CHAPTER NINETEEN

I

PAGAN and Baron remained several days among the vine-terraced foothills of the Vosges. They passed from one sunny old walled town to another. They were days for the most part spent in the open air and sunshine, days of tramping through vineyards or over wooded hills, beside swift-running streams and cascades, or by brown castle ruins perched high on some craggy spur above the sun-drenched plain, of welcome midday halts at rustic inns among the woods or beside hill-ringed lakes, and of evening homecomings, tired and dusty, to feudal villages for welcome baths and food and peaceful pipes in the twilight, while the waggons rumbled slowly in from the vineyards and the storks’ nests showed dark against evening skies.

They were sunny, healthy, peaceful days such as they had revelled in a few days previously, but now for both of them the keener edge of happiness was dulled. They seldom spoke of Clare or Viger, but ever recurrent in their thoughts was that scarred ridge among the mountains and the shadow which it cast.

One day they found themselves again in Colmar. It was a hot afternoon when the green glazed tiles on the roof of the old Hotel de Ville shimmered like a tropic sea, and on the old historic houses, the inscriptions in florid gothic letters, red, blue and black seemed to waver on the dazzling yellow walls. Down by the canalized Lauch the kneeling washerwomen were rinsing their linen in the sparkling water or rubbing it with soap on the white scoured planks.

The narrow streets through which they sauntered were almost deserted, and they were surprised therefore, on turning a corner, to find a crowd running towards them.

“Hullo, what’s the excitement—free drinks!” exclaimed Pagan.

But Baron had caught sight of a familiar squat, blue-painted helmet in the distance. He grabbed Pagan by the arm and dragged him into a doorway.

“Free broken heads by the look of it,” he retorted. “This is where we buy picture postcards for Aunt Maud and look innocent, old Charles. Unless you are looking for trouble; which I am not.”

Already the van of the crowd was streaming by, men of the loafer type with flushed faces and hands that grasped sticks or stones. Close upon their heels followed the main press of the mob, a struggling, terror-stricken, stampeding horde, driven before a dozen troopers in horizon blue uniforms and steel helmets who urged their horses into the rabble and laid about them with the flat of their swords.

From the little haven in which they stood flattened against the door behind them, Pagan and Baron watched the turbulent flood surge by. The pursuing troopers passed quickly, and at the cross roads, split into three parties, scattering the mob into the side streets and alleys.

“Well, that’s that,” said Pagan grimly as they stepped out into the sunshine again. The street had resumed its sleepy, deserted air, and but for the solitary figure that rose from the roadway and limped painfully across the pavement to disappear up an alley, the hurrying mob of a few moments before might have been the fantasy of a dream.

“Short and sharp at any rate,” commented Baron.

Pagan nodded. “Yes—if that’s the end of it. Chiefly froth though that, I should think. No organization behind it. But a properly run show in Strasbourg, for example, might be unpleasant.”

“It might—very, if the authorities don’t get on to it in time,” agreed Baron. “But I expect they are pretty wide awake to what is going on.”

Pagan and Baron did not stay long in Colmar. The remaining days of their holiday were growing few in number, and they moved northwards towards Strasbourg which was to be their point of departure. But they dawdled on the way. They turned aside at Ribeauvillé to climb to the three ruined castles, perched high on the wooded hills around the little town, they tramped the winding corkscrew road from St. Hippolyte to the wooded heights above, whereon the pepperbox turrets and battlements of the great Haut-Koenigsbourg look out across the sunny plain, and they lingered in old-world Barr; but they came at last to Strasbourg with still three days to spare.

II

That night after dinner they strolled out into the town. At a café on the corner of the Place Kleber they stopped. Pagan glanced at Baron with one eyebrow raised, and then without a word they sat down at one of the little tables on the pavement.

“I like this French habit of outdoor caféing,” declared Pagan, as he leaned back in his chair and glanced up at the narrow scolloped awning above him. “It appeals to my inborn idleness to sit here idly watching the people passing by. And evening is by far the best time to indulge this strenuous pastime. You notice that now the good people saunter by. Something accomplished, something done, has earned an evening’s loaf! The day’s work is done, so why hurry?” He nodded towards a plump man and woman who were walking by arm and arm. “There’s father and mother with shining evening face—fresh from the wash basin—creeping like snail unwillingly to bed. And here in this young blood in képi and corsets we have the soldier, full of strange oaths and pomaded like the bawd, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow. And here, you see, we have a lady of the town with fair round features with good lipstick lined, with eyes demure and legs of shapely cut.”

“And very nice too!” put in Baron appreciatively.

“And as you say, very nice too,” agreed Pagan.

“And so they play their part. They stroll along the pavements, sit down for a space to drink a coffee or an apéritif and smoke a cigarette, and then saunter on to the next café. Yes, it’s a very good system: keeps one young and philosophical.”

“It has its points,” admitted Baron.

Behind them, within the open doors of the café, an orchestra was playing. When it ceased for a moment, the strain of other orchestras drifted across the square beneath the stars from the various cafés which surrounded it; and their gay lights gave to the night a festive air.

“What do you think about that, Charles?” asked Baron presently with a nod towards a notice which was pinned to one of the posts supporting the awning.

The notice stated that there was a special cabaret performance on an upper floor of the café. Below the notice was a framed photograph of some half-dozen girls with their hands resting on each other’s shoulders.

Pagan cocked an eye at the photograph and yawned. “Are they good to look upon?” he murmured.

“I don’t know,” answered Baron. “I can’t see from here. But there seems to be a good display of leg.”

“Your tastes are low,” retorted Pagan virtuously. “But as you are on a holiday, I suppose we must indulge them,” he added with a resigned air. He emptied his glass and rose languidly.

They passed up two flights of stairs, and were directed by a patriarchal waiter to a door labelled “Cabaret.” On the other side of the door their first impression was of many red-shaded lights reflected upon the polished floor and a faint blue haze of cigarette smoke. It was a long room, with a bar on a low raised platform at the far end. A few people were sitting on high stools at the bar. On the shelves behind it was an imposing array of bottles in which the various liquids twinkled like many-coloured lanterns. Down one side of the room ran a long, low, comfortably padded seat with short branches jutting from it at right-angles about every two yards, forming a series of little open alcoves in each of which stood a small table. On each of these little tables stood a card bearing the notice, “Reserved for Champagne.”

Baron nodded towards them. “There you are, Charles; if you want to get stung, now is your chance. Sweet champagne at two hundred francs a bottle is as good a method as any of chucking your money about.”

Apparently other people thought the same; for the little alcoves were unoccupied except for one small party and three or four ladies of the house who sat together combing their shingled hair with the aid of their small handbag mirrors. The other people sat on the long settee on the opposite side of the room or on the chairs and chesterfields at the end.

“Yes, the Englishman may take his pleasures sadly,” remarked Pagan as he sank into one of the chesterfields, “but the Frenchman takes his cannily. He is not such a fool as to go there.” He nodded towards the champagne-reserved alcoves. “Those notices should read, ‘reserved for Les Anglais and Les Américains.’”

The orchestra struck up, and several people rose and began to dance. Pagan ordered drinks and they sat idly watching the dancers.

Suddenly Baron exclaimed, “There’s young Cecil over there. By jove, yes, and Clare.” He gripped Pagan’s arm tightly. “And, my God, yes—Vigers! He’s got the mask on.”

Pagan had not seen Vigers since that tragic scene in the inn, and he found it difficult to believe that he was the tall, handsome man in dress clothes, sitting between Clare and Cecil. “Looks pretty all right from here,” he said at last.

Baron nodded his head abstractedly. “Yes,” he answered in a low voice. “It’s really very like he used to be; it gave me the devil of a jar for a moment. But it’s so … so dead. Poor Clare.”

They sat in silence for some moments, and then Baron stirred. “Well, hadn’t we better go over, Charles?” he suggested.

Pagan hesitated a moment and then nodded abruptly. Avoiding the dancers, they passed along the end of the room and up the other side.

“I am grieved to find you in these low haunts!” chaffed Baron as he halted before Clare.

She looked up at him and smiled. Her eyes travelled slowly from him to Pagan, lingered a moment, and then moved back again.

“Hullo, Dicky,” exclaimed Vigers. He nodded to Pagan. “Evening, Pagan. Yes, you find us leading a gay life.” His blue eyes smiled, but the expression of his marvellously lifelike face remained unchanged. He made room for Baron beside him. Pagan sat down on the far side of Cecil.

“Now that you have got away from me, Dicky, I hope you are not being too wild and dissolute!” smiled Clare.

“Well, I did think old Charles was a bit young for this sort of thing,” laughed Baron. “But having seen that photograph of all those legs outside, wild bison couldn’t hold him back.”

“I don’t believe you tried very hard, Dicky, did you?” she asked with a smile. “Cecil pretends to be bored with the whole proceeding,” she went on, “but I believe really he is thrilled to the marrow.”

“And so he ought to be,” said Vigers heartily. “When I was his age, a good leg shook me to the core.”

“Me too,” agreed Baron. “Only in those days the girls kept them all covered up.”

“Nowadays these young cubs have got blasé about it,” declared Vigers. “Whereas in my day when we did by chance catch a glimpse of one, we thanked God for it and looked the other way, didn’t we, Dicky?”

“We thanked God for it anyway,” agreed Baron.

A dark-haired little lady, beautifully dressed and with a very pleasing and attractive face, halted before them with a tray of roses. The tray was supported round her neck by a dark red ribbon, and she offered it to them very prettily, standing with her little feet close together.

Clare picked a dark red rose, and both Vigers and Baron thrust their hands into their pockets. Baron withdrew his with a grin. “Sorry. Of course it’s Roger’s prerogative now.”

“It is neither his nor yours,” retorted Clare with pretended pique. “I am buying this rose myself. I will leave you and Roger to buy them for the leggy ladies you talk so much about.”

She pinned the rose in her frock, and paid for it in that attractive way of hers that seemed to receive rather than confer a favour. The girl tilted her tray and offered it prettily to Baron, but he smiled and shook his head.

“You have not bought one, Dicky!” exclaimed Clare when the girl had passed on.

“I don’t know any of the ‘leggy ladies’,” laughed Baron.

“But if I were a man I simply could not refuse a pretty girl like that,” said Clare. “I think she is charming, absolutely charming.”

Baron watched the girl walk down the room. “She certainly is very nice,” he admitted.

“Of course she is, Dicky. You must dance with her later on.”

Presently the floor was cleared, and a troupe of six young girls did their acrobatic dance turn. Then the general dancing began again.

“Ask the pretty rose girl, Dicky,” prompted Clare.

“No,” replied Baron gallantly, “I am going to ask you.”

She shook her head. “I am not dancing to-night. Ask that charming little person.”

Baron hesitated, and Vigers exclaimed, “Good lord, Dicky, you used not to be so slow.”

Baron grinned. “Ask her yourself,” he retorted.

Vigers glanced across the room at the girl, who had laid aside the tray of roses and was sitting in a chair. Then he looked back at Clare. “She is rather nice, isn’t she!” he said, and his blue eyes smiled.

She smiled back at him, and her eyes were gentle and kind. She nodded her small head. “Yes, go along, Roger.”

Vigers heaved his tall straight form out of the seat and walked across the room. He halted before the little dark lady, and with his heels together, made her a bow. She turned her head quickly and as her eyes fell on his face she shrank back involuntarily in her chair. But the movement lasted but a fraction of a second. A moment later she was on her feet, her head daintily on one side, thanking him prettily and saying that she would be charmed to dance with him.

Back on the other side of the room, Cecil was talking golf to an inattentive Pagan; and Baron and Clare sat in embarrassed silence. Now that Vigers was not with her, he noticed a look of strain and weariness in her face. “Won’t you really dance?” he asked gently.

“Just this one then,” she conceded.

Cecil’s golf biography came to an end at last. “When are you going back?” he asked suddenly.

Pagan told him. “We thought we would have the last three days here,” he said. “We both like Strasbourg.”

“Not too bad a spot,” conceded Cecil. “But I have heard rumours of trouble here before long.”

“What sort of trouble?” asked Pagan.

“Political, you know. Things are working up to a head, from all accounts.”

Pagan nodded. “We ran in for a spot of it at Colmar,” he said. “But it did not come to much; though I thought there was probably plenty more wherever that came from.”

“Mostly hot air here too, I expect,” said Cecil.

When the music ceased, Clare and Baron sat down again. Vigers came back down the room and picked up his long cigarette holder. Clare looked up at him, and her face relaxed again into a kindly, affectionate smile. His eyes smiled back at her devotedly.

“Well, you have missed a lot, Dicky,” he said chaffingly as he sat down. “She dances divinely—almost as well as Clare. Her name is Yvonne, and …” He held out his hands and threw back his head in exaggerated rapture. “And she nestles against one like a … like a …”

“Bird,” suggested Baron with a grin.

Clare laughed.

“It was very nice, anyway,” said Vigers emphatically.

“I think I shall have to dance with her,” said Cecil suddenly. And he rose and strolled languidly across the room amid the subdued cheers of Baron and Vigers. Vigers rose and took Cecil’s vacant seat beside Pagan.

Pagan had taken but little part in the conversation. Marooned on the far side of Cecil, he had had little opportunity of doing so, even had that been his wish. He had spoken no more than half a dozen words to Clare, and those of a most banal kind. But now between him and her, he felt, there was no mean between banality and those deeper things that were forbidden.

With Vigers, however, conversation was less difficult. There was the common meeting ground of the war, and they were soon chatting easily about those bygone days in which they had so much in common.

“Vigers seemed very cheerful, I thought,” remarked Pagan as they walked back to their hotel through the deserted streets.

Baron nodded his head without conviction. “Yes—almost too cheerful to be genuine,” he added gloomily.