"Why _poor_, Pierre?" I laughed, "with an estate like this--nonsense!"

"Ah! Monsieur does not know?"--Pierre's voice sunk to a whisper--"the chateau is mortgaged, monsieur. There is not a tree or a field left Monsieur de Savignac can call his own. Do you know, monsieur, he has no longer even the right to shoot over the ground? Monsieur sees that low roof beyond with the single chimney smoking--just to the left of the chateau towers?"

I nodded.

"That is where Monsieur de Savignac now lives. It is called the garconniere."

"But the chateau, Pierre?"

"It is rented to a Peruvian gentleman, monsieur, who takes in boarders."

"Pierre!" I exclaimed, "we go no farther. I knew nothing of this. I am not going to accept a dog from a gentleman in Monsieur de Savignac's unfortunate circ.u.mstances. It is not right. No, no. Go and present my deep regrets to Monsieur de Savignac and tell him--tell him what you please. Say that my rich uncle has just sent me a pair of pointers--that I sincerely appreciate his generous offer, that--"

Pierre's small black eyes opened as wide as possible. He shrugged his shoulders twice and began twisting thoughtfully the waxed ends of his moustache to a finer point.

"Pardon, monsieur," he resumed after an awkward pause, "but--but monsieur, by not going, will grieve Monsieur de Savignac--He will be so happy to give monsieur the dog--so happy, monsieur. If Monsieur de Savignac could not give something to somebody he would die. Ah, he gives everything away, that good Monsieur de Savignac!" exclaimed Pierre. "I was once groom in his stables--_oui_, monsieur, and he married us when he was Mayor of Hirondelette, and he paid our rent--_oui_, monsieur, and the doctor and...."

"We'll proceed, Pierre," said I. "A man of de Savignac's kind in the world is so rare that one should do nothing to thwart him."

We walked on for some distance along the edge of a swamp carpeted with strong ferns. Presently we came to a cool, narrow alley flanked and roofed by giant poplars. At the end of this alley a wicket gate barred the entrance to the courtyard of the garconniere.

As we drew nearer I saw that its ancient two-story facade was completely covered by the climbing ma.s.s of ivy and yellow roses, the only openings being the Louis XIV. windows, and the front door, flush with the gravelled court, bordered by a thick hedge of box.

"Monsieur the American gentleman for the dog," announced Pierre to the boy servant in a blue ap.r.o.n who appeared to open the wicket gate.

A moment later the door of the garconniere opened, and a tall, heavily built man with silver white hair and beard came forth to greet me.

I noticed that the exertion of greeting me made him short of breath, and that he held his free hand for a second pressed against his heart as he ushered me across his threshold and into a cool, old-fas.h.i.+oned sitting room, the walls covered with steel engravings, the furniture upholstered in green rep.

"Have the goodness to be seated, monsieur," he insisted, waving me to an armchair, while he regained his own, back of an old-fas.h.i.+oned desk.

"Ah! The--little--dog," he began, slowly regaining his breath. "You are all the time shooting, and I heard you wanted one. It is so difficult to get a really--good--dog--in this country. Francois!" he exclaimed, "You may bring in the little dog--and, Francois!" he added, as the boy servant turned to go--"bring gla.s.ses and a bottle of Musigny--you will find it on the shelf back of the Medoc." Then he turned to me: "There are still two bottles left," and he laughed heartily.

"Bien, monsieur," answered the boy, and departed with a key big enough to have opened a jail.

The moment had arrived for me to draw forth a louis, which I laid on his desk in accordance with an old Norman custom, still in vogue when you accept as a gift a dog from an estate.

"Let your domestics have good cheer and wine to-night," said I.

"Thank you," he returned with sudden formality. "I shall put it aside for them," and he dropped the gold piece into a small drawer of his desk.

I did not know until Pierre, who was waiting outside in the court, told me afterwards, that his entire staff of servants was composed of the boy with the blue ap.r.o.n and the cook--an old woman--the last of his faithful servitors, who now appeared with a tray of trembling gla.s.ses, followed by the boy, the dusty cobwebbed bottle of rare Musigny and--my dog!

Not a whole dog. But a flub-dub little spaniel puppy--very blond--with ridiculously long ears, a double-barrelled nose, a roly-poly stomach and four heavy unsteady legs that got in his way as he tried to navigate in a straight line to make my acquaintance.

"_Voila!_" cried de Savignac. "Here he is. He'll make an indefatigable hunter, like his mother--wait until he is two years old--He'll stand to his day's work beside the best in France----"

"And what race is he? may I ask, Monsieur de Savignac."

"Gorgon--Gorgon of Poitou," he returned with enthusiasm. "They are getting as rare now as this," he declared, nodding to the cobwebbed bottle, as he rose, drew the cork, and filled my gla.s.s.

While we sipped and chatted, his talk grew merry with chuckles and laughter, for he spoke of the friends of his youth, who played for him and sang to him--the thing which he loved most of all, he told me.

"Once," he confessed to me, "I slipped away and travelled to Hungary.

Ah! how those good gipsies played for me there! I was drunk with their music for two weeks. It is stronger than wine, that music of the gipsies," he said knowingly.

Again our talk drifted to hunting, of the good old times when hares and partridges were plentiful, and so he ran on, warmed by the rare Musigny, reminiscing upon the old days and his old friends who were serious sportsmen, he declared, and knew the habits of the game they were after, for they seldom returned with an empty game-bag.

"And you are just as keen about shooting as ever?" I ventured.

"I shoot no more," he exclaimed with a shrug. "One must be a philosopher when one is past sixty--when one has no longer the solid legs to tramp with, nor the youth and the digestion to _live_. Ah! Besides, the life has changed--Paris was gay enough in my day. I _lived_ then, but at sixty--I stopped--with my memories. No! no! beyond sixty it is quite impossible. One must be philosophic, eh?"

Before I could reply, Madame de Savignac entered the room. I felt the charm of her personality, as I looked into her eyes, and as she welcomed me I forgot that her faded silk gown was once in fas.h.i.+on before I was born, or that madame was short and no longer graceful. As the talk went on, I began to study her more at my ease, when some one rapped at the outer door of the vestibule. She started nervously, then, rising, whispered to Francois, who had come to open it, then a moment later rose again and, going out into the hall, closed the door behind her.

"Thursday then," I heard a man's gruff voice reply brusquely.

I saw de Savignac straighten in his chair, and lean to one side as if trying to catch a word of the m.u.f.fled conversation in the vestibule. The next instant he had recovered his genial manner to me, but I saw that again he laboured for some moments painfully for his breath.

The door of the vestibule closed with a vicious snap. Then I heard the crunch of sabots on the gravelled court, and the next instant caught a glimpse of the stout, brutal figure of the peasant Le Gros, the big dealer in cattle, as he pa.s.sed the narrow window of the vestibule.

It was _he_, then, with his insolent, b.e.s.t.i.a.l face purple with good living, who had slammed the door. I half started indignantly from my chair--then I remembered it was no affair of mine.

Presently madame returned--flushed, and, with a forced smile, in which there was more pain than pleasure, poured for me another gla.s.s of Musigny. I saw instantly that something unpleasant had pa.s.sed--something unusually unpleasant--perhaps tragic, and I discreetly rose to take my leave.

Without a word of explanation as to what had happened, Madame de Savignac kissed my dog good-bye on the top of his silky head, while de Savignac stroked him tenderly. He was perfectly willing to come with me, and c.o.c.ked his head on one side.

We were all in the courtyard now.

"_Au revoir_," they waved to me.

"_Au revoir_," I called back.

"_Au revoir_," came back to me faintly, as Pierre and the doggie and I entered the green lane and started for home.

"Monsieur sees that I was right, is it not true?" ventured Pierre, as we gained the open fields. "Monsieur de Savignac would have been grieved had not monsieur accepted the little dog."

"Yes," I replied absently, feeling more like a marauder for having accepted all they had out of their hearts thrust upon me.

Then I stopped--lifted the roly-poly little spaniel, and taking him in my arms whispered under his silky ear: "We shall go back often, you and I"--and I think he understood.

A few days later I dropped into Madame Vinet's snug little cafe in Pont du Sable. It was early in the morning and the small room of the cafe, with barely s.p.a.ce enough for its four tables still smelt of fresh soap suds and hot water. At one of the tables sat the peasant in his black blouse, sipping his coffee and applejack.

Le Gros lifted his sullen face as I entered, s.h.i.+fted his elbows, gripped the clean marble slab of his table with both his red hands, and with a shrewd glint from his small, cruel eyes, looked up and grunted.

"Ah!--_bonjour_, monsieur."

"_Bonjour_, Monsieur Le Gros," I replied. "We seem to be the only ones here. Where's the patronne?"