Part 9 (1/2)

He answered Father Anton's ”_au revoir_” mechanically, as they started back for the Bas Rhone. She was in a hurry now, all life, all excitement--half running.

”Did I not tell you, Jean, that I would find just what I wanted?” she called out in gay spirits.

She had told him nothing of the sort.

”Yes,” said Jean.

They reached the Bas Rhone, and there, in the doorway, she turned.

”I must find my father, and tell him,” she said. There was a smile, a flash of the grey eyes, a glint from the bronze-crowned head, a quick little impetuous pressure on his arm, a laugh soft and musical as the rippling of a brook; and then: ”Until to-morrow, Jean.”

And she was gone.

Until to-morrow! The words were strangely familiar. Papa Fregeau was hurrying through the cafe. Jean turned away. He had no wish to talk to Papa Fregeau--or any one else. He walked down to the beach--and his eyes, across the bay, fixed on the headland. Yes, that was it! Until to-morrow--that was what Marie-Louise had said--until to-morrow.

He went on along the beach, his brain feverishly chaotic. She had been like a vision, a glorious vision, suddenly gone, as she had stood there in the doorway. Her name was Myrna Bliss. Why not, since Father Anton could not go that night, why not go to Marie-Louise himself and tell her about the house? Yes; he would do that.

He crossed the beach to the road again, and started on--walking rapidly. As he neared the little bridge, his pace slowed. At the bridge he halted. Perhaps it would be better not to go--it would be better left to Father Anton, that!

”_Sacre bleu_!” cried Jean suddenly aloud. ”What is the matter with me? What has happened?”

But he went no further along the road; for, after a moment, he turned, retracing his steps slowly toward Bernay-sur-Mer.

And so that night Jean did not go to Marie-Louise. But there, at the house on the bluff, later on, Marie-Louise, after Mother Fregeau had gone to bed, took the beacon that Jean had made and placed it upon the table in the front room where, before, that other beacon, the great lamp, had stood. And for a long time she sat before it, her elbows on the table, now looking at the little clay figure, now staring through the window to the headland's point where sometimes she could see the surf splash silver white in the moonlight. It had been a happy afternoon in many ways; but there was something that would not let it be all happiness, for there was confusion in her thoughts. The house was lonely now, and Uncle Gaston had gone; it did not seem true, it did not seem that it could be he would not open that door again and come thumping in with the nets over his shoulders and the wooden floats b.u.mping on the floor--and the tears unbidden filled her eyes. And her talk with Jean somehow had not satisfied her, had not dispelled that intuition that troubled her, for all that he had laughed at her for it; and they had not, after all, settled what she was to do now that Uncle Gaston was gone, for, instead of talking more about it, Jean had forgotten all about her for ever so long while he had worked at the little clay figure.

Her eyes, from the window, fastened on the beacon with its open, outstretched arms--and, suddenly, confusion went and great tenderness came. He had made it for her, and he had said that--that it _was_ her.

”Jean's beacon,” she said softly.

And presently she went upstairs to the little attic room, and undressed, and blew out the candle; and, in her white night-robe, the black hair streaming over her shoulders, the moonlight upon her, she knelt beside the bed.

”Make me that, _mon Pere_,” she whispered; ”make me that--Jean's beacon all through my life.”

-- V --

”WHO IS JEAN LAPARDE?”

The mattress was of straw--and the straw had probably been garnered in a previous generation, if not in a prehistoric age! It was so old that it was a s.h.i.+fting, lumpy ma.s.s of brittle chaff, whose individual units at unexpected moments punctured the ticking and, nettle-wise, stuck through the coa.r.s.e sheet. It was not comfortable. It had not been comfortable all night. Truly, the best that could be said for the Bas Rhone was that, as Father Anton in his gentle way had taken pains to make it clear, its proprietors were well-intentioned--and that was a source of comfort only as far as it went!

Myrna Bliss wriggled drowsily into another position--and a moment later wriggled back into the old one. Then she opened her eyes, and stared about her. The morning sun was streaming in through the window. She observed this with sleepy amazement. After all then, she must have slept more than she had imagined, in spite of the awful bed.

The _lap-lap-lap_ of the sea came to her. In through the open window floated the voices of children at play in the street; from down on the beach the sound of men's voices, shouting and calling cheerily to each other, reached her; from below stairs some sort of a family reunion appeared to be in progress. She could hear that absurd Papa Fregeau talking as though he were a soda-water bottle with the cork suddenly exploded!

”Ah, _mignonne--cherie_! You are back! You will go away no more--not for a day! I have been in despair! It is the Americans! I have been miserable! _Tiens, embra.s.se-moi_, my little Lucille!”

There was the commotion of a playful struggle, then the resounding smack of a kiss--and then a woman's voice.

”Such a simpleton as you are, _mon_ Jacques!”--it was as though one were talking to a child. ”So they have put you in despair, these Americans! Well, then, I am back. And listen!”--importantly. ”What do you think?”

”Think?” cried Papa Fregeau excitedly. ”But I do not think!”