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

really think so? I never believed in it after that night."
"No?" he said. "And yet it was there."
Chris peered at him. "You talk as if it were something quite substantial," she said.
"It was substantial," he made answer, and then with a sudden smile into her wondering eyes: "As substantial, _cherie_, as my rope of sand that was to make my work endure like--like the Sphinx and Cleopatra's Needle and--and--" He broke off with his eloquent shrug, paused a moment, then--"and--our friendship, if you will," he ended.
"Ah, fancy your remembering that!" she said. "But I believe you remember everything."
"That is the spell," he said.
"Is it, Bertie? And do you remember the duel, and how you wouldn't tell me what it was all about? Tell me now!" she begged, as a child pleading for a story. "I always wanted to know."
But his face darkened instantly. "Not that, _petite_. He was bad. He was _scelerat_. We will not speak of him."
"But, Bertie, I'm grown-up now. I'm quite old enough to know," she urged, with a coaxing hand upon his arm.
He took the hand, turned it upwards, stroked the soft palm very reverently. "I pray that you will never be old enough, Chris," he said, and in the shaded lamplight she saw that his face had grown suddenly melancholy, almost haggard. "The knowledge of evil is a poisonous thing. Those who find it can never be young again."
His manner awed her a little. She did not pursue the point with her customary persistence. "Well, tell me what happened afterwards," she said. "He got well again?"
"Yes, _petite_."
"And--you forgave each other?"
"Never!" Bertrand raised his head and shot out the word with emphasis.
"Never, Bertie?" Chris looked at him, slightly startled.
He looked back at her, faintly smiling, but with the melancholy still in his eyes. "Never," he repeated. "That shocks you, no?"
"Not really," she said loyally. "I'm sure he was horrid. He looked it. Then--you are enemies still?"
"Enemies?" He shrugged his shoulders. "No, I think he would not consider me as an enemy now."
"And yet you never forgave him?"
"No, never." Again his denial was emphatic. After a moment, seeing her bewilderment, he proceeded to explain. "If he had apologized, if he had retracted the insult, then it is possible that a reconciliation might have been effected between us."
"But he didn't?" said Chris. "Then what happened? Did he do nothing at all?"
"For a long time--nothing," said Bertrand.
"And then?"
"Then," very simply he made reply, "he ruined me."
"Bertie!" She gazed at him with tragedy dawning in her eyes. "He ruined you! He!"
"He supplied the evidence against me," Bertrand said. "But it was clever. He spread a net--so"--he flung out his hands with an explanatory gesture--"a net that I see not nor suspect, and then when I am entrapped he draw it close--close, and--I am a prisoner." He shut his teeth with a click, and for an instant smiled--the smile of the man who fights with his back against the wall.
But the tragedy had grown from shadow to reality in the turquoise blue eyes of the girl beside him. "Oh, Bertie," she said, with a break in her voice, "then it was all my fault--mine!"
He turned towards her swiftly. "No, no, no! Who has said that? It is not true!" he declared, with vehemence.
"You said it yourself--almost," she told him. "And it is true, for if you hadn't fought him it would never have happened. Oh, Bertie! I'm beginning to think it was a dreadful pity I ever went to Valpre!"
He caught her hands and held them. "You shall not say it!" he declared passionately. "You shall not think it! _Mignonne_, listen! Those days at Valpre are to me the most precious, the most sacred, the most dear of my life. They can never return, it is true. But the memory of them is mine for ever. Of that can no one deprive me. While I live I shall cherish them in my heart."
He cheeked himself abruptly; she was gazing at him with a sort of speculative wonder that had arrested the tragedy in her eyes. At his sudden pause she began to smile.
"Bertie, dear, forgive me, but I can't help thinking what a funny Englishman you would have made! So you really don't think it was my fault? I'm so glad. I should break my heart if it were."
He stooped, catching her hands up to his lips, whispering inarticulately.
She suffered him, half-laughing. "Silly Frenchman!" she said softly.
And at that he looked up and let her go. "You are right," he said, speaking rather thickly. "I am foolish. I am mad. And you--you have the patience of an angel to support me thus."
"Oh no," said Chris. "I'm not a bit like an angel. In fact, I'm rather wicked sometimes--not very, you know, Bertie, only rather. Now let me show you my presents. I brought them up here on purpose."
So gaily she diverted the conversation, mainly because she had caught a gleam of tears in her friend's eyes and was aware that they had not been far from her own. It would never do for them to sit crying together on her birthday night. Besides, it was too ridiculous, for what was there to cry about? Bertrand was in a better position now than he had been for years. And she--and she--well, it was her birthday, and surely that was reason enough for being glad.
It was Bertrand who at length gently drew her attention to the time. They had been talking for the best part of an hour.
"Will not the supper dances be nearly finished?" he suggested.
"Oh, goodness!" exclaimed Chris. "Yes, long ago. We must fly. Say good-bye to Cinders. You will come and see him again soon, won't you? Come just as often as you can."
At the door she paused a moment, slipped a warm hand into his, and for the first time shyly broke her silence upon the subject of her approaching marriage.
"I'm so glad you are coming to live with us when we are married," she said. "I shall never feel lonely with you there."
"You would not be lonely without me," he made quick response. "You will have always your husband."
She caught her breath, and then laughed. "To be sure. I hadn't thought of that. But Trevor is always busy, and he is going to write a book too." She looked at him with sudden mischief in her eyes. "Yes, I am very glad you are coming," she said again. "When he doesn't want you with him you can come and play with me. And when it's summer"--her eyes fairly danced--"we'll go for picnics, Bertie, lots of picnics. You'll like that, _preux chevalier_?"
He smiled back upon her; who could have helped it? But he stifled a sigh as he smiled. Would life be always a picnic to her, he asked himself? He could not imagine it otherwise, and yet he knew that even upon this child of mirth and innocence the reality of life must dawn some day. Would it be a gracious dawning of pearly tints and roselit radiance, gradually filling that eager young soul to the brim with the greater joys of life? Or would it be fiery and terrible, a blinding, relentless burst of light, from which she would shrink appalled, discerning the wrath of the gods before ever she had realized their bounty?
Could it be thus with her, his little comrade, his bird of Paradise, his darling? He thought not. He believed not. And yet deep in the heart of him he feared.
And because of that lurking fear he vowed silently over the little friendly hand that lay so confidingly in his that never while breath remained in his body would he leave her until he knew her happiness--the ultimate happiness of her womanhood--to be assured.
It seemed to him that it was for this alone that he had been introduced once more into her book of life. All his hopes and dreams had passed; he was an old man before his time; but this one thing, it seemed, was left to him. For a while longer his name would figure with hers across the page. Only when the page turned his part would be done. She would not need him then. She would be a woman; and--_eh bien_, it was only the child Chris who could ever be expected to need him now. When she ceased to be a child the need--if such, indeed, existed--would be for ever past; and he would be no more to her than a memory--the memory of one who had played with her a while in the happy land of her childhood and had shared with her the picnics of those summer days.
This was the sole remaining aspiration of Bertrand de Montville--the man who in the arrogance of his youth had diced with the gods, and had lost the cast.


CHAPTER XIV
A REVELATION

"My dear, it is quite useless for you to attempt to justify your conduct, for it was simply inexcusable. No argument can possibly alter that fact. Everyone was waiting about for a considerable time in the supper-room, desirous of drinking your health, while you, it transpires, were hiding in a corner with this very questionable foreigner whom Trevor has been eccentric enough to befriend, but of whom I can discover practically nothing."
"But Trevor knows all about him, Aunt Philippa," pleaded Chris.
"That," said Aunt Philippa, "may or may not be the case. But so long as you are in my charge, I, and not Trevor, am the one to direct your choice of acquaintances, and I very strongly object to the inclusion of this Frenchman in the number. It is my desire, Chris, that you do not see him again during the rest of the time that you are under my roof. I intend to speak to Trevor upon the matter at the earliest opportunity. I consider that, in the face of what has occurred, he would be extremely ill-advised to retain this unknown foreigner in his employment, though I should imagine he has already arrived at that conclusion for himself. I could see that he was seriously displeased by your behaviour last night."
"Oh, was he?" said Chris blankly. "He didn't say so."
"He probably realized that it would be useless to express his displeasure at such a time. But let me warn you, Chris. He is not a man to stand any trifling. I have heard it from several quarters. Jack, as you are aware, knows him well, and he will tell you the same. You may try his patience too far, and that, I presume, is not your intention. Should it happen, I think that you would regret it all your life."
"But I haven't trifled! I don't trifle!" protested Chris, divided between distress and indignation.
Aunt Philippa smiled unpleasantly--she seldom displayed any other variety of smile. "That, my dear, is very much a matter of opinion. You had better go now to Hilda. She is waiting to see your bridesmaid's dress tried on."
Chris went, with a worried pucker between her brows. How curious it was that some people failed so completely to take a reasonable view of things! They made mountains out of molehills, and expected her to climb them--she, whose unwary feet were accustomed to trip so lightly along easy ways. And Trevor too--she caught her breath with a sharp shiver--was he really seriously displeased with her? He had given no hint of it when they had danced together, save that he had been somewhat grave and silent. But then, he was naturally so. She had not thought much of it; in fact, she had been thinking mainly of Bertie.
And here a sudden throb of dismay sent the