He laughed as a boy at the idea, and pledged the other in a second glass of wine.
“To your health, my friend.”
Brandon, outwardly the same unimpressionable, stolid fellow that they had always known him, just touched the rim of the upraised glass with his own, but he did not say “à ta santé” in his turn. His thoughts had already left the Place Kleber. He was thinking of that old thatched farmhouse in the Vosges mountains to which the man at his side was about to take Beatrix Hamilton. What freak of destiny brought such a day? He did not realise it even then. Beatrix married! The words echoed in his ears as a peal of ribald laughter. He turned from the buffet and went to stand upon the balcony, and to look down upon the escort of lancers gathered in the square below. The brilliant blue of their uniforms, the scarlet plumes of the czapskas, the pennants of the lances, the music of bands; the glitter, the colour, the whirl of it all were truly French. Yet this bizarre display was for her sake, for the sake of little Beatrix—for the sake of her who yesterday was free. How distant the day seemed! It had become of the past, irrevocable now. He would never live yesterday again. The page was written and the book was closed.
He did not enter the great salon again nor add himself to the number of those who surrounded the bride at the moment of farewell. When grandmère Hélène took Beatrix in her arms, he heard the words she spoke, and they seemed an echo of his own thoughts.
“The days will be so long, so weary, my dearest girl,” she cried again and again, while the tears of love fell fast; but to Lefort she said, “I am giving you myself—my child! God bless you, Edmond.”
Brandon heard the words, yet did not move from his place upon the balcony. Others came out to stand with him, and saw that the strange, half-cynical smile was still upon his lips. In the great square the people began to cheer, the trumpets to blare again. He beheld an old family coach drawn up before the house. He watched the excited guests who remembered vague traditions of English weddings and scattered rice and flowers upon the English bride. For a long instant he saw Beatrix herself looking straight up at him. Then the carriage rolled away to the station; the lancers put their horses to a brisk trot. He heard no sound but that of weeping. The Countess was alone in the deserted salon.
But Beatrix, with her husband’s hand held fast by hers, was asking herself why Brandon North had been the only one who had not said “good-bye” to her.