Lorraine

Below, a boy appeared, leading Rickerl's horse from the stables; there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!" And always the burden of the busy voices was the same, menacing, incredulous, half-whispered, but always the same—"War! war! war!"

Booted and spurred, square-shouldered and muscular in his corded riding-suit, Rickerl passed the terrace again after the last adieux. The last? No, for as his heavy horse stamped out across the drive a voice murmured his name, a hand fell on his arm.

"Dorothy," he whispered, bending from his saddle.

"I love you, Ricky," she gasped.

And they say women are cowards!

He lifted her to his breast, held her crushed and panting; she put both hands before her eyes.

"There has never been any one but you; do you believe it?" he stammered.

"Yes."

"Then you are mine!"

"Yes. May God spare you!"

And Rickerl, loyal in little things, swung her gently to the ground again, unkissed.

There was a flurry of gravel, a glimpse of a horse rearing, plunging, springing into the darkness—that was all. And she crept back to the terrace with hot, tearless lids, that burned till all her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little biniou man from the Côte-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence that her little slippered feet echoed along the gravel—War! war!

At the foot of the steps which skirted the terrace she met her brother and Lorraine watching the groom rubbing down the messengers' horses. A lantern, glimmering on the ground, shed a sickly light under their eyes.

"Dorrie," said Jack, "Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh think that we all should start for Paris by the early train. They have already sent some of our trunks to Saint-Lys; Mademoiselle de Nesville"—he turned with a gesture almost caressing to Lorraine—"Mademoiselle de Nesville has generously offered her carriage to help transport the luggage, and she is going to wait until it returns."

"And uncle—and our aunt De Morteyn?"

"I shall stay at Morteyn until they decide whether to close the house and go to Paris or to stay until October. Dorrie, dear, we are very near the frontier here."

"There will be no invasion," said Lorraine, faintly.

"The Rhine is very near," repeated Dorothy. She was thinking of Rickerl.

"So you and Betty and Cecil," continued Jack, "are to go with the Heskeths to Paris. Poor little Alixe is crying her eyes out up-stairs. She and Barbara Lisle are going to Cologne, where Ricky will either find them or have his father meet them."

After a moment he added, "It seems incredible, this news. They say, in the village, that the King of Prussia insulted the French ambassador, Count Benedetti, on the public promenade of Ems. It's all about that Hohenzollern business and the Spanish succession. Everybody thought it was settled, of course, because the Spanish ambassador said so, and Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern withdrew his claim. I can't understand it; I can scarcely believe it."

Dorothy stood a moment, looking at the stars in the midnight sky. Then she turned with a sigh to Lorraine.

"Good-night," she said, and they kissed each other, these two young girls who an hour before had been strangers.

"Shall I see you again? We leave by the early train," whispered Dorothy.

"No—I must return when my carriage comes back from the village. Good-by, dear—good-by, dear Dorothy."

A moment later, Dorothy, flinging her short ermine-edged cloak from her shoulders, entered the empty ballroom and threw herself upon the gilded canapé.

One by one the candles spluttered, glimmered, flashed up, and went out, leaving a trail of smoke in the still air. Up-stairs little Alixe was sobbing herself to sleep in Barbara's arms; in his own chamber the old vicomte paced to and fro, and to and fro, and his sweet-faced wife watched him in silence, her thin hand shading her eyes in the lamplight. In the next room Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh sat close together, whispering. Only Betty Castlemaine and Cecil Page had lost little of their cheerfulness, perhaps because neither were French, and Cecil was not going to the war, and—after all, war promised to be an exciting thing, and well worth the absorbed attention of two very young lovers. Arm in arm, they promenaded the empty halls and galleries, meeting no one save here and there a pale-faced maid or scared flunky; and at length they entered the gilded ballroom where Dorothy lay, flung full length on the canapé.

She submitted to Betty's caresses, and went away to bed with her, saying good-night to Cecil in a tear-choked voice; and a moment later Cecil sought his own chamber, lighted a pipe, and gave himself up to delightful visions of Betty, protected from several Prussian army-corps by the single might of his strong right arm.

At the foot of the terrace, Lorraine de Nesville stood with Jack, watching the dark drive for the lamps of the returning carriage. Her maid loitered near, exchanging whispered gossip with the groom, who now stood undecided, holding both horses and waiting for orders. Presently Jack asked him where the messengers were, and he said he didn't know, but that they had perhaps gone to the kitchens for refreshments.

"Go and find them, then; here, give me the bridles," said Jack; "if they are eating, let them finish; I'll hold their horses. Why doesn't Mademoiselle de Nesville's carriage come back from Saint-Lys? When you leave the kitchens, go down the road and look for it. Tell them to hurry."

The groom touched his cap and hastened away.

"I wish the carriage would come—I wish the carriage would hurry," repeated Lorraine, at intervals. "My father is alone; I am nervous, I don't know why. What are you reading?"

"My telegram from the New York Herald," he answered, thoughtfully.

"It is easy to understand now," she said.

"Yes, easy to understand. They want me for war correspondent."

"Are you going?"

"I don't know—" He hesitated, trying to see her eyes in the darkness. "I don't know; shall you stay here in the Moselle Valley?"

"Yes—I suppose so."

"You are very near the Rhine."

"There will be—there shall be no invasion," she said, feverishly. "France also ends at the Rhine; let them look to their own!"

She moved impatiently, stepped from the stones to the damp gravel, and walked slowly across the misty lawn. He followed, leading the horses behind him and holding his telegram open in his right hand. Presently she looked back over her shoulder, saw him following, and waited.

"Why, will you go as war correspondent?" she asked when he came up, leading the saddled horses.

"I don't know; I was on the Herald staff in New York; they gave me a roving commission, which I enjoyed so much that I resigned and stayed in Paris. I had not dreamed that I should ever be needed—I did not think of anything like this."

"Have you never seen war?"

"Nothing to speak of. I was the Herald's representative at Sadowa, and before that I saw some Kabyles shot in Oran. Where are you going?"

"To the river. We can hear the carriage when it comes, and I want to see the lights of the Château de Nesville."

"From the river? Can you?"

"Yes—the trees are cut away north of the boat-house. Look! I told you so. My father is there alone."

Far away in the night the lights of the Château de Nesville glimmered between the trees, smaller, paler, yellower than the splendid stars that crowned the black vault above the forest.

After a silence she reached out her hand abruptly and took the telegram from between his fingers. In the starlight she read it, once, twice; then raised her head and smiled at him.

"Are you going?"