The Adventures of a Modest Man

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XXIV

  A JOURNEY TO THE MOON

  There was a silence so politely indifferent on her part that he felt itto be the signal for his dismissal. And he took his leave with aformality so attractive, and a good humour so informal, that before shemeant to she had spoken again--a phrase politely meaningless in itself,yet--if he chose to take it so--acting as a stay of execution.

  "I was wondering," he said, amiably, "how I was going to climb back overthe wall."

  A sudden caprice tinged with malice dawned in the most guileless ofsmiles as she raised her eyes to his:

  "You forgot your ladder this time, didn't you?"

  Would he ever stop getting redder? His ears were afire, and feltenormous.

  "I am afraid you misunderstood me," she said, and her smile becamepitilessly sweet. "I am quite sure a distinguished foreign angler couldscarcely condescend to notice trespass signs in a half-ruined oldpark----"

  His crimson distress softened her, perhaps, for she hesitated, thenadded impulsively: "I did not mean it, monsieur; I have gone toofar----"

  "No, you have not gone too far," he said. "I've disgraced myself anddeserve no mercy."

  "You are mistaken; the trout may have come from your side of thewall----"

  "It did, but that is a miserable excuse. Nothing can palliate myconduct. It's a curious thing," he added, bitterly, "that a fellow whois decent enough at home immediately begins to do things in Europe."

  "What things, monsieur?"

  "Ill-bred things; I might as well say it. Theoretically, poaching isromantic; practically, it's a misdemeanor--the old conflict betweenrealism and romance, madame--as typified by a book I am at presentreading--a copy of the same book which I notice you are now carryingunder your arm."

  She glanced at him, curious, irresolute, waiting for him to continue.And as he did not, but stood moodily twirling his cap like a sulkyschoolboy, she leaned back against a tree, saying: "You are very severeon romance, monsieur."

  "You are very lenient with reality, madame."

  "How do you know? I may be far more angry with you than you suspect.Indeed, every time I have seen you on the wall--" she hesitated, palinga trifle. She had made a mistake, unless he was more stupid than shedared hope.

  "But until this morning I had done nothing to anger you?" he said,looking up sharply. Her features wore the indifference of perfectrepose; his latent alarm subsided. She had made no mistake in hisstupidity.

  And now, perfectly conscious of the irregularity of the proceedings,perhaps a trifle exhilarated by it, she permitted curiosity to stirbehind the curtain, ready for the proper cue.

  "Of course," he said, colouring, "I know you perfectly well bysight----"

  "And I you, monsieur--perfectly well. One notices strangers,particularly when reading so frequently about them in romance. Thisbook"--she opened it leisurely and examined an illustration--"appears todescribe the American quite perfectly. So, having read so much aboutAmericans, I was a trifle curious to see one."

  He did not know what to say; her youthful face was so innocent thatsuspicion subsided.

  "That American you are reading about is merely a phantom of romance," hesaid honestly. "His type, if he ever did exist, would become such apublic nuisance in Europe that the police would take charge ofhim--after a few kings and dukes had finished thrashing him."

  "I do not believe you," she said, with a hint of surprise and defiance."Besides, if it were true, what sense is there in destroying thepleasure of illusion? Romance is at least amusing; reality alone is asorry scarecrow clothed in the faded rags of dreams. Do you think you dowell to destroy the tinted film of romance through which every womanever born gazes at man--and pardons him because the rainbow dims hervision?"

  She leaned back against the silver birch once more and laid her whitehand flat on the open pages of the book:

  "Monsieur, if life were truly like this, fewer tears would fall fromwomen's eyes--eyes which man, in his wisdom, takes pains to clear--tohis own destruction!"

  She struck the book a light blow, smiling up at him:

  "Here in these pages are spring and youth eternal--blue skies and roses,love and love and love unending, and once more love, and the world'syoung heart afire! Close the book and what remains?" She closed thecovers very gently. "What remains?" she asked, raising her blue eyes tohim.

  "You remain, madame."

  She flushed with displeasure.

  "And yet," he said, smiling, "if the hero of that book replied as I haveyou would have smiled. That is the false light the moon of romance shedsin competition with the living sun." He shrugged his broad shoulders,laughing: "The contrast between the heroine of that romance and youproves which is the lovelier, reality or romance----"

  She bit her lips and looked at him narrowly, the high colour pulsatingand dying in her cheeks. Under cover of the very shield that should haveprotected her he was using weapons which she herself had sanctioned--theimpalpable weapons of romance.

  Dusk, too, had already laid its bloom on hill and forest and had spun ahaze along the stream--dusk, the accomplice of all the dim, jewelledforms that people the tinted shadows of romance. Why--if he haddispleased her--did she not dismiss him? It is not with a question thata woman gives a man his conge.

  "Why do you speak as you do?" she asked, gravely. "Why, merely becauseyou are clever, do you twist words into compliments. We are scarcely onsuch a footing, monsieur."

  "What I said I meant," he replied, slowly.

  "Have I accorded you permission to say or mean?"

  "No; that is the fashion of romance--a pretty one. But in life,sometimes, a man's heart beats out the words his lips deliver untrickedwith verbal tinsel."

  Again she coloured, but met his eyes steadily enough.

  "This is all wrong," she said; "you know it; I know it. If, in the womanstanding here alone with you, I scarcely recognise myself, you,monsieur, will fail to remember her--if chance wills it that we meetagain."

  "My memory," he said in a low voice, "is controlled by your mind. Whatyou forget I cannot recall."

  She said, impulsively, "A gallant man speaks as you speak--in agreeablebooks of fiction as in reality. Oh, monsieur"--and she laughed a pretty,troubled laugh--"how can you expect me now to disbelieve in my Americansof romance?"

  She had scarcely meant to say just that; she did not realise exactlywhat she had said until she read it in his face--read it, saw that hedid not mean to misunderstand her, and, in the nervous flood of relief,stretched out her hand to him. He took it, laid his lips to the fragrantfingers, and relinquished it. Meanwhile his heart was choking him likethe clutch of justice.

  "Good-by," she said, her outstretched hand suspended as he had releasedit, then slowly falling. A moment's silence; the glow faded from thesky, and from her face, too; then suddenly the blue eyes glimmered withpurest malice:

  "Having neglected to bring your ladder this time, monsieur, pray acceptthe use of mine." And she pointed to a rustic ladder lying half-buriedin the weedy tangle behind him.

  He gave himself a moment to steady his voice: "I supposed there was aladder here--somewhere," he said, quietly.

  "Oh! And why did you suppose--" She spoke too hurriedly, and she beganagain, pleasantly indifferent: "The foresters use a ladder for pruning,not for climbing walls."

  He strolled over to the thicket, lifted the light ladder, and set itagainst the wall. When he had done this he stepped back, examining theeffect attentively; then, as though not satisfied, shifted it a trifle,surveyed the result, moved it again, dissatisfied.

  "Let me see," he mused aloud, "I want to place it exactly where it wasthat night--" He looked back at her interrogatively. "Was it about whereI have placed it?"

  Her face was inscrutable.

  "Or," he continued, thoughtfully, "was it an inch or two this way? Icould tell exactly if the moon were up. Still"--he considered the ladderattentively--"I might be able to fix it with some accuracy if you wouldhelp me. Will you?"

  "I do
not understand," she said.

  "Oh, it is nothing--still, if you wouldn't mind aiding me to settle amatter that interests me--would you?"

  "With pleasure, monsieur," she said, indifferently. "What shall I do?"

  So he mounted the ladder, crossed the wall, and stood on a stone nicheon his side, looking down at the ladder. "Now," he said, "if you wouldbe so amiable, madame, as to stand on the ladder for one moment youcould aid me immensely."

  "Mount that ladder, monsieur?"

  She caught his eyes fixed on her; for just an instant she hesitated,then met them steadily enough; indeed, a growing and innocent curiositywidened her gaze, and she smiled and lifted her pretty shoulders--just atrifle, and her skirts a trifle, too; and, with a grace that made himtremble, she mounted the ladder, step by step, until her head andshoulders were on a level with his own across the wall.

  "And now?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  "The moon," he said, unsteadily, "ought to be about--there!"

  "Where?" She turned her eyes inquiringly skyward.

  But his heart had him by the throat again, and he was past all speech.

  "Well, monsieur?" She waited in sweetest patience. Presently: "Have youfinished your astronomical calculations? And may I descend?" He tried tospeak, but was so long about it that she said very kindly: "You aretrying to locate the moon, are you not?"

  "No, madame--only a shadow."

  "A shadow, monsieur?"--laughing.

  "A shadow--a silhouette."

  "Of what?"

  "Of a--a woman's head against the moon."

  "Monsieur, for a realist you are astonishingly romantic. Oh, you see Iwas right! You do belong in a book."

  "You, also," he said, scarcely recognising his own voice. "Men--inbooks--do well to risk all for one word, one glance from you; men--inbooks--do well to die for you, who reign without a peer in allromance----"

  "Monsieur," she faltered.

  But he had found his voice--or one something like it--and he said: "Youare right to rebuke me; romance is the shadow, life the substance; and_you_ live; and as long as you live, living men must love you; as I loveyou, Countess of Semois."

  "Oh," she breathed, tremulously, "oh,--you think _that_? You think _I_am the Countess of Semois? And _that_ is why----"

  For a moment her wide eyes hardened, then flashed brilliant with tears.

  "Is that your romance, monsieur?--the romance of a Countess! Is yourdeclaration for mistress or servant?--for the Countess or for hersecretary--who sometimes makes her gowns, too? Ah, the sorry romance!Your declaration deserved an audience more fitting----"

  "My declaration was made a week ago! The moon and you were audienceenough. I love you."

  "Monsieur, I--I beg you to release my hand----"

  "No; you must listen--for the veil of romance is rent and we are face toface in the living world! Do you think a real man cares what title youwear, if you but wear his name? Countess that you are _not_--if you sayyou are not--but woman that you _are_, is there anything in Heaven orearth that can make love _more_ than love? Veil your beautiful true eyeswith romance, and answer me; look with clear, untroubled eyes uponthrobbing, pulsating life; and answer me! Love is no more, no less,than love. I ask for yours; I gave you mine a week ago--in our firstkiss."

  Her face was white as a flower; the level beauty of her eyes set himtrembling.

  "Give me one chance," he breathed. "I am not mad enough to hope that thelightning struck us both at a single flash. Give me, in your charity, achance--a little aid where I stand stunned, blinded, alone--you who canstill see clearly!"

  She did not stir or speak or cease to watch him from unwavering eyes; heleaned forward, drawing her inert hands together between his own; butshe freed them, shivering.

  "Will you not say one word to me?" he faltered.

  "Three, monsieur." Her eyes closed, she covered them with her slenderhands: "I--love--you."

  * * * * *

  Before the moon appeared she had taken leave of him, her hot, young facepressed to his, striving to say something for which she found no words.In tremulous silence she turned in his arms, unclasping his hands andyielding her own in fragrant adieu.

  "Do you not know, oh, most wonderful of lovers--do you not know?" hereyes were saying, but her lips were motionless; she waited, reluctant,trembling. No, he could not understand--he did not care, and theknowledge of it suffused her very soul with a radiance that transfiguredher.

  So she left him, the promise of the moon silvering the trees. And hestood there on the wall, watching the lights break out in the windows ofher house--stood there while his soul drifted above the world of moonlitshadow floating at his feet.

  "Smith!"

  Half aroused, he turned and looked down. The moonlight glimmered onKingsbury's single eyeglass. After a moment his senses returned; hedescended to the ground and peered at Kingsbury, rubbing his eyes.

  With one accord they started toward the house, moving slowly, shoulderto shoulder.

  "Not that I personally care," began Kingsbury. "I am sorry only onaccount of my country. I was, perhaps, precipitate; but I purchased onehundred and seven dolls of Mademoiselle Plessis--her privatesecretary----"

  "What!"

  "With whom," continued Kingsbury, thoughtfully, "I am agreeably in love.Such matters, Smith, cannot be wholly controlled by a sense of duty toone's country. Beauty and rank seldom coincide except in fiction. Itappears"--he removed his single eyeglass, polished it with hishandkerchief, replaced it, and examined the moon--"it appears," hecontinued blandly, "that it is the Countess of Semois who is--ah--so tospeak, afflicted with red hair.... The moon--ahem--is preternaturallybright this evening, Smith."

  After a moment Smith halted and turned, raising his steady eyes to thatpale mirror of living fire above the forest.

  "Well," began Kingsbury, irritably, "can't you say something?"

  "Nothing more than I have said to her already--though she were Empressof the World!" murmured Smith, staring fixedly at the moon.

  "Empress of _what_? I do not follow you."

  "No," said Smith, dreamily, "you must not try to. It is a long journeyto the summer moon--a long, long journey. I started when I was a child;I reached it a week ago; I returned to-night. And do you know what Idiscovered there? Why, man, I discovered the veil of Isis, and I lookedbehind it. And what do you suppose I found? A child, Kingsbury, a wingedchild, who laughingly handed me the keys of Eden! What do you think ofthat?"

  But Smith had taken too many liberties with the English language, andKingsbury was far too mad to speak.