20.
Smoke Reveals Fire
HUS it was not until the coming in of spring that Florian rode away from the Hôtel de Puysange, riding toward Bellegarde and the business which must be discharged. Florian went by way of Storisende, the home of his dead brother, for Florian’s son still lived there, and Florian now felt by no means certain he would ever see the boy again, now that Holy Hoprig roosted over the Bellegarde to which Florian returned.
Florian came to Storisende unannounced, as was his usage. Madame Marguerite de Puysange and Raoul’s children kept her chamber, with a refusal to see Florian which the steward, to all appearance, had in transmission considerably censored. Florian thought that this poor fellow faced somewhat inadequately the problem of the proper demeanor toward a great peer who had very recently killed your master; and that too much fidgeting marred his endeavor to combine the politeness appropriate to a duke with the abhorrence many persons feel to be demanded by fratricide.
Meanwhile the father wished to know of his son’s whereabouts. Monsieur the Prince de Lisuarte had left the house not long after breakfast, it was reported, and might not return until evening. Florian shrugged, dined alone, and went out upon the south terrace, walking downward, into gardens now very ill tended. Raoul had let the gardens fall from their old, well remembered, sleek estate....
So much of Florian’s youth had been passed here that with Florian went many memories. He had made love to a host of charming girls in this place, in these gardens which were now tenantless and half ruined: and none of these girls had he been able to love utterly, because of his mad notions about Melior. He comprehended now of how much he had been swindled by this lunacy. His dislike of Melior—of that insufferable bright-colored imbecile,—rose hot and strong.
So many women had been to him only the vis-à-vis in a pleasurable coupling, when he might have got from them the complete and high insanity which other lads got out of loving! He remembered, for example, another April afternoon in this place, the April before his first marriage.... Yes, it had happened just yonder.
Florian turned to the right, passing the little tree from the East, which seemed no bigger now than he remembered it in boyhood; and then trampled through a thick undergrowth which hid what he remembered as a trim lawn. Raoul had really let the gardens fall into a quite abominable state. A person who had taken no better care of Storisende had not deserved to inherit such a fine property: and Florian remembered now with some compunction how easily, when he disposed of their father, he could also have disposed of their father’s foolish will. But Florian too, as he admitted, had always spoiled Raoul.
Florian came to a boulder some four feet in height, before which stood a smaller rock that was flat-topped and made a natural seat. Both were overgrown with patches of gray-green lichen. He looked downward. Against the boulder, partly hidden by old withered leaves, lay two flat stones which were each near a foot in length and about an inch thick, two valueless unextraordinary stones which he remembered.
He lifted these stones. Where they had lain, the ground showed dark and wet, and was perforated with small holes. The raising of the first stone disclosed a bloodless yellow centipede, which flustered and wavered into hiding among the close-matted dead leaves. Under the other stone, a great many ants were hastily carrying their small white eggs into those holes in the ground. Some twenty gray winged ants remained clustering together futilely. There was adhering to the under side of this second stone a clotted web. Florian saw the evicted spider, large and clumsy looking but very quick of movement, trundling away from molestation much as the centipede had fled.