CHAPTER VIII.
"Oui, les premiers baisers, oui, les premiers serments
Que deux êtres mortels échangerent sur terre
Ce fut au pied d' un arbre effeuillé par les vents,
Sur un roc en poussière."
When he awoke the next morning, John Graham gave a deep sigh. His dreams had been so sweet that no reality could equal their happiness. As he sat on the edge of his narrow bed disentangling what was real from what was dream-born in his thoughts, his eye fell upon the knot of roses which he had taken from Millicent's hair the night before, and had clasped to his lips as he fell asleep. They were faded now, but they still gave out a strong perfume. His cheek had been wounded by a thorn, but he kissed the wilted posies, for all that, placed the little bouquet tenderly in an exquisite Venetian vase, and then bounded down the stairway of his tower and across the narrow space which led to a clear deep pool where a crystal stream fell in a white cataract to a rocky basin. The foam-bubbles danced joyously in the clear dark waters, and the plashing of the fall had a sound of a sweet deep voice which had grown very dear to him. A mossy bank, shaded by two drooping trees, sloped to the edge of this natural bath, refreshing enough to have tempted Diana from the chase. As Graham plunged into the cool waters he shouted out a verse of a song he had learned long ago. Attracted by the sound of his voice, French John laid down his axe beside the young tree he was about to fell, and came down to the pool where Graham was vigorously tossing about the bright water. The old wood-cutter looked at the young man as if the sight did him good. He responded to the uproarious greeting which the artist shouted to him, by his usual silent nod of the head. Had words been worth their weight in diamond dust, the old soldier could not have been more chary of wasting them, but the look in his faded blue eyes was gentle and full of admiration. He had had a son of whom he had lost all trace since its infancy. If the boy had lived he would have been about Graham's age, and it was the man's fancy that he would have resembled his patron. He imagined he could trace in the splendidly modelled arms and legs and the strong, perfectly proportioned torso of the bather the shape into which the baby contours he remembered so well must have developed. Graham had by this time gained the green turf and stood shaking the water out of his thick hair, drawing quick panting breaths, meanwhile, and springing about to warm himself, with the grace and strength of a leopard. The old Frenchman gave a deep sigh as he looked at him.
"Yes; Hector certainly must resemble this young man," he murmured, as he wetted his hard hands, and, grasping the handle of his axe, smote heavily at the stem of a young pine-tree. Graham rapidly made his toilet in the open air. The plunge in the clear cold water had rather stimulated than expended the electric, nervous force which ran through his veins, quickening the life-blood in its flow. He felt ten years younger since yesterday morning. His thirty years and the gravity they had brought to him had shrunk to twenty. As he looked up at his tower he sang aloud a snatch of an old song which had been often on his lips in those happy, careless days in the Rue d' Enfer,--words which he had painted over the tiny grate in the cramped apartment under the leads, where he had suffered from heat all summer, and shivered all winter:
Dans un grenier qu' on est bien
A vingt ans, à vingt ans!
He would have liked to dance. Had his years in truth been but twenty, he would have yielded to the temptation. He would gladly have thrown his arms about the old Frenchman, for lack of another confidant, and have told him the cause of his happiness. But, after all, this reflex of youth could not entirely melt the reserve of manhood from him; he wore his thirty years lightly indeed, but could not shake them off.
"Give me your axe, John; I know something of your woodman's craft; let me show you how easily I can fell this young tree."
He took the tool from the woodcutter, and, whirling the sharp edge in the air, laid it at the root of the tree with a ringing blow.
"It appears in truth that monsieur 'ave 'andled an axe before."
"Surely, John. I once spent a summer with some friends of mine, who lived in a forest in Brittany; they were sabotiers."