第208章 ``TO UNPATHED WATERS, UNDREAMED SHORES''(4)

``Yes, I went back.I thought it my duty.I was at Versailles that terrible summer when the States General met, when the National Assembly grew out of it, when the Bastille was stormed, when the King was throwing away his prerogatives like confetti.Never did the gardens of the Trianon seem more beautiful, or more sad.

Sometimes the Queen would laugh even then when I mimicked Bailly, Des Moulins, Mirabeau.I was with her Majesty in the gardens on that dark, rainy day when the fishwomen came to Versailles.The memory of that night will haunt me as long as I live.The wind howled, the rain lashed with fury against the windows, the mob tore through the streets of the town, sacked the wine-shops, built great fires at the corners.Before the day dawned again the furies had broken into the palace and murdered what was left of the Guard.You have heard how they carried off the King and Queen to Paris--how they bore the heads of the soldiers on their pikes.I saw it from a window, and I shall never forget it.''

Her voice faltered, and there were tears on her lashes.

Some quality in her narration brought before me so vividly the scenes of which she spoke that I started when she had finished.There was much more I would have known, but I could not press her to speak longer on a subject that gave her pain.At that moment she seemed more distant to me than ever before.She rose, went into the house, and left me thinking of the presumptions of the hopes I had dared to entertain, left me picturing sadly the existence of which she had spoken.Why had she told me of it?

Perchance she had thought to do me a kindness!

She came back to me--I had not thought she would.

She sat down with her embroidery in her lap, and for some moments busied herself with it in silence.Then she said, without looking up:--``I do not know why I have tired you with this, why Ihave saddened myself.It is past and gone.''

``I was not tired, Madame.It is very difficult to live in the present when the past has been so brilliant,'' Ianswered.

``So brilliant!'' She sighed.``So thoughtless,--Ithink that is the sharpest regret.'' I watched her fingers as they stitched, wondering how they could work so rapidly.

At last she said in a low voice, ``Antoinette and Mr.

Temple have told me something of your life, Mr.Ritchie.''

I laughed.

``It has been very humble,'' I replied.

``What I heard was--interesting to me,'' she said, turning over her frame.``Will you not tell me something of it?''

``Gladly, Madame, if that is the case,'' I answered.

``Well, then,'' she said, ``why don't you?''

``I do not know which part you would like, Madame.

Shall I tell you about Colonel Clark? I do not know when to begin--''

She dropped her sewing in her lap and looked up at me quickly.

``I told you that you were a strange man,'' she said.

``I almost lose patience with you.No, don't tell me about Colonel Clark--at least not until you come to him.

Begin at the beginning, at the cabin in the mountains.''

``You want the whole of it!'' I exclaimed.

She picked up her embroidery again and bent over it with a smile.

``Yes, I want the whole of it.''

So I began at the cabin in the mountains.I cannot say that I ever forgot she was listening, but I lost myself in the narrative.It presented to me, for the first time, many aspects that I had not thought of.For instance, that Ishould be here now in Louisiana telling it to one who had been the companion and friend of the Queen of France.

Once in a while the Vicomtesse would look up at me swiftly, when I paused, and then go on with her work again.I told her of Temple Bow, and how I had run away; of Polly Ann and Tom, of the Wilderness Trail and how I shot Cutcheon, of the fight at Crab Orchard, of the life in Kentucky, of Clark and his campaign.Of my doings since; how I had found Nick and how he had come to New Orleans with me; of my life as a lawyer in Louisville, of the conventions I had been to.The morning wore on to midday, and I told her more than I believed it possible to tell any one.When at last I had finished a fear grew upon me that I had told her too much.