Presently the candle-light gave place to moonlight, and they found themselves on the terrace, seated, listening to the voice of the wind in the forest; and they heard the little river Lisse among the rushes and the murmur of leaves on the eaves.
When they became aware of their own silence they turned to each other with the gentle haste born of confusion, for each feared that the other might not understand. Then, smiling, half fearful, they reassured each other with their silence.
She was the first to break the stillness, hesitating as one who breaks the seal of a letter long expected, half dreaded: "I came late because my father was restless, and I thought he might need me. Did you hear cannon along the Rhine?"
"Yes. Some German fête. I thought at first it might be thunder. Give me your fan."
"You do not hold it rightthere"
"Do you feel the breeze? Your fan is perfumedor is it the lilies on the terrace? They are dancing again; must we go back?"
She looked out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat darted by, turned, rose, dipped, and vanished.
"They are dancing," she repeated.
"Must we go?"
"No."
In the stillness the nightingale grew bolder; the woods seemed saturated with song.
"My father is restless; I must return soon," she said, with a little sigh. "I shall go in presently and make my adieux. I wish you might know my father. Will you? He would like you. He speaks to few people except me. I know all that he thinks, all that he dreams of. I know also all that he has done, all that he is doing, all that he will doGod willing. Why is it I tell you this? Ma foi, I do not know. And I am going to tell you more. Have you heard that my father has made a balloon?"
"Yeseverybody speaks of it," he answered, gravely.
"Butah, this is the wonderful part!he has made a balloon that can be inflated in five seconds! Think! All other balloons require a long, long while, and many tubes; and one must take them to a usine de gaz. My father's balloon needs no gasthat is, it needs no common illuminating gas."
"A montgolfier?" asked Marche, curiously.
"Oh, pooh! The idea! No, it is like other balloons, except thatwellthere is needed merely a handful of silvery dustto which you touch a drop of waterpiff! puff! c'est fini! The balloon is filled."
"And what is this silvery dust?" he asked, laughing.
"Voilà! Do you not wish you knew? ILorraine de NesvilleI know! It is a secret. If the time ever should comein case of war, for instancemy father will give the secret to Francefreelywithout recompensea secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy! Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"
"And you know?"
"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.
"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations get wind of this they might kidnap you."
"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my fatheras though he bought and sold the welfare of his country!"
"And that map-making fellow this morningdo you suppose he might have been hanging about after that sort of thingtrying to pry and pick up some scrap of information?"
"I don't know," she said, quietly; "I only saw him making maps. Listen! there are two secrets that my father possesses, and they are both in writing. I do not know where he keeps them, but I know what they are. Shall I tell you? Then listenI shall whisper. One is the chemical formula for the silvery dust, the gas of which can fill a balloon in five seconds. The other isyou will be astonishedthe plan for a navigable balloon!"
"Has he tried it?"
"A dozen times. I went up twice. It steers like a ship."
"Do people know this, too?"
"Germany does. Once we sailed, papa and I, up over our forest and across the country to the German frontier. We were not very high; we could see the soldiers at the custom-house, and they saw us, andwould you believe it?they fired their horrid guns at uspop! pop! pop! But we were too quick; we simply sailed back again against the very air-currents that brought us. One bullet made a hole in the silk, but we didn't come down. Papa says a dozen bullets cannot bring a balloon down, even when they pierce the silk, because the air-pressure is great enough to keep the gas in. But he says that if they fire a shell, that is what is to be dreaded, for the gas, once aflame!that ends all. Dear me! we talk a great deal of waryou and I. It is time for me to go."
They rose in the moonlight; he gave her back her fan. For a full minute they stood silent, facing each other. She broke a lily from its stem, and drew it out of the cluster at her breast. She did not offer it, but he knew it was his, and he took it.
"Symbol of France," she whispered.
"Symbol of Lorraine," he said, aloud.
A deep boom, sullen as summer thunder, shook the echoes awake among the shrouded hills, rolling, reverberating, resounding, until the echoes carried it on from valley to valley, off into the world of shadows.
The utter silence that followed was broken by a call, a gallop of hoofs on the gravel drive, the clink of stirrups, the snorting of hard-run horses.
Somebody cried, "A telegram for you, Ricky!" There was a patter of feet on the terrace, a chorus of voices: "What is it, Ricky?" "Must you go at once?" "Whatever is the matter?"
The young German soldier, very pale, turned to the circle of lamp-lit faces.
"France and GermanyII"
"What?" cried Sir Thorald, violently.
"War was declared at noon to-day!"
Lorraine gave a gasp and reached out one hand. Jack Marche took it in both of his.
Inside the ballroom the orchestra was still playing the farandole.
CHAPTER V
COWARDS AND THEIR COURAGE
Rickerl took the old vicomte's withered hand; he could not speak; his sister Alixe was crying.
"War? War? Allons donc!" muttered the old man. "Helen! Ricky says we are to have war. Helen, do you hear? War!"
Then Rickerl hurried away to dress, for he was to ride to the Rhine, nor spare whip nor spur; and Barbara Lisle comforted little Alixe, who wept as she watched the maids throwing everything pell-mell into their trunks; for they, too, were to leave at daylight on the Moselle Express for Cologne.
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 darknessthat 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 gravelWar! war!