The Isle of Unrest

by Henry Seton Merriman

It was three minutes to ten. The notary was a young man, with smooth hair brushed straight back from a high forehead. He was one of those men who look clever, which, in some respects, is better than being clever. For a man who really has brains usually perceives his own limitations, while he who looks clever, and is not, has that boundless faith in himself which serves to carry men very far in a world which is too lazy to get up and kick impertinence as it passes.

The room had that atmosphere of mixed stuffiness and cigarette smoke which the traveller may sample in any French post-office. It is also the official air of a court of justice or a public bureau of any sort in France. There was a blank space on the wall, where a portrait of the emperor had lately hung. The notary would fill it by-and-by with a president or a king, or any face of any man who was for the moment in authority. Behind him, on the wall, was suspended a photograph of an elderly lady—his mother. It established confidence in the hearts of female clients, and reminded persons with daughters that this rising lawyer had as yet no wife.

The notary's bow to Mademoiselle Brun when she was seated was condescending, which betrayed the small fact that he was not so clever as he looked. To Denise he endeavoured to convey in one graceful inclination from the waist the deep regard of a legal adviser, struggling nobly to keep in bounds the overwhelming admiration of a man of heart and (out of office hours) of spirit. Gilbert, who had already exchanged greetings with the ladies, was leaning against the window, playing idly with the blind-cord. The notary's office was on the third floor. The colonel could not, therefore, see the pavement without leaning out, and the window was shut. Mademoiselle Brun noted this as she sat with crossed hands. She also remembered that the Hotel Clément was on the same side of the Boulevard du Palais as the house in which she found herself.

The notary had intended to be affable, but he dimly perceived that Denise was what he tersely called in his own mind grande dame, and was wise enough to busy himself with his papers in silence. He also suspected that Colonel Gilbert was a friend of these ladies, but he did not care to take advantage of his privilege in the presence of a fourth person, which left an unpleasant flavour on the palate of the smooth-haired lawyer. He glanced involuntarily at the blank space on the wall, and thought of the Republic.

“I have prepared a deed of sale,” he said, in a formal voice, “which is as binding on both sides as if the full purchase-money had been exchanged for the title-deeds. All that will remain to be done after the present signature will be the usual legal formalities between notaries. Mademoiselle has but to sign here.” And he indicated a blank space on the document.

Mademoiselle Brun was looking at the timepiece on the notary's wall. The town clocks were striking the hour. A knock at the door made the notary turn, with his quill pen still indicating the space for Denise's signature. It was the dingy clerk who sat in a sort of cage in the outer office. After opening the door he stood aside, and Susini came in with glittering eyes and a defiant chin. There was a pause, and Lory de Vasselot limped into the room after him. He was smiling and pleasant as he always was; even, his friends said, on the battlefield.

He looked at Denise, met her eyes for a moment and turned to bow with grave politeness to Gilbert. It was, oddly enough, the colonel who brought forward a chair for the wounded man.

“Sit down,” he said curtly.

“These are my witnesses, Monsieur le Notaire,” said Mademoiselle Brun.

The abbé was rubbing his thin, brown hands together, and contemplating the notary's table as a greedy man might contemplate a laden board. The notary himself was looking from one to the other. There was something in the atmosphere which he did not understand. It was, perhaps, the presence in the room of a cleverer head than his own, and he did not know upon whose shoulders to locate it. Denise, whose nature was frank and straightforward, was looking at Lory—looking him reflectively up and down—as a mother might look at a son of whose health she refrains from asking. Mademoiselle was gazing at the blank space on the wall, and the colonel was looking at mademoiselle with an odd smile.