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Page 93
And this whimsical turn caused even the admiral to struggle with a
smile. He was a square, generous old sailor. He stretched his hand
across the table. M. Ferraud took it, but with a shade of doubt.
"You are a good man, Mr. Ferraud. I'm terribly disappointed. All my
life I have been goose-chasing for treasures, and this one I had set my
heart on. You've gone about it the best you could. If you had told me
from the start there wouldn't have been any fun."
"That is it," eagerly assented M. Ferraud. "Why should I spoil your
innocent pleasure? For a month you have lived in a fine adventure, and
no harm has befallen. And when you return to America, you will have an
unrivaled story to tell; but, I do not think you will ever tell all of
it. He will have paid in wretchedness and humiliation for his
inheritance. And who has a better right to it? Every coin may
represent a sacrifice, a deprivation, and those who gave it freely,
gave it to the blood. Is it sometimes that you laugh at French
sentiment?"
"Not in Frenchmen like you," said the admiral gravely.
"Good! To men of heart what matters the tongue?"
"Poor young man!" sighed Laura. "I am glad he has found it. Didn't I
wish him to have it?"
"And you knew all this?" said Cathewe into the ear of the woman he
loved.
Thinly the word came through her lips: "Yes."
Cathewe's chin sank into his collar and he stared at the crumbs on the
cloth.
"But what meant this argument with the drivers?" asked Coldfield.
"Yes! I had forgotten that," supplemented the sailor.
"On the way back to Carghese, we should have been stopped. We were to
be quietly but effectively suppressed till our Napoleon set sail for
Marseilles." M. Ferraud bowed. He had no more to add.
The admiral shook his head. He had come to Corsica as one might go to
a picnic; and here he had almost toppled over into a gulf!
The significance of the swift glance which was exchanged between M.
Ferraud and Fitzgerald was not translatable to Laura, who alone caught
it in its transit. An idea took possession of her, but this idea had
nothing to do with the glance, which she forgot almost instantly.
Woman has a way with a man; she leads him whither she desires, and
never is he any the wiser. She will throw obstacles in his way, or she
will tear down walls that rise up before him; she will make a mile out
of a rod, or turn a mountain into a mole-hill: and none but the Cumaean
Sibyl could tell why. And as Laura was of the disposition to walk down
by the cemetery, to take a final view of the sea before it melted into
the sky, what was more natural than that Fitzgerald should follow her?
They walked on in the peace of twilight, unmindful of the curiosity of
the villagers or of the play of children about their feet. The two
were strangely silent; but to him it seemed that she must presently
hear the thunder of his insurgent heart. At length she paused, gazing
toward the sea upon which the purples of night were rapidly deepening.
"And if I had not made that wager!" he said, following aloud his train
of thought.
"And if I had not bought that statuette!" picking up the thread. If
she had laughed, nothing might have happened. But her voice was low
and sweet and ruminating.
The dam of his reserve broke, and the great current of life rushed over
his lips, to happiness or to misery, whichever it was to be.
"I love you, and I can no more help telling you than I can help
breathing. I have tried not to speak, I have so little to offer. I
have been lonely so long. I did not mean to tell you here; but I've
done it." He ceased, terrified. His voice had diminished down to a
mere whisper, and finally refused to work at all.
Still she stared out to sea.
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