His misfortune is common to all men who presume to take anything for granted from a woman.
Barebone, stumbling along in the dark in another direction, was as angry with Miriam as she in her turn was angry with Turner. She was, Barebone reflected, so uncompromising. She saw her course so clearly, so unmistakably—as birds that fly in the night—and from that course nothing, it seemed, would move her. It was a question of temperament1 and not of principle. For, even half a century ago, high principles were beginning to go out of fashion in the upper strata2 of a society which in these days tolerates anything except cheating at games.
Barebone himself was of a different temperament. He liked to blind himself to the inevitable3 end, to temporise with the truth, whereas Miriam, with a sort of dogged courage essentially4 English, perceived the hard truth at once and clung to it, though it hurt. And all the while Barebone knew at the back of his heart that his life was not his own to shape. At the end, says an Italian motto, stands Destiny. Barebone wanted to make believe; he wanted to pretend that his path lay down a flowery way, knowing all the while that he had a hill to climb and Destiny stood at the top.
Colville had come at the right time. It is the fate of some men to come at the right moment, just as it is the lot of others never to be there when they are wanted and their place is filled by a bystander and an opportunity is gone for ever. Which is always a serious matter, for God only gives one or two opportunities to each of us.
Colville had come with his ready sympathy, not expressed as the world expresses its sympathy, in words, but by a hundred little self-abnegations. He was always ready to act up to the principles of his companion for the moment or to act up to no principles at all should that companion be deficient5. Moreover, he never took it upon himself to judge others, but extended to his neighbour a large tolerance6, in return for which he seemed to ask nothing.
“I have a carriage,” he said, when on a broader cart-track they could walk side by side, “waiting for me at the roadside inn at the junction7 of the two roads. The man brought me from Ipswich to the outskirts8 of Farlingford, and I sent him back to the high road to wait for me there, to put up and stay all night, if necessary.”
Barebone was beginning to feel tired. The wind was abominably9 cold. He heard with satisfaction that Colville had as usual foreseen his wishes.
“I dogged Turner all the way from Paris, hardly letting him out of my sight,” Colville explained, cheerily, when they at length reached the road. “It is easy enough to keep in touch with one so remarkably10 stout11, for every one remembers him. What did he come to Farlingford for?”
“Apparently to try and buy me off.”
“For Louis Bonaparte?”
“He did not say so.”
“No,” said Colville. “He would not say so. But it is pretty generally suspected that he is in that galley12, and pulls an important oar13 in it, too. What did he offer you?”
“Fifty thousand pounds.”
“Whew!” whistled Colville. He stopped short in the middle of the road. “Whew!” he repeated, thoughtfully, “fifty thousand pounds! Gad14! They must be afraid of you. They must think that we are in a strong position. And what did you say, Barebone?”
“I refused.”
“Why?”
Barebone paused, and after a moment's thought made no answer at all. He could not explain to Dormer Colville his reason for refusing.
“Yes.”
Colville turned and glanced at him sideways, though it was too dark to see his face.
“I should have thought,” he said, tentatively, after a while, “that it would have been wise to accept. A bird in the hand, you know—a damned big bird! And then afterwards you could see what turned up.”
“You mean I could break my word later on,” inquired Barebone, with that odd downrightness which at times surprised Colville and made him think of Captain Clubbe.
“Well, you know,” he explained, with a tolerant laugh, “in politics it often turns out that a man's duty is to break his word—duty toward his party, and his country, and that sort of thing.”
Which was plausible17 enough, as many eminent18 politicians seem to have found in these later times.
“I dare say it may be so,” answered Barebone, “but I refused outright, and there is an end to it.”
For now that he was brought face to face with the situation, shorn of side issues and set squarely before him, he envisaged19 it clearly enough. He did not want fifty thousand pounds. He had only wanted the money for a moment because the thought leapt into his mind that fifty thousand pounds meant Miriam. Then he saw that little contemptuous smile tilting20 the corner of her lips, and he had no use for a million.
If he could not have Miriam, he would be King of France. It is thus that history is made, for those who make it are only men. And Clio, that greatest of the daughters of Zeus, about whose feet cluster all the famous names of the makers21 of this world's story, has, after all, only had the reversion of the earth's great men. She has taken them after some forgotten woman of their own choosing has had the first refusal.
Thus it came about that the friendship so nearly severed22 one evening at the Hotel Gemosac, in Paris, was renewed after a few months; and Barebone felt assured once more that no one was so well disposed toward him as Dormer Colville.
There was no formal reconciliation23, and neither deemed it necessary to refer to the past. Colville, it will be remembered, was an adept24 at that graceful25 tactfulness which is somewhat clumsily described by this tolerant generation as going on as if nothing had happened.
By the time that the waning26 moon was high enough in the eastern sky to shed an appreciable27 light upon their path, they reached the junction of the two roads and set off at a brisk pace southward toward Ipswich. So far as the eye could reach, the wide heath was deserted28, and they talked at their ease.
“There is nothing for it but to wake up my driver and make him take us back to Ipswich to-night. To-morrow morning we can take train to London and be there almost as soon as John Turner realises that you have given him the slip,” said Colville, cheerily.
“And then?”
“And then back to France—where the sun shines, my friend, and the spring is already in the air. Think of that! It is so, at least, at Gemosac, for I heard from the Marquis before I quitted Paris. Your disappearance29 has nearly broken a heart or two down there, I can tell you. The old Marquis was in a great state of anxiety. I have never seen him so upset about anything, and Juliette did not seem to be able to offer him any consolation30.”
“Back to France?” echoed Barebone, not without a tone of relief, almost of exultation31, in his voice. “Will it be possible to go back there, since we have to run away from Farlingford?”
“Safer there than here,” replied Colville. “It may sound odd, but it is true. De Gemosac is one of the most powerful men in France—not intellectually, perhaps, but by reason of his great name—and they would not dare to touch a protege or a guest of his. If you go back there now you must stay at Gemosac; they have put the chateau32 into a more habitable condition, and are ready to receive you.”
He turned and glanced at Loo's face in the moonlight.
“There will be a difference, you understand. You will be a different person from what you were when last there,” he went on, in a muffled33 voice.
“Yes, I understand,” replied Barebone, gravely. Already the dream was taking shape—Colville's persuasive34 voice had awakened35 him to find that it was no dream, but a reality—and Farlingford was fading back into the land of shadows. It was only France, after all, that was real.
“That journey of ours,” explained Colville, vaguely36, “has made an extraordinary difference. The whole party is aroused and in deadly earnest now.”
Barebone made no answer, and they walked on in meditative37 silence toward the roadside inn, which stood up against the southern sky a few hundred yards ahead.
“In fact,” Colville added, after a silence, “the ball is at your feet, Barebone. There can be no looking back now.”
And again Barebone made no answer. It was a tacit understanding, then.
For greater secrecy38, Barebone walked on toward Ipswich alone, while Colville went into the inn to arouse his driver, whom he found slumbering39 in the wide chimney corner before a log fire. From Ipswich to London, and thus on to Newhaven, they journeyed pleasantly enough in company, for they were old companions of the road, and Colville's unruffled good humour made him an easy comrade for travel even in days when the idea of comfort reconciled with speed had not suggested itself to the mind of man.
Such, indeed, was his foresight40 that he had brought with him to London, and there left awaiting further need of it, that personal baggage which Loo had perforce left behind him at the Hotel Gemosac in Paris.
They made but a brief halt in London, where Colville admitted gaily41 that he had no desire to be seen.
“I might meet my tailor in Piccadilly,” he said. “And there are others who may perhaps consider themselves aggrieved42.”
At Colville's club, where they dined, he met more than one friend.
“Hallo!” said one who had the ruddy countenance43 and bluff44 manners of a retired45 major. “Hallo! Who'd have expected to see you here? I didn't know—I—thought—eh! dammy!”
“All right, my boy,” answered Colville, cheerfully. “I am off to France to-morrow morning.”
The Major shook his head wisely as if in approval of a course of conduct savouring of that prudence47 which is the better part of valour, glanced at Loo Barebone, and waited in vain for an invitation to take a vacant chair near at hand.
“Still in the south of France, I suppose?”
“Still in the south of France,” replied Colville, turning to Barebone in a final way, which had the effect of dismissing this inquisitive48 idler.
While they were at dinner another came. He was a raw-boned Scotchman, who spoke49 in broken English when the waiter was absent and in perfect French when that servitor hovered50 near.
“I wish I could show my face in Paris,” he said, frankly51, “but I can't. Too much mixed up with Louis Philippe to find favour in the eyes of the Prince President.”
“Why?” asked Colville. “What could you gain by showing in Paris a face which I am sure has the stamp of innocence52 all over it?”
“Gain?” he answered. “Gain? I don't say I would, but I think I might be able to turn an honest penny out of the approaching events.”
“What events?”
“The Lord alone knows,” replied the Scotchman, who had never set foot in his country, but had acquired elsewhere the prudent54 habit of never answering a question. “France doesn't, I am sure of that. I am thinking there will be events, though, before long, Colville. Will there not, now?”
Colville looked at him with an open smile.
“You mean,” he said, slowly, “the Prince President.”
“That is what he calls himself at present. I'm wondering how long. Eh! man. He is just pouring money into the country from here, from America, from Austria—from wherever he can get it.”
“Why is he doing that?”
“You must ask somebody who knows him better than I do. They say you knew him yourself once well enough, eh?”
“He is not a man I have much faith in,” said Colville, vaguely. “And France has no faith in him at all.”
“So I'm told. But France—well, does France know what she wants? She mostly wants something without knowing what it is. She is like a woman. It's excitement she wants, perhaps. And she will buy it at any cost, and then find afterward16 she has paid too dear for it. That is like a woman, too. But it isn't another Bonaparte she wants, I am sure of that.”
“So am I,” answered Colville, with a side glance toward Barebone, a mere55 flicker56 of the eyelids57.
“Not unless it is a Napoleon of that ilk.”
“And he is not,” completed Colville..
“But—” the Scotchman paused, for a waiter came at this moment to tell him that his dinner was ready at a table nearer to the fire. “But,” he went on, in French, for the waiter lingered, “but he might be able to persuade France that it is himself she wants—might he not, now? With money at the back of it, eh?”
“He might,” admitted Colville, doubtfully.
The Scotchman moved away, but came back again.
“I am thinking,” he said, with a grim smile, “that like all intelligent people who know France, you are aware that it is a King she wants.”
“But not an Orleans King,” replied Colville, with his friendly and indifferent laugh.
The Scotchman smiled more grimly still and went away.
He was seated too near for Colville and Loo to talk of him. But Colville took an opportunity to mention his name in an undertone. It was a name known all over Europe then, and forgotten now.
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1
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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oar
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| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
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gad
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| n.闲逛；v.闲逛 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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43
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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47
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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49
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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50
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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51
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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52
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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55
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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