Part 40 (1/2)
I looked steadily into her eyes.
”Mademoiselle, may I put you on her back?”
She bowed her head, and I lifted her to her seat, put her foot in the stirrup and the bridle in her hand. Then I threw my arm over Fatima's neck.
”Good-by, Sweetheart,” I whispered, ”take good care of your mistress,”
and kissed her on the white star on her forehead. Still with my arm over her neck I reached up my hand to mademoiselle.
She put her hand in mine, and I kissed it as I had kissed it when she chose me her king; then I lifted my eyes and looked straight into hers.
”Good-by, Mademoiselle, and au revoir,” I said, and dropped her hand.
She could not answer for the same piteous quivering of the chin, but her lips formed ”Au revoir”; and then she turned Fatima and rode slowly under the leafy arch that led through a long tunnel of foliage, due east.
”Monsieur,” said the prince, and I started; for a moment I had forgotten his existence.
He had withdrawn courteously while I was making my adieus with mademoiselle, busying himself with little preparations for departure.
Now he had mounted and drawn his horse to my side.
”Monsieur, you have taught me to honor and admire all American gentlemen. If there is any service I can ever do you, I hope you will give me the opportunity of showing you how much I appreciate the great service you have done us this night.”
”Monsieur le Prince,” I answered quickly, too eager with my own thoughts to thank him for his kind words, ”there is one kindness you can show me that will more than repay me for anything I have ever done or ever could do. Write me of mademoiselle's safe arrival when you reach Baden. I will give you my address,” and I tore a leaf from my memorandum-book, wrote my address upon it, and thrust it into his hand.
”It is a small commission, Monsieur,” he answered, ”but I will be most happy to execute it.”
He grasped my hand, said ”Au revoir,” and cantered quickly away after mademoiselle.
I watched them riding side by side under the leafy dome until their figures were lost in the darkness, mademoiselle still with bent head, and he with his face turned courteously away as if not to seem to see should she be softly crying. And if there was for a moment in my heart a jealous envy that he should ride by mademoiselle's side and I be left behind, I put it quickly away, for I knew him to be a n.o.ble and courteous gentleman, and one to whose honor I could trust the dearest thing in life.
CHAPTER XXVIII
EXIT LE CHEVALIER
”The King of France with forty thousand men, Went up a hill, and so came down agen.”
Clothilde, Caesar, and I had ridden late into the night before we had reached the little village on the Seine where my boatman, Gustave, was to tie up. But it was moonlight and we rode through a beautiful country dotted with royal chateaus,--the birthplaces of ill.u.s.trious kings,--and I had my thoughts, and Clotilde and Caesar had each other: for Caesar was the first of her kind Clotilde had seen since coming to France, and much as she might enjoy the attentions of footmen in gorgeous liveries, after all they were only ”white trash,” and she loved best her own color. Clotilde was rapidly becoming consoled; and though she only spoke creole French, and Caesar only English, save for the few words he had picked up since coming to Paris, they seemed to make themselves very well understood.
So the ride had not been so tedious as it might have been. And when we had found Gustave's boat tied to the bank and had routed up him and his wife, and delivered Clotilde into their care (and their admiration and awe of the black lady was wonderful to see), and Caesar and I had hunted up a fairly comfortable inn and had two or three hours of sleep, we were all quite ready to start on again.
Feeling that Clotilde was a sacred trust, I was anxious both for her safety and for her welfare, and thus it was that the early morning found me following the windings of the Seine by a little bridle-path on its banks, hardly twenty feet from Gustave's boat dropping down with the tide. Gustave's wife was in the forward part of the boat, preparing breakfast for the three, and the savory odor of her bacon and coffee was borne by the breeze straight to my nostrils on the high bank above her. Gustave himself was in the stern of the boat, lazily managing the steering-oar and waiting for his breakfast, and incidentally grinning from ear to ear at Caesar, riding a pace behind me and casting longing glances at the thatched roof of the little boat's cabin, whence issued in rich negro tones the creole love-song Yorke had sung to Clotilde on the Ohio boat:
”Every springtime All the lovers Change their sweethearts; Let change who will, I keep mine.”
I had straitly charged Clotilde that she must keep herself closely concealed within the cabin, but I had said nothing to her about also keeping quiet. Now I was idly thinking that perhaps I had better give her instructions upon that point also, when down the stony road some three feet higher than the bridle-path, and separated from it by a bank of turf, came the thunder of hoofs. I glanced up quickly. A little party of hors.e.m.e.n, five or six in number, were das.h.i.+ng down the road toward us, and in the lead was the Chevalier Le Moyne! At sight of us they drew rein, and the chevalier, looking down on me (for the first time in his life), brought his hat to his saddle-bow with a flourish.
”Good morning, Monsieur. I hear you are off for America.”
”Good morning,” I answered coolly, merely touching my own hat. ”You have heard correctly”; and I wished with all my heart that I had had time to tell Clotilde to keep still, for up from the boat below, louder and clearer than ever, it seemed to me, came the refrain of her foolish song: