, only a girl—only his own age. She was amazingly free from rancour, too, considering what his "explanations" of last night had been like for she said, with a really touching gratitude, "Oh, if only you would, Monsieur de Courtomer!"
Over the sundial then, Laurent explained to the very best of his ability, and found himself, like Aymar before him, tracing out the figures there meanwhile.
"But I cannot understand how Aymar could be so deluded!" broke out Mme de Villecresne at the end. "M. de Vaubernier, perhaps . . . but Aymar!"
The advocate reminded her that she had once obtained military information for her cousin, as he well knew; reminded her also of the known fate of Marie Lasserre. Before the cruel story of the practical joke he hesitated a moment in his new-found consideration, but for Aymar's sake she must hear it. Only, since she was so pale already, he suggested a move to the stone bench in the corner, and she complied. Then, in the very place where the lying information had, all innocently, been passed on to Aymar, he showed her how convincing it had been.
"And, Madame," he concluded, "put yourself in your cousin's place; suppose yourself waiting for his arrival here in this very garden, and suppose yourself receiving instead news of his desperate peril. And suppose further that you had in your pocket a plan for the destruction of the enemy which you had been on the point already of putting into practice, which indeed only needed the pretext of a bargain to make it plausible. Do you mean to say that you would have gone peaceably to bed and said 'Nothing can be done'?"
"No," she said with a strangled sob. "No, indeed, I would not. And so he was tricked . . . tricked. . . . All this misery . . ." As she twisted her now empty hands in an effort to keep her composure Laurent saw how her roses had wounded them. "Yet Aymar told me," she went on, recovering herself, and facing him as pale and piteous as a child, "Aymar told me . . . some things that were not true . . . that were not true at all! I could not have believed that he would tell the merest fraction of a lie—even to spare me."
Laurent could not bear those little scratched hands, and in an almost fatherly way he took out his pocket-handkerchief. "If you will permit me, Madame . . ." and he dabbed at the beads of blood, the girl apparently quite oblivious of what he was doing. "I could not have believed that he would lie," she repeated.
Yes, that was the main stumbling-block of the situation. And Aymar had known it, too.
"No, I can quite understand your feeling that about him," said Aymar's friend, loosing the passive hands. "I should think that a more naturally truthful person does not exist. And yet, Madame, there are instincts . . . For instance, I dare say it has not struck you that last night, to shield him, you told a lie yourself?"
"I?" she exclaimed, and a flush stained her pallor.
"It was so instinctive that you have forgotten it already. I expect you were hardly aware of it at the time. Yet, to protect him from what I might think of him you told me, in so many words, that your cousin had not lied to you. Can you deny that?"
He smiled at her. He did feel himself rather like a wise uncle now—an odd sensation.
The flush ran over Avoye's face again. She dropped her eyes to a tiny red spot on her muslin gown. "That is quite true," she murmured.
"Do you think he would ever lie to save himself," went on Laurent, pursuing his advantage, "any more than you would?"
She shook her head mutely. "But, Monsieur de Courtomer, if he had not kept me so much in the dark—let me think that I knew it all—left me to be enlightened by Mme de Morsan . . . it is that which hurts so."
"Yes, I dare say that was a mistake," assented Laurent, feeling about sixty by this time. "It was a risk, but only his consideration for you prompted him to take it. Yet, as far as that goes, were not you and he leagued together to keep your grandmother a great deal more in the dark? Did that trouble you—the thought of what was being kept from her?"
Avoye raised her eyes and looked at him. "No," she said. "It seemed the only, the right thing to do."
"One does those things instinctively, you see, with those one cares for," the sagacious young man pointed out to her.
She pondered this, her eyes downcast. Never could the mentor beside her have imagined himself admitted into so much intimacy. Heaven send he had made good use of it! He sat quite motionless, for it was a thousand times better to miss the diligence altogether than to cut short this wonderful chance she had given him. Aymar could not have explained fully to her yesterday, or else she had been in no state to comprehend the explanation.
As he revolved this conclusion Avoye herself said suddenly, "But I am forgetting; you will miss the coach if I keep you longer." She rose, growing less the child. "I can never thank you properly, Monsieur de Courtomer, for what you have done. At least now I understand." Her lip suddenly trembled. "I have really heard everything now, have I not?"
"Everything that matters," replied Laurent after a second's hesitation. The ramrod story had so thin a connection with her, and it would horrify her so—and his last night's desire to do this was now as dead as last night's dreams. "No," he exclaimed abruptly, "there is one fact more I should like you to know. Your cousin has done many brave things in his career, but you have never heard the bravest. And it was done for you."
Therewith he sat down again and told her the story of the interview with Colonel Richard.