THE GOLDEN WINDMILL
AND OTHER STORIES

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

THE
GOLDEN WINDMILL
AND OTHER STORIES

BY
STACY AUMONIER
Author of
“One After Another,” etc.

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1921,
By The McCall Company.

Copyright, 1919 and 1920,
By The Pictorial Review Company.

Copyright, 1917, 1918 and 1920,
By The Century Company.

Copyright, 1921,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1921.

TO
J. G.

PREFACE

“Oh, that mine enemy would write a book—of short stories.”

As you know, it is considered rather provocative to launch a book of short stories. It is asking for trouble. The least I can do is to offer a brief apology; and I cannot do this without writing a preface, which requires an apology in itself. Unless you are a Bernard Shaw you find a preface a most embarrassing business. Having written the stories I would rather talk about anything else—old furniture, for instance. Perhaps my best policy will be to start by attacking you, O Reader, friend or enemy, as the case may be. You are a most exacting fellow. Far more exacting than a reader of novels, or works of reference, or even histories; for the reason that your criticism follows a more circumscribed tradition. You are a kind of gourmet whose palate is acutely sensitive to accustomed flavors and satieties. It is always easier to be an epicure of a small repast than of a banquet. A novel is less easily digested. You may enjoy it in parts, or derive satisfaction from the matter, or from the manner of telling, but with a short story you require a bonne bouche. You have a most arbitrary standard. When you raise your eyes from the last line you pass through a most peculiar mental process. It all takes place in a few seconds. In a flash you see the shape and form and color, the application of the title, the point of the whole thing. You demand this, and you also demand to have your senses tickled by some cunning solution, and to be soothed by something unexpected at the close. You observe it as a whole, in the same way that you would observe a water-color sketch, or a Sheraton chair. You may afterwards further examine the sketch, and even sit on the chair, but their appeal to you depends on that first glance. Otherwise you turn away, a dissatisfied and disgruntled gourmet. To-morrow you will dine elsewhere. The truth is your sense of tradition had been outraged.

Fortunately for you, and for me, tradition is a fine thing. Nothing comes out of the blue, except perhaps thunderbolts and they are not really very useful things, certainly no good to any one trying to create. Chippendale, Sheraton, or Heppelwhite were all men of strong individuality. You could never mistake a Sheraton chair for a Chippendale, or a Chippendale for a Heppelwhite; and yet they were all craftsmen who worked on strictly traditional lines. The same may be said of Turgenev, Guy de Maupassant, Joseph Conrad and Tchekoff. Please do not think that I am mentioning my own short stories in the same breath with the stories of these giants. I only want to point out to you that those of us who desire to write them have a noble tradition to follow. You may argue that the analogy between the making of a chair and the creation of a short story is rather far-fetched for the reason that the plan of a chair has long since been fixed and determined by the nature of the seated attitude; that until we find a new way of sitting down the plan of the chair must remain the same; whereas the short story may wander at random over the wide fields of human nature. To this I will reply—Has human nature altered perceptibly more than the nature of the seated attitude? You are bound to agree with me that it hasn’t. The Arabs—who have always been the best story tellers—have stated that there are only seven stories in the world. The complications of what is called Social Progress have not increased the number. They have rather restricted it. The emotions can do no more with dollars and girders than they used to be able to do with magic carpets and languishing houris. People love, hate, struggle and fructify, and to set down their story is a nice respectable craft with a fine old tradition—very like chairmaking.

The two crafts have another point in common. It is the business of them both to make you comfortable. When I start reading a story by Tchekoff I feel comfortable at once. On quite a different plane I feel the same with that remarkable story-teller, O. Henry. They may shock me, or thrill me, or delight me, but I know it’s going to be all right. My sense of tradition will not be outraged. Tchekoff may give me that accustomed sense of satiety by a mere turn of a phrase; O. Henry by some amazing double surprise. But I know all the time that there will be nothing to worry about.

In these stories, then, I have merely tried to be a good apprentice to skilled craftsmen. I claim for them no originality at all. Though their setting is entirely modern, and they deal with such things as fried-fish shops, and public-houses, and the like, they are just the same old seven stories told in the bazaars of Ispahan three thousand years ago.

If through them all you feel something which links them together, which moreover makes you and me more intimate with each other, then I shall feel as happy as Sheraton’s apprentice must have felt when some noble patron of the master’s stopped in the workshops to give him a word of encouragement.

Stacy Aumonier.

CONTENTS

THE GOLDEN WINDMILL

THE GOLDEN WINDMILL

At the top of the hill the party halted. It had been a long trek up and the sun was hot. Monsieur Roget fanned himself with his hat, and his eye alighted on a large pile of cut fern-leaves.

“But this will suit me admirably!” he remarked, and he plumped his squat little figure down, and taking out his large English pipe he began to stuff tobacco into it.

“My little one,” said his stout wife, “I should not advise you to go to sleep. You know that to do so in the afternoon always gives you an indisposition.”

“Oh, la la! No, no, no. I do not go to sleep, but—this position suits me admirably!” he replied.

“Oh, papa, papa! ... lazybones!” exclaimed his pretty daughter Louise. “And if we leave you, you will sleep like a dormouse.”

“It is very hot!” rejoined the father.

“Leave him alone,” said Madame Roget, “and we will go down to that place that looks like an inn, and see whether they will sell us milk. Where is Lisette?”

“Lisette! Where should she be?”

And of course it was foolish to ask. Lisette, the younger daughter, had been lost in the wood on the way up, with her fiancé, Paul Fasquelle. Indeed, the party had all become rather scattered. It is a peculiarity of picnics. Monsieur Roget’s eldest son, Anton, was playing at see-saw with his three children on the trunk of a fallen tree. His wife was talking to Madame Aubert, and occasionally glancing up to exclaim:

“Careful, my darlings!”

Monsieur Roget was left alone.

He lighted his pipe, and blinked at the sun. One has to have reached a mature age to appreciate to the full the narcotic seductiveness of good tobacco on the system, when the sun is shining and there is no wind. If there is wind all the pleasant memories and dreams are blown away, but if there is no wind the sun becomes a kind, confidential old fellow. He is very, very mature. And Monsieur Roget was mature. He was fifty-nine years old, given to corpulence, rather moist and hot, but eminently comfortable leaning against the pile of ferns. A glorious view across the woods of Fontainebleau lay stretched before him, the bees droned in the young gorse, his senses tingled with a pleasurable excitement, and, as a man will in such moments, he enjoyed a sudden crystallized epitome of his whole life. His struggles, and failures, and successes. On the whole he had been a successful man. If he died to-morrow, his beloved ones would be left in more than comfort. Many thousand francs carefully invested, some house-property in the Rue Renoir, the three comestibles establishments all doing reasonably well.

Things had not always been like that. There had been long years of anxiety, worry and even poverty. He had worked hard and it had been a bitter struggle. When the children were children, that had been the anxious time. It made Monsieur Roget shudder to look back on it. But, God be praised! he had been fortunate, very fortunate in his life-companion. During that anxious time, Madame Roget had been patient, encouraging, incredibly thrifty, competent, resourceful, a loyal wife, a very—Frenchwoman. And they had come through. He was now a proud grandfather. Both his sons were doing well, and were married. Lisette was engaged to a very desirable young advocate. Of Louise there need be no apprehension. In fact, everything....

“Name of a dog! that’s very curious,” suddenly thought Monsieur Roget, interrupting his own pleasant reflections.

And for some minutes he could not determine exactly what it was that was curious. He had been idly gazing at the clump of buildings lower down the hill, whither his wife and daughter had gone in search of milk. Perhaps the perfume of the young gorse had something to do with it, but as he looked at the buildings, he thought:

“It’s very familiar, and it’s very unfamiliar. In fact, it’s gone wrong. They’ve been monkeying with that gable on the east side, and they’ve built a new loft over the stables.”

But how should he know? What was the gable to him? or he to the gable? He drew in a large mouthful of smoke, held it for some seconds, and then blew it out in a cloud round his head. Where was this? When had he been here before? They had driven out to a village called Pavane-en-Bois, and from there they had walked, and walked, and walked. He may have been here before, and have come from another direction....

“Oo-eh!”

Monsieur Roget was glad that he was alone when he uttered this exclamation, which cannot convey what it is meant to in print. Of course, across there on the other side of the clearing was the low stone wall, and the reliquary with the figure of the Virgin, and doubtless at the bottom of the slope the other side would be—the well!

It was exactly on this spot that he had met Diane—God in heaven! how long ago? Ten, twenty, thirty.... Exactly thirty-seven years ago!

And how vividly it could all come back to one!

He was twenty-two then, a slim young man—considered elegant and rather distinguished-looking by some people—an orphan, without either brothers or sisters, the inheritor of a quite substantial competence from his father, who had been a ship-broker at Marseilles. He had gone to Paris to educate himself and to prepare for a commercial career. He was a serious young man, with modest ambitions, rather moody and given to abstract speculations. Paris bewildered him, and he used to escape when he could, and seek solitude in the country. At length he decided that he must settle down to some definite career, and he became articled to a firm of chartered accountants: Messrs. Manson et Cie. He took rooms at a quiet pension near the Luxembourg, and there fell in love with his patron’s daughter, Lucile, a demure and modest brunette. The affair was almost settled, but not quite. Monsieur Roget, even in those days, was a man who never put his leg over the wall till he had seen the other side. He was circumspect, cautious, and there was indeed plenty of time.

And then one day he had found himself on this identical hillock. He could not quite clearly remember how he came to be there. Probably he had come for the day, to escape the clamor of Paris. He certainly had no luggage. He was seated on this spot, dreaming and enjoying the view, when he heard a cry coming from the other side of the low stone wall. He jumped up and ran to it, and lo! on the other side he beheld—Diane! The name was peculiarly appropriate. She was lying there on her side like a wounded huntress. When she caught sight of him she called out:

“Ah, monsieur, will you be so kind as to help me? I fear I have sprained my ankle.”

Paul Roget leapt the wall and ran to her assistance. (The thought of leaping a wall now made him gasp!) He lifted her up, trembling himself, and making sympathetic little clucks with his tongue.

“Pardon, pardon! very distressing!” he murmured, when she stood erect.

“If monsieur will be good enough to allow me to rest my hand on his shoulder, I shall be able to hop back to the auberge.”

“With the greatest pleasure. Allow me.”

On the ground was an upturned pail. He remarked:

“Would it distress mademoiselle to stand for one minute, whilst I re-fill the pail?”

“Oh, no, no,” she exclaimed. “Do not inconvenience yourself.”

“Then perhaps mademoiselle will allow me to return for the pail?”

“Oh, no, if you please! My father will do it.”

She leant on his shoulder and hopped a dozen paces.

“How did it happen, mademoiselle?”

“Imbecile that I am! I think I was dreaming. I had filled the pail and was descending the embankment when I slipped. I tried to step across the pail, but caught my foot in the rim. And then—I don’t know quite what happened. I fell. It is the other ankle which I fear I have sprained.”

“I am indeed most desolated. Is it far to the inn?”

“You see it yonder, monsieur. It is perhaps ten minutes’ walk, but twenty minutes’ hop.”

She laughed gayly, and Monsieur Roget said solemnly:

“If I might suggest it—I think it would be more comfortable for Mademoiselle if she would condescend to place her arm round my neck.”

“It is too good of you.”

They proceeded another hundred paces in silence, and then rested against a stile. Suddenly she gave him one of her quick glances, and said:

“You are very silent, monsieur.”

“I was thinking—how very beautiful the day is.”

As a matter of fact, he was not thinking anything of the sort. He was in a fever. He was thinking how very beautiful, adorable, attractive this lovely wild creature was hanging round his neck. He had never before adventured such an experience. He had never kissed Lucile. Women were an unopened book to him, and lo! suddenly the most captivating of her sex was clinging to him. He felt the pressure of her soft brown forearm on the back of his neck. Her little teeth were parted with smiles, and she panted gently with the exertion of hopping. Her dark eyes searched his, and appeared to be slightly mocking, amused, interested.

“If only I might pick her up and carry her,” he thought, but he did not dare to make the suggestion.

Once she remarked:

“Oh, but I am tired,” and he thought she looked at him slyly.

The journey must have occupied half-an-hour, and she told him a little about herself. She lived with her father. Her mother had died when she was a baby. It was quite a small inn, frequented by charcoal-burners and woodmen, and occasionally by visitors from Paris. She liked the country very much, but sometimes it was dull—oh, dull, dull, dull!

“Ah, it is sometimes dull, even in Paris!” sighed Monsieur Roget.

“You must come and speak to my father, and take a glass of wine,” she remarked.

In the forecourt of the inn the father appeared.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed. “What is all this?”

He was a rubicund, heavy-jowled gentleman, who by the wheezy exhalations coming from his chest gave the impression of being a chronic sufferer from asthma. Diane laughed.

“I have been through fire and water, my dear,” she said, “and this is my deliverer.”

She explained the whole episode to the landlord, who shook hands with Paul, and they led the girl into a sitting-room at the back of the café. Paul was somewhat diffident about entering this private apartment, but the landlord wheezed:

“Come in, come in, monsieur.”

They sat Diane down on a sofa, and the landlord pulled off her stocking. In doing so he revealed his daughter’s leg as far as the knee. She had a very pretty leg, but the ankle was considerably swollen.

“The ankle is sprained,” said the landlord.

“Will you allow me to go and fetch a doctor?” asked Paul.

“It is not necessary,” replied the landlord. “I know all about sprained ankles. When I was in the army I served in the ambulance brigade. We will just bind it up very tight with cold linen bandages. Does it hurt, little one?”

“Not very—yet. It tingles. I feel that it may. Won’t you offer Monsieur—I do not know his name—some refreshment?”

“Monsieur Paul Roget,” said that gentleman, bowing. “But please do not consider me. The sufferer must be attended first. Later on, I would like to be permitted to partake of a little lunch in the inn.”

While the landlord, whose name was Jules Couturier, was binding up his daughter’s ankle, Paul slipped out and returned to the well, filled the pail, and brought it back to the yard of the inn.

“But this is extremely agreeable of you, monsieur,” exclaimed the landlord, as he came bustling through the porch. “She will do well. I know all about sprained ankles. Oh, yes! I have had great experience. I beg you to share a little lunch with us. We are quite simple folk, but I think we may find you an omelette and a ragoût. Quite country people, you know; nothing elaborate.”

The lunch was excellent, and Diane had the sofa drawn up to the table, and in spite of the pain she must have been suffering, she laughed and joked, and they were quite a merry party. After lunch he helped to wheel her out into the crab-apple orchard at the back, and he told her all about himself, his life and work, and ambitions. He told her everything, except perhaps about Lucile. And he felt very strange, elevated, excited.

When the evening came he left it till too late to catch the train back to Paris, and the landlord lent him some things and he stayed the night.

He stayed three nights, and wrote to Messrs. Manson et Cie, and explained that he had gone to Pavane-en-Bois, and had been taken ill. He wrote the same thing to Lucile. And during the day he talked to Diane, and listened to the landlord. Sometimes he would wander into the woods, but he could not bring himself to stay away for long. He brought back armfuls of flowers which he flung across her lap. He touched her hands, and trembled, and at night in bed he choked with a kind of ecstasy and regret. It was horribly distracting. He did not know how to act. He was behaving badly to Lucile, and dishonorably to Manson et Cie. His conscience smote him, but the other little fiend was dancing at the back of his mind. Nothing else seemed to matter. He was mad—madly in love with this little dark-eyed huntress.

At the end of three days he returned to Paris, but not till he had promised to come back at the earliest opportunity.

“Perhaps I will go again in August,” he sighed in the train. It was then the seventh of June.

On the fifteenth of June he was back again in the “Moulin d’Or.” Diane was already much better. She could hobble about alone with the help of two sticks. She was more bewitching than ever. He stayed three weeks, till her ankle was quite well, and they could go for walks together in the woods. And he called her Diane, and she called him Paul. And one day, as the sun was setting, he flung his arms round her and gasped:

“Diane.... Diane! I love you!”

And he kissed her on the lips, and her roguish eyes searched his.

“Oh, you!” she murmured. “You bad boy ... you!”

“But I love you, Diane. I want you. I can’t live without you. You must come away with me. We will get married. We will build a world of our own. Oh, you beautiful! Tell me you love me, or I shall go mad!”

She laughed that low, gurgling, silvery laugh of hers.

“What are you saying?” she said. “How should I know? I think you are—a nice boy. But I cannot leave my father.”

“My dear, he managed all the time you had to lie with your foot up. Don’t torture me! Oh, you must love me, Diane. I couldn’t love you so much if you didn’t love me a little in return.”

“Perhaps I do,” she said, smiling.

“What is it, then, Diane?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I do not want to marry. I want to be free, to see the world. I am ambitious. I have been to the conservatoire at Souboise. They say I can sing and dance. My father has spent his savings on me.”

“Darling, if you marry me, you shall be free. You shall do as you like. You shall dance and sing and see the world. Everything of mine shall be yours if only you will love me. You must—you must. Diane!”

“Well ... we shall see. Come; father will be anxious.”

In July he left his pension and moved out to Montmartre. He had never definitely proposed to Lucile, but his expressions of affection had been so definite that he felt ashamed. He spent his holiday in August at the “Moulin d’Or.” And Diane promised to marry him “one day.”

“Diane,” he said, “I will work for you. You have inspired me. I shall go back to Paris and think of you all day, and dream of you all night.”

“That won’t give you much time to make your fortune, my little cabbage.”

“Do not mock me. Where would you like to live?”

“In Paris, in Nice, in Rome, in Vienna. And then, one day, I would like to creep back here and just live in the ‘Moulin d’Or.’”

“The ‘Moulin d’Or’?”

“Oh, we could improve it. We could build an extra wing, with a dancing-hall, and more nice bedrooms, and a garage. We could improve the inn, but we could not improve these beautiful hills. Isn’t that true, little friend?”

“Nothing could be improved where you are. You are perfection.”

“Yes, but—”

In September Diane came to Paris. She stayed with an aunt in Parnasse, and attended a conservatoire of dancing. And every evening Paul called on her, and took her flowers and chocolates and trinkets. And in the daytime, when the image of Diane’s face did not interpose between his eyes and his desk, he worked hard. He meant to work hard and become a rich man, and take Diane to Nice, and Rome, and Vienna, and make the structural alterations to the “Moulin d’Or.”

In a few months’ time Diane made such progress that she was offered an engagement in the ballet at Olympia. She accepted it and Paul was consumed with a fever of apprehension. Every night he went to the performance, waited for her, and escorted her home. But he disliked the atmosphere of the music-hall intensely, and the other girls, Diane’s companions—Heaven defend her!

And then she quarreled with her aunt, and Paul besought her to marry him so that he might protect her. But she prevaricated, and in the end he took some rooms for her, and she consented to allow him to pay for them. She lived there for several weeks alone, only attended by an old concierge, and then she took a friend, Babette Baroche, to share the rooms with her, and Paul still continued to pay. Paul disliked Babette. She was a frivolous, vain, empty-headed little cocotte, and no fit companion for Diane. On occasions Paul discovered other men enjoying the hospitality of the rooms, and they were always of an objectionable sort. And Diane got into debt, and he lent her four hundred francs.

At Christmas-time she was dismissed from her engagement, and in a pervicacious mood she promised to marry him in the spring. Paul was delirious. Nothing was good enough for his Diane, and he engaged a complete flat for her, with the services of an elderly bonne. Diane was very grateful and loving, and in the transition Babette was dropped. However, a few weeks after he had signed the lease, she was offered an engagement for a tour, and after a lengthy dispute and many tears, she had her way and accepted it. She was away three months, and Paul was consumed with dread, and doubt, and gloomy forebodings. On occasions he dashed down to Lyons, or Grenoble, or wherever she happened to be, for the week-end. And he thought that the company she was with were a very fast lot.

“But, my angel,” he would exclaim, “only another month or two, and all this will be over. You will be mine forever and ever.”

He was still paying the rent of the flat in Paris, and it was necessary to send Diane flowers and presents wherever she was. It was an expensive time, particularly as, owing to Diane having had her purse stolen just when she was paying off a debt, he had to send her another four hundred francs. She returned at the end of March, and so great had been her success on tour that an egregious, oily manager named Bonnat offered her a part in a new revue. She received a good salary, but the management would not supply her frocks. It was necessary to dress well for this part. It was her first real chance. She ransacked shops in the Rue de Tivoli, and Paul accompanied her. Eventually she spent twelve hundred francs on them, and Paul advanced the money. She only allowed him to do so on the understanding that she paid him back by installments out of her salary. It is needless to say that she never did so. However, the frocks were a great success, and Diane made a hit. She was undoubtedly talented. She danced beautifully, and she had a gift of imitation. She very quickly became a star, and of course a star could not scintillate in the poky little flat she had so far occupied. She moved to a more fashionable quarter, and occupied a flat the rent of which was rather more than her salary alone. She developed more expensive tastes, and nearly always kept a taxicab waiting for her at stage-doors and restaurants.

At this time Paul began to realize that he was living considerably above his income. It would be necessary to reduce it by breaking into his capital. He sold some house property and paid Diane’s debts and bought her a pearl pendant.

“Next month she will be my wife,” he thought, “and then I shall be able more easily to curb these extravagancies.”

But when the next month came Diane was at the height of her success. She had been given more to do in the revue, and her imitations were drawing the town. The management raised her salary. Her head was completely turned.

“Oh, no, no, no! dear heart,” she exclaimed. “Not this month. At the end of the season. It would be imbecile when I have all Paris at my feet.”

Paul begged and urged her to reconsider, but she was obdurate. She continued the same life, only that her tastes became more and more extravagant. And one day Paul took her to task.

“My angel-flower,” he said, “we must not go on like this. All the savings for our wedding are vanishing. I am eating into my capital. We shall be ruined.”

“But, my little love,” replied Diane, “I spend so little. Why, you should see the electric brougham Zénie at the Folies Bergères has. Besides, next year, or perhaps before, they will have to double my salary.”

“Yes, but in the meantime—?”

“In the meantime your little girl shall kiss away your naughty fears.”

And of course Diane soon had an electric brougham of her own. The more salary she had, the more it seemed to cost Paul. He was receiving merely a nominal salary himself from Messrs. Manson et Cie, where he was little more than a pupil. However, at that time he managed to get a small increase, and invested a good bulk of his patrimony in a rubber company that a very astute business friend advised him about. If the shares went up considerably he might sell out, and reimburse himself for all these inroads on his capital.

In the meantime a disturbing element crept into his love affair. A depraved young fop, the Marquis de Lavernal, appeared on the scene. He was one of those young men who have plenty of money and frequent stage-doors. He was introduced by Babette, whom he almost immediately forsook for Diane. He called upon her, left more expensive flowers and chocolates than Paul could afford, and one day took her to Longchamps in his car.

Paul was furious.

“This man must not come here,” he exclaimed. “I shall kill him!”

“Oo-oh! but why? He is quite a nice boy. He is nothing to me. He is Babette’s friend.”

“I don’t trust him. I won’t have him here. Do you understand, Diane? I love you so, I am distracted when that kind of person speaks to you!”

“Oo-oh!”

Diane promised not to see him again alone, but Paul was dubious. The trouble was that he did not know what went on in the daytime. In the evening he could to a certain extent protect her. But in the daytime—that raven! that ogre! that blood-sucker! He was the kind of man who had the entrée of all theaters, both the back and the front. He went about with parties of girls. Diane explained that it was impossible sometimes not to meet him. He was always with her friends.

At the end of July Paul had a stroke of fortune. The rubber shares he had bought went up with a great boom, quite suddenly. He sold out and netted a considerable sum. And then he had a brilliant inspiration. He would tell Diane nothing of this. He had plans of his own.

One day he took the train and went down to see his prospective father-in-law at the “Moulin d’Or.” The old man was wheezier than ever, but very cordial and friendly.

“Well, my boy, how goes it?” he asked.

“Excellently,” said Paul. “Now, father-in-law, I have a proposition to make. Diane and I are to be married after the summer season. It has always been her ambition to live at the ‘Moulin d’Or.’ But she has spoken of improvements. I want to suggest to you with all respect that you allow me to make those improvements. I would like to do it without her knowing it, and then to bring her down as a great surprise.”

“Well, well, very agreeable, I’m sure. And why not? It would be very charming!”

“I suggest building a new wing, with a dancing-hall and several nice bedrooms, and a garage; and laying out the gardens more suitably.”

“Well, good! It would be very desirable, and conducive to good business. You may rely upon me to assist you in your project, Monsieur Paul.”

“I am indeed grateful to you, Monsieur Couturier.”

Paul returned to Paris in high spirits. He made plans of the suggested alterations on the back of an envelope, in the train. The next morning he went to an eminent firm of contractors. So feverish was he in his demands that he persuaded them to send a manager down that very day to take particulars and prepare the estimate. The work was commenced the same week.

In the meantime, Diane had bought some expensive little dogs, because Fleurie at the Odéon kept expensive little dogs, and a new silver tea-service because Lucie Castille at the Moulin Rouge had a silver tea-service. And Paul was surprised because neither of the accounts for these luxuries was sent to him. Diane said she had paid for them herself, but the little demons of jealousy were still gnawing away at his heart.

The revue was to terminate at the end of the third week in August, and Paul said:

“And then, my love, we will marry quietly in Paris, and then we will do the grand tour. We will go to Nice, and Rome, and Vienna, and commence our eternal honeymoon at the ‘Moulin d’Or.’”

Diane clapped her hands.

“Won’t that be beautiful, my beloved!” she exclaimed, and she twined her sinuous arms around his neck. “Fancy! just you and I alone at the dear ‘Moulin d’Or!’ Ah! and then we will go to Venice, and to Munich. Good gracious! It will be soon time to think about the frocks and trousseau!”

Paul’s heart swelled. The trousseau! Diane was becoming serious. There had been moments when he had doubted whether she meant to marry him at all, but—the trousseau! Why, yes, the matter must be attended to at once. They spent three weeks buying Diane’s trousseau. Nearly every day she thought of something fresh, some little trifle that was quite indispensable. When the bills came in they amounted to twenty-two thousand francs! Paul was aghast. He had no idea it was possible to spend so much on those flimsy fabrics. And furniture had yet to be purchased. He went to his astute business friend again, and begged for some enticing investment. He was recommended a Nicaraguan Company that was just starting. They had acquired the rights of a new method of refining oil. It was going to be a big thing. With the exception of a sum of money to pay for the improvements at the “Moulin d’Or” Paul put practically the whole of his capital into the Nicaraguan Company.

Nearly every day he called at the contractor’s, or sent frenzied telegrams to Monsieur Couturier to inquire how the work was progressing. At length he received a verbal promise that the whole thing would be completed by about the twentieth of September.

Excellent! That would fit in admirably. It would give him a month’s honeymoon with his beautiful Diane, and then, one glorious September evening, he would drive up the hill, and jumping out of the car in the new drive he would be able to exclaim:

“Behold! Do not all your dreams come true?”

And Diane would fling her arms round his neck, and the old father would come toddling out and find them in that position, and he would probably weep, and it would all be very beautiful.

A few days later there was a rather distressing incident. Quite on her own responsibility Diane ordered a suite of Louis XVI furniture. They were fabulously expensive copies. Paul had nothing like enough money to pay for it. He did not want to sell his Nicaraguan shares. In fact, he had only just applied for them. He protested vehemently:

“But, my dear, you ought not to have done this! It is ruinous. We cannot afford it.”

“But, my Carlo, one must sit down!”

“One need not pay fifteen thousand francs to sit down!”

“Oo-oh!”

Paul knew the evidence of approaching tears, and he endeavored to stem the tide. In the end he went to a money-lender and borrowed the money at an abnormal rate of interest, and then he went to Diane and said:

“My beloved, you must promise me not to spend any more money without my consent. The consequences may be serious. My affairs are already getting very involved. You must promise me.”

Diane promised, and the next day drove to his office in a great state of excitement. Bonnat had been to see her. They wanted to take the revue for a two months’ tour to Brittany and Normandy, commencing at Dinard on August 22nd. He had offered her dazzling terms. She simply must go. It might be her last chance. The wedding must be postponed till the end of October. Paul protested, and they both became angry and cried before two other clerks in Messrs. Manson’s office. They parted without anything being settled. When he saw her at night after the theater, she had signed the contract. And Paul returned to his rooms, and bit his pillow with remorse and grief.

On the twenty-first of August Diane locked up her trousseau, and the furniture, and left with the company for Dinard. And Paul wrote to her every day, and she replied once a week, and occasionally sent him a telegram announcing a prodigious success. Only occasionally did he get an opportunity of going to her over a week-end. The journeys were very long and he resented spending the money. In only one way did he derive any satisfaction from that tour. The building work—like all building work—could not possibly be completed in the time specified. If they had arrived there on the twenty-first of September, his beautiful Diane would have found the place all bricks and mortar and muddle. As it was, it would be comfortably finished by the middle of October.

When not going to Diane he would spend Sunday with Monsieur Couturier, who was keenly excited about the improvement to his inn. It was going to be very good for the business. All the countryside spoke of it. The patron of the “Colonne de Bronze,” further down the hill, was furious, and this was naturally a matter of satisfaction to Monsieur Couturier. He was proud of and devoted to his future son-in-law.

At the end of September came the great blow. Paul heard of it first through the newspapers. The Nicaraguan Company had failed. The refining process had proved efficient, but far more expensive to work than any other refining process. The company was wound up, and the shareholders received about 2½ per cent. on their investments. Paul was practically ruined. He would have to pay for the building of the “Moulin d’Or.” Beyond that he had only a few thousand francs, and he had to meet the promissory note of the money-lenders. He wrote to Diane and confessed the whole story. She sent him a telegram which simply said: “Courage! courage!”

He wore the telegram inside his shirt for three days, till it got rather too dilapidated. Then he concentrated on his work. Yes! he would have courage. He would build up again. Diane trusted him. In any case, they could sell the furniture and go and live at the “Moulin d’Or.” He wrote her long letters full of his schemes. On October the twelfth the work was completed, and he went down and spent two days and nights with Monsieur Couturier. Diane was to return to Paris on the fifteenth. Monsieur Couturier was full of sympathy and courage. They talked far into the night of how they would manage. With the increase of business assured, the inn would no doubt support the three of them. There were great possibilities, and Paul was young and energetic. Nothing mattered so long as his Diane believed in him.

The night before he returned to Paris he went for a walk in the woods by himself. He visualized the days to come, the walks with Diane, the tender moments when they held each other’s hands; he could see their children toddling hand in hand through the woods, picking flowers. In an ecstasy he rushed to a thick bush, and picked a bunch of red berries. He would take them to Diane. They would be the symbols of their new life. Wild flowers from their home, not exotic town-bred things. It was all going to be joy ... joy ... joy!

He ran back to the inn, and spent a sleepless night, dreaming of Diane and the days and nights to come.

In the morning came a letter from Messrs. Manson et Cie. His dealings with the money-lenders had been disclosed. His services were no longer desirable.

Well, there it was! It would take more than that to crush him in his ecstatic mood. He would start again. He would begin by helping Monsieur Couturier to run the inn.

He returned to Paris late in the evening. He would go to Diane’s flat after she had returned from the theater. She would be a little sleepy, and comfortable, and comforting. She would wear one of those loose, clinging, silky things, and she would take him in her arms, and he would let down her beautiful dark blue-black hair, and then he would make her a coronet of the red berries. He would make her his queen....

He was too agitated to dine that evening. He walked the streets of Paris, clasping the red berries wrapped in tissue paper. He kept thinking:

“Now she is resting between the acts. Now she is dancing a pas seul in the second act. Now she is giving her imitation of Yvette Guilbert. Now she is taking a call. Now the manager speaks to her, congratulating her—curse him! Now she awaits her cue to go on again.”

He was infinitely patient. He restrained his wild impetus to rush to the theater. He hung about the streets. He meant to stage-manage his effect with discretion. He waited some time after the theater was closed. Then, very slowly, he walked in the direction of her flat. As he mounted the stairs, he began to realize that he was very exhausted. He wished that he had not foregone his dinner. However, after the first rapturous meeting with Diane, he would take a glass of wine. Very quietly he slipped the key in the lock, and let himself in. (He had always had a key to Diane’s flat, which was in effect his flat.) Directly he had passed the door he heard loud sounds of laughter. He swore inwardly. How aggravating! Diane had brought home some of her friends! There were evidently a good many of them, from the noise and ribaldry. In the passage were several bottles and glasses.

He crept along silently to the portière concealing the salon. He could hear Diane’s voice. She was speaking, and after each sentence the company screamed with laughter. Ah! she was entertaining them with one of her famous imitations. He stood there and listened. He made a tiny crack in the curtain and peeped through. Diane was doing a funny little strut, and speaking in a peculiar way. He listened and watched for three or four minutes before he realized the truth of what he saw and heard. And when he did realize it, he had to exert his utmost will-power to prevent himself from fainting.

The person that Diane was imitating was—himself!

The realization seemed to be bludgeoned into him, assisted by a round of ironic cheers. People were calling out:

“Brava! brava! Diane!”

He heard Babette say:

“Where is the little end-of-a-man?”

And Diane’s voice reply:

“Oh, he is coming back soon, I believe. I forget when.”

A man’s voice—he believed it was the Marquis de Lavernal’s—exclaimed:

“And when is our Diane going to marry it?”

Diane, very emphatically:

“Do not distress yourself, my dear; he’s lost all his money.”

A roar of laughter drowned conversation, and Paul groped his way along the passage, still clutching the red berries. He reached the door. Then he reconsidered the matter. He crept back to her bedroom. He placed the berries under the coverlet, and taking a sheet of paper, he wrote one word on it: “Good-by.”

He placed this on the berries, and then stole out into the night.

Paul was then twenty-two, and his life was finished. He was a crushed and broken man. He wandered the streets of Paris all night. He spent hours grimly watching the encircling waters of the Seine, the friend and comforter of so many broken hearts. At dawn he returned to his own apartment. He slept for several hours, and then woke up in a fever. He was very ill for some weeks.

But one must not despair forever. At the end of that time, he pulled himself together, and went out and sought employment. He eventually got a situation as a junior clerk in a wholesale store, and he went back to live at the old pension near the Luxembourg, and he resumed his friendship with Lucile. And in two years’ time he married Lucile. And then his life began. His life began. His life began. And lo! here was Lucile walking slowly up the hill, arm-in-arm with her daughter Louise. Yes, his life began....

“Ah! there you are! What did I say?” exclaimed Louise. “He’s been asleep!”

“And we’ve had such an interesting time,” added Madame Roget, panting with exertion. “We’ve been to the inn.”

“And there’s such a pretty girl there,” continued the daughter. “You’d fall in love with her, papa.”

“Is she very dark?” asked Monsieur Roget.

“Yes, she has blue-black hair and beautiful dark eyes.”

“Good God!”

“I knew he would be interested. She gave us some milk, and she has been telling us her story. She’s quite young, and she owns the inn, although it’s very hard work to run it, she says. She only has one woman and a potman. Her mother was a famous actress, who made a lot of money and bought the inn and improved it. She died when Mademoiselle was fifteen.”

“Who was her father?”

“I don’t know. I rather gather that her father was a bad lot. He died, too.”

“How old is she?”

“Not much more than twenty.”

“Then her mother must have been thirty-nine when she died.”

“What makes you say so?”

“Of course she must have been. What happened to the old man?”

“What old man?”

“Her grandfather.”

“What are you talking about, papa? I don’t believe you’re quite awake yet.”

“She must have had a grandfather. Everybody has a grandfather.”

“Well, of course. But—”

“Then he must be either dead or alive.”

“How tiresome you are! We must be going. The others are waiting for us lower down the hill.”

Monsieur Roget struggled to his feet, and shook the little dead fronds of fern from his clothes, and his wife dusted him down behind.

“We shall be going back past the inn,” she said.

“The inn! Why can’t we go the other way? The way we came?”

“Don’t be so absurd. What does it matter? The others are awaiting us.”

They went slowly down the hill, and came in sight of the “Moulin d’Or.”

“Isn’t it disgusting,” remarked Louise, “how these speculative builders are always spoiling the old inns?”

“I don’t see it’s spoilt,” answered her father petulantly.

“You are ridiculous, papa! Any one can see the inn isn’t half as nice as it was.”

As they approached the forecourt of the inn, a girl came out carrying a pail. She had dark eyes, blue-black hair, and a swinging carriage. Yes, yes, there was no doubt about it. She was the spit and image of her mother.

As she approached she smiled pleasantly, and said:

“Good evening, mesdames; a pleasant journey. Good evening, monsieur.”

The ladies returned a friendly greeting, and Monsieur Roget suddenly turned to the girl and said:

“Is your grandfather alive or dead?”

She continued smiling, and replied:

“I do not remember my grandfather, monsieur.”

No, perhaps not; it was thirty-seven years ago, and old Couturier was an old man then. Perhaps not.

“Papa, can’t you see she’s going to the well to fetch water? Why don’t you offer to help her?”

“Eh? No, I’m not going. Let her fetch it herself!”

“Papa!”

They walked on in silence till well out of hearing, when Louise exclaimed:

“Really, papa, I can’t understand you. So ungallant! It’s not like you. You ought to have offered to fetch the water for her, even if she refused.”

“Eh? Oh, no! I wasn’t going. Very dangerous. You might fall down and sprain your ankle. Oh, no! Or she might fall down, or something. It’s very slippery up there by the well. You’re not going to get me to do it. Let her fetch her own water. Oh, no! no, no, no, no!”

“Louise dear,” remarked Madame Roget. “Let us hurry. Your father is most queer. I always warn him, but it is no good. If he sleeps in the afternoon he always gets an indisposition.”

A SOURCE OF IRRITATION

A SOURCE OF IRRITATION

To look at old Sam Gates you would never suspect him of having nerves. His sixty-nine years of close application to the needs of the soil had given him a certain earthy stolidity. To observe him hoeing, or thinning out a broad field of turnips, hardly attracted one’s attention. He seemed so much part and parcel of the whole scheme. He blended into the soil like a glorified swede. Nevertheless, the half-dozen people who claimed his acquaintance knew him to be a man who suffered from little moods of irritability.

And on this glorious morning a little incident annoyed him unreasonably. It concerned his niece Aggie. She was a plump girl with clear blue eyes and a face as round and inexpressive as the dumplings for which the county was famous. She came slowly across the long sweep of the downland and putting down the bundle wrapped up in a red handkerchief which contained his breakfast and dinner, she said:

“Well, uncle, is there any noos?”

Now this may not appear to the casual reader to be a remark likely to cause irritation, but it affected old Sam Gates as a very silly and unnecessary question. It was moreover the constant repetition of it which was beginning to anger him. He met his niece twice a day. In the morning she brought his bundle of food at seven, and when he passed his sister’s cottage on the way home to tea at five she was invariably hanging about the gate. And on each occasion she always said, in exactly the same voice:

“Well, uncle, is there any noos?”

“Noos”! What “noos” should there be? For sixty-nine years he had never lived further than five miles from Halvesham. For nearly sixty of those years he had bent his back above the soil. There were indeed historic occasions: once, for instance, when he had married Annie Hachet. And there was the birth of his daughter. There was also a famous occasion when he had visited London. Once he had been to a flower-show at Market Roughborough. He either went or didn’t go to church on Sundays. He had had many interesting chats with Mr. James at “The Cowman,” and three years ago had sold a pig to Mrs. Waig. But he couldn’t always have interesting “noos” of this sort up his sleeve. Didn’t the silly gaffer know that for the last three weeks he had been thinning out turnips for Mr. Dodge on this very same field? What “noos” could there be?

He blinked at his niece, and didn’t answer. She undid the parcel, and said:

“Mrs. Goping’s fowl got out again last night.”

He replied, “Ah!” in a non-committal manner, and began to munch his bread and bacon. His niece picked up the handkerchief and humming to herself, walked back across the field. It was a glorious morning, and a white sea-mist added to the promise of a hot day. He sat there munching, thinking of nothing in particular, but gradually subsiding into a mood of placid content. He noticed the back of Aggie disappear in the distance. It was a mile to the cottage, and a mile and a half to Halvesham. Silly things, girls! They were all alike. One had to make allowances. He dismissed her from his thoughts and took a long swig of tea out of a bottle. Insects buzzed lazily. He tapped his pocket to assure himself that his pouch of shag was there, and then he continued munching. When he had finished, he lighted his pipe and stretched himself comfortably. He looked along the line of turnips he had thinned, and then across the adjoining field of swedes. Silver streaks appeared on the sea below the mist. In some dim way he felt happy in his solitude amidst this sweeping immensity of earth and sea and sky.

And then something else came to irritate him. It was one of “these dratted airyplanes.” “Airyplanes” were his pet aversion. He could find nothing to be said in their favor. Nasty, noisy, vile-smelling things that seared the heavens, and make the earth dangerous. And every day there seemed to be more and more of them. Of course “this old war” was responsible for a lot of them, he knew. The war was “a plaguey noosance.” They were short-handed on the farm. Beer and tobacco were dear, and Mrs. Stevens’ nephew had been and got wounded in the foot.

He turned his attention once more to the turnips. But an “airyplane” has an annoying genius for gripping one’s attention. When it appears on the scene, however much we dislike it, it has a way of taking stage-center; we cannot help constantly looking at it. And so it was with old Sam Gates. He spat on his hands, and blinked up at the sky. And suddenly the aeroplane behaved in a very extraordinary manner. It was well over the sea when it seemed to lurch in a drunken manner, and skimmed the water. Then it shot up at a dangerous angle and zigzagged. It started to go farther out, and then turned and made for the land. The engines were making a curious grating noise. It rose once more, and then suddenly dived downwards and came plump down right in the middle of Mr. Dodge’s field of swedes!

Finally, as if not content with this desecration, it ran along the ground, ripping and tearing up twenty-five yards of good swedes, and then came to a stop. Old Sam Gates was in a terrible state. The aeroplane was more than a hundred yards away, but he waved his arms, and called out:

“Hi! you there, you mustn’t land in they swedes! They’re Mister Dodge’s.”

The instant the aeroplane stopped a man leapt out, and gazed quickly round. He glanced at Sam Gates, and seemed uncertain whether to address him or whether to concentrate his attention on the flying-machine. The latter arrangement appeared to be his ultimate decision. He dived under the engine, and became frantically busy. Sam had never seen any one work with such furious energy. But all the same, it was not to be tolerated. It was disgraceful. Sam shouted out across the field, almost hurrying in his indignation. When he approached within earshot of the aviator, he cried out again:

“Hi! you mustn’t rest your old airyplane here. You’ve kicked up all Mr. Dodge’s swedes. A nice thing you’ve done!”

He was within five yards when suddenly the aviator turned and covered him with a revolver! And, speaking in a sharp, staccato voice, he said:

“Old grandfather, you must sit down. I am very occupied. If you interfere or attempt to go away, I shoot you. So!”

Sam gazed at the horrid glittering little barrel, and gasped. Well, he never! To be threatened with murder when you’re doing your duty in your employer’s private property! But, still, perhaps the man was mad. A man must be more or less mad to go up in one of those crazy things. And life was very sweet on that summer morning, in spite of sixty-nine years. He sat down among the swedes.

The aviator was so busy with his cranks and machinery that he hardly deigned to pay him any attention, except to keep the revolver handy. He worked feverishly, and Sam sat watching him. At the end of ten minutes he seemed to have solved his troubles with the machine, but he still seemed very scared. He kept on glancing round and out to sea. When his repairs were completed, he straightened his back and wiped the perspiration from his brow. He was apparently on the point of springing back into the machine and going off, when a sudden mood of facetiousness, caused by relief from the strain he had endured, came to him. He turned to old Sam, and smiled; at the same time remarking:

“Well, old grandfather, and now we shall be all right, isn’t it?”

He came close up to Sam, and then suddenly started back.

“Gott!” he cried. “Paul Jouperts!”

Sam gazed at him, bewildered, and the madman started talking to him in some foreign tongue. Sam shook his head.

“You no right,” he remarked, “to come bargin’ through they swedes of Mr. Dodge’s.”

And then the aviator behaved in a most peculiar manner. He came up and examined his face very closely, and gave a gentle tug at his beard and hair, as if to see whether it were real or false.

“What is your name, old man?” he said.

“Sam Gates.”

The aviator muttered some words that sounded something like “mare vudish!” and then turned to his machine. He appeared to be dazed and in a great state of doubt. He fumbled with some cranks, but kept glancing at old Sam. At last he got into the car and started the engine. Then he stopped, and sat there deep in thought. At last he suddenly sprang out again, and, approaching Sam, he said very deliberately:

“Old grandfather, I shall require you to accompany me.”

Sam gasped.

“Eh?” he said. “What be talkin’ about? ’company? I got these here lines o’ tarnips—I be already behoind—”

The disgusting little revolver once more flashed before his eyes.

“There must be no discussion,” came the voice. “It is necessary that you mount the seat of the car without delay. Otherwise I shoot you like the dog you are. So!”

Old Sam was hale and hearty. He had no desire to die so ignominiously. The pleasant smell of the downland was in his nostrils. His foot was on his native heath. He mounted the seat of the car, contenting himself with a mutter: