walking for hours, and I am perished with hunger."
"Will you join us? Madame Malaumain is getting us some coffee----"

Théo obviously expected a refusal to this invitation, but Joyselle
accepted it without hesitation, and drawing up a chair, sat down.

"Where have you two been?" he asked.

While Théo gave him a description of their walk, Brigit watched the
violinist.

He had pushed back his hat and from under it his hair hung in curly
disorder over his brow. He was very pale and his eyes were circled by
violet rings. He looked very ill indeed, but Brigit knew that it was no
physical pain that was tormenting him.

"Very pleasant," he murmured to his son with a visible effort,
"delightful." Madame Malaumain arriving with a tablecloth announced the
cheerful fact that the water was boiling, recognised him with delight,
and told him in all innocence that he as well as she had grown no
younger since their last meeting.

"M. Malaumain will be delighted to see you," she added; "it is not often
that he meets one as cultivated as himself."

Joyselle bowed gravely. "Can you give me some coffee, too, Madame
Malaumain?" he asked. "I am very--hungry."

But when the coffee and eggs arrived, he did not eat; instead, he sat
moodily playing with his spoon and staring at the tablecloth.

Brigit's appetite had fled, and she was most uneasy as she watched him,
for she did not dare risk an explosion by putting the smallest question
to him.

Something was very wrong, and she was alarmed. Suddenly, as a clock
struck half-past six, he rose. "_Au revoir_, my children," he said, "I
must get back home. Théo will call for you at ten minutes to ten,
Brigitte, my--my daughter!"

And he was gone, leaving Théo staring after him.

"What can be the matter?" the young man mused. "He looks very bad,
doesn't he? It is too early for letters to have come. He can't----" He
paused and a quick smile stirred his moustache and showed his white
teeth.

"Can't what?" queried Brigit, vaguely annoyed by his smile.

"He can't have fallen in love----"

"Of course he can't!"

"No. But only because he hasn't seen anyone since the night before last.
He is amazing about his love-affairs, dear, in and out before you can
get your breath, and always madly sincere!"

"I know, 'He always cares for the time,'" she quoted softly, pushing
away her cup. "Let's go, Théo, I want to get a sleep before we go to
church."

He was surprised by the irritation in her voice, but rose obediently,
and after disappearing for a moment to pay Madame Malaumain, led her
back to the inn.

"I will come for you at ten to ten then--darling," he said, trying to
coax her back into the humour of the earlier hours. But he failed, and
she nodded gravely, not even trying to conceal her change of mood. "I
shall be ready," she answered, "Good-bye."




CHAPTER SIX


The church of St. Gervais was packed with the majority of a crowd that
extended well out down the broad steps and into the square, as the old
bells rang a carillon for the old couple who, as a young man and a young
woman, had been married under them fifty years ago.

In the carriage that was bringing the bridal pair to the church
_Grand-père_ Joyselle was behaving very badly indeed. Carefully dressed
by his daughter, Madame Chalumeau, gloves on his ancient hands, a new
top hat on his ancient head, his ancient brain was busily plotting and
executing all kinds of small pranks, and his unfortunate old bride had
nearly burst into tears at a strong nip he had given her arm with his
still muscular fingers.

"Now, father, please be good," pleaded Madame Chalumeau, to whom,
together with Victor, belonged the uncomfortable honour of conducting
the wayward groom to the altar. "You know you promised you would."

"How can you call me father, woman? Me a young lad on his way to be
married!" The old man laughed shrilly, and producing an apple from his
pocket began to eat it as best he could with his one tooth.

"And _where_ are your teeth?" cried the overwrought Madame Chalumeau.
"You promised to wear them. Mother, why don't you scold him."

"Because he likes being scolded, that's why," snapped the bride, jerking
her bonnet over one ear. "He's been as bad as a devil all the morning."

Joyselle, who had not been listening, caught this phrase.

"Mother," he said gently, taking her hand, "don't be cross, dear. He
is--forgetful, but try to remember the day you married him. You loved
him,"--he winced, as if hurt by his own words, but went on in the same
voice,--"and God has been good in--in allowing you to spend fifty years
together."

The old woman nodded. "I know, my son. I can remember. It--rained and
spoiled my cap, but I didn't care. We walked in a long procession and he
wore a green coat that the old M. le Comte gave him."

"Yes, mother dear," put in the mistaken Madame Chalumeau, "and you
promised to love him always--even when he was--cross."

Madame Joyselle sniffed. "People promise a lot, but fifty years is more
than any woman expects," she answered, with considerable venom.

Joyselle sighed. "Perhaps, my dear Bathilde; you would not mind not
interrupting me again? Yes--think of the green coat. And that you did
not mind about your cap. Your life has been very useful, _ma mère_, and
you have devoted children to love you and care for you."

"Look at the crowd," cried out the old man suddenly. "It must be a
funeral!"

"Father!" Madame Chalumeau crossed herself with fingers that fairly
trembled with haste. "How _can_ you? When it is your own wedding."

As the carriage stopped Victor leaned forward and laid his hand on his
father's.

"Father--this is a splendid and--and most happy day for all of us. There
are nearly fifty of us--your descendants and their wives and husbands,
and we are very _proud_ of you. Will you give my mother your arm and
follow Bathilde and me up the steps?"

Old Joyselle skipped with great agility from the carriage, and with a
grand imitation of his son's manner followed that son into the church.

Brigit, standing near Félicité near the altar, felt her eyes fill with
tears as the little group appeared. There was something infinitely
touching in the sight of the ancient couple coming back to the altar to
renew their vows after fifty years.

The priest's voice was very weak, but it carried well under the arched
roof, and when the rings--the one for the bride bought by her male, the
one for the groom by his female descendants--were blessed and exchanged,
many people were frankly weeping.

Joyselle had not joined his wife and son, but stood opposite them, in
front of a group of relations from the country, his fine figure in its
perfect clothes contrasting strongly with them.

He was paler than Brigit had ever seen him, and his eyes, bent to the
ground for the most part, even more deeply circled than they had been
at the _café_ a few hours before.

The priest droned on; a baby cried, causing the bridegroom to dart a
furious glance in its direction; one of the country cousins blew his
nose with simple-hearted zest; the old couple who had been kneeling were
assisted to their feet. "_In nomine Patris, et Filii_----"

Brigit bowed her head with the rest, and then as she raised it, met
Joyselle's miserable eyes; miserable, accusing, despairing eyes.

The ceremony was over. Old Joyselle gave his arm once more to his wife,
and between two lines of buzzing admirers conducted her to the carriage,
followed by his famous son, the rest of the family crowding after.

"Pathetic, wasn't it?" asked Théo. "I was so afraid _grand-père_ would
not behave, but he is rather in awe of father. Did you see my uncles,
Antoine and Guillaume? Come, _petite mère_, let's go on. Our carriage is
waiting at the inn, to save time."

Brigit followed obediently, but her mind was in a whirl. What could be
the matter with Victor?




CHAPTER SEVEN


The garden in the Rue Victor Hugo was full of long narrow tables covered
with snowy cloths and as white china. In the pitiless noonday sun the
display dazzled the eyes. In the middle of every table was a high vase
of yellow flowers, and at intervals down each stood china bowls heaped
with apples and grapes.

A carafe of cider stood at every plate, for Normans are thirsty and
their heads strong.

Brigit stood in an upper window looking down as the crowd assorted
itself and settled down on the benches by the tables. In a few moments
Théo would fetch her and conduct her to the arbour where twelve people
were to be seated; at present he was bustling about making himself
agreeable to everybody, laughing with those few children who, being over
twelve, were present, helping the old or unwieldly to dispose of
themselves comfortably, darting to and fro, looking strangely out of
place among the good people with whom he felt so thoroughly at home.

In the arbour, Brigit knew, were already assembled the bridal couple,
Victor and Félicité, Antoine and Guillaume, and the wife of Guillaume,
Madame Chalumeau, the ancient curé and M. Thibaut, the Mayor. She and
Théo were to complete the dozen. For some reason the girl dreaded the
feast. She had been unable to speak to Victor as yet, and since their
eyes had met in the church she had been unable to shake off a haunting
feeling of fear that had come to her at that moment. Something was
impending.

And the sultry heat seemed to make matters worse. Down in the garden the
guests were now all seated, and scraps of their conversation reached her
as she leaned in the window.

"A magnificent dinner, I am told," M. Perret, the apothecary, was saying
in his high voice like that of a grass-hopper chirping in the heat.
"Thildette Chalumeau told me: Pot au feu, veal cooked in a casserole in
its own juice, rabbits stewed in wine, gigot rôti, pâtisserie--and many
other things. Yvonne Gaude is cooking it, but Thildette prepared most of
the things with her own hands----"

"--And what is a poor man to think when a cow dies like that, from no
reason whatever," murmured one of the humblest of the country cousins.
"M. le curé can say what he likes about there being no witches!"

"Have you seen the _future_ of _le petit de_ Victor? They call her
beautiful, I am told, in England, but----"

"Victor is growing old, Maître Leboeuf. He looked quite old in church----"

"No, _ma chère_, positively only eighteen fifty, and as good as new! I
always liked plush, too----"

Brigit listened absently. What could be the matter with Victor? And why
had he not come to her for only one minute before the long ordeal of the
dinner began?

Then the door opened and Théo, beaming with a sense of duty artistically
fulfilled, came in. "They are all as happy as possible," he laughed;
"the pot au feu is a thing of the past, and they are beginning on the
veal. Come, my Brigit, you must be hungry."

Without answering, she accompanied him downstairs, and they threaded
their way to the arbour.

"You are to sit here, Brigit, between grandfather and me," explained
Théo, stopping opposite his father, who was listening to something
Madame Guillaume was telling him.

Grandfather Joyselle, whose impish spirit had subsided, was busy with
some minced veal, and shot a rather grudging look at his new neighbour.
"Don't touch my glass, will you?" he said, "It's got flies in it, and I
love to see 'em drown."

Théo laughed. "Some wine, _grand-mère_?"

The old woman shook her head. "No, thank you," she answered civilly. "I
will teach you dominoes, mademoiselle."

Brigit thanked her and began her dinner.

"Listen to Jacques tell about how he converted a retrograde priest back
to holiness by his great eloquence," laughed Antoine Joyselle, who was
an old and soured edition of his famous brother. "_Gascon!_"

Madame Chalumeau, whose eyes were fixed on M. Bouillard as he sat far
down one of the tables, dropped her knife to the ground, and
disappearing under the table in search of it, gave her head a terrible
thump, and emerged scarlet and agonised.

"Someone ought to propose a toast!" suggested Théo, "I suppose M.
Thibaut, father?"

Victor nodded absently. "Yes, or M. le curé."

"How do you feel to-day--Master?" asked Brigit, suddenly, forcing him to
look at her.

His eyes as her gaze met his were so profoundly tragic that she
shuddered, and he did not answer.

"I think I might eat more if I had my teeth," observed the bridegroom,
"and I hear there is to be rabbit."

"Hush, father! you _know_ you can't eat with your teeth. You are to have
_minced_ rabbit, with plenty of gravy." Madame Chalumeau, whose bright
blue dress was very tight and warm, wiped her face on her handkerchief.

Brigit looked round in despair. It was horrible; the heat, the smell of
food, the clatter of knives and forks.

For a long time she heard nothing, and then found that M. Thibaut the
Mayor was trying to persuade Victor to play. "It would be very
pleasant," urged the good man, with evident pride in his own tact, "and
the young people might dance."

Joyselle burst out laughing. "Yes, I will play--for the young people to
dance. That is what fiddlers are for," he answered.

M. Thibaut bowed. "It will be very pleasant," he repeated.

Félicité rose quietly and went to the kitchen for a moment, coming back
with a plate of minced rabbit for her father-in-law. "_Voilà_, papa,"
she said gently, and the old man stopped poking at the flies in his
cider with his fork and began to eat.

Suddenly, in his evident agony, Joyselle again looked at Brigit, and all
her misery of suspense and curiosity flew to her eyes. "What is it?"
they asked him. "Why are you tortured, and why are you torturing me who
love you?"

He looked long at her, and then seeing her sympathetic suffering and her
passion of wounded love, his face cleared, and for the first time that
day he looked like himself.

He began talking, and in a few moments was making everyone at the table
roar with laughter.

Brigit, though deeply relieved, was more puzzled than ever. "I want to
talk to you after dinner," she said, leaning towards him, and he bowed.
"I, too, have things to say to you, my dear," he answered, and they were
both wildly happy.

Then the Mayor rose, and in short and stereotyped phrase drank to the
health of the bride and groom.

The bridegroom had fallen asleep and was not wakened, but the bride
bowed with some dignity.

"M. le curé--will you say a few words?" asked Victor courteously.

The old priest rose in obedience to the summons, and murmured a kind of
blessing on the two he had joined together in his own youth. He
remembered them both very well as they had been in that day; far better
than he could in the days of their middle age. Now their three lives
were nearly over: "We are all very old," he faltered, fumbling at his
snuff-box, "very old----"

Someone outside thought he had finished and began to clap. He sat down
abashed, and took snuff to hide his confusion. Yes, they were all very
old.

The meal ended at length with coffee, calvados, a local liqueur, and
cheese.

"You are tired, my daughter?" asked Félicité, as Brigit frowned with
impatience.

"Yes, _petite mère_."

Félicité, who for the last half hour had been fanning the sleeping
bridegroom to keep off the flies, sighed.

"It is very warm. Why not go? They will clear the table and dance on the
grass, I think."

Everyone left the arbour except her and the old man, and Brigit, feeling
that Joyselle was close on her heels, went into the house and into the
sitting-room.




CHAPTER EIGHT


Joyselle closed the door, and, to her surprise, turned the key. Then he
faced her.

"Brigit," he said, clearing his throat, "do you love me?"

"Love you?" she faltered. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that for thirty-six hours I have doubted you, and that I have
been----" He broke off short, his vivid face intensely expressive.

"But why? Thirty-six hours? That means that--but I did not even see you
yesterday!"

He stood, his arms hanging by his sides, looking at her without a word.
Then, when the pause had grown unbearable, he returned slowly: "The
night before last I saw you with Théo--on the lawn."

A painful blush burnt her face, and, unwontedly abashed, she turned
away. It seemed to her almost monstrous that Joyselle should have
witnessed the little scene in the moonlight.

"You--you saw him kiss me?" she faltered.

"Yes. But that was not the worst. He held open his arms to you, and--you
went to him as if--as if you were giving yourself to him."

"I was, Victor. Surely you understand. He is so good, Théo--so very
good. And I have promised to marry him, and he has been patient, and I
have treated him horribly. The longer I know him the better--I like
him. Surely you can't mind that?"

Joyselle did not raise his hand. He was, she saw with a curious
sensation of detachment, undergoing a severe struggle.

"Mind? I--the situation is--horrible," he began, after a pause. "God
knows I love my son, and I should hate you if you hurt him----"

"I know that," she interrupted quickly, and he looked up.

"Perhaps that is why----"

"Why? No. Ah, Victor, you know that I love you. You must know that. And
yet I have promised to marry him. What are we to do?"

Through the open windows came the sounds of laughter and loud talk, and
someone was playing snatches of a waltz on a violin.

Brigit, feeling that things outside her own control had hastened an
inevitable crisis, stood waiting with the immobility of one consciously
in the hands of Fate.

At last Joyselle came to her and took her in his arms. "Tell me that you
love me," he whispered, "and then--I can bear anything."

His unexpected resignation came, as so often is the case, rather as a
shock to her. It was true that she had of late, during the reign of
peace that had followed the last quarrel, been unusually happy, and that
the thought of marrying Théo had become more bearable than she would
have believed possible; the future had taken on an aspect of happy
family life with Joyselle and Félicité, in which Théo's part had been
pleasantly subordinate; more or less, although her mind had not
formulated it, that of a brother.

Yet now Joyselle's resigned attitude did not please her.

"Then--you don't mind my marrying--another man?" she retorted quickly,
instinctively using words that would hurt him.

He wiped his forehead, which was covered with small drops of
perspiration.

"Don't mind! But, _ma chérie_, you must not torture me. The situation as
it now is, is absolutely impossible. You don't understand. I love my
son, God knows! Yet I am not made of stone, and before the love paternal
He created the love of man for woman. I believe, as He hears me, that
you were meant for me; that you are my woman, and I your man; that you
were meant for me and I for you. But--I was born too soon or you too
late. I cannot, must not, have you, without outraging certain laws which
must be respected. The only thing, then, is to bow to these laws. I
belong to a generation older than yours, and before I knew that you
existed my boy had chosen--and won--you. So you must be his. We have
dreamed, my Brigit, through the last few months, and now we must awaken.
You must marry Théo, and he will take you away for a few months, and
when you come back as his--wife, I shall--I _will_ have learned to love
you in the only way I can love you without shame--as my daughter."

It is curious, but strictly according to the laws of the feminine
logic, that as he made this speech, haltingly, painfully, but with
resolution in every word of it, Brigit's mind should slowly change to a
feeling of resentment.

She herself had made up her mind to marry Théo, and she had seen plainly
that this was fitting and wise; yet Joyselle's acceptance of these facts
stirred her to rebellion, and once more she protested against his
voicing of her own determination. "You are quite right," she said
coldly; "it is only a pity that we did not see all this before!"

And in his turn he winced.

"We have been very mad," she continued, her old barbaric love of seeing
him suffer returning. Then in her own pain: "But from this moment on I
shall do my part, as you suggest. No doubt in a month's time we shall
both be laughing at our little tragic comedy."

He did not answer, but his brown face slowly changed colour and he
closed his eyes for a second.

"No doubt. As for me--there is no fool like an old fool, they say.
However, we have come to our senses in time--thank God!" The last two
words came with a sharp, spasmodic sound, and when he had said them he
took from his pocket the silver box, with Marie-Rose engraved on it, and
taking from it paper and tobacco, began to roll a cigarette.

Brigit was dumfounded as well as deeply hurt. His strength filled her
with terror. That he could bow to Fate, she had not expected, and
forgetting, as women do, that men's training from early boyhood teaches
them, as nothing ever teaches women, the trick of momentary
self-control, a wild doubt of his love flashed through her and took her
breath away.

"You are angry," she ventured, hoping, though subconsciously and without
cruelty, to break down his resolution. But he smiled sadly, for he was
sincere.

"No, my dear, I am not angry. I am sad, because I love you--as yet--far
more than I should, but--from this moment on I shall bend all my
strength to the conquering of that love. You must help me. You will know
how, for women always know. Now--will you shake hands with me and bid
God bless me? It is to be a hard struggle for me, but I will win, for my
will is strong, and the cause is good--Is that you, Théo?"

"Yes, father." Théo was trying the door. "Anything wrong?" he added.

Joyselle turned the key. "No," he said quietly as his son entered, "but
we were tired of the good company. I will go now, my dear. Stay and talk
to your _fiancée_."




CHAPTER NINE


An hour later Brigit slowly mounted the stairs at the inn. She was
desperately tired, and as unhappy as she was tired. Joyselle's attitude,
although she was bound in common justice to acknowledge its correctness,
hurt her to an almost incredible degree. Nothing had ever so wounded
her, and she felt the longing common to reserved people to hide her pain
from everybody.

So she had escaped from the Rue Victor Hugo under pretext of a headache,
and, bidding Félicité and Théo good-night, hastened back here, not
allowing the young man to accompany her, as he desired.

"I am very seedy," she told him, "and my head aches; I shall be better
alone."

So Théo, with the biddableness that was an integral and to her rather
annoying quality of his character, had said no more, and returned to the
other guests. The gaily attired chambermaid, bearing a small jug
destined to strike dismay to some British admirers of the Conqueror, met
the girl on the stairs.

"_Bon soir_, mademoiselle," she said; "there's a telegram for you in
your _salon_."

Brigit stood still. A telegram! Bad news probably. And such was her
mental turmoil that at the thought she shrugged her shoulders. Almost
anything that would change the nature of her trouble would be welcome.

But the contents of the telegram were bad.


"Tommy very ill. Diphtheria. Wants you.
"Mother."


Tommy ill! Poor little boy, with all his joy of life and enthusiasms,
struck down by diphtheria! Why could it not be she instead?

But it was not the girl's nature to waste time in useless reflections
when any possible course of action lay before her.

Ringing, she sent for M. Berton, the proprietor, and finding that a
train left in half an hour, threw her belongings into her box and a few
minutes later was in a ramshackle cab clattering stationwards. She left
a note for Théo, but she was sincerely glad that time was too short for
her to make any attempt to see either him or Joyselle. They had faded
into the background of her mind, and in the foreground stood, piteous
and appealing, poor little Tommy.

It was a gruesome journey, never to be forgotten, and made more bearable
by several little acts of kindness on the part of her fellow-travellers,
as such journeys are apt to be.

Brigit never again saw the fat Jewish commercial traveller who rushed
from the train at some station, and nearly missed the train in his
efforts, successful at last, to get her some tea; but she never forgot
him. Neither did she ever forget a woman in shabby mourning who
insisted on giving her a packet of somebody's incomparable milk
chocolate.

And for hours and hours and hours the trains (for she had to change
twice) rushed on through the slow-dying autumn evening and night, and
part of the next day. Then at last London--a rush in a hansom to
Victoria from Charing Cross, and the familiar little journey homewards.
It was about three o'clock when she reached Kingsmead, and raining hard.

"'Is lordship is--still alive, my lady," Jarvis told her, choking a
little, "but--pretty bad, my lady." Tommy had always laughed at Jarvis'
manner, but Brigit liked it now.

The drive seemed endless, but at length there was the lodge, and the
carp-pond, and the tennis-court, and--the beautiful old house, all
blurred in the driving rain.

"Her ladyship is upstairs, my lady." And Brigit ran up the shallow,
red-carpeted steps. But who was this old woman wrapped in a white shawl.

"Brigit----"

It was Lady Kingsmead, and Brigit, looking at her mother, almost fainted
for the first time in her life.

"How is he?" she gasped, leaning against the wall and wondering why it
was so unsteady.

"He--his throat is better, but--he is very weak and--delirious. His
brain, they say, is--over-active." Poor Lady Kingsmead burst into tears,
wiping her eyes on the fringe of her shawl.

Brigit patted the strangely shrunken head compassionately. "Don't cry,
mother," she said. "Is he in his room?"

"No--in the boudoir. His chimney smokes so in the autumn, you know."

Tommy lay in his own brass bed in the silken nest of his mother, a
white-capped nurse by his side. The little boy's face was flushed and
his head tossing restlessly to and fro on the embroidered pillows.
"There's no use," he was muttering. "I tell you, it's quite silly to
waste time; you should have begun long ago. He always said so, and he's
right."

Brigit sat down by him. "Here's Bicky," she said, "with the Master's
love for you, Tommy."

"He's gone away. Ratting with the Prince of Wales. Let's play his fiddle
before he comes back. I've got that last exercise beautifully--only my
little finger is so beastly short. If I'd been whipped when I was a kid
it might have grown--there it goes! Hi, Pincher, after him!"

The nurse rose and moistened her patient's lips with water.

"How is he, nurse?" asked Brigit shortly.