But in a moment the illusion was fled, and she did not know how it had ever come. Leaving the statue she knelt down by the fallen youth and felt for his heart. It was beating. She began to unfasten his neckcloth. But how was she to convey him into the château? She could not carry him. Besides, how badly was he hurt? Could she possibly get him into that damp little pseudo-classical temple of Ceres on the other side of the grove? But the first thing was to try to revive him. When she had been a fine lady she would have had a vinaigrette or something of the sort about her; now there was nothing for it but to scoop up in her hollowed palms a little stagnant water from the basin at the foot of the statue, and to dash it, greenish as it was, over the white face. Three times she did this without any result but temporary disfigurement, and then set to work to rub the intruder’s hands, long patrician hands like her own, like . . . But that was folly.
“Grandpère!” said the young man suddenly, “Monsieur le Marquis! . . . Artamène . . . Where am I, then?” He opened his eyes, tried rashly to raise himself, and relapsed with a groan, his hand to his wounded side. “What has happened to me? . . . Is this a garden?”
Valentine slipped her arm under his head. “Do not try to move yet, Monsieur,” she said in her beautiful voice. “You are in the park of Mirabel—with a friend.”
He stared up at her, utterly perplexed. (But his eyes were brown, quite unlike that dark grey.) “I am so thirsty,” he said, like a child.
“You cannot drink this stagnant water,” replied Mme de Trélan compassionately, and then, looking closer and seeing how dry and cracked his lips were, bethought her of a spring that flowed, or that used to flow, through a lion’s mouth in the grotto of Latona, a few seconds away. “Wait,” she said, gently withdrawing her arm, “I think I can get you some fresh water.”
She rose and hastened off. Yes, the spring was still flowing, and even the stone goblet that served it, though very green, was still there. The Duchesse brought back that water from the past; and, aided by her, the boy drank long and eagerly, and thanked her.
All this while the dawn was growing brighter, and the solitary thrush now become one of a choir, and, though Mercury was battered and green, he held out the caduceus over the two figures beneath him with an air at once sprightly and benedictory. And the one bright buttercup at his feet, moved by the morning breeze, bent towards them too.
“My child,” said Valentine gently, as she set down the goblet, “I do not know what you were doing here last night, but I suppose you do. At any rate you were shot at by the sentry, and I see that you are hurt in the side, but not, I hope, seriously. The question is, how to move you so that I can do something for your wound.”
The invader was perfectly sensible now. “But, Madame, who are you?” he asked.
“The concierge of Mirabel—of the château,” said she.