"That must be seen," returned the tall one firmly.

Again we all saluted and they left us, recovered their bicycles, and went spinning off back to Pont du Sable.

"_Nom d'un chien!_" muttered Tanrade, while the cure and I stared thoughtfully at a clump of gra.s.s.

"Why didn't he get me?" I ventured, after a moment.

"Foreigner," explained Tanrade. "You're in luck, old boy--no record of ident.i.ty, and how the devil do you suppose Le Bour could p.r.o.nounce your name?"

Half an hour later I found the Vicomte, who lived close to our village.

He was pacing up and down his salon in a rage.

"I was _not_ in the buckwheat!" he declared frantically. "Do you suppose I have nothing better to do, my friend, than see this wretched business out at the county-seat? The Vicomtesse is furious. We were to leave, for a little voyage in Italy, next week. Ah, that young son of the Baron! He is the devil! _He_ is responsible for this--naturally." And he fell again to pacing the room.

I looked blankly at the Vicomte.

"Son? What young son?" I asked.

The Vicomte stopped, with a gesture of surprise.

"Ah! _Sapristi!_ You do not know?" he exclaimed. "You do not know that Babette Deslys is Le Bour's daughter? That the Baron's son ran away with her and a hundred thousand francs? That the hundred thousand francs belonged to Le Bour? _Sapristi!_ You did not know _that_?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: sign: CHa.s.sE GARDEe]

[Ill.u.s.tration: the yellow car]

CHAPTER TEN

THE BELLS OF PONT DU SABLE

The big yellow car came ripping down the road--a clean hard ribbon of a road skirting the tawny marsh that lay this sparkling August morning under a glaze of turquoise blue water at high tide.

With a devilish wail from its siren, the yellow car whizzed past my house abandoned by the marsh. I was just in time, as I raised my head above the rambling wall of my courtyard, to catch sight of my good friend the cure on the back seat, holding on tight to his saucer-like hat. In the same rapid glance I saw the fluttering ends of a bottle-green veil, in front of the cure's nose and knew Germaine was driving.

"Lucky cure!" I said to myself, as I returned to my half-finished sketch, "carried off again to luncheon by one of the dearest of little women."

No wonder during his lonely winters, when every villa or chateau of every friend of his for miles around is closed, and my vagabond village of Pont du Sable rarely sees a Parisian, the cure longs for midsummer.

It is his gayest season, since hardly a day pa.s.ses but some friend kidnaps him from his presbytery that lies snug and silent back of the crumbling wall which hides both his house and his wild garden from the gaze of the pa.s.ser-by.

He is the kind of cure whom it is a joy to invite--this straight, strong cure, who is French to the backbone; with his devil-may-care geniality, his irresistible smile of a comedian, his quick wit of an Irishman, and his heart of gold.

To-day Germaine had captured him and was speeding him away to a jolly luncheon of friends at her villa, some twenty kilometres below Pont du Sable--Germaine with her trim, lithe figure and merry brown eyes, eyes that can become in a flash as calm and serious as the cure's, and in turn with her moods (for Germaine is a pretty collection of moods) gleam with the impulsive devilry of a _gamine_; Germaine, who teases an old vagabond painter like myself, by daubing a purple moon in the middle of my morning sketch, adds a dab on my nose when I protest, and the next instant embraces me, and begs my forgiveness.

I cannot conceive of anyone not forgiving Germaine, beneath whose firm and delicate beauty lies her warm heart, as golden in quality as the cure's.

Ah! It is gay enough in midsummer with Germaine and such other good Bohemians as Alice de Breville, Tanrade, and his reverence to cheer my house abandoned by the marsh.

I heard the yellow car tearing back to Pont du Sable late that night. It slowed down as it neared my walled domain, and with a wrenching grunt stopped in front of my gate. The next instant the door of my den opened and in rushed the cure.

"All of us to luncheon to-morrow at The Three Wolves!" he cried, flinging his hat on the floor; then bending, with a grin of satisfaction over the lamp chimney, he kindled the end of a fat cigarette he had rolled in the dark. His eyes were snapping, while the corners of his humorous mouth twitched in a satisfied smile. He strode up and down the room for some moments, his hands clasped behind him, his strong, sun-tanned face beaming in the glow of the shaded lamplight, while he listened to my delight over the pleasant news he had brought.

"Ah! They are good to me, these children of mine," he declared with enthusiasm. "Germaine tells me there is a surprise in store for me and that I am not to know until to-morrow, at luncheon. Beyond that, she would tell me nothing, the little minx, except that I managed to make her confess that Alice was in the secret."

He glanced at his watch, "Ah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "I must be getting to bed; you, too, my old one, for we must get an early start in the morning, if we are to reach The Three Wolves by noon." He recovered his hat from the floor, straightened up, brushed the cigarette ashes from the breast of his long black soutane, s.h.i.+ny from wear, and held out his strong hand.

"Sleep well," he counselled, "for to-morrow we shall be _en fete_."

Then he swung open my door and pa.s.sed out into the night, whistling as he crossed my courtyard a _cafe chantant_ air that Germaine had taught him.

A moment later, the siren of the yellow car sent forth its warning wail, and he was speeding back to his presbytery under the guidance of Germaine's chauffeur.

The cure was raking out the oysters; he stood on the sandy rim of a pool of clear sea-water that lay under the noonday sun like a liquid emerald.

As Monsieur le Cure plunged in his long rake and drew it back heavy with those excellent bivalves for which the restaurant at The Three Wolves has long been famous, his tall black figure, silhouetted against the distant sea and sky, reminded me of some great sea-crow fis.h.i.+ng for its breakfast.

To the right of him crouched the restaurant, a low wooden structure, with its back to the breakers. It has the appearance of being cast there at high tide, its zigzag line of tiled roofs drying in the air and sun, like the scaled sh.e.l.l of some stranded monster of the sea. There is a cavernous old kitchen within, resplendent in s.h.i.+ning copper--a busy kitchen to-day, sizzling in good things and pungent with the aroma of two tender young chickens, basting on a spit, a jolly old kitchen, far more enticing than the dingy long dining-room adjoining it, whose walls are frescoed in panels representing bottle-green lobsters, gaping succulent clams, and ferocious crabs sidling away indignantly from nets held daintily by fine ladies and their gallants, in costumes that were in vogue before the revolution. Even when it pours, this cheerless old dining-room at The Three Wolves is deserted, since there are half a score of far cosier little round pavilions for lovers and intimate friends, built over the oyster pools.

Beyond them, hard by the desolate beach, lie the rocks known as The Three Wolves. In calm weather the surf smashes over their glistening backs--at low water, as it happened to be to-day, the seethe of the tide scurried about their dripping bellies green with hairy sea-weed.

Now and then came cheery ripples of laughter from our little pavilion, where Germaine and Alice de Breville were arranging a ma.s.s of scarlet nasturtiums, twining their green leaves and tendrils amongst the plates of _hors d'oeuvres_ and among the dust-caked bottles of Chablis and Burgundy--Alice, whose dark hair and olive skin are in strong contrast to Germaine's saucy beauty.

They had banished Tanrade, who had offered his clumsy help--and spilled the sardines. He had climbed on the roof and dropped pebbles down on them through the cracks and had later begged forgiveness through the key-hole. Now he was yelling like an Indian, this celebrated composer of ballets, as he swung a little peasant maid of ten in a creaky swing beyond the pool--a dear little maid with eyes as dark as Alice's, who screamed from sheer delight, and insisted on that good fellow playing all the games that lay about them, from _tonneau_ to _bilboquet_.

Together, the cure and I carried the basket, now plentifully filled with oysters back to the kitchen, while Tanrade was hailed from the pavilion, much to the little maid's despair.

"_Depechez-vous!_" cried Alice, who had straightway embraced her exiled Tanrade on his return and was now waving a summons to the cure and myself.

"_Bon_," shouted back the cure. "_Allons, mes enfants, a table_--and the one who has no appet.i.te shall be cast into the sea--by the heels," added his reverence.

What a breakfast followed! Such a rus.h.i.+ng of little maids back and forth from the jolly kitchen with the great platters of oysters. What a sole smothered in a mussel sauce! What a lobster, scarlet as the cap of a cardinal and garnished with crisp romaine! and the chickens! and the mutton! and the _souffle_ of potatoes, and the salad of shrimps--_Mon Dieu!_ What a luncheon, "sprayed," as the French say, with that rare old Chablis and mellow Burgundy! And what laughter and camaraderie went with it from the very beginning, for to be at table with friends in France is to be _en fete_--it is the hour when hearts are warmest and merriest.

Ah, you dear little women! You who know just when to give those who love you a friendly pressure of the hand, or the gift of your lips if needs be, even in the presence of so austere a personage as Monsieur le Cure.

You who understand. You who are tender or merry with the mood, or contrary to the verge of exasperation--only to caress with the subtle light of your eyes and be forgiven.

It was not until we had reached our coffee and liqueur, that the surprise for the cure was forthcoming. Hardly had the tiny gla.s.ses been filled, when the clear tone of the bell ringing from the ancient church of The Three Wolves made us cease our talk to listen.

Alice turned to the cure; it was evidently the moment she had been waiting for.

"Listen," said Alice softly--"how delicious!"