The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

his sudden smile into her face of distress.
"_Eh bien_!" he said. "_L'affaire est finie_. Let us go."
He stuck his weapon into the sand and left it there. Then, without waiting to don his coat, he turned and walked away with her with his light, elastic swagger that speedily widened the distance between himself and his vanquished foe.
Chris walked beside him in silence, Cinders still tucked under her arm. She knew not what to say, having no faintest clue to his real attitude towards her at that moment. He had ignored her apology so jauntily that she could not venture to renew it.
She glanced at him after a little to ascertain whether smile or frown had supervened. But both were gone. He looked back at her gravely, though without reproof.
"Poor little one!" he said. "It frightened you, no?"
She drew a deep breath. "Oh, Bertie, what were you doing?"
"I was fighting," he said.
"But why? You might--you might have killed him! Perhaps you have!"
He stiffened slightly, and twisted one end of his small moustache. "I think not," he said, faint regret in his voice.
Chris thought not too, judging by the clamour of invective which the injured man had managed to pour forth. But for some reason she pressed the point.
"But--just imagine--if you had!"
He shrugged his shoulders with extreme deliberation.
"_Alors_, Mademoiselle Christine, there would have been one _canaille_ the less in the world."
She was a little shocked at the cool rejoinder, yet could not somehow feel that her _preux chevalier_ could be in the wrong.
"He might have killed you," she remarked after a moment, determined to survey the matter from every standpoint. "I am sure he meant to."
He shrugged his shoulders again and laughed. "That is quite possible. And you would have been sorry--a little--no?"
She raised her clear eyes to his. "You know I should have been heart-broken," she said, with the utmost simplicity.
"But really?" he said.
"But really," she repeated, breaking into a smile. "Now do promise me that you will never fight that horrid man again."
He spread out his hands. "How can I promise you such a thing! It is not the fashion in France to suffer insults in silence."
"Did he insult you, then?"
Again he stiffened. "He insulted me--yes. And I, I struck him. _Apres cela_--" again the expressive shrug, and no more.
"But how did he insult you?" persisted Chris. "Couldn't you have just turned your back, as one would in England?"
"No" Sternly he made reply. "I could not--turn my back."
"It's ever so much more dignified," she maintained.
The dark eyes flashed. "Pardon!" he said. "There are some insults upon which no man, English or French, can with honour turn the back."
That fired her curiosity. "It was something pretty bad, then? What was it, Bertie? Tell me!"
"I cannot tell you," he returned, quite courteously but with the utmost firmness.
She glanced at him again speculatively, then, with shrewdness: "When men fight duels," she said, "it's generally over either politics or--a woman. Was it--politics, Bertie?"
He stopped. "It was not politics, Christine," he said.
"Then--" She paused, expectant.
His face contracted slightly. "Yes, it was--a woman. But I say nothing more than that. We will speak of it--never again."
But this was very far from satisfying Chris. "Tell me at least about the woman," she urged. "Is it--is it the girl you are going to marry?"
But he stood silent, looking at her again with that expression in his eyes that had puzzled her before.
"Is it, Bertie?" she insisted.
"And if I tell you Yes?" he said at last.
She made a queer little gesture, the merest butterfly movement, and yet it had in it the faintest suggestion of hurt surprise.
"And you never told me about her," she said.
He leaned swiftly towards her. There was a sudden glow on his olive face that made him wonderfully handsome. "_Mignonne_!" he said eagerly, and then as swiftly checked himself. "Ah, no, I will not say it! You do not love the French."
"But I want to hear about your _fiancee_," she protested. "I can't think why you haven't told me."
He had straightened himself again, and there was something rather mournful in his look. "I have no _fiancee_, little one," he said.
"No?" Chris smiled all over her sunny face. She looked the merest child standing before him wrapped in the mackintosh that flapped about her bare ankles, the ruddy hair all loose about her back. "Then whatever made you pretend you had?" she said.
He smiled back, half against his will, with the eloquent shrug that generally served him where speech was awkward.
"And the woman you fought about?" she continued relentlessly.
"Mademoiselle Christine," he pleaded, "you ask of me the impossible. You do not know what you ask."
"Don't be silly," said Chris imperiously. The matter had somehow become of the first importance, and she had every intention of gaining her end. "It isn't fair not to tell me now, unless," with sudden doubt, "it's somebody whose acquaintance you are ashamed of."
He winced at that, and drew himself up so sharply that she thought for a moment that he was about to turn on his heel and walk away. Then very quietly he spoke.
"You will not understand, and yet you constrain me to speak. Mademoiselle, I am without shame in this matter. It is true that I fought in the cause of a woman, perhaps it would be more true if I said of a child--one who has given me no more than her _camaraderie_, her confidence, her friendship, so innocent and so amiable; but these things are very precious to me, and that is why I cannot lightly speak of them. You will not understand my words now, but perhaps some day it may be my privilege to teach you their signification."
He stopped. Chris was gazing at him in amazement, her young face deeply flushed.
"Do you mean me?" she asked at last. "You didn't--you couldn't--fight on my account!"
He made her a grave bow. "I have told you," he said, "because otherwise you would have thought ill of me. Now, with your permission, since there is no more to say upon the subject, I will return to my friends."
He would have left her with the words, but she put out an impulsive hand. "But, Bertie--"
He took the hand, looking straight into her eyes, all his formality vanished at a breath. "Ask me no more, little one," he said. "You have asked too much already. But you do not understand. Some day I will explain all. Run home to _Mademoiselle la gouvernante_ now, and forget all this. To-morrow we will play again together on the shore, draw the pictures that you love, and weave anew our rope of sand."
He smiled as he said it, but the tenderness of his speech went deep into the girl's heart. She suffered him to take leave of her almost in silence. Those words of his had set vibrating in her some chord of womanhood that none had ever touched before. It was true that she did not understand, but she was nearer to understanding at that moment than she had ever been before.


CHAPTER VIII
THE ENGLISHMAN

Chris returned quite soberly to the little house on the _plage_. The morning's events had given her a good deal to think about. That any man should deem it worth his while to fight a duel for her sake was a novel idea that required a good deal of consideration. It was all very difficult to understand, and she wished that Bertrand had told her more. What could his adversary of the scowling brows have found to say about her, she wondered? She had never so much as seen the man before. How had he managed even to think anything unpleasant of her? Recalling Bertrand's fiery eyes, she reflected that it must have been something very objectionable indeed, and wondered how anyone could be so horrid.
These meditations lasted till she reached the garden gate, and here they were put to instant and unceremonious flight, for little Noel hailed her eagerly from the house with a cry of, "Hurry up, Chris! Hurry up! You're wanted!"
Chris hastened in, to be met by her young brother, who was evidently in a state of great excitement.
"Hurry up, I say!" he repeated. "My word, what a guy you look! We've just had a wire from Jack. He will be in Paris this evening, and we are to meet him there. We have got to catch the Paris express at Rennes, and the train leaves here in two hours."
This was news indeed. Chris found herself plunged forthwith into such a turmoil of preparation as drove all thought of the morning's events from her mind.
Her brothers were overjoyed at the prospect of immediate departure; Mademoiselle was scarcely less so; and Chris herself, infected by the general atmosphere of satisfaction, entered into the fun of the thing with a spirit fully equal to the occasion. The scramble to be ready was such that not one of the party stopped to breathe during those two hours. They bolted refreshments while they packed, talking at the tops of their voices, and thoroughly enjoying the unwonted excitement. Mademoiselle was more nearly genial than Chris had ever seen her. She did not even scold her for taking an early dip. At the time Chris was too busy to wonder at her forbearance; but she discovered the reason later, without the preliminary of wondering, when she came to know that it was Mademoiselle's urgent representations at headquarters regarding her own delinquencies that had impelled this sudden summons.
The thought of meeting her cousin added zest to the situation. Though ten years her senior, Jack Forest had long been the best chum she had--he was best chum to a good many people.
Only when by strenuous effort they had managed to catch the one and only train that could land them at Rennes in time for the Paris express, only when the cliffs and the dear blue shore where she had idled so many hours away were finally and completely left behind, did a sudden stab of realization pierce Chris, while the quick words that her playmate of the beach had uttered only that morning flashed torch-like through her brain.
Then and only then did she remember him, her _preux chevalier_, her faithful friend and comrade, whose name she had never heard, whom she had left without word or thought of farewell.
So crushing was her sense of loss, that for a few seconds she lost touch with her surroundings, and sat dazed, white-faced, stricken, not so much as asking herself what could be done. Then one of the boys shouted to her to come and look at something they were passing, and with an effort she jerked herself back to normal things.
Having recovered her balance, she managed to maintain a certain show of indifference during the hours that followed, but she looked back upon that journey to Paris later as one looks back upon a nightmare. It was her first acquaintance with suffering in any form.
Jack Forest, big, square, and reliable, was waiting for them at the terminus.
The two boys greeted him with much enthusiasm, but Chris suffered her own greeting to be of a less boisterous character. Dear as the sight of him was to her, it could not ease this new pain at her heart, and somehow she found it impossible to muster even a show of gaiety any longer.
"Tired?" queried Jack, with her hand in his.
And she answered, "Yes, dreadfully," with a feeling that if he asked anything further she would break down completely.
But Jack Forest was a young man of discretion. He smiled upon her and said something about