“Dame,” she said triumphantly, “look at that. No wonder the Prussians come to the Rhine for coffee, Madame. You will drink it in the garden. And afterward the post. Oh, the blessed post with news of Monsieur and the army. And the sunshine: Madame will ride her pony to-day? Certainly she will. I will tell Jacob. He sleeps all day, the lazy one. The Prussians are coming, he says! Oh, the poltroon! They are thousand miles away. The curé says so. As if there could be a blue coat at Wörth! I laugh when I hear it. And the chasseurs in the village! It is splendid, this war!”
She showed all her delight in her eyes—for war was a very carnival to her—a carnival which must people the hills with red breeches presently and awake the mountains to the martial music which quickened her steps and gladdened her heart. Hearing her, Beatrix could even tell herself that the supreme hour of her life had not been lived. How, if this little chatterer were right, and a month brought Edmond back to Wörth, and France were victorious, and all his joy of victory were added to her joys of love! She could dream of such a day on that morning of sunshine and of rest. For the white road was deserted again when she carried her coffee to the arbour of roses. The old white houses slept once more. The woods echoed to no music but the music of the leaves.
It was at seven o’clock when the postman came and brought her two letters—a long one from Grandmère Hélène, who had left Geneva that day, and a short one from Edmond, who was at Strasburg still, but spoke of an immediate march northward to Hagenau. “You will be able to drive over, chérie,” he said, “and I shall tell you everything. Here it is all noise and dust and trumpets all day. I cannot believe the things I see—I cannot believe that France is at war. We wait always. We go to sleep at night, and torches guide us to our beds, and students sing our lullaby. I have heard the Marseillaise a thousand times since yesterday. There is no road to the north which the waggons do not block and the troops follow. Ah, mignonne, if I could ride upon one of those roads to a little white house and take a little white figure in my arms! But the day will not be distant. The end is near. France will justify herself. I shall be at Hagenau before the month is out—and then—what a harvest time for us. And the vines will still be green. A thousand messages of love to the little wife who is waiting for me, and who has forgotten already that there is any other country but France.”
She held the letter long, gazing wistfully over the woods which thrust themselves up to blot out the view of distant Hagenau. The words of love and confidence brought tears to her eyes. Yet was it true? she asked. Had she indeed forgotten those green lanes of England wherein her girlhood had been spent? Was she heart and soul faithful to this new country which had given her a home—and Edmond? She could not answer those questions, but crushed the letter in the bosom of her dress and told herself gladly that to-morrow might bring him to her—to-morrow he would tell her again that he loved her and that she was all to him.
Old Hélène’s letter covered many pages. Beatrix skipped them, remembering what to-morrow would bring. Nevertheless, she could permit her imagination to see the beloved face, the trembling hand that wrote the wavering lines. The exhortation that she should return to Strasburg at once troubled her. She had no thought for the city, now that Edmond was to march out of it. The old farm had become a home like no other house which had ever received her. Every room seemed to whisper her lover’s name. A memory of him was written upon the most trifling ornament. The roses in her arbour were his roses. She treasured the very leaves of them. The woods retold her love in the murmur of brook and branches. She would not quit a house so dear to her, though all the armies of Germany had been at the gate of it.
The facteur had brought the letters at seven o’clock, but eight o’clock struck before she left the arbour and returned to tell her news to Guillaumette.
“Monsieur will be at Hagenau to-morrow, Guillaumette. He may be here on Tuesday. The regiment is to march; his letter says so. And, of course, he would wish to have his friends here. We must be ready against that—he will expect it of us. It would never do to disgrace the châlet after all the things he will have told them. I am going down to Wörth now—”
Guillaumette put her arms upon her hips and laughed loudly.
“Vela, vela—we are going to Wörth now, and we forget that it is Sunday!”