“Drink, then, my friends, to the health of His Majesty, and to that of the brave Dubocq, not forgetting the prosperity of Canada, and confusion to our enemies, the Iroquois!”
CHAPTER XIII.
PIERRE’S TEMPTATION.
THE grounds attached to Jacques Le Ber’s house were laid out partly as a flower and partly as a kitchen garden. They were divided by broad gravelled walks, bordered with fragrant herbs and deliciously sweet old-fashioned plants. Orange and oleander trees in green boxes stood here and there. Along the side of the wall grew pear trees, currant bushes and grape vines. Sweetness of fragrance and brilliancy of color were everywhere.
Over the garden one morning had hung a dense fog, which, lifting, revealed radiant glimpses of blue sky, distant mountain and shining river. The trees, silvered by the light, seemed to rush gladly out of the mist, and the still fleeing remnants of vapor gave grace and movement to every object over which their trembling shadows passed. The air was sweet with growth and blossom, glad with song of birds, quiver of leaves, and flicker of sunshine and shadow. Pierre Le Ber, strolling leisurely down a shady path with his breviary in his hands, his lips moving in silent prayer, resolutely strove to steel his heart against all the harmonies of nature. His tall, slight figure, emaciated by ceaseless vigils and penances, showed the high and narrow forehead, thin-lipped sensitive mouth, and deep dreamy eyes of the enthusiast. As he walked the sound of a tender lullaby broke upon his meditations. Instead of soothing him, however, the gentle strains seemed to produce a strangely disturbing effect upon the ascetic’s mind. His brow showed deep corrugations, his lips were compressed in quick irritation. With the warm sunshine and the fresh morning air, laden with the scent of opening blossoms, there seemed to glide into his senses, to thrill through every vein and nerve, an instinct of hope and consciousness of pleasure, a sensation of peace and easy indulgence alluring as a child’s dream. He had been troubled in mind; now the very air he breathed seemed to offer consolation. Vainly he tried to forget that he was still young, and that the world was beautiful. He was impatient of his own thoughts, and filled with indignant astonishment that after ceaseless efforts to suppress the claims of the body such trifles should have power to occupy his mind.
As these thoughts crowded upon poor Pierre he made a violent effort to fling them from him as something intrusive. He would go away, he would resist this entrancing influence. Turning hastily he found himself close to Diane de Monesthrol. She was carrying, easily and lightly, little Léon, the crippled orphan whose parents had both perished at the massacre of Le Chesnaye, and who had himself been grievously maimed by blows from an Indian tomahawk. His spine was injured, and he had but now been suffering from one of those paroxysms of pain which occasionally tortured him. The violence of the attack over, the child, soothed and exhausted, was falling asleep; the heavy blue-veined lids were slowly closing, while the girl bent over him with wistful tenderness. She laid the little one down beneath the shade of a wide-spreading tree, supported by cushions, and then, as she turned, encountered Pierre’s earnest gaze. Le Ber’s eldest son was seized with a sincere conviction that he would be better away from his father’s beautiful ward, yet he stood silent, rooted to the spot.
Life just then to Diane was a vague, sweet chaos. Rejoicing in the strength of her ardent youth, it was not easy to accept existence calmly and tranquilly. Every day the sunshine seemed brighter, the sky above her more blue. It was always to her an amusement to tantalize and provoke Pierre, who was curiously sensitive to every girlish taunt. Professing as he did to despise feminine charms, it seemed a frolic to the girl to show him that he was not so invulnerable as he chose to fancy himself. Diane was aware that Anne Barroy was peering anxiously from a side window, and Anne’s sharp, jealous eyes had already detected the weakness which the young man could never have been brought to acknowledge. It was like a child heedlessly playing with fire, for she had formed no conception of what strong human passion might mean. Just to tease Pierre was the impulse of the moment—a thing which she had done a hundred times before and never bestowed a thought upon. Long years afterwards, looking back on her life, it seemed to Diane that on that fragrant summer day, in Le Ber’s sunny garden, she had taken leave forever of her free and careless youth.
“It is thus I would always see you, Diane,” Pierre exclaimed eagerly, “engaged in works of charity.”
“I take charge of the little Léon simply because Nanon is occupied with Madame la Marquise,” Mademoiselle de Monesthrol explained carelessly.