The Second Class Passenger Part 25

"Bertin was not wise--if it were nothing more--to bring such a wife to Algiers. It turned eyes upon him. Those who had been aware of him merely as a man of low tastes now began to notice his particular actions. He had a house in a certain impa.s.se, and one night there was a brawl there--an affair of a man drunk and angry, of a knife drawn and some one stabbed. Before, it might have pa.s.sed; our discipline was indulgent; but now it took on the shape of a scandal. It was brief and ugly, but it marked a stage pa.s.sed in Bertin's career. And it was only two days later that Vaucher came to me in my quarters with a manner at once deprecating and defiant. He sat in my arm-chair and laughed quietly before he spoke."

"'I am looking for friends,' he said; 'for a pair of friends.'"

"Then, of course, I understood. I bade him count on me. 'And there is also de Sailles,' I reminded him. 'He has a very just taste in these affairs. But who is our opponent?'"

"'It is Bertin,' he answered."

"I was astonished, and he told me all. It was an episode of quixotry, a thing entirely imprudent and altogether lovable in him. It chanced that on the evening of Bertin's little--er--fracas, Vaucher had pa.s.sed by the impa.s.se in which Bertin lived. He had heard the scream of the man with the knife in him and paused. It was a dark night, and in the impa.s.se there was but one lamp which stood near Bertin's door.

There was a babble of many voices after that scream--shouts of fury, the whining of the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, and so on; he was about to pa.s.s on, when Bertin's door opened and a woman slipped out and stood listening on the pavement. Her att.i.tude was that of one ready to flee, terrified but uncertain. As the noises within died down she relapsed from her tense pose and showed her face to Vaucher in the light of the lamp. It was Madame Bertin. She did not see him where he waited, and all of a sudden her self-possession snapped like a twig you break in your fingers. She was weeping, leaning against the wall, weeping desolately, in an abandonment of humiliation and impotence.

But Vaucher was not moved when he told me of it."

"'That I could have endured,' he said. 'I held my peace and did not intrude upon her. But presently they brought the wounded man downstairs, and Bertin came forth to seek a fiacre to take him away.

She heard him ere he came out and gained thus the grace of an instant. There was never anything in life so pitiful, so moving, as the woman's strength that strangled down her sobs, dried the tears at their source, and showed to her husband a face as calm as it was cold. He spoke to her and she gave him a word in answer. But'--and he leaned forward in my chair and struck his fist on the arm of it--'but that poor victory is sore in my memory like a scar."

"All that was comprehensible. Vaucher was a man of heart. 'But what is the quarrel?' I demanded."

"'The quarrel!' he repeated. 'Let me see; what was it, now?' He had actually forgotten. 'Oh yes. He spoke to me. That was it. He spoke to me, and I desired him not to speak to me for the future, of course.'

"Madame, up to the time when I went with Vaucher to the ground I had not given a thought to the issue of the affair. I had taken it for granted that Bertin would go down; at such seasons, one is blinded by one's sense of right. It lasted not two minutes. They fought with the saber--our custom at that time. Though it was early in the morning, there was a strong sun; it made a flame on the blades as they saluted before engaging. Bertin was very sober and serious, but one had only to glance at him to perceive a very heat of wrath masked under his heavy countenance. Vaucher was intent, wary, full of careful purpose.

Their blades touched. 'All'ez!' There were a couple of moments of fencing, of almost formal escrime, and then Vaucher lengthened his arm and attacked. Bertin stepped back a pace, and, as Vaucher advanced, he slashed with a high open cut, and it was over. Vaucher threw up both hands and came to his knees. I remember that I stood, unable to move, staring aghast at this end to the affair; while Bertin threw down his sword, turned his back, and went to where his clothes lay. At that moment he seemed as vast against the morning sky as a monument, as a sphinx carved out of a mountain. He had spoken no word."

"We took Vaucher back to the city. It was a cut in the head. Madame shall be spared the particulars. I think he is living yet, but it was the end of him, none the less."

The little Colonel's voice dropped on the last words. He did not take the sympathy and friends.h.i.+p that waited for him in Elsie's grey eyes; he looked with a somber gaze at the Comtesse. She still held her favorite att.i.tude, leaning a little to one side in her great chair, so that she could watch the s.h.i.+fting shapes in the fire. She was smiling slightly, but her smile vanished as the Colonel paused.

"He was a gallant gentleman," she said softly. Elsie turned her head to look at her, surprised, for the thing was said perfunctorily, in the manner of a commonplace of politeness.

Colonel Saval bowed. "Madame la Comtesse is only just," he said. But he glanced sharply at her serene, preoccupied face with a manner of some dissatisfaction.

He resumed his tale with a sigh. "After all," he said, "there is not much to tell. I was not fortunate enough to meet Madame Bertin frequently during the two years that followed. From time to time I saw her, always with some wonder, for she preserved to the end that delicate and superb quality which so distinguished her. The scandal of the brawl was the small thing that was needed to turn Bertin's course downhill; almost from that day one could mark his decline. It was not a matter of incidents; it was simply that within a year most of us were pa.s.sing him without recognition, and there was talk of debts that troubled him. He had deteriorated, too; whereas of old he was florid, now he was inflamed and gross; where he had been merely loud, he was now coa.r.s.e. Within eighteen months the Colonel had made him a scene, had told him sour truths, and shaken his finger at him.

That power of his, Madame, was not the power that enables a man to hold his level. Even with the companions of his leisure, his ascendancy faded. I recollect seeing him once, at the corner of the Place du Gouvernement, in the centre of a group of them, raging almost tearfully, while they laughed at him. The horrible laughter of those outcasts, edged like a saw, cruel and vile! And he was purple with fury, shaking like a man in an ague, and helpless against them.

I was young in those days and not incapable of generous impulses; I recollect that as I pa.s.sed I jostled one of those creatures out of the path, and then turned and waited for the remonstrance which he decided not to make."

The Comtesse nodded at the fire, like one well pleased. The little Colonel gave her another of his shrewd glances and went on.

"As you see, Madame, it is not possible to describe to you the steps by which Bertin sank. The end came within two years of the duel. One knew--somehow--that it was at hand. There were things dropped in talk, things overheard and pieced together--a whole atmosphere of scandal, in which there came and went little items of plain fact. The trouble was with regimental funds; again I will spare Madame the details; but certain of them which should have pa.s.sed through Bertin's hands had not arrived at their destination. Clerks from a bank came to work upon the accounts; strange, cool young men, who hunted figures through ledgers as a ferret traces a rat under a floor. You must understand that for the regiment it was a monstrous matter, an affair to hide sedulously; it touched our intimate honor.

There was a meeting of the rest of us to consider the thing; finally, it was I that was deputed to go forthwith to Bertin and persuade him to leave the city, to vanish, to do his part to save our credit. And that evening, as soon as it was dark enough to be convenient, I went."

"There was still that light in the impa.s.se by which my poor friend Vaucher had seen Madame Bertin weeping; but from the windows of the house there came none. It was shuttered like a fort. It was not till I had knocked many times upon the door that there came any response.

At last I heard bolts being withdrawn--bolt after bolt, as if the place had been a prison or a treasury; and Madame Bertin herself stood in the entry. The one lamp in the impa.s.se showed her my uniform, and she breathed like one who had been running."

"I saluted her and inquired for Bertin."

"'Captain Bertin?' she repeated after me. 'I do not know--I fear----'"

"'My business with him is urgent,' I told her, and at that she whitened. 'And unofficial,' I added, therefore."

"At that she stood aside for me to enter. I aided her to fasten the door again, and she led me up the stairs to a small room, divided by large doors from an inner chamber."

"'If you will please be seated,' she said, 'I will send Captain Bertin in to you.'"

"She was thinner, I thought, and perhaps a trifle less a.s.sured; but that was to be understood. For the rest, she had the deliberate tones of the salon, the little smile of a convention that is not irksome.

Her voice, her posture, had that grace one knows and defers to at sight. It was all very wonderful to come upon in that house. As she left the room, her profile shone against the wall like a cameo, so splendid in its pallor and the fineness of its outline."

"She must have gone from the pa.s.sage by another entrance to the room beyond the double doors, for I heard her voice there--and his. They spoke together for some minutes, she at length, but he shortly; and then the doors slid apart a foot or so, and he came through sideways.

He gave me a desperate look, and pulled at the doors to close them behind him. They stuck and resisted him, and he ceased his efforts at once."

"'You wanted to speak to me?' he asked. He seemed to be frowning as a child will frown to keep from bursting into tears. 'But not officially, I believe? It is not official, is it?'"

"'No,' I answered. 'It is a message--quite private.'"

"He ceased to frown at that, staring at me heavily, and chewing his moustache."

"'Sit down,' he said suddenly, and came nearer, glancing over his shoulder at the aperture of the doors. Something in that movement gave me the suggestion that he was accustomed to guard against eavesdroppers; all those poor forlorn gamesters and wastrels are full of secrets and privacies. One sees them for ever in corners with furtive eyes for listeners, guiding their business like conspirators."

"I gave him my message at once. There was a need upon me for plain speech with the man, like that need for cold steel which came upon poor Vaucher."

"'There is time for you to make your packages and be gone,' I said.

'Time for that and no more, and I recommend you to let the packages be few. If you go, you will not be sought for. That is what I have to say to you.'"

"He glanced over his shoulder again and came a step nearer. 'You mean----'he said, and hesitated."

"'The money? Yes,' I answered. 'That is what I mean. You will go?"

"He stared at me a moment in silence. I felt as if I had struck him and spat in his face. But he had no such thought."

"'How long have I?' he asked suddenly."

"'You have to-night,' I answered."

"It seemed as if he were going to ask further questions, but at that moment Madame Bertin appeared in the doorway behind him. I knew she had heard our talk.

"'Your business is finished?' she asked carelessly, coming forward into the room."

"'It is quite finished,' I replied."

"She nodded, smiling. 'Captain Bertin has to catch a train,' she said, 'and if I did not watch the time for him, he would surely lose it. He has no idea of punctuality.'"

"'I hope he has not much packing to do,' I said."

"'I have seen to that,' she replied."

"'Then I will not intrude upon your adieux,' I said, preparing to depart. Ma foi, I was ready to weep, as Vaucher had wept, at the gay courage of her. But she stopped me."

"'Oh, the adieux are complete like the packing,' she said. 'And if you should have anything further to say to Captain Bertin, you can drive with him to the station.'"

"I could see her meaning in that; my company would guard him till he left. So I bowed."

"'I shall be very happy,' I said."