14 
—————— 
THE GUEST 
OF QUESNAY 
By Booth Tarkington 
Copyright, 1908, by the McClure Company 
Copyright, 1907, 1908, by the Ridgway Company 
[CoNTINUED.] 
CHAPTER V. 
Y ankle bad taken its wonted 
time to recover. 1 was on 
my feet again and into the 
woods. 
July came, and one afternoon I sat 
in the mouth of the path just where 
I had played the bounding harlequin 
for the benefit of the lovely visitor at 
Quesnay. 
1 heard the light snapping of a twig 
and a swish of branches from the 
direction in which | faced. Evidently 
some one was approaching the glade, 
though concealed from me for the mo- 
ment by the winding of the path. Tak- 
ing it for Saffren as a matter of 
course—for we had arranged to meet 
gt that time and place—l raised my 
voice in what | intended for a merry 
yodel of greeting. 
1 yodeled loud, I yodeled long, and 
my best performance was not unsug- 
gestive of calamity in the poultry yard. 
And when my mouth was at its wid- 
est in the production of these shock- 
ing ulla hootings the person approach- 
ing came round a turn in the path and 
within full sight of me. ‘Yo my hor- 
ror it was Mme. d’Armand. 
1 grew so furiously red that it burn- 
ed me. I was plainly a Junatic, whoop- 
ing the lonely peace of the woods into 
pandemonium. She kept straight on. 
Then suddenly, while 1 waited in siz 
gling shame, a clear voice rang out 
from a distance in an answering yodel 
to mine. There was a final call, clear 
and loud as a bugle, and she turned 
to the direction whence it came. Then 
Oliver Saffren came running lightly 
round the turn of the path. He stop- 
ped short. 
Her hand pressed against her side. 
He lifted his hat and spoke to her, 
and I thought she made some quick 
reply in a low voice, though I could 
not be sure. 
She held that startled attitude a mo- 
ment longer, then turned ard crossed 
the glade so hurriedly that it was al- 
most as if she ran away from him. 
She did not seem to see me. Her dark 
eyes stared widely straight ahead, her 
lips were parted, and she looked white 
and frightened. 
I stepped out to meet him, indignant 
upon several counts, most of all upon 
his own. 
“You spoke to that lady” And my 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
aa! Sy 
A, 
We 
Uf Ke 
scag' i Eee 
0 5 
Her dark eyes stared widely straight 
ahead. 
voice sounded unexpectedly harsh and 
sharp to my own ears, for I had meant 
to speak quietly. 
“JT know—I know. It—it was wrong,” 
he stammered. “I knew I shouldn’t— 
and I couldn’t help it.” 
“You expect me to believe that?” 
“It’s the truth. I couldn’t!” 
I laughed skeptically. “I don't un- 
derstand. It was all beyond me,” he 
added huskily. 
“What was it you said to her?” 
“] spoke her name—‘Mme. d’Ar- 
mand.’” 
“You said more than that!” 
“J asked her if she would let me 
see her again.” 
“What else?” 
“Nothing.” he answered humbly. 
“And then she—then for a moment it 
seemed—for a moment she didn’t seem 
to be able to speak”— 
“J should think not!’ I shouted and 
burst out at him with satirical laugh- 
ter. He stood patiently enduring it. 
his lowered eyes following the aimless 
movements of his hands, which were 
twisting and untwisting his flexible 
straw hat. 
“But she did say something to you, 
didn’t she?” I asked finally. 
“She said, ‘Not now! That was all.” 
“J suppose that was all she had 
breath for! It was just the inconse- 
quent and meaningless thing a fright- 
ened woman would say!” 
“Meaningless?” he repeated 
looked up wonderingly. 
“Did you take it for an appoint- 
ment?” I roared. 
“No, no, no! She said only that and 
the’ a ae 
“Then she turned and ran away from 
you!” 
and 
“Yes,” he said, swallowing painfully. 
“That pleased you.” I stormed, “to 
frighten a woman in the woods" 
I set about packing my traps, grum- 
bling various sarcasms, the last mut- 
terings .of a departed storm, for al- 
ready I realized that I had taken out 
my own mortification upon him, and I 
was stricken with remorse. 
“] wouldn’t have frightened her for 
the world.” he finally said. and his 
voice and his body shook with a 
strange violence. “I wouldn't have 
frightened her to please the angels in 
heaven!” 
I stared at him helplessly, nor could 
| find words to answer or control the 
passion that my imbecile scolding had 
avoked. 
“You think I told a lie!’ he cried. 
“You think I lied when I said I could 
not help speaking to her!” 
“No, no,” I said earnestly. 
mean”— 
“Words!” He swept the feeble protest 
away, drowned in a whirling vehe- 
mence. “And what does it matter: 
You can’t understand. When you want 
to know what to do you look back into 
your life and it tells you, and | look 
back—ah!" He cried out, uttering a 
half choked, incoherent syllable. “I 
look back and it’s all—blind! All these 
things you can do and can’t do—all 
these infinite little things! You know, 
and Keredeec knows, and Glouglou 
knows, and every mortal soul on earth 
knows, but I don’t know! Your life 
has taught you, and you know, but | 
don’t know. I haven't had my life. 
It’s gone! All I have is words that 
Keredec has suid to me. I would burn 
my hand from my arm and my arm 
from my body rather than trouble her 
or frighten her, but I couldn’t help 
speaking to her any more than I can 
help wanting to see her again.” 
He paused. wiping from his brow a 
heavy dew, not of the heat, but like 
that on the forehead of a man in cru- 
celal pain. 1 made nervous haste to 
seize the opportunity and said gently, 
almost timidly: 
“But if it should distress the lady ?” 
“Yes—then I could keep away. But 
I must know that.” 
“I think you might know it by her 
running away—and by her look,” IL 
- said mildly. “Didn't you?” 
“No!” And his eyes flashed an added 
emphasis. 
“Well, well,” I said, “let’s be on our 
way.” 
“TI don't believe she was distressed,” 
he went on. ‘There was something, 
but it wasn't trouble. We looked 
straight at each other. I saw her eyes 
plainly, and it was”’—he paused and 
sighed, a sudden, brilliant smile upon 
his lips—“it was very—it was very 
strange!” 
There was something so glad and 
different in his look that, like any otb- 
er dried up old blunderer in my place, 
I felt an instant tendency to laugh. It 
was that heathenish possession, the 
old insanity of the risibles, which 
makes a man think it a humorous thing 
that his friend should be discovered in 
“J didn’t 
love. 
“But if yy a" | said, “if 
: voy nS: 
it did tronty if it happened 
that she ba had too muc 
that was gj her life”— 
“You know » about her!” he 
exclaimed. ay 
“IT do not" ited in turn. “y 
have Only 4 yess. [| may be 
altogether nh 
“What igjlmm guess?” he de- 
manded ah ho made her 
suffer?” 
“T think it ysband.” I said, 
With 2 lack on for which lL 
was instantiimearing with rea- 
son that |} qa final blunder 
to the long} fternoon—“that 
is,” 1 added dimes is right 
“Is be alinfiimmed sharply. 
“T don't ky rned emphatic- 
ally. ‘Problimentirely mistaken 
in thinking @iifow anything of 
her whatevgimgther not say any 
more until] 
“Very well quickly. “Will 
you tell me} 
“Yes—if ji it go at that.” 
“Thank yogmgaid and, with an 
impu'se whi too plainly one 
of gratitudelime his band. 1 
took it, and was disquieted 
within me,ffmas no purpose of 
mine to semes on foot in re- 
gard to thed@miMme. d' Armand. 
It was exe From the court- 
yard of theme the sounds of 
laughter almigfing voices. Be- 
fore the ell™ptood a couple of 
open tourin(iie chauffeurs en- 
gaged in (mii@rear tires with 
buckets of mmiglght by a person- 
age Moyo as Glougiou, 
whose ras he perform- 
ed this leathern digni- 
tarie at | wondered [I 
had 
Shim with any 
presi 
AS archway 
we tall man who 
was comilt intending 
to speak 
The strilmmbed back with a 
word 1 took note of 
him for: am aren 
worldly but ~d. 
We wert en he ut- 
tered an OM™met surprise and 
stepped fot holding out his: 
hand to By Mm and °x¥claim- 
ing: 
owhere ! me from? Tq 
hardly batt . 
Oliver § BC 3 of the 
profrered MEU Meued visibly 
and said: 
“1 thins t be some mis- 
take.” 
“So thet e othe; prompt- 
ly. oa 3 by a resem- 
plance: *) 
He rifted » £0ing on,. 
and we etl yard to tind 
a _cheerft! & or ten men 
and wo but a couple of 
tables. ; 
1 went ® my pa 
vilion am my lamp 
get about” or dinner. 
‘rhe party outside, breaking up pres- 
ently, could be heard moving toward 
the archway with increased noise and 
laughter. A girl’s voice (a very at- 
tractive voice) called, “Oh, Cressie, 
aren’t you coming?” and a man’s re- 
plied from vear my veranda, “Only 
stopping to light a cigar.” 
A flutter of skirts and a patter of 
feet betokened that the girl came run- 
ning back to join the smoker. “Cres- 
sie,” I heard her say in an eager, low- 
ered tone, “who was that devastating 
ereature in white flannels?” 
The man chuckled. ‘Matinee sort 
of devastator—what? Monte Cristo 
hair, noble profile’— 
“You’d better tell me,” she interrupt- 
ed earnestly, “if you don’t want me to 
ask the waiter.” 
“But I don’t know him.” 
“J saw you speak to him.” 
“J thought it was a man I met three 
years ago out in San Francisco, but I 
was mistaken. There was a slight re- 
semblance. This fellow might have 
been a rather decent younger brother 
of the man I knew. He was the”’— 
My strong impression was that if the 
speaker had not been interrupted at 
this point he would have said some- 
thing very unfavorable to the charac- 
ter of the man he had met in San 
Francisco. 
I caught a last word from the girl 
as the pair moved away. 
“T’7ll come back here with a band 
tomorrow night and serenade the beau- 
tiful one.” 
“Monsieur is served,’ said Amedee, 
looking in at my door five minutes 
later. 
“You have passed a great hour just 
now, Amedee.” 
“Tt was like the old days, truly!’ 
“They are off for Trouville, I sup- 
pose?” 
“No, monsieur; they are on their way 
to visit the chateau and stopped here 
only because the run from Paris had 
made the tires too hot.” 
“To visit Quesnay, you mean?” 
“Truly. But monsieur need give him- 
self no uneasiness. I did not mention 
to any one that monsieur is here. His 
Name was not spoken. Mlle. Ward re- 
turned to the chateau today.” be add- 
ed. “She has been in England.”’ 
“Quesnay will be gay,” I said, com- 
ing out to the table. 
CHAPTER VI. 
HAD finished dressing next morn- 
ing and was strapping my things 
together for the day’s campaign 
when I heard a shuffling step 
upon the porch and the door opened 
gently without any previous ceremony 
of knocking, admitting Amedee with a 
breakfast tray. 
“Monsieur,” he said, nodding in a 
panic toward the courtyard, ‘Mlle. 
Ward is out there!’ 
“What!” But I did not shout the 
‘word. 
“Probably Mlle. Ward has only come 
to talk with Mme. Brossard.”’ 
“I fear some of those people may 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE. 
nave toid ner you were here,” oe ven- 
tured insinuatingly. 
“What people?” I asked, drinking my 
coffee calmly, yet, it must be confess- 
ed, without quite the deliberation I 
eould have wished. 
“Those who stopped yesterday even- 
ing on the way to the chateau. They 
might have recognized”’— 
“Impossible. I knew none of them.” 
“But Mlle. Ward knows that you are 
here without doubt.”’ 
“Why do you say so?” 
“Because she has inquired for you.” 
“So! I rose at once and went to- 
ward the door. “Why didn’t you tell 
me at once?” 
He saw the menace coiling in my eye 
and hurriedly retreated. 
“Monsieur!” he gasped, backing away 
from me, and as his hand, fumbling 
behind him, found the latch of the 
door, he opened it and scrambled out 
by a sort of spiral movement round 
the casing. When 1 followed a mo- 
ment later, with my traps on my 
shoulder and the packet of sandwiches 
in my pocket, he was out of sight. 
Miss Elizabeth sat beneath the arbor 
at the other end of the courtyard, and 
beside her stood the trim and glossy 
bay saddle horse that she had ridden 
from Quesnay, his head outstretched 
above his mistress to paddle at the 
vine leaves with a tremulous upper lip. 
An expression in the lady's attitude 
and air which I instinctively con- 
strued as histrionic seemed intended 
to convey that she had been kept wait- 
ing, yet had waited without reproach, 
and, although she must: have heard me 
coming, she did not look toward me 
until! I was quite near and spoke her 
Vy 
Rigs , 
€ i y 
if 
OTT 
Miss Elizabeth sat beneath the arbor, and 
beside her stood the saddle horse. ~ 
name. At that she sprang up quickly 
enough and stretched out her hand to 
me. . 
Rane TO BE CONTINUED.] 
15 
“Kun to earth?’ she cried, advancing 
a step to meet me. 
“A pretty poor trophy of the chase,” 
said I, “but proud that you are its 
killer.” 
To my surprise and mystification her 
cheeks and brow flushed rosily. She 
was obviously conscious of it and 
laughed. 
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. 
CU (hots 
“Yes, you, poor man! I suppose I 
couldn’t have more thoroughly com- 
promised you. Mme. Brossard will 
never believe in your respectability 
again.” 
“Oh, yes, she will,” said I. 
“What! A lodger who has ladies 
ealling upon him at 5 o’clock in the 
morning! But your bundle’s on your 
shoulder,’ she rattled on, laughing, 
“though there’s many could be bolder, 
and perhaps you’d let me walk a bit 
of the way with you if you're for the 
road.” 
“Perhaps I will,’ said I. She caught 
up her riding skirt, fastening it by a 
clasp at her side, and we passed out 
through the archway and went slowly 
along the road bordering the forest, 
her horse following obediently at half 
rein’s length. 
“When did you hear that I was at 
Mme. Brossard’s?” I asked. 
“Ten minutes after J returned to 
Quesnay late yesterday afternoon.” 
“Who told you?” 
“Louise.” 
I repeated the name questioningly. 
“You mean Mrs, Larrabee Harman?” 
“Louise Harman,” she _ corrected. 
“Didn’t you know she was staying at 
Quesnay ?” 
“J guessed it, though Amedee got the 
name confused.” 
“Yes; she’s been kind enough to look 
after the place for us while we were 
away. George won't be back for an- 
other ten days, and I’ve been over- 
seeing an exhibition for him in Lon- 
don. Afterward I did a round of visits— 
tiresome enough, but among people it’s 
well to keep in touch with on George’s 
account.” 
“T see,” I said, with a grimness which 
probably escaped her. “But.how did 
Mrs. Harman know that I was at Les 
Trois Pigeons?” 
“She met you once in the forest”— 
“Twice,” I interrupted. 
“She mentioned only once. Of course 
she’d often heard both George and me 
speak of you.” 
“But bow did she know it was I and 
where | was staying?” 
“Oh, that!’ Her smile changed to a 
laugh. “Your maitre d’hotel told Fer- 
ret, a gardener at Quesnay, that you 
were at the inn.” 
“He did!” 
“Oh, but you mustn't be angry with 
him. He made it quite all right.” 
“How did he do that?" | asked, try- 
ing to speak calmly, though there was 
that in my mind which might have 
blanched the parchment cheek of a 
grand inquisitor. 
