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“At what time?”

She leaned forward and laid a warning hand on his arm. “Why did Corvenaire leave her all that money–why?”

“But why not–why shouldn’t he?” Jean stammered, indignant. Then she unpacked her bag–a heap of vague insinuations, baseless conjectures, village tattle, all, at the last analysis, based, as he succeeded in proving, and making her own, on a word launched at random by a discharged maid-servant who had retailed her grievance to the cure’s housekeeper. “Oh, she does what she likes with Monsieur le Marquis, the young miss! She knows how….” On that single phrase the neighbourhood had raised a slander built of adamant.

Well, I’ll give you an idea of what a determined fellow Rechamp is, when I tell you he pulled it down–or thought he did. He kept his temper, hunted up the servant’s record, proved her a liar and dishonest, cast grave doubts on the discretion of the cure’s housekeeper, and poured such a flood of ridicule over the whole flimsy fable, and those who had believed in it, that in sheer shamefacedness at having based her objection on such grounds, his grandmother gave way, and brought his parents toppling down with her.

All this happened a few weeks before the war, and soon afterward Mlle. Malo came down to Rechamp. Jean had insisted on her coming: he wanted her presence there, as his betrothed, to be known to the neighbourhood. As for her, she seemed delighted to come. I could see from Rechamp’s tone, when he reached this part of his story, that he rather thought I should expect its heroine to have shown a becoming reluctance–to have stood on her dignity. He was distinctly relieved when he found I expected no such thing.

“She’s simplicity itself–it’s her great quality. Vain complications don’t exist for her, because she doesn’t see them… that’s what my people can’t be made to understand….”

I gathered from the last phrase that the visit had not been a complete success, and this explained his having let out, when he first told me of his fears for his family, that he was sure Mlle. Malo would not have remained at Rechamp if she could help it. Oh, no, decidedly, the visit was not a success….

“You see,” he explained with a half-embarrassed smile, “it was partly her fault. Other girls as clever, but less–how shall I say?–less proud, would have adapted themselves, arranged things, avoided startling allusions. She wouldn’t stoop to that; she talked to my family as naturally as she did to me. You can imagine for instance, the effect of her saying: ‘One night, after a supper at Montmartre, I was walking home with two or three pals’–. It was her way of affirming her convictions, and I adored her for it–but I wished she wouldn’t!”

And he depicted, to my joy, the neighbours rumbling over to call in heraldic barouches (the mothers alone–with embarrassed excuses for not bringing their daughters), and the agony of not knowing, till they were in the room, if Yvonne would receive them with lowered lids and folded hands, sitting by in a pose de fiancee while the elders talked; or if she would take the opportunity to air her views on the separation of Church and State, or the necessity of making divorce easier. “It’s not,” he explained, “that she really takes much interest in such questions: she’s much more absorbed in her music and painting. But anything her eye lights on sets her mind dancing–as she said to me once: ‘It’s your mother’s friends’ bonnets that make me stand up for divorce!'” He broke off abruptly to add: “Good God, how far off all that nonsense seems!”

IV

The next day we started for Rechamp, not sure if we could get through, but bound to, anyhow! It was the coldest day we’d had, the sky steel, the earth iron, and a snow-wind howling down on us from the north. The Vosges are splendid in winter. In summer they are just plump puddingy hills; when the wind strips them they turn to mountains. And we seemed to have the whole country to ourselves–the black firs, the blue shadows, the beech-woods cracking and groaning like rigging, the bursts of snowy sunlight from cold clouds. Not a soul in sight except the sentinels guarding the railways, muffled to the eyes, or peering out of their huts of pine-boughs at the cross-roads. Every now and then we passed a long string of seventy-fives, or a train of supply waggons or army ambulances, and at intervals a cavalryman cantered by, his cloak bellied out by the gale; but of ordinary people about the common jobs of life, not a sign.