Lorraine, A Romance

He could not meet her eyes, he could scarcely reply to her shy questions.

When she saw the wounded horse she grieved over its smarting shoulder, and insisted on stabling it herself.

"Wait for me," she said; "I insist. You must find a glass of wine for yourself and go with old Pierre and dust your clothes. Then come back; I shall be in the arbour."

He looked after her until she entered the stables, leading the exhausted horse with a tenderness that touched him deeply. He felt so mean, so contemptible, so utterly beneath the notice of this child who stood grieving over his wounded horse.

A dusty and dirty and perspiring man is at a disadvantage with himself. His misdemeanours assume exaggerated proportions, especially when he is confronted with a girl in a cool gown that is perfumed by blossoms pure and spotless and fragrant as the young breast that crushes them.

So when he had found old Pierre and had followed him to a bath-room, the water that washed the stains from brow and wrist seemed also to purify the stain that is popularly supposed to resist earthly ablutions. A clean body and a clean conscience is not a proverb, but there are, perhaps, worse maxims in the world.

When he dried his face and looked into a mirror, his sins had dwindled a bit; when Pierre dusted his clothes and polished his spurs and boots, life assumed a brighter aspect. Fatigue, too, came to dull that busybody--that tireless, gossiping gadabout--conscience. Fatigue and remorse are enemies; slumber and the white flag of sleep stand truce between them.

"Pierre," he said; "get a dog-cart; I am going to drive to Morteyn. You will find me in the arbour on the lawn. Is the marquis visible?"

"No, Monsieur Jack, he is still locked up in the turret."

"And the balloon?"

"Dame! Je n'en sais rien, monsieur."

So Jack walked down-stairs and out through the porch to the lawn, where he saw Lorraine already seated in the arbour, placing the long-stemmed lilies in gilded bowls.

"It will be dark soon," he said, stepping up beside her. "Thank you for being good to my horse. Is it more than a scratch?"

"No--it is nothing. The horse shall stand in our stable until to-morrow. Are you very tired? Sit beside me. Do you care to tell me anything of what you did?"

"Do you care to know?"

"Of course," she said.

So he told her; not all, however--not of that ride and the chase and the shots from the saddle. But he spoke of the Emperor and the distant battle that had seemed like a scene in a painted landscape. He told her, too, of Georges Carrière.