Jacqueline was at once suspicious. “You absurd little mouse,” she cried, “don’t I understand that gaiety of yours! And all the while you are really trembling in fear of terrible bandits. For months now you grieve because you imagine that I–well, that I am sad. But you’ll not make me hilarious, you won’t, Berthe, as long as it’s ‘madame.’ Child, child, will you not let me have my friend in you, I who have none, nor a mother or sister! There now, if I’m not to be–ah–pensive–remember 300there’s no ‘madame’ between thee and me, dear!”
The Bretonne’s gentle eyes filled suddenly. Jacqueline had before sought to change their relations, ever since Berthe’s part in Driscoll’s rescue from execution, but she had always tried to bring it about by playful bantering. Now, however, Berthe was given to see the utter loneliness of an orphaned girl in one who for all the rest of the world was the disdainfully independent little aristocrat, who had met the proffered intimacy of the French empress with a sneer, who was the cold princess when among princesses of the Blood. The loyal child of simple Breton folk sprang impulsively to the arm of the rocker, and was herself clasped no less impulsively.
“But there,” said Jacqueline, laughing rather brokenly, “we’re forgetting the flies.”
A belt over the fireplace caught her eye, and she unexpectedly discovered that her breath had quickened. She stared fascinated at the letters on the buckle. “C. S. A.,” she murmured. Then her startled gaze roved hurriedly over the walls. It became even frightened before a faded gray cape-coat of the Confederate cavalry and a battered white gauntlet sticking from the pocket. Involuntarily, trembling foolishly, she looked to see if there might not be an old cob pipe also. There was not, but the other familiar objects made her imagination leap fearfully to what might be. Both hope and dread will always override common sense, and convoy imagination perforce. If he did live here–if they should meet! Could such a coincidence happen, could it, outside the neat ordering of a book or play?
She sprang to her feet and began investigating. She went awesomely as one would tiptoe over a haunted house. In the next room she came upon what was an odd treasure trove for an isolated bamboo cabin tucked far away under the Tropic of Cancer. It was a printer’s shop, after a fashion. The 301case was a block of stone, in whose surface the little compartments had been chiseled. They were sparsely accoutred with type and plentifully with cigar ashes. As for a press, there was none. But a form had been made up on a slab of marble, and near by were a tiny hillock of ink, a roller and a mallet. The mysterious printer could at least take proofs. There was one now on a file. Jacqueline pulled it off, and contemplated a miniature American newspaper, of one sheet, printed on one side only, and no larger than a magazine cover. At the top she read the legend, in German caps: “The Córdova Colonist–Weekly Independent.”
“Is that a pun?” she wondered.
But now at least she could identify the ghostly company of the valley, though not its scribe. That word “Córdova” gave the clue. A year ago one thousand hardy men had ridden into the capital from the north. Their leader was a fiery, black-whiskered little man with a plume in his hat and the buff sash of a brigadier general around his waist. They were the Missourians, defamed as “Shelby’s horse thieves and judges of whiskey,” honored as “The Old Brigade,” and so feared and respected under any name that the City fairly buzzed and stared goggle-eyed. But Maximilian again refused their offers to enlist under his standard, and they could only disband. Some took ship to hunt for Kidd’s treasure in the Pacific, others went to Japan and the Sandwich Islands, and a number joined a congenial regiment of veterans, the Zouaves. But the majority, she remembered now, had been settlers, persuaded thereto by their countryman, Commodore Maury, who was Imperial Commissioner of Immigration. Maury had secured a grant of land near the town of Córdova, within a hundred miles of Vera Cruz. There were one-half million acres of rich land, suitable for the three Big C’s of southern countries, cotton, cane and coffee. But until now the strip had not been cultivated. The Church had held it fallow. 302Then the Republic had nationalized it; and the Empire was selling it to the Americans at $1.25 an acre. The hopeful settlement bore the name of Carlota.
So the cape-coat and those other things were explained. She was denied her coincidence. But as there was so much of a plot forward anyway, she ought to have been satisfied–as an artist, she ought. She craved an ecstasy of peril or of terror, not as the former dilettante of emotions, but as the lotus eater who exacts forgetfulness.
Meantime she read editorials, and got interested. The Colonist never advanced beyond the proof-sheet stage, but as such it circulated with avidity over the valley. Eloquence flowed serene under mashed type and variegated fonts. The editor persisted in viewing the Empire and Republic as political parties, and the horrors of civil warfare as incidents of an electoral campaign. He had congenial scope for his unpartisan and independent pen, advising with owl-like sagacity or abusing with peppery virulence, and either, for either side, with blithe impartiality. At times, though, the strained analogy between ballots and bullets evidently cracked, and rather floored the editor. For instance, in a pot-pourri of long primer and pica with a dash of Old English lower-case was the following:
As we went to press last week we paused to entertain a torchlight procession of the Young Imperialists’ Flambeau Club, which was collecting a campaign contribution in the semblance of our alfalfa stack. The spectacle of citizens taking an active part in the issues before their country ne’er fails to rouse in us a spirit of collaboration, so what could we do but join heartily in the celebration, so that a most excellent time was had. Later our editorial staff, a score who in our canefields teach the tender sprouts how to shoot, knowing the same so well themselves, gently laid to rest a score and one Cossacks, past members of the Flambeau Club, who had lingered behind for the reason that they were past. But, we ask, ad quod damnum?–i.e., isn’t it as futile as cauterizing a wooden leg? How much longer, O Jove, must we let our public-opinion moulds cool off while we chase enthusiastic young patriots away from our alfalfa!!!... In conclusion, with a cool brow, we are constrained to say that if the party in power cannot discourage the depredations above cited, we shall have to fortify ourselves to the contemplation of a change of administration.