Part 33 (1/2)

”There! Look!”

And Andrew looked and beheld the photograph of a handsome, vast mustachioed, rake-h.e.l.ly officer of Zouaves, labelled as Captain Raoul Marescaux, who had died gloriously for France on the twenty-sixth of March, 1917.

For a second or two he groped for some a.s.sociation with a far distant past.

”But don't you see?” cried Elodie. ”It is my husband. He has been dead for over two years.”

Chapter XVII

The real discussion between them of the change that the death of Raoul Marescaux might bring about in their relations, did not take place till the next day. Each felt it as a sudden shock which, as in two chemicals. .h.i.therto mingling in placid fluidity, might cause crystallization. Up to this point, the errant husband, vanis.h.i.+ng years before across the seas in company with a little modiste of the Place de la Madeleine, had been but a shadow, less a human being than a legal technicality which stood in way of their marriage.

Occasionally during the war each had contemplated the possibility of the husband being killed. A mere fleeting speculation. As Elodie had received no official news of his death--which is astonis.h.i.+ng in view of the French Republic's accuracy in tracing the _etat civil_ of even her obscurest citizens--she presumed that he was still alive somewhere in the Shadow Land in which exist monks and Papuans and swell-mobsmen and other members of the human race with whom she had no concern. And Andrew had been far too busy to give the fellow whose name he had all but forgotten, more than a pa.s.sing thought. But now, there he was, dead, officially reported, with picture and description and distinction and place and date all complete. The shadow had melted into the definite Eternity of Shadows.

Andrew rose early, dressed, and, according to his athletic custom, took his swinging hour's walk through the streets still fresh with the lingering coolness of the night, and then, after breakfast, entered Elodie's room.

But she was still fast asleep. She seldom rose till near midday. It was only after lunch, a preoccupied meal, that they found the opportunity for discussion, in the little stuffy courtyard of the hotel, set round with dusty tubs of aloes and screened with a trellis of discontented vine. They sat on a rustic bench by a door and then coffee was served on a blistered iron table once painted yellow. There were many flies which disturbed the slumbers of an old mongrel Newfoundland sprawling on the cobbles.

And there he put to her the proposition which he had formulated during the night.

”My dear,” said he, ”I have something very important to say to you. You will listen--eh? You won't interrupt?”

Coffee-cup in hand, she glanced at him swiftly before she sipped.

”As you will.”

”Yesterday,” said he, ”I met a comrade of the war, a Colonel of Australian artillery. I lunched with him, as you know.”

”_Bien_,” said Elodie.

”I had a long talk with him. He made certain propositions.”

He repeated his conversation with Arbuthnot, described at second hand the Solomon Islands, the beauties of reef and palm, the delights of a new, free life and laid before her the guarantee of a competence and the possibilities of a fortune. As he talked, Elodie's dark face grew sullen and her eyes hardened. When he paused, she said:

”You are master of your affairs. If you wish to go, you are free. I have no right to say anything.”

”You don't allow me to finish,” said he, smiling patiently. ”I would not go there without you.”

”_Moi?_” She s.h.i.+fted round on her seat with Southern excitability and pointed her finger at her bosom. ”I go to the other end of the world and live among savages and Australians who don't talk French--and I who know no word of English or any other savage tongue? No, my friend. Ask anything else of me--I give it freely, as I have given it all these years. But not that.”

”You would go with me as my wife, Elodie. We will get married.”

”_Pouf!_” said Elodie, contemptuously.

Without any knowledge of the terminal values so precious to women, Andrew felt a vague apprehension lest he had begun at the wrong end.

”Surely,” said he, by way of reparation. ”The death of your husband makes a great difference. Now there is nothing to prevent our marriage.”

”There is everything to prevent it,” she replied. ”You no longer love me.”

”The same affection exists,” said he, ”that has always been between us.”