THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
LA MARQUISE DE KERGOAT 
 
 
THE TRIDENT 
 AND THE NET 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE MARTYRDOM OF 
 AN EMPRESS' 1 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 
 PAINTED IN WATER COLORS 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
 1905 
 
 
Copyright, 1905, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 Published September, 1905. 
 
 Printed in United States of A merica. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LA MARQUISE DE KERGOAT Frontispiece 
 
 MERE CORENTINE Facing p. 44 
 
 OLD BRERE " 124 
 
 MERE VAILLANT " 146 
 
 LA VICOMTESSE GYNETTE DE MORIERES " 286 
 
 THE "BACHELOR'S PAVILION" IN THE PARK AT KER- 
 GOAT " 370 
 
 PRINCE PAUL " 426 
 
 STREET IN- THE VILLAGE OF KERGOAT " 528 
 
RETIARIUS 
 
 AGAIN the net! but stooping low 
 The mailed knight flouts his naked foe, 
 Then strives to close. The snaky twine 
 Above the trident's levelled line 
 Is coiling for another throw. 
 
 See how the swordsman to and fro 
 Seeks for his chance! Ah, God, too slow! 
 Back! Back! Beware! By all the Nine, 
 Again the net! 
 
 "Habet!" The net holds! Blow on blow 
 The trident stains the sand below! 
 He's gone! Ah, friend, it is not thine 
 To dub the combat ill or fine! 
 Each moment thou or I may know 
 Again the net. 
 
 M. M. 
 
ffioofe H 
 
 it wae in tbe Beginning 
 
FHE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Got callet deusan Armorik. 
 
 A hoary cliff his wrinkled brow that crowns 
 With green, and sets imperious verge, 
 
 Between the wind-swept silence of the downs 
 And the eternal surge. 
 
 M.M. 
 
 "ARE you all right, Loic?" 1 
 
 The clear, young voice floated down quite distinctly, 
 n strange contrast with the dull moans of the ever-rest- 
 ess sea, swerving and dashing constantly two hundred 
 eet below on rocks which even the highest tide fails to 
 :over. 
 
 "All right, Gaidik," 2 came up another childish voice 
 ike an echo, trenching upon the leapings and splashings 
 )f the waves, that washed the base of the almost per- 
 pendicular cliff. 
 
 Gaidik was lying motionless upon the short, dry, salty 
 p-ass at the top of that terrifying bastion pierced with 
 echoing caves, her slim little form rigid, her small head, 
 covered with a mane of tawny silken hair, overhanging 
 ;he abyss, and her tiny hands holding grimly the slender 
 iloe rope, to the other end of which she had skilfully 
 
 1 Pronounced L6-eek. 2 Pronounced Gah-ee-deek. 
 
 3 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 fastened her six-year-old brother, her own darling little 
 Loic! She herself was barely twelve, but every line 
 of her nervous, perfectly knit frame denoted an ex- 
 traordinary amount of tenacity and of dogged, fearless 
 endurance. 
 
 It was one of those magnificent days in April, some- 
 what hazy, but teeming with the beauty and mellowness 
 of atmosphere which one encounters so frequently in 
 Brittany's early spring. Crickets were chirping, emerald- 
 green lizards were swiftly gliding from crevice to crevice, 
 and hosts of straw-colored butterflies were flying above 
 the thick heather and broom of the downs, while in the 
 salt marshes a mile or so away, in a sheltered bend 
 of the bay of Kergoat, the Saulniers were out on the 
 narrow mud dikes raking in the rich harvest of salt which 
 the sun had coaxed for them from the shallow etiers, 
 chattering and calling to one another beneath the pale- 
 blue sky. 
 
 The rope jerked and oscillated irregularly from side 
 to side, agitated by the motions of the invisible boy, who, 
 clambering and crawling along by its aid twenty-five 
 feet below the brink, was endeavoring at the peril of his 
 life to reach the coveted nest of a hawk still a yard or so 
 beyond the possibility of plunder. He was progressing 
 sidewise with his merry, dauntless face close to the 
 mica-spangled wall of granite, his out-stretched, chubby 
 fingers sorely cramped, "pins and needles" tingling up 
 and down his arms and legs, and the dull ache so well 
 known to mountaineers beginning to tighten the muscles of 
 his shoulders. Yet not a fibre of his already amazingly 
 trained little body was allowed to relax, and inch by inch, 
 profiting by every projection of the cliff, he unhesitating- 
 ly advanced towards his aim. Perspiration was stream- 
 ing so fast down his face that it burned his eyes and 
 
 4 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 dripped unpleasantly into his mouth and ears, but no 
 thought of surrender to fatigue and no question of yield- 
 ing to such overwhelming odds entered the stubborn 
 heart of this little Breton boy as yet but a baby in age. 
 Fearless, quick, daring, and extraordinarily impetuous, he 
 already possessed a very marked personality, and a strong, 
 stubborn nature brooking no contradiction. 
 
 These six first years of his small life had been spent 
 on the rugged coast of Finisterre, at the great castle 
 profiling in the distance its wonderful turrets and battle- 
 ments against the hazy sky. There he had lived contin- 
 ually in the open air, rolling on the sands of the narrow, 
 stone-girt beaches, running wild with his inseparable 
 companion Gaidik within the limits of the immense 
 domain, in a delicious richness of freedom and sunlight, 
 of friendship with birds and beasts, of long, happy, 
 heedless days and glad, pure sea-breezes. 
 
 He was so bright, so bold, so mirthful, so well disposed 
 to all the world when his iron little will was not 
 crossed that everybody gave in to him instinctively at 
 the first hint of a frown, as if to quench even for an 
 instant so much grace and joie de vivre was to fly in the 
 face of all the designs of Providence. Indeed, it would 
 have required a singular delicacy of touch, and wisdom 
 and patience of a very unusual and lofty order, to deal 
 with such a nature, and, unfortunately for him, Loic's 
 father, the very man for such a task, had died when his 
 little son was barely a year old died very suddenly and 
 unexpectedly, leaving to his young widow, already 
 mistress in her own right of great possessions, the entire 
 control of their two children, and, until they came of age 
 or married, of the whole of his large fortune and estates. 
 
 Unfortunately, also, the Marquise de Kergoat was the 
 very last person in the world who should have been 
 
 5 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 burdened with such crushing responsibilities. She was 
 a beauty who had sunk too softly into her bed of rose 
 leaves ever willingly to rise for long out of it. Her slow, 
 graceful indolence seemed to indicate a softness and 
 pliant yielding bordering on weakness, and yet a physiog- 
 nomist would instantly have discerned that her habitual 
 compliance of manner was mere insouciance and careless- 
 ness, and concealed a temper strangely violent and arbi- 
 trary when fully aroused, for the firmly drawn brows, the 
 determined moulding of the chin, and the thinness of the 
 exquisitely curving lips never belonged to a weak per- 
 sonality. Her worst trait, however, was a selfishness as 
 phenomenally intense as it was unconscious. Indeed, 
 she would have been honestly thunderstruck had she 
 ever been accused of so heinous a fault, but still this 
 intransigeant egoisme was the true reason why she almost 
 always allowed Loic to do precisely as he chose, since it 
 annoyed her excepting when in a truly royal rage to 
 oppose the whims of this boy, who was truly the joy and 
 pride of her life. 
 
 She had really loved her handsome, chivalrous husband 
 also, yet her grief when he died had been characterized 
 especially by self-pity and by distress at losing her most 
 devoted admirer, a man who had sheltered her from 
 all the small troubles, the vexations, and the fatigues 
 inherent to even so gilded an existence as hers. Al- 
 ways pampered, humored, admired, and deferred to, 
 she could not conceive how anything or anybody could 
 ever resist her excepting, indeed, her little son, whom 
 she allowed, when in the mood, to govern her in the most 
 astonishing fashion. 
 
 Life seemed to conspire to ruin Loic, for, besides his 
 mother's limitless indulgence and enervating tenderness, 
 broken at intervals by scenes during which she would lose 
 
 6 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 all control over herself and punish him as she would a 
 restive horse or disobedient dog, there remained the fact 
 that he was the young Seigneur, the shining star of his 
 people's horizon, the hope of his house, whom tutors, 
 servants, peasants, and retainers indulged in every fancy, 
 never daring to control or contradict the very slightest of 
 his wishes. 
 
 Practically, he was already his own master and that of 
 all he surveyed, including his own devoted and untiring 
 fag, poor, little, neglected Gaidik. For the rest, his 
 prospects were magnificent, his future estates were as 
 fine as any in Brittany or, for the matter of that, as 
 any in Europe the name he bore had descended to 
 him unstained by misalliance through fourteen hundred 
 years, and his singular personal beauty, inherited from 
 a long line of handsome men and lovely women through 
 all these centuries, made all hearts warm to him! 
 
 How far would he bear out all this childish promise, 
 this boy who had merely pris la peine de naitre? 
 
 Gaidik alone, however, entered completely into all 
 his pleasures and understood him in all his moods, even 
 the worst! Living so very near the rose, much of the 
 tender dew lavishly poured down upon the regal blossom 
 should of necessity have fallen upon her, but such was 
 not the fact. She certainly was neither spoiled nor 
 petted, poor little thing, which in her case was something 
 of a pity, since her little, lonely soul was peculiarly 
 amenable to tenderness and equally averse to any sort of 
 harshness. Thus all her warm, ardent heart concen- 
 trated itself upon Loic her Loic, as she called him the 
 acme of all perfection in her eyes, to whom she could 
 refuse nothing. 
 
 They had much of the same nature, these two children, 
 much of the same rare intellect and rare courage, and 
 
 7 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 there existed between them a perfect understanding, born 
 perchance of their being so astonishingly alike, excepting 
 for the fact that she added to the many qualities they 
 had in common a surprising amount of self-control, forced 
 upon her by her mother's unnatural aversion. 
 
 To-day Loic had pleaded so hard to be lowered over the 
 edge of the cliff in order to obtain the young hawks he 
 passionately desired to rear and train, that, confident in 
 her strength and ability, Gaidik had coolly performed 
 this perilous feat, taking first the sole precaution of 
 passing the free end of the rope a couple of times around 
 the trunk of a broken pine, long ago killed by the harsh 
 sea-wind which eternally sweeps that terrible coast. 
 
 There was a curiously sailor-like precision and deftness 
 in everything those two children did, a pronounced sailor 
 swing even in their walk, and they had so absolute a 
 contempt for all forms of danger that their escapades 
 were the terror of the entire household, and caused a 
 perpetual feeling of dread and of impending calamity to 
 their personal attendants. 
 
 Gazing at the distant horizon whence the waves 
 arrived at a furious gallop, to break brutally in sheaves of 
 dazzling foam many, many dizzy yards below her, Gaidik 
 still lay motionless, flat on her stomach, the sea-wind 
 blowing her hair about, the sun playing hide-and-seek 
 with the gold in its bronze, her hands still inflexibly 
 holding the rope, her dreamy eyes gray and changeful 
 like the sea itself drinking in, as it were, the whole 
 mystery of Brittany, which holds close to the past, and 
 moves the living to a curious sense that they are dead 
 and are dreaming in their graves, so firm a hold upon 
 tradition and ancient poetry and mysticism has this old 
 land preserved. 
 
 She was clothed in short, straight garments impeding 
 
 8 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 her liberty of action in no possible way, and she looked no 
 bigger than a sea-bird on the crest of the huge wall of rock. 
 Truly she reminded one somewhat of an audacious gull in 
 her passion for the water, her indifference to danger, her 
 swift, graceful, fierce ways, which had gained for her the 
 sobriquet of La petite Mauve (the little Mew), for she 
 seemed to have assimilated in her tiny self all the health 
 and vigor, all the strong activity and delicate, fragrant 
 freshness of the ocean. 
 
 For one thing, Loic and Gaidik were forever in the 
 water, when they were not scampering along the shingle 
 and flat rocks left bare by the ebbing tide, fishing for 
 prawns and crabs with long-handled nets ; or farther back 
 on the moorland, where the keen air blew and the 
 frisky brown rabbits chased one another through the 
 gorse. 
 
 Gaidik dreamed of all this and of many other delights as 
 she gazed, that delicious April morning, upon the tender 
 light on rocks and sky and sea, and watched quite un- 
 concernedly and unanxiously for the occasional fall of a 
 stone displaced by her little brother's foot a fall which 
 made no sound for an astonishingly long while, and then 
 produced a faint and distant concussion upon the jagged, 
 teethlike blocks below, among the muttering waves. 
 
 She knew although she could not see him that Loic 
 was upon a narrow ledge, not flat, but inclined somewhat 
 upward from the sheer face of the cliff, thus forming a 
 rugged shelf of solid granite; that he had landed safely, 
 since he had called back "all right" to her question, and 
 this was enough for her entire peace of mind. Not for a 
 second did this strange child realize the appalling danger 
 of the position; nor did she doubt that she could draw 
 him up again with as much facility as she had lowered 
 him over the ghastly edge, for it was simply not in her 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 nature to calculate the consequences of a daring deed. 
 That Loic might become exhausted by his toil, or be 
 seized with vertigo and fall, dragging her with him down, 
 down, down to the sharp, broken, cruel angles of the 
 uncouth rocks, was not even to her a possibility. No! 
 the exploit possessed for her the elements of a good 
 joke, that was all! 
 
 Now and again, after the manner of a sailor who is 
 working out of sight with a life-line, she jerked the 
 rope, which jerk was punctiliously returned by the 
 audacious little fellow who now had doubtless reached his 
 prize, for the affrighted and piercing cries of a struggling 
 bird began to make themselves heard with extreme plain- 
 ness, startling the rock-martins laboring at their conical 
 clay dwellings, and the hovering gulls sporting above the 
 crests of foamy incoming breakers. 
 
 "Ah, he has got it!" she murmured, with a triumphant 
 little laugh, and she crawled farther forward, now over- 
 hanging the precipice by the full length of her head and 
 shoulders, peering with straining eyes, but quite useless- 
 ly, down, since at this point the cliff sloped inward in- 
 stead of outward as a respectable cliff should do. 
 
 Suddenly her cogitations on the matter were brutally 
 put an end to by a pair of muscular hands closing around 
 her waist and attempting to drag her backward, but 
 Gaidik stood the strain like a rock. Quick as thought she 
 twined her legs around the pine trunk to which the rope 
 was made fast tant bien que mal, and, still holding on 
 like grim death to the rope itself, she silently struggled to 
 free herself with a tenacity quite out of all proportion to 
 her slender elegance of make. 
 
 Gaidik de Kergoat was one of those beings whose 
 litheness is greater than their muscular force although 
 that was by no means to be despised but her powers 
 
 10 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of endurance were phenomenal, and, although recognizing 
 that it was of no avail, she still fought on as Bretons do 
 against any odds. 
 
 "Bon Dieu! de Bon Dieu! she is made of steel!" growled 
 her opponent, stepping back with one foot in order to 
 obtain surer leverage and lift her from the ground, but 
 as he did so he caught sight of the rope, guessed what 
 manner of object was attached to its lower extremity, 
 and the cold perspiration started on his forehead. He 
 stopped dead, still holding Gaidik tightly, but too much 
 terrified by his discovery to dare a move in any direc- 
 tion. 
 
 For a fleeting second he remained motionless as though 
 changed to marble, a cloud obscuring his sight, and quite 
 heedless of the execrations of the panting Gaidik, who, 
 writhing still in his unyielding grip, was furiously de- 
 manding whether this "sacred imbecile" intended to 
 kill both herself and Loic at one stroke. In another 
 second, however, he was himself again his horror a 
 thing forgotten and, seizing the rope unhesitatingly at 
 a point below Gaidik's unrelaxed hold upon it, he hauled 
 in slowly, deftly, and steadily a difficult feat to per- 
 form without some risk to the boy, since he was only able 
 to guess at the latter's position beneath the overhang 
 of the cliff, and dreaded to startle him by a warning 
 word. 
 
 Fortunately, Loic, having accomplished his perilous 
 task, had just signalled this fact by a final tug at the 
 line, and, little suspecting what had occurred, was help- 
 ing with all his might; so that coil after coil ran easily 
 up until at last a little head, covered with thick, wavy 
 hair, as brilliant in the sunshine as that bronze of Roman 
 emperors of which the substance was enriched with un- 
 grudged gold, a face that had the color and beauty of a, 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 flower, with already the classic lines of his race, and 
 illumined by great, rebellious eyes of the same hue and 
 expression as Gaidik's, appeared above the edge of the 
 cliff, followed by an erect, square-shouldered little body 
 that immediately became rigid with astonishment. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The stubborn folk of Arthur, strong of hand, 
 In loyal heart and mystic soul yet free, 
 
 Thrust to the utmost limits of the land 
 
 Fenced by the Savage Sea. M. M. 
 
 "KADOC!" the boy cried. "How do you come here?" 
 and his wide-open eyes stared angrily at his rescuer. 
 
 Kadoc was a tall, handsome Breton sailor between 
 forty and fifty, whose tight-fitting, blue woollen jersey 
 revealed extraordinarily powerful arms and a magnifi- 
 cently broad, muscular chest. He had been the late 
 Marquis's matelot, and spent most of his time in un- 
 complainingly rescuing his dead master's orphaned chil- 
 dren from similar self -sought and appalling perils; but 
 just then he was really furious, since the "joke" had 
 for once been carried too far even for him. Indeed, he 
 did not speak immediately after lifting his young mas- 
 ter over the lip of the cliff, together with the screech- 
 ing baby-hawk removed from its nest under such vio- 
 lent protest, and now tightly buttoned within Loic's 
 jacket. 
 
 "What is to be done with you, you naughty ones?" he 
 ended by saying, his voice stern and imperious as he 
 towered over the children, his head thrown back, a flash 
 of honest indignation in his blue eyes. "Shame, Made- 
 moiselle Gaidik, and shame on you, too, Monsieur Loic, 
 for coaxing her to help you into such mischief!" But 
 Loic held his ground quite unabashed. 
 
 13 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Don't you dare to scold Gaidik!" he cried. "She is 
 a good girl, and wanted to go down herself, but she was 
 too heavy for me to lower down to the hawk's nest. You 
 are always spoiling sport; but, anyhow, I have one of the 
 birds, so I don't care!" and, shaking off Kadoc's restrain- 
 ing hand, he marched off in the direction of the castle, 
 muttering and grumbling as he went, his dark, straight 
 brows grimly knit together. 
 
 " Don't you understand, Monsieur Loic, that you might 
 both have been killed, and that it was only by a hair's- 
 breadth that I arrived in time? Why, Mademoiselle 
 Gaidik could never have hauled you up, and Bon Dieul 
 de Bon Dieul what a death!" Kadoc cried, following 
 him closely. 
 
 "Eh! What? Could not have hauled me up? Gai- 
 dik?" the boy retorted over his shoulder, much offended. 
 "You don't know what you are talking about. Why, 
 Gaidik is as strong as you are, I tell you. She has pulled 
 me up and down the cliffs a million times already!" 
 
 "At that spot?" questioned the incredulous Kadoc. 
 
 "Well, at that and other ones, of course I climb up 
 and down. It is not so steep as you think, you old idiot; 
 but still, without the rope, I could not do it, because there 
 is only just room on the little teeth of the rock to put 
 my feet on; so don't bother me any more. You could 
 not do it yourself." 
 
 Kadoc raised his eyes to heaven in pious horror, but 
 still his sternness relaxed and he could not repress a 
 smile as he eyed his tiny lord with ill-concealed pride 
 and delight. "He is game, our little marquis," he mur- 
 mured. "Kergoat blood pure and simple, never afraid 
 of anything and always loyal." The sailor could no 
 longer be abrupt or angry, and he followed his unruly 
 charges across the purple - flowering heath, his tanned 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 face singularly brilliant, his great height and naturally 
 noble carriage making him a most striking figure. As to 
 Gaidik, a warm, tender smile had broken over her de- 
 fiant eyes and set mouth while listening to her little 
 brother's spirited and enthusiastic defence of her. 
 
 From the top of the cliffs where they now walked the 
 eye could sweep over the sea north and south, at that 
 moment fanned by the freshening breeze into a vast 
 field of dazzling color. Behind Cape Kergoat stretched 
 moorland, marshes, and forests of cork-oak, crossed by 
 many streams fringed with osier-beds, brown -tufted 
 reeds, sea-daffodils, and sea-stocks, where all was quiet 
 save for a bittern's cry, a snipe's shrill scream, or the 
 rustle of the wind through the low-growing scrub of rock- 
 roses around the tall menhirs and cromlechs, profiling 
 their gaunt shapes against the pale sky. 
 
 Soon they reached the cultivated land, walking be- 
 tween fields of waving, foamy ble-noir in full bloom and 
 of shadowy azure flax, finally entering the chemin-creux 
 which leads to a side gate of the Home Park. 
 
 There is nothing comparable to Breton chemins-creux, 
 hedged in as they are by a cool, fragrant riot of tum- 
 bling ivy, lustrous holly, honeysuckle, clematis, and 
 ferns, through which the tall spearlike fronds of pink 
 foxgloves and the delicate mauve of harebells rise in 
 dazzling profusion 
 
 The chemin-creux, or "sunken path," is a strictly Breton 
 institution encountered nowhere else in the world. Al- 
 ways dewy, dusky, fresh, and thickly carpeted with soft 
 mosses, it is the birthplace of the finest eglantines and 
 blackberries in Christendom, and is invariably finished 
 off on both sides by a glowing upper fringe of golden- 
 blossomed gorse and whin, diffusing a fragrance as of 
 apricots and honey from early April to late November. 
 
 15 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic, with the irrepressible energy of his tender years 
 (to which was added a characteristic heedlessness of con- 
 sequences), rushed along, clambering up and down the 
 banks of this particular chemin-creux in quest of flowers, 
 disregarding with equal contempt the sharpness of many 
 a thorn or bramble, and the increasing outcries of the 
 reawakened and surprisingly able-bodied hawklet but- 
 toned inside his jacket, and now lustily complaining of 
 so erratic a mode of progression. 
 
 Lili, hare 'antet ho dellion, war vord an dour zo er 
 prajou (the silver-leaved lilies are already edging the 
 ponds and the meadows), Gaidik called out to him in 
 Breton, as with the swiftness of an avalanche he came 
 tumbling towards her, brandishing a handful of fox- 
 glove. 
 
 "Oh, are they? Then we will go and fetch some to- 
 morrow," he replied, with the grand air acquired in a 
 household where he was, practically speaking, supreme 
 lord and master. He enjoyed to the full every moment 
 of the day, this child of quick angers and equally swift 
 repentances, taking punishment for his misdeeds when 
 at last it came, with an assumption of complete indiffer- 
 ence and a stubborn, superior droop of the eyelids which 
 exasperated his mother far more than shrieks or com- 
 plaints would have done, and frequently bursting, as 
 soon as he was released and out of her sight, into per- 
 fectly genuine ro*rs of laughter over the merest trifle 
 that chanced to amuse him. 
 
 Swiftly the now fully reconciled trio walked on be- 
 tween the flower-starred banks of verdure; above which 
 antique oaks, gnarled by the sea -wind, bent towards 
 one another like dwarfs and crook-backs performing the 
 devil's dance, and at last they reached the ivy-draped 
 postern-door opening into the thickness of the mediaevally 
 
 16 
 
 ,- 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 turreted wall which still in all its primordial integrity 
 surrounds the immense park of Kergoat. 
 
 That park is marvellous. Sleeping in shadowy still- 
 ness, its terraced lawns and magnificent parterres, its 
 straight avenues of century-old trees, its wild debauch 
 of blossoms, its tangles of flowering shrubs, with here 
 and there the slender jet of a fountain sparkling through 
 the branches, are almost indescribable, and in its midst 
 there is the hazy shimmer of an exquisite lake studded 
 with the above-mentioned " silver-leaved " lilies a species 
 peculiar to Brittany. 
 
 In the ideal atmosphere of that privileged region, 
 mellowed by the near proximity of the Gulf Stream, all 
 manner of plants and trees thrive and multiply, if only 
 they be sheltered a little from the ever-present wind, 
 and within those great walls Himalayan cedars and 
 Oriental palms, feathery bamboos, and Siberian pines 
 stand cheek by jowl, towering above thickets of almonds 
 and hawthorn deliciously pink; lilac and laburnum so 
 laden with fragrance that the mere smell of them sends 
 little thrills of gladness throughout one's whole being; 
 while acacia, myrtle, camellias, giant fuchsias, and pome- 
 granates run riot beneath Biblical-looking, broad-leaved 
 fig-trees, and shelter nodding companies of anemones, 
 jonquils, tulips, and irises, amid which bees drone and 
 countless birds twitter and dart to and fro. 
 
 Kadoc and the children swung onward quickly, fright- 
 ening extravagantly long - tailed lizards as they stepped 
 over the grass, and scattering many bronze-corsleted han- 
 netons buzzing amid the long, pendent clusters of acacia 
 and wistaria. 
 
 Loic was enthusiastically discussing a paludier wedding 
 which was to take place that very day punctually at 
 eleven. They were "his" paludiers, working all the year 
 
 17 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 round in "his" salt-marshes, and therefore was the di- 
 minutive marquis expected to give away Jeannik, the 
 bride, a blue-eyed fleur de lin of seventeen, who was con- 
 sidered one of the beauties of the tiny fishing village 
 nestling under the shelter of "his" grim Gothic castle, 
 nerve*, the bridegroom, nephew to Kadoc, was very well 
 off for those parts, and his marriage feast would be ar- 
 ranged quite regardless of expense. 
 
 "I'll have to kiss the mariee ! Loic exclaimed, in 
 his abrupt fashion, striding along with both hands stuck 
 deep in the pockets of his wide white Breton breeches, 
 his ruddy locks fluttering beneath the broad brim of the 
 classical Chouan hat loaded with multicolored chape- 
 louses (thick chenille cords wound round and round the 
 low crown in and out of broad silver buckles), and the 
 sun-rays glittering upon the rows of fleur-de-lysed but- 
 tons adorning his short, crimson ratine jacket, thickly 
 broidered with weird silken patterns in accordance with 
 Breton etiquette. 
 
 The little hawk was silent now, probably out of sheer 
 lassitude. 
 
 "I'll put on my silver and gold embroideries, and a 
 big bouquet of white roses on my shoulder. You'll see 
 if I'm not the finest dancer when I lead the rondel" he 
 continued, with that nothing-doubting assurance of his, 
 while his magnificent eyes smiled frank and friendly 
 and serene up at the steel - blue orbs of his big garde- 
 du-corps. 
 
 " J'aime bien les cotillons rouges. 
 J'aime mieux, 
 Les cotillons bleus! 
 Les cotillons rouges! 
 Les cotillons bleus! 
 Ce sont les bleus, 
 Que j'aime le mieux!" 
 18 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 He sang merrily, skipping in unison with the quaint 
 ronde tune, a gay, handsome little figure, the brightness 
 of which reflected a long after-glow. 
 
 " Oh, I am the Seigneur from to-day on, Gaidik! Don't 
 you call me a baby any more! Just think, I am Jeannik's 
 father Jeannik, who is ever so much older than you! 
 Isn't that fine? I'll be your father, too, when you get 
 married, and that will be soon. Old Mam-Goz (Granny) 
 Koader says that mamma will be mean enough to get 
 you married at fifteen, because she wants to get rid of 
 you. My poor little dearest darling Gaid!" 
 
 ' ' Hush, Monsieur Loic ! How can you say such things ?' ' 
 Kadoc interrupted. "You know that Granny Koader 
 is a spiteful old cat, who half the time does not know 
 what she is talking about. If you are to be our Seigneur, 
 from now on you'll have to be careful not to repeat such 
 ridiculous nonsense. Surely you do not want it to be 
 said of you as in the chanson: Ann dud jentil navez zo 
 kri Givel a oare goz da vistri" (The new Seigneurs are 
 bad ; the old ones were better masters.) 
 
 The boy gave no heed to the reproof. His brows were 
 suddenly drawn together in painful thought; his curved, 
 rosy lips were shut fast. 
 
 "I don't want you to marry, my Gaid!" he said at 
 last, very slowly. "I cannot do without you; you are 
 my Gaidik nobody else's. I'd kill anybody who tried 
 to take you away!" and with a sudden violent rush he 
 threw himself into his sister's arms, crushing the hapless 
 hawklet so ruthlessly in so doing that the poor bird once 
 more began to utter piercing cries. 
 
 "Sainte Vierge! Monsieur Loic, do behave yourself!" 
 cried the nonplussed Kadoc, while Gaidik burst out 
 laughing, though there was a dimness in her eyes. She 
 was never talkative, holding herself generally much 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 aloof not out of shyness, for she was a brave little 
 thing, nor yet out of temper, since, except for rare fits 
 of almost untamable passion, she was exceedingly good- 
 natured and serene, but as the result of a coldness and 
 indifference that seemed strange in one so young. With 
 Loic, however, she was a different being, and, holding his 
 hand pressed fast in hers, she promised with many en- 
 dearments never to leave him, never to vex him 
 never! never! never! 
 
 "I could not live without you," explained the pacified 
 lad. "You are a regular boy; you can do all that boys 
 can; you can row and sail and steer, and dive, too, like 
 a duck, and run and shoot and climb. There was never 
 any one like you, Gaid!" 
 
 Gaidik looked at him, keenly touched. 
 
 "Ah, my dear! my dear!" she whispered, "I should 
 not care to live any longer, either, if I had not got you." 
 
 They were silent awhile an unusual thing with them 
 walking steadily on beside Kadoc, who was watching 
 them curiously. He remembered the night when his 
 master had died five years before, intrusting those two 
 little ones to his watchful care; and he sighed. "They 
 are strange little creatures," he thought, sorrowfully, 
 "and it would have been better if they had not had that 
 devil in them that will never let them be still, and will 
 never be subdued, I am afraid. There is fierce fighting 
 blood in them, and it will out; but I suppose the good 
 God knows best what to do with such wild birds one 
 may be sure of that at least." 
 
 They were nearing home now, and Loic suddenly sprang 
 forward, all his troubles forgotten, calling loudly, Ah, 
 voila Maman! as a graceful, slender, erect woman ad- 
 vanced towards them under the warm shadow of the 
 flowering lilacs. Her dark eyes and softly chiselled feat- 
 
 20 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ures, the dainty rose of her oval cheeks, the deeper rose 
 of her small, delicately thin-lipped mouth, and the raven 
 blackness of the thick bandeaux framing her haughty, 
 obstinate brow, made a very beautiful picture as she 
 swept slowly along, her hands full of freshly gathered 
 flowers, her pale-gray morning gown trailing noiselessly 
 on the velvety grass. 
 
 Her whole face brightened at the sight of the boy run- 
 ning towards her, and the perception of her beauty be- 
 came acute; it sparkled in the half-light of the leafy 
 dimness, her eyes gleamed like jewels soft, deep, lumi- 
 nous jewels, like live, brown diamonds her whole being 
 expanding with passionate pride, as, regardless of the 
 havoc made of her superb bouquet, she threw one arm 
 about him and kissed his moist forehead, his eyes, even 
 his little sunburned neck, with greedy tenderness. 
 
 Kadoc and Gaidik had joined them, and the sailor, 
 beret in hand, stood mutely watching the encounter, 
 while Gaidik, also without a word, awaited the moment 
 when she would be allowed to kiss the slender hand ex- 
 tended to her every morning in a sort of patronizing 
 greeting. 
 
 Madame de Kergoat's voice was clear, smooth, and crisp- 
 cut, especially when she addressed her little daughter, for 
 this child's every look and gesture was distasteful to her. 
 During the short walk up the smooth lawns between the 
 flowering trees towards the castle, she used that crisp- 
 cut voice to some purpose on the subject of dishevelled 
 little girls, who, at nine o'clock in the morning, have 
 already managed to lose the prim freshness consequent 
 upon their matutinal tub all this delivered in the tones 
 of one launching a polite but cutting denunciation. 
 Occasionally she appealed to Kadoc, who was listening 
 to her with an attitude of respectful enlightenment, of 
 
 21 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 instinctive feudal homage, but with an expression in the 
 depth of his stern eyes which, had she once glanced his 
 way, might have given her some food for reflection. 
 
 Yet although Madame de Kergoat's optics, like those 
 of the fly, had usually the privilege of seeing all around 
 at once, she did not observe the peculiarity of the gaze 
 fastened upon her, nor the eloquent reproach contained 
 in her little daughter's big gray orbs. 
 
 What a dazzling vision she was, that beautiful mother 
 who, according to Loic's own statement, could be "so 
 cruel nasty" when she wished! Just then the little Sei- 
 gneur's face had assumed a droll expression, and he wink- 
 ed quite unblushingly at his sister. He knew how to 
 manage her, and, annoyed beyond measure by the 
 lengthy fault-finding, he, with magnificent aplomb, at 
 last created a diversion by displaying his treasure, and 
 by declaring that it was too fine a morning to scold, 
 joining his small brown hands as he spoke, and separating 
 them like a swimmer, in an eloquent gesture that swept 
 the horizon. Madame de Kergoat's attention was in- 
 stantly riveted on him, her attitude relaxed, she smiled, 
 shook her jewelled fingers gayly at him, and led the way, 
 with him clinging to her arm, up the southern terrace 
 steps, while Gaidik still held back, her small visage per- 
 plexed and troubled, her gray eyes snapping with re- 
 pressed feeling of a singularly unpleasant sort. 
 
 Kergoat is one of the handsomest relics left to us by 
 generations who knew how to build on the lip of a sheer 
 cliff. Grimly mediaeval, it is a regular seaside fortress, 
 with ponderous round towers, dangerous-looking meur- 
 trieres, machicolations, and chemins de ronde, its im- 
 mensely thick walls capriciously streaked with gold and 
 silver hued lichens, and exquisitely overgrown by vigorous 
 garlands of ivy hundreds of years old, 
 
 22 
 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 One end of the long, wide, granite terrace, which the 
 little party had reached, was arranged as a sort of out- 
 door dining-room. A blue - and - crimson awning was 
 spread overhead, and on a square bamboo table, sur- 
 rounded by comfortable chairs, was disposed on an em- 
 broidered Russian table-cloth a very tempting break- 
 fast. The tall samovar hissed softly, fruit and cream 
 and crisp little loaves alternated with sheaves of corn- 
 flowers and poppies, and a couple of splendid Great 
 Danes, answering respectively to the names of Plick and 
 Plock, lay luxuriously in possession of a warm-hued rug 
 near by. 
 
 The curtain had risen for the children upon Act Two 
 of the beautiful summer day. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A people like a Menhir without change, 
 
 Unhewn, immovable and vast 
 Wedded by legends, quaint beliefs and strange, 
 
 Unto a misty past. M. M. 
 
 MEANWHILE, at the foot of the castle cliff, Jeannik, 
 the little bride, was being dressed for the ceremony. Her 
 cottage, dating in style and accommodation back to the 
 primitive epochs of Brittany, was a gray, rectangular lit- 
 tle house built of blocks of undressed granite, as severe 
 in its outward aspect as one of the jagged rocks of the 
 beach whereon it looked, save for the redeeming fact 
 that the roof was of exquisitely mellowed old thatch, 
 constellated with clusters of waxen, pink and pale-yellow 
 Fleurs de Jesus a sort of profusely flowering moss, 
 the habitual parasite of such thatches enhanced here 
 and there by tufts of blue irises cresting its low gable. 
 
 No^ sooner had you passed the wide, half -glazed door, 
 than you left behind you all trace of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and found yourself transported as on a magic car- 
 pet, six or seven hundred years back, amid furnishings 
 handed down from generation to generation, and customs 
 as well as costumes of equal antiquity. The cupboard- 
 beds, lits - clos, of dark oak polished by usage and by 
 continual rubbings to the dusky brilliancy of ebony, 
 rose one above the other on both sides of a monumental 
 hearth, their finely chiselled silver hinges and red-bordered 
 green serge draperies adding a richness to their quaint 
 
 24 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 aspect, while the ponderous, almost immovable central 
 table, its enormous thickness scooped out into the cir- 
 cular concavities that take the place of crockery, and 
 receive twice a day the fragrant Soupe aux choux, or 
 thick buckwheat-mush, which forms the ruddy Paludier's 
 staple food, was in itself a revelation of fashions and 
 ways long fallen into disuse everywhere but in Basse- 
 Bretagne. 
 
 In front of a heavily carved Bahut, matching in 
 splendor of tone the rest of the furniture, stood Jeannik, 
 surrounded by her Filles d'Honneur (bridesmaids) and 
 her old mother, towards whom she raised her soft blue 
 eyes, all aglow with a tender, appealing, mocking, half- 
 defiant, half -shy smile, as ornament after ornament was 
 added to her already gorgeous costume. 
 
 There was not much light within the house, for the 
 paternal French Government maintaining a heavy tax 
 on all windows, even the richest Breton peasant is con- 
 tent to admit the sun only through time-honored half- 
 doors and a few narrow loop-holes, which for the most 
 part are nearly smothered in clinging vines and curtained 
 by vigorously verdant parietaires ; but still that par- 
 ticular morning was lavish of its brightness, now that 
 the sun had pierced the early mist, pulsating with warmth 
 and golden rays like a thing alive, and, moreover, the 
 dancing waves lapping the lavender-crowned sea-wall of 
 the tiny garden, sent like huge reflectors some of their 
 blue shimmer and dazzle right into the oak-raftered room. 
 
 Thus it was possible clearly to distinguish the slender, 
 archaic figure of the little Marite, clad in a straight- 
 falling, rather short skirt of thick purple cloth, encircled 
 five times with four-inch-broad bands of black velvet, 
 and revealing at the hem the successive ornamental green 
 and red selvages of five white cloth petticoats, each a lit- 
 
 3 2 S 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 tie longer than the next above. With this went a corsage 
 and stomacher of cloth of gold, with wide purple cloth, 
 velvet-bordered sleeves, a rich purple silk apron, above 
 which was chastely folded a diaphanous kerchief of snowy 
 lace, and a pointed coifie and broidered serre-tete of 
 finest mull le pignon, as it is called around which a 
 double wreath of white and pink roses was attached by 
 golden pins. Around her slender neck hung from a gold 
 pailletted velvet ribbon, the delicately wrought golden 
 cross surmounted by a Breton heart, which is the distin- 
 guishing sign of the married woman, and on the already 
 toil-worn little hand shone the clumsy golden heart-and- 
 crowrr Anneau de Fian$ailles. 
 
 Young and lovely, and pure, truly, as a flax blossom, 
 was Jeannik, a pleasant hint of red in her rounded cheeks 
 (that covert carmine of perfect health which seems to 
 glow through the satiny skin of young girls brought 
 up a la dure and always in the open air), and in her 
 sumptuous attire she gave the impression of having 
 just stepped from the parchment pages of some illumi- 
 nated missal, or dropped out of one of those wonderfully 
 painted sanctuary windows still to be found in ancient 
 Breton fanes, where brilliantly garbed saints are repre- 
 sented in very much that same costume. 
 
 The mother, tall, imposing, dignified, wearing her own 
 ancient Habit de Noce, its gold and silver threads, its 
 silken broideries now softened to deliciously melting hues, 
 gazed tenderly and somewhat sadly at this, her youngest 
 child, her ewe-lamb, for the six others, all boys, had at 
 one time and another found their deaths in the great 
 tomb of the Breton coast perdus a la mer, as they say 
 there yet when the girl looked up she saw nothing but 
 a smile on the faded lips and in the heroic eyes, paled by 
 so many tears shed in secret. 
 
 26 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 At last Madame la Mariee is ready. A last look at 
 the tiny mirror which reflects her like a little pool of 
 green water thanks to the delicate ferns obscuring the 
 lucarne, near which it stands on a three - legged stool, 
 and which produce the effect of a finely meshed net of 
 verdure drawn across the aperture and she kneels down 
 before the tall, black-and-silver crucifix to say her beads 
 until her fiance comes to fetch her away, accompanied 
 by Monsieur le Marquis, aged six, who is to replace the 
 father many long years dead. 
 
 Outside, the sounds of Bignious, energetically blown, 
 are rapidly drawing nearer, and down the meandering 
 path, with its rough stone walls, its ancient Celtic stone 
 crosses gauntly profiled at regular intervals, its square- 
 hewn, thinly scattered little stone houses, its tangle of 
 flowering blackberry-vines, and its patches of flowering 
 mosses and lichens mantling the irregularities of all that 
 stone, a thin cloud of dust begins to float up from many 
 feet a transparent screen of white dust and powdered 
 sand which, dancing in the sunlight, looks like the fumes 
 of some great boiling caldron full of molten gold and 
 silver. 
 
 Les Sonneurs (the bagpipe players) are advancing 
 heading the long double file of wedding guests, and Mere 
 Corentine, who has stepped to the door, catches sight of 
 the tall form of her future son-in-law, stepping forth in all 
 the bravery of his crimson jacket, five white woollen waist- 
 coats, wide, snowy breeches, crimson, gold-clocked stock- 
 ings, canary-colored shoes, and broad black Chouan hat 
 looped up for the occasion with a big cluster of red and 
 yellow roses. Beside him, keeping excellent time to the 
 lively lilting music, marches little Loic, also dressed in a 
 superb Breton costume, all glittering with priceless antique 
 silver and gold Armorican embroidery, his face flushed 
 
 27 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 with pride and importance, his tiny feet hardly touching 
 the earth. 
 
 Truly that Depart de la Mariee would have made a 
 striking picture-subject, for the cortege was a singularly 
 brilliant one, with its extraordinary variety of cantonal 
 costumes, each more dazzling than the last, and the tiny 
 Marquis, who headed it, leading the shy, pretty, blushing 
 Jeannik, was alone a sight worthy of note. 
 
 The road was short, and soon the long, multicolored 
 train of wedding guests entered the little church-yard, 
 fragrant with lavender, rosemary, and thyme, where wild 
 flowers and feathery, waving herbs almost conceal the 
 humble granite crosses, marking the spot where many 
 a stalwart fisherman, washed ashore after some destruc- 
 tive storm, sleeps his last sleep. They clustered for a 
 moment round the quaint porch of the old, old little 
 church, a lovable, ancient thing of gray stone, green and 
 brown with mosses. 
 
 Extraordinary gargoyles, grimacing like gnomes and 
 kourrigans, surmount that porch, which is deeply carven 
 with massive garlands of clumsy, fantastic flowers and 
 fruit and foliage, by hands dead many centuries ago, 
 while ponderous, weather-beaten saints stand like grim 
 sentries on each side of it. 
 
 It was almost dark within, and only confusedly at 
 first could the dimmed beauty of the decorations be dis- 
 cerned. Indeed, the veiled rays of the sun only just 
 gleamed through the narrow painted windows, as if fil- 
 tered by sombre jewels. Little by little, however, the 
 eye became accustomed to this diapered penumbra, 
 wherein one faintly distinguished the beauty of the altar, 
 the rich golden brocades of the aged priest's vestments 
 scintillating on a faded white satin background, the tall 
 silver candelabra flashing their tiny stars of light amid 
 
 28 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 a mass of white heather and yellow genesta, brought 
 from the neighboring Landes, and the countless me- 
 morial tablets encrusted upon the thick walls, bearing the 
 sinister words, Perdu a la Mer, following the names of 
 the countless dead resting at the bottom of the cruel, 
 capricious ocean. 
 
 Overhead the bells were ringing joyously, and through 
 the open door, where beggars had foregathered, from 
 many a mile around, in the anticipation of alms like 
 a miniature Cour des Miracles the clear notes of a 
 ronde sung by some giddy young sailors hurrying to 
 join the last stragglers, were wafted in: 
 
 1 Fendons le Bois 
 Le Roy! 
 
 Chauffons le Four 
 L' Amour! 
 Riez la Belle 
 Car c'est le jour!" 
 
 On the right of the altar there is a sumptuously carved 
 and generously proportioned pew, surmounted by a coat 
 of arms. To-day it was occupied by the Marquise de Ker- 
 goat, Gaidik, and their following, but Monsieur le Mar- 
 quis, firm at his post, knelt immediately before the 
 officiating cur to the left of the bride. The boy's face 
 was grave, his big gray eyes looked wise and serious, in 
 spite of the inquisitiveness of his eager little profile, 
 which was all his mother and sister could see of him. 
 This was a great day for him, a day during every minute 
 of which he fully realized the importance of his role, the 
 great dignity of his office ; and as he listened to the familiar 
 Latin murmured above his ruddy locks, he felt as if he 
 had now left childhood forever far behind, and was really 
 acting the part of a good and kindly Seigneur to his people. 
 
 29 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 In his chubby, white -gloved fingers he tightly held the 
 rings which he was to hand to the cure in a few seconds, 
 and when the words: " Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium 
 in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus-Sancti " fell upon 
 his ears, he accomplished this little function with extreme 
 courtliness, bowing low as he slipped the golden circlets 
 into the out-stretched palm of the venerable officiant. 
 
 " Benedic Domine annulos hos" the old voice was 
 mellow and impressive, and at the end of the prayer the 
 devoutly intoned " A-a-a-men " was echoed by the clear, 
 distinct accents of Loic, who in his double quality 
 of Father and of Seigneur had been instructed to 
 display a very special fervor during the whole cere- 
 mony. 
 
 The boy was, moreover, notwithstanding his many 
 pranks, a true child of Brittany, where things mystical 
 become part of one's very bones. They seemed to him 
 the natural accompaniments of the crystallinely pure 
 atmosphere of the Church in which he was being brought 
 up, and he entertained a very deep respect and reverence 
 for its gorgeous ceremonies. 
 
 A happy child, he had his splendid castle, his lovely 
 gardens, his cliffs, his beloved toys and joys and pleas- 
 ures; he had Gaidik, whom he adored, and his mother, 
 who worshipped him; and, moreover, he had also the 
 dare-devil spirit of his race; but with all this he had 
 also a very distinct sense that Catholicism as it is 
 practised in old-fashioned, loyal Brittany was a great, 
 superb, entrancing faith, that ever opened up new per- 
 spectives, made new promises, brought to pass new and 
 awe-inspiring surprises, including time as well as infinite 
 space, a sort of glittering magnificence, blue and green 
 as the world itself, yet much more mysterious! 
 
 All this is a question of temperament, and Loic had a 
 
 30 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 wonderfully noble, if a very violent and authoritative 
 one. 
 
 Throughout the day, at the great banquet, when he 
 proposed the health of the young couple standing upon 
 a chair to do so during the dancing of the rondes on 
 the green turf to the tune of the shrill, barbaric Bignious, 
 while between the bride and groom he jumped and 
 stamped his little feet in perfect measure with the in- 
 terminable circle of couples linked hand-in-hand, Loic 
 was the cynosure of admiring eyes. 
 
 Backward and forward, balancing, jumping, singing 
 the refrain of the long gavotte at the top of his lungs, 
 he yielded to the intoxication of the moment, true to 
 his rhythm, remarkable in the free grace of his every 
 gesture, his curly head erect, his cheeks deliciously flushed, 
 his trim little figure always picturesquely poised, he 
 would have gone on like that for twenty-four hours at 
 a stretch, and was exceedingly wroth when summoned 
 away to rest himself before attending as would be his 
 duty later on the home-going of the bride. 
 
 Indeed, Kadoc did not escape a fierce attack and a 
 storm of reproaches when he arrived to escort him from 
 the Grande Place where the dances were in progress. 
 
 "Why can't I stay with them till supper -time?" he 
 demanded, furiously, as they turned into a narrow green 
 lane skirting the wall of the lower park. 
 
 Kadoc shrugged his broad shoulders and smiled. "It 
 is all very well for you to be among them as long as they 
 are sober," he replied, dryly, "but you know as well as 
 I do, Monsieur le Marquis" intentional stress was put 
 on the respectful and impressive appellation seldom used 
 as yet towards the child "that when they begin to 
 drink hard, they are no longer fit company for you, al- 
 though still frank and good Bretons!" 
 
 31 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Monsieur le Marquis turned towards Kadoc aggres- 
 sively, his hands on his hips, his eyes shining like stars in 
 the fast-gathering twilight. 
 
 "Suppose you hold your tongue, Maitre Kadoc!" he 
 cried. "My Bretons are always fit company for me, and 
 I am as safe with them when they are drunk as when 
 they are sober. It is you with your nonsense-tales who 
 have made mamma keep Gaidik away from the dance, 
 I'd wager, and that's enough harm done for one day! 
 Oh! you need not frown ; I am not afraid of you, Monsieur 
 Croquemitaine !" 
 
 At that moment the angry boy's tirade was interrupted 
 by a violent, snarling sound proceeding from the broad 
 ditch at the foot of the wall, where two excessively 
 drunken men, awakened from their slumbers by Loic's 
 shrill tones, had instantly grappled with each other, and 
 were rolling over and over in the shadow, cursing abomi- 
 nably, and filling the calm evening air with a torrent of 
 ugly and extremely personal invective. 
 
 Loic stopped short; then, before Kadoc could grasp 
 his intention, he ran swiftly to the tangled-up fighters 
 and literally fell upon them tooth and nail, beating the 
 amazed and terrified men on the face and head with his 
 tiny, doubled-up fist, kicking them lustily with his little 
 yellow slippers, all this with a dangerous gleam in his 
 eyes, and repeated promises to break their stubborn 
 heads for them if they did not instantly go home and 
 behave themselves, delivered in a tone which nearly 
 capsized Kadoc's gravity, and magically sobered up the 
 combatants for the time being. 
 
 "You must be pretty drunk, you brutes, if you make 
 me speak twice! What! is it you Hoel, and you Arch'an, 
 who dare to disobey my orders?" 
 
 The men slowly got up abashed and unsteady, gazing 
 
 3 2 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 stupidly at their small lord, who was holding his ground 
 superbly. 
 
 Kadoc, silent and motionless, towered behind him on 
 guard, but he was anxious to let him fall back as much 
 as possible on his own resources and pluck, since the 
 lesson would, he thought, be a salutary one for all parties 
 concerned. 
 
 "Do you hear me?" the little fellow continued, scowl- 
 ing at the two sullen, obstinate faces before him. "Go 
 home and try to keep quiet! It is only right that I 
 should be fetched home if that is the way you behave, 
 you Map Kagnez ! (sons of dogs). And I who was just 
 scolding Kadoc for saying that you are a drunken, foul- 
 mouthed tribe! But he's right; you truly are a set of 
 murdering ruffians as soon as you drink brandy! Sacrees 
 canailles, Va! he concluded, stamping his foot con- 
 temptuously; then with an after-thought he added: "It's 
 a jolly good thing Gaidik was not there after all! Nice 
 language for a woman to hear!" 
 
 Kadoc chuckled inaudibly from the deepening shad- 
 ows, delighted that his recent harangue should have re- 
 ceived such immediate confirmation. 
 
 "Kadoc's speaking against us, is he?" roared Hoe'l, 
 suddenly advancing in fantastic zigzags, and edging tow- 
 ards the tall Garde du Corps, who now swiftly stepped 
 forward and stood beside Loic. 
 
 "None of that, men!" he said, quietly, his voice low 
 and razor-edged. "Do as Monsieur le Marquis tells you! 
 Go home this instant, and don't try to pick a quarrel 
 with me, because if you do, your worthless heads will 
 be broken in good earnest this time!" He was coldly 
 measuring the two men with his merciless blue eyes, his 
 powerful figure drawn up to its full gigantic height. "Go, 
 Hoel; go, Arch'an! You'd best hurry, for my patience 
 
 33 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 is very nearly at an end," he concluded, bringing his 
 fierce face on a level with theirs. 
 
 Kadoc was greatly feared, and so merely growling out 
 a parting round of maledictions, the two brawlers, magi- 
 cally reconciled by a common misfortune, stumbled off, 
 fraternally supporting each other, their brandy-soaked, 
 excited voices dying suddenly away as they turned an 
 angle of the wall. 
 
 The purple Breton gloaming, musical with the twitter 
 of drowsy birds, gave one a sense of great spaces and 
 depths. Behind the machicolations and bastions of the 
 park, squirrels seeking their mossy nests scampered upon 
 the rough bark of the trees ; sometimes a twig snapped or 
 an acorn or pine-cone fell noisily upon the sanded paths, 
 and beyond the great masses of dark verdure overtop- 
 ping the wall, the last glow of the sunset had faded to the 
 exact hue of an unripe orange, quaintly streaked with 
 warm amethyst. 
 
 "Kadoc," began Loic, in somewhat quivering tones, 
 "you were right, they are nasty when they are drunk, 
 and and I am sorry to have spoken rudely to you!" 
 
 "It was nothing, nothing at all!" the big sailor mut- 
 tered, abruptly, although his heart was touched by the 
 winning, easy repentance of the boy he loved. "It is 
 not worth talking about, Monsieur Loic; you never mean 
 what you say when you are in a passion, and, moreover, 
 I know you too well to take offence at your scoldings, 
 mon p'tit gars. 
 
 Loic nodded acquiescently, but was evidently per- 
 plexed. 
 
 "Kadoc!" he cried, pausing in the middle of the path 
 and looking up at the grim face of his escort with round, 
 questioning eyes. "I am a Breton, too a true Breton! 
 Will I also get drunk when I grow up, and fight like that 
 
 34 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 not that I would mind the fighting, though," he added, 
 truculently. 
 
 "You forget that you are a Gentilhomme, a Grand 
 Seigneur," said Kadoc, sternly. "You are not a poor 
 Saulmer whose only pleasure in life is to make a beast 
 of himself on fete-days. You come from a great race of 
 soldiers and brave sailors, that's why you like to fight" 
 this with an imperceptible tremor of the corners of his 
 mouth "but get drunk, no! no! my little lord, you are 
 too much like your father, God rest his soul!" he crossed 
 himself devoutly "ever to do anything really bad like 
 that. I promised my dear master on his death-bed to 
 care for you and make you walk straight, and you can 
 trust me to keep my word." Kadoc's face had now 
 softened into a gentle, yearning smile of remembrance, 
 and Loic slipped a little, caressing hand into his humble 
 friend's big, hard palm, which closed with rough tender- 
 ness around it. 
 
 "I am glad not to be obliged to drink because I am a 
 Breton," he said, naively content, "for a Breton I want 
 to remain always. I am not a Frenchman, am I, Kadoc? 
 Just a Breton, like you! I hate Frenchmen!" 
 
 Kadoc's brawny hand trembled a little, he grew slight- 
 ly pale beneath his copper-hued tan. "No, Monsieur 
 Loic, thank God you are not a Frenchman; you are a 
 true-hearted Vretoned pennou kdlled (hard-headed Bre- 
 ton) ; there is nothing mean or sneaking, fickle or un- 
 steady about you. You are a Royalist, a Catholic, an 
 Aristocrat the Saints be praised! and you will be one 
 day our Chief and our Lord we of the old Chouan blood, 
 white to the core of our souls, not white and blue and 
 red, mind you, like the French!" 
 
 Never had Loic heard so long a tirade from his severe, 
 silent retainer, and he was as much awed and impressed 
 
 35 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 as it was in his dauntless little nature to be. His usual 
 laughing insolence and brilliant, buoyant chatter were 
 quenched for the moment, and he remained quite speech- 
 less during the rest of the walk. 
 
 When they reached the castle, however, he stopped 
 once more, brusquely, and gazing down from the broad 
 northern terrace at the tall, barren cliffs curving away 
 on both sides above liquid depths of gold and purple and 
 shining green a splendor of color sometimes seen after 
 sunset on that grim coast he deeply breathed in once 
 or twice the pure, cool breeze blowing from the sea, and 
 said, quite solemnly f and simply: 
 
 "Oh yes! I will be a Breton for always and always!" 
 And Kadoc answered fervently, "Amen!" 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Three oceans, one of moonlight's widest flow, 
 One, shuddering blackness 'neath the balcony 
 The tower's, the cliff's vast shadow far below 
 Rolled the Biscayan Sea M. M. 
 
 THERE was a big crowd gathered on the Grande Place 
 of Kergoat that night, standing in groups under the 
 broad, star-studded sky, awaiting the moment to accom- 
 pany the bridal pair to their new home, a pretty little 
 cottage beyond the church on the road to Plouharzal. 
 Here and there the gleam of a lantern flickered on the 
 gold and silver embroideries of the rich costumes, and 
 from the wide-open door of the inn a broad band of cheer- 
 ful red and orange light streamed forth upon the bag- 
 pipe players, still relentlessly blowing in their enormously 
 distended Bignious. 
 
 The whole village had always been in full sympathy 
 with the young couple, and no tinge of jealousy was 
 aroused by their superior prosperity; so all had come 
 with one accord, laying work and personal affairs cheer- 
 fully aside, to foregather at their wedding and agree 
 among themselves, cordially and with many oaths, fierce- 
 sounding, but benevolent in intention, that the union 
 was a most commendable and satisfactory one, destined 
 to reflect immense credit upon the whole country -side. 
 
 Of course, many of the men were now quite drunk. 
 Talking is thirsty work, so is dancing, and, moreover, it 
 is usual in Brittany to interrupt such agreeable toil 
 
 37 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 every half-hour or so on festive occasions, in order to 
 drink great bowlfuls of cider or demi setters of apple 
 brandy in honor of the day. So far, however, drunken- 
 ness had not gone beyond what perfect seemliness and 
 Paludier etiquette demand, and although there had 
 been a few scurries, even one or two more serious rights, 
 the rowdies had been sent home bleeding and satisfied, 
 and those who remained were still capable of perfect 
 decorum and polite behavior. Meanwhile the moon had 
 risen above the cork-oak forest at the back of the village 
 and was shining radiantly, turning the gray cliffs into 
 alternate blocks of silver and black marble, according to 
 where its idealizing rays fell. 
 
 In the offing a score of fishing-boats seemed fastened 
 to the water by the long, golden nails reflected from their 
 tiny, flaming fire-pots, while close to the church the white 
 coiffes of many women gleamed, their figures indistinct, 
 but their voices very young and real as they chatted 
 light-heartedly, sitting on the mossy steps of the Calvary, 
 or, with characteristic insouciance born of long habit, 
 upon the low wall of the cemetery. Breton women have 
 singularly pretty and melodious voices, delicious to hear 
 in the evening above the monotonous murmur of the sea. 
 ' Suddenly there was a noisy shuffling of feet, an elo- 
 quent pause, and Loic, accompanied by Kadoc, appeared 
 on the scene with all the brio and suddenness of a 
 coup de theatre. The boy, amazingly tall and strong 
 for his age, had a laughing, excited look in his eyes. 
 Flushed, brilliant, handsome, the light from the inn door 
 falling broadly upon him, he stood for a moment with 
 uncovered head bowing right and left to his people, while 
 shouts of " Vive Monsieur le Marquis, Vive Monseigneur!" 
 fairly rent the air. 
 
 Truly this was a proud moment, and he was too much 
 
 38 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 impressed with the dignity of his role to laugh at the 
 deafening noise, as he would undoubtedly have done in 
 former days. On the contrary, he bore himself with a 
 grave urbanity never before observed in him, his spirit 
 mounting to the exalted occasion when, for the first 
 time in his short life, he was appearing in his character 
 of Lord of the Manor. 
 
 " Deves mat dor'ch!" (good -evening), he said, when he 
 at last could make himself heard. "I am here, you see, 
 mes enfants, to lead Jeannik home!" which statement 
 aroused another tempest of appreciative hurrahs, this 
 time hardly to be subdued. 
 
 Under the great stone-pine on the edge of the Place 
 the wedding cortege was being formed, the Sonneurs de 
 Bignious, rather unsteady on their gaitered legs, indus- 
 triously and somewhat ineffectually attempting to mark 
 time while the guests, amid merriment and confusion, 
 slowly assembled behind them in double file. Every- 
 body was in brilliant spirits, and when Loic, holding 
 Jeannik by the hand, placed himself at the head of the 
 procession, there was a thunder of applause, followed by 
 the sacramental first lines of the Chant du Depart : 
 
 "Petra gan 
 
 Al lapouzik war al Ian?" 
 (What does the eagle sing on the Landes ?) 
 
 which were lustily intoned by the four groomsmen, the 
 bagpipes having been silenced with difficulty. 
 
 "Gan haf gan he'vtgnones !" 
 (He sings and carols of his love!) 
 
 sang back Loic, as it was his duty to do. 
 
 "What awaits the eaglet in his nest?" 
 carolled the groomsmen. 
 
 39 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 " His love awaits him in his nest/' 
 
 answered Loic, standing very straight, shoulders squared 
 and head erect, singing with all his might. 
 
 " Who will lead his love to him ?" 
 came the query. 
 
 " Your Seigneur will lead her to him," 
 echoed Loic, proudly. 
 
 "God bless our Seigneur and the love he brings with him!" 
 
 roared the whole assembly, loudly accompanied by the 
 bagpipes, who, set free by their laughing oppressors, now 
 brayed forth again, somewhat discordantly, it is true, but 
 with immense good -will, as Marquis en tete the cortege 
 started briskly towards the bridal home. 
 
 It was good to have once more a Seigneur to lead the 
 bride, a handsome little Seigneur, too, who seemed des- 
 tined to uphold the traditions of his race right gallantly, 
 and the people were indeed well pleased, for until now 
 they had noticed little else in their future Chieftain save 
 his traditional good looks and his ineradicable love for 
 mischief and dare-deviltry. Yes, yes, surely this was a 
 great day! 
 
 A wedding ceremony in far-off Finisterre is still accom- 
 panied by the semi-barbaric customs of ancient times, cus- 
 toms which are unique in their vigorous local color and 
 have a cachet of originality quite apart from any others 
 in the universe, for there have been no pauses in the ob- 
 servance of Breton rites since the very infancy of that 
 rugged race, and Loic was for the first time to witness in 
 almost all its peculiarities the chiefest and quaintest 
 
 40 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of them all, a thoroughly old - fashioned mariage de 
 Paludiers. 
 
 Gayly the noisy band wended its way along the queer, 
 steep, narrow, moonlit road, bordered with thatch -roofed 
 houses flanked here and there by tall, gaunt stone cruci- 
 fixes worn by rain and storm to a lovely shade of pale, 
 greenish - gray, or primitively carved images of Saints, 
 now grotesquely and pathetically disfigured with age, 
 some lacking a nose, others deprived of an arm or a foot, 
 but in spite of these regrettable deficiencies borrowing 
 from their picturesque surroundings, and from the soft 
 brilliance of the Queen of Night, an indescribable poetry 
 of aspect. 
 
 The Chapelouse wreathed hats, the rich old embroid- 
 eries in silver and blue, in gold and scarlet and green, the 
 snowy coiffes fluttering in the freshening breeze, the 
 prancing musicians with their beribboned Bignious, the 
 blushing, shy, yet saucy little bride holding tightly in 
 her own the small, firm hand of the small Marquis, made 
 up a deliciously embodied vision of long ago, which few 
 sights indeed could have equalled. 
 
 At last Herve's cottage was reached, and the long train 
 disbanded, clustering about the door to witness the bride 
 and groom's formal entry into their new domain. On 
 the threshold Loic paused, as he had been told to do, 
 kissed Jeannik on both cheeks standing on tiptoe to do 
 so vigorously shook hands with the young husband, pat- 
 ting him on the arm with a paternal dignity, comical in 
 its sincere earnestness, and then stepped back to where 
 Kadoc was waiting for him, while the bride and her four 
 bridesmaids, the groom with his four groomsmen, Mother 
 Corentine and Herve's father and mother entered, closing 
 and bolting the door behind them. 
 
 "Why can't I go in, too?" asked Loic, staring at the 
 
 41 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 stout oak panel now separating him from his friend 
 Herv<. 
 
 "Because it is not the custom, Monsieur Loic," replied 
 the wily Garde du Corps, unwilling to spoil the child's 
 new-born seigneurial pride by confessing that an older 
 Seigneur would not have been excluded from the ex- 
 traordinary rites now going on inside. "But watch now 
 and listen," he continued, "for soon they will let go the 
 pigeons, and the Chanson de la Mariee is well worth 
 hearing." 
 
 Loic opened his eyes to their widest extent. "The 
 pigeons!" he whispered, annoyed at his ignorance "what 
 pigeons, Kadoc?" 
 
 "Hush," murmured Kadoc, "look at that little round 
 loop-hole below the roof; that's where they are coming 
 from"; and lifting the boy onto the rough, low wall of 
 the little garden, he stood beside him, perchance quite 
 as much amused and expectant as his young Lord, for 
 there is something of the eternal child beneath the cold, 
 dignified exterior of every Breton. 
 
 Within the house, built of upright blocks of granite 
 like the ancient Druidic menhirs and cromlechs scattered 
 on the Landes near by, absolute silence reigned. In the 
 enormous stone fireplace a pile of turf was smouldering 
 rosily, and on the heavy table one rosin-candle in a tall, 
 copper holder dimly burned. The well -beaten earthen 
 floor was as clean as if made of polished wood , and in the 
 deeper gloom of the chimney - corner the great lit - clos 
 was just discernible, its carved, fretted doors wide open, 
 its crimson -bordered green serge curtains drawn back, 
 its coarse sheets and pillows as invitingly white as newly 
 bleached flax. In one corner stood the silver locked and 
 hinged Bahut, in the other an oaken bench was flanked 
 by a large spinning-wheel made of rich, dark mahogany, 
 
 42 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and right behind the door was the broad vaissellier, 
 the pride of every Breton housekeeper, gay with crudely 
 painted plates, dishes, and cups. 
 
 A very sumptuous interior that for Brittany, the 
 grandeur of which was further enhanced by the superb 
 silver crucifix presented by Loic to his "daughter" Jean- 
 nik, and which now hung above the lofty mantel-piece, 
 adorned by a branch of thrice-blessed box-tree. 
 
 Before the bed the women closed in around Jeannik; 
 before the bench on the farther side of the big, square 
 room the men formed a similar hedge around Herve, and 
 the official undressing began. 
 
 Slowly, solemnly, the beautiful garments were re- 
 moved, the bridal coronal unfastened, the jewels un- 
 pinned. Not a word was spoken, not a sound heard, 
 save the rustle of the heavy brocades, the slight frou- 
 frou of the lace coiffe and kerchief, the creaking of 
 nerve* 's fine, new, canary -hued shoes and wide, silver- 
 buckled leathern belt, until all this outer finery was 
 carefully laid aside; then the trembling voice of Mere 
 Corentine commanded, "Blow out the candle," and in 
 almost pitchy darkness the rest of the double toilet was 
 continued. 
 
 Stripped by their respective entourage of their gor- 
 geous wedding costumes, the bride and groom were clad 
 anew in ordinary Sunday clothes, still silently, and more 
 by guesswork than otherwise, for the turf fire scarcely 
 emitted a glow sufficient to permit of those many pairs 
 of eyes being brought into play, but everything had been 
 meticulously prepared in advance, and there was no con- 
 fusion. 
 
 When once again the two young people were dressed 
 from head to foot, all excepting the new sabots ranged 
 side by side on the hearth - stone, the bridesmaids and 
 
 43 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 groomsmen fell back, and the bridegroom, led by his 
 father, walked towards the bed where the little bride 
 had been laid upon the brilliant counterpane, her small, 
 brown hands crossed over her breast, her tiny, stockinged 
 feet stiffly extended like those of a granite Saint on a 
 tombstone. Quietly, deliberately, and without the faint- 
 est soupfon of false shame, the young man took his 
 place beside her, also quite straight on his back with his 
 hands crossed like a carven effigy. 
 
 For a minute or so longer a profound silence reigned, 
 then the old father commanded, in his turn, "Light the 
 candle," which was instantly done by one of the youths 
 dipping it with somewhat spluttering results in the hot- 
 test part of the dully burning embers. 
 
 Silently, also, the company filed out, the mother re*- 
 maining to the last in order to put in her new son-in-law's 
 hand the tiny silver loving-cup filled to the brim with 
 hot spiced-wine, which it is the custom that the groom 
 should share with his bride as soon as they are left alone. 
 Also Mother Corentine opened with a quick, deft move- 
 ment the gate of a large wicker -cage containing two 
 white pigeons, placed in readiness on the narrow win- 
 dow-sill, then with a murmured blessing she departed. 
 
 Nothing can give an idea of the tact and delicacy with 
 which all this was done; there was not an unseemly joke, 
 not a single giggle nor embarrassing gesture. Tradition 
 willed things to be thus accomplished, that was all. 
 There was nothing extraordinary or shocking about it to 
 these simple, decorous souls. 
 
 As soon as the door of the little house once more 
 closed behind the Cercle d'Honneur as those intrusted 
 with the undressing of bride and groom are designated 
 six young men and women, especially selected for their 
 fine singing, ranged themselves in a semicircle before it, 
 
 44 
 
MERE CORENTINE 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and intoned a monotonous chant which may be roughly 
 rendered from the Bas-Breton as follows: 
 
 "Are you snug in bed, Madame la Marine? 
 Are you happy in your new nest, we pray? 
 Are you content with your Fate to-day?" 
 
 As the deep, harmonious voices ceased there was a 
 momentary pause, and then: 
 
 " I am snug in bed as I can be, 
 And my heart's love is there with me, 
 Together under our own roof -tree," 
 
 Jeannik sang from within, her voice rising almost ethe- 
 really clear and unreal from the half-open lucarne be- 
 neath the thatch. 
 
 " Then of your joy, Madame la Mariee, 
 A token send to us we pray, 
 That we may know if truth you say!" 
 
 sang the lads and maidens lustily. 
 
 At that precise moment there was a brusque whir of 
 fluttering wings, and a couple of dazzlingly white doves 
 flew out of the round loop-hole, hesitated a second in 
 midair, and then, with a silky rustle of their shimmer- 
 ing pinions, sped away in the purple and silver night, 
 where they soon disappeared like flakes of drifting snow. 
 
 Loic gave a shout of delight, and clapped his hands 
 ent husiasti cally . 
 
 "Oh, Kadoc, did you see the pigeons? Weren't they 
 beautiful?" he cried, almost drowning the gay voices of 
 the singers loudly expressing their gratification at so 
 gracious a token: 
 
 "Oh, thanks, oh, thanks, Madame la Marine! 
 We are convinced! Come now, be gay! 
 And with us dance and sing, we pray!" 
 
 45 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Hush," whispered Kadoc, and from behind the door 
 Jeannik's voice rang out anew: 
 
 "Once as a girl I could have come, 
 
 But now my heart's no longer mine; 
 A wife, I must abide at home, 
 
 Nor join with you the laughing line. 
 
 "A wife must bake and spread the board, 
 
 Her hearth-stone she must sweep, and bring 
 All things in readiness for her lord; 
 No longer can I dance and sing." 
 
 At which lamentable statement all the lads and maid- 
 ens extended their arms widely, threw them back in 
 token of deep desolation, and finally let them slowly 
 fall with a wail of piercing chagrin, to which the bag- 
 pipes contributed a wheeze of in tensest and weirdest 
 melancholy. Then followed many verses of alternate 
 entreaty and denial, the singers depicting the joys of 
 youth and festivity, Jeannik enumerating a housewife's 
 multitudinous detaining cares and duties in a mournful 
 catalogue, until suddenly: 
 
 "Come in and fetch her, friends, and see 
 Whether I'm as black as she's painted me!" 
 
 sang Herve', his fine, sonorous voice booming forth with 
 great effect, for the singers instantly rushed at the door, 
 and, followed by a laughing cohue of guests, invaded 
 the cottage as many of them as it would hold where 
 Jeannik and Herve still lay side by side like two carven 
 effigies on the red-and-green counterpane. 
 
 "Let us go, too, Kadoc!" shrieked Loic, struggling 
 violently; "what do you mean by holding me back?" 
 But Kadoc could not allow him to be jostled in such a 
 melee, and a scene would doubtless have followed regret- 
 tably imperilling the seigneurial dignity had not nerve" 
 
 4 6 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 stepped out at that moment, his laughing eyes brimming 
 with fun, and, hoisting the little Chieftain on his shoulder, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "Come, Monsieur le Marquis, we will take you back 
 to the castle." 
 
 Suiting the action to the words, he sprang forward, 
 pushing and elbowing his way through the dense ranks 
 of his guests, who, after some confusion, reformed in a 
 double line behind him to the completely reawakened 
 and indefatigable music of the Bignious and the loud 
 hurrahs and vivats of the enchanted spectators. 
 
 On they clattered towards the castle, past the mead- 
 ows where the home - farm cattle slept luxuriously in 
 the deep clover and rich, long grass, their breath odorous 
 on the night air; past the placid lake alive with wide- 
 awake frogs gravely sitting among the sword-rushes and 
 the dock-leaves, and croaking a welcome of their own 
 solemn composing ; past the black hazel coppice fragrant 
 with primroses and violets; past the huge, old oaks be- 
 neath which the deer came every afternoon to be fed, 
 and finally reached the drawbridge which they crossed 
 to enter the Cour d'Honneur. 
 
 With its tall louvers, its massive battlemented towers, 
 its endless rows of Gothic balconies, its marvellously deli- 
 cate stone traceries, the great building looked extraordi- 
 narily imposing in the moonlight which silvered all the 
 antique painted panes of its lancet windows. It invoked, 
 indeed, the days when great Nobles 
 
 "Built royallie 
 Their mansions curiouslie, 
 With turrets and with towres 
 With halls and with bowres, 
 Hanging about their walles, 
 Clothes of gold and palles, 
 Arras of rich arraye 
 Fresh as flowers of Maye!" 
 47 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 On the wide Perron stood the Marquise de Kergoat, 
 her long train carelessly caught over one arm, in a shower 
 of perfumed black laces, which surrounded her with 
 dusky billowy clouds, starred by a multitude of diamonds. 
 Behind her, through the great, open doors, the immense 
 hall, with its dim splendor of purple and gold, its gleam 
 of armor, and the rosy glow of lamps suffusing the double 
 flight of stairs that swept upward on either side of a 
 flower-filled onyx fountain, made a sumptuous back- 
 ground. 
 
 Beside her was Gaidik, her tawny mane falling far be- 
 low her waist, her eyes dancing with excitement as the 
 gay procession approached, for she keenly appreciated 
 the pageant of delicious color that streamed from a 
 thousand points of this beautiful night scene, and she 
 stepped forward in the shadow of some broad-leaved 
 Mexican plants which adorned the balustrade, her whole 
 small being quivering with delight as Herve swiftly ad- 
 vanced, bent the knee to allow Loic to slide from his 
 shoulder at the Marquise's feet, and then drew back to 
 where his blushing little wife was awaiting him. 
 
 Immediately Madame de Kergoat smilingly descended 
 towards them, complimenting the happy young couple 
 with a caressing gentleness of which she had the secret 
 and which was not one of her least dangerous weapons, 
 She spoke, moreover, in fullest sincerity, for she liked her 
 "vassals," and realizing, moreover, that the role of Chate- 
 laine suited her exceedingly well, she always carried it to 
 the highest point of perfection whenever occasion pre- 
 sented itself. 
 
 To-night she was openly, visibly, unmistakably de- 
 lighted, and looked the very incarnation of what one's 
 most golden and treasured fancies of a great lady are, 
 and yet all her grace, all her exquisite art, never aroused 
 
 4 8 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 in those peasants the adoration they had felt for their 
 dead Marquis, and the love with which their hearts were 
 filled for his orphaned children. Their own fathers had 
 lived from generation to generation under the kindly rule 
 of a Kergoat, and the service they had given their masters 
 had always been accorded with a loving loyalty, a thor- 
 oughly feudal allegiance, and a singularly beautiful pride 
 in belonging body and soul, as it were, to those thorough- 
 paced Grand Seigneurs, who, one and all, were born with 
 that nameless gift of insensibly and without effort at- 
 tracting deep personal attachment rare temperaments 
 which vanquished hatred as the sun melts snow. 
 
 Loic, marching about beside his mother from one group 
 to another, still displayed a flow of inimitable nonsense 
 and an effervescence of animal spirits so mirthful and 
 contagious that the most blas audience wpuld have 
 been laughed into irresistible good-humor, while Gaidik, 
 for once as merry as himself, chatted freely and uncon- 
 strainedly. 
 
 That night lived long in her memory, and when at 
 length the interminable line of wedding guests had van- 
 ished, after a vigorous rendering of the ancient song in 
 honor of their liege Lord and Lady which is reserved for 
 such occasions, and the dreamy light of the moon was left 
 in sole possession of the Cour d'Honneur, she walked up- 
 stairs to her room like one roused suddenly from the 
 vision of some splendid fairy pageant, and the quick ear 
 of Loic, sauntering after her, caught the sound of a re- 
 pressed sigh. 
 
 Half an hour later, wrapped in a long white garment 
 of filmy tissues, which made her look quite ghostlike, the 
 little girl was standing on her balcony, which overhung 
 the sea, at the northwestern extremity of the , castle. 
 The whole magnificent view appeared as if a thin web of 
 
 49 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 silver had been cast over it, pale and dim in the shad- 
 ows, but still reflecting the diffused moonlight. Behind 
 her the thick mantle of ivy clothing the carven wall, and 
 capriciously twining in and out of delicately fretted 
 balusters and projections, shone black as polished onyx, 
 and below was depth upon depth of velvet darkness, 
 edged out beyond the cliff-shade by the glint of waves. 
 Bats were wheeling about, coming up silently and swiftly 
 out of the transparent obscurity, slanting towards the 
 radiance of the moon, wherein they madly circled for a 
 few minutes at a time like sombre butterflies of gigantic 
 size, then sweeping away into the darkness again as if 
 dazzled by so much brilliancy, till presently the process 
 would recommence da-capo! 
 
 Suddenly two little loving arms were clasped about 
 Gaidik' s neck, and a childish voice whispered in her ear: 
 
 "I could not sleep, Gaid, before making sure that you 
 are not unhappy, so as soon as Yves" (Yves was his 
 valet) "had finished tucking me into bed I crept out 
 again, and here I am." 
 
 The bell in the castle tower was tolling out twelve 
 solemn strokes, and the children looked surprisedly at 
 each other, for this was an hour when they invariably 
 lay asleep in their little beds. 
 
 "Oh-h-h!" said Gaidik, a long drawn "oh" of amaze- 
 ment. "What would mamma say if she knew that we 
 were out here?" 
 
 "Say! She would scold us, especially you, as usual! 
 But never mind, Gaid, she cannot hear us from here, 
 and I must be with you a little while, for I have hardly 
 seen you all day long." 
 
 Gaidik gave an energetic gesture of affirmation and 
 consent. She was overjoyed to have her darling near 
 her again at last, and they both sat down on a narrow 
 
 5 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 stone bench clamped to the inner side of the balustrade. 
 Gaidik's pale little face was paler than usual, her big, 
 gray eyes were graver even than was their wont, but 
 she nodded her head slowly and contentedly at her 
 brother, as she curled herself up on the hard, uncomfort- 
 able seat and drew him close to her. 
 
 "Why did you think that I was unhappy?" she said 
 at last, curiously. "Surely I was gay enough this even- 
 ing." 
 
 "Yes, but you sighed a tremendous big sigh as we 
 went up-stairs, and you did not eat any dinner not that 
 much." Loic measured half an inch on his dimpled 
 thumb. "So I am sure-certain that you have been 
 scolded, or punished, or something." He clinched his 
 little fist and shook it threateningly, vehemently, while 
 his eyes flashed fiercely. 
 
 " I wish I was really grown up, not just making believe, 
 like to-day! I would soon defend you and protect you 
 then, instead of standing by like a lump, even when you 
 are punished instead of me." 
 
 "Nonsense, Loic!" Gaidik exclaimed, drawing him tow- 
 ards her and hugging him tightly. "Do you think I 
 mind being punished for you? And you are much too 
 quick in taking my part as it is! It only makes things 
 worse besides you are my own Loic, and as long as I 
 have you, I do not care a bit what else happens." She 
 gazed fixedly at the tossing waters below, the murmuring, 
 dancing, restless waters, shot with seams and cleavages 
 of light where the moonrays fell off in a ragged fringe 
 from the broad, silvered path reaching from horizon to 
 shore. A bat crossed in front of the balcony, flew round 
 and round almost within touch, and then disappeared 
 again in the shadow. 
 
 "Sh-h!" whispered Loic, with an admonitory gesture. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 He stole a wary glance round about, and then, with un- 
 accustomed solemnity: 
 
 "Did you see that bat?" he asked. "He looked at us 
 right knowingly with his beady little eyes. Well, he was 
 sent by the devil to listen to what we were saying. The 
 middle of the night, Gaid, is the devil's noon, and no- 
 body is ever awake in the middle of the night excepting 
 wicked people, so you should be asleep ; but I it is quite 
 natural that I should be awake, and it is for me that the 
 devil's servant came. I wish he hadn't looked at you, 
 though." 
 
 " Mercy on us, Loic, what are you talking about ? Why, 
 you are not wicked, you are never wicked, and I will not 
 have you say that you are!" 
 
 "Why? One cannot help being wicked if one is born 
 wicked, no more than one can help being a bat or a toad 
 if one is born one, and perhaps that very bat was praying 
 that he might be changed into something else! I know 
 that I was born wicked old Malghorn says that some 
 day I'm sure to be changed into stone for my sins, like 
 the bad Monk of Plouhar'zalec and that my soul will 
 burn in hell for ever and ever." Loic concluded, evi- 
 dently contemplating the possibility of so awful a doom 
 without the slightest fear, his slippered feet crossed, his 
 curly head lolling back against his sister's encircling arm. 
 
 On the silence that succeeded there came a low laugh 
 from Gaidik the laugh of amused incredulity. 
 
 "Petit Nigaud!" she said, with decision, "you should 
 not listen to old Malghorn. He is a devil's servant him- 
 self, a wizard, a Baz dotu, and no Breton at all. Don't 
 you know that he is a gypsy, found ever so many years 
 ago under a hedge in the big road ditch?" 
 
 Malghorn was a tall, thin, black-haired, hawk-nosed, 
 fierce -looking man with a pair of cruel lips, and powerful 
 
 52 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 jaws which he never opened save to say something un- 
 pleasant, but then one must do him the justice to say 
 that he opened them to some purpose, bursting forth in a 
 wild gush of words, malicious, threatening, and calculated 
 to arouse terror in the breasts of his hearers. On Sunday, 
 clad in heavy broadcloth, he looked when one did not 
 examine him too closely like an eminently respectable 
 grazier, but when working in the orchard which was 
 his vocation at Kergoat with a sharp pruning - knife 
 stuck in his belt, and a ragged hat on his uncombed 
 head, he became a rather formidable and altogether un- 
 reassuring figure. Some time after her husband's death 
 Madame de Kergoat had deigned to engage this tall, 
 bony, haggard individual, who was certainly an excellent 
 workman, and according to his fellow-servants was ac- 
 quainted with supernatural secrets regarding the culture 
 of fruit-trees, secrets doubtless obtained through some 
 compact with his Satanic Majesty. Also, he was accused 
 of being a Jetteur de Sorts (caster of spells) , and went by 
 the sobriquet of Ar-Zod (the madman). 
 
 "He says," continued Loic, gravely, "that he can 
 hear the grass grow, the plants shoot up, and the trees 
 stretch themselves and murmur awful secrets to one 
 another at night, and of course he may, because he is 
 always prowling round the menhirs after dark, where 
 he dances with the kourrigans." 
 
 Gaidik lifted her shoulders in emphatic repudiation of 
 Malghorn's whole paltry bag of tricks. "No fear of a 
 wicked old beast like him being so privileged," she said, 
 contemptuously. "Fancy his dancing with the dear lit- 
 tle kourrigans! I would not have thought you silly 
 enough to believe such a story, Loic! Now, good people, 
 who are very pure and do no harm to any one, can see 
 shapes and hear voices miles and miles away. When 
 
 53 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 they sleep their souls go far, far, at the back of the north- 
 wind, to distant countries ever so beautiful, filled with 
 flowers and birds and delicious music. I always wish I 
 could be like that. You see, Loic, I seem to feel that 
 my body is not the real me; it is my soul that's me, and 
 if I could only be good, and not fly in a passion, and all 
 that, I'm sure I could go during my sleep to that lovely 
 place where everything is so splendid. I don't mean 
 Heaven, you know!" 
 
 "But you are good, Gaidik! You are the very bestest 
 best in the whole world, and I think you are not at all 
 like other people. They say in the village that you are 
 a white witch because you do good to sick folks when 
 you touch them, and whatever you plant in your garden 
 grows, even sticks! Do you remember that little cane 
 of mine that you stuck in among your cockle-shells and 
 which sprouted out a lot of green leaves?" 
 
 "Bah! that was a willow-wand, so there's nothing 
 astonishing about that. But there are some people who 
 can be seen in two places at the same minute. Keinek 
 was seen walking through the park here before he died 
 on his frigate in China." 
 
 "That was only his ghost," interrupted Loic, quite 
 simply and sincerely. 
 
 "No, no, not his ghost! I heard Uncle Pierre tell 
 mamma that it was several days before he did die that 
 he was seen, wandering under the trees, crying bitterly. 
 So you see! He was a good, good man, Keinek, not a 
 beast like Malghorn, who is not a callet deusan Armorik 
 (hard, or true man of Brittany), but just a dirty gypsy, 
 a regular Teuss' Arpouliek (three - headed devil), who 
 shows different faces to each different person he speaks 
 to." 
 
 Loic stole another wary glance about. "Oh!" he said, 
 
 54 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 carelessly, "everybody knows that, I have known it for 
 years, but what only I know is that he spies upon us and 
 tells tales to mamma about everything we do." 
 
 "What!" cried Gaidik, sitting up so alertly that she 
 almost tumbled Loic from the bench; "a traitor, is he?" 
 she spoke in accents of huge disdain "a traitor? 
 Well, let me catch him at it and I will give him such a 
 thrashing you'll help me, won't you, Loic that he'll 
 never do so again, of that you may be certain." Her 
 lips were parted, her big eyes two menacing points of 
 fire, her whole tiny person eager for the fray, as it was 
 the nature of those terrible little Kergoat children to be 
 on the slightest provocation. Loic was instantly all 
 aglow with impatience to witness the discomfiture of his 
 enemy, never doubting that his sister and he would re- 
 tire from the encounter with flying colors. 
 
 "Yes," he said, with a quick little shake of the head, 
 and speaking with great animation, "we will thrash him 
 to within an inch of his life, the sneak! He pretends not 
 to be afraid of us because I am so little yet, and you are 
 a girl." 
 
 "A girl? Me? How dare he call me that!" cried 
 Gaidik, in a red fury of wrath. "Won't I box his ears 
 for him, though." 
 
 Loic laughed, his rosy face bright above the low collar 
 )f his pink pajama jacket. "I knew that would fetch 
 ou," he confessed, modestly proud of this successful bit 
 f diplomacy. 
 
 "Did you ever hear him putting mamma up against 
 us?" questioned Gaidik, who felt a sort of morbid in- 
 ;erest in what the future held in reserve for her. 
 
 Loic meditated profoundly. Then he declared, de- 
 cisively: "Yes, I did, one, two, no three days ago. 
 Mamma bullied you and sent you home, don't you re- 
 
 55 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 member? Well, he, Malghorn, had been talking to her 
 in the orchard, and I had heard him speak of 'Mam'zelle 
 Gaidik' and the apricots those we climbed in the tree 
 for, it must have been and after you left he winked at 
 me and seemed to crow over your being punished. Mamma 
 is cruel unkind to you, Gaid, all the time, but she was 
 fierce that day ; she said you led me into mischief, though 
 it was you who climbed highest for the apricots I wanted. 
 I think that was very wrong! When I'm a man, Gaidik, 
 you'll have everything you want, and never a single 
 scolding!" 
 
 "How many times must I tell you that I don't mind 
 mamma's scoldings ?" said Gaidik, with her chin in the air; 
 "but I cannot stand still when she punishes you. I 
 always feel as if I could kill anybody who beats you," 
 she continued, almost in a whisper, but with tragic in- 
 tensity, her face growing very dark and her lips trem- 
 bling. "Don't set her back up, Loic. I can't endure it. 
 I really, really can't!" 
 
 "Bah!" the child answered, with the superiority of a 
 sage, "she's never long angry with me; but when it's 
 with you it lasts a dreadful long while, for ever and ever 
 and ever, which is awful unjust!" His tone was very im- 
 pressive, and he spoke as if he had a thousand years' ex- 
 perience behind him. Then he yawned, opening his sweet 
 little mouth as wide as it would go. 
 
 "Oh, Loic, you are sleepy, my poor little dear! We 
 must go to bed now." 
 
 "I'm not sleepy at all," stoutly denied Loic, sitting 
 cross-legged beside her, "not the least little bit, and I 
 don't want to go to bed yet!" 
 
 Gaidik laughed, showing her pretty, white teeth, and 
 both subsided after this conscientious protest into drowsy 
 silence. 
 
 56 
 
THE TRIDENTAND THE NET 
 
 "Do you think, Gaid, that animals have souls?" the 
 boy after a few minutes demanded, sleepily. 
 
 "Why, yes, of course they have souls! Can't you see 
 them shining through the eyes of the dogs when they lay 
 their heads on our laps and look at us deep, deep ; and don't 
 you know how horses understand all one says to them ?" 
 
 "They understand you and me, but not the grooms; 
 not nearly as well, that is!" 
 
 "Oh, but it's because the grooms don't know how to 
 make themselves understood, and speak to them as if 
 they were all brutes together! But now, do go to bed, 
 Loic, darling please do!" 
 
 "No, Gaidik, I'm so jolly comfy here! Let me stay a 
 little longer!" he pleaded, his head gradually nestling 
 more closely against his sister's shoulder, that curved it- 
 self into a pillow for him. Another long silence ensued, 
 and gradually, before they knew it, in utter weariness 
 they dropped asleep locked in each other's arms, beneath 
 the smiling moon. 
 
 The minutes of the warm spring night slid into hours, 
 but on they slept as peacefully as if stretched at full 
 length in their dainty beds, Gaidik's long hair drooping 
 like a veil over her little pet's face and arms, her head 
 resting quite easily against the balustrade, in one of 
 those graceful poses which children unconsciously adopt. 
 
 In the distance the first noises of awakening farm- 
 yards and near by the twittering of birds began at length 
 to be heard, the great castle clock registered the passing 
 hours melodiously, but nothing roused them, and a pret- 
 tier group than those two slumbering little ones would 
 have been difficult to find anywhere. 
 
 Suddenly Loic gave a start and jumped up. "Oh," 
 he cried, "my foot is asleep ever so badly, and so's my 
 shoulder!" 
 
 * 57 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "And so were you, too!" Gaidik replied, almost in- 
 stantly awake, and bending down to rub the offending 
 member. "We've been fast asleep ever so long! Why, 
 the moon's gone, and see, it's getting pink, away off 
 there in the sky, pink and lilac and yellow like the bed 
 of anemones by the gate! It must be the sun rising! 
 Do you think it can be the sun, Loic?" 
 
 "It must be," murmured Loic, dubiously, rubbing his 
 eyes wherein the sand-man was still doing sad havoc. 
 "What time is it, Gaid?" 
 
 Gaidik shrugged her shoulders in ignorance. All no- 
 tion of so unimportant a thing as time had slipped away 
 from her, and never having as yet watched the first 
 faint streaks of dawn, she could not say that the short 
 night was undoubtedly drawing to an end. So they 
 both peered over the balcony ledge down through many 
 fathoms of dim space, now deserted by the moon -beams, 
 at the water, across which was drawn a faint veil of 
 opaline mist. 
 
 Suddenly Gaidik gave a little cry of delight as she 
 caught sight of a score of big gulls, lazily circling about 
 beneath them half-way down the face of the cliff. 
 
 "Loic! Loic!" she cried. "See! the gulls are awake, 
 too, it must be day! Look, look, they have seen us and 
 want to be fed!" She laughed aloud in her joy, and 
 truly the birds seemed to have heard her and understood, 
 for they wheeled, made a curving swoop upward past the 
 rows of tightly shuttered windows below, and rose 
 triumphantly to the airy level of the balcony. 
 
 Gaidik' s gulls as they were called at Kergoat were 
 most astonishingly tame, and flocked quite fearlessly 
 around this corbelled ledge, where she had accustomed 
 them to come and be luxuriously regaled. This morn- 
 ing they were almost as silvery gray as the delicate mist 
 
 58 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 they traversed at full speed, uttering their shrill view- 
 halloos. 
 
 Quick as a flash Gaidik had brought an ever well- 
 filled basket from her room, and the great white and 
 gray Mauves, dodging and flapping their satiny pinions 
 in excited confusion, closed in around her, catching cov- 
 eted morsels from her very hands, held temptingly out 
 to them. Now and again one of them would detach it- 
 self from the flock and dart after a crumb of that royal 
 feast, surreptitiously thrown by Loic into the air. The 
 scene was delicious, and the motions of Gaidik's arms 
 were singularly beautiful in their perfect unconstraint 
 and complete familiarity with the ravening, fighting, 
 sharp-beaked gluttons. 
 
 The sky was by this time serenely cloudless and of 
 palest azure tinged with deep rose and dull gold ; beneath, 
 the sea stirred softly under some faint breeze, revealing 
 its endless extent with shadowy indistinctness for the 
 fog was but slowly lifting while about and around the 
 balcony the now greatly augmented flock of gulls were 
 on wing, thanks to Gaidik's shrewd strategy of issuing 
 just enough food to keep the whirling cohort in motion. 
 
 Neither Gaidik nor Loic were in any haste to end the 
 fray, but at last the basket was empty, and the birds, 
 now like the whole landscape, delicately tinted with 
 pink, drifted down again to the water all but two, that 
 is, especial favorities and exceptionally audacious, that 
 lingered behind, soared for a moment directly above 
 Gaidik's head, poised themselves a moment one on each 
 of her extended arms, and then, with a derisive and sadly 
 ungrateful croak, dropped headlong into the shimmering, 
 prismatic dimness to rejoin their brethren, already preen- 
 ing their unruffled plumage on the undulations of the 
 glassy wavelets. 
 
 59 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Tell me that these gulls have no souls!" Gaidik re- 
 marked, scornfully, as though the last words of their dis- 
 cussion before they had fallen asleep had but just been 
 uttered. "They are as knowing as humans and just 
 as greedy!" she concluded, with a laugh. "But now 
 hurry off, Loic, the servants will be up in a few minutes, 
 and if ever mamma were to be told of " 
 
 The sentence was never finished, for at that instant 
 a small, firm, much - bejewelled hand caught the little 
 speaker brutally by the shoulder, and Madame de Ker- 
 goat, wrapped in a hastily snatched -up peignoir, all 
 lace and fluttering ribbons, stood between her children, 
 her lovely face white with rage, her eyes flashing, her 
 lips drawn slightly back and displaying a double row of 
 viciously clinched white teeth. 
 
 Without a word she began violently to shake Gaidik, 
 who, quite passive, allowed herself to be swayed to and 
 fro without the slightest protest, accustomed as she was, 
 poor child, to such usage. At last the Marquise spoke: 
 
 "What's the meaning of this?" she demanded, in a 
 rasping, exasperating voice. "Do you think that you 
 are at liberty to get up at four in the morning to feed 
 your idiotic gulls, and, as if that were not enough, to 
 call your poor little brother out of bed so that he may 
 join in this senseless performance?" 
 
 Here Gaidik, who knew herself to be totally in the 
 wrong, tried to divert the storm by offering an apology, 
 as her honest little heart told her it was her duty to do, 
 and explaining how matters really stood; but when once 
 Madame de Kergoat's ire was aroused, it was impossible 
 to make her listen to anything until she had had her say, 
 and neither Gaidik's murmured excuses nor Loic's deep- 
 ening frowns and unconscious stamp of the foot pro- 
 duced the slightest impression. 
 
 60 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "You abominable, heartless child!" continued the 
 Marquise, trembling with fury. "You really must have 
 plotted to kill your brother! But be sure of this, if ever 
 any harm comes to him through you, I'll kill you with 
 my own hand!" 
 
 The threat was so ridiculous and out of all proportion 
 to the present sin, that Gaidik committed the unfortu- 
 nate mistake of laughing a miserable little laugh, which, 
 of course, was interpreted as an additional bit of inso- 
 lence, deserving instant chastisement in the form of two 
 well-directed blows which left a livid impression on each 
 of the poor little pale cheeks. 
 
 With a yell of rage Loic threw himself before his sister, 
 extending his dimpled arms in energetic protest, and cry- 
 ing as he did so: 
 
 "Don't touch her again; do you hear, mamma? I 
 won't have her beaten like that!" His lips were trem- 
 bling, his little face was ashy white, and blue fires seemed 
 to burst from his widely dilated eyes. 
 
 This brought matters to a climax, and Madame de 
 Kergoat, who by now had worked herself into one of her 
 most royal frenzies, pounced upon her much-beloved son 
 and heir, raining blows upon him as if quite incapable of 
 realizing what she was doing. 
 
 When at length his mother's passion had spent itself, 
 the boy, who had not uttered a sound during this severe 
 punishment, quietly drew himself up with a shrug of the 
 shoulders and gazed at her with a hard, contemptuous 
 look in his clear, childish eyes, which suddenly struck 
 her to the heart with shame and fear. Falling upon her 
 knees, she threw her arms about him, imploring him in 
 the most abject terms to forgive her, and calling him by 
 every endearing name her distress suggested to her. 
 
 The whole pitiful scene had scarcely lasted a moment, 
 
 61 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 but it had been too much for poor Gaidik's nerves, and 
 as Loic, in a fit of concentrated anger strange in such a 
 little fellow thrust his mother coldly from him, she cov- 
 ered her quivering little face with her hands and ran from 
 the room, while Madame de Kergoat, now quite beside 
 herself with remorse, redoubled her entreaties, for never 
 in his life before had Loic been so deeply resentful and 
 obdurate. In her anxiety she cast aside her much-prized 
 maternal pose which sometimes she even assumed for 
 the benefit of Gaidik and pleaded and begged him in the 
 most winning and tearful manner to pardon his "dear 
 little mamma," but all to no purpose. She then resorted 
 to bribery, and toys and pleasures of all possible sorts 
 were promised, but the little fellow would not yield ; and 
 without a tear, without even vouchsafing a single word, 
 he braved her with a strength of will absolutely con- 
 founding. 
 
 It was a long time before a certain great concession 
 a whole day spent on horseback in the woods with Gaidik 
 succeeded in mollifying him, and he allowed himself to 
 be kissed, tucked into his little bed, and sung to sleep by 
 his repentant and shamed mother, who cruelly regretted 
 having once again yielded so unfortunately to her tem- 
 per. Indeed, an uncomfortable impression remained with 
 her for many hours that her little son would never quite 
 forget what had just happened, and would never quite 
 forgive her. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Owl that lives in the belfry tower 
 
 Is a great Aristocrat, 
 And hours without end he holds speech with his friend, 
 
 The clerical, noiseless Bat. 
 "No nest that they build in the sun," quoth he, 
 
 "Is aught to my gray old wall, 
 The stones that sheltered my father's broods 
 
 Are solider far than all. 
 The moon hath swung and the bourdon rung 
 
 To many a changeful hour, 
 Somewhere and when they will swing again," 
 
 Quoth the Owl in the ruined tower. 
 
 ii 
 
 And the black Bat winnowed through shine and shade 
 
 As the moonlit dusk were chaff, 
 And wavered around to the eerie sound 
 
 Of his clerical, wheezy laugh. 
 "It amuses me how they plan," said he, 
 
 This leathery-pinioned wag, 
 "The pie and daw with their sticks and straw 
 
 And dirty red-flannel rag! 
 The Bat, some when, will be Bird again, 
 
 Old ^Esop's decree apart; 
 They build tee-hee upon theory, 
 
 But we on the human heart!" 
 
 in 
 "'Tis indeed absurd," quoth the solemn Bird; 
 
 "Who knows, who can tell, the hour, 
 Red flannel and sticks they will find won't mix!" 
 
 Quoth the Owl in the ruined tower. M. M. 
 
 IT was a bright, fresh, exquisite morning when the 
 children left the castle on their frisky little ponies. The 
 
 63 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 fields were still covered with a rosily white coating of 
 mist, le mouchoir de la Vierge (the Virgin's kerchief), 
 as the pious Bretons call this delicate and transparent 
 early vapor which the first rays of the sun evoke from 
 the vanishing night dews. Rainbow - hued beads of 
 moisture sparkled on every bush, the smooth bridle-path 
 through the forest rang cheerily under the horses' feet, 
 and as the sun gradually fought its way through the 
 interlaced branches, and made splashes of scintillating 
 light among the underbrush, their spirits rose, and they 
 laughed and shouted as hare or rabbit rushed out of 
 cover, or a plover rose screaming above their heads, flap- 
 ping its broad wings in an intoxication of freedom and 
 strength. 
 
 The painful scene of the preceding night was almost 
 forgotten, and save for the increased pallor of Gaidik 
 and the somewhat nervous boisterousness of Loic, had 
 left no apparent traces. 
 
 The country became far more broken as they advanced, 
 the long slopes covered with chestnut, cork-oak, and wal- 
 nut trees soon giving way to sharper hills, densely grown 
 with pines and firs and profusely interspersed by rocky 
 crags. A choice place for game, as Gaidik and Loic well 
 knew, for it was there that the great autumn Kergoat 
 hunts had taken place every year in the late Marquis's 
 lifetime. Their cheeks glowed with excitement as they 
 pushed their little ponies faster and faster, unheeding 
 that the heavier animal ridden by the trustworthy groom 
 in charge was not keeping pace with them on the rough 
 ground and through the tangled boughs. 
 
 Presently they reached an open space beneath a preci- 
 pice of dark, ivy -man tied rock that rose like a wall across 
 their way, forcing the path to circle about it in a loop, and 
 there they- stopped to give the groom opportunity to 
 
 64 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 catch up with them, sitting at ease in their saddles, and 
 admiring with all their faithful little hearts those woods 
 which from time out of mind had belonged to their race, 
 and which had scarcely changed since the days when 
 La Reine Berthe filait. Every stick and sod there was 
 dear to them, in that unprofaned atmosphere laden with 
 the perfume of the wild flowers, heather, and gorse, 
 growing thickly in every green fold and nook of the land, 
 where the fallow deer and the red deer now led untroubled 
 and peaceful lives. 
 
 After a short breathing-spell they sped on, the fragrant 
 wind blowing their hair straight behind them in the 
 rapidity of the pace they had adopted, galloping on 
 through the soft, misty, broken sunshine filtered by the 
 leafy boughs of trees four and five centuries old, and 
 after a while they came upon a beautiful chestnut farm 
 belonging to one of the tenants. It was a charming 
 place, with its thatched roofs bowered in elder, hawthorn, 
 and apple trees, and surrounded by an old-fashioned gar- 
 den, sweet with clove-pinks, tall hollyhocks, nasturtiums, 
 and honest cabbage roses. Four chubby-cheeked little 
 girls in quaint antique Breton costume, looking like their 
 own mothers seen through a reversed opera-glass, were 
 sitting beneath a trim privet-hedge at the feet of a ven- 
 erable, white - capped grandmother who was teaching 
 them to knit, and the whole place had an air of prosperity, 
 running over as it was with an abundance and super- 
 abundance of leaf and blossom that promised well for 
 future harvests. 
 
 Both Loic and Gaidik were enchanted. They dis- 
 mounted on the edge of a pond overhung by hazel and 
 willow where an enormous flock of geese, white as snow, 
 were splashing violently among the lily-pads. 
 
 "How do you do, Mam-Gozf Loic asked, rnarch- 
 
 65 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ing across the turf to where the old dame was en- 
 sconced. 
 
 She looked up, and, recognizing her youthful landlord, 
 rose as quickly as her aged joints would allow and courte- 
 sied profoundly; but this was not the sort of greeting 
 Loic liked from his peasants, and with hand wide out- 
 stretched, he exclaimed: "Oh! don't you know me,Mam- 
 Goz Kerion (Grandmother Kerion), don't you remember 
 how Gaidik and I came last year to help you shell your 
 chestnuts?" 
 
 "Thank Monseigneur kindly, I do remember," she re- 
 plied, extremely gratified; "and how you have grown, 
 Monsieur le Marquis! why, you are nearly as tall as your 
 sister, now!" she concluded, gazing admiringly at the 
 manly little figure before her. "It's a great honor to 
 see you here, My Lord Marquis, you and Mademoiselle 
 Gaidik, bless her lovely face." 
 
 "That's well, Mam-GozT Loic said, joyfully. "I'm 
 sure you mean it, because it is not everybody who gets 
 a chance to be visited by any one as nice as Gaidik, and I 
 feel exactly like you about her face ; but we have stopped 
 here to ask you where that narrow road to the left through 
 the chestnuts leads to. You see, we have not been here 
 since ever so many months, and then we turned back 
 home, but to-day we have time and so we would like to 
 go farther." 
 
 There he stood, his hands thrust deeply in the pockets 
 of his riding-breeches, his sailor-hat pushed to the ex- 
 treme back of his head, his riding- crop stuck jauntily 
 under his arm, and his face turned full on his venerable 
 retainer, in eager expectation of an interesting piece of 
 information a little master to be truly proud of. 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur le Marquis, that road leads to the 
 Chateau de Kerdougaszt away up in the forest. Has 
 
 66 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Monsieur le Marquis never heard of Kerdougaszt, once 
 the finest castle for leagues and leagues around?" 
 
 No, Monsieur le Marquis had never heard of this fine 
 castle, and not even Gaidik, when appealed to, could 
 remember so much as its name. 
 
 "Well, well!" the old woman resumed, nodding her 
 broad -winged coiffe, which cast her still delicate and 
 beautiful face in shadows like those Rembrandt or 
 Velasquez loved to paint. "Well, well! time passes and 
 alters many things my little Lord, but Kerdougaszt, though 
 much ruined, is still worth looking at!" 
 
 "That settles it, Loic!" cried Gaidik, impetuously, 
 "there is nothing so splendid as an old, old chateau; let 
 us be off and see whether there are fairies there! Fairies 
 always dwell in old chateaus, don't they, Mam-goz Mar- 
 Jann?" 
 
 Old Mar-Jann (Mary-Jane) nodded her head, with a 
 little smile of acquiescence. " Yes, My Lady," she replied, 
 "of course they do, and there are strange fairies at Ker- 
 dougaszt, so they say. Go and seek them out. They 
 will assuredly be glad to see you, for you and Monsieur 
 le Marquis are of a truth good to look at." 
 
 The still bright eyes of the aged woman sparkled with 
 genuine pleasure as she watched the children leap lightly 
 into their saddles, and set off with the confidence of al- 
 ready long familiarity with the "noblest conquest of 
 man." They both rode superbly all the Kergoats had 
 always ridden superbly and even the worst leaping- 
 places did not scare them. 
 
 On and on they rode through the dense wood, where 
 foaming streamlets thundered beneath the serried pines 
 with all the noisy importance of torrents, forming now 
 and then tiny pools as green as emeralds dissolved in 
 sunbeams. The path was becoming steep, and soon the 
 
 67 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ponies' pace had to be slackened, for they were beginning 
 to ascend a sort of promontory jutting out into the great 
 sea of foliage, and soaring many hundred feet above it. 
 It was for the most part of granite clothed in stone-pines 
 and all the shrubs and hardy plants indigenous to such 
 inhospitable soil, and stood as lonely in the quiet heart 
 of the everlasting woods as any falcon or eagle's nest 
 hanging in the branches. The stout, sure-footed ponies 
 climbed the steep, sharp way quite fearlessly and steadily, 
 their round little hoofs finding excellent hold upon the 
 moss growing everywhere upon it; but the groom was 
 forced to dismount and lead his horse, which by no means 
 quietly or patiently accepted this, to him, entirely novel 
 sort of road. There was nothing as yet to be seen ex- 
 cept the dusky forest, shelving downward, and now and 
 again vast slopes of naked rock scattered over with large, 
 loose stones as if Titans had been playing there an amaz- 
 ing game of pitch-and-toss. 
 
 Presently the wholesome smell of pine-needle smoke 
 began to mingle with the cool air that stirred the bracken, 
 underbrush, and heather, and suddenly the deep, angry 
 growl of a dog was heard above the path, which, after 
 a brusque turn, ended abruptly upon a broad plateau, 
 where a mass of ruined towers and frowning battlements, 
 with a huge, square fortress at one end, the whole toned 
 by the winds and the rains of centuries to a warm gray- 
 green, stood in superb isolation. 
 
 In spite of ruin and time and neglect, however, it still 
 looked majestic, imposing, and splendid, worthy of the 
 great race whose stronghold and birthplace it had been 
 so long, a race which now was also dwindling to a weather- 
 beaten remnant, represented at that moment by a man 
 standing beneath the crumbling donjon-keep, holding by 
 the collar a fierce-looking wolf-hound. 
 
 68 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Enormously tall, broad-shouldered, with silvered locks 
 falling upon the turn-down collar of a coarse linen shirt, 
 the light of the sun shining 'on his proud, delicate feat- 
 ures, his straight, level brows, his plain work - a - day 
 Breton costume similar in every detail to that worn by 
 any peasant of the hills, down to the heavy sabots en- 
 closing his singularly small feet there stood none other 
 than the Marquis de Kerdougaszt himself, a smile light- 
 ing his entire countenance as the children dismounted 
 and approached him. 
 
 "The dog will not hurt you while I am here," he 
 called out to them, bowing with a grace and ease which 
 would assuredly have instantly enlightened older visitors 
 as to their interlocutor's real social standing, though he 
 spoke in Breton, and used the countrified form of ad- 
 dress, to which they were accustomed from inferiors, as 
 he proceeded to welcome them. 
 
 A finer picture than that presented by this magnificent 
 old man holding his magnificent dog by the collar on the 
 threshold of his magnificently ruined castle would have 
 been difficult to imagine. Even the children were im- 
 pressed after their gay, thoughtless fashion, and Loic, un- 
 covering his bright locks, advanced, followed by Gaidik, 
 with a certain hesitation and embarrasment quite foreign 
 to him. 
 
 "We did not know that anybody lived in the castle," 
 he said, apologetically. " Old Mam-goz Mar-Jann Kerion, 
 at the farm below, told us there were only fairies here, 
 and so we came; but if it is not allowed we will go right 
 back. I am Loic de Kergoat, and this is my sister 
 Gaidik," he concluded, with a sudden impulse of in- 
 stinctive decorum which a mere peasant certainly would 
 not have aroused. 
 
 "Oh, you are Loic de Kergoat, and this is your sister 
 
 69 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Gaidik! Well, and I am the Marquis de Kerdougaszt, 
 though you may perchance find it difficult to believe, 
 my boy." 
 
 "Not at all," was the frank and ready reply. "You 
 look as if you were ; you have an air about you, and your 
 voice is soft and slow. It is only we Nobles who have 
 that sort of music in our voices." 
 
 The old Marquis laughed, well pleased and perfectly 
 aware that he had just received the prettiest compli- 
 ment that life had ever brought him. 
 
 " Ha! ha!" he cried; "you have noticed that, have you ? 
 You are a sharp little man, and now you must come into 
 my palatial abode and refresh yourselves, for you must 
 both be thirsty and hungry small folks like yourselves 
 always are. If I rummage around a bit, I will no doubt 
 find something worthy of your appetites. You shall 
 have some of my nice brown bread and butter we baked 
 yesterday and my old servant will make you some 
 galette de ble noir* She makes them beautifully when she 
 is not cross which, alas! now and then happens so let 
 us trust that to-day is one of the auspicious occasions." 
 
 Then he called aloud: "Marc'haid! Marc'haid! here 
 are some little people who want to taste your galette," 
 leading the way, as he did so, to a side door exquisitely 
 carved and porched. A white-capped old woman showed 
 herself for a second, grumbled something quite inarticu- 
 late, and again disappeared into the warm penumbra. 
 
 "There now!" exclaimed her master, with a comical 
 uplifting of his delicately shaped but sadly toil - worn 
 hands, "she is cross, after all, our good Marc'haid; but 
 don't mind her, my dearies! She'll come round by-and- 
 by and behave quite properly." 
 
 * Buckwheat cakes. 
 7 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 The children laughed. "She must be my fairy god- 
 mother!" Gaidik explained, "since we have the same 
 name* and this is the castle of the fairies." 
 
 "Well, she does look a bit like la Fee Carabosse" the 
 Marquis remarked, gravely; "so we must not let her 
 make you any evil gifts but come in, come in, and wel- 
 come to Kerdougaszt. Your fairy godmother is a very 
 good woman when one knows her better. I have known 
 her all my life a long one she was my nurse. Let me 
 see! She is just seventeen years older than I am, from 
 which notable fact we can by an artful calculation de- 
 rive the extenuating circumstance that she is now just 
 seventy-nine years old, and persons so aged are naturally 
 cross from having taken the trouble to live so long." 
 
 Entirely set at ease by their host's delightful banter, 
 the children followed him into a vast kitchen panelled 
 and ceiled with oak, illumined by a huge fire of pine 
 cones and needles, which crackled and leaped beneath 
 the emblazoned mantel of a gigantic granite hearth. 
 The place was rather bare of furniture that is of the 
 furniture ordinarily encountered in a kitchen but all 
 around it were ranged antique knight's stalls of singular 
 beauty, and in a state of remarkable preservation, while 
 a few old banners, gorgeously embroidered with now 
 faded silks and gold, drooped above an equally venerable 
 dresser, where some heavy tankards, dishes, and salvers 
 of old silver gleamed between many odd pieces of the 
 brilliantly colored, heavy earthenware which Breton peas- 
 ants use, and which looked strangely incongruous in such 
 company. 
 
 Standing before the ponderous table in the middle of 
 this extraordinary apartment stood old Marc'haid, vio- 
 
 * Marc'haid, in diminutive Gaidik, Breton for Marguerite. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 lently beating the batter for the galette in a wooden 
 bowl, her wrinkled face as set and rigid as if she were 
 engaged in some murderous assault upon an execrated 
 enemy." 
 
 "There, there!" said her master, affectionately, pat- 
 ting her shoulder. "There, there, there, old lady! Just 
 look up and see what nice little guests you are working 
 for! Isn't it a pity to be so grumpy under the circum- 
 stances?" 
 
 The irate dame, partially conquered by the gentle 
 chiding of the tone, did as she was bidden, and, catching 
 the honest inquisitiveness and astonishment of the two 
 pairs of big gray eyes fixed upon her, burst into dry, 
 cackling laughter. 
 
 "Marc'haid is disarmed! Sound the trumpets, beat 
 the drums, peace is declared!" cried the Marquis, tri- 
 umphantly. "And now, my children, while your gaieties 
 are being prepared, come and see my observatory." With 
 which words he drew them to the embrasure of a long 
 lancet- window, raised from the floor by two steps. 
 
 "Now look," he said, with pardonable pride in his 
 voice, as he stretched his hand towards the magnificent 
 panorama unfolded before them. 
 
 Far, far below the shelving, verdant woods and stretch- 
 ing out to infinite horizons was the distant sea, studded 
 with sails, the capriciously curving shores extending on 
 both sides into realms of softly sparkling light, with here 
 and there a rocky island showing dimly as a dream above 
 the waves. The whole picture was a dazzle of gold, of 
 emerald, and of sapphire, and familiar as the children 
 were with this beautiful Breton sea and land, they yet 
 exclaimed aloud in their admiration. 
 
 "Ah, yes, it is grand!" chimed in their host; "and 
 one should not complain when one has such a spectacle 
 
 72 
 
THE TRJDENT AND THE NET 
 
 to admire every day of one's life. You, too, at Ker- 
 goat have a magnificent view. I have not been there 
 since your grandmother's time, but I remember it well. 
 Dear me, what a lovely woman your grandmother was 
 in those days! To be sincere, you are very much like 
 her, Mademoiselle Marc'haid." 
 
 "I!" exclaimed the amazed Gaidik, in genuine aston- 
 ishment. "No, no, I am very ugly! But do pray, 
 Monsieur de Kerdougaszt, say Gaidik or Gaid! Every- 
 body does so, and I'm only called by my full name when 
 I have been very naughty." 
 
 "Well then, my little Gaid, so you are sometimes 
 naughty, and you consider yourself ugly, eh?" 
 
 "Of course! Mamma always says that I'm a disgrace 
 to everybody. She, you know, is very, very beautiful." 
 
 "I know! I know! She created a great sensation 
 when she arrived in Brittany after her marriage. And 
 how is madame your mamma, my dears ; quite well I trust ?" 
 
 "Quite well," echoed Loic, who was leaning confiding- 
 ly against the old Marquis's knee, as he sat on the broad 
 window-sill. " Why do you never come to see us, Mon- 
 sieur? I would like to show you my boat, my four-in- 
 hand of Exmoor ponies, my garden, and all my things, 
 and," he added, politely, "I'm sure mamma would be 
 much pleased to see you." 
 
 "Hum! hum!" Monsieur de Kerdougaszt muttered; 
 "I am not so very sure of that, and although I would 
 undoubtedly enjoy the sight of all your treasures, yet I 
 cannot promise to come. I am a regular hermit, my 
 boy, and I never, never go anywhere." 
 
 "Why?" Loic asked, eagerly. "Do you hate all man- 
 kind, like my Uncle Pierre, who says that since France 
 is a republic, the country has gone to the devil, and no- 
 body is fit to speak to." 
 
 6 73 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 The old Marquis burst into a roar of laughter. "You 
 funny, old-fashioned child!" he fairly gasped. "Yes, I 
 am much of your Uncle Pierre's opinion. But that is 
 not all," he continued, when he had recovered his breath, 
 "I'm too poor to visit those of my equals who are more 
 fortunate than myself; that would humiliate both them 
 and me." 
 
 " Poor! with such a magnificent castle!" the incredulous 
 Loic cried. "That's not possible!" 
 
 "But my magnificent castle is in ruins, Loic. This 
 room and one other are the only safe ones to inhabit; all 
 the rest have long been given up to the owls and the 
 rats, who, if the ceilings fall down, will not prove a great 
 loss." 
 
 Loic bent forward, a sudden awe, a swift wave of sad- 
 ness spreading over his features, 
 
 "And are you living all alone here with your old 
 nurse?" he asked, almost in a whisper, "without any- 
 body to talk to you and amuse you?" 
 
 His expression was so grave and so wistful, that the 
 Marquis, deeply touched, impulsively kissed the smooth 
 forehead nestling against his broad shoulder. 
 
 "No, my good little friend, it is not as bad as that 
 by far. Don't waste your pity, for I have my own two 
 sons always with me here, and very excellent companions 
 they are, too." 
 
 "Two little boys? Where are they? Why don't you 
 call them, Monsieur; perhaps they would like to try our 
 ponies, and, also, I smell the gaieties frying; don't they 
 want any gaieties?" 
 
 Again the Marquis laughed heartily. "They are big 
 men, my boy, and they are working just now in the 
 woods but here is the Fee Carabosse preparing to 
 ring the bell which summons them home. You can 
 
 74 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 share your gaieties with them, and I feel certain that 
 they will admire the ponies, so all will be for the best." 
 
 Gaidik, her brows drawn together, perplexed and 
 vaguely sorrowful, was gazing at him with great sym- 
 pathetic eyes. His own eyes smiled at her, and, taking 
 the little hand nearest to him, he patted it with grand- 
 fatherly tenderness. 
 
 "Some day," he remarked, softly, "you will make a 
 man very happy, my little Gaidik. Unless I am much 
 mistaken, in spite of Madame votre Mere's gloomy fore- 
 bodings, you are going to develop into that rare and 
 precious being, a real Grande Dame," and he raised her 
 little, sunburned fingers to his lips as gravely and cour- 
 teously as if his prophecy had already come true. 
 
 At that moment the promised bell began to clang deaf- 
 eningly outside the kitchen door, rung by old Marc'haid, 
 who was jerking its long chain with no gentle hand. 
 Flocks of pigeons rose from the ivy-grown ruins at the 
 clamor, and shortly afterwards heavy steps were heard 
 approaching. 
 
 "Is that our groom?" asked Loic, turning away from 
 the window. 
 
 "No, your groom is provided for. I took the liberty 
 of sending him back to Mar-Jann Kerion's farm, telling 
 him to come again at five o'clock, which will be quite 
 soon enough for us to have to bid you good-bye. Mar- 
 Jann is my debtor for a few little things, and will give 
 him a good dinner as well as feed the horses much better 
 than it could have been done here. It is my big boys 
 whom you hear, and there they are to answer for them- 
 selves." 
 
 The two young men who entered were both equally 
 tall, fair, and handsome, with delicate features, clean- 
 shaven faces, dark-gray eyes, and proudly curved mouths, 
 
 75 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 disclosing, when smiling, wonderfully white teeth. Like 
 their father, they were extremely broad-shouldered and 
 slender-waisted, and also like him wore the most ordi- 
 nary of peasant costumes. One bore on his shoulder a 
 woodman's axe, while the other carried with the great- 
 est ease a rough and exceedingly heavy sawyer's trestle. 
 
 These, the last of the Kerdougaszts, were patient - 
 looking men, having the quiet gaze of those who deal 
 with nature and the slow, graceful movements of the 
 keen-sighted. Truly these two perfect representatives of 
 Brittany's ancient Aristocracy were behind the times 
 these new and wordy times in which France, once 
 so glorious, has floundered disastrously for above of a 
 century for they were very silent. Their father had 
 seen his country humbled to the dust by idle babble, 
 and the sight had taught him to dry up in his children 
 the springs of idle speech. When they had anything to 
 say, they said it, but if they had nothing really worthy of 
 mention, they kept those proud lips of theirs obstinately 
 closed. Fate and their father's will had ruled that these 
 two superb gars should have no wider sphere than 
 an obscure Breton forest, though they were obviously 
 created to shine in the great world's gilded arena, and 
 yet they were absolutely content, for they were restful 
 men, strong enough to rely upon life's most ordinary 
 duties, well accomplished, to satisfy their consciences. 
 Moreover, their ancestors had assuredly handed down to 
 them, with their clear-cut profiles and gigantic stature, 
 a philosophy which exalts above all things the forest 
 life, the strife with elemental forces and its resulting 
 daring and intrepidity, no less than the simple joys and 
 the sense of infinite peace that are to be found, like shy 
 wood blossoms, in the forest twilight. 
 
 They evinced no ill-bred surprise at finding their lone- 
 
 76 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ly house invaded by such unusual visitors, but with 
 grave and winning courtesy made them feel that they 
 were sincerely welcome, and that their presence was a 
 rare and valuable pleasure. There was a striking re- 
 semblance of feature between the Kerdougaszts, but the 
 father was gayer, quicker in his glance, and under most 
 circumstances it would undoubtedly fall to the younger 
 men's lot to execute that which their father had planned. 
 Indeed, in spite of his rough attire, the old Kerdougaszt's 
 presence suggested the Court, while his sons were clearly 
 intended for the camp. The Marquis had in his day 
 passed through both, and had emerged with set ideas and 
 adamantine principles, of which his sons' whole natures 
 were the result. 
 
 The little party which gathered around the great 
 kitchen table to partake of Dame Marc'haid's fragrant 
 gaieties was absolutely unlike anything the children 
 had ever seen before, but, unknown to themselves, Loic 
 and Gaidik felt more "at home" there than they did in 
 the company of their mother and their mother's splendid 
 friends. They could not have given a name to the 
 superiority which fascinated them in their three hosts, 
 but somehow or other they realized its extraordinary 
 charm, which would have made all strictly modern peo- 
 ple seem vulgar, and they both expanded and were 
 happy beneath its influence. 
 
 "Oh!" Gaidik suddenly said to the Marquis, beside 
 whom she sat, "how happy you are to live here all the 
 time, to be always in the woods or on the sea, and never 
 to have to go away into the noise and dust. I wish 
 mamma would let us come and stay with you for a long, 
 long time!" 
 
 The big men laughed, but they were evidently touched, 
 for all the conflicting thoughts striving together in the 
 
 77 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 children's little minds, vivid in fancy and childish in 
 ignorance, were very apparent and moved the three 
 Aristocrats to an emotion which was quite indescribable. 
 The simple meal was drawing to a close, and when they 
 rose from the table, Loic asked eagerly to be shown the 
 rest of the castle. The gates of an enchanted world 
 were standing open before him, and he, like Gaidik, was 
 anxious to see what lay beyond them. Indeed, they 
 both looked up into their new friend's face with such 
 frank audacity, such wistful innocence, that, even though 
 the display of so much fallen grandeur, so much stoi- 
 cally born poverty, must necessarily be painful, yet the 
 old Nobleman never dreamed of refusing their request, 
 and instantly led the way into the dismantled building. 
 This was going into fairyland indeed, for the children's 
 natural sense of the beauties of form and color was 
 aroused by the magnificent proportions of these grand 
 halls which had all the subdued glow of old jewels. The 
 mellow light of verdure-shaded sun-rays shed a soft 
 hue upon the pathetic misery of the brave old house, 
 bearing its misfortune in dignified isolation. Here and 
 there some remnants of tapestries still clung to the walls 
 of the state apartments, the colossal figures faintly vis- 
 ible upon the worn-out warp seeming the phantoms of 
 a spirit-world. Nearly all the window-panes painted 
 long ago by a master's hand were cracked or broken, 
 and had been patched with thick, common glass or re- 
 placed by boards. One cedar-lined room which had 
 been the boudoir of the Chatelaines of Kerdougaszt, dis- 
 played on its carved and delicately gilded panels the 
 arms of Brittany emblazoned in pale with those of the 
 resident family a reminder of some Royal alliance but 
 its costly parquetted floor had fallen in, leaving bare the 
 indestructible oaken beams which alone had resisted the 
 
 78 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 cruel hand of time. Here a host of bats, terrified by 
 the visitors standing on the abysmal threshold, flew from 
 their dusky perches in the crevices of the ceiling and 
 circled wildly about, dipping and plunging madly in and 
 out of a depending veil of gray cobwebs; but neither of 
 the children laughed, they were too much awed for that, 
 and when the old Marquis turned away with a smothered 
 sigh he felt two little hands slide simultaneously into 
 each of his own in a silent and restrained sympathy, 
 which was infinitely tender and grateful. 
 
 "Now, my dears," he said, in studiously cheerful tones, 
 for the momentary silence of these bright little creatures 
 had something strangely pathetic about it, "we will go 
 and see the chapel. That we have preserved from all 
 serious harm so far, my sons and I, and although its 
 original splendor is greatly impaired, we have endeavored 
 to make God's resting-place among us still habitable, as 
 it was the duty of good Catholics to do." 
 
 The children, following him down -stairs, listened with 
 reverent ears and beating hearts. They felt as if they 
 were hearing Kadoc's oft-told stories of how their fore- 
 fathers had died grandly and fearlessly on the scaffold, 
 in the noyades, or in the slaughter of Quiberon, for the 
 very air of that ruined home was redolent of courage, 
 dignity, and fidelity, and the words of this old Marquis, 
 whose existence was now so narrow, whose means were 
 so terribly straitened, whose days were regulated with 
 the exact and severe precision of mere peasanthood, 
 thrilled them to the very core of their little souls. 
 
 The same intoxicating perfume of the past surrounded 
 them as they entered the tiny sacred edifice, the whole 
 front of which was covered with a vigorous climbing 
 rose, throwing its audacious branches upward to the 
 very cross upon the carefully mended roof, thus conceal- 
 
 79 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ing the somewhat amateurish handiwork of the Marquis 
 and his sons. Dark and tranquil it was inside, and rilled 
 with an undying fragrance of incense lingering amid 
 the damp of ages. The altar of pure twelfth - century 
 work was decorated with fresh flowers; above it was a 
 wonderful crucifix of ivory and silver, and through the 
 wide-opened panel of a transept window the smell of the 
 pine woods and the songs of birds floated freely in. 
 
 At the door they were joined by Gui and Yvon de 
 Kerdougaszt, who were waiting to bid the children good- 
 bye before returning to their labor in the forest, and at 
 a sign from their father they also entered the little 
 chapel, where they all knelt down together. Slowly the 
 Marquis repeated the Chapelet, his sons giving the re- 
 sponses in their clear, full, far-reaching voices, fervently, 
 with all their hearts, and in Breton the only language 
 they spoke. A nightingale was singing somewhere in the 
 big hawthorn-tree outside the windows, and some long 
 tendrils of honeysuckle which had forced themselves into 
 a narrow cranny opened in the massive wall by a thou- 
 sand years of sea-wind, thrust their delicately curled horns 
 of perfume around the pew where the little group knelt- 
 
 The prayer finished, Yvon and Gui preceded their 
 father to the exquisite holy-water font, carved from a 
 single block of onyx, and bending in turn reverently be- 
 fore him, kissed the hand extended to receive the precious 
 drops, all this with the simplicity due to long habit, and 
 the passionate devotion they so visibly entertained for 
 him. And then they disappeared behind the dense 
 screen of trees and were seen no more. 
 
 "You must have some milk and brown bread and 
 butter before your departure," the Marquis explained to 
 Loic and Gaidik, who were wistfully gazing after the 
 young men. "Come, we will enjoy these refreshments 
 
 80 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 far better in the open air, so we will sit on my little ter- 
 race and tell la Fee Carabosse to bring them there at 
 once, since it is already four o'clock." 
 
 His "little terrace" was an exquisite place which 
 seemed to hang above sea and woods, an antique, broad, 
 and roomy open gallery covered by an all - embracing 
 wistaria in full bloom, where his wrinkled, cross old ser- 
 vant soon appeared bearing a heavy silver tray, with 
 some delicious milk in a carved silver pot, an appetizing 
 brown loaf, and two exquisite Sevres cups, blue as the 
 azure sky. 
 
 "We have a few things like this left," the Marquis 
 said, touching the priceless toys gently. "It may be 
 nonsense, but I think that your milk will taste better 
 out of them," and, sitting on a wooden bench beside the 
 stone balustrade covered with its flowering creeper, he 
 filled up the cups with the snowy beverage. Loic had 
 established himself on the parapet, his feet hanging 
 down, one hand clasping Gaidik's, who seemed to have 
 fallen into one of her dreamiest moods. 
 
 Suddenly he said, turning to the Marquis, in a quiet, 
 speculative, matter-of-fact voice: "How much would it 
 cost, Monsieur de Kerdougaszt, to make your castle just 
 as it used to be ?" 
 
 "How much?" echoed the astounded gentleman. "A 
 very, very great deal, my child. What makes you ask 
 such a question ?" 
 
 " Because I know that one day Gaidik and I will have 
 a lot of money, and I thought that perhaps you would 
 let her marry one of your boys, so that we could give it 
 all to you without your being able to refuse. Then you 
 could repair all the grand rooms and halls that make you 
 sigh now when you look at them." 
 
 The Marquis gazed for a moment at Loic without 
 
 81 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 speaking, then drawing him to his knee, he said, in a 
 voice which trembled a little: 
 
 "You are a very good little man, Loic, and I sincerely 
 appreciate what you said just now; but listen, my boy. 
 I have sundry old-fashioned notions and prejudices, one 
 of which is, that a man a gentilhomme that is should 
 owe nothing to his wife, and even in the absolutely im- 
 possible case of your mother's permitting her pretty 
 daughter to marry a penniless man, I would never ac- 
 cept such a sacrifice on poor Gaidik's part. My sons 
 have been brought up as peasants, which is for them far 
 more honorable than being fortune-hunters. Of course, 
 you are too young to understand all this, and you prob- 
 ably think me a very severe and ungracious old cur- 
 mudgeon to speak as I do, but later when you are older 
 you will realize the truth of my words. The old faiths 
 still live, very simple, warm, and earnest in my old 
 heart, Loic, and I cannot change myself at this late day! 
 We have always been proud and stern, and although our 
 family records have often been checkered by fierce and 
 perchance lawless actions, yet there has never been in 
 them any baseness. I may have erred in my judgment, 
 but I have preferred to let my sons grow up in total 
 ignorance of the world, rather than strain every nerve and 
 sink our last slender resources in order to educate them 
 and open to them the possibility of later on selling their 
 names to the highest bidder." 
 
 The Marquis was now thinking aloud far more than 
 talking to the children, who, however, seemed enthralled 
 by his words, and listened, immovable, and with the most 
 profound attention, as he continued: 
 
 " We owe nothing to anybody. We live like owls in our 
 crumbling watch-tower, it is true, but we are spared the 
 sight of humiliating compromises, of old and glorious 
 
 82 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 titles being bartered for the ill-gotten wealth of the 
 Haute-Banque and nouveaux riches. My sons can scarcely 
 read and write, they toil all day long to obtain by the 
 sweat of their brows the meagre fare with which they 
 are content, but we have all three remained worthy 
 of the past, and if our race dies with them, at any rate 
 it will end worthily, instead of finishing in the mud, as 
 so many as great have done. I would sooner see them 
 both stretched lifeless before me at this minute than know 
 it otherwise." 
 
 The old Nobleman's voice had become almost trium- 
 phant in its intensity, but suddenly remembering that he 
 was speaking to two children who, clever though they 
 were, could not possibly comprehend his theme, he 
 checked himself, gave a reassuring pat to Loic's shoulder, 
 and began anew in a different key, making them laugh 
 heartily with descriptions of his daily existence recounted 
 with the exquisite humor and genuine wit of a man 
 whose spirit had remained young, and who did not cloy 
 his good taste by cheap literature and the perusal of 
 daily newspapers. 
 
 He told them of another old Nobleman, who, poorer 
 even than himself, and living all alone in one room of 
 the once sumptuous Hotel which from time immemorial 
 had belonged to his family, crept at the dead of night out 
 of the small Breton town where it was situated, in order 
 to gather from a neighboring wood dead branches and 
 bracken for his fire. "Poor old fellow," he concluded, 
 "he carries it home on his shoulders, stealthily, fearfully, 
 like a thief, gliding along the dark ramparts, bent al- 
 most double under the weight, and the good people of the 
 neighborhood think that that wood is haunted by a mis- 
 shapen gnome, because he has been occasionally glimpsed 
 from afar bending forlornly over the little heaps of pine- 
 
 83 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 cones he builds under the trees. Oh, we are a fine lot, 
 aren't we, with our infernal pride ? Why, that man who 
 has twelve hundred years of pedigree behind him feeds 
 principally on mushrooms, which he gathers before sun- 
 rise in the fields, and yet he refuses disdainfully to sell 
 one footstool of the magnificent ancient furniture with 
 which his creviced Hotel is filled. Isn't it curious ?" 
 
 "You need never be without a good fire, Monsieur, 
 with all this forest around your castle," Loic remarked, 
 practically, with a wise little nod of the head, "which is 
 a great comfort in winter." 
 
 "Right you are, my boy. Very well said. It has 
 indeed been often a great comfort when there was little 
 else to brighten one up. But here, alas, are your horses, 
 a fact I truly regret, for you, too, have been a great com- 
 fort this day." 
 
 "Already here," Gaidik said, with a sigh. "'Pray, 
 Monsieur de Kerdougaszt," she whispered, standing on 
 tiptoe beside him, while Loic ran forward to pat his be- 
 loved pony. "If by any chance you were to change 
 your mind and if you could get to like me I would be 
 very .pleased to marry either Gui or Yvon when I am 
 older, because what Loic said is true; it is a pity not to 
 repair your castle and also I would be always so near 
 Loic. I do not wish to marry at all, but if I am obliged 
 to do so" 
 
 "Upon my word," the old Noble murmured, "you are 
 the most amazing children I have ever met, but your 
 little hearts are certainly in the right place. If I were 
 you, however, Gaidik, I would not tell this to your 
 beautiful mamma, for I do not think that such a plan 
 would quite meet with her approval, and you might be 
 scolded." 
 
 "I am always being scolded," the child replied, philo- 
 
 84 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sophically. " Not that I do not often deserve it, though," 
 she added, in explanation. Then she bent down to pat 
 the lean, intelligent head of the huge wolf-hound. " Good- 
 bye Bull-C'Hurun" (Thunder -bolt), she said, tenderly, 
 "you are as good as you can be, just like everybody else 
 here," and again she sighed. 
 
 "Bull-C'Hurun, just like everybody else here, will 
 be glad to see you again, my dear, as soon as possible," 
 the Marquis said, kissing her tenderly before lifting her 
 into her saddle, and then turning to the groom, he added: 
 "Take good care of them, Gradlon, they are worth the 
 whole country-side put together!" 
 
 "Have no fear, M'sieu 1'Marquis," that trusty function-^ 
 ary replied, respectfully touching his hat. "I followed 
 the guidon with my late Lord, and the Lady Marc'haid 
 as well as my young Lord Loic Ab-Vor (Loic, son of the 
 sea) are as safe with me as if they were my own children, 
 though it's difficult sometimes to keep up with them," 
 he concluded, with a look of affectionate pride in the 
 direction of the brother and sister, who, having said 
 their last good-byes and uttered their last heart -felt 
 thanks, were disappearing at their usual breakneck pace 
 down the steep path. 
 
 The sun was not as bright as it had been, or perchance 
 it only seemed so to the children, who were genuinely 
 sorry to leave Kerdougaszt, but the home ride could not 
 but be delightful through those deep, fragrant woods, 
 and they welcomed Gradlon's proposal to return by a 
 different road than that traversed in the morning; and 
 so, eagerly discussing the events of the day, Loic and 
 Gaidik brushed their way rapidly through the forest growth. 
 
 Half an hour later they came upon a wooded rock, 
 crowned by a quaint little gray tower, picturesque, aged, 
 cloister-like, with an abundance of ivy clothing it in brill- 
 
 85 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 iantly dark greenery. Half of it was in ruins, and one of 
 its pointed gables showed a deep oval embrasure cur- 
 tained by coils of ivy and wild clematis hanging down 
 across the aperture. 
 
 "That is Saint Gwenole's shrine, Monsieur Loic," said 
 the groom, overtaking the children, and piously remov- 
 ing his hat. 
 
 "Oh! is it Saint Gwenole who saved your namesake 
 King Gradlon's life from the waves?" cried Gaidik, to 
 whom every ancient legend of Brittany was known. 
 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle Gaidik, and a mighty good King 
 he was," the groom answered, pointing with his hunting- 
 crop. "They say that on moonlight nights one sees 
 King Gradlon and his ladylove Dahut go up that crazy 
 flight of steps there to pray with the Saint." 
 
 "We must come at night and see if that's true," Loic 
 declared, enthusiastically "but hark, what's that noise 
 over there behind those big trees ? A lot of people sing- 
 ing?" 
 
 Indeed, above the low, sweet, entangled music of the 
 forest a host of human voices was becoming more and 
 more audible, singing a sombre and solemn Maronad 
 (funeral chant.) 
 
 " It must be Monsieur le Comte de LoskofTs funeral 
 passing along through the woods to reach the family tomb 
 to-morrow morning. He died at his sister's place, and 
 they have had to bring the body all the way back by 
 ox -team," was Gradlon's explanation. 
 
 "God rest his soul," murmured both children, reverent- 
 ly crossing themselves, and as the voices grew more dis- 
 tinct they urged their ponies through the leafy dell sur- 
 rounding Saint Gwenole's ruined shrine, and leaped over 
 a hedge upon a winding road, where a double row of tall 
 beech-trees with wide -stretching arms and moss-grown 
 
 86 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 trunks threw deep shadows, checkered with pale golden 
 sunbeams. 
 
 Round a bend of this sylvan path a long procession 
 was advancing with slow, even pace. In front of the 
 two double files of peasants, one of men, the other of 
 women, all holding great rosaries in their clasped hands, 
 and wearing the customary long, hooded, mourning 
 cloaks of black cloth, the men bare-headed, but the 
 women with their white coiffes hidden by the sombre 
 hoods, came a low ox-cart draped with gorse -fringed 
 sheets of white linen and drawn by twenty-four snow- 
 white oxen, whose horns had been blackened and pol- 
 ished. Upon each beast a white sheet was fastened by 
 thick ropes of gorse blossoms and drooped almost to the 
 ground in lax folds, while twenty -four men, one at each 
 side of every pair, walked along, holding tall branches of 
 gorse and oak tied with streamers of crape. In the 
 middle of the cart the white-sheeted coffin reposed on a 
 bed of thickly strewn white heather and golden gorse, 
 which national blooms were also entwined above it in a 
 broad, flat cross. 
 
 Breaking suddenly on the woodland solitude, this 
 quaint pageant seemed called up by some enchantment, 
 and the children stood breathlessly gazing at it in amaze- 
 ment and awe; then as it drew nearer they dismounted 
 and knelt reverently down on the mossy wayside while 
 Gradlon, with head uncovered and bending to his saddle- 
 bow, held the two ponies behind them. 
 
 With one accord the eyes of all the mourners turned 
 upon the kneeling children, and a tall, fair man, who was 
 walking alone immediately behind the coffin, wearing 
 the full uniform of a naval lieutenant, his plumed hat be- 
 neath his arm and his sword heavily knotted with crape, 
 bowed low to them. 
 
 87 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 This was the dead man's brother, now himself Comte de 
 Loskoff, and heir to the superb chateau they knew so 
 well, and where they had so often enjoyed the free range 
 of the park and gardens and of the long terraces over- 
 looking the sea a wilderness of flowers, enclosing one 
 of the finest castles in Brittany. 
 
 There was unutterable desolation in the chant intoned 
 by the dead Count's loyal vassals, and tears gathered in 
 the eyes of the Kergoat children, for the last time they 
 had seen him he had laughed gayly and caressed them, 
 waving his hand and calling out a merry Au Revoir as 
 they galloped away. This tide of recollection rushed with 
 painful force upon them as they listened to the pathetic 
 heroic words of the interminable Maronad : 
 
 "Raven, death-black bird of Fate, 
 Beak of blood and eyes of hate, 
 
 Why, oh why 
 
 Thus to rend our hearts in twain 
 On thy path of woe and pain 
 
 Dost thou fly? 
 
 "Ah, our Master I None were seen 
 Who could match thy princely mien 
 
 This many a day. 
 Yet we, thus assembled, pass, 
 'Neath a menhir in the grass 
 
 Thy head to lay. 
 
 "Gentle soul, now freed from chain, 
 Who could draw the bridle rein 
 
 Like to thee? 
 
 Midst the knightly throngs that were 
 Who could strike the knightly spur 
 
 As eagerly ? 
 
 *' Ah, that mailed in panoply 
 Death should cross his sword with thee 
 A stronger foe! 
 88 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loskoff, weep! through farm and stead, 
 Loskoff, weep! thy father's head 
 Lieth low. 
 
 41 Ah, our Master! dead with thee 
 Light and life droop down and be 
 
 Moth and rust; 
 Mourn we thy departed day 
 And our memories cling alway 
 To thy dust." * 
 
 At last the long train was gone, lost to sight in a turn 
 of the road, but Loic and Gaidik still knelt entranced, 
 their little hearts very sad indeed, and when at last they 
 rose and spoke their voices were low and full of pity, 
 this sorrowful ending to a day of pleasure having a grim 
 pathos for them not easily to be shaken off. Indeed, the 
 weary, lonely, melancholy figure of the new Count stood 
 out in painful contrast with their remembrance of the 
 kindly, merry presence of their old friend, who was even 
 now being taken in that flower-laden coffin to the great 
 castle where they had last seen him so full of life and 
 health. 
 
 * A free translation, or rather paraphrase, of some representa- 
 tive verses, in the metre of the Gaelic original. 
 7 
 
irir 
 Struggle 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The grovelling Mole was made one day 
 
 Preceptor to the Sparrow, 
 
 Who made him to sing Well-a-way! 
 
 Out! Fie! Alas and Harrow! 
 
 "What can you teach," bold Jack would cry 
 
 "When you but crawl, and I can fly? 
 
 You'd best behave, or 'twill be found 
 
 I saw you delving underground! 
 
 Pray notice" here a wink gave he 
 
 "The butcher-bird in yonder tree!" M. M. 
 
 ''Loic, get your German books! We will first pro- 
 ceed with the syntax, and then you can go on with your 
 ;ranslation of Schiller's 'Bells.'" 
 
 Loic deliberated for a moment, with head held high, 
 and then burned his ships. 
 
 "No!" he replied, very distinctly and resolutely. 
 
 "What!" cried the tutor, aghast. "Do I understand 
 
 u to intimate that you decline to take your German 
 esson ?" 
 
 "That's about the size of it," the boy replied, with 
 an exasperatingly gentle smile, "for I certainly don't 
 arant to do so, M'sieu' Rivier!" 
 
 The tutor's dull eyes flashed ominously. "You intend, 
 10 doubt, to take the management of your future studies 
 nto your own hands," he remarked, ironically. 
 
 "Well, that depends on what studies you mean!" Loic 
 eplied, quite undisturbed. " I hate German, for instance ; 
 t is a beastly language, like a stack of hay in the mouth. 
 
 93 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 I speak it almost as well as I do French. Russian, and 
 Spanish, because mamma fenced me in with nurses of 
 all nationalities ever since I was knee-high to a toad, 
 and that's quite enough for a poor little kid not yet 
 twelve years old but learn the syntax and translate 
 the old jingles I won't!" 
 
 At this juncture an emperor- moth fluttered in at the 
 open window, and Loic, flicking at it with his handker- 
 chief to make it fly back into the garden, bent clear out 
 to gaze after it, and began to sing at the top of his voice: 
 
 'Chante, Rossignol, chante 
 Toi qui a le coeur gai. 
 Le mien n'est pas de meme 
 II est bien afflige!" 
 
 Not even in his wildest moments had Loic ever gone 
 quite as far as that upon the road of insubordination, 
 and to say that the tutor was furious would scarcely 
 meet the situation. "Hold your tongue!" he cried, with 
 a violent gesture of his damp, unwholesome - looking 
 hands. "What's the meaning of this new caprice do 
 you imagine that I'm going to yield to it?" 
 
 Loic ceased to sing, and burst into a hearty laugh. 
 "Oh, of course I'm not stupid enough to think you'll 
 do so gracefully, M'sieu' Rivier," he said, with a merry 
 twinkle of his mischievous gray eyes, sitting down once 
 more and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets; 
 "but yield you will have to in the end, whether you like 
 it or not." 
 
 At the sound of those defiant words, Rivier's face al- 
 tered so that for a second Loic thought his eyes or his 
 brain were playing him some inexplicable trick as he 
 looked at him, for the whole pallid countenance had in 
 an instant become literally distorted with passion, the 
 
 94 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 iris of the butter-milk-colored eyes seemed to have di- 
 lated till the bilious white was all but invisible, the thin 
 lips were drawn back from the teeth like those of some 
 snarling animal, and the cheeks and forehead were 
 mottled with greenish patches. 
 
 "You little ruffian!" he said, in a low, concentrated 
 voice. "Do you think I am the sort of a man to be 
 ordered about by the like of you?" 
 
 As he faced his pupil, his lower jaw working spas- 
 modically up and down, as if trying to chew his rage 
 into small pieces, he was a truly villanous object to con- 
 template, and each moment Loic expected him to spring 
 upon him; but Rivier disappointed him in this, for at 
 heart he was a coward, and the well-grown, muscular 
 boy of eleven would prove, as he well knew, by no means 
 a despicable adversary. Even in his present furious mood, 
 the man fully weighed risks and consequences, and so, 
 before the lapse of another five seconds, he resumed some- 
 thing of his usual expression, and wiped his forehead with 
 his handkerchief as he would have done after some great 
 physical exertion. 
 
 In appearance the tutor was tall and spare, with an 
 elongated head somewhat abnormally prominent at the 
 back. He had a tell-tale mouth, betraying more than 
 one weakness, a sensual, domineering nose, and a chin 
 that retreated from a physiognomy of which it was no 
 doubt ashamed. Ordinarily, however, his manner was 
 that of a man reserved but competent, and by a smart 
 piece of manoeuvring he had obtained the extremely 
 well-paid post of tutor to Loic de Kergoat, contriving to 
 completely dazzle the Marquise by his very real science 
 and undoubted talents. Moreover, being a person of 
 small and easy scruples, he successfully posed for the con- 
 vinced Royalist and ultra-pious Catholic he had never 
 
 95 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 been. Indeed, had she but known it, he was a social- 
 ist of the most pronounced type, and was too envious 
 and selfish to bear good - will to anything or anybody 
 standing above him ; but his masterly fashion of casting 
 dust in the eyes of his fair employer had hitherto been 
 crowned with complete success at least so he thought 
 and Loic's aggressive sortie appeared to him like a 
 veritable bolt from the blue. 
 
 "Now then, sir," he said at last, with a peremptoriness 
 to which he had not habituated his young charge, "we 
 will have none of your tantrums, please. You just barely 
 escaped being severely punished, let me tell you." 
 
 "I'm not accustomed to be spoken to like that," Loic 
 replied, hotly, an angry flush springing to his face. 
 
 "No doubt it was a liberty on my part, Monsieur le 
 Marquis!" the other responded, scornfully, "so pray 
 deign to excuse it." Then, noticing that a very little 
 more would throw Loic completely off his balance, and 
 that with probably lightning-like consequences to him- 
 self, he managed to suppress his own temper, and in a 
 completely altered tone continued: "What is the mat- 
 ter with you, my boy ? Until now, although you are 
 no model scholar, yet you have been at least polite and 
 to a certain extent deferential." 
 
 Instantly the lad's threatening expression changed 
 too, a contemptuous smile dawned at the corners of his 
 lips, and he quite shamelessly winked. "That," he re- 
 marked, significantly, "is because I did not know you 
 as I do now, M'sieu* Rivier. You can't expect me to 
 respect somebody who makes Malghorn his bosom friend, 
 and plots and plans with him all sorts of disgusting things." 
 
 The tutor jumped to his feet. "What!" he gasped. 
 "Malghorn! Who told you that I made a friend of him, 
 and what do you mean by saying that I plot and plan ?" 
 
 96 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 His hands still deep in his pockets, his head resting 
 easily and comfortably on the back of his chair, the hope 
 of the Kergoats was looking at his tutor through half- 
 shut lids. 
 
 "I heard you with my own ears telling Malghorn, the 
 other day, that Aristocrats were only fit to be fichus 
 dedans, and that religion was all humbug. Now don't 
 you think 'mamma would be pleased to know that you, 
 whom she calls a pillar of Monarchy and the Church, are 
 a Red, a real Communard, and all the rest of it?" 
 
 "Sacre nom d'un Chien, but where did you hear all 
 this? Can you at least tell me that?" the now really 
 terrified tutor exclaimed, sawing the air with clinched 
 fists, like one wellnigh demented. 
 
 Loic saw now that he " held the rope," as he would have 
 graphically put it, and was not slow to take advantage 
 of this gratifying fact. 
 
 "Oh, don't swear, M'sieu' Rivier that's a bad exam- 
 ple to set me. Keep cool and I'll tell you all about it. I 
 heard all this and much more while riding home the 
 other day along the grass path behind the orchard, where 
 you were smoking your cigar in company with your 
 friend Malghorn. Pan tin's hoofs were not making much 
 noise on the turf, and, what's more, you were both shout- 
 ing at the top of your lungs, so that I heard you quite 
 well. ' Sacrees crapules d'Aristocrates, sdle pretraille ' 
 that's one of the things you were saying. I laughed till 
 I cried at the time, to think of mamma's face if she only 
 could have heard you, too; but afterwards I reflected 
 that what you are doing is not very chic, for mamma 
 believes in you as if you were Saint Chrysostom himself, 
 though since you funked riding Le Real she does not 
 perhaps admire you quite as much as she did, still " 
 
 "Funked riding Le Real! Loic, I am beginning to 
 
 97 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 think that you are mad," Rivier exclaimed, at his wits' 
 end to give this exceedingly uncomfortable conversation 
 a turn which would at least restore him the advantage 
 of debate. 
 
 "Well, that's a good one! Green as grass you turned 
 when that poor old goat of a superannuated steeple- 
 chaser began to dance out of mere fun. But that's 
 neither here nor there. If you want me to keep silent 
 about your little failings, you must be more amiable to 
 me than you have been of late, and especially not fly into 
 rages as you did just now, because I don't like it a bit." 
 
 "So you have not as yet spoken about what you pre- 
 tend to have heard?" the bewildered and sorely fright- 
 ened man stupidly asked. 
 
 "What do you take me for, M'sieu' Rivier a spy? 
 I'm pretty bad, perhaps, but I'm not that, and when I 
 speak I'll do so right before you never fear! You seem 
 to think that everybody is a sneak!" Loic promptly re- 
 torted, with extreme disdain. 
 
 Here the tutor committed the irreparable error of 
 blustering. "Perhaps," he sneered, "you would like me 
 to call Madame la Marquise at once, so that you may 
 put your delicate threat into execution! All you'll get 
 for your pains will be a sound thrashing, I can promise 
 you that, you young game-cock!" 
 
 Loic looked at his imprudent victim for a moment 
 with pupils diminishing to a pin-point, then he gave a 
 little, low whistle. " Really!" he murmured. " Well, what 
 do you say to our trying the experiment? We can give 
 her all the curdling details of this morning's work, and 
 if she doesn't appreciate the story I'll fetch Uncle Rend, 
 who arrived an hour ago, and who'll make a splendid 
 addition to the audience. He may take you down a peg 
 or two, but 
 
 98 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Rivier rose once more from his chair in great agitation. 
 
 "What do you mean? Do you know what your 
 words imply?" 
 
 "Certainly I do," Loic said, quietly. "Uncle Rene 
 won't be taken in by you as Mamma used to be; besides, 
 he has always been just to me and to Gaidik." 
 
 "The Duchess d'Aspremont ?" 
 
 "Yes, my sister Gaidik. She'd be the one to make 
 you sing low, M'sieu' Rivier she's not such a fool as I 
 am!" 
 
 "From all I've heard of her " the tutor began, with 
 a sneer; but, without giving him time to proceed any 
 further, Loic came at him as if shot out of a catapult, 
 his eyes dark with fury, his face set like flint, his fists 
 doubled. 
 
 "Don't you dare to speak of Gaidik in that tone, or 
 I'll knock all your teeth down your ugly throat!" he 
 cried, choking with rage. "I heard you and that viper 
 Malghorn say enough about us all the other day to judge 
 what you're capable of. Let Gaidik alone, do you hear ?" 
 
 "What what " stammered Rivier, in a high, tremu- 
 lous voice he was livid with fright. "I'll 'say anything 
 I like about her or" he finished with a splutter, for 
 Loic had struck him full on the mouth with a force that 
 nearly swept him off his feet. As it was, after executing 
 some remarkable gesticulations and contortions in the 
 effort to preserve his balance, over he went with a crash, 
 and on top of him a heavy table loaded with books, 
 stationery, and capacious, old-fashioned inkstands newly 
 filled that day with writing-fluids of several brilliant 
 colors. 
 
 A second later the door opened and Madame de Ker- 
 goat, attracted by these sounds of battle, entered quick- 
 ly. Her great, back eyes stared wide with astonish- 
 
 99 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ment as they fell upon the scene ; but a sense of the ri- 
 diculous was one of her strong points, and as she caught 
 sight of the tutor hastily extricating himself from the 
 ruins, a scarecrow figure, dripping with ink, with hair on 
 end, eyes bulging with fright, and one aimless hand smear- 
 ing his variegated countenance into strange shades and 
 combinations, she barely suppressed a burst of almost un- 
 controllable laughter. 
 
 "My dearest dear!" she at last managed to exclaim. 
 "What on earth is the matter?" 
 
 Her dearest dear, still standing with squared shoul- 
 ders, braced for immediate action, did not reply, and 
 she repeated: "What is it, Loic? Have have you been 
 fighting?" 
 
 A fresh spasm suddenly seized her, her hands began 
 to tremble and the corners of her mouth to quiver. 
 "Tell tell me," she began, in unsteady tones, but there 
 she stopped, for at this juncture the very .last person 
 Monsieur Rivier would have desired to see, appeared 
 within the open door. 
 
 The new-comer was an extremely tall and strikingly 
 handsome man, whose relationship to Loic and Gaidik 
 was proclaimed at one glance. There were the same 
 finely chiselled features, the same deep-set, dark-gray, 
 black-lashed eyes and dusky, copper-hued hair, and the 
 same alert, thorough-bred expression of face and attitude. 
 
 Past experiences had taught Comte Rene as he was 
 familiarly called the wisdom of not meddling with his 
 erratic sister-in-law's management of her children, ex- 
 cepting on very grave occasions; but as this one seemed 
 certainly to enter that category, he stepped forward with 
 a composure of countenance that was either a tribute to 
 the perfection of his self-control or a libel on his sense of 
 humor. 
 
 100 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "What has happened, Genevieve?" 
 
 "I do not k-kn-o-ow," quavered Madame de Kergoat, 
 making another heroic effort to conceal her irresistible 
 desire to laugh. "I heard a most extraordinary tumult, 
 and ran here to find Loic and Monsieur Rivier aux 
 prises, I really believe." 
 
 The Count evidently required no further enlightenment, 
 for now, as if completely comprehending the situation, he 
 said, simply: 
 
 "This being so, you had best leave it all to me. Go 
 to your room, Loic, and wait there till I come," he added, 
 turning to the still quivering boy. Then, opening the 
 door for his sister-in-law to pass out, he added, in a 
 lower tone, "I will wait upon you, Genevieve, as soon 
 as I have settled this very unpleasant but by no means 
 surprising affair." 
 
 Madame de Kergoat, strange to relate, offered no ob- 
 jections, and, followed by the frowning Loic, left the 
 room in the meekest and most obedient fashion. Per- 
 chance the boy had been right in declaring that her 
 admiration for Rivier's manifold faculties and talents 
 was on the wane, and that, desirous to be rid of him, 
 she was at heart delighted for once to allow her formi- 
 dable brother-in-law the upperhand. Be this as it may, 
 she, to his intense relief, went without a murmur, and, 
 turning to the quaking tutor, Count Rdn said, dryly, 
 "A nous deux maintenant, Monsieur !" 
 
 Rivier was gazing fixedly out of the window. He did 
 not, however, see the exquisite vista of smooth lawns, 
 gorgeous flower-carpets, and changing greens pierced by 
 broken shafts of sunlight that was framed in the broad, 
 low-silled niche. It merely served as an occupation for 
 the troubled eyes he could not summon courage to turn 
 towards Monsieur de Kergoat. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Monsieur Rivier, the man who over-estimates the fool- 
 ishness of others is himself the biggest fool concerned," 
 the Count's calm voice was quietly saying. "I have 
 watched you very keenly, whenever I chanced to be at 
 Kergoat, since your arrival here, and I cannot say that 
 I discovered any good in you ; but let that pass. It was 
 not, strictly speaking, my business to interfere, for al- 
 though I am Loic's guardian, my sister-in-law having 
 found no fault with you, I contented myself with remain- 
 ing on the alert. Lately, however, I have come to the 
 regrettable certainty that you are a scoundrel a fact 
 to be deplored, not only for you, but also for Loic and, 
 to be plain, I arrived here this morning for the sole pur- 
 pose of giving your more than questionable behavior the 
 recognition it deserves." 
 
 "I I do not understand what you mean, Monsieur 
 le Comte," stammered Rivier. 
 
 "You understand me very well indeed, on the con- 
 trary, for you cannot doubt that I would not speak as 
 I do had I not excellent proofs in hand. To begin with, 
 you are affiliated to the Comite des Socialistes, to whom 
 you are supposed to render valuable information con- 
 cerning 'the enemies of the government,'' as you tragically 
 denominate us Nobles. That already would be a fair 
 example of your delicacy and honor although, of course, 
 your conception of such matters is very different from 
 ours; but there is worse even than that to be laid at 
 your door. Your ideas of morality are peculiar and not 
 acceptable in a man whose metier it is to bring up and 
 train children. But enough. It suffices to call this a 
 disgusting question. I am going to write you a check 
 for three months' additional salary, and you will be so 
 good as to leave Kergoat immediately." 
 
 Rivier 's lips moved, but no sound came from them, 
 
 102 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and he felt again for his handkerchief to wipe his clammy, 
 ink-stained brow. Indeed, he was so completely crushed, 
 so irretrievably convicted, that he could not even find a 
 word to say in his own defence, but sank helplessly on 
 the broad window-sill, while Monsieur de Kergoat, seat- 
 ing himself at a desk near by, took his check-book from 
 his pocket and began to write. 
 
 In so doing he turned his back to the tutor, and then 
 for the first time Rivier ventured to look in his direction. 
 It was not a pleasant gaze had Count Rene but known 
 it, the blight of more than one life looked out from those 
 eyes, and the ordinarily obsequious face was drawn in 
 evil lines of hate and cunning. This was, after his fashion, 
 a subtle man, who would not hesitate at any time to 
 deal a blow in the dark, and for the present it was fort- 
 unate for Count Rene" that the eyes bent upon his un- 
 conscious back were not loaded pistols. At last, as if 
 weary of this profitless scrutiny, the tutor turned once 
 more to the sun-bathed view without. 
 
 It was delicious October weather ; blackbirds and 
 thrushes were dropping their liquid notes like bubbles 
 of exquisite melody in every tree of the park ; the air was 
 warm and suave, and laden with the fragrance of ripen- 
 ing fruit. Immediately before the windows extended a 
 walled garden shaded by huge cedars of Lebanon, where 
 a quaint, old-day peacefulness reigned supreme amid a 
 wonderful assortment of leafy evergreens, climbing ivy, 
 sturdy tufts of lavender, and a veritable orgy of roses of 
 all kinds and colors colors ranging from the warm tint 
 of the topaz to that of the finest ruby, and following all 
 the gradations of cream, pearl, and the delicate flush of 
 a sleeping baby's cheek. Truly the "queen of flowers" 
 thrived well in this sunny, sheltered nook, offering like 
 a Royal gift its straight stems crowned with perfume, 
 
 103 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 advancing its flexible branches to the very crest of the 
 ancient walls, and climbing into the drooping arms of 
 several magnificent Weymouth pines, where the rich 
 clusters of their satiny buds charmingly nestled, every 
 species, according to its kind, doing its best to transform 
 Le Jar din dn Roi as this delicious spot was called 
 into a miniature vale of Kashmir. All this superb 
 brilliancy and beauty seemed to mock the discomfited 
 schemer, not only by contrast with his own dark thoughts, 
 but by symbolizing the loss his dismissal from Kergoat 
 was to him. No, never could he hope to find so sunny, 
 so luxurious a berth again, and it was with enraged dis- 
 may that he contemplated the future. His hopes had 
 vanished like melting snow, and nothing but a heap of 
 dirt was left behind. 
 
 Monsieur de Kergoat's cold, incisive voice recalled him 
 with a start to the shame of the immediate present. 
 
 "You will please make your preparations at once," 
 he said, rising and approaching Rivier. "In an hour a 
 trap will be in readiness to take you to the Plouhar'zalec 
 diligence. You will also hold no communication what- 
 soever with any member of this household save the valet 
 assigned to you since the beginning of your stay." 
 
 The tutor had risen, and, although Count Rene plainly 
 saw the traces of ill -repressed fury and hunted fear in his 
 face, he paid not the slightest attention to these danger- 
 signals flown by one whom he the strong and honorable 
 considered a weak, paltry, and insignificant plotter, not 
 worthy of a second thought. Ungraciously and mutely 
 Rivier accepted the generous and totally undeserved gra- 
 tuity handed to him, and stood motionless as a statue 
 until the Grand Seigneur, with a slight inclination of the 
 head, had left him to the solitude of the beautiful room, 
 beside the overturned table and the variegated ink pud- 
 
 104 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 dies, now extended in slowly creeping rivulets and oozing 
 towards the wellnigh priceless tapis de la Savonerie cover- 
 ing the centre of the floor. 
 
 A little later Count Rend, presenting himself at the 
 door of the small drawing-room attached to his sister-in- 
 law's apartments, found her in a delicious tea-gown of 
 old Venetian point and silvery tissues, standing critical- 
 eyed between two of the tall windows, turning her head 
 from side to side, craning her neck a little, examining 
 if one must confess it the effect in her dark hair of a 
 gorgeous band of diamonds and sapphires which, after 
 being reset and modernized, had just arrived from Paris. 
 
 Rene bowed gravely, taking absolutely no notice of 
 his lovely relative's absorbed studies of her beauty in 
 the broad Louis XIV. mirror before which she continued 
 to stand, and came to the point with his customary 
 directness of speech. 
 
 "I have," he said, "just dismissed Rivier, who, as I 
 have already told you fifty times, Genevieve, is not the 
 man to intrust with Loic's education." 
 
 "Oh, don't call me 'Genevieve'!" she interrupted him, 
 with a droll little grimace. "It always makes me think 
 of that celebrated lady of Brabant, so deficient in cloth- 
 ing and so rich in hair, who wandered eternally with her 
 goat or her stag, or whatever it was, in lonesome forests. 
 Can't you say ' Vivette'f It's so much prettier and more 
 brotherly. I wish you were not always so horribly 
 grave!" 
 
 "The situation," he replied, with a grim little smile, 
 "is extremely grave, it is no use disguising that fact." 
 
 Madame de Kergoat looked up at him as he towered be- 
 side her, and the slanting sun -rays showed an expression 
 of genuine astonishment in her magnificent eyes. 
 
 "I must ask you to believe that I exaggerate nothing. 
 8 105 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 The situation is very grave, though you are disinclined 
 to believe it, just as a sailor refuses to believe that his 
 own particular ship is unseaworthy." 
 
 Genevieve laughed. "Is all this solemnity the result 
 of Rivier's fight with Loic?" And again she laughed 
 heartily. "Oh! I wish you could have seen him rise up 
 from the ddbris with ink flowing like Aaron's oil to the 
 very edge of his garments, it was so funny I was glad 
 to find a pretext for flight, else I would have exploded 
 right in his face." 
 
 Rene" glanced sharply down at her, asking himself 
 whether she was really as unconscious as she appeared 
 to be, or whether she was not, after all, acting a part a 
 usual trick of hers when desirous of avoiding censure. 
 But no, she was really immensely amused, of that there 
 could be no doubt. 
 
 "I saw quite enough as it was," he returned, calmly, 
 "but the man did not seem funny to me. He is an un- 
 utterable scoundrel, a very ugly customer indeed, and it 
 is a thousand pities that he should ever have set his foot 
 in this house." 
 
 "Now, really, Re'ne'! I know that you mean well in 
 telling me all this, but don't you think that unwittingly, 
 perchance, you are looking a trifle too darkly at the 
 whole matter. Rivier may not be what I first believed 
 him to be, but from that to his being a dangerous criminal 
 is a far cry." 
 
 "I beg your pardon! I am not inclined to be in the 
 least melodramatic, and when I tell you that this erst- 
 while paragon of yours is a scoundrel of the most decided 
 description, I thoroughly mean it. I cannot imagine 
 what ever possessed you to engage his services." 
 
 Madame de Kergoat looked her brother-in-law up and 
 down from the corners of her eyes. 
 
 1 06 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "He plays the piano like Liszt, the violin like Sarasate, 
 and is besides a veritable well of science. What more 
 would you have in a tutor?" she replied, lightly. "I 
 searched everywhere, I assure you, and even in the ut- 
 termost corners of the earth I could not have found a 
 likelier pedagogue." 
 
 Re'ne' shrugged his shoulders. " You might easily have 
 found a better man in one of them, or even nearer. 
 My dear Genevieve, it is difficult for men to do always 
 the right thing. It is a thousand times more difficult 
 for women. Why will you not consent to be guided by 
 me where your children are concerned ? I love them dear- 
 ly; as you know, and long ago I offered you my help 
 because I think that no woman can win through your 
 difficulties unaided. You refused, being quite sure of 
 your own ability to do so, but I still venture to believe 
 that my assistance is essential." 
 
 Genevieve de Kergoat raised her head a little. She 
 was within an ace of handing over to Rene the rod of 
 power, which she knew in her innermost heart that she 
 often unwisely wielded, but pride and a deep dislike of 
 her brother-in-law's authoritative methods intervened, 
 and in a voice too light, too hopelessly shallow for the 
 depth of the moment, she answered: "And I think 
 that you are quite mistaken, my dear Re'ne' . I may have 
 erred as far as my choice of a tutor is concerned, but I 
 find no difficulty whatsoever in managing Loic, who, if 
 he is sometimes a little violent and skittish, yet obeys 
 me far better than you imagine, and as to Marc'haid, 
 thank goodness her husband is responsible for her pranks 
 now, not I." 
 
 "How can you talk like that!" Monsieur de Kergoat 
 exclaimed, with serious displeasure. "You cannot man- 
 age Loic at all, to begin with, excepting now and then 
 
 107 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 with a whip, when he tries your patience too far. Your 
 treatment of him is a regular Turkish bath: alternate 
 douches of hot and cold. You are, if you will allow me 
 to say so quite frankly, on the high-road to spoil one of 
 the finest natures God ever created. As for Gaidik, you 
 married her at fifteen to get rid of her, which was a sin, 
 for she is the dearest as well as the prettiest little creature 
 that ever looked out upon a wicked world from a pair 
 of gloriously honest eyes." 
 
 " Ne touchons pas a la Reine /" Genevieve retorted, 
 provokingly. "Gaidik is, of course, perfection in your 
 eyes, since she is so much like you." 
 
 "Like me? Nonsense! She is like her father, who 
 was the best and the handsomest man I ever knew, be- 
 sides being the most honest and fearless. Yes, she is 
 like him, and like no one else, God be praised for that!" 
 
 "A thousand thanks that's polite and gracious," she 
 said, with mocking plain tiveness, "but" with a change 
 of tone "you never did me justice, Re'ne', and truly I 
 do not know why you hate me so bitterly ?" 
 
 Re'ne' looked down at her with his cold, grave smile. 
 The words had been admirably pronounced, the thought- 
 ful droop of the lovely head, the dainty display of a 
 tiny, satin-shod foot were marvellously well considered. 
 
 "I wonder why you go to the trouble of all this clever 
 little mise-en-scene for me," he said, quietly. 
 
 Madame de Kergoat always became instantly furious 
 with any one who refused to fall headlong into one of 
 her little traps, and she gave her too clear-sighted brother- 
 in-law a very sour and unadmiring look. 
 
 "Thank you also," she .said, scornfully, "for your deli- 
 cate sarcasms. There are few men in this world who 
 can't be tamed, but you are one of them!" 
 
 "I trust, at any rate," he replied, quite unconcernedly, 
 
 108 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "that what I just said has not been lost upon you, and 
 that you will recognize the urgent necessity of speedily 
 altering your plan of action with regard to Loic." 
 
 With an impatient little toss of the head, she pointed 
 to a chair. "Hadn't you better sit down and explain 
 more clearly what it is you want me to do?" she said, 
 crossly. 
 
 He did not sit down, but came nearer and stood by 
 the sofa, where she had nestled among a mountain of 
 cushions, and looked steadily at her for a few seconds. 
 
 "Well!" she said, in the same exasperating tone, arch- 
 ing her eyebrows inquiringly. 
 
 "Oh, come!" he remonstrated. "Don't pretend to 
 misunderstand me. You know that Loic is getting to 
 be too much for you, and that it is high time to put 
 him in hands capable of coping with his amazing force of 
 resistance, his truly Breton stubbornness, and his ex- 
 treme distaste for any sort of restraint. Now, what are 
 you going to do about it?" 
 
 Their interviews were never either gay or cordial, and 
 she suddenly ceased to assume even the shadow of an 
 amiability which she was far from feeling, for she was 
 getting angry in good earnest. " What ? Oh, I don't 
 know at all!" she answered, tapping her foot on the 
 carpet. "Of course what I will do will be for Loic's 
 best interests; but I have not had time to think about 
 it yet, nor do I care to bother about such questions just 
 now." 
 
 "You had better think soon, nevertheless, since I have 
 sent Rivier away." 
 
 "Very officious of you!" she said, perversely. "I had 
 a right to be first consulted." 
 
 "Not the smallest right in such a case. The man, as 
 I have had the honor of telling you, is an abject individual. 
 
 109 
 
THE TRIDENT AND TH E.NET 
 
 I found out that he but such things are no concern of 
 a woman. Pray, however, give your full attention to 
 what does concern you. What will you do if you per- 
 sist in letting Loic gradually take the upperhand and act 
 just as he pleases?" 
 
 She deigned no reply, for she had none ready. More- 
 over, her temper was rising with stormy swiftness, her 
 very lips were losing their rose-leaf tint, and her eyes 
 flashed like the brown diamonds they resembled. 
 
 "Surely you must see," her brother-in-law continued, 
 with exemplary patience, "that in the position in which 
 I stand towards your children I am in a manner re- 
 sponsible for their future." 
 
 "How exactly like you to infer that I am not capable 
 of taking care of that myself!" she cried. "Nobody else 
 would make such a fuss over the matter. Loic's future 
 is pretty well provided for, is it not?" 
 
 "Loic will be very rich, if that is what you mean; but 
 a boy brought up like him may very well run through 
 millions when once he feels the reins completely loose on 
 his neck, and since you are still young, a great number of 
 years may elapse before he comes into your money ; more- 
 over, that will have to be shared between Gaidik and 
 himself when the time comes." 
 
 "Alas, yes! But supposing he, as you so cheerfully 
 prophesy, were to run through the money left him by 
 his father, supposing even that he ran through all I will 
 have to leave him for be easy, I shall give him all that 
 the law does not oblige me to leave to our charming Duch- 
 ess he still would have your fortune to look forward to." 
 
 "By Heaven, that's cool!" 
 
 Re'ne', as he muttered these involuntary words, stared 
 down at her too astonished to disguise his rising disgust, 
 and continued, icily: 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "That is where you make yet another mistake. If 
 Loic turns out badly, I would sooner leave my money to 
 to the President of the French Republic than to him. 
 So don't count on that. Moreover, if when he comes of 
 age he marries contrary to your wishes, or commits 
 some irreparable folly, won't you, yourself, be only too 
 ready to cut down his supplies?" 
 
 Madame de Kergoat indulged in a gesture which sent 
 an exquisite crystal bowl full of violets rolling upon the 
 floor. 
 
 "Marry without my consent? I'd just like to see him 
 try!" she exclaimed, furiously. " Marry against my will ? 
 Well, that's like you to think such a thing possible!" 
 
 "There are some forces stronger than yourself, and 
 one of them will be Loic's stubbornness if it ever comes 
 to an open disagreement between you," Re'ne' replied, 
 stooping to repair the damage done to the pretty clusters 
 of violets which now lay scattered far and wide over the 
 carpet. 
 
 "You will not have an inch of ground to stand on," 
 he continued, "when Loic becomes altogether his own 
 master, and being given his character, you will be run- 
 ning your head against a stone wall the first time you 
 attempt seriously to oppose him." 
 
 "So you say!" 
 
 "It is not what I say, but what everybody who knows 
 you both would say. You are accustomed to do what- 
 ever you like, but you will find out your mistake only 
 too soon." 
 
 "Oh, do stop arranging those idiotic flowers!" she 
 cried, jumping up and crushing the rest of them ruth- 
 lessly beneath her little feet, as she swept up and down 
 the room in her exasperation. "Why should Loic com- 
 mit follies why, why, why? Can you tell me that?" 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Assuredly I can. I have already done so, although 
 you paid no attention to my words. Loic is bound to 
 commit follies because you are carefully and obstinately 
 preparing the ground out of which follies sprout. Now, 
 whether you are angry or not, I for one do not intend to 
 quarrel any longer on this wearisome subject indeed, 
 if you say so, I will never mention it again, for whatever 
 may be my duties towards the boy, they do not include 
 the utter destruction of my own peace of mind in vainly 
 trying to control your treatment of him." 
 
 She bit her lips. " I don't like your tone at all, Rene," 
 she said, suddenly, in her usual voice, or one only slightly 
 more impertinent than usual, perhaps, but so surprising- 
 ly cool and collected that he looked at her in utter sur- 
 prise. All the anger of a few minutes ago had vanished, 
 and her present accents were the faithful index of her 
 delicately sneering face. At this Rene saw better than 
 ever before the utter futility of trying to interfere between 
 her and Loic. The thing was already beyond his reach, 
 and he turned away, concealing his terrible misgivings 
 beneath a smile almost as ironical as her own. 
 
 "I am sorry if my tone displeases you, but you should 
 occasionally remember that I am Loic's guardian, be- 
 sides being one of your trustees." 
 
 "Which of course gives you the right to annoy me in 
 any way you please, a right you use in full, one must 
 confess." 
 
 He looked at her in silence. 
 
 "It has been the same thing ever since your poor 
 brother's death. You talk high-flown stuff about your 
 duties, and you care nothing at all about the pain and 
 sorrow you cause me." 
 
 Rdne* was now really feeling the despair a brave and 
 generous man feels before a completely selfish and frivo- 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 lous woman. What could he do? To awaken any con- 
 science or real good sense in her was hopeless, for there is 
 nothing to equal the impotence of a man who attempts 
 to cope with the elusiveness of feminine inconscience. 
 Suddenly he moved a step nearer and gazed down at her 
 with a look which made her, for a fleeting instant, lower 
 her bold and unfaltering eyes. 
 
 "You refuse to accept either my advice or assistance?" 
 he asked, sternly, hoping still against hope. 
 
 "I do not admit that I am in need of either," she 
 drawled, lazily, like one weary of debate upon some 
 small matter not worthy of discussion. "There is no 
 one living now whom I would allow to dictate to me!" 
 Then with triumphant finality she concluded: "You 
 are Loic's guardian, but you are not mine, and I entirely 
 refuse to obey your every whim or to subject myself to 
 your interrogations and tyrannies. I shall do as I please 
 with regard to Loic's education, and it seems to me that 
 until I attempt to dissipate his patrimony, the rest does 
 not concern you." 
 
 He grew quite white, and squaring his broad shoulders 
 with the quiet determination already so characteristic of 
 Loic, turned towards the door. 
 
 "I trust you will never have cause to regret this," he 
 said, in a slightly trembling voice, and passed out of the 
 room without another look or word. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Red dawn! red dawn! and the clouds fast fly, 
 Cold white the foam-crests, gray the light, 
 And a sail, a sail, that glideth by 
 To where the east grows bright 1 
 The tall cliff answereth rosily 
 The young day, born of the sky and sea, 
 And the shadow drops from her crown of turf 
 To her stony knees in the spouting surf. 
 Oh, sing the joy that the morrow brings! 
 The wondrous freight 'neath those spreading wings! 
 And shout with the great gale newly drawn 
 From the under-world, 
 Red dawn! 
 
 The Voyage, I. M. M. 
 
 Two years later, on a hazy October day, Loic and his 
 ever lovely mamma were taking their second dejeuner 
 in the breakfast-room at Kergoat an oval apartment 
 lined with Arras tapestries and overlooking a beautiful 
 corner of the gardens. 
 
 Loic, sun-tanned, deliciously refreshed by his morning 
 dip in the sea, and shedding a pleasant aroma of salt- 
 water and violet - scented linen, regarded his mother 
 across the breakfast-table, set with fairest damask, palest 
 rose old Saxe, and low Louis XIV. jardinieres filled 
 with pink heather, alternating with broad crystal shells 
 holding superb grapes, figs, and peaches. 
 
 Through the wide-open French windows a flowering 
 wilderness of delight was visible. Running on each side 
 of a broad grass allee, herbaceous borders displayed tall 
 
 114 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 hollyhocks and Imperial blue lilies, while shoulder-high 
 to them were banks of multicolored dahlias, a thin line 
 of scarlet salvias nodding their dazzling little tassels in 
 the light breeze, and a thick fringe of shaggy poppies, 
 delicate in texture as the most exquisite of Chinese silk- 
 crepe, and as varied in hues as the rainbow itself. Below 
 these again was a thick border of reseda, heliotrope, and 
 lobelias, the whole fragrant, magnificent mass being 
 backed by tall pomegranate, fuchsia, rose -laurel, and 
 myrtle bushes still simply covered with blossoms. This 
 portion of the gardens lay in a natural dip of the grounds, 
 sheltered by lofty hedges of box and by patriarchal oaks, 
 lustrous arbousiers bearing great round berries red as 
 blood and rough to the touch like shagreen leather and 
 graceful Italian poplars, which screened the parterres 
 from the bitter saltness of the frequent sea-gales. 
 
 Madame de Kergoat glanced at the sumptuous land- 
 scape, the velvety lawns, the high, bending trees with 
 the silvery light of that hazy autumn morning caught 
 in the net -work of their rustling leaves like shreds of 
 iridescent gauze, glanced at the orgy of perfumed color 
 bordering the wide allee and then at Loic, a fine ad- 
 mixture of pride with something like challenge in her 
 smile. Indeed, the boy looked magnificently vivid, and 
 gave one a sense of extreme vitality, of extraordinary 
 power, and of possibilities in no way akin to unhappiness 
 or any of the other evils predicted on a by no means 
 forgotten occasion by his uncle. Yes, Loic was what 
 she termed in her heart remarquablement bien reussi, 
 and conveyed the impression of a singularly well - knit 
 union of strength, beauty, and fineness. 
 
 She paused in the act of plunging her tiny, golden 
 spoon into an egg, and after continuing to gaze at him for 
 a few musing seconds exclaimed, with a queer little laugh: 
 
 "5 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Well, if your ogreish uncle were to see you to-day 
 he could not but be conscious of the foolishness of his 
 prophecies!" 
 
 Loic, who had drawn towards him a dish of grilled 
 sardines, pushed it mechanically away without helping 
 himself. 
 
 "Why, Mamma, what had Uncle Rene prophesied?" 
 he asked, in astonishment. 
 
 "Oh, a lot of nonsense about my being unable to man- 
 age you, and also about your future, which, according to 
 him, was to consist of a succession of crimes too awful 
 to contemplate!" It was a remarkably unwise speech, 
 and she knew it; but the wayward spirit that dictated 
 so many of her acts was strong upon her that morning, 
 and made her move yet one step farther upon the perilous 
 road she had followed from the first. 
 
 Loic again turned his attention to the sardines, and, 
 dexterously removing the spine from one of those tooth- 
 some morsels, said, indifferently enough: "I did not 
 know that you and Uncle Re'ne' had quarrelled about 
 me. Is that why he comes here so seldom now?" 
 
 "I don't know; perhaps it is!" she replied, a little 
 hastily. "He comes when it is necessary, which is quite 
 often enough, for he is a singularly morose personage, 
 this good Re'neV' 
 
 " Morose! Surely not, Mamma! He is as jolly as jolly 
 can be when we are alone together. Why, I would rather 
 ride or sail with him than with any boy of my own age!" 
 
 "That is a matter of opinion and of individual taste, 
 but if you were under his iron rule, you would soon alter 
 both, my child. Do you think that he would let you 
 have your own way as I do, give you everything you 
 want, and yield to all your fancies and caprices however 
 extravagant they may be?" 
 
 116 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic laughed his ringing, merry laugh. "Hum! No, 
 probably not! But you let me have my own way only 
 when it does not interfere with yours, Mamma, and so, 
 after all " 
 
 Madame de Kergoat's eyes suddenly hardened. 
 
 "You are extremely ungrateful, Loic, for you know 
 very well that you generally do just as you please a 
 great deal too much so, in fact but you will see the 
 difference when you join the Borda at Brest, and ex- 
 change my lenient hand for that of its commander. 
 He is a celebrated martinet!" 
 
 If her chances of Paradise had been at stake, the 
 Marquise could not, that fateful morning, have resisted 
 the temptation to say the very things she should have 
 most avoided. 
 
 Quietly Loic finished dismembering a jellied quail, 
 signed to the footman "at attention" behind his mother's 
 chair to hand him the salad, and, after carefully and 
 slowly helping himself, said, a trifle sulkily: "Bother 
 the Borda! You must not forget, my dear Mother, 
 that I am not obliged to enter either the navy or the 
 army! Monsieur le Cure* says that I am Soutien de 
 Veuve (only son of a widow), and that if I don't want 
 to serve the republic I am exempt! Of course you are 
 not a poor widow who needs support," he continued, 
 placidly glancing at the luxurious breakfast - room, the 
 tall footmen, the exquisitely appointed table; "but still 
 I'm sure the law holds as good in our case as in that of 
 'Mere Pillard,' when Armand was allowed to stay home 
 with her last year and to go on fishing, even after he 
 drew a bad number in the conscription. I don't know 
 whether I'll like the Borda, and if I don't I'll trot back 
 here to amuse myself as best I can until I come of age." 
 
 Speechless with amazement and wrath, Madame de 
 
 117 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Kergoat motioned with an almost violent gesture to 
 the servants, who had just placed the dessert on the 
 table, to leave the room. 
 
 "Are we to take the coffee here," Loic asked, "or do 
 you want it as usual on the terrace?" 
 
 "On the terrace," she replied, curtly, "but we will 
 stay here, if you please, until you and I have come to an 
 understanding." 
 
 "Oh, well, in that case we might as well have it brought 
 here!" the incorrigible youngster retorted, with a shrug 
 of his shoulders, which was anything but respectful. 
 
 Madame de Kergoat pushed back her chair, and taking 
 a cigarette from the tiny jewelled case hanging with 
 twenty other costly trifles on her chatelaine, lit it with 
 a nervous twirl of the match, and her black eyes, flashing 
 dangerously, turned on her undutiful son. 
 
 "So it appears that you intend to decide for yourself 
 whether or not you will enter the navy?" she remarked, 
 with fine scorn. "Pray remember that I am master 
 here, and also the means of correction I have at my dis- 
 posal, if you refuse obedience." 
 
 A singular look leaped for an instant into her son's 
 eyes, then, after a brief pause, he coolly stretched out 
 his hand towards one of the dishes of fruit, artistically 
 arranged in little nests of autumn-tinted leaves, and be- 
 gan peeling a peche de Montreuil, as if he had not heard 
 his mother's question. 
 
 "Loic!" she exclaimed, losing what was left of her 
 self-control. "Loic, don't you hear what I say?" 
 
 " Why, yes, I do; but if you are going to make a moun- 
 tain out of a mole-hill, as usual, I'd much rather let the 
 wh<le matter slide, since it will be a long time yet be- 
 fore we need make up our minds about it." 
 
 "I wonder," she said, wrathfully, "whether you real- 
 
 118 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ize how insolent you are?" Her cheeks had suddenly 
 lost their pretty color, and her voice trembled a little. 
 
 "I don't mean to be impertinent, Mamma, I assure 
 you," was the perfectly self-possessed rejoinder; "but 
 you are going to nag me, I know, and I don't want to 
 spoil a day like this, just when Gaidik is coming home 
 for a month, too! It would be absurd!" 
 
 "Gaidik! That will be another joy!" sneered Madame 
 de Kergoat. "Upon my word, you certainly are always 
 the most exasperating child a mother ever had to put 
 up with; but when your sister is with you, you are ten 
 thousand times worse, impossible as it may seem." 
 
 "I don't know why you always speak so meanly of 
 Gaid, Mamma! You cannot help seeing that she is the 
 best, the dearest, and the most beautiful and plucky lit- 
 tle woman in all the world!" Loic cried, impatiently. 
 "It really looks as if you were jealous of her!" 
 
 At these imprudent words something snapped and 
 gave way within her, and anger held full sway, mounting 
 like boiling milk on a hot fire, for the boy had hit the 
 truth. Yes, Gene vie ve de Kergoat was jealous had al- 
 ways been jealous of her daughter, had grudged her 
 every success, every affection, and from the moment 
 when the child had become her father's greatest delight 
 and dearest treasure, to the present day, when she knew 
 without the possibility of a doubt that Loic loved and 
 admired her more than he did any one else, hatred had 
 been growing apace in this strange woman's heart. 
 Moreover, she felt snubbed and humiliated at having 
 been found out, and, therefore, furious with Loic, with 
 Gaidik, with life even with herself. 
 
 Springing from her chair, she rushed towards him 
 with a sharp clicking of her little, pointed heels, and 
 before he was aware of what was coming she had him 
 
 119 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 by the collar, her face white as paper, her eyes literally 
 ablaze. 
 
 "Jealous, eh!" she gasped, between clinched teeth. 
 "That's what you think, is it?" shaking the unresisting 
 boy like a garment. It did not last long, but while it 
 did last the silence was broken by the sound of well- 
 directed and exceedingly smart blows, and soon Madame 
 de Kergoat, quite exhausted, stood holding on to the 
 back of a high chair with trembling little jewelled hands, 
 breathing heavily, still quite livid, and with lips strangely 
 colorless. 
 
 Loic, too, had grown pale. His resolute little face was 
 set and cold, like the face of a grown man who has reached 
 the last limit of endurance, and who is liable to become 
 dangerous when his self-control breaks. And thus glan- 
 cing at him, Madame de Kergoat felt a sudden sensation 
 of physical fear, for disgust and deadly rage were fight- 
 ing for mastery in those big, gray eyes which she so really 
 and so passionately loved in a fashion which it was not 
 pleasant to witness. 
 
 "You may do this once too often!" the boy said at 
 last, a little breathlessly as if he had been running hard 
 then placing one hand upon a heavy serving-table, 
 standing in front of the window, he vaulted it cleanly, 
 landed in the garden with one splendid bound, and left 
 her to digest as best she might her first real taste of 
 terror regarding the future, and to listen helplessly to 
 the swiftly receding patter of his feet as he raced down 
 a side-path leading to the park walls. 
 
 The silvery light was not as soft and delicate as it 
 had been in the early morning, the shadows were still 
 vaguer, less sharply outlined, and although one might 
 as yet have ransacked the sky in vain to discover any- 
 thing but fleecy, pearl-hued vapors, the air had become 
 
 120 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 decidedly more buoyant and keener, and the sea had 
 turned from its warm shimmer to cold, glittering steel. 
 
 Presently, as Loic reached a small, ivy-garlanded pos- 
 tern-door, opening directly upon the cliff-path, there was 
 a violent gush of wind, strong, smelling of brine and of 
 sea-weed, which scattered before it a cloud of dead leaves 
 and a foam of pink and white flower-petals. 
 
 These sudden changes are not rare on this coast, and 
 the angry boy realized that soon the storm would gather, 
 and the rain would come down like a net-work of long 
 strings of crystal beads as Gaidik used to say, when 
 they both eagerly watched for these swift bourasques 
 in the happy days of what now seemed to him so very 
 long ago. 
 
 "Thank God, she'll be here to-night!" he muttered, 
 squaring his shoulders, and, having closed the postern 
 carefully behind him, he headed for the "Pointe de Ker- 
 goat," one of the most rugged and dangerous promon- 
 tories of that line of dangerous cliffs. 
 
 His whole being was in a turmoil, and he gazed fiercely 
 into space clinching and unclinching his fists, and actual- 
 ly grinding his teeth short and dazzlingly white like 
 those of a finely bred puppy. 
 
 When he turned the first angle of the great rock, which 
 bears the encouraging name of Bac'h ar Ab-Vor (Fang 
 of the sea), he saw, much to his joy, for this promise of 
 tempest chimed in well with his mood, that the horizon 
 and the distant islands were swiftly becoming lapped 
 in thick, black clouds, which spread with astonishing 
 rapidity, spread and rose, cancelling the pale sky, and 
 covering the murmuring waters with a strange and un- 
 canny curtain of sombre folds and coppery lights. 
 
 With a strange sort of avidity Loic drew into his lungs 
 the pungency of the rising waves, his head held high, his 
 
 121 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 lithe, active form defined in lines of perfect strength and 
 symmetry as he walked boldly on the very edge of the 
 sheer drop of over two hundred feet, leaning his whole 
 weight against the now rapidly freshening wind. Grad- 
 ually the harsh frown of anger died away from his hand- 
 some little face, and he began to hum the first lines of 
 the terrible Chant du Raz the wildest chant in all 
 Brittany: 
 
 "Tan! Tan! gwell tarann! tan! 
 Dir! Tan! gwad hac gwin adranl" 
 
 Fire! Fire! windl thunder I fire! 
 Steel I Fire! blood and tempest! 
 
 the savage words and weird melody cutting sharply 
 through the now tumultuous atmosphere because at- 
 tuned by their antique composer to that very purpose. 
 Two or three big drops splashed in his eyes, and then the 
 deluge began, and the reckless force of the bursting 
 storm was heralded by the customary snarls and hoarse 
 gurgles of the tormented wind, accompanied by the 
 rapid crepitation of the rain against the stone-hewn 
 path, which sounded as if a troop of iron-shod kourrigans 
 were viciously stamping and dancing upon it. 
 
 It was a splendid transformation scene, and Loic ex- 
 ulted in it, singing louder and louder and louder, as the 
 waves began to dash hungrily against the falaise and 
 the mews flew screeching in all directions above and be- 
 low the towering verge. 
 
 "Mauvais temps fa, M'sieu' I' Marquis? Pour sur n' 
 sallons voir un grain!" a coast-guard called out to him 
 from his little guerite poised like a lump of brown earth 
 on the very lip of the cliff. 
 
 "Tant-mieux," Loic shouted back, running up to the 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 quaint, clumsy sod - shelter, and diving into it like a 
 rabbit into his burrow. "The best of it," he continued, 
 laughing, " is that I'm going to drive to Pernac to fetch 
 Gaidik, who is arriving to-night. Won't it be a lark?" 
 
 "Madame la Duchesse is coming? That's good, that's 
 good!" the douanier cried, rubbing his hands joyfully, 
 his weather-beaten face all smiles beneath the pointed 
 hood of his long military storm -coat. "And so you are 
 going in this weather all the way to Pernac, M'sieu' 
 1'Marquis? You'll have a job, that's certain!" 
 
 "I'll like it immensely, Guenndk and, by -the -way, 
 I've got to go back and get ready now!" Loic cheerfully 
 declared, all his good temper restored, as he glanced at 
 his watch and saw that the long - desired hour was at 
 hand. "I ordered the horses for two o'clock sharp, and 
 it's a good trot from here to the house." 
 
 "Won't you take my caban, M'sieu' Loic?" the man 
 asked, eagerly, beginning to unfasten his heavy coat. 
 "You'll be drenched to the bones, and I'm going to be 
 off duty directly, so you needn't mind my catching cold." 
 This with a ringing laugh at the idea of his ever catching 
 cold. 
 
 "No, Guenne'k, your coat would be too large for me, 
 and I can run much better as I am, so good-bye and 
 good-luck to you! To-morrow I'll bring Gaidik to see 
 your kids!" With which pleasing promise M'sieu' 1' Mar- 
 quis scampered off at a speed of ten miles an hour through 
 the driving rain. 
 
 "Un si' crane p'tit gosse /" the douanier muttered be- 
 neath his long blond mustaches, as, leaning on his carbine, 
 he bent forward to watch the gallant little figure bound- 
 ing as buoyantly as a cork on a whirlpool along the ex- 
 treme edge of the grim rock-rampart. 
 
 The wind moaned, howled, and hooted, and when Loic 
 
 123 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 let himself In by the postern-door the beautiful, shady 
 paths were running with muddy brooklets, and in one 
 or two places whole branches had been broken from the 
 trees and rested on a snow of pink and white rose-leaves 
 torn from their bending, rustling stems. "What a pity!" 
 thought the hurrying boy, with a little pang of regret at 
 the possibility of Gaidik's not finding Kergoat in all its 
 glory. Old Bre're, gardener since his grandfather's time, 
 pottering about in the wet, would have detained him 
 with a similar lamentation, but laughingly dodging him 
 and jumping over dozens of little pools hollowed into the 
 soupy gravel, he cleared the last lawn at a gallop . and 
 raced up- stairs to his own rooms by a back way, un- 
 desirous to meet his mother, and have her perchance 
 rescind her permission about the long drive to fetch his 
 beloved sister. 
 
 Half an hour later, wearing a long four-in-hand coat 
 and a Glengarry cap, he marched into the stable-yard 
 and apostrophized the mattre d'Ecurie, who, with hands 
 thrust deep in pockets, was graciously surveying the har- 
 nessing of four magnificent bays. 
 
 "Please tell my mother, Parker, that I am taking 
 Gradlon and Hoe'l with me, and that we will probably 
 be late on account of the weather," he said, drawing on 
 his driving-gloves and casting a knowing glance at the 
 heavy sky. 
 
 "It has rained in torrents farther up-country, My 
 Lord," the English stable-master who was a personage 
 of much importance at Kergoat said, somewhat appre- 
 hensively. "The roads will be terrible by to-night. Had 
 I not better accompany Your Lordship myself?" 
 
 This was a great concession on the part of this im- 
 posing dignitary, and Loic knew it, so he thanked him 
 with all proper appreciation, but firmly declined the 
 
 124 
 
OLD BRERE 
 
 The gardener at Kergoat 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 honor. Swinging himself upon the high seat, he grasped 
 the ribbons and drove out of the yard in so correct and 
 masterful a fashion that even the hypercritical Mr. 
 Parker could find no fault with the classicism of his 
 style, but as soon as he was out of sight he spun down 
 the broad causeway, and round the perilous curves where 
 it clings to the almost vertical cliff-side, at a pace which 
 rendered the two ordinarily impassive grooms behind him 
 scarcely able to conceal their amusement and admiration. 
 
 In the north the sky was clearer than it had been, 
 but the dark canopy of clouds, vast and resembling bales 
 upon bales of leaden-hued cotton-wool, still clung densely 
 overhead, and a fine, determined rain had set in, blur- 
 ring the whole landscape. 
 
 Soon the last buttressed angle of the park wall, all 
 shaggy -mantled in a delicious overgrowth of creepers and 
 ivy, was left behind, and the horses settled into their 
 road-pace, while Loic, with a mischievous grimace, looked 
 back over his shoulder at the stately castle towering tow- 
 ards the brooding heavens, its blue - and - silver banner 
 streaming out upon the wind that was once more begin- 
 ning to liven up things. 
 
 "What luck! What amazing luck, that I was not 
 stopped!" he thought, as with a sense of intoxicating 
 liberty and all-pervading delight he saw the great house 
 disappear behind its screen of trees and verdure. 
 
 The long drive to Pernac, the nearest railway station, 
 was in itself no joke even in good weather, but the young 
 master of Kergoat enjoyed every inch of it, and his 
 heart beat high with the thought of soon seeing his 
 Gaidik again. Moreover, the idea of going alone, and 
 in this grown-up way, to meet her, had an undeniable 
 charm for the adventurous, independent boy, so he lis- 
 tened with the utmost cheerfulness to the ever-rising 
 
 125 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 clamor of the sea and the dismal groans of the wind- 
 tormented trees, nor did the cold moisture of the cling- 
 ing atmosphere in the least chill his merriness. 
 
 Be it said also to his honor that he displayed remark- 
 able science and judgment in saving his cattle from any 
 possible mishap, or even from unnecessary fatigue, and 
 finally the task was accomplished when, just as the day 
 drew to a close, he reached the antique and eminently 
 picturesque little hostelry of the Duchesse Anne, where 
 he left the horses in the care of Hoel, and went on with 
 Gradlon to meet the Paris express. 
 
 The little station of Pernac, which stands like a pariah 
 outside the feudal walls of the little town, is the dullest, 
 dreariest, and excepting when a train is actually on its 
 narrow, metalled frontage the most silent spot on earth. 
 A few grave peasant women, knitting as they sat be- 
 neath the flickering oil -lamps, wearily waiting for the 
 "fish -train" to bring back the empty baskets sent at 
 dawn to Vannes and other big Breton market - cities, 
 were its sole occupants, together with a few sleepy chil- 
 dren crouching at their feet, while outside on the Landes 
 small black cows and sturdy little black pigs with ag- 
 gressive sable snouts wandered about in the short, salty 
 grass among clumps of shaggy gorse, and the eternal, 
 blackberry -grown, loose stone walls that are the fences 
 of that region. The blue-slate roof of the station itself 
 looked exceeding grim and naked in spite of the loyal 
 efforts of a meagre, ragged white rose to clamber tow- 
 ards its one brick chimney, and as the station-master, 
 an old man much loved and esteemed in Pernac, came 
 out to meet him, Loic could not help thinking that his 
 lot must not always be a very enviable one. 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur le Marquis!" said this cheery personage, 
 rubbing his hands with a good-humor which no outward 
 
 126 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 circumstances of weather or like discomforts could ever 
 impair. "So Madame la Duchesse is arriving to-night? 
 I was advised this morning that I would have to side- 
 track her private car until the next express, which will 
 take it away again. You'll be mighty glad to see her 
 again, won't you? It must be a year since she was here 
 last?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Guyarmark, a whole year!" Loic re- 
 plied, his eyes dancing with joyful anticipation, "but of 
 course I spent two months with her last winter at Cannes 
 still oh yes, I will be glad to see her again!" and he 
 he drew a long, tremulous breath of delight. 
 
 The night was approaching, and so gloomy was the 
 tempestuous sky that darkness was setting in two hours 
 earlier than usual. As the express at last came tearing 
 along the interminable bleakness of the plain, there was 
 a continual sound of splashing waters, audible even 
 above the noise of its polished wheels and throbbing 
 engine. It only paused for a second to allow the un- 
 coupling of the private car from its farthest end, and 
 moved rapidly on again, leaving it stranded in front of 
 Monsieur Guyarmark's tiny plot of variegated petunias. 
 
 With a shout of welcome Loic rushed towards it, and 
 was met on the steps by a dainty little figure wearing a 
 long, tight-fitting tan coat, the quaint little hood of 
 which was partly drawn over a thick coronal of auburn 
 braids, sparkling where the light of a lamp caught them 
 like a sort of coppery glory. 
 
 "Gaid!" 
 
 "Loic!" 
 
 The brother and sister were locked fast in each other's 
 arms, both almost crying with the joy of this reunion, 
 the two pairs of identical gray eyes dark with the intense 
 feeling which no one else in the world could arouse in 
 
 127 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 either of them, for these two were celebrated for their 
 extraordinary coldness! 
 
 "So it is you, at last, Honeylocks?" Loic repeated for 
 the twentieth time, when, a few minutes later, they sat 
 down close together on one of the luxurious couches in 
 the salon of the Duchess's little rolling palace. 
 
 "Now, what a question!" protested Gaidik, laughing 
 from sheer lightness of heart. "Do you expect me to 
 vouch for my identity?" 
 
 "I don't know; you look exactly as if you had stepped 
 out of some fourteenth-century painting, with your long, 
 peak-hooded surtout like that of an ancient arbaletrier," 
 and again he hugged her like a bear, stopping to eye her 
 in critical enjoyment, his sunny head cocked a little on 
 one side. 
 
 "Shall we set out at once?" he asked, bringing this 
 examination abruptly to an end; "or do you want to 
 try the cooking of the Duchesse Anne?" 
 
 "Nothing of the kind! We'll dine here quickly and 
 then take the road; but tell me, Loic Ab-Vor, are you 
 alone?" 
 
 "Yes, that's the fun of it; they did let me come alone 
 that is, with Gradlon and Hoel sitting solemnly behind 
 me; by-the-way, poor Gradlon is out there in the rain 
 eating his heart out for a glimpse of you." 
 
 "Oh, Loic!" and with one of her swift, graceful darts 
 the little Duchess rushed out on the platform, calling: 
 "Gradlon! Gradlon! Where are you?" and all but fell 
 in his arms as he came running out of the gloom at the 
 sound of her dearly beloved voice. 
 
 By this time Gaidik's own servants had hastily dished 
 up a succulent little meal, to which she and Loic sat 
 down with ravenous appetites. 
 
 Square and quite spacious was the little salon, the 
 
 128 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ceiling and the walls panelled in tan-colored leather, the 
 floor covered with a thick Aubusson carpet of pale tur- 
 quoise woven with the Kergoat and d'Aspremont arms, 
 the plate-glass windows surrounded by garlands of ivy 
 growing in broad, turquoise-blue jardinieres. Everywhere 
 were scattered comfortable tan leather arm-chairs and 
 settees, and two stout tables carved out of light-colored 
 oak, one littered with books and periodicals, the other 
 exquisitely set with glittering silver, crystal, and snowy 
 napery, and graced by an immense bunch of violets, 
 stood on each side of a round ottoman, from the midst 
 of which emerged a bronze-vased palm. 
 
 Bending forward, Gaidik, who had cast off her cloak 
 and revealed an admirably made but severely plain white 
 cloth gown, peeped into a covered dish. 
 
 "Omelette aux Cepes /" she cried, joyously. "Deli- 
 cious! And if it hadn't been for my sagacity and fore- 
 thought, do you know what you would have had ? Well, 
 grilled lobster to begin with imagine bringing lobsters 
 to Brittany; it's like coals to Newcastle travelled lob- 
 sters, lobsters who have seen the world that's what you 
 would have had!" she declared, tragically. "But I 
 threw myself into the breach and forbade such heresy. 
 I sent my compliments to Celestin Celestin, you will 
 remember, is my travelling chef, who, like his lobsters, 
 has seen much country and bade him treat my long-lost 
 brother's stomach with exceptional tenderness and more 
 a propos. Hence the omelette aux Cepes, which is to be 
 followed by plain, unadulterated, honest, truffled beef- 
 steak, salad, chocolate eclairs one of your predilections, 
 if I am correct fruit, and coffee, with a dash of candied 
 violets my favorite tipple to give the menu a dis- 
 tinguished finish. Now, what do you say?" 
 
 Loic piled his plate with omelet. "You're a wonder! 
 
 129 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Sit up and tie your napkin round your neck, as Fraulein 
 Camilla used to tell you at every meal. Good old Camilla! 
 I wonder if she's alive still, or if the worry of finishing 
 your education induced slow decline! This omelet really 
 isn't bad; you'd better take some more before I devour 
 it all." 
 
 But Gaidik declined a second helping, and Loic de- 
 voured it all. 
 
 "Come, Noble Dame!" he exhorted, selecting the most 
 truffled portions from the "honest" beefsteak for her 
 consumption, "we have a long road before us, and, since 
 I am pretty certain that you will want to drive the bays, 
 you'd better fortify yourself." 
 
 "The bays! Of course I'll drive them. Are they still 
 as frisky as of yore?" 
 
 "More so. They labor under a sort of constantly 
 foiled yearning to precipitate themselves into the hedges 
 and ditches. You'll have to look sharp, too, because 
 they are afraid of the dark, and shy at it like superstitious 
 old maids but what's that, don't you want some eclairs, 
 nor even one or two 'dashes' of your favorite candied 
 violets?" 
 
 Gaidik had risen, and, seating herself on the arm of 
 her brother's chair, she now with calculated deliberation 
 produced her cigarette - case. " No, I'm too pleased to 
 eat much. Give me a match, Nimbletongue, and as soon 
 as you have quite satisfied your indecent appetite we 
 will make a rush for home, which being given the howl- 
 ing wind and avalanches of water I hear buffeting our 
 humble refuge we will reach when God pleases." 
 
 Indeed, the weather had grown gradually "dirtier" 
 and "dirtier"; the wind was increasing, while the dense 
 mass of tossing clouds had closed in, and now overspread 
 every corner of the sky with an impenetrable sable pall. 
 
 130 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Are your oil-skins where your maid can easily reach 
 them ?" Loic asked, a little anxiously, for even this reck- 
 less youth was beginning to see that this was no night 
 in which to drive a woman even his tomboy sister for 
 mile upon mile of storm-lashed road. Gaidik, however, 
 thought otherwise, and laughed his dawning fears away, 
 earnestly begging him to remember that she was not an 
 ordinary fine lady to be terrified by a puff of wind, and 
 then, noticing the unusual gravity of his eyes, she ended 
 her peroration by throwing her arms round his neck 
 with a " Mon petit Frerot, je Vaime, va!" which made him 
 so happy that he forgot all save the intense joy of having 
 her close to him again. 
 
 A cluster of people had gathered round the deeply 
 mullioned and exquisitely carved porch of the little 
 hostelry to see them depart, and some of them expressed 
 encouraging doubts as to the safety of the roads, telling 
 of great trees which had been uprooted and of slates fly- 
 ing from roofs, but it was now too late for Gaidik and 
 Loic to alter their plans, even if they had been so in- 
 clined, and contenting themselves with recommending 
 to the coachman in charge of the servants and the lug- 
 gage-fourgon to drive very cautiously by the longer but 
 safer inland road, they started as merrily as if the night 
 had been an idyllic and gloriously moonlit one. 
 
 As they left the shelter of the little town behind them, 
 however, the wind, which was blowing dead on shore 
 from the maddened sea, began to have its effects, and 
 the horses made serious difficulties about facing its ter- 
 rors. 
 
 " Won't you let me drive ?" Loic shouted, as he watched 
 the little hands so steadily and coaxingly gripping the 
 ribbons. 
 
 "Not a bit of it!" Gaidik shouted back; "but here, hold 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the brutes while I slip off my rings. You can stick them 
 in your pocket." And this once done she settled to her 
 task once more with all her old energy and stubbornness of 
 purpose, never once faltering or hesitating, even when 
 the leaders turned right - about - face or came to a dead 
 stop after showing a decided predilection for travelling 
 awhile on their hind-legs. 
 
 As they struggled on nearer and nearer to the sea, 
 powdered spray and salty rain were carried before the 
 hurricane and beat upon their faces like showers of 
 sharp needles, while the blinding wind and flying particles 
 of sand made the situation a very bad one for the brother 
 and sister on their high perch. Evidently, if such a wind 
 could rise, it was still rising, and the deafening tumult of 
 the waves notwithstanding the quite respectable dis- 
 tance still intervening between the shore and the road 
 they followed became something fearful. Talking was, 
 of course, quite out of the question ; all that could be 
 achieved was to guide the horses as prudently as pos- 
 sible along the dark, dismal chaussee, strewn thickly, 
 even at that height above the water, with shredded, 
 slippery sea -weed, and patched with white puddles 
 lashed into miniature whirlpools by the shrieking wind. 
 
 At Kervallet, a tiny hamlet a little over half-way, they 
 stopped for a few moments to breathe the horses and 
 have them hastily rubbed down without unharnessing, 
 and there a couple of grizzled old salts told them that 
 four sardine-boats had gone down with all hands on the 
 rocks of Plouharna'c, a few miles away, shaking their heads 
 sadly as they spoke before the roaring fire of the inn kitch- 
 en, where sides of bacon and long garlands of onions and 
 dried herbs hung from the smoky rafters, and where some 
 women whose husbands and sons were even then out in 
 their Sinagots which, for all they knew, might already 
 
 132 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 have foundered amid the high, watery walls rolling in 
 with the crash of thunder against the jagged teeth of 
 the terrible Ar-Zod reefs were sobbing bitterly, their 
 aprons thrown over their white coifjes. 
 
 With saddened hearts the brother and sister once 
 more turned their faces to the tempest, hoping that as 
 the night advanced the wind would moderate sufficiently 
 to allow the fishing-boats to run to shelter. An old in- 
 habitant of Kervallet accompanied them to the door, 
 slowly enumerating in a doleful, dirgelike mumble the 
 names of twenty - two Sinagots wrecked within three 
 short years in plain sight of the very porch where they 
 now stood; and yet more painfully impressed by this 
 timely information, they stumbled towards their snort- 
 ing, champing horses, anxiously peering out to sea, though 
 the darkness was too intense to allow them to discern 
 anything save a wild confusion of towering hills and 
 bastions of a slightly paler hue than the inky sky, which 
 they knew were the maddened waves rushing to the 
 assault of the cliffs. They shook hands all round, with 
 that subtle and silent fellowship which draws together 
 all coast Bretons under such circumstances, and, without 
 any clear idea of how their own venture would ter- 
 minate, started off to try and make the best of it, their 
 square chins thrust forward, their resolute lips set, their 
 eyes impassive in an exact similarity of expression which 
 would have seemed almost ludicrous to an observer had 
 there been one there. 
 
 In the difficulty of hearing anything but winds and 
 waves, in the unspeakable confusion of the heavens and 
 the solid earth, and wearied by their now nearly breath- 
 less efforts to resist the onslaughts of the storm, they 
 plodded silently onward, always onward, exchanging 
 places now and then when one pair of hands grew too 
 
 J 33 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 numbed to retain the necessary delicate feel of the 
 horses' mouths. All through the wild tumult of that 
 September night they did what was necessary, quite 
 simply, with the impassiveness which was in keeping 
 with the above-mentioned square chins and resolute 
 eyes, and when at last, after again and again walking 
 with Gradlon and Hoel beside the trembling, frightened 
 horses to lead and reassure them, they saw the lights of 
 Kergoat twinkling dimly through the flying sand and 
 spindrift, they had nothing to say, although each drew a 
 sharp little sigh of relief. 
 
 It was funny, after all this, as Loic said, to enter the 
 magnificent green -and -gold inner hall, with its gorgeous 
 tapestries, its heavy Verdure Flamande curtains, its 
 immense emblazoned twin fireplaces, in which roaring 
 logs were burning, and where all was so calm and full 
 of quiet, luxurious security. Wet as they were, they 
 sat down before the huge upper hearth, Gaidik, leaning 
 back in a deep easy - chair, her tired little hands fold- 
 ed in her lap, her pretty little feet resting on the and- 
 irons, smiling contemplatively up at Loic from under 
 the tossed and dishevelled abundance of her tawny 
 hair. 
 
 Here a courteously frigid little note, penned by their 
 fond mother before retiring to her bed, was brought to 
 them, expressing regrets that a severe headache, caused 
 no doubt by the very trying storm, should have deprived 
 her of the pleasure of joining them at the supper which 
 stood in readiness. 
 
 Loic laughed as he read over his sister's shoulder. 
 
 "What's the matter?" she asked, her own lips twitch- 
 ing slightly. 
 
 "Nothing much. I'm merely amused," he replied. 
 
 Gaidik sat up. 
 
 134 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Well, you know, Frerot, it's past two o'clock." She 
 fixed him with her humorous, brilliant eyes. 
 
 "Of course," he acquiesced. "I had forgotten that 
 detail also that nothing ever surprises you." He took 
 her hand, bent over it with the manner of a courtier of 
 Louis XIV. 's time, and touched it almost reverently with 
 his lips, for even to his boyish mind the ever-forgiving 
 attitude of the gracious little figure in the huge easy-chair 
 had something that was infinitely beautiful. 
 
 And after that came supper, and a much-needed rest 
 for these two quaint little survivals from a by-gone age. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 You feed him high, you let him range 
 Unfenced, unfettered; let the change 
 Of wood and pasture, dale and hill, 
 Waken old instincts sleeping still; 
 The bright eyes through the tangled mane 
 Gaze the red dawn upon the plain; 
 The quivering nostrils, velvet-skinned, 
 Drink the strange promptings of the wind, 
 Till with the sweep of wild sea wings 
 Each steel-web muscle plays and swings; 
 Till stubborn, fierce, and swift doth he 
 Move like a wave upon the sea. 
 Then, if he burst the bridle-rein, 
 You cry, "Our care is all in vain! 
 The brute, he's vicious! Work him hard!" 
 ***** 
 
 And kill him in the breaking-yard. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 WHEN they awoke, six hours later, great gusts of wind 
 were still sweeping around Kergoat with undiminished 
 vigor, rattling the thick mantle of ivy-leaves on the 
 crenellated towers, and ending in strange, wailing noises 
 which sounded like the despairing cries of thousands of 
 drowning creatures. Whenever a door or window was 
 opened for a moment it let in fierce blasts that filled the 
 long corridors and galleries and threatened to tear the 
 ancient tapestries from the walls. A true wild day of 
 Brittany, a day with the dark -green seas yawning in 
 fathomless graves, and the cruel hissing of the water 
 filling every moment of lull between the appalling shrieks 
 
 136 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of the tempest. The rocky escarpments at the base of 
 the castle cliff gleamed intermittently like steel fangs in 
 the slaver of the waves, beneath the vague, diffused, stormy 
 light of a sky where great hosts of sombre clouds were 
 hurled together with the force and stubbornness of un- 
 ceasingly attacking armies. 
 
 It was ten o'clock, fires burned brightly on every 
 hearth within the grim old sea-fortress, flashing fitfully 
 on the grandeur of its halls and rooms, and upon the 
 banks of exotics which perfumed its every embrasure. 
 Inside peace and luxury reigned supreme, with no sound 
 higher than the low, murmuring voices of well-trained 
 servants walking softly to and fro in the swift accom- 
 plishment of their various duties, outside all was noise 
 and confusion, the angry roar of the ocean answering the 
 mad challenge of the wind with a violence equal to its 
 own. 
 
 The gale, however, was nearing its height that is, it 
 was blowing even harder than it had blown all through 
 the long, howling, waiting night, hurling itself into the 
 embayments of the towering cliffs, where it seemed to 
 concentrate funnel-wise, shredding the waves into a scat- 
 tered dust of foam and tearing destructively through the 
 trees of the park. When Nature is wroth in Brittany, she 
 speaks in no uncertain voice. 
 
 While sitting at breakfast Gaidik and Loic were sum- 
 moned to poor old Mere Corentine's death -bed. She 
 was a woman of many sorrows, to whom life had been 
 harsh and unkind, for, as already told, her daughter 
 Jeannik was all that was left to her of a once splendid 
 family. Her handsome, stalwart boys had been very 
 much like their father a celebrated Beau gars, who, 
 when he had indulged in too many bolees de cidre and 
 petit verres as is, alas! the habit of many Breton fisher- 
 
 '37 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 men and salt-workers to do was wont to be violent in 
 his angers and intolerant of all reproach. Poor Coren- 
 tine had remained somewhat taciturn and very grave 
 since this dreaded but yet dearly beloved husband's dis- 
 appearance in a white squall off the Kergoat rocks many 
 years before. She had courageously and untiringly earn- 
 ed her own and her children's living by carrying enor- 
 mous wooden bowls of salt on her head at night from the 
 Marais an arduous and ill -paid labor or, when this 
 failed her, by knitting for the sailors of the village those 
 amazingly enduring tricots of intricate patterns which 
 are their Sunday and week-day garb, by spinning the 
 wool wherewith belinge * is made, by making fishing- 
 nets, and sewing sails, the coarse canvas of which caused 
 even her strong fingers to bleed. To the last she had 
 been active and very hardy, disdaining to accept the 
 help of her rich son-in-law, and had lived in a stern, 
 grim fashion that made her neighbors a little afraid of 
 her. After the Mer Sauvage had taken all her sons, and 
 ever since Jeannik's marriage, she had dwelt alone with 
 her dead memories. Often she would bolt her door and 
 shut out the sight of the moon-lit sea and the sombre 
 reefs that hid her dead, and wistfully remember how she 
 had watched and waited for them on many a stormy 
 night when they were out deep-water fishing, or even, 
 when for once in a way they were ashore, how she had 
 listened in vain for their uncertain steps while they lin- 
 gered in the cabaret, ruining their tempers and their 
 healths with too oft - repeated doses of calvados^ that 
 curse of the Breton coast. They are good fellows, our 
 Breton fishermen, stanch and loyal as steel, but after 
 a heavy catch they drink invariably too much, and then 
 
 * A coarse, almost indestructible linsey-woolsey, the universal 
 wear of the peasantry. t A kind of strong brandy. 
 
 138 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 they become truly terrible. That is a fact which cannot, 
 alas! be denied, and it takes a born Breton or Bretonne 
 to feel the pulse of that strange people beat, to judge 
 them rightly, and to love them as they deserve to be 
 loved, in spite of this one frightful drawback. 
 
 Now, however, Mere Coren tine's course was run, and 
 soon she would rejoin her loved ones where there is no 
 more sea, but before her weary eyes closed forever she 
 wished once more to look upon the faces of her dear young 
 Seigneurs, wherefore a little mousse had been sent in haste 
 to the castle in quest of them. 
 
 Hurrying through the narrow village street since the 
 path along the beach was quite impracticable with a 
 northwest tide racing in before a northwesterly wind 
 Gaidik and Loic were forced to hold on to each other for 
 support against the terrible tempest blasts, and occasion- 
 ally stop to gasp for breath. To the east there were 
 miles of impassable shore, of unbroken and unscalable 
 cliff; to the west there was the same, and right in front 
 of them a hundred resistless cross-currents were piling 
 up waves upon waves to a height almost unbelievable. 
 
 "How magnificent!" Gaidik cried, pausing to wipe the 
 rain and driving spindrift from her eyes, and gazing at 
 the strange, ghostly light lying on the face of the waters 
 that light which landsmen never see. 
 
 They were both clad from head to foot in gleaming 
 oil-skins, the strings of their sou'westers solidly tied be- 
 neath their chins, and though subdued in spirit by their 
 sad errand, they enjoyed this struggle against the storm 
 as if they had not already had their fill of it during the 
 night. In a short lull they pushed on, Laic acquiescing 
 by a mere appreciative nod, for what with the wind and 
 the ear-flaps of the sou'westers it was hard to make one's 
 self heard though their two faces almost touched. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Now and again when they lost the shelter of the strag- 
 gling houses they literally could not stand, and were 
 forced to crouch at the foot of the low stone walls bor- 
 dering both sides of the way, until another lull permitted 
 them to proceed; but they laughed even when they 
 stumbled and fell as several times happened to both 
 upon the sea-weed-littered ground, casting as soon as 
 they were up again looks of heart-felt admiration on the 
 crests of foam and spray galloping landward, and the 
 terrifying sky showing livid through furiously tossing 
 black clouds. 
 
 It was raining hard again when they at last reached 
 the little granite house where their old friend was fight- 
 ing her last fight, her tired, knotted hands crossed pa- 
 tiently on her breast, her sculptural features bleached 
 by illness to a far greater whiteness than that of her 
 coarse, scrupulously clean pillow. Outside the door 
 Herve^s dog was howling incessantly. 
 
 Loic and Gaidik entered with a silent greeting to 
 Jeannik, who, a flaxen-haired baby in her lap and one 
 but little larger clinging to her skirts, was sitting in the 
 hearth corner knitting mechanically and nervously, while 
 large tears followed one another slowly and ceaselessly 
 down her pretty but already somewhat faded face. 
 Near by sat old Mere Vaillant well named for one 
 who was midwife, sick -nurse, and layer -out of the 
 dead for all the district round wrapped in professional 
 calm. 
 
 Swiftly Gaidik crossed to the bedside, and, stooping 
 over the dying woman, said, gently, "Do you know 
 me, Mere Corentine?" 
 
 The glazed eyes opened wide, and the white lips whis- 
 pered, " Yes, I know you, my little girl I know you," and 
 she gazed dimly from the Duchess to Loic, who stood at 
 
 140 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the foot of her bed with a world of awe and sympathy on 
 his young face. 
 
 Strange shadows were flickering about the dusky little 
 room, where years before Jeannik had donned her brill- 
 iant wedding garments. Now and again a fitful gleam 
 from the logs of drift-wood, which had been thrown on 
 the ever-present turf fire, threw into high relief the hand- 
 some clothes - press and carved Bahuts, then died away 
 again, leaving the small, stone-walled space to the mercy 
 of the sad storm-light filtering parsimoniously through 
 the creeper-grown lucarne. 
 
 A wild gust shook the solid house, and Mere Coren- 
 tine murmured: "The storm the storm that took all 
 my sons away! It is coming for me now!" Gaidik was 
 holding the poor, hard-working hand between her little, 
 jewelled fingers, caressing it softly. "The waves were 
 their winding-sheet, but I must be put into the ground," 
 the poor old woman continued, with that dread of being 
 thrust into the earth which every coast Breton has at his 
 or her heart, for they deem the ocean their only fitting 
 sepulchre. "The sea is our grave," they all say, "but 
 the great water that tosses our drowned bodies about 
 will wash them into a safe haven, aided by true Breton 
 prayers for our souls." She too, therefore, would rather 
 have died in that sea which had been at once her greatest 
 enemy and her unfailing source of livelihood through 
 seventy years of existence ; but one does not choose one's 
 mode of departure, and to that as to other things she was 
 trying to be resigned. 
 
 Jeannik, clasping her baby close in her arms, had risen 
 and was courageously trying to control her sobs, while 
 her other little one pulled at her apron whimpering in a 
 helpless and instinctive manner. Loic stooped and lifted 
 it, holding it against his shoulder where it nestled con- 
 Mi 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 tentedly, one chubby hand laid confidingly against his 
 neck. 
 
 "Has Monsieur le Cur^ been here?" Gaidik asked, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 A faint gleam of troubled intelligence overspread 
 Mere Corentine's wan features. "Ah, yes!" she mur- 
 mured, her fingers picking feebly at the beads of the 
 rosary lying upon her breast. "He gave me my pass- 
 ports all complete, Monsieur le Recteur!" and the shadow 
 of a smile hovered on her once stern face. She was en 
 regie with the Almighty was Mere Corentine ay, and 
 had long been so if the truth were told, and fortunately 
 for her at this hour she knew it. 
 
 Presently her lips moved again, and she began to 
 mutter disconnected sentences in that tone of utter self- 
 absorption which characterizes the sayings of those who 
 are but half conscious and very near to the end. 
 
 "Is that you, Jeannik?" she whispered, her fingers 
 creeping lovingly over Gaidik' s tawny braids. "Ah, no! 
 there is no cap, it is Mam'zelle Gaidik who is come back 
 to us our own little Lady they did say she was married 
 and not very happy but it can't be true she's too good 
 to be made to weep, too our little Mam'zelle Gaidik 
 Her trembling, stiffened fingers still stroked the kneeling 
 Duchess's wonderful hair. The little boy had ceased to 
 whimper, soothed and lulled by the low-murmured words 
 of this poor old creature, whose long, patient, unrewarded 
 life was about to cease. She had lived there through 
 childhood and girlhood and womanhood, had Mere Co- 
 rentine, working always through so many changes of 
 season, bearing her burdens with humble heroism, and 
 now but a few short hours intervened between so much 
 suffering and the death that to age and pain is a release. 
 With wide-open, unseeing eyes she still muttered: 
 
 142 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Do you remember the day of my wedding, Mam'zelle 
 Gaidik Monsieur le Marquis led me to church that was 
 your grandfather it seems but yesterday but it's true 
 you can't remember; it was our little Seigneur who led 
 Jeannik to church is he here also, M'sieu' Loic?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm here, Mere Corentine," Loic said, in a 
 low voice, drawing nearer, his face as white as Jeannik's 
 own as he bent over the bed. 
 
 Life was going out rapidly as the flame sinks in a 
 lamp whose oil is all spent, and it was a sad sight to 
 witness, this last struggle of the strong, vigorous frame, 
 the surrender of that powerful will that had warded off 
 weakness and death so bravely, and now bent all sud- 
 denly as a hardy tree will bend after years of resistance 
 to wind and storm bend but once and forever. The 
 faded lips moved still, but the restless mind was taking 
 a different turn. "Last night I saw my boys again I 
 saw them they were shouting and singing and pouring 
 wine down their throats their father came in my hand- 
 some Yan he looked at me and do you know what 
 looked through his eyes a devil a devil who gibed at 
 me and mocked me the devil of drink, drink that de- 
 stroys all our gars and makes us, the innocent, suffer hell- 
 pains " She paused once more, strange, wild thoughts 
 hurtling through the chaos of her shattered reason, a 
 violent trembling shaking her thin, exhausted frame. 
 
 "Come, Mere Corentine," Gaidik urged, wiping the 
 cold sweat of agony from her old friend's forehead, "look 
 at us who are all here around you. There are no devils, 
 only your children and Loic and I, Gaidik, your little 
 Mam'zelle Gaidik!" 
 
 But the old woman drew away with sudden impatience 
 from her touch. 
 
 "No, no!" she wailed. "I must bring my boys home 
 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 when they sober up we shall be happy again some- 
 thing tells me I must bring them home now it's drink 
 ruins them drink, always drink they are good boys, 
 and so was my Yan and so fine -looking and strong, 
 but drink made them brutal and wicked it beckoned 
 to them, and they went beware of it it maddens men 
 pray on your knees to be spared pray, pray " And 
 with amazing strength she suddenly raised herself up in 
 bed, pointing with a wide, out-stretched arm directly tow- 
 ards Loic. The clear rays of a fitful spirt of flame from 
 the hearth momentarily illumined the boy's delicate, proud 
 features, throwing them into bold relief like an ivory 
 cameo against the dark background, and at the sight the 
 dying woman cried out: "Save him! Save him!" 
 Then with a great shriek, as if she had seen some grim 
 vision, she fell heavily back in Gaidik's out - stretched 
 arms. 
 
 A tearless sob caught the little Duchess's breath as 
 she laid the quivering form on the pillows. Perhaps all 
 the silent agony through which she was herself to pass 
 weighed for a second upon her at that moment, and she, 
 the brave and enduring, shrank and quivered as though 
 stricken to the heart. Passion, sorrow, impotent efforts, 
 wild regret, the cruel stripes of an unmerited scourge 
 seemed to burn through the floating shadows around 
 her, like jeering mockeries of her brilliant present, and 
 turning from the motionless form on the bed she threw 
 her arms around Loic. His own limbs were shaking, 
 his lips were colorless, his forehead was wet with cold 
 perspiration, and he stretched out his hands towards her 
 imploringly. "Come away, Gaid," he whispered. "I 
 can't bear to look at her eyes!" 
 
 "Yes," she whispered back, "I'm coming!" 
 Quickly she bent over Mere Corentine, took the 
 
 144 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 poor, hard-worked hand in her firm young grasp once 
 more, felt for its fluttering pulse, and with a gentle touch 
 of farewell she left the now unconscious woman and 
 poor, terrified Jeannik in the care of Mere Vaillant, and 
 drew Loic out of the little house into the roar of the surf 
 and the wind. 
 
 She did not utter a word as they struggled up the 
 rain -lashed path, contenting herself with pressing her 
 brother's arm closely within hers. She knew by in- 
 stinct that this was all that was needed, and that the 
 thoroughly unnerved boy understood this mute sym- 
 pathy ; nor did either of them attempt to speak as with 
 a common accord they turned away from the village and 
 passed on to a narrow pathway across the heath leading 
 to a group of tall menhirs that raised their giant heads at 
 the summit of a particularly wild and lofty rampart of 
 cliffs. 
 
 The storm had indeed done its work thoroughly, for 
 it is a solemn fact that for over a mile and a half inland 
 the wind -borne froth of the waves lay on the ground 
 like banks of ivory-tinted snow, and as Loic and Gaidik 
 advanced they waded through this soft, clinging mass 
 up to their very hips. The tremendous sea itself still 
 came rolling in, dashing and thundering against the 
 falaises, as if eager to engulf the whole trembling world, 
 while the receding billows, when they swept back with a 
 hoarse roar, scooped yawning caverns out of the loose 
 shingle of the beaches. 
 
 With infinite exertion they succeeded in doubling the 
 point a feat which none but Bretons could have ac- 
 complished under such circumstances and reached the 
 cruel Baie de Gwesnoc'h, which just then presented a 
 spectacle well worthy of all their labors. Beneath the 
 dull, opaque light of that wild morning the sacred stones 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 adopted strange and terrifying shapes, like a troop of 
 petrified monsters eternally mounting guard over that 
 virile coast of Armorica, for the most part built up of 
 bold promontories daring the desperate ocean. 
 
 A fierce melancholy, without hope, without mercy, 
 without consolation seemed to envelop the whole deso- 
 late spot, and yet, sombre though it was, it seemed far 
 more beautiful to the two on- lookers than any flowery 
 and sunlit landscape could have been. A curious sense 
 of awe fell upon them as, sheltered behind a towering 
 menhir, they witnessed the uproar and fury that swept 
 the waves apart in dark, gliddery hollows, and then piled 
 them up again in huge climbing walls that strove ever 
 higher and higher towards their lofty hiding-place. Their 
 lips were bitter with salt, their cheeks were wet with the 
 flying foam, but these few moments, spent face to face 
 with the grandeur of that scene, brought them just the 
 revivifying tonic they needed, and they felt strangely 
 comforted as they looked upon the wrath of the ocean, 
 familiar to their eyes from earliest babyhood, and which 
 had lent to both their natures something of its depth 
 and force to do and to endure. 
 
 For half an hour longer they stood there, listening to 
 the clamor of sea and sky, and then, aided this time by the 
 grand sweeps of the wind, ran home hand-in-hand as they 
 had done so many times before on similar days of storm. 
 
 All the live-long day the storm continued to rage piti- 
 lessly, and not by word or glance did Gaidik allude to 
 the distressing scene which had taken place that morn- 
 ing at Mere Corentine's death -bed. It was character- 
 istic of her love for Loic to wait for him to speak first, 
 if he so wished to do, and if, as she feared, he had been 
 painfully impressed by the weirdness and spiritual horror 
 of those last moments. 
 
 146 
 
MERE VAILLANT 
 
 The village sick-nurse 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Late at night, however, when everybody had retired, 
 even Madame de Kergoat who, moved suddenly to un- 
 explainable amiability, had prolonged the evening with 
 music and a regular feu-roulant of witty and fascinat- 
 ing chatter the boy crept, as in the old days, to his 
 sister's rooms, and knocked softly at the door. 
 
 Whenever Gaidik had visited Kergoat since her mar- 
 riage, she had insisted upon occupying her old suite in- 
 stead of accepting her mother's offer of a gorgeous "state 
 apartment" a floor below. This suite had always been 
 essentially hers, selected and arranged by herself, and 
 none would have pleased her as well, for attached to it 
 was a sort of observatory, a round turret-chamber whose 
 six windows looked straight down upon the sea, which 
 to-night seethed and boiled in dense blackness like a 
 gigantic witch's caldron. Above it, clear to the height 
 of her tower, a white powder of scattered foam and spin- 
 drift, as dense and thick as a snow tourmente in the Alps, 
 whirled and danced amid strange, deep noises, forming 
 a woolly, impenetrable shroud which muffled the distant 
 red gleam of the light-house, and clung in broad, shin- 
 ing patches against the heavy glass of the oriel case- 
 ments. 
 
 This was Gaidik' s favorite retreat. Tapestried through- 
 out with sombre old Gobelins, it looked as if it held the 
 secrets of a thousand centuries, and from its embossed 
 and emblazoned ceiling hung antique bronze lamps, 
 shedding a clear, subdued light upon the stiff, richly 
 carved old furniture, cushioned with equally ancient gold 
 and silver brocades. The whole place was filled just 
 then with rosy shadows, heavy with the perfume of 
 gardenias and violets of which there were four or five 
 bowlfuls on the tables and in the embrasures and 
 aromatized by the fragrance of the pine-cones and cedar 
 
 147 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 logs burning on the wide hearth of the adjoining bed- 
 room. 
 
 Silently Gaidik drew Loic down upon a deep arm-chair 
 wide enough and to spare for both of them together. 
 
 "I've come here to be scolded and comforted," the 
 boy said, simply, glancing up at her with eyes filled with 
 pensiveness and laughter "here in your hobgoblin room, 
 my good Fairy. I have come because I feel awfully silly." 
 
 "Hobgoblin room! No, Loic Ab-Vor, my watch- 
 tower! See, isn't this place the eighth wonder of the 
 world, suspended above the abyss like a gull's nest, sur- 
 rounded with foam as if the waves really passed over 
 it, and yet so calm and cosey ?" 
 
 "I think the eighth wonder of the world the greatest 
 of all is here beside me," Loic interrupted, nestling 
 caressingly against her, "for just being with you has 
 already put all bothersome ideas out of my head, Gaid." 
 
 She looked at him, and her heart quickened with ap- 
 prehension, for now she knew that the strange words of 
 Mere Corentine, and perchance some other dark things 
 as yet unknown to her, were rankling in the boy's mind. 
 
 She bent forward, and ever, ever so softly touched his 
 bright hair with her lips. "And now, sweetheart," she 
 whispered, coaxingly, "tell me what is troubling you, 
 because there are very few sorrows great or big that can- 
 not be spirited away by being shared with somebody one 
 loves." 
 
 Loic was tracing patterns with the tips of his patent- 
 leather pumps on the carpet, while his sister patiently 
 waited for him to speak. 
 
 "Well, this being so," he said, with sudden decision, 
 "I might as well tell you that the plot has been thicken- 
 ing here, Gaid. Many's the time I have laughed on 
 the wrong side of my mouth. Yesterday morning there 
 
 148 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 was a scene only one of a lot and I got mad. Oh, you 
 don't know how mad I got! Also, that moment at 
 Mere Corentine's this morning upset me, although I'm 
 an ass to confess it, but it seemed then that something 
 horrible, like a bad spell, was being cast upon me. I 
 don't just know how to explain it, but that's how it felt." 
 
 "Good Heavens!" thought Gaidik, frightened in good 
 earnest. She did not stir, though a little cold shiver 
 crept over her from head to foot, and it was quite calmly 
 that she replied: 
 
 "How in the world can you, my own brave, plucky 
 little Frrot, let yourself be influenced by a poor old 
 woman's dying vagaries ? Surely you cannot attach any 
 importance to what she said or did! You, a true-born 
 Kergoat, who does not know what fear is!" She realized 
 that presently she would have to take in hand and deal 
 separately with all her darling's difficulties, but she must 
 gain time and draw them from him one by one no very 
 easy task in itself so just at the outset the complete 
 group must be banished from her mind. 
 
 Outside the night had become, if possible, darker and 
 wilder yet. The windows were quite blinded with that 
 curious imitation of snow blown brutally against them 
 by a furious force which seemed to demand instant ad- 
 mittance; and suddenly Gaidik felt as though the very 
 tempest she loved was a malignant being fighting against 
 her like a senseless lunatic, because, for the first time, 
 she saw the future drearily lighted by a past that itself 
 seemed a grim menace. Just then there was a lull in 
 the crazy symphony of the wind and sea, and in the 
 momentary, uncanny stillness she heard Loic saying: 
 
 "Afraid; no, not afraid, but puzzled, Gaid, and well 
 miserable!" His voice had become slightly unsteady and 
 his eyes were cast down. 
 
 149 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 With a sense of helplessness bewildering in its intensity, 
 she let herself slip at his feet, and, flinging her arms around 
 him, said, piteously: 
 
 "Oh, my poor little darling! What have they done 
 to you to change you so? Come, Loic," she continued, 
 raising herself a little and speaking with a new author- 
 ity, "pull yourself together and tell me all you under- 
 stand all that has happened here lately, because I must 
 know, and that at once!" 
 
 Loic looked down at the little kneeling figure outlined 
 in graceful folds of green crape, with its two thick, long 
 braids of rippling hair tumbling to the very floor, and 
 wondered; for suddenly all Gaidik's reserve had been 
 swept away as if by a wet sponge from a slate, and her 
 very soul was sparkling out of her eyes. 
 
 "For days and nights, for weeks and months, during 
 all the time of our separation, I have thought only of 
 you!" she went on. "Don't you see that you are all I 
 have ever loved since papa's death, all I love now? But 
 what is the use of telling you, you know it, and now 
 oh, my poor little Loic I find that all my dreads and 
 anxieties were still far short of the reality!" She broke 
 off suddenly, ashamed of having let herself be so carried 
 away, for even with him she had always kept herself 
 severely in hand, since of all moral qualities she was dis- 
 posed to put self-control the first. 
 
 Loic turned his face away; his lips were twitching 
 ominously, and he did not want her to notice it. " I'm 
 sorry if I have alarmed you, Gaid," he said at last, 
 drearily, his young face curiously aged and drawn, "but 
 it's been a bit lonely without you, and then, too, I felt 
 myself getting bad, not merely full of the devil, as I 
 used to be when you were here, but real downright ugly 
 and ready for anything." The grip of his hand tightened 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 unconsciously on Gaidik's, until the gems of her rings 
 hurt her, yet she hardly heeded it, for all her powers of 
 feeling were concentrated upon him. 
 
 " Don't say such things, Loic," she said, more firmly. 
 "You have no right even to think them. You are my 
 own brave boy, and you are merely yielding to a bit of 
 nervousness which I do not like to see in you, but which 
 I can understand, so let us talk the matter over calmly, 
 if possible, and see what is best to be done. Now, to 
 begin with, please be more explicit. What is the cause 
 of all these scenes, of all this discouragement, so little in 
 accordance with your whole nature?" 
 
 Loic had faced round in the big chair, and sat for a 
 moment in silence. His lips were quite steady now, but 
 his left eyebrow kept twitching in a singular manner. 
 
 "I am not brave, Gaidik!" he cried, in sudden exas- 
 peration "not brave worth a cent for I dread I don't 
 know what when she hits me; not the pain, of course 
 that's ridiculous but what I may be tempted to do. 
 And yet I am awfully fond of her, for she can be ever so 
 winning, and she's very good to me most of the time 
 does almost anything I ask when I take the trouble to 
 coax her a bit. I feel a brute, a bully, and a coward 
 yes, a coward," he repeated, stamping his foot, "or 
 sometimes worse a real, downright bad 'un! The truth 
 is, I don't know half the time where I'm at." 
 
 He writhed in a sort of dumb, twisted agony, and 
 Gaidik was one throb of pity for him. 
 
 "But, Loic," she pleaded, "surely you must be exag- 
 gerating; I know Mamma is difficult, capricious, discon- 
 certing, but what is it that has broken you up like that? 
 There certainly is something you don't say." 
 
 Loic gave a sudden short crack of laughter, which 
 filled his sister with absolute terror. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Yes, there is!" he cried, with a wild, scared look. 
 "One of these days when she is really angry she will 
 lodge me in Mettray she's sworn it so there!" 
 
 Gaidik gave one little gasp, licked her lips with the 
 tip of her tongue, and then sprang to her feet. 
 
 "Mettray the reformatory for young criminals!" 
 she exclaimed, her voice trembling with a fury such as 
 she had never experienced. "She has threatened you 
 with Mettray ? Is she stark, staring mad ? As God is 
 above us, if she ever dares to do that again she'll have 
 me to deal with, and that won't be a pleasing job for 
 her to tackle!" 
 
 She drew in a deep, unsteady breath through set teeth, 
 there was an unpleasantly strained ring in her low-pitched 
 voice, while in her dark -gray eyes sprang a positively 
 cruel glitter. 
 
 "Now," she said, harshly, grasping the edge of a 
 table with one slim hand, "you will kindly tell me when 
 and how your Mother" she no longer said "Mamma" 
 "has used this abominable threat to you?" 
 
 Loic, too, rose and came towards her. Although 
 breathing, also, somewhat hurriedly, he had apparently 
 recovered something of his customary calmness. 
 
 "Frequently," he answered, steadily enough "that is, 
 whenever she was very angry; but of late she has spoken 
 of it when she was not angry, which makes me think 
 that she is really in earnest about it. Otherwise I would 
 never have mentioned it to you. You know, Gaid, that 
 I don't like to complain!" 
 
 Gaidik agreed in an unintelligible monosyllable. She 
 was still standing by the table thinking, and the subject 
 of her meditations was so grave that she did not even 
 try to fill up the awkward silence which followed, a silence 
 all the deeper for those forces of the unchained dark 
 
 152 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 that smote and heaved like solid things against the 
 granite walls. In her heart she was wondering whether, 
 in speaking to the son, she should be weakly scrupulous 
 and attempt to gloss over the ignominy of the mother's 
 conduct, as well as the very real danger of the situation, 
 or be boldly and unconventionally frank, and treat him 
 as one to whom one could tell the truth under any and 
 every circumstance. 
 
 Well did she know of the dreadful reformatory of 
 Mettray, where France lodges the recalcitrant children of 
 the rich. She knew how parents, tired of the mischievous 
 freaks of their spoiled offspring, often confine them there, 
 not always because they have committed any crimes, or 
 even grave sins, but simply because, when beginning to 
 "feel their oats," they have shown themselves rebellious 
 to a parental authority exercised too late. 
 
 A year or so after her marriage, happening to be visit- 
 ing some friends whose chateau was but a few miles 
 distant from the great Colonie - Penitentiaire, she had 
 driven there with her hosts, and had been shown over 
 the huge establishment, grimly intrenched behind un- 
 scalable stone walls. How well she remembered the 
 beauty of that summer day, with the golden sunlight 
 falling across the green grass of the model farm through 
 the interlaced boughs of long avenues of wych-elms and 
 lindens, the brilliancy of the great flower-beds in the 
 Governor's garden contrasting so pathetically with the 
 wretched lot of those long files of boys toiling under the 
 harsh eyes of their gardes - chiourmes ! Labor in the 
 sweat of the brow was, she knew well, the least painful 
 iportion of what those delicately reared lads had to en- 
 dure. The coarse uniform, the coarse prison food from 
 twhich their pet terriers would probably have turned 
 .away in the days when they themselves were still the 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 pampered darlings of wealthy families, the long nights 
 of misery in the chambre'e, with its whitewashed walls, 
 its barred casements, where one little iron bedstead, 
 thin -matt ressed and hard-pillowed, almost touched its 
 fellow to right and left all this the inmates of Mettray 
 could endure, but the frightful humiliation, the eternal 
 degradation of such a sojourn, the fell companionship 
 which lashed the utterly guiltless ones side by side with 
 the really vicious and depraved, what of that? Also 
 there were to be seen young offenders committed to the 
 tender mercies of Mettray for a few months, as a whole- 
 some warning, by their parents or guardians, and who 
 were immediately subjected to solitary confinement, 
 locked up in their cells at night like murderers and 
 thieves, made to eat their meals alone, and conducted 
 by armed guards to the class and lecture rooms with 
 which this jail is munificently provided, wearing black 
 masks over their poor little terrified faces, in order to 
 prevent their features from being recognized later on by 
 their mates. She had seen with her own eyes a young 
 Aristocrat brought before the Governor, handcuffed be- 
 tween two gendarmes, because he had, after three months 
 of this torture, managed to make good his escape. Hunted 
 throughout the length and breadth of France, the boy had 
 been run to earth by the police and brought back to 
 feast on a diet of bread and water in a dark cell, as first 
 punishment for his attempt to get away. With squared 
 shoulders the wretched lad had stood before the all- 
 powerful official, slender, handsome, saying nothing in 
 his own defence, striving to give no sign of the bitter an- 
 guish he felt, his big, blue eyes dry and defiant, his white 
 lips firmly compressed to stifle the sobs that were swell- 
 ing in his throat at the prospect which lay before him of 
 many further months of insult, torment, and shame. He 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 knew that once his ''punishment" was over he would be 
 sent to the farm, where he would work cheek by jowl 
 with all sorts of little miscreants, and in spite of his 
 efforts his heart was evidently bursting within him with 
 an agony of desperation and revolt. Clearly he cared lit- 
 tle what happened next, probably heard not at all the 
 pompous admonition of the verbose Governor of this vast, 
 stone -jawed trap which again held him in its power. 
 
 The scene flashed through Gaidik's mind as she stood 
 gazing vacantly at Loic ; even the words of the Governor, 
 when she had pleaded for mercy and tried to intercede 
 in the young Noble's behalf, still rang in her ears. 
 
 "Mercy would be quite out of place, Madame la 
 Duchesse," the great man had pronounced, stroking his 
 iron -gray mustache; "we could never master our prison- 
 ers if in such an instance an example was not made." 
 
 Merciful God! was she ever to see her beloved little 
 Loic in such a plight ? And at the thought beads of cold 
 perspiration gathered on her forehead, paralyzing dread 
 held her mute. Could such things be? What! Only 
 because he was headstrong and had been over-indulged! 
 
 She ground her heel into the carpet and braced herself 
 for battle. The thoughts that were passing within her 
 were little suspected by Loic thoughts of the immediate 
 steps she would take to save him from such a doom, of 
 the interview she would have with her Mother, of the 
 terrible scene that would, without a doubt, take place 
 between them. 
 
 "What are you going to do, Gaid?" Loic said, looking 
 at her in a searching, anxious way. 
 
 "I cannot say just now," she answered, slowly and 
 deliberately, "because I do not quite know myself, yet 
 and because it is too serious a case to be decided upon 
 in a hurry. But I can promise you, Loic, that you will 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 not be menaced again, if I can help it in any way 
 whatever that way may lead to. Of that, rest assured. 
 I cannot believe that your Mother really meant what 
 she said ; but even if she did not, she has done a wrong 
 and a dangerous thing, and if necessary I will appeal to 
 Uncle Rene' in order to make her change her attitude tow- 
 ards you." 
 
 Loic straightened himself up with a certain briskness 
 which those who have watched the reprieve of a convict 
 know well; he carefully buttoned his jacket, pulled it 
 down in front, and mechanically tapped his chest where 
 there were wrinkles in the cloth. Evidently there was 
 nothing more to be said on the subject, since Gaidik had 
 promised. Pleasurably surprised by this confident air, 
 his sister, crossing the room, sat down in a deep win- 
 dow-seat, looking proudly at the brave little soldier be- 
 fore her. 
 
 "When are you to join the Bordaf' she asked, sud- 
 denly, but with a gravity of tone which she had as yet 
 never displayed towards him. "You see, it would be 
 much better for you, Loic, to be away from here; I do 
 not like the present state of affairs at all it is no use for 
 me to try and disguise the fact from you and that would 
 cut it short." 
 
 For an instant Loic did not reply; he sat down beside 
 Gaidik, stretched his legs out with a jerk, and gazed in- 
 tently at the foam-bespattered window-panes, reflecting 
 like a dark mirror the rosy glow of the lamps and the 
 exquisitely mediaeval room. 
 
 "I've still got two years to wait if I ever join it," 
 he pronounced at last, doubtfully. 
 
 "If?" Gaidik retorted, in astonishment. "Time has 
 come for you to look seriously at the future, Loic. If 
 you are going to enter the navy which I do not doubt 
 
 156 * 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 you are desirous to do it is time you should begin to 
 work in earnest. If not, you should work just as hard 
 in order to prepare yourself for your college course." 
 
 Loic moved uneasily and drummed his fingers impa- 
 tiently upon the window-sill ; once or twice his quick eyes 
 rested on his sister's face, surprised at her determined 
 tone. It seemed to him as if he had just made a puz- 
 zling discovery, as if the disparity in their years had sud- 
 denly manifested itself. Although it conveyed no sense 
 of discomfort or estrangement, there was, nevertheless, 
 in her expression a quiet suggestion of experience and 
 authority entirely new and startling to him. 
 
 At length he spoke with a faint undertone of humor in 
 his voice. 
 
 "That question was just what made Mamma so angry 
 yesterday," he said. "She bullyragged me about that 
 very thing, and, Lord! wasn't she in a wax! Why, she 
 actually shook me till my teeth rattled." 
 
 Gaidik made no reply for some minutes. To say that 
 she was shocked and indignant would be but a poor de- 
 scription of her feelings. Fully did she realize the great- 
 ness of the task she had sworn to accomplish, for none 
 better than she knew the wayward, changeful, incom- 
 prehensible woman she would have to deal with, a woman 
 whose moods varied like the sun and shade of an April 
 day, and whose sudden fits of remorse and love for her 
 son were as passionate as her vanity and amazing egotism 
 were cold. Also the poor girl could not but recognize 
 that, keen of vision as she herself was, and difficult to 
 satisfy in anything that savored of evasion, she would 
 probably be baffled by some unscrupulous trick or other, 
 and so there came to her a dread beside which all anx- 
 ieties she had ever felt for Loic seemed pale and color- 
 less. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Respecting her silence, Loic was also mute, gazing ab- 
 sently before him, but suddenly they both started, for 
 above the furious booming of the waves and the shrill 
 whistling of the wind the sound of the great castle clock 
 solemnly announcing midnight brought to them a rush 
 of countless memories, but especially of that far-away 
 night when they had fallen asleep in each other's arms 
 on the balcony near by. 
 
 "Do you remember?" Loic whispered, with an irrepres- 
 sible twinkle in his eye. "What if we should bring about 
 another catastrophe like that, by this secret meeting?" 
 
 Gaidik could not help smiling in spite of her heart- 
 breaking thoughts. "The nuisance," she sagely remark- 
 ed, "of catastrophes happening late at night is that 
 they're very apt to lap over into the early morn ; indeed, 
 the grudge I usually bear the past is that its evils de- 
 prive the future of nothing. Meanwhile let's save the 
 present, at least, by calling a truce to darksome repinings 
 and by seeking our respective beds though the wise 
 men of modern times do insist upon it that the present 
 doesn't exist, being but an infinitesimal interval between 
 two infinities moving across the face of Eternity. And 
 now, if you desire a less abstruse subject for meditation 
 before sleep, remember, Frerot, that drifting is not satis- 
 factory work, and that energy and a good purpose, bravely 
 held to, accomplish great things in spite of the wise men's 
 brilliant aphorisms." 
 
 Loic rose and stood for a few seconds looking into his 
 sister's eyes. "I'll do whatever you wish me to do," 
 he said, in a slightly altered voice, "because you are the 
 dearest and best and most loyal sister a boy ever had," 
 and he threw his arms almost roughly about her neck. 
 
IX 
 
 Great Eblis said to his dark Emirs 
 
 As doom he gave at Jehannum gate: 
 " I have mingled the seed of Adam's breed 
 
 And roiled the current of mortal fate. 
 
 " The rose shall joy in her blossoms blown, 
 The lily laugh for her buds new-born, 
 
 And all things else that have life shall own 
 The tie of blood to the latest morn. 
 
 " The fox and jackal that debt shall pay, 
 
 And the wolf, to those of her own gray skin, 
 
 But the son of man to the latest day 
 
 Shall seek with tears for his kith and kin. 
 
 ' ' Brother in brother with vain surmise 
 
 Shall strive the thoughts of his heart to see, 
 
 And the child shall search in its mother's eyes 
 And find the soul of an enemy " 
 
 Then they cried aloud with one accord 
 
 As they bowed themselves to the iron floor 
 
 Of the Gate of Doom, " Thus shall stand, Dread Lord, 
 Thy throne, henceforth and f orevermore !" 
 
 M.M. 
 
 NEXT morning, before even Loic was astir, the silence 
 of the stable-yard was broken by the sharp, light foot- 
 step of Gaidik's favorite hunter. The storm had died 
 away with all the suddenness of its advent, and it was 
 a mellow, delightful world upon which Gaidik gazed. 
 The air was perfumed with the damp scent of newly 
 fallen leaves, and many more in delicate tints of amber 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and ruby were gently swaying in the breeze upon the 
 sun -bathed boughs. 
 
 Quickly she left behind her the great castle, where not 
 a blind was as yet raised, and made her way towards a 
 vast, sweeping moorland, whereon heather, gorse, and 
 whin held united sway, bordered towards the south by a 
 dusky pine forest, whose paths were beset with deep 
 mosses and thick fern-brakes. 
 
 The difficulties of the future weighed heavily upon her, 
 and she hoped that the keen, resinous air, the fragrant 
 dusk, the sense of absolute isolation and seclusion she 
 would find in those woods would brace and tonicize her 
 thoughts, so she as speedily as possible turned her horse's 
 head into a level avenue overhung with a thick inter- 
 lacement of branches, upon every needle of which a pris- 
 matic dew-drop sparkled. 
 
 She rode far and fast, but at last she slackened her 
 speed and looked about her with renewed courage and 
 hope. Her calm was restored, her deep-set eyes had lost 
 their strained expression, and she had, as she had an- 
 ticipated, entirely recovered the attitude of one strong 
 with that enduring strength which is completely inde- 
 pendent of human sympathies. It was well for her that 
 she was so, since life was dealing somewhat harshly with 
 her just then, not only with regard to her loveless mar- 
 riage, but in many other ways besides; but as she walked 
 her hunter along a narrow, grass - cushioned path, her 
 mind was busy only with plans concerning Loic, and her 
 heart warmed with tenderness and pity for him alone. 
 
 Unfortunately, Madame de Kergoat, who, for reasons 
 best known to herself, did not feel entirely satisfied with 
 the present state of affairs, and was anxious about the 
 turn they might now take, had bethought herself of riding 
 to meet her daughter, and was even then advancing 
 
 160 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 towards her. Had Gaidik seen her in time she would 
 unhesitatingly have turned into the thicket on the chance 
 of avoiding her; but perceiving, with a sudden and char- 
 acteristic narrowing of the eyes and sharp set of the 
 mouth, that she had already been detected, she rode on 
 to the inevitable encounter which she had hoped to se- 
 cure under different circumstances. 
 
 " What on earth made you run away like this at dawn ?" 
 the Marquise asked, ranging alongside and bestowing 
 upon her daughter a sardonic little smile boding no 
 good. 
 
 "A desire for peace and fresh air," Gaidik replied, quiet- 
 ly, in her direct, almost abrupt fashion. 
 
 "And are not fresh air and peace to "be had at Ker- 
 goat?" 
 
 "Not always combined." 
 
 Madame de Kergoat seemed in no manner surprised 
 at the brevity of the answer, but her smile became tinged 
 with a slight embarrassment. 
 
 "You are not in your usual cheery mood?" she sug- 
 gested, imprudently, in spite of her sincere desire to avoid 
 any sort of explanation with this uncomfortable daughter 
 of hers. 
 
 They were now riding on the margin of a small lake 
 carpeted with delicious aquatic blooms, each in her in- 
 dividual and characteristic way. Gaidik, with a marked 
 ease and assurance of attitude, her mother with even 
 greater grace, but not with the same astonishingly firm 
 seat. 
 
 Gaidik glanced over her shoulder before replying. 
 They were still a long way from the castle. Then she 
 said, in the same even voice, "No, and it is because I 
 am not at all satisfied about Loic." 
 
 "Gaidik!" Madame de Kergoat exclaimed, her eyes 
 
 161 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 acquiring instantly their harshest and most metallic look; 
 "this sort of thing won't do!" 
 
 "What sort of thing?" 
 
 "I mean that I seriously recommend you not to mix 
 yourself up too much with Loic and with my manage- 
 ment of him!" 
 
 Gaidik's calm face became fixed and rigid; she turned 
 completely round towards her mother. 
 
 "Why not, if you please?" she asked, coldly. 
 
 "Because you might do more harm than you think, 
 besides which it is no business of yours!" 
 
 "Look here, Mamma!" said Gaidik, with an extraor- 
 dinary ring of decision in her voice. " If you think that 
 I am going to stand by, with my hands in my pockets, 
 and watch Loic's life made as wretched as my own, you 
 are entirely mistaken!" 
 
 " In what way has your life been made wretched ? You 
 will find it difficult to bring any one to believe that to 
 become at fifteen an immensely wealthy Duchess by win- 
 ning the affections of a singularly handsome and dis- 
 tinguished man is a very great misfortune." 
 
 Gaidik felt that she was getting no further on. It 
 would be folly to lose her temper at this juncture, worse 
 than folly, indeed, with such an adversary, so she brought 
 her hunter by an almost imperceptible turn of the wrist 
 closer to her mother's horse, until they nearly touched, 
 and remarked, indifferently: 
 
 "I suppose it would be no use telling you my reasons 
 for considering both those pieces of luck in the light of 
 a misfortune, since you would not be likely to under- 
 stand me. Moreover, it has nothing to do with the very 
 serious and urgent matter in hand." 
 
 A stile was barring their way, and, without troubling to 
 unfasten its latch with crop or hand, they leaped it, still 
 
 162 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 side by side as if scarcely conscious of the act; but when 
 they had again slightly reined in their horses, Genevieve 
 de Kergoat squared herself determinedly in her saddle, 
 as if in obedience to the sound of trumpets summoning 
 her to do battle. 
 
 "I do not desire to discuss the matter in hand!" she 
 said, shortly and haughtily. 
 
 Before replying, Gaidik looked speculatively at her, 
 
 "But I do," she said, with inexorable persistence. 
 
 "And why? Has Loic been complaining?" 
 
 Gaidik took a tiny case from her saddle-pocket, selected 
 a cigarette, and, slipping the reins for a moment over her 
 left wrist, lit it with the quick deftness of long habit by 
 means of a Russian wick-match-case; while her com- 
 panion watched her every movement with growing ir- 
 ritation. 
 
 " He has not complained, as you might very well guess, 
 if you knew him better, but he has mentioned something 
 to me which decided me to have this unpleasant con- 
 versation with you." 
 
 "May I venture to ask what that was?" sneered Gen- 
 evieve. 
 
 Gaidik glanced at her through a thin cloud of smoke. 
 
 "Certainly, since that is precisely what I wish most to 
 tell you. He confessed to me that you are getting into 
 the habit of threatening him with Mettray, a mere trifle, 
 as you see, but one which, unfortunately, is preying on 
 his mind, and getting on his nerves to a very alarming 
 extent." 
 
 Genevieve laughed unpleasantly. "I'm glad to hear 
 it has had so much effect, for I thought he showed re- 
 markably little fear when I warned him of my intentions, 
 and that he was becoming sadly callous." 
 
 Honest indignation leaped to Gaidik's eyes. Her 
 
 163 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 cigarette was almost finished. She drew one more long 
 inhalation and threw the burning end into a little brook, 
 hustling and gurgling beneath a tangle of wild convol- 
 vulus, where it fizzled faintly, then she emitted the smoke 
 in a thin, slow, spiral column, for she did not as yet trust 
 herself to speak. 
 
 "I cannot believe that you really mean what you say," 
 she at last managed to enunciate, with unaltered calm- 
 ness, "nor that your menace was more than a very poor 
 joke, but Loic is far deeper than you think, and the joke, 
 if joke there be, is doing him much harm, so it would be 
 best to discontinue it, especially since, adoring him as 
 you do, you cannot possibly enjoy it yourself." 
 
 "You are at perfect liberty to believe anything you 
 like. For the sake of convenience, we will say that I was 
 joking, but if I catch you endeavoring to take the wind 
 out of my sails, I will make things uncommonly hot for 
 you, Marc'haid, that's all I have to tell you!" 
 
 Absolutely stupefied, Gaidik gazed at her mother. For 
 a moment they faced each other, these two great ladies, 
 both equally determined and handsome, one dark, black- 
 eyed, sinuous in her feminine grace, the other fair, with 
 glinting, coppery hair and thoughtful, deep-set gray eyes, 
 both sitting straight and slender with a peculiarly proud 
 and unbending carriage of the head. Diamond was, in- 
 deed, cutting diamond. 
 
 "Have you anything more to add?" Genevieve asked, 
 insolently. 
 
 Gaidik continued to look for a minute or so at her 
 mother, as one looks at some curious phenomenon. 
 
 "Yes!" she said at length, firmly, but quite respect- 
 fully. "I have to tell you, Mamma, that if you do not 
 promise me to give up using that sort of threat, I will be 
 forced to inform Uncle Ren 4 of what is going on here." 
 
 164 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "And by what right will you do that?" Genevieve in- 
 quired, in a voice made low and unsteady by anger. 
 
 "By the right of affection, justice, and fair play!" 
 Gaidik retorted, with a certain cruel relish, which was 
 founded entirely upon the present situation, for to be 
 vindictive was totally unlike her. 
 
 " Do you realize that you are speaking to your Mother, 
 and that, moreover, you are proposing to assume a ter- 
 rible responsibility ?" the other continued, in the same 
 tone. 
 
 "Yes," was the unexpected answer, "although it is 
 difficult just now to realize the first part of your question. 
 As to the latter I would consider myself utterly despic- 
 able were I to shun the responsibility you allude to." 
 
 "By Heavens, my girl!" Genevieve cried, with an in- 
 credulous wonder in her flashing eyes. "You are cer- 
 tainly possessed of considerable pluck to oppose me in 
 this way. I have broken you before, and I can do so 
 again!" 
 
 The implacable Gaidik nodded her head in calm ac- 
 quiescence. She was too straightforward to deny the 
 truth of her mother's words, knowing full well that the 
 battle would be an unequal one. As coolly as ever she 
 replied : 
 
 "I'm afraid you are right! I have not undertaken an 
 easy task, nor do I relish placing myself in direct opposi- 
 tion to my Mother for at heart I am slavishly respect- 
 ful of of the maternal dignity, and have endured much 
 to keep within the duties it prescribes, but I will do as I 
 have said, nevertheless." There was an unpleasant glit- 
 ter in her eyes, and her whole face was transformed by 
 it. "Loic comes first and foremost with me, and in re- 
 gard to him there is no time to lose, so I shall certainly 
 not prove weak-kneed." 
 
 165 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Just like your impudence to talk that sort of rub- 
 bish!" Genevieve exclaimed, furiously. "But go ahead, 
 if you like! Loic is my son, and I can do with him just 
 as I please. Nobody will ever believe that I do not love 
 him not even himself so you can do your worst, and 
 that at once. I don't care a snap of the fingers!" 
 
 "Very well," Gaidik said, quietly, and she was about 
 to close the conversation by moving away, when she 
 chanced to look at her companion. Again their eyes met, 
 and she paused, for Genevieve' s face had suddenly grown 
 haggard. It was no longer the face of a reckless, angry 
 woman devoid of all scruple. In a moment the very 
 features had changed, and she who rode there beside her 
 was a hunted creature with scared eyes and trembling 
 lips. Gaidik had a thoroughly strong nature's true soft- 
 ness of heart, and a wave of pity and irresistible regret 
 rushed over her instantly. She bent towards her mother 
 and, impelled by genuine and sincere sympathy, said, 
 pleadingly : 
 
 "Please forgive me, Mamma, if I have hurt you, but 
 do tell me that you were not in earnest about Mettray, 
 and that you will not use that threat any more. It cuts 
 me to the heart to see you look like that!" 
 
 A gleam of triumph shot between Genevieve's swiftly 
 lowered eyelids. She had been terribly frightened, and 
 now felt like crying out with the sudden relief, but she 
 was far too clever to give herself away, and so, pushing 
 Gaidik's extended little hand roughly from her, she as- 
 sumed an air of deep offence. 
 
 "You might have known," she said, sulkily, "that I 
 was only using Mettray as a whip-lash when Loic was too 
 impossible and that he is impossible at times you are 
 well aware. Who do you take me for to imagine that I 
 ever meant it seriously ? But you always did jump at 
 
 166 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 conclusions for the most part based upon your own ex- 
 traordinary fancies!" There were actually tears in her 
 eyes, and she dabbed at them with a dainty little lace 
 handkerchief, which had surely been woven on purpose 
 for such idle tasks. 
 
 For one fleeting instant Gaidik watched her with a 
 puzzled expression, like that of some one who hears a 
 sound, and sees a sight for which it is impossible to ac- 
 count. She had grown singularly pale, for a faint, un- 
 easy doubt tugged obstinately at her heart; but her 
 nature was, alas, of those which seem destined never 
 quite to realize the possibility of treachery; not because 
 they are devoid of shrewdness or of a very high order of 
 intelligence, but because they are possessed of a fund 
 of frank confidence that never turns completely to dis- 
 trust. Such was Gaidik, and thus it happened that un- 
 consciously she played into her mother's hands, repulsed 
 doubt that wise inward counsellor and finally allowed 
 herself to be persuaded that it was she who had been 
 unjust and in the wrong. She was destined never to 
 discover what it is to be consumed, harried, driven, by 
 a deep, inextinguishable, unassuageable craving for in- 
 trigue and the tortuous byways of craft, and in the 
 innocence of her soul she traversed the rest of the forest 
 roads to the castle, on that mellow autumn morning, her 
 dark mood quite evaporated, thinking and speaking with 
 renewed hope and joy of Loic's future. Had not Gen- 
 evieve at last consented to promise in the most solemn 
 and binding fashion never even to allude again to the 
 terrors of Mettray? That any one could fail to keep a 
 word thus given never for a second entered Gaidik's 
 range of possible events she was not yet worldly wise 
 enough for that. 
 
 While the ill-assorted mother and daughter were still 
 
 167 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 a few hundred yards from the park walls, Loic himself 
 ran joyfully out to meet them. 
 
 "Here, at last!" he cried, with his brilliant smile. "I 
 was just going to ride after you when I heard the beat- 
 ing of hoofs approaching; but it was mean of you, Gaid, 
 to steal a march on me!" 
 
 His eyes sought his sister's face, and searching there 
 discovered that he had, however, been right not to fol- 
 low her. From the brightness of her expression he 
 turned his attention to his mother, beside whose horse he 
 was walking, one hand carelessly playing with the slack- 
 ened bridle, and detected that she, too, was singularly 
 amiable of aspect, from which favorable signs he argued 
 that all was going well. 
 
 "What can Gaidik have said to her?" he asked himself 
 with pardonable curiosity; "but Gaid always succeeds in 
 all she undertakes; she's a witch!" and aloud he re- 
 marked : 
 
 "I'll tell you what we'll do, let's go for a short cruise 
 after lunch. The sea is almost quiet again, and if you 
 say so, Mamma, I'll tell them to get the Foam - Crest 
 ready, and we can start immediately after we've swal- 
 lowed the last mouthful." The Foam - Crest was a 
 handsome, quick-sailing yawl presented to Loic by his 
 mother on his last birthday, and was the pride of his 
 heart. Her clean, long spars, her snowy sails, the daz- 
 zling gleam of her elaborate brass fittings, the way she 
 splashed and gurgled through the water at her topmost 
 speed, spelled absolute delight for her young owner. But 
 Madame de Kergoat declined the pleasures of a "short 
 cruise" in that most beauteous of crafts, judging with 
 her customary shrewdness that the softened Gaidik would 
 talk to Loic in a way advantageous to herself, wherefore 
 she left the brother and sister to the enjoyment of each 
 
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THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 other's company a circumstance over which, to be frank, 
 they did not greatly mourn. 
 
 When they started, the sea was of a transparent, gray- 
 ish-green exquisite to behold, and Kadoc who, of course, 
 was Loic's sailing-master prophesying fine weather, they 
 scudded away merrily before the breeze. At first Gaidik 
 and Loic talked in a scrappy, erratic way, walking side 
 by side fore and aft, and stopping at every turn to chat 
 with Kadoc, who had the wheel, and whose bronzed 
 countenance fairly beamed with joy at seeing them to- 
 gether again. 
 
 Thanks to a successful fight with some last remnants 
 of her anxieties, Gaidik was in excellent spirits, and so 
 unchanged that Kadoc could hardly believe his eyes, as 
 he watched her active little figure in its trim nautical 
 attire swing to the roll of the yawl with all the ease of 
 by-gone days, her face flushed with delight. 
 
 " Sainte Mere des Anges /" he muttered, between his 
 strong, white teeth. "Can it be true that there's a man 
 bad-hearted enough to make her unhappy? She's just 
 our Mam'zelle Gaidik, not a bit altered, just the same 
 brave little soldier, the Saints bless her!" 
 
 They had by now rounded the " Pointe de Kergoat," 
 and the water, still restless from the storm of the previous 
 day, was running round them in pale-colored hills, but 
 it was a foamless sea that alternately lifted the yawl 
 and let her slide into transparent, glassy pits with the 
 regularity of clock-work. This "mountain-climbing" in 
 no way disturbed Gaidik or Loic, who, to the manner 
 born, stood up to the long, graceful, undulating sway of 
 the tiny yacht, as they watched the sails of a dozen 
 Sinagots dotting the horizon, where the sun turned the 
 water to faint pearl and amethyst. The wheel groaned 
 and kicked softly, the sails slatted a little in the shifts 
 
 xa 169 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of the light wind, and as they drew nearer to the herring 
 fleet they breathed to the very bottom of their lungs 
 the delicious, all-encircling fragrance of the ocean. 
 
 "Feeling better, eh?" Loic said, with a grin, looking at 
 his sister's bright face. 
 
 "I should think so! This sort of thing clears the eye, 
 the soul, and the heart! It's just like camellias!" 
 
 "How camellias?" 
 
 "The sight of them, I mean. That tall hedge all pink 
 and white, and brilliant polished green solid, wholesome, 
 clean-looking, and old-fashioned on the north terrace 
 always produces the same honest, bracing effect upon me." 
 
 "Well, you are a queer one, Gaid; but look, here are a 
 lot of your old friends; away off there is Yawen Gwes- 
 mark, in his Good-Luck boat; these other four along- 
 side of him are from Kergoat, too. They'll be slipping 
 by in a minute; don't you recognize them?" 
 
 "Of course I do; who do you take me for?" was the 
 laughing answer. "Let's go nearer to them Kadoc!" 
 she shouted. 
 
 The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in the big 
 sailor's hand, and the Foam-Crest gambolled gayly into 
 the midst of the covey of fishing - boats dancing on 
 the gold-tipped waves. Gaidik was dancing, too, with the 
 joy of finding herself again on that waste of wallowing 
 sea, so often vexed with gales, so continuously scored by 
 the tracks of the Kergoat boats, and which she loved in 
 all its moods, even the worst. To-day, however, was 
 clear and soft and warm, and it thrilled her to feel the 
 agile and graceful yawl slide over the long hollows, as 
 the foresail scythed back and forth against her beloved 
 hazy Breton sky, and when the red sails of Yawen's boat 
 glided into nearer proximity she called out, in her old, 
 merry fashion: 
 
 170 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "He! Yawen, what luck to-day?" thus causing the 
 four men and the boy of that equipage to wave their wool- 
 len caps ecstatically and to utter a loud chorus of deep- 
 throated welcomes. 
 
 "Why, that's like being home again," laughed Gaidik, 
 waving her hand frantically to Yawen, a thick-set, clean- 
 shaven man clothed in a dark-blue Jersey and high rub- 
 ber boots, who was standing knee-deep in a silver heap 
 of freshly caught fish. 
 
 "Full boat, Mam'zelle Gaidik!" the patron called back, 
 with a chuckle "topping full! You're bringing us fair 
 fishing luck, my little Lady!" 
 
 In another boat, close aboard, a stream of glittering 
 herrings was being thrown into great, square baskets, 
 with coarse salt spread between the successive layers, 
 one man pitching the herrings continuously to those 
 charged with "packing" them, the rasping sound of 
 rough salt rubbed on the metallic scales of the fish 
 clearly perceptible above the whispering of the long swells 
 melting beneath the keels, and forming a steady Leit- 
 motif to the gentle flaps of the sails, the creaking of the 
 ropes, and the soft hum of the breeze in the rigging. It 
 was a charming coup d'aeil, this little fleet hard at work, 
 and the enthusiastic reception accorded to the young 
 Marquis in his azure- and- white sweater, and the lovely 
 little Duchess standing by the wheel, a beret stuck firmly 
 on her bright hair, in the most business-like way, was not 
 the least charming feature of it. 
 
 These two Aristocrats were with them, and of them at 
 heart, the fishermen knew, they looked at them toiling 
 there with eyes steady, clear, and knowing, and spoke 
 in affectionate, sympathetic voices. Truly, they were 
 Seigneurs of whom they might well be proud, and whom, 
 besides, they really and genuinely loved, so when the 
 
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THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Foam - Crest, after having paid her bienvenue, crawled 
 regretfully away to begin her homeward journey, the 
 hurricane of adieus which followed them were as re- 
 luctant as if they had been laboriously windlassed out 
 of each separate man. 
 
 The yawl picked up a light, friendly northeaster off 
 Cape Kergoat that drove her swiftly within view of 
 Kergoat itself, and Kadoc cheerily cried, "All's well," 
 as he relinquished the wheel to Gaidik's eager little 
 hands. 
 
 With a sigh of content, Loic sat down on a smartly 
 coiled rope at her feet. 
 
 "By -the -way, Gaid," he said, suddenly, "what did 
 you tell Mamma this morning? I was amazed when I 
 saw her smiling and gracious, for I knew by your face 
 that you'd been talking to her, and I've been eaten up 
 with curiosity ever since, but I did not want to spoil our 
 trip by bringing my troubles on the tapis at once." 
 
 Gaidik changed color, and her eyes lost their joyful 
 expression. The remembrance of that morning's ride 
 was like an extinguisher to her present delight. 
 
 "Oh," she said, rather vaguely, "I don't know that 
 it's any use going over all that again. Anyhow, she 
 swore to me that she only meant to frighten you into 
 good behavior, and she solemnly promised gave me 
 her sacred word of honor, you know never to do so 
 again. I think, Loic, darling, that you shotild not fret 
 her about the Borda, though. Don't mind my saying 
 so, but it is not quite manly to tease her with doubts 
 as to your ultimately joining it." She turned a couple 
 of spokes of the wheel, glanced a second over her shoulder, 
 and then nodded at him in her tender, confiding little 
 way. 
 
 "I told you last night, Gaid," he said, earnestly, as if 
 
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THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 a great load had been suddenly lifted from his mind, 
 "that I would do all you wish me to do, and I hope that 
 you know me well enough not to doubt my keeping my 
 word. If you say Borda, a Bordache I will be and oh, 
 I wish I could tell you how grateful I am for what you've 
 done! I know how much it must have cost you to speak 
 to Mamma, but then you never count your trouble where 
 others are concerned. Anyhow, my ownest own Gaid, 
 I'll do my very, very best to thank you with something 
 better than empty words, you can count on that." 
 
 Her eyes were soft and deep and dark as she bent 
 down to kiss him quickly before turning her attention 
 again to her steering, and they still retained the same 
 expression of profound tenderness as she guided the 
 Foam - Crest towards the Kergoat landing - wharf with 
 the practised hand of an accomplished pilot. Gaidik for 
 once felt perfectly happy and hopeful! 
 
 That night there was to be a gala dinner in her honor, 
 to which all the Nobles of the neighborhood had been 
 bidden, and several members of the family would also 
 be present, so they hurried in, arm in arm, to "make 
 themselves beautiful se faire beaux!" as Loic laughingly 
 remarked. 
 
 The castle seemed to tower up into the very clouds as 
 they re-entered it, the evening sun shining redly on all 
 its battlements and Gothic spires. It looked more than 
 ever worthy of its great traditions, for the state apart- 
 ments were open, the servants wore their state liveries, 
 and the whole splendid building was filled with animated 
 and brilliant life. 
 
 A curious inward glow, a sense of elation and of bound- 
 less relief, accompanied Loic all the way to his own 
 rooms, and mingled with the cares occupying his im- 
 mediate attention. He knew that he owed it all to his 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sister, and, having dressed, hastened to go and wait for 
 her in the long, tapestried corridor upon which her suite 
 opened. Nor had he long to wait, for Gaidik was quick 
 in everything she did, and she soon appeared, the most 
 exquisite of small figures, in a daintily simple little silk- 
 muslin frock of palest, palest shell pink an indescribable 
 complexity of softness and airy folds hemmed with a 
 thick ruche of freshly gathered Malmaison carnations, 
 which also encircled her perfect shoulders. The way her 
 hair was arranged, low about the brow and sweeping 
 backward in a sort of natural tidal -wave, breaking loose 
 in a foam of delicious, curling tendrils around her heavy 
 coronal of braids, was unique, and her big, gray eyes were 
 full of light as she caught sight of Loic. With swift pleas- 
 ure and surprise, she held out her two tiny hands shining 
 with their panoply of superb rings. "That's so nice of 
 you, Loic, to have waited for me!" she exclaimed, tuck- 
 ing ruthlessly under her rounded arm a fan of pink 
 mother-of-pearl and pink ostrich feathers, upon the end 
 sticks of which her cipher and crown sparkled in pink 
 pearls and brilliants. 
 
 "What an out-and-out pretty toilette!" the boy cried, 
 turning round and round her to examine it the better. 
 "You're tremendous, Gaid, and I'll laugh to glimpse the 
 faces of the dowagers when they see you." 
 
 Gaidik glanced down at her fragrant skirts and laughed. 
 Her face looked extraordinarily delicate and childish in 
 the moonlight, which was beginning to rain its ame- 
 thystine fires through the immense windows of the up- 
 per hall, near which they were standing so young, in- 
 deed, that the little strawberry -leaved crown entwined in 
 her tawny hair struck one with a sense of positive in- 
 congruity. 
 
 "It is a costume suited to the season and the roseate 
 
 174 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 occasion," she laughed, "but, of course, that's no reason 
 for begrudging it a word of praise." 
 
 "No, you're right; the whole affair, costume included, 
 deserves the best we can say of it," Loic admitted, "for 
 you've made everything rosy for me. Your very laugh, 
 Madame Gaid, is like nacre and pink velvet." They 
 stood for a minute or two in silence, hand-in-hand, in- 
 haling the mellow air. woven of garden fragrance, which 
 almost palpably hung around them like some astonish- 
 ingly subtle fabric, and then walked reluctantly down- 
 stairs, chatting gayly. All Loic's past nervousness and 
 excitement had entirely left him, his old assurance had 
 completely returned, together with a curious feeling that 
 the world left nothing just then to be desired. To re- 
 gain his sister's companionship was what he had been 
 unconsciously needing all along, and his sense of her 
 presence as she walked down-stairs beside him, her ethereal- 
 looking skirts touching him, the piquant perfume of her 
 carnations shaken at each step towards his nostrils, filled 
 him with a joy that for the moment seemed ultimate. 
 
 On the last landing they overtook their mother, who, 
 clad in black laces, with a collar of rubies and diamonds 
 at her throat and a ruby-and-diamond "fender" of ex- 
 treme magnificence above her classic brow, swept on be- 
 fore them with something of the tragic muse in her dark 
 beauty. 
 
 The banqueting - hall was absolutely dazzling as half 
 an hour later the brilliant file of guests entered it, for in 
 matters of etiquette the Marquise ruled her household 
 like a small Court, and from the upper servants in black 
 with knee-breeches, and the countless powdered footmen 
 in azure-and-silver liveries, to the gold plate and wonder- 
 ful flowers with which the table was covered, everything 
 was the acme of perfection. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic made a little grimace as he took his place opposite 
 his mother she had insisted that he should occupy the 
 seat of the master of the house for he knew only too 
 well that the repast would be long and extremely tedious. 
 These formal and prolonged ceremonials are a time- 
 honored Breton custom, and at Kergoat all such hered- 
 itary usages were always carefully observed. 
 
 On his right sat a, to him, very formidable personage 
 his father's elder sister, the Countess de Brielle. Still 
 exceedingly handsome, stately, tall, and looking remark- 
 ably like Empress Maria-Theresa, Madame de Brielle had 
 retained three of youth's attributes a deliciously fresh 
 skin, a frank laugh, and a keen capacity for the enjoy- 
 ment of life. Her splendid hair, white as snow, sparkled 
 like threads of spun glass beneath her diamond tiara, 
 and so did her beautiful old blue eyes, whose keen glances 
 revealed an unlimited fund of curiosity, shrewdness, 
 worldly wisdom, and very merciless wit. She was one of 
 the most brilliant and most amusing women in Europe. 
 
 ''And so you are our Amphitryon!" she murmured, 
 turning abruptly to her nephew, "that is a new whim 
 of Genevieve's, eh? How do you like it?" 
 
 "Not at all," Loic frankly affirmed; "only," he added, 
 with a rueful modulation of his merry voice, "it would 
 not have done a bit of good for me to tell Mamma so." 
 
 Madame de Brielle laughed. "Well, you certainly are 
 off the beaten path, but I'm celebrated for my mastery 
 of unprecedented situations. Will you allow me to help 
 you out, if, in spite of your far-famed aplomb, you find 
 yourself at all embarrassed?" 
 
 " I will be very much obliged," he replied, quite gravely. 
 " It's very nice of you to propose it, Aunt Elizabeth." 
 
 The Dowager was surprised, and her eyes swiftly 
 changed, their mocking becoming veiled by a kind of 
 
 176 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 humorous content. She was beginning to approve of her 
 nephew. 
 
 "We know more or less about each other only by 
 hearsay," she smilingly remarked, "but this moment 
 makes for sociability and confidence, mon bonhomme!" 
 
 Loic chuckled, for he, too, was pleasantly surprised, 
 but in a minute he pulled a long face and made big, 
 rounded, ominous eyes. 
 
 "Pray, tell me then, Aunt Elizabeth, whether it is nec- 
 essary for me to speak to the overtrimmed lady on my 
 other hand?" he whispered. "She can't expect me to 
 entertain her with brilliant conversation, can she?" 
 
 Madame de Brielle simmered with enjoyment. 
 
 "Bless you," she cried, leaning back and tittering gen- 
 tly, "that's the Baroness Delahaye, a highly original per- 
 son by all accounts. Clever woman, too; never knows 
 when she has received a rebuff. She's unavoidable at 
 meetings of the clans like this one, but she is somewhat 
 heavy; also, she has two daughters to marry off, and lives 
 in perpetual dread of seeing them remain on her hands. 
 Perhaps she may make you commit yourself if you are 
 too amiable, Loic, and it will be charged up to you some 
 ten years from now, which may be unpleasant, since her 
 youngest olive-branch is a generous decade older than 
 yourself." 
 
 "I'd better keep a strict guard upon myself, then?" 
 Loic remarked, with perfect gravity, but his eyes dancing 
 with fun. 
 
 "Do you know," his aunt said, "I made until to-night 
 one of the most ridiculous blunders of my life, which 
 annoys me, for it must be a symptom of failing powers. 
 I told myself a hundred times or more that you were a 
 great nuisance, Loic, and now I find that you're nothing 
 of the sort moreover, you're positively exhilarating." 
 
 177 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I'm in luck, then, Aunt Elizabeth," he rejoined, with 
 a courtly little bow, "because it appears that you're very 
 hard to please, and " His gesture spoke volumes of deep 
 information on the subject and completed his sentence 
 satisfactorily. 
 
 "You seem to be possessed of my entire dossier, my 
 dear. Your knowledge of me is evidently as accurate 
 as it is extensive; but isn't it getting rather gloomy 
 here ? This little banquet is elaborately chiselled and high- 
 ly polished, but it lacks animation. Wait a bit; I'm 
 afraid I'll have to throw myself into the breach for the 
 honor of the House of Kergoat, so eat your pheasant in 
 peace, and presently we'll resume our pleasant little 
 chat." 
 
 Loic did as he was bid, but, not being as yet much of 
 a gourmet, he soon neglected the succulent morsels on 
 his plate for the pleasure of watching Gaidik, several 
 seats away, aux prises with a very witty brother of her 
 mother's, who had arrived at Kergoat an hour before, 
 and had been placed beside her, simply because they 
 eternally disagreed, and, both being past - masters at 
 repartee, always provided unlimited amusement for all 
 listeners. Not at all like his sister in looks, Prince Paul 
 was yet endowed with the same arbitrary, tyrannical, 
 and altogether selfish nature, but, lacking her occasional 
 flashes of tenderness, he was far more dangerous than 
 she. Still, as he possessed an enormous fortune, was a 
 confirmed bachelor and a dashing cavalry leader in his 
 own land, he was a star of the first magnitude, before 
 whom everybody save Gaidik and Loic prostrated them- 
 selves. With them he was not popular, and Loic especi- 
 ally could not endure him a sentiment which was fully 
 reciprocated. 
 
 Gaidik' s eyes were sparkling, her lips were twitching 
 
 178 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 with mischievous amusement her whole person had an 
 expression and all the other women in the room seemed 
 tame and uninteresting beside her. So again she became 
 the absorbing subject of his thoughts, and he was genuinely 
 startled when his aunt, having set the whole table laugh- 
 ing by some of her most witty sarcasms, claimed his at- 
 tention once more. 
 
 "Watching Gaidik, eh?" she began, gayly. "She's a 
 bijou, Gaidik another surprise to me, for I had fancied, 
 somehow, that she'd be altered spoiled by all her suc- 
 cesses. I'd propped up a portrait of what she would be- 
 come before my mental eyes, but I'm an old fool, because 
 she's perfect in every detail of her soul and person, is little 
 Gaidik down to the very intonation of her voice, the 
 rings on her fingers, the frou-frou of her skirts, the very 
 perfume she prefers. That's like you, Loic. The cur- 
 tain is rising upon Act Three, and I fancy I can perceive 
 faint glimmerings of success in your future. Are you 
 really going into the navy?" 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, don't ask me that. Everybody 
 seems convinced that I'm destined to become an admiral, 
 I think!" and he laughed heartily. 
 
 "Well, since every one is so sanguine, I may as well 
 tell you that I entertain no such hopes. If you have a 
 spark of true zeal, all right; but if not, I'd pause and re- 
 flect. For in case you yourself don't like the idea, my 
 voice would emphatically be against your joining the 
 Bordar 
 
 Loic looked intensely surprised for a moment; then, 
 "I'm trying to realize that you really and truly think 
 just as I do, Aunt Elizabeth," he declared. "But what 
 would you have me do if I didn't go into the navy, since 
 my 'career,' as Mamma calls it, appears to be a matter 
 of international importance ?" 
 
 179 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Marry as early as possible a true daughter of Brittany, 
 to be sure the finest country in the three continents," 
 she replied "a proper woman filled with 'the star-fire 
 of the Celtic nature/ and have many children." 
 
 "But that's not a profession, and every one says that 
 I must have a profession, une carriere!" he said, with a lit- 
 tle frown "Mamma, Uncle Paul, Uncle Re"ne, even my 
 own Gaid are set upon it. As for me, I'd rather do as 
 you say, Aunt Elizabeth, if only I could find a wife made 
 on the same pattern as Gaidik." 
 
 "Tut, tut, my lad!" the old Countess exclaimed, arch- 
 ing her delicately pencilled eyebrows, "vous n'etes pas 
 degoute mon ami ! A woman like Gaidik is not picked up 
 every day, let me assure you. But tell me, how is it that 
 Re*n is not here to-night. Has he quarrelled with Gen- 
 evieve?" 
 
 "I think so, Aunt Elizabeth at least Mamma and he 
 don't seem to pull well together. They disagreed about 
 me so Mamma said the day before yesterday and I'm 
 sorry for it, because Uncle Rene is my pet uncle." And 
 bending towards Madame de Brielle, he added, in a whis- 
 per, "I don't like Uncle Paul at all, and I know he hates 
 me." 
 
 Madame de Brielle pricked up her ears. " Hates you!" 
 she exclaimed, in astonishment, but without raising her 
 delightfully modulated voice. "Does he, indeed? It 
 got into my head, somehow, that he was Genevieve's 
 chief counsellor, and to see the way she spoils you one 
 wouldn't believe that she's advised by an enemy of yours 
 although let me think a moment." And with a play 
 of her eyebrows that attributed her momentary absorp- 
 tion to an effort of memory, " After all, you may be right, 
 which would be an everlasting pity, for Paul is by no 
 means an adversary to be despised." 
 
 180 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "He's pretty nasty," the disrespectful youth calmly 
 assented; "and, just think, Aunt Elizabeth, it is he, the 
 Aristo par excellence, who eggs Mamma on to make me 
 enter the service of the republic." 
 
 "You precocious boy!" exclaimed the Countess. "But 
 then," she continued, forgetting to conceal her perturba- 
 tion, "you are in a pretty bad dilemma, my poor baby. 
 Why on earth, though, does Gaidik join forces with him 
 against you?" 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, Gaid is never against me, but 
 she thinks it would be best for me to be away from 
 here." 
 
 The Countess sank back in her chair, giving her dainty 
 head a rueful shake. "I had not thought of that," she 
 muttered. "It's true, your case is peculiar, Loic or- 
 dinary rules won't apply to it. Well, I'll have to think 
 it over; and don't forget that I'm your friend from to- 
 night on, come what may." 
 
 As she said this she looked with a strange intentness 
 with a glance of almost uneasy question and appraise- 
 ment at this handsome, well-grown, promising lad, so 
 young and happy and radiant. Her keen eyes wandered 
 from his brilliant, merry ones to the strong, little brown 
 hand toying with a fruit-knife, and to the already mus- 
 cular lines of his lithe figure, with its supple grace and 
 strength; while behind him, surrounding him, accessory 
 to him, she was conscious of the superb luxury and state- 
 liness of his ancestral home. The picture was very 
 pleasing, very hopeful but something struck cold upon 
 her heart notwithstanding. What it precisely was she 
 could not have told, and yet for the fraction of a second 
 the great lady looked blank, even startled. "This must 
 be the effect of my irrepressible old imagination," she 
 thought, smiling derisively at herself. Yet she longed to 
 
 181 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 question him further, longed to find out how the land 
 really lay, hesitated, and while she was hesitating the 
 interminable dinner came to a conclusion. So her dignity 
 was saved and her opportunity lost. 
 
Hull down! hull down! from the watching shore, 
 Darkly her tops mid a sad acclaim 
 Sink like the phoenix famed of yore 
 Aglow in orient flame. 
 O Argo! furrowing fold on fold 
 Through shaggy fleeces of ocean gold, 
 God send his dove on the pallid seas 
 Where spume the sheer Symplegades! 
 Oh sing an harborage bleak and hoar, 
 And an empty splendor spread before! 
 And sigh with the bracken green and brown 
 On the craggy verge, 
 Hull down ! 
 
 The Voyage, ILM. M. 
 
 AGAIN two years passed. During this period Loic 
 realized more and more what a terrible void the separa- 
 tion from his sister had left in his life. He felt, indeed, 
 quite lost without her, and found no comfort in his 
 mother's ever-increasing caprices, for their relations were 
 more discordant than ever, and the prospect of a settled 
 policy of mutual consideration became less and less pos- 
 sible as time went on. 
 
 Fire and ice! That would characterize in brief all 
 phases of their intercourse an antagonism diversified by 
 spasmodic whirls of tempest and enervating lapses into 
 hysterical tenderness and over-indulgence. Still, Loic 
 managed to get along somehow, thanks to his buoyant 
 nature, and the early autumn found him de guerre lasse 
 aboard the Borda at Brest. His mother, against his ex- 
 
 183 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 press desire, had insisted on accompanying him to the 
 vessel, arguing that she wished to see with her own eyes 
 how he would fare in the future, and finally the lad had 
 been forced to yield, without much grace, it is true, to 
 being made what he called "such a little boy" of. 
 
 He had now reached the age when it was unpleasant 
 to him to be reminded of how very young he still was, 
 the age when he would have liked to appear alone, to 
 assume freely his new and independent role of "officer 
 and gentleman," and it sorely galled him to be suddenly 
 reduced to the position of a child being "lugged" to 
 school. Nor did the dreariness, the dirt, the misty 
 blackness of the great French Port de Guerre help to 
 put him in a good temper. He realized, with sudden 
 misgivings, that he was henceforth to work in good 
 earnest, to relinquish all past luxuries and pleasures, to 
 be under close and unrelenting supervision, and he be- 
 came deeply aware of a very oppressive sensation of 
 regret at these unlovely prospects as he journeyed up- 
 country amid all the pomp and state habitual to Madame 
 de Kergoat when travelling. 
 
 It was a wet, cold, blustering day when they finally 
 boarded the training-ship. The sailors and the "middies" 
 wore shining oil-skins, and grimy moisture dripped upon 
 everything in sight, like dirty tears upon a sooty coun- 
 tenance ; yet when he stood, at last, before the Commander, 
 it was not fog-drops that dampened his face, but fine 
 beads of perspiration, brought there by an overmaster- 
 ing apprehension of what he scarcely knew. 
 
 For the first time in his life Loic felt horribly shy 
 and uncomfortable, so much so, indeed, that he was 
 physically affected, and turned absurdly pale. 
 
 The Commandant was a tall, thin man, with a narrow 
 forehead, thick, wiry hair, once blond, but now turning 
 
 184 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 gray, and lack-lustre, china-blue eyes, which could, never- 
 theless, look both very stern and very harsh on occasion. 
 Moreover, the utter silliness of his mother's vehement 
 expressions of recommendation, delivered in a voice of 
 freezing hauteur, struck Loic painfully, and he was by 
 no means surprised at the Commandant's curt responses 
 and abrupt, uncompromising tones. 
 
 "Your son, Madame la Marquise, will take his chance 
 with the others; we do not believe in favoritism here," 
 the old sailor said, with aggressive roughness, but there 
 he suddenly checked himself, for Loic's expression had 
 gradually become so marked that he could not but observe 
 it, and for a second gazed curiously at the sensitive boy's 
 white face and wide-open, dilated eyes. 
 
 "Don't you want to come to us, my boy?" he asked, 
 in an altered and much kinder voice, laying his hand on 
 the well -squared shoulder with suddenly awakened in- 
 terest and a sort of grim sympathy. 
 
 "It isn't that, Mon Commandant," Loic replied, 
 promptly, looking frankly and directly at him. "But 
 I wouldn't like you to believe that I " he emphasized 
 the pronoun "expect or desire any favors." 
 
 "That's a highly strung, odd youngster," the martinet 
 thought, and aloud he said: "I am glad to hear you say 
 so, and I feel sure that you will endeavor to satisfy your 
 superior officers and be a good comrade to your brother 
 midshipmen. Of course, our discipline will seem hard 
 to you at first, but you'll get used to it very soon if you 
 are what I believe you to be." 
 
 "It's very good of you, Sir, to speak so," Loic an- 
 swered. His voice sounded rather tremulous, for he had 
 deeply resented his mother's ungraciousness who for the 
 life of her could not be cordial to the plebeian and self- 
 righteous officer, although she, too, was beginning to ex- 
 
 13 185 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 perience a sinking feeling at the near prospect of separa- 
 tion from her son, and would have been glad to conciliate 
 his future chief. 
 
 The moment for the plunge was rapidly approaching. 
 In a few hours at most she would be far, far away, and a 
 lump rose in her throat at the bare idea that she could 
 no longer, before retiring, peep into the room where Loic 
 lay asleep, while her heart ached with longing for those past 
 years during which he had depended so entirely upon her. 
 
 As soon as they were again alone together, she smiled 
 at him in a pleading, timid sort of way t which was totally 
 unlike her. "If you don't like it here, Loic/' she mur- 
 mured, throwing her arms about him, "you must tell me, 
 and I will take you away at once." 
 
 He forced a laugh. "Now, look here, Mamma, you 
 mustn't worry about me. I'll be as right as a trivet 
 when the first strangeness is past; and remember, I shall 
 write to you every day and tell you how well I'm getting 
 along," he concluded, rather lamely, nervously clearing 
 his throat. 
 
 His mother's graceful, elegant figure looked to him 
 oddly out of place in the private salon of the big, gaudy 
 hotel, where they sat close to each other on a hideous 
 crimson satin sofa, and he suddenly noticed how terribly 
 white and shaken she was. He tried to smile as brightly 
 as usual, and to preserve his ordinary jaunty air, but his 
 efforts in that direction were not crowned with success, 
 and he turned impatiently away, for tears, of which he 
 felt dreadfully ashamed, were actually struggling to his 
 eyes. She, poor woman, was gradually working herself 
 into a panic. "I can't bear it, Loic!" she cried at last, 
 throwing her arms once more about him. "I was a 
 fool to insist upon this ridiculous plan! Come, we will 
 go back at once to Kergoat! I'll write from there to 
 
 1 86 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the Commandant and to the Minister of Marine. Come, 
 my darling, my darling, don't stay in this vile place, 
 where you will be maltreated and driven like a slave 
 beaten, perhaps, also, God knows!" 
 
 In spite of his almost furious desire to do as she said, 
 Loic straightened himself up manfully. "Nonsense, 
 Mamma!" he said, with surprising firmness; "surely you 
 don't want me to show the white feather and turn tail 
 like that. Every boy has got to leave home sooner or 
 later; it's really ridiculous to make such a fuss." 
 
 He scarcely knew what he felt ; his ears were buzzing 
 and his hands were cold as ice. He shut his eyes for a 
 fleeting second. 
 
 Gene vie ve was now quite beside herself, and absolutely 
 maddened by his unexpected resistance; in an agony of 
 grief she pressed her wet face against his. "Oh, Loic!" 
 she pleaded, in the same broken accents; "don't leave 
 me; you're all I've got, all I love! Why are you so cruel 
 to me? Is it because I have been harsh sometimes and 
 you are glad now to have the chance of punishing me ?" 
 
 Loic said nothing. A very slight tremor went over 
 his determined face; surely these reproaches were filling 
 the measure unnecessarily full, even to overflowing. He 
 moved his lips, attempting to. say something, but she 
 did not even notice this, and went on in a rapid, passion- 
 ate voice: "For goodness' sake, Loic, don't be stubborn! 
 I did not realize how hard it would be. What does the 
 navy need with you ? But I want you, I cannot live with- 
 out you, and you've got to go home with me you've got 
 to, that's all there is about it! I'll give you anything you 
 want anything! You'll do just as you please!" she con- 
 cluded, with increasing and ungovernable excitement, beat- 
 ing her hands in the air, wild with agitation, and bursting 
 into fresh sobs. 
 
 187 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic was growing desperate, but he forced himself to 
 look quite calm, feeling that his only chance was to re- 
 main, if possible, unmoved. " I cannot run away, Mamma 
 it would be desertion , I already belong to the navy. 
 You know that as well as I do!" he exclaimed, conquering 
 as best he could the sudden passion of pity for her which 
 threatened to drive everything else away from his mind. 
 
 "Nonsense! You're talking sheer rubbish! Deser- 
 tion! What insufferable twaddle! It's me you will de- 
 sert. But I see you're glad to get rid of me! I never 
 dreamed it would hurt me so to leave you here! I never 
 imagined you could really be so cruel, so inhuman, so for- 
 getful of all I have done for you, sacrificed for you, you 
 unnatural, heartless boy!" 
 
 Loic stood up and took hold of both her slender hands 
 as gently and tenderly as he could, and for a moment 
 looked into her eyes. He felt now absolutely resolved 
 to stay, not only because he knew that run away he 
 could not without absolute dishonor, but also because 
 he realized perfectly well, knowing her as he did, that 
 should he yield to this new whim of hers she would be 
 the first later on to reproach him with his own weakness 
 in so doing. Such things on a smaller scale had hap- 
 pened before between them. 
 
 "My dear Mamma," he said, coaxingly, "I'm aston- 
 ished at you! You must be reasonable, and remember 
 that you made me promise to behave myself, and that 
 you're making it very difficult." The poor boy was 
 really on the verge of his self-control, but with great 
 force of purpose he continued to pet and cajole her just 
 as when in other days he had been desirous to obtain a 
 favor; nevertheless, the intense feeling of cold reserve 
 which dominated all his actions prevented him from 
 being entirely natural, and she grew furious. 
 
 188 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Oh, so this is the way. is it?" she cried, savagely. "I 
 thought you were becoming tired of my love and of poor, 
 tame Kergoat! You long to be free from me and my 
 idiotic tenderness and care, so as to swagger around 
 quite unhampered; you are burning to become a traineur 
 de sabre, a casseur de cceurs, you little wretch ! ' And 
 she began to pace the floor in uncontrollable excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "Now, Mother, I can't bear this any longer," he pro- 
 tested, in a harsh, unboyish voice, looking straight at 
 the blurred, rain-whipped windows. "I can't bear it 
 I can't bear it, and if you go on like that I I shall " 
 
 He stopped, clinching his hands together, for the sobs 
 which he had valiantly choked down were again rising 
 in his throat. Instantly he heard a silky rustle, as 
 Genevieve, with a smothered exclamation of pity, glided 
 to her knees before him, for now, suddenly, she knew 
 how cruelly she was herself treating him, and how un- 
 justly. "My own darling!" she murmured, imploringly; 
 "pardon me, Loic; I'll be good now; I'll do just what you 
 want, my brave, brave boy !" 
 
 She held him tightly in her arms, fondling him like 
 a baby, but Loic, who had ^ grown deadly pale, hastily 
 disengaged himself, went over to the window, threw it 
 open, and leaned far out. The strong, cold sea- air saved 
 him from utter breakdown, and when, almost at once, he 
 turned back into the room, he had partly conquered his 
 agitation. 
 
 The rest was comparatively easy, for now Genevieve, 
 subdued and quite exhausted too, gave him but little 
 trouble, and after a silent and hurried dinner, for which, 
 of course, neither had any appetite, he accompanied her 
 to the station and saw her off on her return trip to Ker- 
 goat; then, escorted by Kadoc whom she had left be- 
 
 189 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 hind to look after him for a day or two he set out to 
 rejoin the training-ship. 
 
 It was still raining hard, the ground glistened with 
 liquid mud under the wavering rays of the street lamps, 
 and in the darkness of the cab Loic felt the sharp night 
 wind on his face, down which a few large tears were run- 
 ning, despite all his efforts to drive them back to their 
 sources. For once he was utterly unnerved, as it was 
 no wonder he should be after such a scene, and in this 
 mood he wondered with that painful wonder that comes 
 upon us when, having chosen one path, we marvel whither 
 the other would have led, how it would have been with 
 him if he had followed his mother home, that home for 
 which he suddenly yearned so passionately that it was 
 all he could do to restrain the overwhelming temptation 
 to turn back, even now, towards the station and take 
 the first train leaving Brest. 
 
 With clinched teeth and beating heart, he forced him- 
 self to look at the sordid pageant of the foggy town. 
 The shriek of a steam-siren made him start violently, and 
 he realized the extraordinary tension of his nerves. Sure- 
 ly there was something peculiarly depressing and deso- 
 late in the very atmosphere of this dismal place! 
 
 Slowly the steaming horses trotted up the slippery 
 incline which skirts that deep, black bay which is the 
 war-port, and which is framed by interminable granite 
 fortifications, all grimly similar in their uncompromising 
 ugliness, and by line upon line of cannon. Above them 
 loomed the citadel, the Chateau de Brest, and over the 
 massive walls of the deserted arsenal came the low, rum- 
 bling murmur of the distant streets, cut here and there by 
 the sound of some drunken sailor song or fierce, low- 
 voiced quarrel floating up from Recouvrance above the 
 dark ramparts. All this was not encouraging; neither 
 
 190 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 was the parley at the gates, where the permission de 
 dix heures had to be produced in order to obtain en- 
 trance, and when, at last, he was for the first time stretch- 
 ed in his little bunk on board, all things past and present 
 merged at once into a profound homesickness and misery 
 which seemed to prove him still humiliatingly young a 
 mere child, after all. 
 
 The sensation of loneliness of intense, appalling lone- 
 liness which he felt that night, gave way by fits and 
 starts to an ardor of boyish delight and interest in his 
 new life, duties, and dignities which at length almost en- 
 tirely prevailed. Not that his happiness was by any 
 means without alloy, for there were still many moments 
 when all his fine plans and prides became but as a crum- 
 bling sand foundation, on which his changed personality 
 vainly strove to find a foothold, for even his old inde- 
 pendence and dauntlessness here played him false by 
 making him unpopular and dragging him into innu- 
 merable scrapes, with the consequent grudges and heart- 
 burnings. Soon, also, the harsh discipline to which he 
 was subjected, as was, alas, to be expected, became so 
 disagreeable to him that his whole life lay in shadow. 
 He was not one to sink under the first blow, to be dis- 
 couraged by the first difficulty, but he found himself 
 face to face with an undreamed-of situation, a situation 
 bristling with perils for such a nature as his, and which 
 was rendered more awkward by his mother's new and 
 extraordinary course of action. 
 
 Separated from her darling, and freed from the im- 
 mediate influence which the boy's irresistible charm and 
 magnetism rendered so potent, she suddenly took it into 
 her head to develop into a Spartan parent, and her let- 
 ters which just then should have been especially tender, 
 encouraging, and cheering were written in such a strain 
 
 191 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 that they threw Loic into a state of acute and unreason- 
 ing irritation. Moreover, Madame de Kergoat saw fit to 
 pour an absolute avalanche of similar communications 
 upon the unfortunate lad's superior officers, from the 
 Commandant down, enjoining them, one and all, to dis- 
 play the utmost severity towards her " sadly spoiled 
 child," thus antagonizing and exasperating them against 
 the boy quite as completely as she did Loic against her- 
 self. 
 
 He wrote to her, imploring her to leave him in peace 
 this was more politely stated but the true burden of 
 his song was that he now intended to stand or fall alone, 
 that he had had enough of petticoat government, and that 
 she was ruining his chances and robbing him of his ship- 
 mates' regard and of his own self-respect. He further 
 explained that he would end by giving up endeavoring 
 to do what was right if she always suspected him of 
 doing what was wrong; also, he did not forget to remind 
 her, in conclusion, that his present plight was of her own 
 making, and that, therefore, her continual interference 
 was not only entirely prejudicial to his interests, but ex- 
 tremely unjust. 
 
 This epistle threw Genevieve into one of those rages 
 that only the truth can inspire, and, sitting down im- 
 mediately at her desk, she wrote with her bitterest pen 
 a reply so unwise and cruelly worded that, at the mo- 
 ment of sending it off, struck by one of her sudden and 
 unaccountable pangs of remorse, she slipped into its 
 scented envelope a check for a thousand francs, as a 
 salve to the wounds she had deliberately inflicted. The 
 letter, once despatched, however, that peculiar, uneasy 
 desire for perpetual meddling which possesses so many 
 feminine souls burned again through hers, a fierce long- 
 ing to shake him as she used to do when one of her fits 
 
 192 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of anger seized her like the hot fire of an ague. Her 
 now unoccupied surplus energies gathered in her like 
 swollen waters behind a dam, and an immediate catas- 
 trophe was only averted by the fact that her favorite 
 sister having fallen seriously ill, during a short visit to 
 Kergoat, she was unable personally to carry her wraths, 
 indignations, and extravagant recriminations to Brest. 
 
 Indeed, during the time she was on duty in the sick- 
 room, matters began to mend for Loic. Left to himself, 
 his light-hearted gayety returned to him, he got fairly 
 upon his feet, his fine spirit and singularly attractive 
 personality absolutely pervaded the big, floating school, 
 and, as was bound eventually to happen, he became the 
 leader and the hero of the most turbulent of his mess- 
 mates. Most of these boys were the sons of well-to-do 
 families, and only a dozen or so of aristocratic descent 
 two or three very much so indeed, Bretons these, bearing 
 beautiful names a thousand years old, which were con- 
 stantly turning up in their history books, much to their 
 delight and pride but all alike acknowledged his sway, 
 and many were only too glad to form a sort of adulatory 
 Court about this handsome young Marquis, so eager to 
 scatter gold about him and so keen for the chance of a 
 daring frolic. Having already become partially recon- 
 ciled to his lot, doubtless his uproarious exuberance would 
 have simmered down after a while, and all would have 
 been permanently well with him, but, alas, his mother's 
 interference again built a wall across his path. Her 
 capricious rule had wellnigh destroyed in him both the 
 power of and the desire for the concentration of his 
 very keen intelligence and uncommon abilities upon hard 
 work. This in itself was no insuperable difficulty, and 
 there were those to deal with it who repeatedly repri- 
 manded and even severely punished him this he could 
 
 193 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 endure, but not the epistolary rages of his mortified and 
 furious mother, when she heard of his misdeeds in the 
 Borders half-yearly reports, and her perpetual accusa- 
 tion of him to his instructors. 
 
 The mentally blind cannot be made to see in a moment 
 as by a miracle, and a woman capable of doing all she 
 had done to bring about such a result was surely in- 
 capable of seeing how entirely it was her own fault. 
 She really lost all control of herself, and deported her- 
 self, one way and another, in so maddening a fashion 
 that she finally drove the already rebellious boy to open 
 revolt. 
 
 Had either Gaidik or Count Rene been aware of what 
 was happening, the final catastrophe might yet have 
 been averted, but, with the usual in aptness of things, it 
 chanced that both were at that time far away, Gaidik 
 travelling with her husband through the Orient, Count 
 Re'ne' on a shooting tour near the frontier of Siberia, and, 
 therefore, both quite out of reach of any appeal from Loic 
 had he been minded to seek assistance. 
 
 "Like my luck!" the poor boy thought; "Uncle Re'ne' 
 was always devilish fond of me, in spite of his grand, 
 cold airs when I had displeased him, and he would have 
 seen me righted. My Gaid, too, was forced to go away, 
 whether she liked it or not, and now I'm all alone, and 
 I know I'm sure to end by doing something awful if 
 things don't alter pretty soon." 
 
 As a natural result of such cogitations, he grew wilder 
 and more reckless day by day. His superior officers 
 could not help liking him, although he gave them, as 
 the saying goes, du fil a retordre; they could not help 
 admiring his straightforwardness of demeanor, even when 
 he was at his worst, and the plucky manner in which he 
 bore punishment a fact which went far to win for him 
 
 194 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 their sympathy. For one thing, he never pleaded ex- 
 tenuating circumstances, as his fellows so often did in 
 similar difficulties. But still his conduct was so con- 
 trary to all rules that reprimands grew more and more 
 frequent, more and more harsh, and consequently more 
 exasperating to the high-spirited lad. 
 
 Months followed months in this unsatisfactory fashion. 
 Genevieve, having accompanied her convalescent sister to 
 some celebrated and ultra-fashionable baths, kept out of 
 the way, fortunately, but nevertheless Loic's sky dark- 
 ened and grew more threatening, and, had it not been for 
 the plucky manner in which he, during a storm, rescued 
 at the peril of his own life a sailor who had fallen over- 
 board from the rigging, it is more than probable that 
 very serious measures would have been adopted against 
 him by the Commandant. His magnificent courage soft- 
 ened even that terrible martinet's heart to such an ex- 
 tent that he overlooked several subsequent escapades, 
 but, alas, without avail. Thanks to Genevieve's tactless 
 and increasingly grim severity, expressed by means of 
 page upon page of close writing, the end was precipitated. 
 
 Several times she wrote to him that since he was too 
 mean-spirited and cowardly to accept the discipline to 
 which all proper young men of his age were subjected, 
 she was now determined to put her earlier plans into 
 execution, and to consign him to Mettray; nay, she even 
 went so far as to cause her brother Paul to write him a 
 long homily, ending with the pleasing information that 
 he would accompany his mother when in a few days she 
 came to visit him, Loic, and that her ideas being entirely 
 in accordance with his own, he would lend her his assist- 
 ance in all she proposed to do. 
 
 This was the climax! So his mother had broken the 
 word given to Gaidik, and was once more thinking of 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Mettray, and she and her precious brother were bent 
 upon dragging him there. Loic's anger and alarm began 
 to adopt fantastic proportions. Was he, Loic de Ker- 
 goat, going to be so tragic an ass as to await coolly their 
 so graciously announced arrival? His uncle's sneering 
 face, detested from childhood, had become to him the 
 image of some implacable Juggernaut, and he fairly 
 shrank as he thought of Prince Paul as an arbiter of his 
 fate. It certainly put his nerves on the raw, and shortly 
 after receiving this unfortunate communication, he in a 
 moment of mad exasperation struck one of the quarter- 
 masters on duty a heavy blow in the face a grave 
 offence this time, and one which carries with it a serious 
 penalty. 
 
 Fully aware of this, poor Loic lost his head at the pros- 
 pect before him. As soon as the Commandant was put 
 in possession of the facts, it would be all up with him. 
 This time his mother would descend upon him as soon 
 as the news reached her, without the possibility of per- 
 ad venture. Ah, would she indeed! He rushed to his 
 quarters, hurriedly packed some of his most useful be- 
 longings into a large hand-bag, took all the money he 
 possessed at the moment, and, with a heart full of fore- 
 bodings and a grim determination to make a fresh start 
 and be alone responsible for himself this time or die in 
 the effort, he made good his escape. This in itself was 
 an exceedingly dangerous and difficult feat to accom- 
 plish, but his luck held for once, and he did succeed in 
 evading even the keen eyes of the sentries, both on 
 board and ashore. 
 
 "No, by God!" he said to himself, as he ran through 
 the fast-gathering darkness. "I'll not be caged in Met- 
 tray if I know it. They'll have to catch me first, and it 
 won't be an easy job." 
 
 196 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Strange to say, it did not rain as it almost always 
 does at Brest, but thick, black clouds were hurrying 
 across the sky, and the tops of the trees on the Cours 
 d'Ajot were trying to bend themselves double in obe- 
 dience to the behests of a furious, wet wind which was 
 smashing their leafless boughs and scattering a shower 
 of shredded twigs in every direction. It was quite dark, 
 and he was quite out of breath when he at last reached 
 the railway station, but luck still held, for an express to 
 Nantes was on the point of starting, and, having bought 
 a ticket and secured a seat in an empty compartment, 
 he had the intense relief, some ten minutes later, to see 
 the melancholy old seaport loom blackly for a few mo- 
 ments against the tormented sky behind him, and then 
 rapidly vanish in the stormy gloom. 
 
 He had had the presence of mind to snatch up a long 
 Inverness coat from his civilian's wardrobe as he swiftly 
 prepared to leave the Borda, thus covering his uniform, 
 and, as he was very tall and manly for his sixteen years, 
 he looked like anything but a runaway midshipman as 
 he boarded the train, his small travelling-cap pulled well 
 down over his eyes. Hardly could he as yet realize that 
 he was for the present, at least, practically out of danger, 
 since having had the rare good-fortune to get himself put 
 ashore by the bumboat thanks to a magnificent pour- 
 boire it was highly probable that his disappearance 
 was as yet undetected. Twice already he and a couple 
 of other daring spirits had employed the services of the 
 greedy bumboatman in order to spend an evening in 
 town without permission, returning at the dead of night 
 and climbing on board silently and secretly by the main- 
 chains, but there was no returning for him this time, 
 and the present escapade was a vastly more serious 
 matter. 
 
 197 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Quickly he exchanged his uniform for a suit of tweeds, 
 made up the former in as small a parcel as possible, 
 weighted with his heavy sea-boots, and heaved it out of 
 the window into the first considerable watercourse cross- 
 ed by the train. All this was done coolly, cleverly, and 
 unhesitatingly, on the impulse of the moment, and then 
 he sat down to commune with his thoughts. 
 
 Whether at first he quite knew what he was to do next 
 is doubtful, but as the express rushed along in the teeth 
 of a regular winter gale he began calmly and collectedly 
 to mature his plans. His mother had accused him of 
 cowardice. Very well, he would show her now that he 
 was not afraid of hardships, and that if he had failed to 
 satisfy the naval authorities, he was none the less, on 
 occasion, capable of proving himself to be a very good 
 sailor. "If she thinks I am coming back again, to cry 
 for mercy, she is very much mistaken," he thought, 
 "because I am not. I am, on the contrary, going away 
 from France at once to-morrow. It will not be diffi- 
 cult for me to ship on some little trader at Bordeaux, and 
 to Bordeaux I'm going." And, surprising to state, at 
 this thought Loic recovered his wild spirits, which only 
 two or three times during the long succeeding journey 
 gave way to fits of deep melancholy and depression, and 
 then only when he pictured to himself Gaidik's despair 
 when she ultimately heard of all this. 
 
 At last, after a series of exceedingly shrewdly con- 
 sidered detours to cover his trail, he reached Bordeaux 
 and put up at a small hostelry situated in a narrow 
 street near the harbor, and much frequented by the 
 captains of small sailing vessels. His room was such as 
 the luxuriously brought-up boy had never even imagined 
 a room could be, and the air of the whole unlovely region 
 was so sour with foreign flavors and noisome odors that 
 
 198 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 he felt a reluctant shrinking, and would have brooded 
 over the sudden harshness of his fate had not time pressed. 
 But when after nightfall, having purchased an outfit and 
 got himself up in the costume worn by common sailors, 
 he made his way down narrow alleys and squalid streets, 
 and suddenly found himself at the water's edge, a change 
 came over him. His spirits rose, he discovered that his 
 resolution was quite unshaken, and as he heard the slow, 
 muffled bumping of boats against some stone steps lead- 
 ing to the basin he again felt an extraordinary eager- 
 ness to be off and away. 
 
 Within a few minutes of his arrival there he noticed 
 a well - decked, square - rigged sailing vessel of the old 
 school, with her name, Gaston - Auger, written large on 
 her high prow, moored to the bollards on the quay. The 
 outline of the harbor behind its forest of masts stood out 
 clearly in bright moonshine, and the broad, silver rays cut 
 a wide swath of dazzling light through the distant fields 
 of rolling ultramarine. 
 
 "The Gaston - Auger would do very well," muttered 
 Loic, and so he jumped lightly on her deck and walked 
 briskly up to a short, dark, thick-set personage evident- 
 ly the skipper who was engaged in spurring on some 
 men transshipping cargo by outbursts of picturesquely 
 nautical profanity. 
 
 "Want another hand?" Loic said to this agreeable 
 mariner, in a purposely thickened and coarsened utter- 
 ance. The captain turned an eye like a gimlet upon his 
 interlocutor. He had a hard exterior and an unprepos- 
 sessing countenance, but evidently knew his bearings, and 
 also gave the immediate impression of one quick to 
 make up his mind. 
 
 "Not me," he replied, gruffly, expectorating over the 
 rail with extreme precision , as if to show what he thought 
 
 199 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of such a proposal. "My crew is complete, and we're 
 weighing anchor at dawn." Yet he continued to ex- 
 amine Loic curiously, for it was not often that he had 
 had the chance of looking upon such a volunteer or one 
 with the mark of the salt element more plainly written 
 upon him. 
 
 "That's a pity," Loic remarked, with an indifferent 
 shrug of his broad shoulders, "because I'm ready and 
 willing to sign articles with you for the trip, but if you're 
 au complet " And he artfully feigned to turn away. 
 
 "Hold on there!" the captain grunted, pointing a thick 
 finger towards the slim, blue-jerseyed figure of the ap- 
 plicant, and shooting a singularly crafty look out of his 
 small, restless black eyes. "I'm sailing from here with 
 a full general cargo for Pernambuco in four hours, and, 
 provided it's nothing underhand or criminal that brings 
 you here, I might consider what you say." 
 
 He spoke with assumed distrust, but Loic was far too 
 sharp not to see that he was nibbling at the bait, and 
 having, besides, no intention of explaining his private 
 affairs, he simply said nothing, and stood poised with 
 one foot on the gang-plank, as if ready for instant de- 
 parture. 
 
 "Been at sea before?" inquired the captain again. 
 
 "Yes, all my life," was the curt reply. 
 
 The skipper measured him slowly with his gimlet eyes. 
 "Makings of a good sailor, perhaps," he muttered, with a 
 gruff laugh, which was more growl than anything else. 
 "Damn me! I've a mind to give you a chance," he 
 concluded, looking aloft at the rigging, where the run- 
 ning tackle was being unbent, and then again he violently 
 expectorated, but this time recklessly upon his own 
 quarter-deck. 
 
 "Very well," Loic replied, indifferently, suiting the 
 
 200 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 action to the words by leaping to the quay. "I'll go 
 and fetch my duds." 
 
 "Got any papers ?" the skipper bawled after him. 
 
 The new hand turned, and by the light of a big reflector 
 lamp hung to the bulwarks looked his future "Com- 
 mander" full in the face. "No," he said, shortly. 
 
 Early morning found the Gaston - Auger leaving the 
 coast of France behind at a great pace. She lay very 
 low on the water for she was heavily freighted and 
 kicked up awkwardly on a following sea. Loic, clad in 
 brand-new oil-skins, swayed easily to the motion, and 
 deftly coiled ropes* in the most approved naval fashion, 
 peering occasionally through an opalescent bank of fog 
 at his fast-disappearing native land. 
 
 Most boys occupying his present unenviable position 
 might have given themselves up to sorrowful misgivings. 
 Not so he, however. The knowledge of the irretriev- 
 ableness of the step he had taken stiffened all possible 
 doubt and limpness out of his composition. His eyes 
 brightened, his lips curved in a smile of triumph, and in 
 his heart of hearts he exulted. He had all a healthy 
 boy's appetite for adventure, backed by an unusual 
 amount of physical strength and endurance, besides which 
 he was determined to prove now, and once for all, the 
 metal he was made of. So he took the roughness and 
 uncouthness of things in the way of a huge lark. 
 
 Meanwhile the crew of the Gaston - Auger , from its 
 captain down, watched him covertly and greatly wondered 
 what manner of a creature they had shipped. 
 
 Unsuspected dangers, however, were lying in wait for 
 him. The skipper's coarse tongue, for one thing, was 
 not to his liking. Loic, to tell the truth, was no good 
 except in command, and had much ado to take a blunt 
 order civilly. The skipper, on the other hand, was a 
 
 M 201 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 truculent ruffian, extraordinarily foul-mouthed, besides 
 being one of those Southern Frenchmen who are born 
 demagogues and instinctively hate an Aristocrat. That 
 Loic was something of the kind had soon become clear 
 to him; indeed, in spite of his knowledge of the ropes, it 
 was impossible to mistake this lad of more than ordinary 
 good looks and strangely proud bearing for an ordinary 
 sailor or, for the matter of that, an ordinary being, and 
 the irascible Bordelais almost at once began to take in- 
 finite pleasure in calling him roughly down whenever 
 the slightest chance offered. Moreover, the crew was 
 also composed exclusively of Marseilles and Bordelais 
 a sorry race and one and all were ready to back up 
 their captain in making things interesting for VAristo. 
 
 Poor Loic! He had, as he speedily discovered, all the 
 ship's company, as well as the captain, the mates, and 
 even the cabin-boy, against him, and all of them ugly 
 customers at that, and righting fit a nasty crowd to 
 tackle. He had been from the first far from eager to 
 advertise the fact that he was a gentleman for that 
 would have been to cause the whole "outfit" to flare up 
 like gunpowder and attempt to "pull him into tassels," 
 as he cheerfully put it to himself; but even if they had 
 not once or twice caught a glimpse of the gold repeater 
 he wore inside his broad, red woollen sash, with its crest 
 in dark-blue enamel, as plain to read as the nose on 
 one's face, every inch of him, in spite of all his efforts, 
 so loudly proclaimed the fact that he played a losing 
 game. 
 
 This state of things was not a pleasant change from 
 the milk and honey of his previous experiences even 
 the life on the Borda, now that he looked back upon it, 
 seemed very snug and pleasant and to have seen him 
 now would have been a considerable shock to his mother, 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 for he was neither so pleasant to look upon nor to as- 
 sociate with as he had been. 
 
 Attired in clumsy thigh -boots, heavy blue trousers, a 
 weird flannel shirt, a red clout wound round his neck, 
 and a peaked cap upon his bright hair, he still managed 
 to remain startlingly handsome, but there was some- 
 thing singularly fierce in his whole aspect, and his con- 
 versation had become studded with a host of unneces- 
 sarily phosphorescent adjectives. In one word, the Head 
 of the House of Kergoat was gradually falling into a 
 savage mood which found vent in ever-ready fists and 
 a brutality of deportment quite astonishing, all the 
 more so that the fight was not equal between him and 
 his numerous adversaries, but here, as everywhere else, he 
 was not one to knuckle down. 
 
 The voyage, therefore, was for him a season of constant 
 watchfulness. He scarcely dared to take off his clothes 
 or to sleep quietly, for fear of being robbed of his watch 
 and the money he wore strapped around his waist, and, 
 whether he was hard at work as the skipper took pre- 
 cious good care to keep him or taking an occasional 
 snatch of sorely needed rest, he was ever ready to spring 
 instantly upon the alert. 
 
 Still, his pluck never for a second gave way, and such 
 was his innate love of fighting that even when the whole 
 lot of brutes were raging against him he felt, comparatively 
 speaking, happy. He overlooked the fact that the food 
 was vile, the biscuit crawling, the water foul, the smells 
 of the forecastle where he had his miserable little bunk 
 likely to hurt and offend noses far less delicate than his 
 own, and he would cheerfully have overlooked much 
 more in order to prove himself the man he had now de- 
 termined to be, but these continual slurs, insults, and 
 sneers were less to the proud - tempered lad's taste, and 
 
 203 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 he often suffered cruelly, although unwilling to confess 
 it even to himself. 
 
 The Gaston- Auger made bad weather of it most of 
 the time. From the very outset the voyage was un- 
 propitious, as she had to fight her way through a regular 
 belt of storms before reaching the calmer waters of the 
 tropics, where a mist of fearful heat caught her, shutting 
 the sea for miles around within a tense ring of oppression. 
 All day long the air shimmered and danced on the glar- 
 ing level, there was no breath of wind to blow out 
 the sails that hung in dejected cowls, and the ship lay 
 for days on end, motionless on the greasy sea, which cir- 
 cumstance did not improve the tempers of her crew. 
 
 One morning, after a most unsatisfactory night of such 
 creeping and crawling, the captain, standing at the foot 
 of the foremast, was staring sleepily ahead, the mate, who 
 had the wheel, was nodding and blinking at nothing, and 
 the men, in a state of general demoralization , were sulkily 
 crouching in the most slovenly manner all over the dingy 
 deck, when Loic, who had gone below for a moment, 
 came up again, carrying a little tin box containing his 
 sewing-tackle. Silently he sat down on a coil of ropes 
 and began to mend a shirt for Loic, whatever the weather, 
 the circumstances, or the difficulties, was always ex- 
 quisitely neat and well-groomed. His steady gray eyes 
 intent on the newly acquired accomplishment of sewing, 
 his supple fingers plying the needle with a nimbleness a 
 tailor might have envied, he soon began to whistle a 
 jaunty tune. 
 
 A sullen ground-swell was rolling the seas into smooth 
 hills and valleys beneath the unrelenting sky, and there 
 was that mysterious something in the atmosphere which 
 should have bidden the dullest being to prepare for dan- 
 ger of some kind, but the wretched lad had by now 
 
 204 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 grown so used to dangers of all sorts that he gave not a 
 thought to the immediate future, and, as a matter of 
 fact, was thinking of Gaidik, to whom he had written a 
 long explanatory letter before leaving Bordeaux, and 
 who was, as ever, the focus of all that was good and loving 
 in him. Moreover, he had not been quite so bullied and 
 maltreated of late, for, to tell the truth, his mates were 
 beginning to fight rather shy of this grim-visaged boy, 
 so different from themselves, who, when fully roused, 
 was as indomitable and savage as a bull -dog. Not so 
 the skipper, however, who had steadily worked himself 
 into a frenzy of hatred against his bete noire, and, his 
 temper being particularly raw just then, he deliberately 
 walked towards Loic and stirred him from his dreams 
 with a heavily booted foot of quite enormous size, in- 
 quiring with expert profanity by what right he disturbed 
 his, the skipper's, ears with his damned whistling. 
 
 "Because it suits me!" Loic cried, red as fire beneath 
 his brown tan. "Aren't you going to give me a rest?" 
 (Allez VOMS me ficher la paix, a la fin?) 
 
 Apparently the captain was not inclined to do so, for 
 with another vicious kick he sent the little tin box flying 
 all over the deck, scattering as it went its entire contents 
 into the scuppers. "If you deafen me with any more 
 of your infernal piping," he growled, in his dirty beard, 
 " I'll beat you to a jelly, and thank you for the chance, 
 you cursed Aristocrat. And now get forrard and clean the 
 foc'sle head and fore-deck!" 
 
 With a quick in drawing of the breath, Loic jumped up. 
 "You swine!" he said through his teeth. "By God, I'll 
 end by leaving my marks on you!" 
 
 The captain a coward, like all bullies instantly whip- 
 ped out his revoiver. "None of that, damn you, or I'll 
 shoot you full of holes instead of beating you, you " 
 
 205 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 The epithet was so vile that the boy lost his head, there 
 was a rush, a dodge, a scuffle, a bullet whistled past 
 Loic's ear, missing him by a hair's-breadth, and the re- 
 volver was his, to be sent the next instant spinning over- 
 board into the sea. Immediately he followed up this 
 success by an assault from both hands and feet most 
 artistically delivered, and, trained as he was by a number 
 of recent fights for his very life, it would have gone very 
 hard with the burly skipper had it not been for the as- 
 sistance of the crew, who with the quickness of wild- 
 cats sprang to the rescue. 
 
 This reinforcement put effective resistance out of the 
 question, for some caught an arm, others a leg, while 
 the good captain, gripping him by the throat, attempted 
 to throttle him. Beside himself with rage, he strug- 
 gled like a demented creature; how he fought that 
 fight he never afterwards remembered, but three, men 
 lay upon the ground before it had lasted many seconds, 
 and the mate was glaring at him from two half-shut 
 eyes, wiping the blood from his mouth as he did so. At 
 last, by the united efforts of the remaining gang, he was 
 bound up hand and foot with new Manila rope and 
 flung down an open hatch into the stinking depths of 
 the hold. 
 
 There he was left alone for the time being, with his 
 thoughts, a broken rib, knuckles cut to the bone, and a 
 burning thirst, lashed up beyond all chance of escape 
 if escape had been possible and stifled by the intolerable 
 fetid heat of this abode of rats and vermin. 
 There are not many who would not, at least, have 
 loudly cried for mercy were they to find themselves in 
 such a plight, but Loic has been very badly described 
 in these pages if it seems incredible to state that rage 
 was just then still uppermost in his mind, and such a 
 
 206 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 rage that it threw all else even excruciating physical 
 pain completely in the shade. 
 
 "Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!" he yelled, at the 
 top of his lungs thus greatly increasing his thirst and ex- 
 haustion "you'd murder me, would you ? You hounds!" 
 he cried again. "I wish I could kill the whole crew of 
 you, and I'll do it, too, if ever I get the chance!" La- 
 borious inch by laborious inch he worked himself, in spite 
 of his bonds, along the reeking planks nearer to the dim 
 light from overhead, yelling with all his might, "I'd like 
 to tell you what I think of your notions of fair play!" 
 He was bleeding profusely from a cut on the forehead, 
 and another gash oozed amid the grime of his cheek. 
 Above, a mob of men, sulky, sullen, and afraid, stood 
 round the coamings of the hatch listening to the defiant 
 words which rose towards them through the thick atmos- 
 phere from that place of torment, and wondered at the 
 grit of their victim, still fighting-mad, though the ills of 
 his prison must have gripped every inch of his battered 
 body. 
 
 Gradually, however, the infuriated yells ceased, and 
 to Loic the whole affray began to assume the proportions 
 of a nightmare he could riot as yet realize that men 
 could display such barbaric savagery. And yet it was 
 no dream; the rats that scampered over his prostrate 
 body and the pain from his broken rib assured him of 
 the grim reality of the situation. Hour followed hour, 
 the blazing day was replaced by a baking and breathless 
 night, and thirst and fever so overpowered him that it 
 was only by an heroic effort of will that he prevented him- 
 self from at last giving way and shrieking aloud for 
 help. 
 
 More than once he sank into a half - conscious state, 
 during which the form of Gaidik seemed to bend over 
 
 207 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 him, her fresh, cool lips to breathe upon him respite from 
 his tortures, her rounded arms to pillow his throbbing 
 head, and this blessed illusion alone preserved him from 
 the utter collapse of reason. 
 
 Towards noon on the next day the mate came down 
 to him, accompanied by two sailors to guard from further 
 harm his precious carcass, as Loic's strength had since 
 the previous day attained a sort of mystic and legendary 
 fame; but, alas, this formidable adversary was by now a 
 harmless wreck of his yesterday's self, and even that 
 callous sea-dog bent down and looked at him by the 
 light of the flickering lantern he carried with a frightened 
 face. 
 
 "Sacre nom d'un Chienr he muttered. "If we don't 
 bring him out of this he'll be stitched up within twenty- 
 four hours and dropped over to make a hole in the 
 water that's the cold -drawn fact." It was the only 
 cold thing just then in that pestilential hole, for the men, 
 as they lifted their victim and hoisted him out of it, 
 carrying him as best they could between them, were 
 bathed in perspiration as if emerging from a shower- 
 bath. 
 
 To be sure, it would not have taken many more such 
 jarrings and jostlings to send Loic away from all this 
 misery to the great blue mystery that lies beyond, and 
 the captain gave a low, apprehensive whistle as he saw 
 him borne past, lividly pale with pain and shock, but 
 game still to the backbone, uttering not a word of com- 
 plaint, and with sunken, glittering eyes flashing grim 
 hatred at him. 
 
 In spite of all his courage and endurance, Loic felt at 
 times during the last days of that terrible journey an 
 infinite pity for himself. His venture had been one long 
 hardship since he, hitherto the pampered darling of the 
 
 208 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Fates, had started upon it with no resource save his fists. 
 Its only redeeming point hitherto had been that he was 
 at sea, for that capricious mistress had wrapped herself 
 into his being from earliest childhood in a way too strong 
 to be expressed, and now, like many another dearly be- 
 loved mistress, this one was going or so he thought 
 to prove his undoing. 
 
 In a hospital, with everything at hand that anti- 
 septic surgery could provide, with highly trained at- 
 tendants about him, his case would still have proved 
 serious enough, but there, among those filthy surround- 
 ing, with no other care than the occasional attendance 
 of savage-hearted, resentful sailors, it was practically 
 hopeless. In that sweltering air of the tropics, tainted 
 with all manner of dangerous germs, where a mere 
 scratch may take weeks to heal, the boy struggled wearily 
 with death, emaciated, white as chalk, but courageous 
 as ever. "I'm close on the peg-out!" he said to himself, 
 winking feebly; "but maybe I'll win through yet and 
 get my revenge." 
 
 The heat was exceptionally stifling in the cubby-hole 
 in which he lay, and sweat continually dripped from 
 him, while the bitter reek from the neighboring 'tween- 
 deck came in to him unchecked. This he felt, more than 
 anything else, was gnawing away his remnant of strength, 
 and with aching chest and sore from head to foot, he 
 waited doggedly until perchance the captain chose to 
 come and give him his coup de grdce, in order to throw 
 him to the fishes, and thus save himself from the dangers 
 of an inquest. His watch and money had been stolen 
 during his sleep or unconsciousness he did not know 
 which and he could not even ascertain the flight of 
 those pitiless hours. 
 
 Nor were his sufferings the quick things of a few hours, 
 
 209 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 or even of a day or two, and when at last, on a velvet- 
 black night, with only a handful of stars showing in its 
 depths like dazzling diamond flakes, the Gaston-Auger 
 made Pernambuco, Loic was too weak to turn his head on 
 his dirty pillow. Fortunately for him, he had lapsed into 
 a state of blank unconsciousness. 
 
 Slowly the night dragged through, and by degrees the 
 sable pall thinned, the sea grew silvery gray, then of a deli- 
 cate sulphur yellow, and then the great disk of the rising 
 sun, like a crimson coal, leaped above the brightly glowing 
 horizon just as the Gaston-Auger glided into a harbor 
 of glassy water and reached anchorage ; and more slowly, 
 much more slowly, Loic awoke to the knowledge of exist- 
 ence again, and found a Sister of the Order of St. Vincent 
 de Paul bending over him where he lay comfortably ban- 
 daged and pillowed in a long, whitewashed hospital ward. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Said Fire to Ice, " I am sorry!" 
 
 And Ice replied, "No, I am wrong!" 
 
 So then they embraced with much ardor and haste 
 And found it the same old song. 
 
 IN her hotel sitting-room at Colombo, Gaidik d'Aspre- 
 mont was sitting alone. She had passed the longest 
 months that she had ever passed, or would ever be likely 
 to pass, since she had last seen Loic previous to her de- 
 parture for the Far East the longest, the most anxious, 
 the most nerve-wearing. 
 
 Could she regard him as quite safe now that he was 
 matriculated on the training-ship ? Again and again she 
 had asked herself that question, again and again she 
 had had to leave the answer undecided between warring 
 hope and fear. During all that time she had more or 
 less counted the slow minutes as she drove or rode over 
 hill and dale, or was fted, admired, and entertained by 
 all the great potentates of the Orient, and now, at last, 
 almost convinced that her forebodings were folly, and 
 inclined to be incensed at her perversity in thus tortur- 
 ing herself, she was on her homeward trip, thrilling with 
 joy at the prospect of their approaching reunion. 
 
 She had just returned from dining en grand gala with 
 the Governor of Ceylon, and jewels glittered upon her 
 from the top of her obstinate little head to the hem 
 of her long lace train, as she eagerly rose to take from the 
 hands of her courier a mass of letters just arrived. The 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 first envelope which she opened contained a dozen 
 leaves torn from a pocket-book and written with a strange 
 tremor and shakiness, in pencil. Her throat became 
 suddenly dry, her heart pounded, and her knees all but 
 knocked together as she rapidly ran her eyes over the 
 blurred, slanting lines, while a cold shiver shook her in 
 spite of the warm fragrance of the night pouring in at 
 the windows shook her till her diamonds sparkled like 
 spirts of flame. Then she ran across the immense salon, 
 and, opening her husband's dressing-room door, called out 
 to him in a voice which he scarcely recognized : 
 
 " You must send word to the yacht at once ! We'll have 
 to be off immediately Loic is dying!" 
 
 That incoherent letter pencilled in the Pernambuco hos- 
 pital had arrived at the same time with the one written 
 by Loic on the eve of his madcap departure from Bor- 
 deaux which had followed her on and on during a 
 trip to wild and rarely visited corners of India and 
 thus both blows were now falling together upon her with 
 bewildering violence. 
 
 The long voyage home was made with the dizzy swift- 
 ness which the possession of a fast steam-yacht and of 
 great wealth alone can insure, but it seemed for all that 
 extraordinarily slow to Gaidik. 
 
 It would be impossible to calculate how many times a 
 day she paced in a fever of impatience backward and 
 forward on the snowy deck of the Armorik, gazing 
 unseeingly upon the sun or moonlit surface of the sea, 
 blue or silvered, deepening to star-spangled violet or 
 brightening to luminous green or gold-shot rose. 
 
 Sometimes she would sit down for a little while, but 
 almost at once she was up again, walking, walking, walk- 
 ing always, to and fro, her unconquerable Breton tenacity 
 and pride alone enabling her to control her countenance 
 
 212 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and to preserve her extraordinary self-possession in her 
 relations with those about her. A sensation almost of 
 fear came over her husband as he watched the white- 
 cheeked, hard-pressed little creature so singularly mute 
 in this deep sorrow and almost intolerable anxiety. 
 ******* 
 
 It was a gay May day, all a-blush with blossoming haw- 
 thorn and fragrant with the glowing petals of gorse and 
 bracken, when a hired dog-cart driven at full-speed by 
 Gaidik dashed up the avenue at Kergoat, the light 
 equipage following the horse with a succession of leaps 
 and lurches sufficient to terrify anybody but the over- 
 wrought Gaidik and the impassive Breton sitting back to 
 back with her. The Duchess's eyes had a curiously cruel 
 gleam in them, and as she traversed the park she did 
 not vouchsafe even a passing attention to the exquisite 
 multitude of delicate scents and sounds rioting under the 
 opulent old trees, nor to the far-reaching ocean, which 
 this time had put on its bluest robes to honor her re- 
 turn. 
 
 Urging on the horse with a lash of the whip, she 
 skirted the house and drove round to the southern front, 
 where the sun-rays fell unbroken on the ivy-garlanded 
 terraces and the granite steps felt warm beneath her 
 feet as she raced up them two at a time. 
 
 Madame de Kergoat was sipping her after - luncheon 
 coffee in the library when Gaidik burst in upon her 
 very much after the manner of a hurricane, it must be 
 acknowledged for all the self-control in the world was 
 now unavailing to keep in bounds her anger and in- 
 dignation. 
 
 "What news have you of my Loic?" she exclaimed, 
 casting all ceremony and usage overboard and omitting 
 all preamble. 
 
 213 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Genevieve actually dropped her cup and jumped to 
 her feet with a cry of astonishment. 
 
 "Good Heavens!" she gasped; "you here? Where on 
 earth do you drop from? What do you mean by such 
 an entrance?" 
 
 "I've just told you. I'm here to find out what has 
 become of my Loic," Gaidik harshly repeated. 
 
 "Your Loic!" echoed the Marquise, a faint attempt at 
 raillery kindling amid the forlornness of her efforts to 
 recover her tottering mental equipoise and mask her 
 extreme embarrassment. "Your Loic, indeed!" 
 
 "Mine! Yes, certainly, since there evidently is no one 
 else in the world to take an interest in him c'est le cas de 
 le dire!" Gaidik interrupted, an angry color mounting 
 to her white cheeks. "I wonder," she continued, with 
 a pathetically sudden little droop of the corners of her 
 mouth, "whether you remember your solemn promise to 
 be more forbearing, more just to him and yet he is 
 dying in a pauper's hospital at the other end of the world!" 
 
 "Rubbish!" Genevieve exclaimed, facing her all -too- 
 literal daughter, flushing hotly, eyes flashing as brilliant- 
 ly as Gaidik's own. "Oh, you incorrigible accuser! The 
 whole wretched escapade was in no way my fault, and, 
 although I have no account whatsoever to render to 
 you, yet I am ready to prove this to you or to any one 
 else that may consider it his or her duty to question me!" 
 
 "That's as it may be, but now pray begin by answer- 
 ing my question; don't hold me in suspense any longer, 
 for ' And here there was a perceptible break in 
 Gaidik's strained voice. "I can't bear it I can't 
 Where is Loic ? Tell me quickly, because wherever it is 
 I'm going to him!" 
 
 Sharply Genevieve glanced up at her daughter, and, 
 judging rightly that it was expedient for her to speak 
 
 214 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 at once and without too many circumlocutions, she said, 
 hurriedly : 
 
 "He is on his way home; I moved heaven and earth 
 to find him, but so cleverly had he covered his tracks 
 that it took a very long time for the detectives I em- 
 ployed to trace him to Bordeaux and to discover the 
 name of the vessel upon which he had shipped indeed, 
 it was rather desperate work" here her own voice 
 trembled a little "but at last we did find out. Then I 
 cabled at once to the French consul at Pernambuco. He 
 discovered that Loic, having met with an accident dur- 
 ing the last days of the voyage, had been taken to the 
 hospital, but had been discharged after four weeks, and, 
 refusing all assistance or offers of help and advice from 
 the hospital authorities, who had taken a fancy to him, 
 had at once embarked as third mate upon a small sailing 
 vessel bound for Stavanger, in Norway, where he must 
 shortly arrive." She had said all this in one breath, as 
 if eager to justify herself, and, while listening to her, 
 Gaidik, the self -unconscious, forgot several trifles that 
 might properly have weighed with her forgot that she 
 was fairly played out, forgot that she had tasted no 
 food worthy of the name for an impiously long time, 
 forgot also that her mother would never forgive this 
 abrupt and meteoric apparition, and, obeying impulse 
 and instinct alone, removed herself with such expedition 
 from that astounded lady's field of vision that before 
 she could recover from her surprise the Duchesse d'Aspre- 
 mont had vaulted into the waiting dog -cart and was 
 driving away at breakneck pace, eager just then only 
 to put as many miles as possible between Kergoat and 
 herself. 
 
 And after that many days elapsed before those two 
 
 met again, but during this period, by intimate experience, 
 
 2x5 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Genevieve learned how exceeding great is the forlorn- 
 ness of the remorseful. Yes, remorse she had now in 
 plenty to keep her company, this strange, erratic, ca- 
 pricious woman, remorse that kept her awake at night, 
 and made her rush during the day into a succession of 
 amusements invented to help the leaden -footed hours 
 upon their way. Indeed, she tried many methods of 
 distraction, and for a time none of them availed her, but 
 little by little her momentarily shamed and softened 
 mood hardened into a bitter resentment against her son 
 that soon became the steady background of his absent 
 figure. 
 
 The days following Gaidik' s extraordinary appearance 
 upon the scene were hopelessly wet, and violent, scud- 
 ding rains beat tattoos all day long on the windows of 
 Genevieve's boudoir, completely drowning the glory of 
 the gardens and park. A thick vapor, half steam, half 
 mist, rose from the sea; her wandering eyes detected no 
 break in the horizon, and at length, looking at the 
 drenched, mournful prospect, she began to wonder why 
 she had ever desired above all things to go all the way 
 to meet Loic at the far Northern port where he was 
 to land. "Let Gaidik go, since Gaidik is always con- 
 cerning herself with his affairs," she thought, angrily, 
 and so, all tenderness expunged from her heart, she 
 ceased to wait and watch and hope and expect, she 
 ceased to gaze hungry-eyed at the great picture by Kos- 
 sak hanging above her prie-Dieu, which represented Loic 
 as a child on his pony, Pantin, both gazing out of the 
 canvas with lifelike mischievousness, and ceased to plot 
 and plan the killing of the fatted calf, which occupation 
 had served to beguile away many a weary hour. 
 
 At last she suddenly set off for Biarritz, taking an 
 enormous number of servants and horses with her. 
 
 216 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 There she was, of course, at once one of the gayest in the 
 aristocratic procession continually filling this frivolous 
 sea-side resort. The band on the esplanade played 
 she concluded more inspiring accompaniments to her 
 thoughts than had the rhythmically sad waves at Ker- 
 goat, and the picturesque chain of the Pyrenees seem- 
 ingly so near at times that she felt as if she could have 
 touched them with the amber ferrule of her gracefully 
 flounced sunshade appeared to her a far more fitting 
 mise-en-scene for her grievances than the honest Breton 
 cliffs so dear to her unruly children. Nay, even the 
 sibilant babble of voices Italian, German, Spanish, Rus- 
 sian, English amused her and rested her after the harsh 
 Gaelic consonants which had ended by falling dirgelike 
 upon her ear in her phantom-filled solitude. 
 
 It therefore came to pass that when Loic, tall and 
 still very thin, sunburned to the tone of a Portuguese 
 orange, but stalwart and square-shouldered as ever, 
 stepped ashore at Stavanger, he found only Gaidik and 
 Gaidik's husband to welcome him, which they both did 
 most enthusiastically, and with so much pleasure at see- 
 ing him alive and well that they totally forgot to utter 
 the faintest reproach. Indeed, it was fortunate that 
 such was the case, since there was now on the lad's 
 face the stubborn, resolute look of a fully grown man, 
 and one not easily to be thwarted nay, there lurked 
 in his gray eyes a harsh and masterful spirit which 
 had not been there at his departure from Bordeaux, 
 and which would undoubtedly have precipitated a new 
 crisis between him and his mother had she been there to 
 observe it. 
 
 Whenever they looked at his sister, however, those 
 eyes softened wonderfully, a smile almost wistful played 
 about his lips, and the deepest tenderness became audi- 
 is <i 217 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ble in his roughened voice whenever he spoke to her, but 
 the whole nature of the boy seemed changed, neverthe- 
 less, and it remained for the future to prove whether this 
 change was for the better or otherwise. 
 
 They feasted the returned prodigal on board their 
 beautiful yacht which seemed strange and almost fairy- 
 like to Loic after the dingy cabins of the grime-bespat- 
 tered crafts he had lately inhabited and when Gaidik's 
 glance rested on his labor-torn hands, his coarse, blue 
 clothes, and at the many other signs of hardship and 
 suffering about the young sailor, she asked herself what 
 enduring harm or good he might have taken during 
 these past months spent among rough and disorderly 
 crews of hard-drinking, hard-living men. He had been 
 brutalized and coerced, had, later on, himself commanded, 
 and stood watch on narrow, storm - buffeted decks; he 
 had looked into far-away harbors and seen life clearly 
 from one of its most rugged coigns of vantage. 
 
 At all events, Loic was evidently glad to have come into 
 port. He was his sister's shadow while they stayed at 
 Stavanger, that quaint Norwegian seaport, the crooked, 
 irregular streets of which turn and twirl in bewildering 
 lacets about the southern shore of one of the most beau- 
 tiful fjords of the great Northland. 
 
 Their joy at being together again was so deep that 
 they never spoke of it, but she often gazed at him with 
 the light of a profound, motherly tenderness in her eyes 
 a light so wonderful that the lives of all men are incom- 
 plete until it has been shed upon them, a light which 
 he had never seen in his own mother's passionate eyes, 
 and which made him look up at her in an amazement of 
 worship. 
 
 "Ah, don't don't," he whispered one day; "it makes 
 me feel all I've lost by not being your son instead of 
 
 218 t 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 your brother." She took his arm silently, and they 
 strolled away over the short velvet of the grass, all dotted 
 with pink-tinged daisies, along, the calm, blue waters, 
 where every now and then a rising fish broke the mirror 
 of its smooth surface into endless circles of melting 
 light beneath the late afternoon sky. 
 
 After a day or two Loic succeeded in rigging himself 
 out after a fashion in the little, un resourceful Northern 
 town, and the Armorik swung out of the huddle of 
 boats in Stavanger harbor, brother and sister leaning 
 over the rail and watching the tall, gray spires of its 
 cathedral fade away into the silvery mist of a beautiful 
 summer morning, she at least with feelings too complex 
 to be analyzed. 
 
 Would this grim training have benefited Loic? The 
 eternal question revolved in Gaidik's mind with the same 
 regularity as did the propeller of her yacht in the sunlit 
 waters of the fjord. The happiness of at least three lives 
 hung on the answer, which so far she could not honestly 
 give even to herself. Suppose that that answer held by 
 the future proved to be "no." What then? So far 
 Loic had hardly mentioned his mother clearly he was 
 not over-eager to meet her after all that had taken place, 
 and it was only when tossing on the North Sea and 
 making full headway for home that, casually turning to 
 his brother-in-law one evening, as they were smoking 
 together on deck, he quietly remarked: 
 
 " Where am I to go next?" 
 
 "Speaking from the deepest candor of my soul, I do 
 not know," was the disconcerting reply given with 
 puzzled emphasis. "I wonder, my dear chap, whether 
 you would fall upon and rend a well-meaning individual 
 who would venture to offer you a word of well-meant 
 advice?" 
 
 219 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic threw his smoked -out cigarette overboard and 
 replied, simply, "I would accept it gratefully, what- 
 ever it might be, for I'm very much at sea in more senses 
 than one." 
 
 "Well, then," his brother-in-law said, leaning forward 
 a little and gazing into the troubled gray eyes fixed 
 upon him, "why don't you take your courage in both 
 hands and go to Biarritz with the apologies which you 
 really owe your mother, whatever her own mistakes and 
 errors may have been. You cannot, after all, expect her 
 to be pleased with your performances can you? And 
 let me add, in a whisper, that peace is never too dear to 
 purchase." 
 
 "How can I go," Loic exclaimed, impatiently, "when 
 she herself has gone so conspicuously out of the way to 
 show that she does not care a damn whether I arrive 
 safely or not, and has fairly run away from Kergoat the 
 moment she could reasonably expect me to turn up 
 there?" 
 
 "You Bretons are the coldest-blooded animals south 
 of the Arctic Circle, besides being the most difficult to 
 manage," the older man rejoined, with some irritation. 
 "You and Gaidik, for instance, everlastingly chain up 
 your natural impulses as if to yield to them were nothing 
 short of a crime. Your natural impulse just now, 
 Loic, should be to patch up a very unfortunate, not to 
 say a very dangerous, state of affairs. Your mother has 
 absolute power over you at least, practically speaking 
 she has and, if you can find a ray of comfort in the in- 
 formation, I may as well tell you that you alone can 
 bend her will, if you choose to take the trouble to do so. I 
 presume that I am wrong to speak to you as I do. I 
 should play my part as elder brother better, and come 
 the sage and wise adviser over you; but you see my 
 
 220 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 wisdom consists just now in endeavoring to avoid an- 
 other clash between you and her, for no good can come 
 of it, and, besides, all these revolutions and upsets are 
 literally killing Gaidik. The present situation is a nasty 
 one, which nothing short of a miracle can disentangle. 
 For Heaven's sake, my boy, try and work that miracle, 
 if not for your own sake, at least for your sister's. Your 
 good mother has taken the bit between her pretty teeth, 
 although, doubtless, she still hopes to reconquer the 
 hold she has over you by means which in her pres- 
 ent mood may be extremely unpleasant for, I re- 
 peat, she has great driving powers. There is a certain 
 Mephistophelian sharpness about some of her methods 
 which should make you desirous of being on good terms 
 with her, besides which she is afraid of nothing, not even 
 of a scandal, if that be the only means of gaming her 
 point. What I say may seem a little crude, but it never- 
 theless is the truth." 
 
 "Yes I know," Loic reluctantly confessed, "but 
 don't you see that the minute I begin to humble myself 
 before her she'll provoke me into committing further 
 follies by her very triumph! So what's the use?" 
 
 "You never can tell beforehand what a woman more 
 especially your mother will or will not do. And even 
 if she exacts her mental pound of flesh, don't you think 
 that you are strong enough to endure the strain now? 
 Go to her, Loic. Take my advice. I have spoken! 
 What's more, I think that Gaidik thinks exactly as I do 
 on the subject." Then, putting his hand affectionately 
 on his young brother-in-law's shoulder, the wise counsellor 
 concluded: "Put what I've said in your pipe and smoke 
 it at your leisure. You are too fine a lad to waste 
 your energies in profitless fights with women believe me, 
 such opponents break the strongest of us on the wheel." 
 
 221 
 
THE TRIDENT ANDTHE NET 
 
 When his brother-in-law had departed down the com- 
 panion-way, Loic began to stroll backward and forward 
 beneath the midnight sky, cogitating with himself and 
 glaring at vacancy as he endeavored to make up his 
 mind. Suddenly he stamped his foot, much to the as- 
 tonishment of the man at the wheel watching him from 
 afar. "Am I afraid of her? sacre nom d'un ckien" he 
 exclaimed aloud, thereby transforming his solitary hear- 
 er's astonishment into positive stupefaction. 
 
 No, he was not precisely afraid of his mother, but, 
 nevertheless, his whole soul revolted at the mere idea of 
 the nagging, reproaching, and tormenting he well knew 
 lay in wait for him along the path recommended by his 
 philosophical relative. 
 
 For two whole hours he paced the deck, until the sink- 
 ing moon illuminated a fleece of dove-hued clouds that 
 hovered above the horizon ; the outlines of shadow melt- 
 ed and faded into neutral blackness, and finally the 
 sea-rim became roseate with imminent sunrise ; but when 
 he, too, at last, went below, his choice was taken, and 
 taken according to his brother-in-law's advice. Per- 
 chance he had done so for Gaidik's sake, perchance par 
 force majeure, but still there remained the fact that he 
 was now determined to take the first step towards recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 Having conquered his almost invincible reluctance, 
 he decided to make the sacrifice of his feelings as grace- 
 fully as possible, and, when he actually found himself 
 speeding across France on his way to Biarritz, affection 
 for his mother began to reassert itself, and it was with a 
 positively contrite and softened spirit that he alighted 
 at the gates of her villa. 
 
 She was sitting on a broad balcony overlooking the 
 wide prospect, where the level rays of a brilliant sun 
 
 222 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 turned the rocks to masses of shining bronze, the sea 
 itself to liquid gold. The lofty summits of the Pyrenees, 
 in the distance, seemed almost unsubstantial against the 
 dead-turquoise tints of the sky ideally soft and pearly, 
 like floating images of a dream. 
 
 She distinctly heard the carriage which had brought 
 him turn on the thickly gravelled drive; she heard him 
 ask a question of the footman on duty in the ante- 
 chamber, then the words, "All right, you need not 
 show me the way," in the same quiet voice. There was 
 now only the length of a room and the thickness of a 
 portiere between her and her boy. Her slender hands 
 went convulsively up to the soft laces at her throat, as 
 if they were choking her, and in the mere second that 
 elapsed before he entered she wondered what would hap- 
 pen during the next few minutes, wondered whether she 
 was longing to cover him with kisses or strangle him. 
 She was still wondering when he came in, his handsome, 
 sunburned face singularly brilliant with a half -shy, half- 
 wistful, and utterly winning smile; but her infernal pride 
 and temper made her remain immovable, and outwardly, 
 at least, most cruelly indifferent. 
 
 Three paces from her he stopped short, amazed by her 
 frozen attitude, her superciliously raised eyebrows and 
 rigid lips, her whole expression, which said as plainly as 
 words could have done, "You miserable wretch, fall 
 on your knees and implore my mercy!" And at that 
 all tenderness and remorse fled from Loic's heart like a 
 startled flock of birds, while the winsomeness of his ex- 
 pression changed to wonder and something very like con- 
 tempt as he took in her gracefully reclining pose in a 
 long lounging-chair, the perfect steadiness of the delicate 
 hands clasped loosely around the handle of a fan, and 
 the elaborateness of her white afternoon toilet. 
 
 223 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I have come to apologize to you, Mother, for the 
 anxiety and trouble I caused you, and to express my 
 regrets," he said, in extraordinarily measured tones, wait- 
 ing still three paces off for a sign granting him permission 
 to approach. His heart was hardening within him in a 
 singularly complete fashion. 
 
 "I do not think," she said, judicially, "that it signifies 
 much to you whether I forgive you or not, or, for the mat- 
 ter of that, whether I care for you or not any longer. Is 
 it not rather absurd to go through this mere empty form ?" 
 
 Loic stood looking down at her with eyes made rather 
 terrible by the white heat of his strongly suppressed 
 Breton anger a very special and dangerous kind of 
 wrath. In the silence the wavelets outside were beating 
 against the pebbly beach, as if in a breathless haste to 
 speed the fateful moments on their way by their gentle 
 rustling, regular music, while Genevieve continued to 
 lean back in her chair, staring harshly at her son. 
 
 "I propose in the future," she continued, in the same 
 incisive manner, "to adopt an entirely different regime 
 with you. Tenderness and leniency are not safe feelings 
 to display towards such a nature as yours as I have to 
 my sorrow discovered. I must ask you, also, to remem- 
 ber henceforth who you are, even when impelled by your 
 strange personal tastes to descend into the mire from 
 the honorable estate to which you were born. The Ker- 
 goats have been proud of the Heads ot their House up to 
 now and I dislike the thought that a son of mine should 
 be the first to alter this order of things." 
 
 A queer, twisted smile passed across Loic's rigid feat- 
 ures the smile of a prisoner bound to the torture-post 
 who has made up his mind not to cry out. 
 
 "What do you intend to do with me?" he asked, sud- 
 denly finding his voice again. 
 
 224 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I have not decided as yet, but at present you can 
 remain here for a few days until I give you further 
 orders." Her cold gaze softened for a fleeting instant, 
 for, as usual in her encounters with him, when the force 
 of her anger had spent itself, she was already beginning 
 to alternate between fury and forgiveness a critical 
 state for any woman, and especially for her but Loic 
 noticed nothing of this partial awakening of tenderness, and 
 stood before her " at attention " without relaxing a muscle. 
 
 There was another short silence, tense and throbbing, 
 like that which precedes the breaking of a tornado. 
 Below the balcony the little wavelets hurried on to the 
 assault of the rocks, measuring, one could have sworn, 
 the beats of their two hearts. At length Genevieve saw 
 Loic glance at the small travelling- clock standing with 
 many other pretty trifles at her elbow, and make an al- 
 most imperceptible movement towards the door. At 
 once her heart gave a great leap. An uneasy apprehen- 
 sion that had begun to grow within her at the newness 
 and strangeness of his attitude sprang at once to the 
 full stature of a maddening fear and took entire pos- 
 session of her. Was he going to run away from her 
 again? What had she done? How could she prevent 
 him from doing so, if he chose to take the law once more 
 into his own hands? What a fool she had been! Some 
 instinct bade her rise to her feet and stand before him, 
 no longer unbending and severe, but merely the beautiful, 
 passionate mother she really was, with swift tears welling 
 in her eyes, and both arms extended towards him be- 
 seechingly. 
 
 "Oh, Loic! don't draw away from me like that," she 
 cried. "Can't you see that my heart is breaking, that I 
 love you, love you, love you, in spite of all you have 
 done and may yet do?" 
 
 225 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Hush, Mother!" he said, without advancing an inch. 
 "It is best that you should say no more." 
 
 She understood what was passing within him, stand- 
 ing there so quietly before her in his marvellous self- 
 restraint, and threw herself almost at his feet in a wild, 
 incoherent frenzy of self-reproach and self-abasement. 
 
 "I will do anything you wish!" she sobbed, wildly. 
 "I will never, never scold or reprove you again, but, oh, 
 Loic oh, Loic, forgive me and be my own darling lit- 
 tle son again!" 
 
 She knew the note to strike now, and struck with a 
 sure hand, but it had been touch and go this time be- 
 tween mother and son. 
 
JBoofc flUU 
 
 Sbe 
 
IITB 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Would you never know 
 Tears and vain regret? 
 
 Never yet 
 
 Paid that bitter debt. 
 Gentle speech and slow, 
 
 Nor I trow 
 Midnight's pillow wet, 
 Never yet. 
 
 The Clock,!. -M. M. 
 
 ON a mild, gray day in early September, Genevieve 
 and Loic were sitting together on the sands of a pict- 
 uresque little Vendeen coast village. 
 
 This spot seemed but a poor substitute for the grand- 
 eurs and magnificences of Kergoat, but to them in their 
 recent reunion after yet another long and eventful period 
 of separation, its extreme loneliness and simplicity were 
 welcome. 
 
 Behind them at a short distance was the one hotel of 
 the place, a broad-spread, low building, with blue-slate 
 roofs, diamond-paned windows, and a profusion of bal- 
 conied rooms oak -panelled and quaint enough to suit 
 even Loic's ultra - mediaeval tastes. Scattered along the 
 beach lay a score or so of little cottages inhabited by 
 fisher-folk, while in all other directions beyond this scanty 
 line of thatched buildings stretched desolate moorland, 
 grayish green in the foreground, and emerald -hued where 
 in the distance it merged into broad marshes waving with 
 tall reeds and slender, blossoming water-plants. 
 
 229 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 To this place Fate, in the shape of a fashionable 
 physician's orders, had brought Madame de Kergoat to 
 recruit in its quiet and uneventful atmosphere the 
 strength sadly sapped by the life of social excitement, 
 which was meat and drink to her. "Here at least," he 
 had blandly remarked, "it will be impossible for you 
 either to tire or enjoy yourself, Madame la Marquise, 
 which is exactly what you need." 
 
 There was, indeed, a soul-soothing serenity to be found 
 in that rarely visited corner, while with the aid of rides, 
 drives, and sails to the exquisite islands which entwine 
 the sea in their long, low curves within a few miles of 
 the shore, the hours passed very pleasantly. 
 
 As may readily be imagined, the arrival in so tiny and 
 unpretentious a place of the Marquis and Marquise de 
 Kergoat, with an interminable train of servants, horses, 
 and carriages, had created a considerable stir, and an 
 immense amount of speculation was aroused concerning 
 the real object of such puissant Seigneurs in selecting this 
 solitary and melancholy hamlet for a stay of several 
 weeks. It speedily became apparent that, whatever their 
 motives might be, they did not include visiting the few 
 chateaux in the remote neighborhood, nor becoming ac- 
 quainted with the yet fewer baigneurs quartered in the 
 antique hostelry the entire first floor of which they 
 themselves occupied for they never spoke to any one, 
 and scrupulously shunned all occasions of meeting any 
 one at close quarters, even on the beach. It of course 
 never occurred to these excellent gossips that the mother 
 and son were actuated by a mere temporary desire for 
 quiet, a sudden craving for solitude and complete repose; 
 and from morning till night tattle concerning them oc- 
 cupied all tongues. The few bolder spirits who tried to 
 pass the barrier of Genevieve's reserve had had occasion 
 
 230 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 to find out that too great an audacity generally goes 
 before a fall, for their eager advances were met by that 
 great lady only with arctic inclinations of her lovely head 
 and a cloud of much wrath upon her fair brow, 
 
 If any soreness was felt by the natives on account 
 of these repeated snubs, it was a very passing emotion, 
 however, soon effaced by the gratifying prosperity which 
 the "distinguished visitors" brought with them, and they 
 were soon looked upon as interesting eccentrics confer- 
 ring much glamour and kudos upon the whole country- 
 side by their sumptuous presence. 
 
 Genevieve was just then perfectly happy. She had 
 the one thing which always filled her heart with joy 
 the undisputed possession of Loic; moreover, on the 
 afternoon just referred to there was a charming lavender- 
 hued sea pailletted with silver at her feet, a balmy, flut- 
 tering breeze around her, and the few scattered bathers, 
 clad in stripes of deplorably crude coloring, disporting 
 themselves in the shallow ripples of the bay, were distant 
 at least half a mile from her critical and easily offended 
 eyes. All this made her really enjoy her cigarette, made 
 the very croaks of the innumerable sea-mews circling 
 in graceful evolutions above the wavelets sound almost 
 harmonious, and caused a soft and dreamy smile of con- 
 tent to linger on her lips, especially when, in languidly 
 enumerating all these blessings to herself, she recalled 
 the supreme joy that Gaidik was very far away indeed 
 on the other side of the world and not likely, there- 
 fore, to come and tarnish for her the full and complete 
 delight of Loic's presence. 
 
 "Is not this absolutely perfect, my dearest one?" she 
 asked of her idol, who, lying at full length on the sand 
 at her feet, presented a very fine picture of what young 
 Aristocrats should be, and nowadays so seldom are. She 
 
 231 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 herself was really amazing in her everlasting youthful- 
 ness of aspect, with her ethereal draperies of simple 
 batiste sublimized by filmy laces and Arachnean em- 
 broideries, her broad capeline wreathed with white lilac, 
 and her all-pervading bouquet of extreme elegance. She 
 was it could not be doubted as beautiful as ever, per- 
 haps more so beautiful even in broad daylight. She 
 looked to ill-natured people perhaps thirty-five, but not 
 a day more! Egoism, as a clever observer once declared, 
 is far more effective as a preservative of loveliness than 
 Ninon de 1'Enclos's never-discovered secret. 
 
 Beneath the rosy lining of her white silk sunshade 
 she beamed on Loic, nudging him occasionally with the 
 tip of her dainty little tan shoe when an especially 
 ludicrous peignoir-wrapped figure sauntered up from the 
 "bathing beach" towards the hotel. 
 
 "What are you staring at?" she said, suddenly, see- 
 ing him look rather intently at something behind her, 
 and, as he did not answer, she put up her long-handled 
 eye - glass and turned irritably around to discover two 
 women walking towards the hallowed spot she herself 
 always occupied at that hour; and she, who was a figure 
 of grace even in what she called "a plain little batiste 
 frock," frowned her most imperial frown at these two 
 provincial persons, evidently rigged up in their best bibs 
 and tuckers for this holiday. They wore silk dresses of 
 daring hues, barbaric in make and guiltless of any at- 
 tempt to tone down their raw brilliancy by so much as a 
 gauzy scarf, to the general effect of a toilette de plage. 
 
 "Who in the world," Genevi&ve began, "can these 
 people be? They are, I honestly believe, fifty degrees 
 more impossible than any we have seen here as yet, and 
 what do they mean by passing so close to us?" 
 
 Loic, versed in the ways of the Powers that were, 
 
 232 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 offered no comment, and. especially avoided giving vent 
 to his opinion that the elder of the two intruders, in spite 
 of her ludicrous finery, was what he termed, below his 
 breath, "a stunner!" But still the shrewd, suspicious 
 mother had an uneasy sense that there was something 
 alarming behind this prudent silence, and the curiously 
 prolonged gaze of the persons who perceptibly slack- 
 ened their pace as they approached filled her with 
 righteous indignation. At the thought that this was 
 done for Loic's benefit, Genevieve felt a mist before her 
 eyes, a tightness at her throat, and a vague and worried 
 pain all over her which she already knew well, having ex- 
 perienced it whenever her tigerish jealousy of him was 
 awakened. So she had a moment of uncomfortable ab- 
 straction, but, energetically shaking herself free from it 
 almost immediately, she pointed with her eye-glass after 
 the two strolling figures reluctantly drawing away, and 
 said, with a little contemptuous laugh: 
 
 "Even here the vulgarity of our time makes itself 
 felt, not to mention its audacity. Fancy wearing light- 
 colored silks silks here in the morning and with plumed 
 hats and high-heeled shoes in the sand! But I suppose 
 you're too much of a man to be able completely to ap- 
 preciate such incongruities; or has your sojourn out 
 West irretrievably ruined your taste and good sense? 
 Come, out with it; tell me whether you are still able to 
 judge correctly ?" 
 
 "What do you want me to tell you, Mother, dear?" he 
 asked, a little impatiently. "I've never in my life set 
 eyes on these two particulieres before to-day, if that's 
 what you are eager to know, and I certainly do not ad- 
 mire their style of dress ; but what have we got to do with 
 them?" 
 
 She scrutinized him sharply. 
 
 16 2 33 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Hand on heart?" she said, doubtfully. "You never 
 saw them before?" To which curious question he an- 
 swered, supporting her scrutiny without in the least 
 flinching: 
 
 "Hand on heart, Mother, dear." 
 
 " Well, then," she uttered, with a little sigh of relief, 
 "keep out of their way if you can possibly do so, for 
 they are indeed sorry specimens, which I would scarcely 
 have expected to see here." 
 
 The women , in their gaudy dresses, were moving slowly 
 down the beach, and Loic, from beneath his straw hat 
 tilted over his eyes as he reclined at his mother's feet, 
 glanced covertly after them, while she, having re- 
 lapsed into her reverie, smiled a soft, mysterious little 
 smile. 
 
 Now Genevieve de Kergoat's detractors and she had 
 many claimed that it was behind her gentlest smiles 
 that the greatest danger lurked, and averred that she 
 was then least of all to be trusted. It may be doubted, 
 though, whether anybody existed who could really 
 judge this strange woman, whose inveterate habit of act- 
 ing on the impulse of the moment especially where her 
 son was concerned was so fatal to the success of her 
 plans. 
 
 After his terrible seafaring escapade, Loic, temporarily 
 reconciled to her on the basis of her complete surrender 
 had thrown himself heart and soul into the manifold 
 pleasures which her immediate environment so lavishly 
 afforded him. He had at once become a great favorite 
 in her immense social circle, had played polo, ridden 
 steeplechases, and in these and other amusements often 
 less innocuous had scattered money broadcast about 
 him with her entire sanction and approval. The more 
 serious duties of life, however, came last, as usual, and 
 
 234 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 she was well content that it should be so, as long as he 
 remained at her side and was as much as possible her 
 companion; turning a deaf ear to earnest and repeated 
 remonstrances not only from her brother-in-law who 
 went about at that time with a graver and graver face 
 but even from her own brother and chief counsellor. 
 Nay, she positively encouraged her son in the self-in- 
 dulgent, excitement-seeking life which she herself loved. 
 
 As time went on she made a pretence of resuming the 
 plan of education she had so she said carefully de- 
 signed for him. He spent some weeks in England under 
 the care of a singularly high-priced and facile tutor, and 
 travelled about, later on, with another equally com- 
 plaisant gentleman of great merit, but all thought of any 
 of the customary educational finales the University, 
 St. Cyr, Saumur, the Naval School, or the Poly technique, 
 as the case might be had been abandoned because the 
 Marquise did not care to do more than suggest, once or 
 twice en passant, such a serious interruption of their now 
 so delightful existence together. 
 
 "Put the lad in the army, or let him return to the 
 navy; there are no other careers for one so full of life 
 and spirits," Count Rene' had pleaded, advised, and 
 finally thundered; but "the lad" had had enough of the 
 sea just then, the republican army of France appealed 
 not at all to his haughty mother's ideas, and so Loic had 
 become a curious educational waif, moving on and on, 
 in the grandest possible state, in search of some ideal 
 plan which would infuse into him all necessary knowledge 
 presumably during his sleeping hours, or in any other 
 as yet uninvented and painless manner! 
 
 Of course it goes without saying that he involved him- 
 self in a series of scrapes that tended to increase in mag- 
 nitude as he grew in mind and body. Through these it 
 
 235 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 was always Gaidik who steered him, hastening half across 
 Europe to the scene of action if need were, while his 
 mother, as usual, fretted and fumed and did the wrong 
 thing if anything at all. At such moments the little 
 hand on the helm was a very steady, courageous, and 
 loving one, but the very minute she was compelled by the 
 many tyrannical exigencies of her position to relinquish 
 it, Loic began once again to toss hither and thither on 
 every alluring wave, and to answer to every fragrant breeze 
 blowing from Pleasure's shore. 
 
 It is but fair to say that his path was beset with 
 temptations that would have been almost invincible for 
 any young fellow, however well trained and bred. Not 
 only was he extraordinarily handsome, but he possessed 
 a winning charm which no woman, whether high or low, 
 ever knew how to resist. Essentially thorough -bred, with 
 a great deal of latent recklessness under his Breton im- 
 passibility, and when he so wished it a singular softness 
 in the depths of his dark-gray eyes, veiled by unusually 
 long lashes, it is no wonder that great ladies and smaller 
 ones should make a pet of him, or fall unresistingly at his 
 feet. One and all, moreover, found it excessively pleas- 
 ant to have for one's squire a youth who did not know 
 what it was to be without magnificent horses, pockets full 
 of money, and luxuries of every possible nature; and 
 with it all a dashing, captivating way of managing every- 
 thing and everybody that was in the last degree Grand 
 Seigneur. 
 
 One pre-eminent trait he had inherited from a long 
 line of Breton ancestors, the extremely enviable and rare 
 talent of never showing either discouragement, disap- 
 pointment, undue exhilaration, or embarrassment in one 
 word, he fully deserved the title of " Votrelmperturbabilite" 
 with which many fair ones had adorned him. Alas, that 
 
 236 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 imperturbability is unfortunately not synonymous with 
 steadiness, nor the restraint of one's outward demeanor 
 with self-control! This eminently gifted youngster, so 
 very good to look upon, so keen-witted, so precocious in 
 tact and monde, received an indelible impression from 
 that period of unbridled luxury, over-indulgence, and 
 over-petting, for, thanks to its unlimited possibilities, 
 frail beauties taught him far too early to eat the sweet- 
 bitter apple that is always held out to such as he by the 
 hand of modern Eve. 
 
 Sometimes, for she was inconsistent in this as in all 
 else, Genevieve's anger rose if she learned of these 
 peches mignons, and, her savage jealousy once aroused, 
 this frivolous, superficial, and extremely mondaine wom- 
 an had adopted ultra - puritanical and Catonian views, 
 which found vent in denunciations so bitter and cruel 
 that he, though none of the least courageous, had often 
 trembled beneath the lash of her scathing diatribes. 
 And that is where the situation began to become as 
 Count Rene had so wisely predicted an absolutely im- 
 possible one. Loic, carried quite out of himself by sheer 
 exasperation, finally made it clear to his infuriated 
 mother that the word " duty," which she now so constantly 
 invoked, had been one hitherto left out of her maternal 
 vocabulary, save on rare and exceedingly selfish occa- 
 sions, and that her own line of conduct had been far too 
 egotistical to give her any title now to preach renuncia- 
 tion or sacrifice to him. Fortunately, his personal tastes 
 were naturally fine and delicate, which prevented his 
 sinking from the first into debauchery. Moreover, the 
 thought of Gaidik lifted him above anything really low, 
 but nevertheless his conduct was far from praiseworthy, 
 and finally, after a quarrel of unequalled violence, he had 
 for the second time taken the law into his own hands and 
 
 237 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sailed for America, where during the best part of two 
 years he had ranched in Montana and Wyoming. 
 
 Now, however, he had been prevailed upon to return 
 home in order to celebrate his coming of age, and he 
 came no longer a boy, but one who had lived a man 
 among men in the wild places of the world to begin 
 life in his native land as his own master, a little weary of 
 roughing it, more than a little conscious of his share in 
 the old quarrel, and fully determined to do all within his 
 power henceforward to avoid bickerings and differences. 
 
 He had gained wisdom by experience since experience 
 is a synonyme for one's mistakes to the point of candid- 
 ly confessing to himself that on more than one occasion 
 he had acted like a consummate fool. This time, how- 
 ever hard his admirable composure was taxed, he in- 
 tended to remain firm at his post and display the most 
 praiseworthy patience, nor would he clutch greedily, rav- 
 enously, at the pleasures of the moment, tearing life's blos- 
 soms with both hands, but be a model son, however. 
 L'homme propose and with poor Loic, alas! la jemme 
 dispose of this he was soon to become convinced. 
 
 Rather early on the morning after the appearance of 
 the two beplumed visitors upon the beach, Loic was walk- 
 ing down the sands. He had gone straight from his 
 bed for a swim to a place some quarter of a mile away, 
 where the long Atlantic breakers had scooped out within 
 a necklace of rocks a pool wide and deep, temptingly in- 
 viting one to take a header. Now he was on his way 
 home to his mother and breakfast. 
 
 The dunes rose gently from the water's edge in a 
 series of undulations gilded by the low sun and topped 
 by straggling blackberry - bushes covered with dark- 
 purple fruit, or sparsely furred with short, salty grass 
 mingled with sea-pinks and silvery thistles. 
 
 238 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic, clad in a dark-blue bathing-suit, a bathing-towel 
 thrown over his shoulder, swung rapidly onward, looking 
 neither to right nor to left, when he suddenly became 
 aware of a voice calling loudly for help. It was a femi- 
 nine voice, youthful and not unmelodious, although 
 perchance owing to the exigencies of the moment it 
 seemed to lack polish and delicacy of modulation. 
 
 "Hello!" Loic said to himself, "who's in trouble so 
 early?" and without a minute's hesitation he went 
 scrambling down the coarse shingle towards the voice, 
 picking his way from stone to stone at a run. 
 
 Close to the waves there was another pool smaller and 
 shallower than his favorite plunge, but still quite deep 
 enough to drown an ordinary human being not possessed 
 of the gentle art of swimming, and therein, clinging to a 
 projecting rock, was a woman, clad or rather partially 
 so in scarlet and blue stripes, her tousled locks crowned 
 with a brilliant top-knot of fluttering silk. 
 
 That she was in no great danger Loic saw at a glance, 
 and in his easiest man-of-the-world accents he called 
 out: 
 
 "I'll be with you in a second pray hold on!" 
 
 In a twinkling he had cleared the short remaining 
 distance, thrown down his towel, and, bending far over, 
 had lifted the dripping bather gallantly to terra-firma. 
 
 "I trust you are not hurt?" he said, bowing slightly, 
 while his gray eyes smiled frankly and a little mockingly 
 into her brown ones, which had lost all signs of terror 
 and had swiftly assumed a half-shy, half-pleading, and 
 wholly tender expression. 
 
 "You should not be so venturesome!" he continued, 
 still smiling mockingly, a little amused and not at all 
 taken in by her pretty minauderies. Here at close 
 quarters with her he had at once recognized the "stun- 
 
 239 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ner" of yesterday, and he owned to his thoughts that 
 though perhaps not particularly refined in appearance, 
 she was yet decidedly good-looking, that her soft eyes 
 were beautiful (expressive and wistful and luminous, de- 
 spite their coquettishly drooping lashes), her complexion 
 of cream and roses, and her dark hair very becomingly dis- 
 ordered. With a deep inclination of her head, and in 
 ardent accents, she said, dramatically, both hands pressed 
 to her heart: 
 
 "You are too good, Monsieur le Marquis too noble! 
 I owe you my life!" 
 
 Loic could have laughed aloud. The ludicrousness of 
 the situation struck him forcibly, and, indeed, realizing 
 what his mother would say could she only hear and see 
 what was passing, he had a hard struggle to keep serious. 
 
 "Oh, you little flirt," he thought, "with your ineffable 
 simagrtes! Do you think you can fool me?" If the 
 rescued dame had only laughed even smiled it wouldn't 
 have been so bad. but she was as solemn and tragic as a 
 Roman Vestal, and he thanked a merciful Providence 
 that she did not think it incumbent upon her to fall at 
 and kiss his feet, in token of her impassioned gratitude. 
 
 "May I escort you to your residence, if you are at all 
 faint?" he forced himself to say, with now preternatural 
 gravity, looking calmly into the big, brown eyes, which 
 from languishing had become two lively points of inter- 
 rogation . 
 
 "No! No! I am all right now, Monsieur le Marquis," 
 she responded, fairly gargling her bourgeois throat with 
 the grandeur of his title. "Thanks to your magnificent 
 strength and courage, I am quite well and oh! so grateful 
 to be saved from a watery grave, if only for the sake of 
 my beloved children. 
 
 "Your children? You must be joking!" .quoth the 
 
 240 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 highly entertained " hero." "Why, Madame, you are but 
 a child yourself. But pray say no more about what 
 I have done, I merely lifted you out of a puddle, and it 
 is a trifle unkind of you to make fun of me." 
 
 "Fun of you! Oh! Oh! O-o-o-oh!" the lady exclaimed, 
 her pink face more tragic than ever as she lengthened 
 her vowels in passionate deprecation of such an idea. 
 "You who rescued me so bravely, when my strength 
 was all but exhausted, when I was on the point of sink- 
 ing forevermore into this abyss!" 
 
 Loic's mirth broke out openly this time. "There you 
 are at it again!" he managed to say. "It is the height 
 of un charitableness on your part to pretend that I ac- 
 complished anything difficult or risky." 
 
 The fair stranger considered this protest sorrowfully, 
 and proceeded pleadingly to set him right. 
 
 "No, no!" she said, with quite a killing drop of the 
 eyelids and a deprecatory little shake of the head. "You 
 do not understand ; I will explain later when I have the 
 bliss of seeing you again, which I trust may be soon. 
 You have saved me, that is certain, but my emotion is 
 too great to say more now," and with a gazelle-like bound 
 she fled. 
 
 Loic's merry eyes clouded with a little mist of scorn. 
 "Sacrte poseuse !" he muttered, as, making no effort 
 whatsoever to follow her, he threw his towel once more 
 round his neck and walked slowly up the steep, sandy 
 pathway to the top of the ridge upon which the hotel 
 stood. 
 
 Still a little disgusted, at the end of his climb he went 
 through the cloister-like veranda and in at a side door 
 leading to his rooms, where he rapidly dressed himself, 
 smoking several post-ablutive cigarettes the while, and, 
 much to his valet's amazement, bursting two or three 
 
 241 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 times into regular guffaws of apparently causeless 
 laughter. 
 
 When he joined his mother in her wainscoted and mul- 
 lioned private salle a manger, she was not reading, in 
 spite of the seeming evidence of an open volume of 
 memoirs lying on her lap, and she welcomed him with a 
 rather ominous and inquisitive glance of her keen, black 
 eyes. 
 
 "Had a nice dip?" she asked, rising stiffly, and, with- 
 out offering to kiss him, taking her place at the break- 
 fast-table, drawn up near an open bow-window. She 
 seemed, in her pale mauve morning-gown profusely cloud- 
 ed with Valenciennes lace, as fresh and healthy as a sea- 
 breeze and fully as imperious and overbearing. 
 
 Loic, who was already carrying his cup of chocolate 
 greedily to his lips, choked suddenly and violently. 
 
 "You seem amused," asked Genevieve, smiling frost- 
 ily. "May I inquire what has aroused your merriment?" 
 
 "Certainly," Loic replied, rather tremulously, man- 
 fully struggling for gravity, but really shaking with sup- 
 pressed laughter. 
 
 "Well, then, do!" she ordered, staring at his crimson, 
 strangling face. "Stop laughing, can't you?" 
 
 "You're a darling, Mother, dear," he said, subduing 
 with a violent effort the twitching muscles round his 
 mouth, "but only a poor dissembler this morning. Why 
 don't you confess that you were watching my perform- 
 ances through your field glasses?" 
 
 Genevieve, with a gesture that sought to be restrained, 
 but suggested a pounce, picked up two rose-buds which 
 had fallen from the table jardiniere, and flicked them 
 out of the window with great accuracy of aim. 
 
 "You should not come and enact your love-scenes 
 within range of my balcony," she replied, viciously. 
 
 242 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Well, I'll be blowed !" Loic exclaimed, inelegantly 
 but very forcibly, his cheerful face clouding a little, and 
 in almost a peremptory tone he continued: " For Heaven's 
 sake, Mamma, don't be tragic I've had enough of that 
 sort of thing for one morning! Dear me, how you do 
 vex yourself over trifles!" 
 
 "Perhaps the meeting was fortuitous?" she replied, 
 with resolute incredulity. 
 
 "Extremely so!" Loic declared. "Oh, you needn't 
 shrug your shoulders, for that's a very accurate descrip- 
 tion of the incident!" Here was no case, he thought, 
 gleefully, that called for tact or diplomacy, or any del- 
 icate weapons. Perfect truth could be used, and he 
 would use it, since his cause was so good. "Don't be 
 silly, Mamma!" he therefore continued, with entirely 
 reawakened cheerfulness. "The whole thing can be 
 stated in a dozen words I'll tell you how it was. That 
 woman we saw yesterday on the beach is after an aristo- 
 cratic scalp-lock, and played a transparent little comedy 
 for my especial benefit. Voila tout /" 
 
 Genevieve looked at Loic's handsome, bronzed face for 
 a moment in silence. She was not to be so easily appeased. 
 
 "You looked extremely ridiculous in your r61e as 
 rescuer," she stated, sarcastically. 
 
 "I know. Thank you for reminding me of it, since 
 it also happens to be my opinion," he mildly acquiesced; 
 "but if you could only have seen the victim!" and he 
 choked violently for the second time. 
 
 "What a terrible noise you make, Loic!" Genevieve 
 cried, impatiently. " Had I not better rise and pat you 
 on the back? We'll have to pack up and leave here 
 if the pronelles of this sylvan solitude begin to run 
 after you as that class of women seems to do every- 
 where else, alas!" 
 
 243 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Genevieve firmly held and with some reason the 
 creed that under such circumstances mockery was the 
 tone best calculated to bring about a crushing finale, but, 
 like many other creeds, it does not suit all personalities 
 alike. To Loic mockery was particularly obnoxious, 
 especially now, when he was inclined to be self-righteous- 
 ly full of his innocence. 
 
 "You may otherwise be forced to add to your luggage 
 a trunkful of photographs, locks of hair, and other keep- 
 sakes," she went on, perversely, driving the "fatal ex- 
 ception" up to the hilt in her own cause. "Of course it 
 must be rather lonely here for such a Don Juan as you, 
 and, after all, the eminently desirable affairs I can now 
 clearly see peeping above your horizon will make your 
 stay much livelier. In a series the viands will doubtless 
 prove delicious! Or shall we say a hash made up of 
 native remnants and warmed over for your especial sake ? 
 Un agreable ragotit, mixed as my metaphors!" 
 
 Loic laughed quite as if he was not annoyed, but he 
 was sitting as stiff as a poker in his chair, and there was 
 a queer, intermittent light in his eyes like flashes of pre- 
 cursory lightning. The joke was becoming a sultry one. 
 
 "You're very foolish this morning," he said, with, for 
 him, incredible rudeness. "That is not the way a mother 
 should speak, I assure you." 
 
 Genevieve was momentarily at a loss how to deal with 
 such outrageous outspokenness. "Do you intend to per- 
 fect my maternal education?" she sneered. "That's 
 very thoughtful of you! I don't want to make things 
 unpleasant excepting you force me to do so, and if you 
 promise me never to speak to that woman again I'll 
 let the incident drop, but not otherwise." 
 
 "You are extraordinarily kind,'" Loic muttered, get- 
 ting quickly out of his chair and standing before the 
 
 244 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 window in a very rigid and uncompromising attitude. 
 His good resolutions were rapidly taking flight. " I don't 
 want to be again treated like a little boy who's been 
 caught stealing a pot of jam, and, what's more, I can take 
 care of myself here or anywhere else. I hope you don't 
 mind my speaking straight out what I think? No? 
 Well, before my departure for America you interfered 
 in a most unwarrantable manner in matters you should 
 have pretended to ignore I dare say from excellent mo- 
 tives but still it did great harm. Now, pray remember 
 that we came here to have a rustic little time all by our- 
 selves and that you promised not to quarrel with me. 
 That I must hold you to. I'm not eager to speak to 
 anybody, as you have been already able to see, but 
 neither am I going to give any ridiculous promises." 
 
 Genevieve's reflections were not enviable. She saw 
 that she had conjured up one of Loic's most uncomfort- 
 able and angular moods. Just then he was all elbows 
 mentally considered all elbows and unbending joints; 
 but, as usual, when anger had the better of her, all the 
 tact, the finesse, and the diplomacy with which she 
 usually conducted her worldly affairs deserted her, and 
 she made yet another faux pas. 
 
 41 We will continue as we began, then, and you will not 
 speak to a soul," she said, brutally, "or else I'll go away 
 and leave you to rusticate with your choice new ac- 
 quaintances." 
 
 Loic frowned, but by a strong effort he conquered the 
 bitter words rising in his throat and decided to try a 
 little coaxing. Really, it was ridiculous to let her go on 
 like that and risk a new falling-out for so paltry a cause. 
 
 "Will you be good?" he therefore banteringly ex- 
 claimed, catching both her little wrists in one of his 
 strong hands and looking laughingly into her fierce eyes. 
 
 245 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "You must behave nicely, Madame ma Mere, and give 
 me a good example. Our life hitherto has been a series 
 of mistakes. Don't let's begin again. So run along 
 now, put on your habit, and we'll go for a gallop on the 
 downs. Why should we stay here squabbling when 
 there are lovely empty dunes and a great, exhilarating 
 sea-wind within a yard of us ? He bent quickly, kissed 
 both the slender wrists he still held, and, playfully lifting 
 her from her chair, carried her like a feather to the door 
 of her dressing-room, calling out as she disappeared 
 within, a momentarily conquered woman: "Make haste! 
 Wind and tide don't wait for peevish Marchionesses!" 
 
 "I've mastered him!" Genevieve thought, exultantly, 
 even while she quickly obeyed him. " Mon Dien t what 
 a strong, handsome fellow he is! No wonder women 
 fall in love with him at first sight! He lifted me as if I 
 did not weigh an ounce, and yesterday how he raised from 
 the ground that orange -tree and its tub that four men 
 could not succeed in putting into place, and without the 
 slightest effort, too! He is very much like his father." 
 
 For a moment she fancied that she was twenty years 
 younger, in the great park at Kergoat, with her lord's 
 handsome eyes looking down tenderly at her. "He 
 used to be so fond of me, poor fellow!" she mused, co- 
 quettishly fastening her faultless riding -hat before the 
 glass. He lay in his grave by the restless Breton sea, 
 and she seldom remembered him now, but still he had 
 loved her as no one else ever had, and somehow she sud- 
 denly felt a tinge and twinge of regret. 
 
 "Poor Loic!" she murmured, softly, to herself, and so 
 went to join his son, who, by a time-honored family 
 tradition, had been called after him. 
 
 It had been an unusually warm morning, but now a 
 cool wind was blowing from the sea, the whole land 
 
 246 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 was enmeshed in a web of gold, and high in the zenith a 
 few feathers of snowy cloud floated on the deep, azure 
 sky. The tide was on the ebb, and the smooth, hard 
 sand of the lower beach, still wet from its recent retreat, 
 made an ideal riding-track. 
 
 Quite reassured and proportionately exuberant, Gen- 
 evieve sat graceful and lithe in her saddle, breathing 
 deep of the vivifying air, in a fever of high spirits and 
 really sparkling with wit and brilliant repartee. She took 
 infinite pains to make herself agreeable, and was amply 
 repaid, for their bonne entente rose in crescendo with 
 more frequent bursts of laughter as they raced side by 
 side on the broad, shining, ripple-fringed sand strip. 
 
 Loic rode his favorite hunter, Cceur de Roi, an ex- 
 tremely difficult animal with high breeding in every 
 line of him, bright chestnut in color, darkening well at 
 all points, with firm muscles quivering beneath the satiny 
 skin, and a small, lean head incredibly intelligent and 
 eager. His rider could not let him go to his full will, for, 
 although Genevieve's horse was plentifully provided with 
 good racing strain and reckless dash, he could not have 
 held his own with a "crack" fit to win the Derby, and 
 thus Cceur de Roi champed impatiently at the snaffle 
 and fretted a little, his delicate ears twitching nervously 
 with a great desire to be let into his greyhound stride and to 
 sweep out till his neat hoofs hardly touched the level sands. 
 
 This sort of thing made Loic's heart beat fast with a 
 sort of headlong delight as his knees pressed closer into 
 the magnificent hunter's flanks, though his face remained 
 very quiet. Surely a minute of life like this was worth 
 ten years of ordinary jogging, and, bending forward, he 
 patted the glossy neck caressingly, murmuring quite un- 
 consciously, "Was there ever a woman half worth a per- 
 fect horse?" 
 
 247 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Genevieve burst into merry laughter. "Ha!" she 
 cried, saucily, "I'm charmed to hear you say that, tout 
 amour-propre d part, because I'm very much of your 
 opinion!" 
 
 Inwardly Loic made a swift reservation in favor of 
 Gaidik, who he confessed to himself was better even than 
 any perfect horse a great concession in a man so pas- 
 sionately fond of the equine race. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Mamma," he laughingly apolo- 
 gized. " I did not realize that I'd been speaking aloud. 
 How you would enjoy the West, though! There is noth- 
 ing over here that can outshine the sensations one ex- 
 periences there. To run after a bunch of unbroken 
 horses that won't be caught, no matter who throws the 
 rope, is something to live for. Our ponies, too they were 
 little dandies, wise and quick on their feet and alive 
 with enthusiasm. You should have seen them at work! 
 No feint hoodwinked them, and the immense seriousness 
 of purpose they displayed made the matter sometimes 
 one of high comedy, and, flink! ah, nothing but light- 
 ning could be quicker; their muscles fairly flowed under 
 their skins!" 
 
 "And tell me, Loic, was it the ponies alone you ad- 
 mired out West?" Genevieve asked, teasingly, her big, 
 black eyes flashing mischief at him. 
 
 "Why, no," he replied, slackening the pace and turn- 
 ing in his saddle almost to face her. "I made many 
 good friends there. The punchers, most of them, are as 
 interesting and lovable as the ponies. It's all very well 
 to talk of gentlemen, but I truly believe that the only 
 place where the genuine article is still to be found is on 
 the plains. They speak another language than ours 
 in more senses than one but theirs is the winning one 
 in my opinion." 
 
 248 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "And the feminine contingent?" she questioned, with 
 half-closed lids, smoothing her horse's mane with her 
 platinum-topped riding-stick. 
 
 "That's a different affair. On the plains I mean at 
 the frontier there are no women at all, and in the 
 clusters of wooden shanties which do duty for towns out 
 there, and are usually glorified by such euphonic appel- 
 lations as Frozen Dog, or Panther Creek, or something 
 equally simple and striking, the woman is merely the 
 female of man." 
 
 "Not very dangerous, then!" she laughed. 
 
 " Oh, it depends sometimes I'heure I' occasion 
 rherbe tendre, vide old Lafontaine. You see, it's all 
 according to the point of view and the state of one's 
 mind." 
 
 "Your state of mind, methinks, is always un reassuring 
 on that score," she observed, with a mocking little wink, 
 "but I'm trusting to your promise now, so let's be off 
 towards our lunch." And, touching her hunter with her 
 tiny spur, she set off like a whirlwind, while he, playfully 
 threatening her with an upraised finger, cried after her: 
 
 "You perverse woman, you know that I promised 
 nothing!" 
 
 When people are in good temper such sayings become 
 of notable insignificance, but subsequently Genevieve was 
 destined often bitterly to remember that particular one. 
 
 Just then, however, Loic's straightforward, wholesome 
 soul was brimming full of fun the little scene of the 
 morning was forgotten and the ingredients of his 
 thoughts were amusement, joie-de-vivre, and hope for the 
 future. Being no analyst of self, he could not have 
 said which one preponderated, but what he knew per- 
 fectly well was that he felt uncommonly " fit" and happy, 
 and that Gaidik's absence was the only shadow in the 
 
 17 2 49 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 picture. So on they flew, covering mile after mile at 
 the same swallow-like pace until Cceur de Roi undertook 
 to display his theatrical talents. Some pigs and sheep 
 suddenly hove in sight, trotting peacefully down a nar- 
 row bramble-bordered path leading to the beach. Cceur 
 de Roi had witnessed similar processions since his ten- 
 derest youth, but probably out of revenge for the com- 
 parative inaction and decorum forced upon him during 
 the preceding hours, he treated it as an altogether ter- 
 rifying and unusual spectacle. Down went his lean, 
 aristocratic head, and after standing stock-still for two 
 full seconds, as if unable to take in at one glance the full 
 horror of the apparition, he reared straight on end, 
 twisted himself round, and bolted. 
 
 That particular portion of the beach unfortunately 
 abounded with steep banks and rocky outcrops, where 
 a fall would have been a precarious venture for horse and 
 rider, but Loic steered the crazed animal straight past 
 the latter and over the former with amazing skill, al- 
 lowed him to dash at speed up a narrow, meandering 
 path between two thickets of whin, and finally managed 
 triumphantly to land him in the midst of a dense growth 
 of young sand-pines, which, enmeshing the culprit's legs, 
 brought him to a harmless and inglorious standstill. 
 That feat accomplished, Loic bent over and contem- 
 plated the quaking, trembling, lather - drenched animal, 
 in whom all ambition seemed to have been suddenly 
 extinguished, and muttered reproachfully but in his gen- 
 tlest tones: "You silly fool, you ought to get an A num- 
 ber one thrashing for this, but it wouldn't do you any 
 good at all, so get yourself out of here and try to be- 
 have a bit. This must be your off day." 
 
 Truly Cceur de Roi extricated himself from the baby 
 pines and tall genesta bushes as if he were a model 
 
 250 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of discretion, and was looking as demure and mincing as 
 a dancing-master when he was rejoined by his stable- 
 comrade, arriving at full tilt with an extraordinarily 
 irate lady on his back. 
 
 "That's a nice trick he played you!" she cried, pulling 
 up alongside. " I hope you thrashed him soundly. He's 
 been working for this the whole morning." 
 
 "No, I didn't; I don't cut horses to ribbons for a tri- 
 fling bit of temper," Loic answered, calmly ; "and, what's 
 more, I'm inclined to forgive a good horse anything." 
 
 "Nonsense! I'd flay him alive," she hissed, through 
 clinched teeth, furious at the fright she had sustained, 
 "I'd give him a bucketing that would take the fine edge 
 off his temper for a couple of weeks at least." 
 
 " No, you wouldn't," Loic quietly responded, once more 
 setting Cceur de Roi going, and, in order to cut short 
 all further recriminations, he began to sing in his me- 
 lodious barytone: 
 
 "A-workin' in de cotton-fields, 
 Ah really thought A'd die; 
 De sun so hot, Ah froze to deff 
 Susannah, don't you cry!" 
 
 "You are the most exasperating boy, sometimes!" 
 Genevieve exclaimed, irritably "simply odious!" 
 
 But Loic was not to be interrupted thus, and the chorus 
 of his song went flying down -wind like a silver arrow: 
 
 "Oh, Susannah I 
 
 Don't you cry for me; 
 Ah'm gwine to Louisiana, 
 
 Wid mah banjo on man knee!" 
 
 This persistence made Genevieve slow down and give 
 him an offended look intended to rebuke his levity, 
 
 251 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Nice song, that!" she observed, dryly. "Know any 
 more of it?" 
 
 "Loads!" Loic replied, with feeling. "You just see! 
 When we get home I'll haul out my banjo and give you 
 the rest to put you in a good temper. It's much jollier 
 than your grand melodies made in Germany, which al- 
 ways make me ready to cry for something I've forgotten 
 all about." 
 
 "Loic!" Genevieve expostulated, really shocked, for 
 he was passionately fond of really fine music, as she well 
 knew, and she herself was what since his return from 
 the States he termed a regular "crank" on the subject. 
 
 She would have provoked a discussion of the subject, 
 but at that moment, turning into the last bend before 
 reaching the hotel, they came abruptly face to face with 
 two feminine figures which could scarcely have produced 
 a greater effect upon Genevieve if they had sported Gor- 
 gon heads to wit, the fair Inconnue of yesterday and 
 her inseparable and somewhat gawky offspring, both 
 gorgeously apparelled in pink and white and azure, with 
 such an abundance of fluttering laces and streaming 
 ribbons that Cceur de Roi shied and gave for a second 
 time unmistakable evidences of a desire to bolt. 
 
 As they caught sight of the Kergoats they hurried for- 
 ward in vast excitement, stumbling awkwardly over the 
 loose gravel in their agitation , and courtesied to the ground. 
 Genevieve lifted her purely ornamental eye-glass to the 
 bridge of her delicate nose, stared, her cold eyes imper- 
 tinently opened to their widest extent as if she could 
 scarcely believe their testimony, and then turned her 
 head away with the air of one who has just seen a wholly 
 disgusting object, while Loic, inwardly cursing, hastily 
 removed his hat. 
 
 "Damn it!" he ejaculated, as soon as they were out of 
 
 252 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 earshot of the two women, who had turned scarlet; "you 
 are really too bad, Mamma!" He was very angry. 
 
 Genevieve transferred her indignant looks to him at 
 once. She did not like this rough and blunt way of put- 
 ting things. It was a Kergoat habit which she herself 
 adopted when she felt like it, but so much the less did 
 that make her admire it in others. So she asked, severely, 
 looking at him with unutterable scorn, "Why because 
 I won't consent to admire such guys for your sake?" 
 
 "Not at all," he answered, curtly, "but because there 
 is no sense in being so incredibly rude to perfectly harm- 
 less people." And as they had now reached the hotel 
 porch, he helped her to alight, threw the reins of both 
 horses to the waiting groom, and silently followed her 
 up-stairs and into the sitting-room. 
 
 "I know all you're going to say," she declared im- 
 mediately, dashing her stick and gloves on a table with 
 extraordinary violence, "but you may as well hold your 
 tongue. You used to make your sister dance to your 
 piping, but you won't make me, so you need not think 
 that you'll ever ram those she-beasts down my throat. 
 You'll have to leave me out of such combinations, if you 
 please." 
 
 " Is that the tone you mean to take with me ?" he asked, 
 sitting down on the edge of the table and looking her 
 straight in the eyes. 
 
 "Certainly, if you don't pull up and change your at- 
 titude. I've warned you once already, so don't be an 
 ass, Loic! I, for my part, don't propose to see you sink 
 back into your old ways, and let me tell you candidly 
 that you're on the high-road to it." 
 
 Loic's face darkened. " Don't be silly!" he said, frown- 
 ing. "You know very well that it was not worthy of 
 you to cut those wretched women as you did, and I wish 
 
 2 53 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 you wouldn't make me all these scenes. Good God! 
 you'll end by making me regret that I ever came back!" 
 
 "Are you yearning for your 'outfit' as you call it- 
 that you named after Gaidik ?" she demanded, tauntingly. 
 
 "Upon my word!" he cried, thoroughly exasperated. 
 "Talk of the rows made by jealous mistresses! Why, 
 they are milk and water to this." 
 
 "Well, if they have as much provocation as I have, I 
 can't blame them!" Genevieve continued, fiercely. "Men 
 like you are enough to exasperate any woman. You cut 
 your own throat every hour in the day, and think your- 
 self all the better for it. You will listen to no reasoning, 
 obey no dictates save your own, and you think that you 
 can have your own way always, always, always!" She 
 spoke with bitter emphasis, her transparent little nostrils 
 dilated, her lips curled back ferociously, her eyes emit- 
 ting positive fire-sparks, and Loic, looking at her, felt a 
 sinking of the heart. 
 
 "I don't know," he said, wearily, "why I should stand 
 such bullying, and for nothing, too." 
 
 "Bullying? What do you mean?" she interrupted. 
 "Are you too hopelessly dull to see that I'm only speak- 
 ing in your best interest, warning you of the pitfalls that 
 have come near to destroying you a hundred times al- 
 ready ? You're enough to make me give up ever saying 
 a word to you at all." 
 
 " I trust you will if it makes you fly at me like this. 
 It is really awful to have one's nose bitten oft a dozen 
 times a day through no fault of one's own." His patience 
 was now nearly gone, and no wonder. 
 
 "Very well, I'll say no more, if that's the way you 
 take it excepting this: If you get into a fresh scrape, 
 I tell you frankly I shall not help you out of it this time. 
 These intrigues of yours are positive quicksands in which 
 
 254 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 you flounder and sink until pulled out by main force. 
 If you are going to jump into a new one now, don't ex- 
 pect me to throw you a rope that's all. I'll let you be 
 sucked down without the slightest remorse. I hope you 
 comprehend," she repeated, stamping her foot, "although 
 to speak to you is just as profitable as attempting to 
 fill a sieve with water. You have a morality altogether 
 your own, which reflects no sort of credit upon its in-* 
 ventor, and a stubbornness equal to that of a vicious 
 mule. I don't envy your wife, if you ever marry. She'll 
 be a perfect martyr, that's what she'll be!" 
 
 Loic's ears were tingling as if he had just had them 
 boxed; honest anger absolutely prevented him from say- 
 ing a word in reply, and for the life of him he could not 
 imagine what had stung his mother so. 
 
 As was his wont when, really angry, he appeared more 
 than usually impassive, but inside he was boiling with 
 rage and mortification ; the more hotly because he had 
 so solemnly promised himself not to follow her any more 
 upon the squabbling terrain which she so dearly loved. 
 All his life long people had found it advisable to be cir- 
 cumspect in their mode of addressing him, and, except- 
 ing the captain of the Gaston- Auger, no one but this 
 mother who pretended to love him so passionately had 
 ever handled him . with such brutality; no, not even 
 when, a wofully helpless tenderfoot, he was serving his 
 apprenticeship as a cowboy, getting up in the dark, 
 bitter winter mornings to pitchfork the bedding out of 
 the stables, had he been thus spoken to, thus humiliated! 
 He felt that she was trying to make him absurd, odious, 
 contemptible in his own sight. Afraid to trust himself 
 to speak, he slowly lighted a cigarette, and began to fol- 
 low with sleepy eyes the smoke-rings he carelessly blew 
 into the air. 
 
 255 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 This was too much for Genevieve. This calm, out- 
 wardly quite impervious to insult, seemed to her intoler- 
 ably insolent, but that he should even refuse to fight 
 was absolutely insupportable, and, suddenly pushing past 
 him, she rushed through the door-curtains and noisily 
 locked herself up in her room. 
 
XIII 
 
 Tongues of sombre flame 
 Vain regret doth mark, 
 
 In the dark, 
 
 Whispering, " Once a spark 
 Were we I" Oh, the shame, 
 
 The cruel blame! 
 
 The sad heart doth hark 
 
 In the dark! 
 
 The Clock, II. M. M. 
 
 IT was Sunday morning an exquisite Sunday morning, 
 graced by a brilliant sun, a gentle sea-breeze laden with 
 wholesome, briny smells, and an unruffled sea of a very 
 dark blue, plentifully besprinkled with shifting, dancing 
 lights. Summer had now definitely given place to the 
 mellow Vendeen autumn which ever testifies to an honest 
 desire of making itself agreeable. A soft haze of ethe- 
 realized moisture hung over the distant marshes, and the 
 gorse and bracken made great pools of gold above the 
 gently undulating dunes. 
 
 For a few days a surprising peace had reigned between 
 Loic and his mother, thanks to his untiring efforts to 
 please her in all things. It had long been a maxim with 
 him that courtesy is one of the greatest duties which one 
 owes to those with whom one is most intimate, besides 
 which he wisely foresaw that life would become absolutely 
 impossible if he did not humor her every whim ; so, though 
 promising himself to shorten as much as he could a tete-a 
 tete which seemed to create so many occasions of quarrel, 
 
 257 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 he showed a constantly smiling and cheerful face, and 
 devoted his entire time to her amusement. But she was 
 not satisfied even so. She was certain that so much 
 amiability must needs conceal abysses of deceit. 
 
 That very morning she had developed at breakfast a 
 strange and unexplained desire to shun the pretty, square- 
 towered gray church, where, since her arrival, she always 
 heard mass driving thither with Loic along a delicious 
 mossy road bordered by thick fields of heather and had 
 entreated him to go without her, urging that it was the 
 duty of the higher classes to give a good example, and 
 deluging him with such a flood of proverbial philosophy 
 that to church Loic had actually gone, although rather 
 surprised at this latest fancy; for, since their last grand 
 scene, his maternal tyrant had scarcely allowed him to 
 be for five minutes together out of her immediate neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 Hardly had he disappeared than Genevieve, fresh-faced 
 as a baby after its bath, and dressed with exquisite sim- 
 plicity in pearl-gray etamine, rustled across her dressing- 
 room, caught up one of her favorite lace mantillas from 
 the sofa, and hurried out by the side entrance, humming, 
 as she went, under her breath: 
 
 "Voulez-vous entendre 
 Comment ?a finit, 
 
 Mon ami! 
 Comment ?a finit 1 
 C'est la pie au nid 
 Qu'il faut prendre, 
 C'est la pie au nid, 
 
 Mon ami I" 
 
 She considered this old Breton refrain extraordinarily 
 appropriate to the present occasion, and her sotto-voce 
 rendering of it was, therefore, downright "vicious" if 
 one may thus express it vicious and full of meaning: 
 
 258 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "C'est la pie au nid 
 Qu'il faut prendre, 
 C'est la pie au nid, 
 Mon ami!" 
 
 Yes, she intended to catch la pie au nid the wily 
 magpie napping. 
 
 It had naturally been a nuisance, during the last few 
 days, to curb her tongue and make a lot of nasty little 
 secret inquiries; which had permitted her or, at least, 
 so she thought to peep with X-ray precision at what 
 she fancied to be the very bones of the situation. 
 
 To be sure, she had as yet been quite unable to sub- 
 stantiate her deeply rooted belief that Loic was playing 
 her false, but the idea that there was something wrong 
 going on behind her back roused in her a kind of frenzy, 
 emphasized tenfold by Loic's extraordinary quietness 
 and pliability. All this made her as nervous as a cat, 
 and her hand trembled a little as she opened her sun- 
 shade and set off to undertake a fine, bold piece of de- 
 tective work, for she at one and the same time hoped and 
 feared to make some important discovery. So wrought 
 up was she, indeed, that the idea of spying upon her son 
 did not seem to her in any way a discreditable proceeding. 
 She put it to herself that it was her bounden duty to 
 verify her suspicions, to forestall any manoeuvres on the 
 part of the obnoxious Inconnue, and thus, quite blind 
 to the questionable taste of her proceedings, she hurried 
 along, shaking with suppressed excitement. 
 
 This obnoxious female was, she had discovered, the 
 very consolable widow of a capitaine cabotteur (master 
 of a small trading-schooner), one Billot by name, who 
 had, some years before, succumbed to the dread clutches 
 of delirium tremens. The most vivid imagination could 
 not conceive a more obvious type of consolable widow; 
 
 2 S9 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 moreover, she was about thirty-five, and, as has been 
 above reported, she had a very pretty face and figure. 
 Her inseparable daughter, aged seventeen, was not by 
 any means as good-looking, possessing a snub nose, large, 
 pale-blue eyes in no way beautiful, but misleadingly 
 innocent of expression looking out from under a typi- 
 cally unintellectual forehead and an elaborate tangle of 
 brown curls. Nature had never turned out, even in her 
 most humorous moments, a mother and daughter more 
 dissimilar physically at least for in other respects 
 they had many points of resemblance. The fact that 
 they both had exquisite pink - and - white complexions 
 and admirable teeth created an impression of likeness 
 that totally disappeared at a second glance, and served 
 only to emphasize their essential difference of type. 
 
 Madame Billot possessed great perspicuity, and, in 
 many ways, was a remarkably clever woman. As soon 
 as a benevolent Fate had rid her of her drunken and 
 brutal spouse, she had made up her mind that she was not 
 going to revolve for the remainder of her natural life in 
 the humble circles to which she had been born, and in 
 spite of her lamentable lack of distinction she had already 
 managed to ascend several rungs of the ladder above 
 that assigned to her by a just and discerning Providence ; 
 but Rose was a colorless sort of girl, a convenient foil to 
 this gay little mother, and, after a fashion, a chaperone 
 with whom she could in all propriety embark upon many 
 adventures impossible for a "lone, lorn widow" to under- 
 take in straitlaced provincial France without her entirely 
 losing what caste she may possess. 
 
 These facts, collected with infinite patience by Gene- 
 vieve, passed vaguely through her mind as she hastened 
 silent-footed over the short salt-grass behind a hedge of 
 tall furze. Two merrily hopping sand -pipers turned 
 
 260 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 wary eyes skyward at her approach, and with a sud- 
 den whir of their tiny wings followed their tentative 
 glances into the ether; but little did the Marquise heed 
 their graceful antics. Her ire had been aroused by what 
 she called the Billot woman's simpering finesses; and, 
 being naturally of a passionate and somewhat vindictive 
 disposition, the mere fact that this person dared to cast 
 her nets around Loic set her revolving all sorts of im- 
 practicable schemes of vengeance. The thought of his 
 own discomfiture, if she could catch him flagrantly dis- 
 obeying her orders, was just then sweet to her taste, 
 and from past experience in similar affairs she had a sort 
 of serene confidence that, given the opportunity, such 
 would be the case hence her refusal to accompany him 
 to church! 
 
 She walked quickly along for some twenty minutes, 
 following the screened path which would lead her pres- 
 ently to the little house where the Billots had rented 
 rooms a little house owned by a fisherman rather better 
 off than his brother sea-toilers, and which stood in the 
 middle of a neat little garden sheltered from the de- 
 structive ocean winds by an eminently picturesque 
 thicket of sand -pines. 
 
 Finally she turned a corner the last before that "den 
 of iniquity," as she mentally denominated the Billots' 
 temporary abode gained the foot of the ridge, up which 
 she climbed breathlessly, afraid to arrive too late for 
 on the mellow air the Elevation chimes of the little 
 church had long ere this been wafted towards her and 
 was just in time to see, through the capricious interstices 
 of the furze and that with extreme distinctness Loic's 
 trap turn quickly and rather recklessly into the tiny gate- 
 way of the "den" and pull up sharply before its honey- 
 suckle-draped porch. 
 
 261 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Horror of horrors! Beside Loic sat a woman in a 
 brilliant pink dress and an immense and elaborate pink 
 hat, whom Genevieve instantly recognized as Madame 
 Billot daughterless for once! The Marquise's quick 
 eye took in the whole scene in a second: the woman's 
 flamboyant attire, the way she put her foot on the step 
 as she alighted, her giggling graces, all spoke of a certain 
 class abhorrent to her. Ah! how revolting men were, 
 and how unspeakably false and credulous and imbecile! 
 So Loic was really interested in that "she-beast," and 
 coquetted with her in spite of all her maternal warnings ; 
 for there was no mistaking the bantering attitude of the 
 tall, manly figure in white serge and straw hat, the arm 
 imperceptibly lingering about her slender waist after 
 lifting her down, the teasing, merry laughter as she urged 
 this royal catch to enter, the -momentary hesitation and 
 the final yielding, accompanied by a well-known little 
 shrug of the broad shoulders which always meant with 
 him a sort of careless Kismet! 
 
 It never occurred to the infuriated watcher that, after 
 all, the whole affair was so far perfectly harmless that the 
 fact of his driving the widow back from church on that 
 sultry morning meant very little from a man like Loic, 
 and that if she willed it the game was still completely in 
 her own hands. No! She accepted the shallow evidence 
 of her eyes with eager avidity ; nothing warned her against 
 a too-prompt credulity, and she did not accord him even 
 the benefit of the doubt. Indeed, a rage such as even she 
 had never as yet experienced was rapidly making her abso- 
 lutely incapable of any sort of cool judgment. What- 
 ever she might have intended to do in the event of such 
 complete success as she had just attained, she was pos- 
 sessed now by but one idea, and, turning on her heel, she 
 literally flew down the road to where Loic's groom was 
 
 262 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 slowly walking his horses. To jump in, snatch the reins 
 from the hands of the amazed man, and put the mettle- 
 some cobs to their best pace was the work of a mere 
 moment. 
 
 "Ah! that's the way, is it?" she muttered, between 
 clinched teeth, flicking the sleek flanks of the pair of 
 chestnut beauties with the whip, quite indifferent whether 
 the still gasping servant heard or not "that's the way, 
 is it? Well, I'll show you a trick worth two of that, my 
 dutiful son!" 
 
 She was completely beside herself, recking nothing of 
 consequences, and in a mood to kill had she at that mo- 
 ment come face to face with the cause of all this disturb- 
 ance. How sincerely she envied those women of ruder 
 ages who could hire bravoes to rid them of what they 
 loathed, none but herself knew. Willingly would she 
 have paid a heavy price to see this unutterable widow 
 dead; but, alas, she lived in a world in which such deeds 
 seemed impossible, and she laughed a bitter little laugh 
 of regret and misery. 
 
 To have -reconquered her Loic, and to feel him once 
 more slipping through her fingers, was a torture too 
 great for her to endure. Would this coarse, common, 
 hideous creature succeed in robbing her of him, be it but 
 for a few weeks? Her overwrought imagination saw 
 ahead of her, difficulties without number arising like 
 sharp stones on an endless road, and her tortured pride 
 of race and of motherhood writhed like some delicate 
 creature caught in a steel trap. But she would teach 
 him an unforgettable lesson, and that at once ; for it would 
 be she who would leave him this time, leave him publicly, 
 with eclat, as if his mere presence, when returning from 
 that woman's side, was too great a contamination. Loic 
 was right. No betrayed mistress could have done more. 
 
 263 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 The short distance to the hotel was covered with 
 lightning-like speed, and when the panting horses stopped 
 before its shady veranda she turned to the groom, and in 
 accents which left no possibility of evasion she com- 
 manded: "I forbid you to go back for Monsieur le Mar- 
 quis. Wait here; I'll be down directly." 
 
 Fury lent her wings. She ran up-stairs like a girl of 
 fifteen, burst into the room where her maid sat at work 
 on some dainty bits of lace, and cried, angrily twisting her 
 long suede gloves into a rope, and as rapidly unwinding 
 them: "Quick! Hurry up! put on your hat; give me 
 mine, and a travelling-cloak; we're off this minute!" 
 The astonished maid started to her feet, but, warned by 
 her mistress's expression that this was no time for re- 
 monstrances or observations, hastened to comply with 
 these orders, so startling and incomprehensible, although 
 twenty years in her mistress's service had made her 
 thoroughly conversant with her extraordinary whims 
 and moods. The confidence Genevieve had in her was, 
 after a fashion, of an intimate kind. There were, of 
 course, certain things Madame la Marquise did not 
 tell Nicole, but, apart from these few exceptions, she 
 spoke very freely to this discreet woman, especially when 
 she was in difficulties, and so, as she helped her feverishly 
 to pack a few indispensable things in a couple of hand- 
 bags, she acquainted her, in a few words, with what had 
 just happened. 
 
 "But, Madame la Marquise," the woman ventured to 
 say, "Monsieur Loic will never forgive this, and also it 
 will throw him right into that woman's arms it surely 
 will! Please, please do not leave him like that!" 
 
 Nicole might very possibly be right, but Genevieve's 
 anger and resentment were still at a white heat and made 
 reasoning an impossibility. "I don't care a rap what 
 
 264 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 happens next!" she exclaimed, tying a veil violently over 
 her burning face. "Whatever he now does matters very 
 little to me, because I am through with Loic until he 
 comes to beg my pardon on his knees, and I should ad- 
 vise you to remember, Nicole, that I'm not inclined to 
 accept observations on this matter. We must be gone 
 before he has time to return; that's all you've got to 
 think of." 
 
 So completely had she lost all self-control that she 
 began to lash out execrations not only at the widow, or 
 even Loic, but at many others besides who had nothing 
 whatsoever to do with the affair. Oh, how she hated 
 everybody! Even her vindictive dislike of Gaidik rose 
 up in her with redoubled fury that absurd, red-haired, 
 pale-faced little thing who had led him at will, and 
 had been his confidante always, while she, the mother, 
 had no influence, no control, no voice in any of his 
 affairs ! 
 
 Vainly did the now greatly alarmed Nicole attempt 
 to soothe these vituperations; the Marquise would listen 
 to nothing, but talked, talked, talked, while she flung her 
 jewels pell-mell into their travelling-case and capsized 
 every object in the room. 
 
 In spite of this disconcerting confusion, it took the two 
 women a surprisingly short time to get ready, so simple 
 were the preparations, and barely half an hour after, 
 catching her pie au nid, Gene vie ve de Kergoat was 
 driving to the nearest railway station as fast as Loic's 
 cobs could put hoof to the ground, leaving a sheet of 
 paper upon his toilet-table, on which she had scribbled 
 in enormous characters: 
 
 "I've had enough of your treacheries and falsehoods. When 
 you feel like begging my pardon and behaving like a gentleman 
 you can join me at Kergoat, but not before." 
 18 265 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 This message, heavily underscored, was left in plain 
 sight for any chance comer to read, which unpardonable 
 deed called forth some more timid protestations from 
 poor Nicole; but her exasperated mistress, having vio- 
 lently declared that she was not going to "mince mat- 
 ters," and that everybody was welcome to know what 
 she thought of her son's conduct, she was compelled to 
 desist, although she well knew that this last insult was 
 not one which her young master would easily condone. 
 Another surprise for this wretched son lay in glittering 
 shivers and splinters on the floor of his mother's pretty 
 salon a charming little gilt wheelbarrow-basket filled 
 with camellias which he had given her on the previous 
 evening, and which she had broken, torn asunder, and 
 trampled underfoot, simply because it reminded her of 
 him and of the many, many happy hours they had spent 
 there together since his return. 
 
 While all this was happening, Loic was sitting in the 
 little whitewashed parlor of the cottage where Madame 
 Billot had momentarily established her Lares and Penates 
 consisting of a gaudy petroleum lamp, a few hideous 
 knick-knacks, a couple of plush-covered albums, and half 
 a dozen cushions of an awesome and terrible pattern! 
 The view from the muslin-draped windows, it is true, 
 was well worth looking at, for the garden had attained 
 that fine flower and flavor that the early autumn 
 brings with it, which same might as truthfully have been 
 said of the fair hostess, who, almost beside herself with 
 joy at her unexpected good - fortune, beamed from a 
 deep, chintz-covered arm-chair upon "Monsieur le Mar- 
 quis" with all the mellowing charm of her thirty-five 
 years. 
 
 It was not wise of him, and Loic knew it, to awaken 
 even by so absolutely accidental a visit this wily siren's 
 
 266 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 hopes; but, to do him justice, it never occurred to him 
 that he could be taken seriously, and when he had caught 
 sight of her limping painfully on her extravagantly high 
 heels along the hot, dusty road, he had almost instinctive- 
 ly pulled up and offered her the vacant seat by his side, 
 just as he would have offered it to any aged crone en- 
 countered under similar circumstances. At least, that is 
 what he told himself, but, under the circumstances, it is 
 very probable that, little as he had thought of seeking 
 this opportunity, now that it had presented itself, a 
 truly unconscious reminiscence of his mother's bullying 
 quickened his polite instincts. He sat laughing good- 
 naturedly at her minauderies for half an hour or so, and 
 then, getting up, made his adieux rather abruptly, for he 
 suddenly felt an undefined dread of some impending 
 contretemps, and the widow's silly simperings seemed all 
 at once intolerable to him. 
 
 With a sense of relief quite disproportionate indeed 
 to the circumstances, he bowed himself out, opened the 
 door leading to the diminutive porch, and looked up and 
 down the road for his trap, but instead of the perfectly 
 appointed equipage he had expected to see, there was only 
 a dingy sand-gatherer's cart crawling up the road behind 
 a couple of sorry mules. Otherwise the long, straight 
 chaussee was entirely empty. 
 
 Amazed and greatly annoyed, Loic gave vent to an 
 energetic expletive: "Where the devil can the idiot have 
 driven to!" he continued, half aloud, a swift misgiving 
 making his voice shake a little, and without further good- 
 byes to Madame Billot, standing within the small hall 
 door, he hurried away in search of his vanished trap. 
 Quickly he took a turn around the little pine grove, al- 
 though it was patent that nothing could be concealed 
 there, glanced once more up and down the road, and, 
 
 267 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 realizing the uselessness of his quest, set off at a rattling 
 pace towards the hotel. 
 
 Although he invariably retained in action all the cool- 
 ness which insures success in most human pursuits, and 
 never grew nervous or apprehensive whatever the cir- 
 cumstances might be, nevertheless that walk home was 
 tense with unpleasant presentiments. Again and again 
 he asked himself what could possibly have made an 
 admirably trained servant like his groom disobey orders 
 and leave him so summarily in the lurch. At last a sud- 
 den idea seized him. Could his mother have played him 
 this very extraordinary trick ? But no, that was quite im- 
 possible; for how could she have divined that he would 
 drive the widow home ? Still his horses, like the prophet 
 Elijah's, could not have taken flight to Heaven, although 
 he felt almost tempted to gaze skyward for some trace of 
 them among the fleecy little clouds sailing slowly from 
 behind the island! Then he heartily cursed himself for 
 having accepted Genevieve's diaphanous excuse for re- 
 maining at home alone. Extraordinary as it might 
 appear, she must be at the bottom of all this. Restless, 
 impatient, eager for the quicker falling behind of the 
 various landmarks punctuating his road, he hastened on; 
 but it was, nevertheless, already very much past mid- 
 day when he found himself at last at the top of the path 
 leading to the hotel gardens. 
 
 As he was especially desirous before knowing more 
 about this strange affair to avoid being seen by his 
 mother thus hurrying home on foot, Loic made a wide 
 circuit round the building; for by crossing the gardens 
 he could approach his favorite side entrance without 
 being detected. A few hundred yards more brought 
 him to the stables, where he vainly cast a passing glance 
 pf inquiry for his missing trap, and, skirting a broad 
 
 268 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 parterre aglow with geraniums and petunias, he pushed 
 the creeper-wreathed door and entered, taking the narrow 
 staircase in four bounds. Then the whole throng of 
 suspicions and anxieties, that had seemed a minute before 
 utterly beyond the horizon of credibility, took shape and 
 consistence, for he stood confronted by the blank, dis- 
 ordered rooms and the incredible confusion caused by 
 Genevieve's frantic departure. 
 
 The window-curtains were pulled back, and one, caught 
 by the edge of the dressing-table, slanted into the room 
 with something desolate in its twisted, crumpled folds. 
 The sliding-doors of a wardrobe gaped apart, revealing a 
 silky mass of disarranged dresses, one of them, an ex- 
 quisite tea-gown of amethyst-hued crepe de Chine, lying 
 doubled up with outspread, flowing sleeves upon the 
 floor, like a headless corpse. Chairs had been moved 
 from their places, even the sofas had been pulled from 
 their stations against the wall, and in one corner was the 
 crushed and trampled little wheelbarrow. Everything 
 cried aloud of violence and of the brutality of blind anger. 
 Loic gasped at the sight of so much anarchy in those 
 charming rooms, which his mother had filled with her 
 delicate elegance, and, turning sharply on his heel, marched 
 into his own adjoining suite, where his eyes at once fell 
 upon the insulting note pinned to the white velvet pin- 
 cushion her dainty fingers had made for him but a few 
 days ago. He pulled the sheet of paper from its restrain- 
 ing pin, gazed amazedly at it for a second, and then tore 
 it four times across, his face turning almost livid with 
 fury. 
 
 "Damnation! What ails the woman?" he cried, fling- 
 ing the shredded pieces to the ground ; then he burst into 
 a laugh that would have made Genevieve shiver could 
 she have heard it. "Well, she's done it to some purpose 
 
 269 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 this time!" he muttered, falling into a chair by the win- 
 dow. He felt suddenly battered and tired, as if he had 
 received a blow on the head. After a few moments he 
 took out his cigarette-case, struck a match, lit a cigarette, 
 and began to smoke, looking unseeingly and vacantly 
 before him, like one who rests himself after some great 
 physical exertion ; but in a very little while he rose and 
 rang the bell, with no gentle hand, for his valet, in order 
 to discover, if possible, what had really happened. 
 
 When he heard what the man had to tell, and also the 
 gratifying fact that the whole hotel was in an uproar over 
 Madame la Marquise's sensational departure, his lips 
 curled with quiet disdain. 
 
 "That," he said, with extreme composure, "does not 
 in the least matter, for I do not intend to give them the 
 pleasure of my presence here long. You will please pack 
 up all my things at once, give notice of our leaving, and 
 send off Hortense (Genevieve's second maid) with all 
 Madame la Marquise's trunks immediately to Kergoat. 
 By-the-way, did any letters come this morning?" 
 
 Some had come, and, as it chanced, one among them 
 which gave a definite turn to Loic's immediate plans, 
 and could he but have known it the worst turn his 
 erratic plans had ever taken. It was from an old friend, 
 who wrote to ask him whether he could not soon spare 
 him a week or so at his bachelor hall near Les Sables 
 d'Olonne a very charming sea-side resort only a few 
 miles distant, and this amiable invitation Loic at once 
 accepted by telegraph for the next day. 
 
 He lunched very late with but a poor appetite, and 
 lingered rather despondently over his cigarette after- 
 wards, which was utterly unlike him. That the present 
 disturbance of his life should be entirely his mother's 
 fault, that in a flare of jealousy and temper she alone 
 
 270 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 should have created for both of them this more than 
 unpleasant situation, gave him no great comfort. Fortu- 
 nately he was not accustomed to cry over spilled milk, 
 but still the morning's happenings had taxed even his 
 admirably balanced nerves; he felt singularly upset, and 
 defiance pure and simple filled every nook and cranny of 
 his being. At the moment he could do nothing decisive 
 with regard to his mother, no step that he could take 
 save utter and abject surrender and an immediate start 
 in pursuit, his hands full of olive-branches could make 
 matters a bit better between them, or disperse the thun- 
 der-clouds massed around his head, and it was therefore 
 idle to grind one's teeth any longer over so hopeless a 
 situation. He determined, therefore, to dismiss from his 
 mind, for the present at least, the highly unpleasant 
 experiences of this unfortunate day. 
 
 Having reached this more or less satisfactory conclu- 
 sion, he was about to go out for a stroll when he suddenly 
 caught sight of a bulky letter which had slipped, unob- 
 served, from the tray upon which the morning's mail had 
 been brought, and lay on the carpet half concealed by 
 the table-cloth. He dreaded his long, lonely afternoon 
 and evening, and bent eagerly for this possible source of 
 passing diversion. Then, as he took it up, his heart gave 
 a great jump of joy. It was from Gaidik! The very 
 sight of her writing filled him with an immediate sense of 
 happiness, and he went out on the balcony to read it by 
 the rays of the setting sun, which were transforming land 
 and sea into a pink-and-golden glory. 
 
 The letter was long, brave, and tender, like all Gaidik's 
 letters to him, and as he read he almost seemed to hear 
 her voice: 
 
 "How lucky you are," she wrote, "to be once more in our own 
 Brittany. I think that exile from its shores is the greatest of 
 
 271 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 evils, for even with cosmopolitans like ourselves le mat du Pays 
 is an incurable disease, and makes one deeply and restlessly 
 miserable at times. It makes me feel at least when the fit 
 comes on as if my whole life was like a rope cut in two ; the 
 ends may, of course, be cleverly knotted together at some future 
 time, but even that will never make it quite the same again. I 
 think of you day and night, my own boy. I can almost see you 
 making the rounds of all our favorite places, and I know that you 
 miss your little sister, especially when you gallop your horses 
 along the dear old cliffs. They call Brittany dull and dark and 
 silent. What nonsense that is ! Brittany, like its wild seas, deals 
 open blows, not the cruel, insinuatingly treacherous ones other 
 lands are apt to fell one with. But what is the use of all this, 
 excepting to make you think that I have lost all my pluck, which 
 is, thank Heaven, far from being the case as yet, although here 
 the prospect is not what you might truthfully call cheerful. 
 Rain is pouring down from extraordinarily leaden skies, and all 
 the world is dim and watery and full of gloom. To-night, if it 
 only will storm in good earnest, instead of eternally drizzling, 
 when I am comfortably tucked in my bed I will indulge in my 
 greatest of luxuries imagining that I am at Kergoat, and that 
 the voices of the winds bring rne the dear sound of yours. It is 
 at such times that I best recognize the possibility of mysterious 
 messages being sent by one soul to another through endless 
 space. One is hardly aware that one possesses this power until 
 the cruelties of life make one acquainted with it, and it is a 
 great comfort to find out that the mind can then develop such 
 amazing and unexpected aptitudes. How delighted Mamma 
 must be to have you again with her I Be good and patient, 
 Loic. She is sometimes a little difficult to understand, and 
 after your years of utter liberty it will probably seem hard 
 to you to bend to her whims, but remember how much she 
 loves you, and also how lonely she has been since we both left 
 her" 
 
 At that point Loic put down the letter on the small 
 rattan table where his mother's fan and scent-bottle lay 
 forgotten by her, and leaned back in his lounging-chair, 
 his mouth rigid and his deep-set eyes wandering vacantly 
 athwart the beautiful sunset tints of sea and sky. He 
 was not fond of apologizing to anybody for anything; 
 but his sister's letter was working a remarkable trans- 
 
 272 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 formation in his feelings; indeed, wounded pride and 
 bitter resentment were yielding to a softer mood, and he 
 suddenly felt an overwhelming yearning for the immediate 
 presence of Gaidik. Why was she not here to smooth 
 the way for him ? Ah, yes ! why ? He sighed impatiently 
 as he thought that, after all, during the last few weeks 
 the business of living had been a very cheery, comfortable 
 affair, and now suddenly, without any real fault of his 
 own, he was again out of his depth, and he clearly saw 
 tempestuous clouds gathering above his horizon with a 
 promise of many a grim storm in the immediate future. 
 And after that, what? Why had his mother acted so 
 foolishly? Well, she always acted foolishly where he 
 was concerned, so it seemed to him all women acted 
 foolishly, excepting Gaidik; but Gaidik was a trump; 
 she was always cheery and simple and splendid ; she never 
 had a look or a word of reproach for him whatever his 
 sins of omission and commission. Gaidik was Gaidik, 
 and it was useless to judge others by her to that he must 
 make up his mind! 
 
 At last he got up and walked to the end of the balcony, 
 where he leaned for a moment far into the warm, velvety 
 evening air; then he slowly returned to his chair. Gai- 
 dik's letter was indeed doing its work ; her straightforward 
 words were persistently groping about in his heart. For- 
 get what had happened, humiliate himself for a fault so 
 slender that it hardly deserved the name ? His very soul 
 revolted against such a step. Moreover, if he yielded 
 now, what endless patience he would need to endure his 
 mother's triumph, and how impossible it would be for 
 him to ever assert himself again or call his life his own. 
 Nevertheless, he suddenly jumped up once more, strode 
 across the room to a writing-table and rapidly penned 
 the following words: 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Mv DEAR MOTHER, I think that you would be sorry if you 
 knew how unjust are your accusations and how unnecessary the 
 fuss you are making. I am, however, not going to speak about 
 this unpleasant affair. I am writing only to ask you whether 
 you want me at Kergoat. Pray answer yes or no, and address me 
 at Ghislain d'Yffiniac's, Chateau d'Yffiniac, Les Sables d'Olonne, 
 where I will be staying from to-morrow on for a week. 
 
 "Loic. 
 
 "P.S. Isn't it a pity that you can't try to trust me a little 
 more!" 
 
 "There!" he said, half aloud, throwing down his pen 
 with a smile of relief. "If Gaid is not satisfied, she's 
 become devilishly hard to please. I'm no letter-writer, 
 but I think this should fetch Madame la Marquise, if 
 she's the least clever at reading between the lines." Yet, 
 as he pushed away his writing materials, he still puzzled 
 over his mother's strange fugue, for he recollected, some- 
 what bitterly, that far from being always so strict with 
 regard to his flirtations, she had, before his departure for 
 the States, several times countenanced some rather 
 peculiar incidents in his carriere galante nay, had 
 deliberately closed her eyes to situations far, far more 
 compromising and serious than this mere fortuitous en- 
 counter with Madame Billot, in order to keep him at her 
 side; he being then only a mere boy, whereas now he was 
 of age, independent, and could reasonably be supposed 
 to have learned how to take care of himself. Well, she 
 was incomprehensible as always, and her caprices would 
 ever remain unfathomable to her sorely tried and much 
 bewildered son. 
 
 When he had sent his orders to the stables concerning 
 what was to be done with the horses and men brought 
 from Kergoat, it was time for him to dress for his solitary 
 dinner, and as he did so he had so far recovered his tem- 
 per that he spoke quite cheerfully and banteringly of 
 
 274 
 
THE TRiDENT AND THE NET 
 
 his deconvenue to his faithful valet. Genevieve always 
 took the precaution of carrying special wines with her 
 when she was at hotels, and Loic ordered up some re- 
 markable Burgundy, of which he drank several glasses, 
 which helped to further brighten his mood; then, lighting 
 a cigarette, he strolled down-stairs to the caf, a singu- 
 larly cosey apartment decorated in pale yellow and white, 
 provided with small tables, lighted by daintily shaded 
 lamps, and opened generously onto the outer world by 
 an immense bow-window, through which the smell of 
 wet sea-weed and reseda and the intermittent orange 
 gleam of a revolving light from one of the islands came 
 floating in. 
 
 As he came in, the few occupants of this very uncon- 
 ventional public room looked curiously up at him, and 
 then covertly at one another; but, taking no apparent 
 notice of this, he picked up a morning paper and, sitting 
 down in a nook between the bow-window and the yellow 
 silk portieres partially separating it from the cafd proper, 
 ordered a cup of coffee and began to glance at the news. 
 
 Presently he heard one elderly gentleman say to an- 
 other elderly gentleman with whom he was playing dom- 
 inoes, in that hoarsely audible whisper that testifies to a 
 dulled ear, "That is the young Marquis de Kergoat, about 
 whom there was such a pow-wow this morning." 
 
 "Ah! I thought so," replied old gentleman No. 2. 
 " Re-mar-ka-bly handsome, I call him, and a regular 
 dare-devil, is he not?" 
 
 "That he is; and such a fortune millions, my dear 
 Sir; millions! Not to speak of his Lady mother's hoards. 
 He, he! la p'tite Mere Billot aura de quoi croquer; and, 
 I'm told, she's got sharp teeth, that little woman but 
 it's your play," and he courteously waved his hand tow- 
 ards the game. 
 
 275 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "So," thought Loic, "Mamma's startling manoeuvres 
 are preparing a Kergoat-Billot scandal in these charitable 
 regions! Thanks, awfully; but I'd best clear out of this, 
 or there's going to be a curtain-raiser right away in 
 the shape of an old - gentleman - Loic row," and, rising, 
 he sauntered out of the hotel and down towards the 
 sea. 
 
 The water was a good way off, and the tide still falling. 
 Long lines of surf chased one another before the cool 
 night -wind, faded into shallow, moonlit ripples, and 
 were replaced by other eager, harmonious little waves 
 ready to be shredded into opalescent foam. Loic walked 
 on and on along the lonely sands, listening to the music 
 of the sea with the profound sympathy of a true Breton. 
 So far as eye could reach on all sides save one, there 
 was nothing but sand-hills and pale grasses thrown into 
 metallic relief by the moon. Once or twice he stopped 
 to look affectionately at some bits of sea-weed spread 
 out at his feet, every little fibre showing separately and 
 quite distinct against the smooth, wet beach, where each 
 of his steps crushed for a moment the moisture out of the 
 sand in a little, shining circlet. He was longing for Ker- 
 goat and ah! so bitterly for Gaidik again! He shrugged 
 his shoulders impatiently, and began to sing in his ringing, 
 deep-chested voice a bit of an old, old Breton ballad 
 about a lad whose wicked mistress, to prove her power, 
 demanded his mother's heart, and how he killed his 
 mother, but found by a miracle that he could not kill her 
 love: 
 
 "Comme il courait il tomba 
 Et Ion, Ion laire, 
 Et Ion, Ion la 
 Comme il courait il tomba 
 Et par terre I'cosur roula. 
 276 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Et pendant que 1'coeur roulait, 
 Et Ion, Ion laire, 
 Et Ion, Ion la, 
 
 Et pendant que 1'cceur roulait, 
 Entendit 1'coeur qui parlait. 
 
 "Et le coeur disait en pleurant, 
 Et Ion, Ion laire, 
 Et Ion, Ion la 
 Et le coeur disait en pleurant, 
 T'es-tu fait mal, mon enfant!" 
 
 "That's the sort of mother for a chap to have," he com- 
 mented, with a queer little laugh, after he had concluded 
 this touching chansonette with a wild and defiant Tyrolese 
 yodel, "for surely maternal solicitude and forbearance can 
 go no further!" 
 
 It was getting late ; the brilliant moon was now barred 
 across by fleecy clouds; moment by moment its clear 
 radiance was paling over land and sea, and there was a 
 chill in the air which seemed to go straight down to his 
 innermost heart. He heaved a deep sigh of weariness, 
 both mental and physical, and turned to retrace his way. 
 When he reached the hotel, its rosily shining window- 
 squares looked inviting and homelike, but this was not 
 his home worse luck and, although he did not know 
 it, many days were to pass before he saw that again, and 
 as he slowly ascended the stairs he once more began to 
 
 hum* 
 
 "Et 1'cceur disait en pleurant, 
 Et Ion, Ion laire, 
 Et Ion, Ion la 
 Et 1'cceur disait en pleurant, 
 T'es-tu fait mal, mon enfant!" 
 
XIV 
 
 Saith the pendulum 
 Slowly o'er and o'er, 
 
 ' ' Nevermore ! 
 
 Shut and barred the door!" 
 Will the dawn ne'er come, 
 
 Or be dumb 
 These dull Voices' lore? 
 " Nevermore!" 
 
 The Clock, III. M. M. 
 
 Loic drew up his horses before the castle gateway, 
 where their impatient hoofs immediately began to beat 
 a sonorous devil's tattoo as the groom, dropping smart- 
 ly down from his high perch, pulled at the dazzling brass 
 handle of the concierge's bell. 
 
 Meanwhile his master was taking in the very inviting 
 aspect of the exquisite little Vendeen castle, intrenched 
 behind the tall, hammered -iron gates which, during the 
 Reign of Terror, had formed so excellent a defence for 
 the hasty barricade of desperate Chouans. The tout- 
 ensemble had a pretty, coquettish air of belonging to an 
 era that had altogether passed away, to a yesterday already 
 far remote, which yet did not exclude all that modern 
 ideas of comfort and luxury could suggest. The chateau 
 itself, irregularly picturesque, with its round turrets 
 much carved and fretted and deliciously overgrown in 
 lustrous patches by broad-leaved creepers, its fancifully 
 wrought balconies, its pointed chapel-spire to the left 
 profiling a gilded cross against the intensely blue sky, 
 slept in the shadowy stillness of broad-terraced gardens, 
 
 278 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 merging soon into the rolling green waves of a beautiful 
 park. 
 
 "Ghislain is not to be pitied," Loic muttered, "for 
 that's really an uncommonly nice place," and at that 
 precise minute Ghislain himself came running down the 
 flower-bordered avenue, preceded by his breathless con- 
 cierge, who was evidently greatly distressed by not having 
 been at his post to receive the puissant Lord of Kergoat. 
 
 "A million times welcome!" the young chatelain cried, 
 jumping up beside his smiling guest and shaking him 
 warmly by the hand. "Give those beauties their heads, 
 and we'll be home in three seconds. You can't imagine 
 how glad I am to see you." 
 
 Count Ghislain d'Yffiniac seemed the very embodi- 
 ment of unconquerable good-humor, a fact which made 
 his round face handsome from its very pleasantness of 
 expression. His light-brown hair stood up with an energy 
 upon which no brush, be it ever so wiry, could ever ex- 
 ercise a flattening influence, and he had merry, hazel 
 eyes, soft and honest and loyal, like those of a dog. He 
 was about five feet eleven, and broad for that, and wore 
 his clothes in a comfortable sort of a way, excluding all 
 idea of dandyism. Having lost both his parents when 
 still very young, he was in possession of a very large 
 fortune, and, being one of those who go smiling through 
 the world, he was continuously smiled upon in return. 
 It was blankly impossible to quarrel with him it would 
 have been quite useless to try his very smile displaying 
 a double row of admirable teeth alone forbade such a 
 thought. Passionately devoted to horses, he spent the 
 greater portion of his large revenues on a model stud- 
 farm that was the pride of his heart and which was 
 only separated from this exquisite little chateau by the 
 length of its well-timbered park. 
 
 279 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 The dining-room at Yffiniac was a delightful apart- 
 ment, and from the moment of sitting down to a re- 
 markably well -cooked dinner beneath its fine, coffered 
 ceiling a soul-cheering merriness had reigned supreme 
 between the two friends, rising sometimes into loud 
 hilarity as anecdote followed anecdote and reminiscence 
 succeeded to reminiscence. They were now at dessert; 
 decanters glowed on the snowy cloth like gigantic rubies 
 and topazes ; a silver tray heaped with cigars and cigar- 
 ettes stood at Ghislain's elbow beside his coffee-cup, and 
 now their talk settled down into a more definite channel. 
 
 "It was really good of you to come, Loic," the young 
 host said, stroking his imperceptible mustache, "because 
 I was feeling a bit lonely just now, to tell you the truth, 
 in my barrack of a house." 
 
 Loic laughed. "Barrack is good! Why, you fortu- 
 nate mortal, your lot is the most enviable in the world. 
 What are you complaining of, pray?" 
 
 " It's all very well for you to say so," he replied, making 
 a wry face. "You, who have a lovely mother, an ideal 
 sister, and the usual complement of uncles, aunts, and 
 cousins, cannot judge what it is to be all alone in the 
 world without kith and kin. I assure you it is sometimes 
 a little trying." 
 
 Loic's face expressed nothing whatever; he drew the 
 silver tray to his side of the table and lit a cigarette. 
 Perchance he was thinking of the family blessings he had 
 lately enjoyed. 
 
 "Yes," the other continued, ruefully, "one can't 
 spend all one's lazy, selfish life in amusing one's self." 
 
 "What about the horses aren't they sufficiently 
 absorbing?" asked Loic. "I thought they obliged you 
 to work late and early that, at least, being what you 
 were so good as to write me no later than yesterday." 
 
 280 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "That's just a little slow of you to think that horses 
 can entirely fill up the void of one's soul," Ghislain re- 
 plied, with such energy that Loic burst into a peal of 
 laughter. "You have a void in your soul?" he cried. 
 "Look here, Ghis, if you are playing the fool are you 
 prepared to take the consequences? because I've not 
 come here to listen to the laments of the lonely bach- 
 elor. Go and get married at once, if that's the way you 
 feel." 
 
 Ghislain fell immediately into his humor. "What 
 advice!" he said, shaking his round head. "That's like 
 recommending the use of the guillotine to a man suffering 
 from a toothache. Besides, how many women do you 
 think are yearning to bestow their hands upon such an 
 ugly chap as I ? I don't pretend to be an Adonis, like 
 you, my boy." 
 
 "Is that a compliment?" L6ic said, derisively, making 
 an obeisance. "Considering your low opinion of your- 
 self, I'm a good deal surprised to see you looking so fat 
 and hearty. Humility can't be very wearing, or else it is 
 your particular forte." 
 
 "Now, that's both unkind and cynical," Ghislain pro- 
 tested, with immense plain tiveness. "My intentions 
 were honorable to confide my troubles to you and 
 show by a ' deadly parallel ' how lucky you are ; but, of 
 course, those good intentions have only gone to join the 
 other paving-stones." 
 
 "You are a but for charity's sake I'd best forbear 
 to specify. Still, you are getting me interested; so, in 
 Heaven's name, tell me what is really the trouble with 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, it would be too long and too sad a story; if I 
 were to anatomize my feelings, it would take half the 
 night, and I hate anatomizing my feelings! I have 
 19 281 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 pretty nearly every weakness that flesh is heir to, but 
 psychology is not among them." 
 
 "My good man, psychology or no psychology, you 
 won't make me believe in your claims to pity. I diagnose 
 your case perfectly; cheap sarcasm, tale of woe, mysteri- 
 ous circumlocutions, all point one way. Own up, you 
 are on the dangerous slope facilis descensus, you know 
 which leads to matrimony. Is there any reason, by-the- 
 way, why you shouldn't marry?" 
 
 "None whatsoever, as far as I know," Ghislain said, 
 dropping his tone of futile banter. " Don't laugh, but if 
 I ever marry it will be simply because I adore .children. 
 I've an uncle my one living relative whose great idea 
 is to see me 'established,' as he calls it. He looks upon 
 me as a sort of family fund that has to be speedily sunk 
 somewhere; and, well, one of these days he'll succeed in 
 his nefarious purpose, and then you'll have to sheer off, 
 for I'll transform "Bachelor Hall" into a vast nursery." 
 
 "I won't sheer off," said Loic, with extreme delibera- 
 tion, "not the least bit, because I've a weakness for 
 babies myself, strange as it may appear; so I'll come 
 here in the character of devoted uncle, and play that 
 disinterested part with a generosity and self-forgetful- 
 ness which will positively take your breath away." He 
 had spoken with a sort of inconsequent seriousness, as 
 if he had not yet decided whether he was dealing with 
 a matter of deadly earnest or of rattling farce, and now he 
 broke off and looked at Ghislain with his slow, some- 
 what mocking smile, awaiting the result of his little 
 speech. Ghislain, with a burst of laughter, pushed a 
 decanter towards his guest. "You're a likely chap for 
 the role you the Don Juan par excellence!" 
 
 "You should never judge by appearances," Loic re- 
 monstrated; but Ghislain, pursing up his lips and looking 
 
 282 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic's handsome figure up and down with genuine appre- 
 ciation, said, in an equally solemn and impressive tone: 
 "There is somebody not far from here who is terribly in 
 earnest about marrying you, at any rate. A young 
 widow, beautiful, charming, with a skin like a camellia, 
 eyes " 
 
 "A widow!" Loic interrupted, his eyebrows going up 
 in his astonishment almost to the roots of his hair. " What 
 widow? Who the devil do you mean?" 
 
 Ghislain looked at him with a sort of wonder, and then 
 laughed quietly. "How many widows are at present 
 filling the bill ?" he inquired. "Your irritability indicates 
 a guilty conscience." 
 
 "There you are at it again, misjudging the innocent! 
 Hadn't you better be careful?" L6ic rejoined, pulling 
 himself together. "But tell me, of your mercy, who is 
 the lady in question?" 
 
 "No, not now; I don't want to spoil your surprise 
 for you'll see her to-morrow." 
 
 "To-morrow!" Loic gasped. "Here?" 
 
 "Well, I can flatter myself that my wee bit of news 
 makes its little effect," Ghislain remarked, delighted. 
 "I'd no idea you were so keen on widows. But calm 
 yourself; she won't grace my humble dwelling by her 
 presence no such luck. We will be granted the priv- 
 ilege of admiring her manifold charms at Les Sables. 
 The Concours begins there to-morrow, and I'll have 
 the honor of presenting eight of my horses, including my 
 champion Fier-a-bras, raised four." 
 
 "The Concours begins to-morrow? What luck!" 
 Loic cried, absolutely forgetting for the minute the very 
 existence of widows in general or particular. "Are you 
 serious?" 
 
 "As serious as serious can be. From to-morrow 
 
 283 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 morning on G. d'Yffiniac, trainer and breeder, will be 
 all day long at the above address, and trusts, by a careful 
 attention to business, to merit a continuance of the 
 Nobility's and gentry's kind patronage. Don't you see, 
 you donkey, it was one of my reasons for being so anxious 
 to get you here! I want to obtain your valuable ser- 
 vices." 
 
 "Oh, Lord! why didn't you say so at once? Fancy 
 keeping such a revelation for the fag-end of the evening!" 
 
 Ghislain drew in his legs and leaned forward to light a 
 fresh cigarette. 
 
 "Then you really don't mind riding three or four 
 horses in the ring?" he asked, joyful anticipation beaming 
 all over his merry face. 
 
 "Mind! Who do you take me for? I'll like nothing 
 better; but, now, tell me all about the horses, for I feel 
 doubly interested in them now, of course." 
 
 Ghislain gave a grunt of pleasure. "My pale-faced 
 brother has spoken well; he expresses my desires," he 
 said, with deliberate expansiveness ; "but suppose we go 
 now and give them a look. We've an hour yet of this 
 silvery gloaming before us, and we can find our way to 
 the stables as easily as at high noon." 
 
 It was a crisp, fragrant evening outside, with a crescent 
 moon of alabaster whiteness rollicking on its back above 
 the park trees in a sort of drunken, lazy way amid the 
 slowly darkening azure of the sky. 
 
 Loic and Ghislain crossed the lawn, chatting, on their 
 way to the stables, where the horses were even then at 
 their nightly toilets, just like fine ladies in the hands of 
 careful attendants on the eve of a great social event. 
 Only their dressing-rooms were loose boxes, carpeted 
 with freshly shaken straw, and their attire very hand- 
 some green-and-white rugs and quarter-pieces buckled 
 
 284 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 upon their sleek flanks and marked G. Y. in monogram, 
 surmounted by a Count's coronet. 
 
 They all shook themselves and stood at attention, 
 every fibre strung to pleasurable excitement, as the steps 
 of their much-loved master sounded on the pavement of 
 their luxurious dwelling, and were quite willing to have 
 their blankets turned back and their satiny coats ad- 
 mired. 
 
 Cceur de Roi, who had arrived but an hour before, 
 was lodged side by side with the celebrated Fier-a- 
 bras, and turned his infinitely caressing eyes on Loic 
 as the well-known hand held out some sugar, and the 
 voice he loved best said, with the fond tone a man uses 
 to a much-cherished woman, "Ah, you dear old boy; so 
 you're here, too!" 
 
 "He's in first-rate form. Why don't you present 
 him?" Ghislain asked, almost imploringly. 
 
 "Isn't it too late to enter his name?" inquired Loic, 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Not at all," his host replied. " Not at all. My uncle 
 is Vice-President of the concern, if you please, and so I 
 can do as I jolly well like. Do let me send a man early 
 to-morrow morning with Cceur de Roi's name and pedi- 
 gree, there's a good fellow." 
 
 "By all means; and as to his pedigree, I flatter myself 
 that it leaves nothing to be desired. He is out of Fairy 
 Princess by Sea-King, and, furthermore, stretches up to 
 his long line of ancestry by Black Devil out of Eglan- 
 tine, by Demoniac out of Morning-Star, by Chouan First 
 out of Frondeuse, and straight up to Imperator, one 
 of the greatest steeplechasers ever sent over the course, 
 as you know. What d* you say to that? Besides, he's 
 clever enough for anything, is trained to close and open 
 country, and is a perfect water- jumper and fencer." 
 
 285 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Ghislain fairly gasped with joy. " What a pair he 
 and Fier-a-bras will make!" he exclaimed. "They'll open 
 the eyes of Messieurs les juges; but by the setting of 
 Cceur de Roi's neck I should imagine that he takes a 
 deal of riding?" 
 
 "He does! That's the pleasure of it. And yet he's 
 as docile as a lamb with me, and goes over the tallest 
 yawners like a bird." Just then Cceur de Roi, as if 
 he understood what was being said of him, suddenly 
 caught the manger between his teeth and kicked out in a 
 playful way, which sent both young men into roars of 
 laughter. After which they continued their tour, and 
 finally sauntered out of the stables surrounded by a 
 small mob gravely introduced to Loic as "my house 
 pets" half a dozen bull-terriers, two fierce bull-dogs, a 
 couple of formidable mastiffs, and a magnificent Great 
 Dane, all jumping around them in frantic delight, while 
 in the distance, from beyond a thick barrier of firs and 
 pines, the hounds loudly gave tongue in their kennels, 
 having been awakened by the sounds of steps and the 
 joyful barks of their master's more privileged canines. 
 
 There was a laugh in Loic's eyes as he listened, then 
 something more earnest came over his face, and, pausing 
 to light a cigarette, be abruptly asked his friend: "By- 
 the-way, Ghis, who is that widow you were trying to guy 
 me about?" 
 
 "Ah, ha! so you're nibbling at the bait, Messire, and, 
 my faith, there's reason for it! That widow -woman 
 looks like a white camellia, I tell you ; her hair is dark as 
 night, her eyes of deepest sapphire, her shape marvellous, 
 besides which she's dashing in her style, a bit of a co- 
 quette, and intensely thorough-bred to boot, if you insist 
 on knowing, Madame la Vicomtesse Gynette de Morieres." 
 
 "Whew-ew!" whistled Loic, facing round; "the 
 
 286 
 
LA VICOMTESSE GYNETTE DE MORIERES 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 beauteous Vicomtesse Gynette! Tell me, does she still 
 wear her bandeaux a la vierge and sport sixteenth- 
 century tea-gowns?" 
 
 "She certainly wears her hair in bandeaux still; but 
 you shouldn't laugh at her on that account, since she 
 imitates your mother, whom she adores, in coifjant her- 
 self thus. Imitation, you know, is the sincerest, etc. 
 Moreover, she is a gem, is Gynette, pure as a pearl and 
 plucky and thorough and honest." 
 
 "Why don't you marry her yourself, if that's your 
 opinion of her?" Loic said, laughing; <l but never mind, 
 you gave me just now a famous fright, for I thought at 
 one moment but that's neither here nor there. Tell 
 me why the Lady Gynette has, according to you, set 
 her ravishing little widow's cap at me?" 
 
 "Because she's long been in love with you," Ghislain 
 answered, bluntly; "and since she considers her fan a 
 sceptre, and her faintest smile an honor rarely to be be- 
 stowed upon any one of her covey of admirers, you 
 should really feel damned proud of having conquered 
 that Queen of the Lists." 
 
 Loic shrugged his shoulders and laughed again with a 
 sensation of intense relief, since at the word "widow," 
 pronounced by his friend over the coffee and cigarettes, 
 he had felt a ridiculous and quite senseless dread of seeing 
 the gaudy relict of Captain Billot suddenly cross his 
 path once more. The pleasurable disappointment gave 
 just the touch needed to restore his normal tone, and no 
 shadow lay behind his gayety as the two young men 
 strolled through the fragrant dusk towards the chateau. 
 
 It is a solemn truth that on the turf all men are equal, 
 and this truth was singularly exemplified in the appear- 
 ance presented by the little sea-side resort of Les Sables 
 d'Olonne when the drag driven by Ghislain d'Yffiniac 
 
 287 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 rattled up its main avenue next morning, for it was, 
 indeed, a motley crowd which was wending its way tow- 
 ards the spot where the great horse-show was to take place. 
 It was to be the meeting-ground of many classes, though 
 naturally the Patrician factions of Vendee and Brittany 
 were by far the most prominent. All the chdtelains and 
 chdtelaines of the environs were driving in from every 
 side, mostly in four - in - hands, some of them even in 
 d'Aumonts t with brilliantly jacketed postilions, their 
 dazzling equipages hemmed in by the humbler dog-carts 
 or cabriolets of gentlemen-farmers and the carryalls of 
 tradesmen and their families bent on making a day of it. 
 The whole place of exhibit was thronged with peasants, 
 too, who had gathered from far and near, many of whom 
 would not return to their villages until the Concours 
 was over, but would drink and dance and wrestle day 
 and night during the intervals of the show, as is the cus- 
 tom for Vende'en and Breton peasants to do on such 
 occasions. 
 
 A delicious salt breeze swept in from the sea to cool 
 the hot heads of those who had walked a long way, and 
 the enclosure around the Jockey-Club pavilion presented 
 a most animated spectacle. The stewards were already 
 in their places, and many agents from great commission 
 stables walked nervously up and down in this fraternity 
 of sports and manhood, shoulder to shoulder with half 
 the titled personages of France and a multitude of cav- 
 alry officers belonging to the crack regiments that had 
 sent their best riders to try for the much-coveted gold 
 medal (de ire classe) and knot of royal-blue ribbon which 
 it is the ambition of every horse-owner to obtain at least 
 once in his life. 
 
 The clock of the club pavilion pointed to half -past 
 twelve when Loic and Ghislain crossed the ring before 
 
 288 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the clanging of the saddling- bell, and glanced up at the 
 circle of boxes and the rows upon rows of crowded seats 
 rising above the select "horseshoe." 
 
 Everybody there knew the two young men by name 
 and sight at least- the Vende'ens and Bretons present 
 knew them more intimately yet, and that from their 
 earliest childhood, and eager glances followed their tall 
 forms as they moved through the press, nodding to their 
 peers or bowing to the bevy of lovely Aristocrats in the 
 boxes. Indeed, low whispers followed them just as if 
 they were themselves exhibits, for it had become known 
 that they were to present the two finest steeplechasers 
 on the list Cceur de Roi and Fier-a-bras ! 
 
 "Look at Loic de Kergoat; rides no end, you know. 
 He's just back from the plains of America." "Ghislain 
 d'Yffiniac seems in good form already a trifle too heavy, 
 though." " Is the Marquise here, too?" " No, gone back 
 to Brittany." " Pity Gaidik is away; she'd enjoy this" 
 with other innumerable phrases of real affection and 
 sympathy. 
 
 A woman, conspicuously clad, with a superabundance 
 of showy flounces and bad jewelry, eyed them curiously, 
 and turned all the way round in her second - row seat 
 so as to face Loic as the latter walked with Ghislain to 
 the stable entrance. Glancing up at the same moment, 
 the young Marquis saw her and the girl sitting at her side, 
 and received a most exaggerated and affectionate bow. 
 His eyebrows contracted, and his face darkened for a 
 second, though it resumed, almost immediately, its 
 habitual serenity; and, slightly raising his hat, he strode 
 away after his friend with his long, lounging horseman's 
 swing. 
 
 "Confound the woman!" he was saying, under his 
 breath, and then he had just time enough to get angry 
 
 289 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 at himself for such disproportionate annoyance "for 
 surely," he thought, "it will be a simple matter to avoid 
 her " before his attention was distracted by a very differ- 
 ent greeting from a central box where sat the Vicomtesse 
 de Morieres. " Ghislain's widow " was a lovely woman, not 
 yet quite twenty-four, wearing a snowy gown of silk cloth 
 and embroidery all a-shimmer with tiny little silver Bre- 
 ton fleur-de-lise buttons. A broad-brimmed Chouan hat 
 of white felt shaded her splendid, dark-blue eyes, and 
 the glossy black bandeaux imitated from Genevieve de 
 Kergoat who despised fringes, artificial undulations, or 
 any other torturings of feminine tresses and a delicate 
 perfume of jessamine came and went in the air around 
 her as she slowly waved to and fro her big fan of eagle's 
 feathers. Not very tall, but with an exquisitely modelled 
 figure, typically tiny hands and feet, and a thoroughly 
 high-bred, enthusiastic Vendeen temperament, Gynette 
 de Morieres was, indeed, a remarkably attractive, whim- 
 sical, delightful little woman, changeable in her moods, 
 like the skies of her beautiful sea-coast province, and, 
 like it, fascinating always. 
 
 During that whole afternoon she sat breathless and 
 radiant, displaying an eager interest in the performances 
 of the presented horses, as became a great lady who had 
 first flight over the famed Vendeen autumnal chasses, 
 and herself owned a stableful of magnificent hunters, but 
 when finally the highest prize that could be given was 
 awarded to Loic and his beloved Cceur de Roi, and the 
 air was rent with applause, this dainty sportswoman 
 was so far carried away that she actually smashed her 
 fan against her little, white-gloved hand, and flushed a 
 rich rose red when the victor, with a slight bend of the 
 head and a rapid glance, dedicated his laurels to her. 
 
 As he threw himself lightly out of the saddle, and 
 
 290 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Cceur de Roi was led away for the after-ceremony of rub- 
 bing, bottling, and clothing, he turned to Ghislain and 
 held out his hand. 
 
 "I'm sorry, old boy, ever so sorry, that Fier-a-bras 
 should have been beaten, and that by my horse," he said, 
 in his simple, winning way. 
 
 The honest, round face of the young Eleveur broke 
 into a bright, cordial smile, although the defeat of his 
 horse had cut him for a moment to the heart. 
 
 "My dear lad," he replied, without a shadow of bitter- 
 ness, "it is very little humiliation to lose against such 
 riding as yours and such a superb animal as Cceur de 
 Roi: Pray believe that I would not have had it other- 
 wise a tout, Seigneur, tout honneur !" 
 
 And he meant it, too, for Ghislain d'Yffiniac was not 
 the man to cast vindictive blame on any one unless it 
 were himself, or grudge a rival so well-earned a victory. 
 
 Nevertheless, Loic felt the joy of the moment dimmed 
 by the defeat of his friend, and the brightness of his eyes 
 was clouded as he strolled backward and forward on the 
 broad strip of turf behind the race-course while waiting 
 for him to finish some business with his uncle. The gay 
 toilettes of the women a few yards away, their flower- 
 wreathed hats and multicolored parasols, produced the 
 effect of a parterre of gigantic blossoms undulating grace- 
 fully to the accompaniment of the lively music played 
 by a military band installed beneath a thatched cham- 
 pignon ; the fresh sea-breezes were shot with delicate 
 scents of roses and cigarette -smoke, the deep -blue sea 
 sparkled gloriously beneath the slanting rays of the 
 setting sun, and yet all this conglomeration of pleasing 
 circumstances did not conjure the frown from his brow. 
 It was just at this precise instant that fate chose to bring 
 home to him the memory of another conquest, for, turning 
 
 291 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 suddenly, at the end of his beat he found himself face 
 to face with the Billot women! 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur le Marquis!" quoth she, smirking and 
 smiling rapturously, "may I be permitted to offer my 
 humble congratulations," and then added, indicating the 
 blushing girl at her side, before he could recover from 
 his surprise and annoyance, "This is my little daughter, 
 Monsieur le Marquis, who also has been enthusiastically 
 applauding your prowess all the afternoon." 
 
 Loic bowed silently, without any perceptible excess of 
 cordiality, but Madame was too experienced a hand to 
 allow herself to be influenced by his attitude, and smoth- 
 ered the angles of the situation in a gush of fluent* au- 
 dacities, so that, what with her impudence and her amo- 
 rous ceillades, her opponent was so far disarmed that 
 he found himself desperately endeavoring not to laugh. 
 
 When Ghislain, breathless and fearful to have shown 
 discourtesy to his friend by keeping him waiting so long, 
 rushed upon the scene after his usual harum - scarum 
 fashion, he was brought up standing at a few steps dis- 
 tant by these words: 
 
 "I owe you, Monsieur le Marquis, the two proudest 
 days of my life. The first when you rescued me so mag- 
 nificently from deadly peril, and now when I can remem- 
 ber forevermore that I had the honor of congratulating 
 you upon your great victory, and making my courtesy 
 to you before all the world," with which grand perora- 
 tion she did at last courtesy herself away, followed by her 
 mute and still blushing "little daughter." 
 
 "How in thunder do you come to know Aline Billot?" 
 Ghislain asked, facing round to gaze after them with 
 puzzled, laughing eyes. "Wherever did you meet '/a 
 p'tite providence des sous-lieutenants'?" 
 
 "What! is she a cocotte?" Loic exclaimed, astounded. 
 
 292 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Oh, not by any manner of means! A very bourgeois 
 little demi-castor at the most. An orderly, level-headed 
 little woman who reckons with her vices and keeps 
 them within proper bounds, and who never accepts any- 
 thing more valuable than bonbons, gloves, or cheap bits 
 of jewelry, interlarded with an occasional box at the 
 theatre or a dejetiner at the restaurant. She likes uni- 
 forms, though preferably cavalry uniforms worn by 
 very young men hence the nickname. How in the 
 world did you get acquainted with her?" 
 
 "Chanced to meet her a few days ago down the coast. 
 But, tell me, are you sure of what you say; and what 
 about this daughter of hers ? Is she following in her fair 
 Mamma's footsteps?" 
 
 "The daughter?" Ghislain echoed; "well, there have 
 been stories about her, too; but I don't know; she's pretty 
 young, and not very happy, I fancy, because Madame 
 sa Mere uses her mostly as a chaperone and a foil ; but 
 still, of course, I would not speak of her in that tone, you 
 may believe me, if she was not more or less in Queer Street, 
 too. There's another little girl, a child of fourteen, who 
 is a beauty and already a sad flirt. She'll be the joy of 
 the twentieth century. Poor Rose that's the elder one's 
 name, as you may know is silly and rather down-trodden. 
 A curious family, taking it all in all, a singular menage 
 well worth studying. They live at La-Roche-Sur-Yon 
 with a hair-dresser brother, a scamp who knows all about 
 the little ways of his womankind, and smiles encourag- 
 ingly, since their presence behind his counters brings 
 many customers there and much grist to his mill." 
 
 "You seem well informed," Loic remarked, dryly. 
 
 " I am. You see, a friend of mine and of yours, too, 
 for the matter of that Jean de Trguidy, was on the best 
 of terms with this estimable widow last year while garri- 
 
 293 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 soned at La Roche, where, by-the-way, my uncle spends 
 most of the year in his exquisite old Hotel behind the 
 gardens of the Prefecture. You'll see what a charming 
 house that is, for he asked me just now to be sure and 
 bring you to stay a few days with him. It's a piece of pure 
 medievalism, let me tell you. The Duchess de Berri 
 took refuge there during several weeks, and lived in three 
 secret rooms behind the wainscoting of the great hall 
 the place is honeycombed with secret rooms and passages 
 leading right and left into darkness, secret staircases, 
 sliding panels, etc., queerer yet than the one I showed 
 you at Yffiniac last night." 
 
 "I'd love to see them; we, too, have some few little 
 things of that kind at Kergoat," Loic said, enthusias- 
 tically, the eternal child waking up in him; "but," he 
 added, a note of humor appearing in his voice, "is Jean 
 de Trdguidy still garrisoned at La Roche? I've lost sight 
 of all my old friends, of course, during my stay in Amer- 
 ica." 
 
 "No. That's just the point. He was transferred to 
 Versailles a couple of months ago, much to the widow's 
 despair. She's no doubt anxious to replace her cuirassier 
 lover by another Breton Noble, which explains her lan- 
 guishing eyes. You should be flattered, though, since 
 she's ready to chuck the army for your sake. It will be 
 the first time that she has deigned to glance at a Pekin" 
 
 "Don't be a fool, Ghis!" Loic cried, with pungency. 
 "I'll probably be obliged to go away day after to-morrow, 
 anyhow. The Mater's alone at Kergoat." 
 
 "You can't leave me until the end of the Concours, at 
 any rate, and that '11 last three days longer, after which 
 we are booked for La Roche. So you see that your fate 
 is sealed, and that Madame de Kergoat must needs wait 
 in solitary grandeur a little while longer. But let's hurry. 
 
 294 
 
THE TRI'DENT AND THE NET 
 
 or else you'll be late for Gynette's dinner-party. Curious, 
 now, that fair ladies don't rush to celebrate my victories 
 with wine and wassail!" 
 
 Of a truth, Madame de Kergoat was just then, if he 
 had but known it, insuring "solitary grandeur" to herself; 
 for, to his boundless indignation and astonishment, Loic 
 found, on returning to Yffiniac late that night, a broad, 
 crested envelope addressed in her clear, bold hand, and 
 containing nothing save his own letter torn across and 
 across with a thoroughness that allowed no doubt as 
 to the sincerity of the perpetrator's intentions. 
 
 "Oh ho!" Loic commented, as the pieces fluttered to 
 his feet. "So that's the way you take my attempted 
 apologies, my dear Mother! Well, then, you'll have to 
 wait a long time before I send some fresh ones!" and, with 
 a heavy frown on his handsome face, he strode away to 
 find his friend in the smoking-room. 
 
 "I'll go with you to La-Roche-Sur-Yon when the 
 Concours is over," he said, sharply, far more as if de- 
 livering an ultimatum than as if accepting an invitation; 
 but Ghislain was much too delighted to notice either the 
 frown or the tone, and began at once to build inter- 
 minable and complicated plans for his friend's amuse- 
 ment. Trusting eventually to persuade Loic to remain 
 for some time at Yffiniac, he had already held long sessions 
 in his mind as to whether he should not ask other men 
 down to meet him. It was but slim hospitality, he 
 thought, to provide for his entertainment nobody but 
 himself, his dogs, and his horses; but this visit to La 
 Roche arranged everything, more especially as the Vicom- 
 tesse Gynette lived there too, her sumptuous gardens 
 touching those of his uncle. 
 
 "He'll not lack amusement," he thought, joyfuily, 
 remembering how well those two had pulled together 
 
 295 
 
THE TRIDENT AND *T H E NET 
 
 that very evening during the Vicomtesse's charming little 
 dinner; and, aloud, he added: "You see that you are 
 destined to fall into Gynette's nets, and to become better 
 acquainted with the firm of Billot & Co." As, alas, he 
 was! 
 
 La- Roche -Sur- Yon, or Napoleon -Vende'e, is, as the 
 guide-books poetically put it, " a town founded by Na- 
 poleon in the centre of the rebellious province of La 
 Vendee, and is united with La-Roche-Sur-Yon, an ancient 
 appanage of the Bourbons, which now forms a suburb 
 to the larger and more modern town. Population, 
 8841." 
 
 What the guide-books, however, neglect to state is 
 that this little town is deliciously situated amid verdant 
 woods, and that almost all its houses, whether modern or 
 ancient, are planted in the midst of beautiful gardens to 
 which the mildness of the climate lends a surpassing rich- 
 ness of foliage and bloom. Camellias are used as hedges 
 in the Jardin de la Prefecture, and fuchsias six feet in 
 height are not a rarity within the sheltering walls of the 
 great parks wherein are hidden the Hotels belonging to 
 the old Nobility. 
 
 One of the handsomest of these was owned by the bach- 
 elor Marquis d'Yffiniac, who regarded with very tender 
 feelings its long stone terraces, leading down into what 
 were called les vieux jardins, its many-mullioned, deep- 
 embrasured windows, its tall and picturesque slate roofs. 
 It was one of those corners of ancient France which keep 
 unspoiled the memories of days long departed, and are 
 undisturbed by all the changes and clamor of to-day. Its 
 historical associations also appealed to the old Noble- 
 man, and he liked to think that Ghislain's children would 
 be there after him. Little bits of his heart were twined 
 round every corner of this splendid cradle of his child- 
 
 296 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 hood, his very blood seemed to glow in the tinted light 
 of its gorgeously painted casements; and when at night 
 the massive bolts and complicated steel locks of its arched 
 portals were fastened by his old servants, and he heard 
 the owls hoot and the winds whisper in the thick-leaved 
 trees that fingered the window-panes with the touch of 
 kinship and ancient association, he loved to imagine that 
 no such thing existed as republican France, and that all 
 the horrors of recent years were a mere nightmare and 
 no grim reality. 
 
 A type this old Marquis very similar to that of Loic's 
 childhood friend, the impoverished Marquis de Kerdou- 
 gaszt, only with millions at his command and a high 
 position among the true Royalists, the fine fleur of the 
 Legitimists not the Orleanists, whom he would not even 
 recognize as in the least Royal, despite the overweening 
 presumption which, since the death of the Comte de 
 Chambord (Henry V., Monsieur d'Yffiniac, of course, called 
 him), made them style themselves "the" Bourbon, and 
 aspire to the Throne. Oh, with what ineffable disgust 
 the Grand Seigneur would turn his silvered head away 
 when these upstarts were mentioned in his presence! 
 
 When Ghislain and Loic, on the last day of the Con- 
 cerns, drove up to the vermiculated and delicately 
 carved perron, the ruddy glow of the setting sun il- 
 lumined the exquisite building and gilded the Banksian 
 and tea roses climbing all over it where the ivy, centuries 
 their senior, left them any space. This was, indeed, a 
 place to be proud of ; despite its great stateliness, a home 
 that all one's heart went out to in warm reverence, a 
 home inherited as such, which time and tradition had 
 most sweetly consecrated, not a mere shell purchased for 
 more or less gold and haunted by the spirits of many 
 unknowns. 
 
 ao 297 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I love my Vendee," the old Marquis was wont to say. 
 "It is not as grand or picturesque or superb in outline as 
 Brittany, but among its shadowy, leafy roads, its fern- 
 brakes, its deep grasses, and its vast forests, all dim and 
 dewy and green and delicious, one can sometimes forget 
 modern civilization, which is grotesque, insincere, vulgar, 
 and unutterably clumsy." 
 
 In La-Roche-Sur-Yon there were many noble houses 
 which flung wide their doors to welcome Loic within ; old 
 friends of his father showered invitations upon this young 
 man about whom his stormy boyhood and cowboy ad- 
 ventures cast a halo of romance a thing highly valued 
 in our prosaic age and who bore the glory of a great 
 name on his broad shoulders with all the desinvolture 
 of one truly belonging to la vieille roche. There had 
 been much speculation in purely Legitimistic circles at 
 the time when the young Marquis attained his majority. 
 Of course it was known that his sympathies would be 
 Legitimistic, because every bearer of his name had been 
 a staunch Royalist ever since the most remote antiquity; 
 still, there was yet an open field for speculation as to how 
 he would accept the responsibilities of his position, and 
 when he made his appearance at La Roche there was an 
 eagerness displayed to secure him which he viewed with 
 mild amusement. 
 
 He knew, of course how could he help doing so ? that 
 he was a great prize. He had had a twenty-year-long 
 minority as ambitious mothers of marriageable girls took 
 care to remember the accumulated profits of which were 
 now ready to his hand, and every feminine breast palpi- 
 tated when he entered a drawing-room. None of the 
 charmeuses he met there could, however, hold a candle 
 to the Vicomtesse Gynette, and once or twice he walked 
 away from her presence with a singularly fascinating 
 
 298 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 new emotion stirring in him; for, although he did not love 
 her as yet, still she was very rapidly taking possession of 
 both his fancy and his feelings. "She reminds me often 
 of Gaidik," he thought, "although physically she does 
 not in the least resemble her ; but she has the same candid 
 way of speech, the same freedom from all bias, the same 
 broad-minded frankness, and almost the same luminous- 
 ness and radiance of the eyes when she speaks, which 
 gives so much warmth and fascination to a countenance." 
 
 "Gaidik, always Gaidik!" Madame de Kergoat would 
 have said. Was Gaidik then eternally to remain his 
 standard of perfection? 
 
 Still, there was one respect in which the charming 
 Vicomtesse did not play her cards well. She allowed 
 Loic to see too clearly how much she desired to marry him. 
 There is a great truth contained in the famous saying, 
 "Uobjet qui nous eckappe est naturellement bien plus 
 attirant que celui qui nous pour suit'' for men are prone 
 to be wayward, thankless, and given to yearn especially 
 after the unattainable, and in his heart of hearts Loic 
 resented Gynette's too-transparent tenderness. He was 
 irritated sometimes by the strange pathos in her eyes 
 when she looked at him, and, although she was an almost 
 perfect incarnation of purity and dignified great-ladyhood, 
 yet he was sensible that it was, more or less, she who 
 was taking the lead, which fact lessened by half his very 
 sincere admiration for her and dulled his comprehension 
 of this exquisite nature, whose great charm was an entire 
 simplicity of manner and expression. 
 
 Originally accepting the Marquis d'Yfrmiac's invitation 
 for a mere week-end, a fortnight later Loic was still at 
 La-Roche-Sur-Yon, and neither that old Nobleman nor 
 Ghislain would as yet hear of his leaving them. This 
 period was almost entirely occupied, for one person at 
 
 299 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 least, in sending currents of hatred in the direction of 
 the Vicomtesse Gynette with all the force of a very malig- 
 nant and rather ingenious mind that of a little bour- 
 geoise living in a dull and scrubby house on the once 
 Place Napoleon, above a gayly painted, mirror - lined 
 coiffeur's shop. This person felt that there was some- 
 thing radically wrong in the ways of the Providence of 
 pretty women when a great lady like the Vicomtesse, 
 simply because she happened to be a great lady, had no 
 limit to her joys, her luxuries, her pleasures, and possessed 
 an almost inconceivable potency over the souls of men 
 of rank. She, Aline Billot, certainly had incontestable 
 beauty, but yet the success of the day was not with her. 
 (She had only been able to throw herself in Loic's way 
 three or four times, with absolutely no result.) It was 
 and how she ground her white teeth at the thought! 
 with the blue-blooded, clever, impudent, dark -haired 
 Patrician, who was supposed by all the town to keep the 
 young Marquis de Kergoat tied to the ribbons of her fan. 
 This made Madame Billot's naturally irascible temper rise 
 like boiling milk, and she said very savage things indeed 
 about the Vicomtesse in particular, the Aristocracy in 
 general, and a republic which could not succeed in once 
 and for all abolishing all lines of social demarcation. 
 (Qui n'est pas fichue d'abolir les distances /) 
 
 She herself was a woman in whom the affections had a 
 very slight, the passions a very large place, and, being of 
 quite boundless ambition, she desired above all things to 
 ensnare this magnificent prize, whom she suspected an- 
 other to have already very nearly landed. And why should 
 she not succeed even at this the eleventh hour ? Had not 
 the handsome and wealthy young Baron de Trdguidy fallen 
 a ready victim to her charms not to mention many other 
 gay Seigneurs, doctors, lawyers, and simple land- owners 
 
 300 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 who successively, or collectively, when the press was 
 great, had witched away at her side the ennui of a small 
 provincial town ? For Ghislain had been rash in asserting 
 that the army was her only happy hunting-ground. 
 She was eclectic, was this jolie parfumeuse, and far too 
 prudent to reject some big fish struggling in her drag-nets 
 because not clad in red, or blue and golden scales. 
 
 "And yet I am an honest woman!" she would scream 
 at her brother when this delicately thrifty personage re- 
 monstrated with her regarding what he called her ridicu- 
 lous disinterestedness. "I am an honest woman! Not 
 one of your accursed Aristocrats is more so than I! If I 
 have lovers, what about it? So have they, the hypo- 
 crites, and I never accept a sou no, not a sou d f you 
 hear me?" He heard, and knew also that she spoke the 
 truth on this one point she did not accept a sou much 
 to his regret, be it said in justice to him. 
 
 "Sacrte, imbecile!" he would politely reply, "what's 
 the use of it all, then, if it brings you nothing but a bad 
 name?" And, turning to his nieces, who often assisted 
 with charming abandon at these little family amenities, 
 "Oh, if you ever imitate your mother I'll break every 
 bone in your bodies, you little wretches! And as to you, 
 Aline, don't let that Marquis escape you. He is an inti- 
 mate friend of the d'Yffiniacs, just as Tr^guidy was; and 
 though you will as usual refuse to accept anything worth 
 having, the whole clan will again visit my shop, which is 
 disgustingly neglected since you have been wasting your 
 time." At which worse than Harpagonian .advice the 
 "little wretches" naturally burst into irreverent and irre- 
 pressible laughter. 
 
 Such an education had borne plentiful fruits, and Mon- 
 sieur Lierre's nieces to put it mildly had long since lost 
 that delicious bloom of untarnished purity which is the 
 
 301 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 most precious and the frailest possession of a young girl, 
 and which French mothers, to whatever class they may 
 belong, prize and guard above all things. 
 
 Poor Rose, who was what one might term a fourth- 
 rate soul enveloped in a first-class skin her complexion 
 was really unimpeachable, and, together with her dazzling 
 teeth, her only beauty bent more or less beneath the 
 eternal storms raging between her quarrelsome mother 
 and her utterly conscienceless uncle. She had had a 
 little affair of her own already a little affair that had 
 forced her indignant parent to hustle her away for a time, 
 and the consequences of which were hidden far away in 
 a remote farming district, where a poor little motherless, 
 nameless babe was being most untenderly trained to the 
 endurance of life's miseries. This adventure had never 
 been forgiven her; indeed, her worthy uncle could not 
 get over the foolishness and paltriness of it. "To fall in 
 love with a common soldier!" he would untiringly repeat. 
 "Who has ever heard of such wicked perversity, such 
 rank immorality?" This punctilious gentleman was 
 rather fond of moralizing when it could be safely done, 
 for he belonged to that class of petit bourgeois who are 
 eager to discipline everybody but themselves and those 
 from whose pranks they desire profit, imagining that in 
 some inexplicable way their preachings redound greatly 
 to their own credit. So he and his sister for once of the 
 same opinion generally combined their efforts to make 
 Rose's life as unhappy as they could, taunting her with 
 her misdeeds until she sometimes wished the earth would 
 open to swallow her out of their sight. 
 
 Lately another dark item had been added to her numer- 
 ous sins, since her mother, who was as sharp as a needle, 
 had instantly discerned the passionate admiration she 
 entertained for Loic de Kergoat. "Was it possible," she 
 
 302 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 thought, "that there could exist any girl so stupid as 
 not to understand the immeasurable gulf separating her 
 claims to the young Marquis's possible regard from those 
 of a woman like herself, the widowed Aline Billot?" She 
 was too clever not to be aware of her own many short- 
 comings, but she knew also that a dunghill flower may 
 have a coarse luxuriance and beauty of its own which 
 often catches the blunted fancies of society. Now, her 
 daughter was not a pretty flower; she had no chic, no 
 beauty, no flavor, so it behooved her to remain in her 
 corner until her mother bade her come out of it occasional- 
 ly to play her predestined r61e of duenna. From the full 
 height of her superiority she had stooped good-naturedly 
 during their stay at the sea-side and treated Rose almost 
 as a friend, and in return this insufferable idiot had the in- 
 solence and audacity to raise her pale eyes to the man 
 whom she herself had determined to annex. All her re- 
 cent condescension vanished like magic at the irritation 
 of such an affront. 
 
 Loic had scarcely noticed Rose, had barely been con- 
 scious of her existence until the opening day of the Con- 
 cours, but since then a sort of involuntary pity had been 
 aroused in him by her crushed and almost hypnotized ap- 
 pearance. For Madame Billot had she but known it 
 he entertained frank contempt. " She is ridiculous, eaten 
 up with vanity, and totally ignorant of her place," he 
 said to Ghislain one morning as they sauntered out of 
 the Parfumerie Lierre, where they had made a rather 
 prolonged stay under the fallacious pretext of patronizing 
 the establishment, but really because, having nothing in 
 particular to do, a passing shower had suggested the idea 
 of taking refuge there, and, being amused by the hair- 
 dresser's undeniable bagout which, by-the-way, is a to- 
 tally untranslatable word, standing as it does for some- 
 
 303 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 thing essentially and solely French that particular 
 species of ready, superficial, rather coarse wit which is 
 possessed to a supreme degree by the lower middle class 
 of that merry land. 
 
 "She is a bit loud, that's a fact, and rather pronounced 
 in her oglings, but did you notice Rose? My word, she 
 is a queer one; she was fairly devouring you with those 
 big, glassy, owl's eyes of hers. Evidently to her you are 
 a Fairy Prince, something never imagined before. She is 
 badly browbeaten, by -the -way. I was sorry for her, 
 upon my honor, just now, when Madame, her mamma, 
 sent her so contemptuously to the rightabout." 
 
 "Poor little devil!" Loic muttered, impatiently. "I 
 can't help feeling sorry for her, too; she must lead a dog's 
 life between that clown of an uncle and that overbearing, 
 selfish mother. Well, fortunately, it's none of our business, 
 but if I were she I'd cut and run; better be a servant-girl 
 in some respectable family than what she is now. Didn't 
 she say that to-morrow is her birthday? Let's stop at 
 Royard's and order some violets for her." 
 
 "You're not going to send that wretched little girl 
 flowers, are you?" Ghislain asked, aghast. 
 
 " Why not ?" retorted Loic. " She's a poor little beast, 
 kicked and cuffed all day long, and it will give her a 
 minute's illusion as to her possession of womanly charm ; 
 pray, why should I not send her twenty francs' worth 
 of violets?" 
 
 "Because it will convulse this gossipy little hole of a 
 place, and make her jealous mamma furious with her, 
 besides," the prudent Ghislain argued, rightly and stoutly. 
 
 "Confound the woman 1 I really believe that I shall 
 end by hating her, and I hate to hate such people, because 
 it puts one on a level with them! Come along, I'll send 
 the violets just to spite her deuce take it!" And Ghis- 
 
 34 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 lain, seeing that it was quite useless to oppose his ob- 
 stinate and headstrong friend any further, meekly fol- 
 lowed him into Royard's handsome shop. 
 
 The principal of that fashionable florist's establish- 
 ment came forward with a smile to take Loic's order; 
 and as the latter, egged on by contradiction, was de- 
 manding to see some silvered rush baskets the specialty 
 of the house he called out to an assistant busy at some 
 distance over a gorgeous funeral wreath: 
 
 "Malghorn, bring me the new heart-shaped corbeilles; 
 they are certain to please Monsieur le Marquis." 
 
 The name of Malghorn made Loic prick up his ears, 
 and, much to his astonishment, he recognized the man ap- 
 proaching with the baskets as his mother's former employe. 
 
 "How do you do, Malghorn? are you getting on pros- 
 perously since you left Kergoat?" he said, quietly, sur- 
 veying him with a slightly sardonic little smile. 
 
 "Pretty fairly so, Monsieur le Marquis, thank you," 
 was the answer, delivered in the surly tones Loic remem- 
 bered so well. 
 
 "Glad to hear it," Loic replied. "I did not know that 
 you were in Vende"e. My mother had told me that you 
 had accepted a position as head-gardener somewhere in 
 England." 
 
 " I had, but the place did not suit me, and, as Monsieur 
 Rivier had written to me about a job here, I came away 
 at once and have been with Monsieur Royard ever since." 
 
 " Monsieur Rivier?" Loic interrupted, greatly surprised; 
 "why, I must have dropped into a veritable nest of old 
 acquaintances. Do you mean my ex-tutor, who was such 
 a chum of yours ten years ago, Malghorn?" 
 
 " No, Monsieur le Marquis, I mean Monsieur George 
 Rivier, his brother, who is a lawyer and pleads at the 
 tribunal here." 
 
 305 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 " Indeed! Well, let me know if I can ever do anything 
 for you; I'll be glad to do so," and, without listening to 
 the man's awkward acknowledgments, he directed his 
 principal to send "that queer little square hamper" full 
 of violets, both purple and white, to Mademoiselle Rose 
 Billot's address. 
 
 "The heart-shaped ones would have really been too 
 pronounced and suggestive!" he said, laughing merrily 
 as he and Ghislain turned their faces towards the Place 
 de la Prefecture, to which flippant remark his sage friend 
 angrily replied: 
 
 "You are an infernal idiot, Loic! Your gift will be 
 the talk of the town. I could see that already in Roy- 
 ard's amazed expression, and in the nasty little smile of 
 that diabolical-looking assistant of his, who seems once 
 to have been a retainer of your own. They evidently 
 thought you were ordering this gorgeous affair for Gy- 
 nette, and were paralyzed to find out it was meant for la 
 p'tite Billot" 
 
 "Oh, don't be ridiculous! I've sent dozens of bou- 
 quets to Gynette lately, and many more dozens to all her 
 friends. Why shouldn't I ring in a change for once, and 
 turn my attentions to the tiers etat. It's idiotic to make 
 such a fuss about a few violets given to a child." 
 
 "A nice sort of child!" Ghislain muttered, contemptu- 
 ously, but Loic did not, or pretended not to, hear him, for 
 he himself was beginning really to fear that he had com- 
 mitted something of a betise, and so hastened to turn 
 the conversation, which was a little way of his when eager 
 to avoid being put in the wrong. 
 
 Could he but have been aware of the malignant joy 
 with which his erstwhile foe Malghorn recorded the inci- 
 dent, and in what way he did so, he would have been still 
 more convinced of his extreme foolishness. 
 
 306 
 
XV 
 
 The Duke "There's some old saw doth warrant observation. 
 So it is doubly true but strange, strange, strange!" 
 
 The Page "What mean you, Sir?" 
 
 The Duke "Why, what I said but now, 
 The curse of littles, tyranny of trifles, 
 Of th' abject infinitesimal. Did you tell me 
 One dammed a watercourse with a wheaten straw 
 And thereby drowned a city, or another 
 Hath slain a mailed knight with a grain of sand, 
 Or given a posy to a nursing infant 
 To his own death and ruin, I'd believe you! 
 So evident it seems that Fortune's wheel 
 For her swift businesses needs must have 
 A fine and delicate axle." M. M. 
 
 THE old Marquis d'Yffiniac had taken a great fancy 
 to Loic, and warmly urged him to accompany him 
 to the chateau of the Due Audibert d'Hauterive, a cele- 
 brated sportsman and M.F.H., where he himself was 
 booked to spend the two first weeks of the hunting season. 
 
 "Audibert and I were at school together with your 
 grandfather, my boy," the old Nobleman explained, 
 and he is anxious to refresh his acquaintance with you, 
 whom he has not seen since you were in long clothes. 
 Do come. I had a letter from him this morning asking 
 me positively to bring you. His place is the finest one 
 in all Vendee, and is kept in a fashion that does one's 
 heart good to see, especially nowadays, when fortune has 
 dealt hardly with so many of us. It hurts one to see an 
 old chateau that has survived the culverins of past wars 
 
 307 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and the torches of the Revolution left to neglect and 
 decay, but such is not the case with the Chateau d'Hau- 
 terive, for Audibert is enormously rich, and cares for it 
 like the very apple of his eye. Really, you should ac- 
 cept his invitation. I know you would like it all im- 
 mensely." 
 
 Unfortunately, however tempting these inducements 
 were, Loic's desire to accompany Ghislain back to Yffiniac 
 prevailed. He had had enough of gayeties for the pres- 
 ent, and, moreover, he was in a singularly unsettled frame 
 of mind, thanks to his mother's persistent silence, to 
 Gynette's more and more visible ensnarement and de- 
 termination to marry him whether he liked it or not, and 
 finally to the hornet's nest he had set buzzing about his 
 ears by his ill-advised birthday offering to Rose Billot. 
 
 He had had a scene of the highest comicality with the 
 widow Billot on the day following the sending of the 
 violets; for, meeting her by chance on the Cours a 
 lonely and verdant avenue behind the Prefecture where 
 he was smoking his post-prandial cigarette before dressing 
 for a ball, he had been unable to avoid the encounter and 
 had been flooded with reproaches, tears, and recrimina- 
 tions, capped by a most shameless and disconcerting 
 declaration of love. Indeed, so great had been the lady's 
 agitation that, nolens-volens, he had been forced to sup- 
 port her tottering steps and escort her, still sobbing and 
 quaking like a frightened doe, along back streets and 
 poetically moonlit lanes to within a few yards of her 
 dwelling. 
 
 "The length and breadth of Vende'e will soon be too 
 hot to hold me," quoth Loic to himself, furiously, as he 
 rapidly retraced his steps. "Curse the woman! Does 
 she imagine that I'm inclined to play Don Juan to her 
 superannuated Juliet. The idea of her throwing her- 
 
 308 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 self at my head in this barefaced fashion! though it 
 serves me right for playing the fool. Ghislain was correct 
 I am an infernal idiot!" 
 
 The mere thought that he was being made ridiculous 
 by the widow's ardent pursuit was unendurable to him, 
 and his face was still heavily clouded when, an hour later, 
 he made his bow to one of the wittiest and most exclusive 
 of Vende"en great ladies at the entrance of her magnificent 
 salons. 
 
 Vicomtesse Gynette was one of the latest to arrive; 
 she was clad in absolutely unrelieved white, diamonds 
 and pearls shining all over her from head to foot, and her 
 entrance was the sensation of the evening, yet her face 
 was singularly pale, and there were faint azure circles 
 beneath her eyes. She felt what the Orientals call an 
 asp at the heart, and found evidently no solace in the 
 enthusiastic homage cast at her little feet throughout 
 the evening. As she sat amid the changing groups of 
 distinguished, high-born, handsome men that bent be- 
 fore her and hung on her slightest word, she looked but 
 for one figure that kept aloof and was leaning moodily 
 against the gilt railing of a balcony opening upon a cedar- 
 circled lawn, where the tall jets of many fountains sprang 
 up like crystal aigrettes in the light of hundreds of deli- 
 cately tinted lanterns. 
 
 "Loic," she said, abruptly, to him when she had at 
 last succeeded by manoeuvres which a month ago she 
 would have condemned as utterly despicable in decoy- 
 ing him into the winter-garden a marvel of floral splen- 
 dors, of fairy-like seclusion, and rosy -shadowed fragrance 
 "Loic, are you angry with me?" 
 
 "Certainly not. What makes you imagine such a 
 thing?" he replied, looking at her with some astonish- 
 ment, for her tone had a pleading, humble note in it 
 
 309 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 which, in spite of her too frankly betrayed tenderness, he 
 had never heard before that night. 
 
 "You do not dislike me, do you?" 
 
 "My dear Gynette, what on earth is the matter with 
 you? are you ill?" he exclaimed, bending towards her to 
 look the better into the dark-blue eyes that met his un- 
 flinchingly, and seemed in some strange way to speak of 
 passion and strong resolve, and pride too great not to 
 disregard itself. 
 
 "Will you marry me?" 
 
 Loic was too utterly taken by surprise, too stupefied, 
 to reply at once. What could she be thinking of, this 
 exquisitely beautiful, immensely wealthy great lady, to 
 offer herself to him thus ? Had the whole world of women 
 gone mad? 
 
 "Will you?" she repeated, her gaze still steadfast, 
 though two great tears slipped swiftly from her lashes 
 and rolled unchecked to the plastron of diamonds at her 
 breast. 
 
 With a sudden tender impulse Loic dropped on one 
 knee beside her, and, taking both her cold, trembling little 
 hands in his warm grasp, said, softly: 
 
 "Don't speak like that to me, Gynette; I do not de- 
 serve it, my poor little girl." 
 
 "Oh, Loic, I know that what I'm doing is is degrad- 
 ing and and shameful," she said, a little breathlessly, 
 the beating of her heart almost audible in the stillness 
 around them; "but I am past observing the dictates of 
 calm custom and and conventional routine. You do 
 not love me, I know it at least, not as I had hoped you 
 would but I love you; oh, I do, I do, with every nerve 
 and fibre of me, fiercely, blindly, exclusively! That is 
 what gives me courage to ask you again. Will you 
 marry me, Loic?" 
 
 310 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic was completely staggered. Here was royal 
 beauty and sweetness wooing with a compelling power 
 of which he had never dreamed with a brave -eyed, 
 pathetic simplicity that brought a mist before his own 
 vision. To half her loveliness and charm mere chivalry 
 would have yielded, and yet and yet such blind con- 
 fidence bred in him a surprising distrust of himself. And 
 would it be right or fair to take in gold and to pay in 
 lead? Thus he thought in one second's lightning-flash, 
 and then: 
 
 "I must repeat it, Gynette," he said, sadly; "I am not 
 worthy of such love as yours. What could I give you in 
 return? Wealth and rank? You have both and to 
 spare. Loyalty and tenderness? You deserve more 
 than that. You would waste your life in fretting impa- 
 tience at my shortcomings, at my dislike of any curb, 
 of any set rule or duty. You do not know me as I am; 
 you do not realize what I have made my mother and 
 Gaidik already suffer. Give me up, dear, while there is 
 still time. I would only make you miserably unhappy. 
 I know I would, and you would soon regret it if I answered 
 you as you now desire." 
 
 "That is for me to judge!" she exclaimed, her voice 
 hoarse with deep feeling, her eyes brimming over with 
 tears. "Such as my life is, it is yours, yours only, yours 
 always, to do with as you please. I will ask in re- 
 turn nothing that you are not ready to give me; only 
 let me be about you and near you as your wife; let me 
 imagine that you love me a little, and I will be content." 
 She stopped with a little catch of the breath that seemed 
 infinitely pitiful to Loic. He was fighting against that 
 sorcery of touching humility in the proud little creature 
 who hitherto had been an undisputed sovereign, yet who 
 from him would accept the yoke of any slavery, however 
 
 3" 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 hard to bear. He gazed into her eyes with a fleeting 
 expression of real love. 
 
 "You are unwise in tempting me like this," he replied. 
 " I am not the man to make you happy, Gynette, nor any 
 other woman on earth. You are ready to give into my 
 hands your will, your reason, and your soul; I must 
 ungracious as I may appear to be show you the conse- 
 quences of your self-surrender; indeed, I would be a sad 
 wretch had I not the common honesty to do so." 
 
 She put out her imprisoned hands in a gesture of sup- 
 plication. 
 
 "For pity's sake, don't try to do that! I know you 
 better than you think; I know how autocratic and self- 
 willed you can be, how high is your temper I know all 
 your faults, Loic! I knew them before you went away, 
 when I, a married woman then, already loved you. I say 
 this because it is true, although it hurts my pride to con- 
 fess it. I have loved no one in all my life but you. Have 
 patience with me, Loic; try and judge me aright, and un- 
 derstand me if you can. All I ask, after all, is that you 
 should be true to me." 
 
 He tried to speak, but she would not let him, and con- 
 tinued, feverishly, for she saw that he was faltering: 
 
 "One thing, though, I will not be, and that is unfair to 
 you. I will not have you give up your freedom and your 
 future at my bidding, sacrifice to me your best gifts 
 your youth and your liberty on the impulse of the mo- 
 ment. You are going back to Yffiniac to-morrow. While 
 there think of what I have told you to-night, and in a 
 week in two weeks, if you like come to me and bring me 
 your answer. Then, as now, I shall be ready to give 
 you all and claim nothing but your entire loyalty and 
 fidelity to me. And now let me go, my dear; do not say 
 another word. I know all you want to tell me. I know 
 
 312 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 you do not love me as lovers do; but I think" and here 
 a scarlet wave passed over her delicate features "I 
 think that I can teach you to do so." 
 
 Her voice sank, she wrenched her hands from his, and, 
 slipping shadow -like through a tall screen of feathery 
 bamboos, she was gone, leaving Loic bewildered, very 
 pale, and with all the warm, melting tenderness which 
 for a moment had lighted up his whole face dying down 
 as a leaping flame dies. 
 
 What he now felt was no longer tenderness, it was 
 amazement, wonder, pain, and yes, fear; for Loic had no 
 vanity, and he dreaded that if he married this confiding, 
 loving woman it would only be to make her miserable. 
 "I'm an untamable animal," he muttered to himself, 
 and his honest, self-distrusting eyes the eyes of a man 
 who had never known save in the seldom oases of his 
 sister's society what it was to have complete peace from 
 a capricious, harassing, restless feminine influence saw 
 as in a mirage of the future an endless succession of jealous 
 scenes and hopeless efforts, and he hardened his heart to 
 the memory of that brave gaze and that quivering voice. 
 
 In his black, despondent mood he welcomed the sound 
 of approaching voices loudly calling his name, and, quickly 
 slipping his cigarette-case from his pocket, moved in 
 their direction. 
 
 "Where have you been, Loic?" called out Ghislain, 
 who was the foremost of a group of gay youths. "I 
 thought you were here with Gynette ?" 
 
 "We want you for the cotillion," cried those behind 
 him; "we were despairing of ever finding you. What on 
 earth were you doing?" 
 
 "Smoking a cigarette in peace, Messeigneurs," he an- 
 swered, lightly; "the smoking-room was crowded and I 
 have a bit of a headache." 
 ai 3'3 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Ghislain looked curiously at him. 
 
 " It's odd for you to have a headache," he said, teasingly. 
 " Surely you are not thinking of leaving us in the lurch?" 
 
 " Never!" he answered, with admirably assumed gayety ; 
 and, as with apparent eagerness he followed them into the 
 ballroom, the thought of Gynette went with him like a 
 haunting ghost. "Poor little girl!" he repeated again 
 and again to himself, impatiently. "Why could not I 
 have said yes and made her happy, poor little honest 
 Gynette." 
 
 His repentance for what he had neglected to do was 
 at that moment quite as extreme as would have been his 
 dismay had he done otherwise, and he cursed himself 
 throughout the night squarely and unstintingly for what 
 he termed his brutality and ingratitude. 
 
 Early next morning a card was brought to him by his 
 own man. He had scarcely finished with his bath and 
 his chocolate and was lighting his earliest cigarette. He 
 stared for a second or two at the small, square pasteboard, 
 upon which was engraved "Georges Rivier, Avocat," and 
 then said, angrily, "What the devil does the creature 
 want?" and, turning to his man, added, "Go and tell him 
 to call later, Robin; I can't receive him at this hour." 
 
 "Deuce take him!" he thought. "Surely his brother's 
 title to our gratitude is not such as to warrant a call!" 
 
 Almost immediately Robin, with an angry countenance, 
 reappeared. 
 
 "Monsieur le Marquis," he said, in an agitated way, 
 which nothing but strong indignation could have called 
 forth, "this person insists upon " 
 
 " Pardon me, Monsieur le Marquis," said a man who had 
 followed the valet so closely that he was but a yard be- 
 hind him. "Pardon me, but I must really see you on 
 business of the greatest importance." 
 
 3 J 4 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic was so astonished that for the second time in 
 twenty -four hours he was at a loss for words. In a mo- 
 ment, however, he recovered himself, and, looking very 
 formidable and uncompromising in his white flannel 
 costume d'interieur which made him appear even broader- 
 shouldered and taller than usual said, curtly and with 
 no effort to conceal his displeasure: 
 
 ''This is a rather unwarrantable intrusion on the part 
 of a total stranger, Monsieur." 
 
 "Believe me, Monsieur le Marquis," the other replied, 
 bowing low, "that only the most serious reasons would 
 have induced me to commit such a breach of etiquette." 
 
 "My memory is a broken reed, Monsieur," Loic said, 
 dryly ; " this must serve as my excuse for not remembering 
 any incident in my life which could explain the interest 
 you appear to take in me." 
 
 For a second the advocate met the full gaze of the 
 calm, gray eyes fixed upon him, and instantly began to 
 shuffle his feet uneasily. 
 
 "Madame la Marquise de Kergoat," he began, awk- 
 wardly enough, for this young man in white flannels 
 struck him with sudden misgivings, "has done me the 
 honor to confide in me to the extent of asking me to call 
 upon you with regard to a very delicate a ah very 
 regrettable ah situation, and, therefore, I am now only 
 fulfilling a mission," 
 
 "My mother has asked you to call on me," Loic asked, 
 hardly believing the testimony of his ears, "in order to 
 discuss a delicate situation ? I fail to follow you. Will 
 you be so good as to explain yourself a little more clearly ?" 
 
 "Certainly, Monsieur le Marquis, certainly, if you will 
 kindly allow it, and if you will permit me to sit down" a 
 courtesy which Loic had purposely neglected to extend. 
 
 " Sit down, by all means, if you think it will disentangle 
 
 315 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 your ideas ; for if I did not see with my own eyes that you 
 are sober, I should be tempted to 'believe that you are 
 yielding to the dreams of intoxication. Perhaps you 
 know that your brother was some ten years ago dismissed 
 from my mother's employment under peculiarly dis- 
 graceful circumstances. This alone, it seems to me, 
 makes against the chance of the Marquise de Kergoat's 
 reposing any very great confidence in you." 
 
 If Rivier No. 2 was disconcerted, he certainly pulled 
 himself together sufficiently not to show it. His was a 
 secretive sort of face, somewhat comelier than his broth- 
 er's, but of the same pasty complexion, crowned by sleek, 
 thin hair, framed by lank, pompous-looking side-whiskers, 
 and furnished with dull eyes of a nondescript blue that 
 seemed admirably adapted for the concealment of thought. 
 With a square-nailed, ill-cared-for hand he nonchalantly 
 waved aside this small reminiscence. 
 
 "Not necessarily," he said, softly. "Madame la Mar- 
 quise de Kergoat is too just to make one brother respon- 
 sible for the misdeeds of the other, if such misdeeds had 
 really existed; but permit me to hope that this was not 
 the case, since it was through Madame la Marquise de 
 Kergoat's kind mediation that my brother obtained, a 
 year ago, the post of professor of mathematics at the 
 College of Nimes. Indeed, it is owing to the fact that he 
 paid his respects to Madame la Marquise a few days ago 
 that she became aware of my residence in this neigh- 
 borhood, with the result of my receiving the letter which 
 constitutes my credentials. Her orders are peremptory." 
 
 Loic silently surveyed his visitor for a moment. He 
 saw no reason to doubt the man's statements, nor, beyond 
 a slight initial shock, caused by the choice of messenger, 
 was he even surprised. He knew only too well that his 
 mother belonged to that type of autocrat which cannot 
 
 316 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 exist without favorites and protege's. A succession of 
 these, both male and female, had "had their day and 
 ceased to be," and most of them had ruled the Marquise 
 with a rod of iron within their sphere of influence, and 
 sometimes even outside of it, in matters of the most 
 private concern. Viewed collectively, all were more or 
 less detrimental, but, aside from this common character- 
 istic, they were as strangely unassorted as the hoard of a 
 magpie, ranging from the worthy Rivier himself to a 
 flat-faced Prussian lady-companion whom Gaidik, some 
 years before, had thrown bodily out of the room and out 
 of employment, ostensibly for gross insolence to her 
 mistress, but really because the woman had attempted 
 to strike her beloved little brother. By making use of 
 such psychological moments, Gaidik and Count Rene* had 
 rid the house of many, and more had "died a natural 
 death/' but some, as in the present instance, had suc- 
 ceeded in returning from outer darkness, even after 
 many years. 
 
 "Peremptory, eh?" Loic replied, at last, having swiftly 
 considered the situation and clearly perceived that his 
 old enemy, the tutor, was to have a hand in directing this 
 new offensive warfare. "Well, my very dear Sir, if you 
 have any message to deliver, pray do so without further 
 circumlocution, for I like plain dealing and straight 
 speech." 
 
 He was puffing steadily at his cigarette and glancing 
 lazily at the now thoroughly uneasy envoye extraordi- 
 naire through little blue wreaths of smoke. 
 
 "This being the case, Monsieur le Marquis," the lawyer 
 said, with an effort at forensic impressiveness, "I am 
 sorry to say that Madame your mother, thoroughly dis- 
 approves of your present stay and relations in La-Roche- 
 Sur-Yon, and that she desired me to come and tell you 
 
 317 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 what I know about a certain person with whom she fears 
 that you are imprudently entangling yourself. You 
 must pardon me for textually repeating what she did 
 me the honor of writing to me on the subject." 
 
 "My mother wrote you textually this?" Loic asked, 
 with characteristic bluntness, but without as yet giving 
 the slightest sign of temper. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur le Marquis, she did," asserted the 
 other, blandly. " If it were not so, would I have ventured 
 to come here on such an errand?" 
 
 "If I thought you capable of that," said Loic, looking 
 at him thoughtfully, "I would throw you out of the win- 
 dow. As it is, I will only throw you down-stairs pres- 
 ently for presuming to accept such a mission." 
 
 Georges Rivier bit his ratty fingers anxiously; he was 
 quickly acquiring the impression that he had undertaken 
 too heavy a task, in his eagerness to earn a five-hundred- 
 franc note. 
 
 "You have, no doubt," Loic went on, in the same calm 
 and even voice, "your credentials about you?" 
 
 " No, Monsieur le Marquis, no. I was merely requested 
 to tell you the antecedents of a certain widow Billot, 
 who" 
 
 "Don't let us mention names, if you please; it is ex- 
 ecrably bad form, to begin with, and, secondly, I fail to 
 recognize your right to come and give me advice upon 
 that or any other subject, even by my mother's directions. 
 I am not responsible to any one for my actions, least of 
 all to you, and I must recommend you to mind your own 
 business in the future. What I merely wanted to be 
 certain of is that you were really sent on this scandal- 
 peddling expedition, that is all.*' 
 
 "I I don't understand why you should be so indig- 
 nant, Monsieur le Marquis," the lawyer hastily protested. 
 
 318 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 He was ludicrously disconcerted. The cue for the sono- 
 rous moral r61e he had expected to play did not seem to 
 be forthcoming, and he was rapidly getting apologetic. 
 " I am a man some years older than yourself, and, having 
 at my finger-ends the disgraceful past of the ah 
 person I was requested to warn you against, it is quite 
 natural that I should come and set you on your guard. 
 Believe me, I am actuated entirely by good feeling, and 
 my motives are strictly above all question of personal 
 interest or personal acrimony. The duties of a son 
 towards his mother are " But a sudden flash of 
 Loic's half-closed eyes and a faint curl of his firm, con- 
 temptuous lips brought the preacher to an abrupt 
 pause. 
 
 "Am I to conclude, Monsieur le Marquis," he resumed, 
 after a silence which something in Loic's attitude ren- 
 dered extremely disquieting to him, "that you decline to 
 hear what I have to say?" His tone was one of mingled 
 obsequiousness and exasperation, and his loose lips were 
 getting unsteady a weak mouth is apt to betray its 
 possessor at inconvenient moments. 
 
 "You are entirely correct. You carried your little 
 pickings to the wrong shop when you brought them to me. 
 And now be so good as to go at once while I still remember 
 that I am in a friend's house, where I have no right to 
 make a disturbance," Loic said, grimly, rising from his 
 chair in a quick and rather alarming manner. Rivier, 
 who had gone very white, tried to hold his ground. 
 
 "You m-m-must not speak to m-m-me like that, Mon- 
 sieur le Marquis," he stammered, horribly frightened. 
 "I am an honest gentleman who means you well." 
 
 Loic, standing close to him, looked down at this paltry 
 personage with immeasurable disgust. 
 
 "My honest gentleman," he said, without raising his 
 
 319 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 voice, "leave this room, I tell you, and at once, or I'll 
 make you!" 
 
 "You dare not touch me!" the man cried out, com- 
 pletely losing his head. "I'll have you up for assault 
 if you but put a finger on me!" 
 
 These imprudent words were hardly out of his mouth 
 before Loic's hand was on his collar, and, calmly lifting 
 him off his feet, without any apparent effort, he carried 
 him through the door into the passage, and then lightly, 
 easily, just as he might have thrown a snarling dog, he 
 flung him down the broad flight of shallow stairs which, 
 fortunately, was thickly carpeted into the hall below. 
 The terrified advocate fell unhurt, even unbruised, and 
 as he rose his hat was kicked down after him. Mechan- 
 ically he picked it up; his face was almost blue, his eyes 
 for once had lost all their dulness, and were alive with 
 evil expression, and his lips moved, but without a sound. 
 
 "It had to come to this," Loic said, still with perfect 
 quiet, sauntering down-stairs with his hands in his pock- 
 ets. "Sooner or later we would have met again, and 
 now my debt to you being partly paid, I hope, for your 
 sake, that we never will." Whereupon, with exquisite 
 politeness, he opened a side door and ushered Monsieur 
 Rivier out. 
 
 Never a word did the man say until he had placed the 
 three stone steps leading to the gardens between him and 
 Loic's ready fist, then, with an expression of extraordinary 
 hatred and malignity in his bloodshot eyes the look of 
 some one rejoicing inwardly over a deep and certain 
 revenge he muttered, between his clinched teeth: "Very 
 good oh, very good! Now, my fine Marquis, I will not 
 spare you!" 
 
 It is to be presumed that Loic did not hear, for he 
 stood quite still, watching this sorry object slinking away 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 with the light of the bright autumnal morning sun shining 
 on a face where humiliation and deadly rage were fighting 
 for mastery. "Another friend that I have just made 
 for myself," he said, lightly, half aloud, and as he slowly 
 walked back to his rooms he added, with a weary little 
 sigh, "But what an ignominy the whole thing is!" 
 
 Loic drove back that afternoon with Ghislain to Yffi- 
 niac, feeling singularly depressed. A tepid drizzle of 
 rain had set in shortly after mid-day, blurring the shad- 
 owed landscape, and this perhaps accentuated his un- 
 usually sombre mood. He had no clew of any kind as 
 to what his mother's dealings with such a man as Georges 
 Rivier could possibly portend, and nothing that his in- 
 genuity could suggest offered even a faintly satisfactory 
 solution. Write to ask her he would not; he was far too 
 deeply hurt and disgusted for that. That his mother, a 
 great lady, hitherto only guilty of caprice and of unwise 
 outbursts of temper, should suddenly set spies after him 
 utterly confounded his simple, straightforward mind 
 and then he remembered Malghorn. "Ah," he thought, 
 "that is the informer 1 He must have written or made 
 that brute Rivier write about the violets. Well, Gaidik 
 was right, as usual; she always said that gypsy was a 
 thorough bad lot." 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" Ghislain asked at this 
 point, breaking into his exasperating train of thought. 
 
 Loic did not look at him. 
 
 "Nothing," he said, shortly. "What should be the 
 matter?" 
 
 Ghislain laid his hand affectionately on his friend's 
 arm. "You are not in any trouble, Loic?" he asked, 
 vaguely alarmed. 
 
 "No, my dear chap, of course not." 
 
 "Are you quite sure of that?" the other insisted, 
 
 321 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "because there is mighty little I wouldn't do for you, and 
 I'd take it ill if you did not call upon me in an emer- 
 gency." 
 
 Truly, Ghislain was startled out of his usual joyousness 
 by Loic's drawn, almost haggard face, but seeing that his 
 questions seemed unwelcome he forbore to repeat them, 
 and the two young men drove on through the softly 
 falling rain, chatting fitfully of indifferent things. 
 
 The shore road they followed, after leaving the forest 
 lands, was very lonely. The only sign of life was the 
 occasional figure of a gooseherd, wrapped in his wide 
 mantle, showing dark against the iron sky on some dis- 
 tant elevation of the illimitable moorland, scarred here 
 and there with peat-cuttings that beckoned the eye 
 across its broken surface of furze and heather to the far- 
 off horizon. This empty level merged towards the north 
 into a great marsh formed by some ancient inroad of the 
 ocean a wild expanse of earth and water mingled and 
 mixed together in a most dangerous and inextricable 
 chaos, which is penetrable only to the very few who 
 know the secret of the treacherous little paths that twist 
 and turn like snakes among the bottomless quagmire. 
 
 On the other side of the road the pale sands of the 
 gently sloping beach met the ripples of a singularly quiet 
 tide, gray as the heaven above it, save where the diffused 
 light was reflected in shaded silver tints, melting and re- 
 appearing with every deep, silent breath of the sea. The 
 Vende'en coast can be wild enough, and its storms are 
 almost not quite as celebrated as the Breton ones, 
 but to-day it was all hopelessly sad and dreary; even the 
 few fishing-boats in the offing looked motionless, their 
 dark hulls and tawny sails seeming to rise and fall slowly 
 with the throbbing of the giant pulse beneath them, 
 without advancing a cable's length in any direction. 
 
 322 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 By the time they reached Yffiniac the whole sky had 
 become a lowering arch of deluge, pools of rain had turned 
 the paddocks into lagoons, and many of the pretty flower- 
 beds in the lower portions of the park were half sub- 
 merged. All that night and the next day rain beat re- 
 lentlessly at the castle windows, and as at four in the 
 afternoon Ghislain and Loic were disconsolately watching 
 the drenched landscape a telegram was brought in for the 
 former. 
 
 "Oh, Loic," he exclaimed, after rapidly glancing at 
 it, "my uncle has had a stroke of apoplexy, and the Duke 
 telegraphs that I must come at once." His sun-tanned, 
 jolly face had grown rigid, and it was only after a few 
 minutes that he continued, in a changed voice: "Can you 
 stay here until you hear from me, or I come back? I 
 wish you could." 
 
 "Of course I will, my dear fellow. You can rely im- 
 plicitly upon me," Loic replied, simply, and the two 
 turned from each other without further words, too much 
 upset to speak of ordinary subjects and hardly daring 
 to mention the one all -import ant one, until the brougham 
 drove up to the door and Ghislain hurriedly started for 
 the nearest railroad station. 
 
 Left alone, Loic was at liberty to give free rein to his 
 annoyance at the present condition of his own affairs, 
 thrown into a yet gloomier light by his anxiety concern- 
 ing the Marquis d'Yffiniac, of whom he had grown very 
 fond. He sat for a long time in the library before a roar- 
 ing fire, his legs stretched out before him, a cigarette be- 
 tween his lips, wishing with all his might that the world 
 had but one neck, so that he could cut through it at one 
 stroke! 
 
 He was restless and still greatly unsettled as, later on, 
 he paced the flower- filled gallery running along the whole 
 
 323 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 length of the second floor before dressing for dinner. 
 There was something decidedly amiss and jangling in his 
 life, and he felt so wretchedly lonely that to distract his 
 depressing thoughts he began to draw pictures in his mind 
 of how Gynette would look as Mistress of Kergoat. The 
 place was made for her and she for the place, he mused. 
 Why, then, should this devil of pride and contrariness 
 which was in him keep her away from it ? Or was it pride 
 and contrariness and not rather merely because she 
 was an entirely new, unsought, self-suggested idea that 
 he was as yet unaccustomed to contemplate? A lovely 
 idea, to be sure, a most winsome and attractive idea 
 here he almost lost himself in a throng of rosy visions, 
 but, rousing at length from his reveries, and looking 
 out upon the rolling woods and rain-smeared park of 
 Yffiniac, he suddenly laughed a weary, bitter little laugh 
 which echoed strangely beneath the glass dome of the 
 gallery. Just at that minute, somehow, it was difficult 
 to come to a decision. 
 
 Presently his servant brought him his letters letters 
 came to Yffiniac twice a day, fetched by a groom on 
 horseback from the little post-office four miles up the 
 coast and, curiously enough, the first missive he noticed 
 on the tray was from Gynette. It ran as follows: 
 
 "It is not surprising," she said, without preliminary or prefix, 
 "that you should have refrained from accepting the offer of my 
 whole life of my whole love! What is more so is that you 
 should not have had the loyalty to tell me your real reasons for 
 so doing. This morning I received a letter from your mother, 
 who, in the name of our old friendship, implores me to use my 
 influence note the humor of it all in order to make you re- 
 nounce the woman with whom you are, it appears, so madly in- 
 fatuated. The letter is heart-breaking. Shortly afterwards I was 
 honored by the visit of your mother's ' homme d'affaires,' a rather 
 sinister personage called Georges Rivier. He insisted upon tell- 
 ing me all the ins and outs of your little romance, the scenes you 
 
 324 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 made your mother, the way in which you followed this woman 
 here, and many other details which I entreated him to spare me, 
 but he argued that Madame de Kergoat was crazed with grief 
 and had sent him to implore my aid. That I will not give! And, 
 moreover, no words of mine would weigh in the balance, as I 
 but too well know, were I inclined to utter them. I am justly 
 punished for having stooped to offer myself to you like that 
 other whom you preferred to me all along. Only two days ago I 
 gave you the chance of telling me the truth, and you had not the 
 ordinary decency to do so. I was well aware that you were 
 flighty, and somewhat unreliable where women are concerned; 
 but how could I conceive such treachery ? You pretended loyalty 
 and affection; you tacitly promised to consider what I had told 
 you, and the way you keep this promise is to degrade me in my 
 own esteem and in that of my peers. Your mother has certainly 
 confided in others, for already I gather from hints dropped 
 and allusions levelled at me, whom many thought as I, alas! 
 almost thought myself your fiancee, that your unfragrant 
 secret is public property. I will never pardon you this! I will 
 never speak to you again if I can help it, and I blush to remember 
 how passionately I have loved you. You would only distress 
 me uselessly in opening afresh a subject which I devoutly trust is 
 closed forever between us. Besides which, I am leaving La- 
 Roche-Sur-Yon to-night for destinations unknown, so it would 
 be lost time to write or to come I would not believe a word of 
 justification or explanation. I think that I never hated any- 
 thing as I hate you I GYNETTE. 
 
 " P.S. Poor Gaidik! she is lucky to be so far away; and to be 
 spared the shame I endure." 
 
 Loic grew ashy white as he read this savage denuncia- 
 tion, with its truly feminine Parthian arrow at the end. 
 The faint jessamine perfume of the paper upon which it 
 was written turned him a little sick; then, suddenly, he 
 began to laugh immoderately, to exhaustion, till the tears 
 came in his eyes and his sides positively ached, a fresh 
 spasm seizing him with every glance at the crumpled 
 letter lying at his feet. 
 
 "That's the bouquet!" he at last said, aloud, in quiver- 
 ing tones. "There cannot be anything funnier than 
 
 325 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 this," and again he relapsed into fits of laughter which, 
 in a being less strong of nerve might have soon become 
 closely related to hysterics. 
 
 His was a strangely calm, impassive face, however, 
 when an hour later he took his place in solitary grandeur 
 at his friend's deserted dinner-table. The solitude was a 
 relief now, for it would have been almost impossible to 
 conceal his trouble from Ghislain's vigilant eye. Hitherto 
 he had taken life as a light sort of business, governed 
 mostly by his fancy of the moment, but now suddenly it 
 had assumed a very different aspect, and the directing 
 power seemed so completely taken out of his hands that 
 he was entirely confused and bewildered. After a rapid 
 pretence at eating what was set before him, he rose, told 
 the butler to serve coffee in the hall, and ensconced him- 
 self in a deep arm-chair near the fire. 
 
 The hall at Yffiniac opened straight upon the south 
 terrace, and was an ideal place for reveries, with its huge 
 hearth upon which it would have been sacrilege to burn 
 anything but whole tree-trunks, its Persian rugs as thick 
 as moss and with a bloom on them like that of a ripe 
 plum, its immense arm-chairs and settees, and its general 
 air of perfect and lounging comfort. 
 
 On that eventful evening its luxurious cosiness was 
 especially welcome and soothing, for the weather had 
 grown worse with the coming of the night, and every now 
 and then the wind, which had been rising and falling and 
 rising again all day, was rattling the casements as with 
 furious unseen hands, and blew down the gigantic chimney 
 like a choir of weirdly wailing ghosts. 
 
 Rocked by this whistling symphony, Loic curled him- 
 self more closely in his chair, and again began to think 
 over the same weary round. Which of all this series of 
 calamities that frad lately fallen upon him was due to 
 
 326 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 his fault? Certainly he had been foolish ever to set his 
 foot in the parjumerie queened over by Madame Billot; 
 but how could he have foreseen what this slight impru- 
 dence would bring about? How, also, could he have 
 reckoned with his mother's perversity, Gynette's cruel 
 credulousness, Rivier's and Malghorn's interference? He 
 found himself shrugging his shoulders contemptuously 
 at the thought of all the different factors which had con- 
 spired against him. It mattered not, of course now, what 
 had led to his present eminently unenviable situation, 
 since the situation existed, but he was bitterly incensed 
 against the three women who had conjured it up his 
 mother, Gynette, and the widow Billot. 
 
 "Oh, my little Gaidik! Why aren't you here?" he 
 muttered. "You alone could disentangle this sorry 
 skein for me!" and with a blessing and a curse fighting on 
 his lips he momentarily gave up the attempt to puzzle 
 out his troubles, and, lying back still more deeply in his 
 chair, looked vacantly at the fire. He felt strangely tired, 
 and must have dropped into a short doze; for, in the 
 curious, unformulated fashion of dreams, he suddenly 
 thought that Gaidik had softly glided into the room and 
 was sitting opposite to him. As clearly as clearly could 
 be he saw her. She had not changed during their separa- 
 tion, and he gazed at her, asking himself, in a singular, 
 semilucid fashion, whether she was not really there, but 
 felt afraid to move for fear of setting the vision if vision 
 it were to flight. Yes, it must be she, indeed. Here 
 was the graceful little figure, so perfect in its outlines, here 
 the exquisite oval of the face, the deep-set, black-lashed 
 eyes, dark gray in serious moments, lustrous and spark- 
 ling like aquamarines when a smile shone through them, 
 the small, proudly curved mouth, the obstinate chin, the 
 rippling masses of auburn hair, dusky as ripe chestnuts 
 
 327 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 in the shadow, gleaming like pink copper where the fire- 
 light played on it nay, he could even see the faint, deli- 
 cate amber of the colorless complexion which toned in so 
 uniquely with the tints of eyes and hair surely it was 
 she! Should he get up and clasp her close in his arms, 
 pillow his weary head on her lap, and tell her all his woes ? 
 He made an unconscious movement towards her, but fell 
 back, wondering, in a frightened way, why she was dressed 
 all in black, why she looked so sorrowful and held out her 
 tiny hands so imploringly towards him. 
 
 All at once he became broad and staring awake; his 
 eye might have really seen something or his ear uncon- 
 sciously heard a voice, for the sound of his name seemed 
 to linger on the warm air of the room. "Loic, please 
 don't, Loic!" He sat bolt upright, to find, alas, the oppo- 
 site chair untenanted ; but an agonized echo of his name 
 was certainly tossing on the air outside. This time, how- 
 ever, it was not "Loic" that he heard, but "Monsieur de 
 Kergoat, Monsieur de Kergoat, etes vous la!" Just at 
 that moment there was a lull in the increasing violence 
 of the gale, and in the momentary stillness the rapid 
 patter of hurrying feet ascended the steps of the terrace. 
 
 With a sense of amazement almost painful in its in- 
 tensity, he sprang to the door and flung it open, letting 
 in a great buffet of rain-soaked wind and a dripping little 
 figure that rushed into his arms, crying out in terror: 
 "Save me! Hide me! They are after me! Save me, 
 Monsieur le Marquis!" 
 
XVI 
 
 Ho! rulers all, who would featly deal 
 And frame all things to your hearts' desire, 
 
 The willow wand ye may cleave with steel, 
 But iron is wooed with fire! 
 
 Or e'er ye mount for the flying course 
 Consider well of your untried steed, 
 
 For low-bred cattle ye break with force, 
 But the Arab no bit will heed. 
 
 Armed, like the rose with her scent and thorn, 
 Ye may laugh at doubts and corroding fears, 
 
 For the will that's proof unto rage and scorn 
 By weakness is won, and tears. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 GENTLY but firmly Loic unclasped the clinging arms 
 of the frenzied girl and drew her quickly into the hall, 
 but suddenly he felt the life going from the hand he held 
 and was just in time to catch her as she fell forward un- 
 conscious and helpless. It took him a second or so to 
 realize what had happened and no wonder then he 
 laid her at full length on a divan and turned to go in 
 search of water which element he supposed to be the 
 necessary adjunct of every fainting-fit but a glance at 
 her already half-drowned condition made him modify 
 this plan, and, taking from the tray on which his coffee 
 had been served his untouched glass of liqueur-brandy, 
 he knelt on one knee, slid an arm under his patient's head, 
 and succeeded, more or less completely, in forcing part of 
 its contents down her throat, after which he drew her wet 
 3*9 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 cloak from around her, took off her battered hat, and set 
 to chafe her icy hands. 
 
 A man is generally not seen to advantage when admin- 
 istering to an unconscious woman ; but Loic was not apt 
 to be either clumsy or awkward under any circumstances, 
 and he managed to acquit himself of his task with edify- 
 ing deftness; so much so, indeed, that his efforts soon met 
 with their due reward, for the girl opened her eyes just in 
 time to save herself from a second dose of brandy, and 
 stared wildly about her. 
 
 " You are better now, Mademoiselle Rose, are you not ?" 
 Loic asked, encouragingly, and in a cheerful tone, which 
 seemed to indicate that her surprising arrival and the 
 extraordinary words she had pronounced before fainting 
 were to be classed among quite ordinary and natural 
 matters. " Now drink that," he continued, peremptorily, 
 holding forth the remainder of the cordial. He divined, 
 and correctly so, that the girl was of those who feel more 
 comfortable when domineered over and constrained to 
 obey, for she complied without a murmur, and immedi- 
 ately a reawakening of intelligence dawned in her eyes. 
 Loic was watching her in silence ; he confidently expected 
 some further hysterical display being versed in the 
 ways of women but she was evidently still too dazed to 
 rouse herself from her torpor, and sat on the divan with 
 both arms hanging limply at her side, the soft light from 
 a neighboring lamp gleaming upon her wet, dishevelled 
 hair, and defining her white face against the dark tapes- 
 tries beyond, looking intensely wretched and taking ab- 
 solutely no notice of him. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Rose," he said at last, speaking slowly, 
 as one speaks to a child " Mademoiselle Rose, won't you 
 tell me now what has happened to you?" 
 
 The girl looked up with eyes dilated and vague at first, 
 
 330 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 but gradually their expression changed to extreme ter- 
 ror, and suddenly, with a gurgling moan, she threw 
 herself at his feet, collapsing in a heap like a broken 
 doll. 
 
 " What on earth can they have done to her ?" Loic asked 
 himself, as he raised her and placed the drooping, trem- 
 bling form in one of the broad arm-chairs on the hearth- 
 corner. He was too kind-hearted and generous not to be 
 moved by the sight of such heart-broken misery and fear, 
 but his pity was mixed with unconscious irritation, and 
 it was almost severely that he said: 
 
 " You must try and pull yourself together, Mademoiselle 
 Rose. At any moment a servant may come in and your 
 presence be discovered, so you see that we have no time 
 to lose if I am to help you out of your trouble, whatever 
 it is?" She was sobbing now in a long-drawn, piteous 
 sort of way, but after a little she checked herself, looked 
 up at him, and tried to rise. With a gesture that was 
 almost a command he restrained her, and continued, in 
 the same grave tone: 
 
 "You must be aware that here I am not in my own 
 house, and that, apart from a thousand other reasons, 
 this one would be sufficient to prevent my offering you 
 hospitality. Tell me why you have run away from your 
 home, and especially why you have come to me." 
 
 "You will think me mad beyond all pardon if I tell 
 you," she whispered between her sobs. 
 
 "No," he answered her, "I will probably think you 
 merely human." 
 
 She did not quite understand ; but the hot blood surged 
 into her face to the very roots of her hair, and she sank 
 her head between her shoulders. 
 
 "I came," she faltered at last, "because they made 
 my life a burden on your account because they beat 
 
 331 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 me and called me names, and were going to imprison me 
 in my grandmother's house beyond the marshes." 
 
 "On my account?" Loic asked, in amazement. "My 
 poor girl, how can that be? I never spoke to you or 
 even to your mother more than six times in my whole 
 life. You must be dreaming." 
 
 "I know! I know," she went on, in the same trem- 
 bling whisper. "I have no right to expect that you 
 should help me but you you sent the violets and 
 even before that they had noticed " 
 
 "Noticed what?" he asked, impatiently, almost rough- 
 ly, for the mention of those luckless violets was really 
 more than he could stand just then. 
 
 " That I care for you," she said, so low that he but just 
 caught the words. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Rose," he said, deeply annoyed, "I am 
 afraid that you are a very romantic young woman. You 
 have done a very imprudent and very foolish thing. Yet 
 it may not be too late to repair it. I will, if you permit 
 me, take you back at once to La-Roche-Sur-Yon and 
 speak to your mother in such a fashion that she will for- 
 give your escapade, promise to treat you more kindly, 
 and let by-gones be by-gones. I will demonstrate to her 
 how little she has to fear from me, and if she is a rea- 
 sonable woman she will be the first to try and avert a 
 scandal." 
 
 His words sounded harsh, almost cruel, in his own 
 ears, but he felt that if he yielded one iota to her hysterical 
 sentimentality he was lost. Moreover, he could not 
 bring himself to believe that she really loved him, thanks 
 to his utter lack of vanity Loic, like the ornithorhyn- 
 chus, was of a species peculiar and apart, a handsome 
 and captivating man who had no fatuity in his composi- 
 tion and he stared angrily for a moment at the girl's 
 
 332 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 stooping form. How well, he thought, did he know that 
 sort of woman! How familiar to him was every little 
 trick of speech, of pose, of glance! A strange sense of 
 monotony came over him who had been so steadily 
 courted by women ; the very words, " I care for you," still 
 ringing in his ears, were such as had been used to him 
 on a dozen occasions aye, by that girl's mother herself 
 even by He stamped his foot. Was he going to 
 compare Gynette to those others ? Rose, startled by the 
 gesture, shuddered nervously. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur le Marquis," she pleaded, "don't be 
 angry! Please, please listen to me; have patience for 
 just a minute longer!" 
 
 Loic could have laughed aloud. "Monsieur le Mar- 
 quis." Truly the manie des grandeurs was hereditary 
 in the Billot family! She reminded him of her grandilo- 
 quent mamma; but so imploringly did she gaze at him 
 that he said, more gently: "I am listening, but, for God's 
 sake, be brief. Every moment we waste here is an addi- 
 tional danger to you." 
 
 Thus admonished, she did her best to master herself, 
 although there was a suspicious catch in her voice and 
 tears still ran from her wide, light-colored eyes as she 
 began to speak, while he mechanically fingered an un- 
 lighted cigarette. 
 
 "I cannot accept your offer, Monsieur le Marquis," she 
 said, "because I am simply unable to do so. If I were 
 to go back home now they would lock me up in a re- 
 formatory an awful sort of place for for bad women. 
 I know them, and that is just what they would do. They 
 did all they could to prevent my ever seeing you when 
 you came to the shop, and I was really a prisoner, always 
 watched by one of them, either my mother or my uncle, 
 during the last days of your stay at Monsieur le Marquis 
 
 333 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 d'Yffiniac's, and they swore that if I ever attempted to 
 see you they would put me away in that place." 
 
 The whole scene still seemed so utterly unreal to Loic 
 that he could scarcely believe he was hearing aright. 
 Violently he threw the unlighted cigarette into the fire, and, 
 bending to look searchingly at her, exclaimed, incredu- 
 lously, "Are you sure that you are not exaggerating?" 
 
 "No, Monsieur le Marquis, I am telling you the real 
 truth; and what is true, also, is that if you do take me 
 back I shall kill myself. I am not saying this to force 
 your pity, but because I am determined to do it." The 
 last words were wrung from her like water from a twisted 
 cloth. It was certainly the truth which she spoke, and 
 Loic looked at her aghast. 
 
 "You are talking nonsense," he said, losing all patience; 
 but she did not heed him at all and continued, passion- 
 ately: "You do not know them as I do, Monsieur le 
 Marquis. I have been their drudge and their victim for 
 years, and I am sick of it. What is there for me to live 
 for? No, no! I will kill myself, that I promise you. 
 I swear it on the Cross! If they catch me and they 
 may be after me already I'll kill myself here before your 
 eyes. So, for God's sake, don't cast me away! If you 
 do, you'll be the cause of my death." 
 
 Loic was absolutely nonplussed. Every fibre of his 
 being cried aloud to him that a great danger hung sus- 
 pended over him, imminent to fall, so long as that girl 
 remained there; but what could he do? He could not 
 throw her out into the storm and the night ; he could not 
 give her his protection ; he had no place where he could 
 safely take her. What was he to do ? 
 
 "There is no need for tragedy," he said at length; "the 
 situation is sufficiently grave without it. You must 
 know that to remain even one night under this roof 
 
 334 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 with me ruins you. Tell me of some place where I can 
 take you, and I will give you all the money you need to 
 live wherever you like, but I cannot keep you with me. 
 That is impossible. Heaven knows what it all means! 
 I have not brought this trouble upon you; I hardly 
 know you. And yet you may be telling the truth when 
 you say that you are in danger. Speak; explain what 
 you want, and I'll do my best." 
 
 The storm was still raging and shrieking outside; but 
 in one of the periodical brief pauses of the wind that 
 followed Loic's last question a fuller, rounder note was 
 suddenly heard overscoring the loud rush of the rain in 
 rapid crescendo; the soaked gravel of the avenue was 
 grating and splashing beneath swift wheels and the rapid 
 trot of a pair of horses. Next moment they would be at 
 the door, and the two occupants of the hall looked at 
 each other in dismay. 
 
 "Here they come I" Rose exclaimed, starting to her 
 feet. "Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" 
 
 "Hush!" Loic whispered. "Come here!" and with the 
 coolness which always stood him in such good stead when 
 prompt resolution was needed, he snatched the girl's wet 
 cloak and hat from the floor, seized her by the shoulder, 
 and, lifting a width of the tapestry from the wall to the 
 left of the hearth, he touched the centre of an elaborately 
 carved lotus-flower in the wainscoting, and the whole 
 panel swung inward, revealing a narrow passage within 
 the thickness of the masonry the one, in fact, which 
 Ghislain had shown him with such glee on the night of 
 his arrival at Yffiniac. Into it he thrust the trembling 
 girl and her belongings, saying, in a tone admitting of no 
 resistance, but much more kindly than he had as yet used 
 to her: "Don't be afraid, and don't move till I come for 
 you. There is a bench right here ; sit down and keep quiet!" 
 
 335 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Swiftly he secured the panel, dropped the tapestry over 
 it, and, returning to the fire, sat down, stretched himself 
 out at full length, and closed his eyes as if overcome by 
 sleep. Nor was he a minute too soon ; for hardly had he 
 thus installed himself when a footman tiptoed into the 
 room, and, after decorously clearing his throat once or 
 twice, and finally coughing gently behind his hand to 
 awaken him, after the approved and stagey fashion of his 
 kind, ventured to state that a Person stood without de- 
 manding admittance on business suffering no delay. 
 
 "Eh! What?" quoth Loic, rubbing his eyes and 
 yawning in a manner to dislocate his jaw. "You must 
 be mad! At this hour, and in this weather? Tell him 
 that Monsieur le Comte is absent." 
 
 The footman explained that it was not Monsieur le 
 Comte, but Monsieur le Marquis whom the person craved 
 to see; that he personally had attempted to dismiss him, 
 but that he had, much to his regret, been unsuccessful. 
 What did Monsieur le Marquis wish done about it? 
 
 Monsieur le Marquis consented, after some further par- 
 ley, and with extremely bad grace, to find out for himself 
 what the devil this intruder wanted, and two minutes 
 later the little hair-dresser of the once Place Napoleon was 
 ushered in. 
 
 Loic was one of those unfortunate people whose sense 
 of humor is irrepressible, striking often at the worst 
 possible moment, and the incongruities of the situation 
 suddenly forced themselves upon him so powerfully that 
 he had all he could do not to burst out laughing. Mas- 
 tering this untimely mirth, however, by a truly heroic 
 effort, he raised himself slowly on one elbow, and, half 
 closing his eyes, as though better to absorb the surprising 
 spectacle before him, he said, with admirably assumed 
 incredulity : 
 
 336 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "What! Monsieur Lierre!" for this was really the per- 
 fumer's name, and with poetical apropos he had called 
 his shop after himself. " Au berceau de Lierre can I 
 believe my eyes ? Is it really myself whom you wish to 
 honor with a visit?" 
 
 It may have been that the man detected the shade of 
 irony in the formality of the question, for he paused half- 
 way across the room with nervous hesitation, and his 
 voice shook as he replied, obsequiously, "I entreat you 
 to excuse my indiscretion, Monsieur le Marquis, but I am 
 hard pressed, indeed, and this alone induced me to in- 
 trude upon you." 
 
 He certainly looked hard pressed, for he actually 
 panted as he spoke, and the warmth of the room, coaxing 
 the dampness from his sodden clothes, surrounded him 
 with a slight vapor like that of a newly washed cloth 
 emerging from the wringer. Never had anybody looked 
 more mean and paltry than did this artist of the comb 
 and brtfsh, with his pale-yellow hair and scraggy beard, 
 his sallow face, his servile manners, and under-sized, 
 narrow-chested form. 
 
 "I am here," he continued, evidently taking Loic's 
 silence for acquiescence, "to ask a a strange ah 
 question of you, Monsieur le Marquis." 
 
 "I will endeavor to answer it," Loic said, carelessly, 
 pointing to a chair ; " but won't you sit down, my good Sir?" 
 
 No. Monsieur Lierre would not sit down, his clothes 
 were, alas, very wet, and, moreover, his time was short. 
 
 Again L6ic waited in the same extremely unsympa- 
 thetic silence for further information, which seemed diffi- 
 cult to come by. 
 
 "You know my niece Rose, Monsieur le Marquis?" the 
 little man at length blurted out after some moments of 
 fidgeting embarrassment. 
 
 337 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I do. Is that your strange question?" 
 
 "She has run away, Monsieur le Marquis, and I have 
 cause to think that she is in this neighborhood. Have 
 you have you " Here he came to a dead stop; really 
 his question was a difficult one to formulate, and Monsieur 
 le Marquis, casting lazy glances alternately up at the ceiling 
 and down towards his own exquisitely shod feet, indica- 
 tive of no curiosity whatever with regard to Mademoiselle 
 Rose's fate, gave him but poor encouragement to proceed. 
 
 Still, after humming and hawing for a full minute, the 
 little hair-dresser took courage, and, stepping closer to 
 Loic, said rapidly, as if eager that the murder should be 
 out as speedily as possible: 
 
 "I am here to-night because we think that she has 
 fled to demand your protection; she is a crazy sort of 
 girl, is Rose, and capable of anything yes, Monsieur le 
 Marquis, of anything and, pardon me for saying so 
 frankly, she has a romantic admiration for Monsieur 
 indeed, her mother and I noticed from the first the ardent 
 glances which she dared to cast upon Monsieur; we 
 reproved her again and again, but quite without avail; 
 and now, after making us a scene of considerable violence, 
 she has fled, as I have just had the honor of mentioning 
 fled with a threat on her lips to the effect that you you, 
 Monsieur le Marquis would protect her and place her out 
 of our reach! Surely I am justified in calling upon you, 
 in the name of our family honor, to entreat you not to 
 uphold her in her criminal waywardness should she really 
 appeal to you." 
 
 "But," said Loic, with a mixture of his native Breton 
 calmness and his own delicate irony, "would it not be 
 safer to wait until your niece has claimed my protection 
 before assuming so dramatic an attitude? First catch 
 your hare, my good Monsieur Lierre, you know!" 
 
 338 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Evidently this irate uncle knew nothing positive, Loic 
 reflected, and so he began to enjoy the situation after a 
 fashion. The two men looked into each other's eyes in 
 silence. Loic was smiling, but Lierre was as solemn as 
 an owl. 
 
 "Are you quite alone, Monsieur le Marquis?" he asked. 
 
 "As you see, Monsieur Lierre as you see," Loic an- 
 swered, quietly. " But why this question ? Would it calm 
 your fears to search the house for your vagrant niece? 
 As far as I am concerned, you are horribly welcome to 
 do so." 
 
 "Oh t Monsieur le Marquis!" 
 
 "Well, then, what do you want? It's about time you 
 should explain yourself. Here you arrive like a bomb, 
 apparently to ask me whether I have any stray damsels 
 concealed about my person, and it seems to me that I 
 have humored you quite long enough. Speak out, man, 
 or else prosecute your investigations elsewhere." 
 
 Lierre precipitately retreated a step or two. He was 
 very frightened, for there had suddenly leaped to Loic's 
 gray eyes a gleam which he did not like. 
 
 "I assure you, Monsieur le Marquis, that I meant no 
 disrespect," he stammered; "the fact is that I must have 
 been misled by deceptive appearances. I I I beseech 
 you to accept my humblest apologies ; moreover, I think I 
 know now where she must be. Alas, Monsieiy le Mar- 
 quis, she is a sorry specimen, is my niece Rose I say it 
 to our shame. She has already cost us much distress; 
 but that is enough ; she will not be indulged any further, 
 you can trust me for that." 
 
 He could certainly be trusted to commit any sort of 
 villany, if his present expression did not belie him, re- 
 vealing, as it did, a finished scoundrel who would hesitate 
 not a whit to perpetrate any cruelty upon a defenceless 
 
 339 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 woman. Loic felt his ears getting hot, and his hands 
 tingled to administer to him the thrashing he so richly 
 deserved, but, since prudence was obviously imperative, 
 he said, carelessly: 
 
 " Indeed! And how do you propose to curb the young 
 lady's evil passions?" 
 
 " By locking her up safely in a place designed expressly 
 for such as she," the little man replied, with so extrava- 
 gant a ferocity that for a moment he succeeded in looking 
 positively terrible. "I'll teach her to behave, Monsieur 
 le Marquis; for we don't tolerate vice in our family!" 
 
 " When it profits you nothing," was on the tip of Loic's 
 tongue, but he still had sufficient mastery over himself to 
 leave the words unuttered, and merely shrugged his 
 shoulders with a short laugh which had the effect of bring- 
 ing the interview to a conclusion. 
 
 " I am indeed grieved, Monsieur le Marquis," the visitor 
 wheedled, with so abrupt a reassumption of his most per- 
 suasive shopman's manner that Loic looked at him in 
 astonishment, "to have bored you with this miserable 
 affair; but be merciful, and allow me to entreat you again 
 should my shameless niece ever appeal to you to re- 
 fuse to see her; and, oh, Monsieur le Marquis, send her 
 back to us under safe escort, so that we may treat her as 
 she deserves." 
 
 This last clause was de trop, however, and Loic, ris- 
 ing to his full height, exclaimed, his eyes fairly blazing: 
 
 "Eh! go to the devil, you and your infamous speeches; 
 you don't know who you are talking to. Monsieur le 
 Coiffeur, and that's where I have the advantage of you; 
 for, of all the infamous scoundrels " But the terrified 
 hair-dresser had taken to his heels and was retreating 
 precipitately down the long corridor on the way to his 
 waiting fiacre, his coat-tails flying horizontally behind 
 
 340 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 him, his eyes almost starting from his sickly countenance, 
 for he really fancied that he felt the wind of a well- 
 earned kick. In a second more Loic heard the rattle of 
 wheels passing down the avenue at a gallop. 
 
 "Dirty little ruffian!" he muttered. "Pah! the air is 
 fairly tainted with the reek of his presence!" And he 
 turned on his heel, deep disgust still curling his lips. He 
 felt, nevertheless, that the whole situation had its in- 
 tensely funny side; from an observer's point of view, it 
 would have been excruciating, but, unfortunately, he 
 was an actor in the comedy, which fact sadly altered the 
 humor of it. With an impatient shrug of the shoulders 
 he marched across the hall, lifted the tapestry, pressed 
 back the panel, and released Rose. 
 
 Silently he signed to her to follow him up a narrow side 
 staircase and ushered her into his own rooms, where 
 cheerful wood fires burned on every hearth and battled 
 with their fitful brilliancy the steady glow of the shaded 
 lamps. 
 
 "Was it my uncle?" the girl asked, in a frightened 
 whisper, as soon as Loic had closed the outward doors of 
 the suite and returned to her side. 
 
 "It was," he answered, with a half smile which slowly 
 ebbed away as he looked into Rose's livid, haggard face. 
 "He came and is gone. You have nothing more to 
 fear from him for a little while at least." 
 
 Rose sat heavily down on a small ottoman. Her at- 
 titudes were uncouth and angular and had been a per- 
 petual source of contemptuous reproof from her gracefully 
 serpentine mother. She now sat with both hands resting 
 flat on her knees, staring fixedly at the leaping blue and 
 pink flames of the drift-wood logs. 
 
 There was a long silence, during which Loic twice 
 noisily opened and shut his cigarette-case in order to 
 
 341 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 arouse her attention, but apparently she did not hear the 
 sound, nor did she seem aware of her surroundings. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he said at last, in a measured voice 
 which seemed to his auditor to emphasize strangely the 
 quiet of the room, "before we go any further I wish to 
 ask you a question. You are at liberty to answer it or 
 not, but upon your reply hangs my decision. It is a dif- 
 ficult and an unpleasant question for me to ask, and one I 
 would willingly avoid ; but will you answer it truthfully ?" 
 
 Rose continued to stare into the fire, her strange, pale 
 eyes almost fierce in their concentration, but she nodded 
 affirmatively, and Loic, fixing his searching gaze upon 
 her, said slowly, as if carefully weighing every word: 
 
 "Has your uncle any real hold upon you, or are his 
 threats empty ones? Understand, I am asking you 
 whether yes or no you have in the past done something 
 which he can now use against you doubtless you know 
 that parents have practically unlimited powers in France, 
 and that the laws concerning women are severe. If he 
 is accusing and trying to persecute a blameless girl, his 
 threats do not count for anything ; but if this is not al- 
 together the case, then he undoubtedly can carry them 
 into immediate execution. Now answer me frankly and 
 honorably." 
 
 Rose stole one swift glance at him, then her eyes re- 
 turned to the fixed contemplation of the little, hissing 
 flames. With singular rapidity she had grasped Loic's 
 meaning, and had realized that the truth, or part of the 
 truth, well presented, could alone save her. He would 
 not that she instinctively felt aid a hitherto pure- 
 lived maiden to escape the pursuits of her family, be that 
 family ever so uncongenial or even cruel. He might 
 espouse her cause, but that, too, was not certain, whereas 
 if she let him see how matters really stood 
 
 34* 
 
THE TRIDENT AN'D THE NET 
 
 Very slowly she rose and stood before him, her head 
 now bowed, now raised for a pleading look a picture of 
 shamed confusion from which Loic averted his gaze, but 
 she was, in reality, desperately collected, thinking hard, 
 gaining time. 
 
 "Is there some truth in your uncle's accusations?" 
 L6ic asked again, almost in a whisper. 
 
 Her inspiration came. Meeting his eyes shrinkingly, 
 but with perfect-seeming sincerity, "You know there is, 
 you know there is," she said, very low, "but but the 
 man is dead died last year." 
 
 Loic, in spite of his experience of the world, believed 
 her. His own falls and stumbles during twenty-one years' 
 journey on life's broken road had not as yet taught him 
 that women, even when forced to tell the truth, cannot 
 refrain from mixing lies therewith, lies that excuse as 
 they fondly believe the evil they are compelled to con- 
 fess. He believed her, and even honored her for the 
 honesty of her painful confession. 
 
 Rose longed to avoid the look of those softening gray 
 eyes, and as she longed Loic turned his back on her, 
 went to where a lamp stood, and carefully consulted his 
 watch, although, after contemplating the bland face of 
 this costly and reliable timepiece for fully twenty sec- 
 onds, he never saw the hour. Then he turned and slowly 
 came back to her side. 
 
 " I think," he said, quietly, " that we have not much time 
 to lose if you are to be placed out of harm's way to-night." 
 
 She started violently, and grew scarlet with surprise 
 and delight, for until this instant she had not seen one 
 ray of hope. 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, rapturously, "then you will take pity 
 on me you will save me? Thank you, and thank God, 
 who has answered my prayers!" 
 
 343 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Softly, softly!" he interrupted, by no means enjoy- 
 ing this sudden and overwhelming enthusiasm. " Don't 
 thank me, please. What I am going to attempt is the 
 outcome of circumstances with which, as you know, I had 
 nothing to do. Circumstances," he added, more to him- 
 self than to her, "have been my masters lately. They 
 have given me no time to consider and hardly enough 
 to do what seemed best for the moment." 
 
 The girl was looking at him with something in her 
 eyes that in his preoccupation he did not quite under- 
 stand. 
 
 "What do you wish me to do?" she asked, in a lifeless, 
 disappointed voice. 
 
 "I am going to find for you," he said, rousing himself, 
 " a disguise, if possible. I think that with an ulster and a 
 cap over some of my flannel things you may, in the dark, 
 be able to pass for a boy. I will bring everything into 
 this room, and then you will please lock yourself in and 
 get ready as quickly as you can." 
 
 She nodded, and he could not help wondering what 
 thoughts there were behind her silence; but this was no 
 time for reflection, and he hurried off, reckoning as he 
 went how many hours of darkness might still be vouch- 
 safed to him. 
 
 "Oh, what a fool I am!" he angrily reflected, while 
 ransacking his wardrobe for some wearing apparel which 
 might be made to do for her " a nice Squire of damsels in 
 distress; Don Quixote himself could do no better!" He 
 violently closed a recalcitrant drawer and, opening an- 
 other containing tennis-caps and neckerchiefs, muttered, 
 half aloud: "The best of it is that I don't care a button 
 for that stupid little thing, and yet here I am risking 
 everything for her sake Gaidik's trick that, to entangle 
 one's self gratuitously in anybody's troubles Well, 
 
 344 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 on se ressemble de plus loin, and, anyhow, I cannot let 
 that brute of an uncle get hold of her; no, I'm in for it, 
 that's certain; but damnation! I don't think I quite 
 deserve it." 
 
 The sound of the wind in the eaves was like the moan- 
 ing of high rigging at sea. Loic's face hardened, his 
 teeth closed upon his under lip. "She'll be nicely sick," 
 he continued to grumble, bundling all he had selected 
 over his arm; "for I've got to take her away in some 
 fishing-boat or other. There is no question of going by 
 rail or road. Ah! it would take a woman like Gaid to face 
 such a night cheerfully- " Gaidik again! He paused, 
 the frown upon his face deepening suddenly. Would 
 even the supremely unselfish Gaidik counsel him to so 
 mad an adventure? Right before his eyes, on the high 
 mantel-shelf, stood a miniature of her, taken in a white 
 dress of gauze with a trail of starry clematis flung across 
 one bare shoulder and a rope of large pearls twined in 
 her coronal of -braids. Out of that lifelike picture two 
 clear, aquamarine-hued orbs seemed to gaze reproachfully 
 at him. This was, indeed, a parting of the ways, where 
 even a young fellow who has always marched through 
 life with that recklessness of the morrow that is born of a 
 fine unconscious courage and careless, conscious strength 
 might be inclined to pause. Well did he know what in- 
 terpretation would be put on his abduction of this girl, 
 for whom he never could "care a button." Moreover, he 
 clearly foresaw the effect of such an act in the present 
 entangled state of his own affairs. It would justify his 
 mother before all the world and substantiate all her 
 hitherto unfounded views. And yet how could he now 
 get out of it ? The frown became a scowl as he stood in 
 the middle of the room with his bundle of clothes, not 
 hesitating, but quickly counting the cost of the hazardous 
 * 345 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 step he was about to take. With two rapid strides he 
 returned to the chimney-piece, snatched the miniature 
 from its gilded stand, kissed it passionately, closed the 
 little azure velvet box-frame brusquely, and slipped it 
 into an inside pocket. Then, with a muttered oath, he 
 thrust into its place the letters hastily penned to Ghislain 
 and to his own man and hastened away. 
 
 There are, in the lives of most of us, moments when 
 we cease to be men and women, and must needs become 
 mere human beings; times when the influence of sex dis- 
 appears. Loic had reached such a time now. He en- 
 tirely forgot that Rose was a woman, and a woman who 
 loved him, or that he was a man, and therefore subject to 
 the influences of even such a love. She was to him just 
 then merely a creature in danger and pain which he 
 fancied himself called upon to help, nothing more. As 
 for the girl herself, she could hardly be expected to realize 
 the great charity and quixotic generosity of the man 
 who alone stood between her and a grim fate, for the 
 capacity for evil invariably merges at some point into 
 incapacity for comprehending good. 
 
XVII 
 
 The Courtier. "What think you of the case of Benedick?" 
 The Chancellor. "Think? Why, I've thought Mahomet's 
 Paradise, 
 
 But that his life lent color to his creed, 
 A marvellous cynical jest! Look you, good friend, 
 One woman served for all mankind's undoing 
 Unto all time, but this poor wretch hath three 
 That with their love or else their hate pursue him; 
 And of this twain ask me not which is worse, 
 For I'll not tell you!" M. M. 
 
 IT was a most singular outlook, naked, uncouth, pri- 
 maeval, as some parts of the earth still are, and yet 
 magnificent in its stern grandeur. The square, massive 
 house was built on the edge of a perpendicular cliff falling 
 a clear three hundred feet to the heaving, restless sea a 
 cliff, slate -hued and mica -spangled, like most Breton 
 rocks, shading at the foot to dark bluish green, where 
 the waves for centuries had fretted it. The extreme 
 monotony of the scene, the gray, trackless waters, the 
 vast immensity of the horizon, all lent silent voices to 
 the burden of the ancient tune which the wind sang 
 thinly along the heathery downs that man is, indeed, 
 but an infinitesimal and evanescent thing. 
 
 Loic, gazing from an open window overhanging the 
 abyss, slowly and comprehensively absorbed it all like a 
 long, intoxicating drink, but with the hereditary calm 
 and silent depth of enjoyment of a true son of that grim 
 old land. 
 
 347 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "What, dreaming again?" a gay, girlish voice said at 
 his elbow, and Rose a greatly transformed Rose, wear- 
 ing a pretty wrapper the color of her name, and a lace 
 hood over her tousled hair cast her contemptuous and 
 uncomprehending eyes over the boundless, superb waste. 
 Her laugh sounded painfully light and frivolous and 
 shallow in the silence of the ages which had brooded 
 within the walls of this little manor since the days of 
 Olivier de Clisson, and it seemed to grate upon Loic, for 
 he turned abruptly away and closed the window with a 
 quick, impatient wrench. 
 
 "I cannot understand what you find to admire in all 
 this desolation," she said, clasping both hands around 
 his arm and gazing coquettishly up into his face. "What 
 is there that pleases you in it?" 
 
 He looked down at her in a sort of wonderment; it 
 seemed to him that no woman, be she ever so lowly born, 
 should feel like asking such a question. Gently but with 
 decision he disengaged his arm and sat down before a 
 writing-table where a half-written letter lay on the 
 blotter. , 
 
 "Are you going to write, Loic?" she said, pettishly. 
 "Won't you come out for a walk? The weather is not 
 very fine, of course it never is here but you'd like that 
 better than staying in-doors, I'm sure!" 
 
 Loic turned and looked at her again, but this time 
 with a curious little smile. She made an imperceptible 
 movement towards him, as if she expected him to say 
 something nice she belonged to the caressing school 
 but he emphatically did not, and never dealt in the ex- 
 ceedingly small change of continual compliment. 
 
 " I am afraid I must finish this letter," he said, gravely. 
 It is necessary that I should find out what is doing at 
 La Roche and also at Kergoat, but when I am through 
 
 348 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 we shall drive, if you like, to post it ourselves at Ker- 
 gouven. It is a pity you won't learn how to sit a horse, 
 though ; driving, excepting a four-in-hand, is a bit monot- 
 onous." 
 
 "I am horribly afraid of horses," Rose muttered, with 
 a resentful scowl which distorted her whole countenance 
 for a second; "they are such stupid brutes." 
 
 Loic repressed a shrug of the shoulders, and without 
 another word turned to his letter, Rose moving the while 
 from chair to chair, from table to window, with a lack of 
 repose which would certainly have got upon the nerves 
 of a less self-possessed man. 
 
 He had already learned the uselessness of arguing any 
 point with this girl, who, on her side, did not at all under- 
 stand him. There was something cold, rugged, and dogged 
 in him which made him to her an utterly incomprehensible 
 being. A man is generally at a disadvantage in the 
 presence of the woman who loves him, for she easily sees 
 through him at a glance, but Rose possessed no such 
 penetration, and Loic was and would ever remain an 
 enigma to her. She knew how to manage him, however, 
 by making unscrupulous use of her clinging weakness, 
 and, in spite of all his native good sense and shrewdness, 
 in spite of all his impatience of control, no matter how 
 hard she strained upon this one slender string, he invari- 
 ably responded. 
 
 He did not like her one whit more than when he had 
 taken her away from Yffiniac on that stormy night six 
 weeks before with the mere intention of placing her in 
 safety, but he endeavored not to let her see this. He could 
 not tell her how her silly terrors and continual sea-sickness 
 during the trip along the coast to furthermost Brittany 
 had exasperated him, used as he was to so different a 
 stamp of woman. He could not tell her that her past, 
 
 349 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 her birth, her looks, her habits, her complaining, pettish, 
 "pick-me-up-or-I-die" little mannerisms made him long 
 twenty times a day to run away from her ; that the chain 
 which now bound them together galled him often beyond 
 endurance. No, none of these things could Loic de Ker- 
 goat, in his great generosity, tell the person whom they, 
 after all, most concerned. His method certainly erred 
 on the side of reticence. 
 
 Rose was bright enough light and gay so long as it 
 was a question of chattering like a magpie, of donning the 
 charming toilettes Loic had ordered for her from Paris, 
 and of getting herself initiated into the life of ease and 
 luxury which had so suddenly fallen to her lot ; but when- 
 ever things did not go precisely to her liking she was 
 prone to sulk a little and vent her ennui in bitter remarks* 
 about Loic's beloved Brittany, its hazy skies, its frequent 
 storms, even the poetic little Castel, once the property 
 of Olivier de Clisson, which he had rented, thinking, rea- 
 sonably enough, that nobody would dream of looking 
 for them in that wild region, where there were no rail- 
 roads for some sixty miles. 
 
 He was feeling bitterly the fret of the aforesaid chain 
 as he resumed his pen and glanced for a second or so from 
 its sharp gold point to the inkstand before him. His 
 life, taking it all in all, had been hitherto no great suc- 
 cess, but he wondered just then whether any or all of it 
 had ever been as bad as this. "You will be a weak fool, 
 will you?" his inward self demanded. "Why didn't you 
 at least stick to your original programme?" At last he 
 slowly dipped the pen into the ink, but instead of resum- 
 ing his letter he began to draw a race-horse and jockey 
 on the blotting-pad, doing this with elaborate care and 
 attention. Beneath the window a deep- voiced Picardy 
 wolf-hound was baying nervously and intermittently at 
 
 350 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE* NET 
 
 the gently advancing twilight. Loic dropped his pen 
 and looked at his 1 watch. 
 
 " Go and dress, Rose," he said. " I shall be ready for a 
 walk in ten minutes; my letter can wait till to-morrow." 
 
 "It would be worse much worse," he muttered to 
 himself when she had gone, "if I loved her; so, I am much 
 better able to do the right thing by her." All the man 
 was revealed in that one sentence. 
 
 He was leaning one hand and arm on the mantel-piece, 
 looking thoughtfully into the fire, when the rustle of silk 
 made him turn his head, and Rose, beautifully dressed, 
 rushed in with a frightened face. 
 
 "There is a carriage coming up the causeway!" she 
 stammered. "I saw it from my window; and oh, Loic, 
 there are a couple of gendarmes riding beside it!" And 
 she threw herself upon him, her chin quivering, her eyes 
 dilated with terror. 
 
 Through the open doorway appeared the startled faces 
 of a couple of servants who had also seen the disquieting 
 cavalcade gendarmes are invariably the stormy petrels 
 of misfortune and of shame in the provinces. 
 
 For the merest fraction of a minute Loic stood listening ; 
 then, disengaging himself from Rose's convulsively cling- 
 ing arms, he said, quietly: "I must go and see what it is. 
 Whatever happens, stay here till I come back." And he 
 was turning to leave the room when the clink of spurs 
 sounded outside and he was confronted upon the thresh- 
 old by a brigadier de gendarmerie and a cloaked and veiled 
 woman. 
 
 The woman pointed very dramatically towards the 
 cowering figure of Rose, and in a voice ludicrously tragic, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "That is my daughter, Brigadier. Apprehend her!" 
 
 Loic, his hands in his pockets, was calmly surveying 
 
THE|TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the scene. He knew that he was trapped, that no power 
 on earth could prevent the law from now taking its course. 
 He had abducted a minor and must bear the consequences ; 
 indeed, the only thing which surprised him was that 
 Madame Billot should not have bidden the gendarme to 
 "apprehend" him first; but this she evidently did not 
 wish done, for the "brigadier" turned obsequiously to 
 him with muttered excuses as he advanced towards Rose. 
 
 "Listen to me," Loic said, speaking very distinctly. 
 "I am the Marquis de Kergoat, and if you lay a hand 
 on that young lady I will make you sorry for it." 
 
 The officer drew back a pace; he had met the eyes of 
 L6ic, and that one look was enough for him ; but Madame 
 Billot, perceiving his hesitation, cried, in shrill excite- 
 ment: "I call upon you to arrest my daughter, Rose 
 Billot, a minor, whom we find here living in a state of 
 concubinage. Do your duty! You have your orders 
 from the Prefecture." 
 
 The brigadier winced; his duty was clear, of course, and 
 again he advanced a step, but Loic had forestalled him. 
 Bending down, he took hold of both Rose's hands and 
 lifted her from the seat where she crouched. "Don't re- 
 sist; it is useless," he whispered, quickly. "I won't for- 
 sake you. Be brave!" And with a sort of stern gentle- 
 ness he touched her cheek with his lips before stepping 
 back as if in formal surrender to the law. Then Rose 
 stood up, and, opening her white lips, she cursed her mother. 
 
 Madame Billot, lifting her gloved hands to her veil, 
 pushed it up on her scarlet, furious face, and cried out, 
 fiercely, "Take her down to the carriage!" Then, turn- 
 ing to Loic, she said, witheringly, "You can thank God 
 that I still love you too well to have you arrested also!" 
 
 For a second she stood close to him, looking straight 
 into his eyes with an expression which Messalina might 
 
 352 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 lave envied her; then, without another word, she followed 
 ler daughter and the gendarme out of the room. 
 # * # * * * * 
 
 Half an hour later Loic heard the gravel beneath his 
 vindows grate under the light hoofs of a thorough-bred 
 lorse and the slow tread of a stableman. Quickly he 
 lipped on his gloves, walked down-stairs, and prepared 
 o mount, his face showing white and set as a flint in the 
 noonlight. He slipped two fingers beneath the girths, 
 jave a preliminary tug at the stirrup-leathers, and then 
 ,urned to the groom. 
 
 "I have," he said, "given orders that everything here 
 ihould remain as it is until my return. Take good care 
 )f the carriage-horses." 
 
 Then he vaulted into the saddle cowboy fashion, 
 vhistled to his hound to follow him, and vanished at a 
 iharp pace into the moonlit haze rising from the sea. 
 Dhe sound of the eager horse's flighty, unsteady trot upon 
 ;he crisp night air was soon followed by an even thud, 
 ;hud, thud, in regular rhythmical cadence, as the animal 
 settled to its work, and almost immediately a vague sense 
 >f peace began to take the place of the anger which, until 
 :hen, had raged in its rider's mind. 
 
 The great, sombre heath lay silent beneath the starry 
 jky; the subtle fragrance of bracken and brine mingled 
 with the cold breath of the night and braced him by its 
 tonic strength; the familiar creak of saddle and bridle, 
 the slight jingle of the snaffle-rings, had a delightful sense 
 Df something found again, and he turned his head to call 
 out almost gayly to the shaggy hound who, with ears 
 well set back, was galloping behind him, "Come along, 
 Teuss,* we've got no time to lose." 
 
 * Breton for " Devil." Pronounced Toyce. 
 353 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 At the end of the steep, mile-long causeway spanning 
 the rocky, narrow valley, which, like a California canon, 
 separates the manor cliffs from another ridge quite as 
 rugged and forbidding, Loic checked his horse and took 
 a long look at the fortress-like house where he had spent 
 six of the most colorless and insipid weeks of his whole 
 life, and experienced one of its most exasperating humilia- 
 tions. 
 
 "It always ends with me," he said, aloud, to the justly 
 surprised Teuss, who, sitting in dignified bolt-uprightness 
 beside his horse, deferentially cocked one ear to listen 
 to this sapient remark "it always ends with me, by my 
 discovering how great a fool I really can be when I try!" 
 
 Teuss gravely inclined his intelligent head to one side 
 as if too polite to contradict, although there might be in 
 his canine opinion something to argue against so severe a 
 self-criticism, and as no further remark was addressed to 
 him he allowed his pink tongue to hang from the leeward 
 of his mouth, as is the custom of his tribe to do after 
 running fast. He was a shrewd, but rather distant and 
 haughty, dog of very formidable appearance, who had but 
 lately become Loic's property, which fact did not, how- 
 ever, prevent them from already loving and understand- 
 ing each other perfectly, for they both possessed, in an 
 almost equal degree and in spite of their grim and fierce 
 occasional angers, wofully affectionate hearts. 
 
 A sudden thought, however, made Loic at this juncture 
 brutally tighten his grip on the reins and sent the three 
 night -travellers, man, horse, and dog, down the steep 
 descent of the ridge at a most imprudent pace. How 
 was it that it should not have occurred to him sooner? 
 Surely Madame Billot had not financed the long and 
 expensive search which had resulted in Rose's capture. 
 Was it, then, the Marquise de Kergoat who, through 
 
 354 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Rivier, had furnished the money for that amiable enter- 
 prise ? A violent anger just such an unreasoning, fero- 
 cious one as could at any instant animate the huge dog 
 now tearing along at his side rose up in Loic, a very 
 frenzy of passion, which made him bite his lips until the 
 taste of blood in his mouth made him realize that he was 
 once again putting his foolishness to the proof. Also 
 the speed at which he was going, and the mighty rush of 
 salt wind he was cutting through, helped him to recover 
 his sang-froid, and by the time he had reached the 
 plain he was again quite calm, but of a calmness more 
 dangerous even than his previous rage. The plot of 
 which he had been the object seemed to him peculiarly 
 vile, and as he rode along at a steadier pace throughout 
 the dark, velvety night he made up his mind that the time 
 had now come for him to show what sort of a risk there 
 might be in attacking him thus underhandedly. 
 
 It was six o'clock in the morning when he reached the 
 little town of Kernels', situated some thirty miles from 
 the coast; that, with its huddle of roofs and spires within 
 the massive circuit of a towered and crenellated wall, 
 presented a most poetic reminder 
 
 " Of old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago." 
 
 The tiny burgh was already wide-awake when his horse's 
 hoofs clattered through the grinning barbican into its nar- 
 row main street, for it was market-day, and the pave- 
 ment was thronged with peasants dressed in their gor- 
 geously broidered fete clothes. Women carrying baskets 
 of eggs, fruit, or vegetables turned to peep beneath their 
 nunlike coiffes at the solitary horseman, and thought he 
 had ridden in to attend the great semiannual horse-fair 
 that was filling the western ramparts with a continuous 
 trampling of feet and a harsh clamor of bartering voices ; 
 
 355 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 children scurried away before the long, supple, untiring 
 lope of Teuss ; and finally Loic reached the hotel, where 
 he devoted forty minutes to his horse's welfare. He was 
 not the man to trust this plucky animal to the tender 
 mercies of a stupid - looking hostler, and, much to that 
 dignitary's surprise, threw off his coat and took to rub- 
 bing down the lathered flanks with a vigor quite unim- 
 paired by a whole night in the saddle. 
 
 When, after splashing about in newly drawn well-water 
 for a few minutes, and swallowing a cup of coffee and a 
 slice or two of brown bread and butter, he lighted a 
 cigarette and sauntered out, he gazed in amuserrfent at 
 the open market-square, hard with the tread of many 
 sabots, which fronted the hostelry. 
 
 Remote is an epitome of many centuries of history, 
 an enduring monument of the fierce wars which convulsed 
 Brittany in the days of De Montfort and Charles of Blois. 
 Many of L6ic's doughty warrior-ancestors had defended 
 the stout walls of this little stronghold from English 
 or French assault, and it has retained from those heroic 
 times an enduring expression of proud and forbidding 
 strength. Even its grass -grown ramparts, skirted by 
 the now peaceful waters of the moat where silvery lilies 
 and delicate reeds thrive marvellously give no im- 
 pression of disarmament, but rather seem still a living, 
 breathing tribute to the struggles that have been, drows- 
 ing merely in rusty harness, but still ready to awaken 
 fully prepared to meet any emergency, any welcome 
 rumor of war. 
 
 Loic passed slowly down the Place, which to-day was 
 studded with small booths made of four boards and a 
 few armfuls of fragrant pine branches, waving softly in 
 the breeze with a shadowy, forest effect. A sharp smell 
 of fresh vegetables and smoked fish and meats filled the 
 
 356 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 r, and a veritable babel of voices testified to the ardor 
 : the traffic now in progress. Everywhere broad- 
 inged coiffes came floating, like flocks of great, slow 
 .rds, down all the little tortuous streets converging 
 wards the market, an occasional golden sun-ray thread- 
 g the duskiness of the ancient eaves, making the rich 
 asses of the corsage embroideries or the silver buckles 
 
 the men's broad-leafed hats sparkle like diamond- 
 ist. 
 On the low wall encircling the Halle aux Bles groups 
 
 women were perched, knitting industriously, laughing 
 >ftly, and whispering to one another while awaiting the 
 turn of their lords and masters, engaged in buying or 
 lling the sturdy little thick-maned ponies or the taller, 
 ore powerful draught-horses which are the principal 
 urce of revenue of that part of the country. 
 Smoking still, Loic walked on, much diverted by the 
 marks in Breton which his approach attracted. The 
 en and women of Kernole, like the rest of the popula- 
 )n of Basse-Bretagne, hate strangers, and show a very 
 lamiable front to the hapless "Franc" or "Angliche" 
 tio, in an imprudent moment, wanders into their midst ; 
 it, notwithstanding his very un- Breton attire, Loic 
 is instantly recognized as "one of our Seigneurs," and 
 
 the remarks murmured to the click of the knitting- 
 ;edles were dutiful, flattering, innocent, and gentle, not 
 arse and offensive as they would otherwise have been, 
 icre were faces as pure and proud as that of a Vierge 
 
 Missel among the groups upon the wall, but, had 
 )ic been a "stranger," the clear blue eyes would have 
 stantly scowled fiercely at him, and contempt and 
 ifiance would have distorted the pretty, level lips, now 
 
 smilingly revealing rows of pearly teeth. On and on 
 ilked Loic until he reached the horse-fair outside the 
 
 357 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 west gate of the town. There the row of high-gabled 
 houses overtopping the machicolated walls amid a foam 
 of verdure and of winter-flowering clematis frontiered on 
 one side the wide space where file after file of horses 
 surged and swayed, and Maquignons, with long blue or 
 white blouses covering their holiday garb, cursed and 
 heaped invectives upon one another, or grappled bodily 
 when the causes of disagreement could not be amended 
 by mere tongue-lashings. The buying and selling and 
 chaffering went steadily on, and above the rough cries 
 and well-rounded oaths the shrill whines of two Bignious 
 could be heard, blown energetically by a couple of ob- 
 stinate Sonneurs, who heeded not at all the turmoil sur- 
 rounding the high estrade where they had ensconced 
 themselves, and upon which they vigorously stamped 
 their feet in time to the weird ronde they played. 
 
 Loic laughed, his good-humor entirely restored. This 
 was his own country, in all the savagery of its mediaeval 
 beauty, and he loved it just as it was, with all its faults, 
 all its grandeurs, all its stubborn ferocities and igno- 
 rances. These were men, not puppets, who quarrelled 
 there around him; women, not dolls, these wives, sisters, 
 daughters, and mothers of horse-breeders, farmers, and 
 hill -men, who, amid the drunkenness, brutality, and 
 brawls which surround them from the cradle to the grave 
 manage to preserve intact their touching faiths and strict, 
 almost Puritanical morality, their feminine modesty, and 
 their faultless honesty. Thank God they were not of 
 the Billot tribe, nor of that of the modern "bachelor 
 girl," who deems herself fully entitled to most of the 
 privileges and liberties formerly monopolized by the 
 stronger sex. His eyes were very tender as he let them 
 rest upon the great horse-market this corner of Brittany 
 as supreme in influence and interest to the whole country - 
 
 358 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 side as the Bourse of Paris is to the capitalists and 
 speculators of France. 
 
 The tempers ran high, however, that morning, and two 
 very angry men were apostrophizing the musicians, bid- 
 ding them in no measured language to "hold their row " 
 until the irate ones had settled a little difference of opin- 
 ion concerning the price of a pair of trotters. The "ar- 
 tists," naturally much offended, retaliated forthwith 
 interrupting their ronde in the very middle of a note 
 to launch a magnificent duet of curses upon the gentle- 
 men below. Back and forth the tall denunciations flew 
 "deceased pig," "kigagn" (mangy dog), and "baz- 
 dotu" (deformed devil) being the very smallest change 
 of these amenities until suddenly a long and supple 
 whip -lash, wielded by a masterly hand, came hissing 
 up from beneath across the shoulders of both Sonneurs. 
 This, to be sure, demanded instant punishment, and, 
 throwing their dolefully wheezing Bignious upon the 
 boards of their e strode, the musicians caught up the 
 two massive bottles of calvados prepared for their half- 
 hourly refreshment, and started to cut their opponents to 
 pieces with these ghastly weapons. 
 
 Convinced that there was now nothing less than murder 
 in the air he knew his people, this young Breton Chief- 
 tain Loic, thrusting the ring of by-standers right and 
 left, leaped upon the two threatened horse-dealers, 
 seized one in each hand, and hurled them like a couple of 
 bundles at the heads of the crouching musicians. The 
 first accomplished a clear somersault into the very heart 
 of the crowd beyond, but the second landed fairly, and 
 men, Bignious, bottles, and estrade came down together 
 with a mighty crash in an inextricable tangle of wildly 
 waving arms and legs. 
 
 A roar of delight rose from the jostling throng like an 
 
 359 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 unfurling wave, for this simple form of justice distinctly 
 appealed to them. It was the only one to which they 
 felt that respectful attention was due. La raison du 
 plus fort is greatly appreciated throughout Brittany, and 
 its present excellent rendering was instantly followed by 
 an immediate cessation of hostilities. 
 
 "Sacred animals!" Loic said, with na'ive satisfaction; 
 "you must always be fighting about something or other!" 
 And at that moment a tall, splendid old man, clad in 
 peasant's garb, stepped forward and stood shoulder to 
 shoulder with him. 
 
 "Serves you right, you blockheads!" he called out, in 
 stentorian tones, and added to the by-standers, "Go and 
 pick up the ddbris!" He towered a full head above the 
 crowd, and there was a flash of quiet domination in his 
 still, bright-blue eyes. Everybody within hearing flew to 
 do his bidding, setting the viciously snarling quartette of 
 brawlers on their respective feet, picking up, with praise- 
 worthy promptitude, the overturned estrade, the Big- 
 nious, and what remained of the bottles, amid jeers and 
 shouts of laughter. 
 
 "Monsieur de Kerdougaszt," Loic exclaimed, delight- 
 edly, both hands out stretched, " at last I have the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing you again!" 
 
 "So it is indeed you, Loic? I thought I recognized 
 the Kerg6at grip when you threw those fellows at each 
 other's heads," the old man exclaimed, smiling his appre- 
 ciation; then, in what Loic thought the most touchingly 
 apologetic way in the world, he continued: "You do not 
 mind my still calling you Loic, do you ? I have so much 
 joy in meeting you here!" 
 
 He spoke with a fine simplicity, his delicately wrinkled 
 face extraordinarily brilliant, his height and supremely 
 noble carriage making him a most striking figure even in 
 
 360 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the midst of this gathering of remarkably fine men and 
 handsome women. 
 
 " Pray, do not speak like that," Loic entreated. "You 
 cannot imagine, Sir, how glad I am to see you, and how 
 deeply grateful I am for your friendship." And, linking 
 his arm in that of the old peasant-Marquis, he drew him 
 away, adding: "Let us get out of this. I feel like a pro- 
 fessional pugilist or some other theatrical person of that 
 sort." 
 
 "Good Heavens! I wish I were still as strong as that! I 
 would sit up in bed at night to glory in my prowess, and 
 kneel down twenty times a day to thank God for it." 
 
 "No, you wouldn't," Loic answered, with a hearty 
 laugh. "You would very likely dislike the temptation to 
 fight that it affords one, especially if it meant making 
 such a fool of one's self as I do only too often." 
 
 The old man shrugged his shoulders. "Then you 
 should not live in this corner of the world, my boy. 
 Strength, I tell you, Loic, covers most sins in Brittany 
 and insures forgiveness for them all." 
 
 "A la force du poing?" Loic laughed. 
 
 " Exactly so. But to speak of something that greatly 
 interests me. What have you been doing during the 
 years of your absence?" 
 
 "Not much good," the young man replied, frankly, 
 but turning his eyes away. 
 
 Monsieur de Kerdougaszt bent slightly forward and 
 looked keenly into his companion's face. "I've got no 
 great admiration for humanity," he said, quietly; "a very 
 little association with it contents me, as a rule, but some- 
 how or other I feel certain that there is, and never will be, 
 any serious evil in you." 
 
 Loic was walking stubbornly along, his eyes still 
 averted. He flushed with pleasure at the old man's tone. 
 4 361 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "That," he declared, "is the best and most encouraging 
 thing I have heard for a very long time. The fact is that 
 I've made rather a mess of everything until now. I wish 
 I had seen more of you, Monsieur de Kerdougaszt. You 
 make life look different by a single touch of your hand." 
 
 The old Marquis bowed his silvered head gravely. He 
 was not looking at Loic now, but at the delicious pattern 
 made by a net-work of sun-rays that fell through over- 
 hanging greenery upon the waters of the moat beneath 
 the battlements, whither they had slowly strolled. Then 
 suddenly he said, with entire simplicity: 
 
 "I am a half -civilized, obstinate old Breton, Loic, and 
 am, I fear, sometimes guilty of unpardonable rudeness 
 no, let me say on! A year ago I met by chance your 
 mother. She was then in a very imbittered mood, and 
 she said many things which pained and hurt me concern- 
 ing you and that adorable little creature, your sister." 
 
 He paused, and Loic stood speechless before him. 
 What was there for him to say ? 
 
 "I heard her out," the old Nobleman continued, with 
 bitterness; "and then, Loic, I told her what was on my 
 mind. I refuted her statements can a man refute a 
 statement he has not had the patience to hear? I had 
 barely had that patience, but it was all my stock. I am 
 afraid that I was very rough, very harsh. I am a great 
 child when I defend those I love, and believe me if you 
 will I am capable of being aroused to a very high pitch 
 of fury. Immediately afterwards, Madame de Kergoat 
 made evident and amiable efforts to restore the friendly 
 tone which well never existed between us; but she 
 had sorely wounded this old savage " and he tapped him- 
 self softly on the breast "so that her efforts were vain. 
 Later on I regretted my outspokenness. I swore to 
 make amends, and that is why I tell you all this now, 
 
 362 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic, also because your mother, in spite of the uncon- 
 ventionality and cruelty of her denunciations betrayed 
 in every word of them a passionate love for you, a love 
 which, wise or unwise, cannot be denied, and which you 
 must always remember and be grateful for. Her greatest 
 weakness is jealousy it is jealousy which has caused all 
 your differences and jealousy is the natural conse- 
 quence of love." 
 
 The charm of these words was irresistible, and Loic, 
 deeply touched, responded to the mood that had dictated 
 them. 
 
 "Will you come and breakfast with me, Monsieur de 
 Kerdougaszt?" he said, almost timidly. "I would like 
 to tell you a great many things. Won't you come, 
 Sir?" 
 
 If any one ever quite understood Loic always except- 
 ing Gaidik it was the old Marquis, as, some three hours 
 later, he saw the lad set off again on his journey towards 
 the railroad. 
 
 "He has been born a thousand years too late," he 
 mused, as, leaning on his pen-bas* he watched the hand- 
 some boy and the handsome horse and dog disappear 
 within the dark, cavernous gateway of the old town wall. 
 "Yes, he does not fit in this modern age at all. In the 
 earlier days his daring, his combativeness, his magnificent 
 courage and obstinacy would have sent him off at the 
 head of our Bretons in search of fabulous victories, and his 
 deeds would have been sung by bards and sounded down 
 the centuries in Celtic banquet-halls; but these times 
 dwarf and bewilder him. The Saints bless and preserve 
 
 * The long staff universally carried by the peasantry, made of 
 blackthorn or some other hard wood. Knotted at both ends, 
 which are sometimes additionally hardened in the fire, it is a very 
 effective and dangerous weapon. 
 
 ' 363 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the boy," he concluded, almost aloud, his arms out- 
 stretched in infinite benediction, his face full of a great 
 pity, and then, with a sigh, he hurried wearily away to 
 the despatch of the affairs which had brought him for 
 once so far from his old, ruined home. 
 
XVIII 
 
 Broad sea! broad sea! and afar they haste 
 Though suns set dark with a menace dire, 
 Or soft Night pioneers the waste 
 With trails of lambent fire. 
 High Lords are they of the wind and tide, 
 And who doth reck in his strength and pride 
 The deadly draw of the viewless drift 
 That hath such mastery as a gift ? 
 Oh, sing of the lookout gazing now 
 From the lift and plunge of the cleaving prowl 
 And cry with the sea-fowl swift and free 
 On the wallowing waves, 
 Broad sea! 
 
 The Voyage, III. M. M. 
 
 "AND are you sure of what you say?" 
 
 "Absolutely certain." 
 
 The Comtesse de Brielle bent her beautiful old head in 
 order to hide the tears that rose to her eyes, tears which 
 she would have been cruelly ashamed to betray even to 
 her favorite brother. 
 
 "You see, Elizabeth," Count Re'ne' continued, in a low- 
 pitched, concentrated voice, "it was bound to happen. 
 Genevieve would take no advice save occasionally from 
 that brother of hers, who has always hated Loic his 
 antithesis in every respect." 
 
 The Countess's still extraordinarily fresh lips were 
 pressed close together. 
 
 " Is there nothing we can do?" she asked at last, rather 
 piteously. 
 
 365 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I'm no great diplomat, and I never had any aptitude 
 for toadying or being patronized, which is the A B C of 
 all dealings with Genevieve," he replied, bitterly. "No, 
 I am afraid, Elizabeth, that we can do nothing." 
 
 "Go and tackle Loic himself, then," she suggested. 
 "Surely you have not lost all influence over him." 
 
 "That again is impossible," he retorted. "I did my 
 best after his return from Brittany when I saw him here 
 in Paris. I am a man, and a remarkably tough one, but 
 I got a lesson then, nevertheless." 
 
 "What was the lesson?" she asked. 
 
 "Well, since you care to know, it was this. After 
 hedging a good deal, Loic finally made a clean breast of 
 the whole matter." 
 
 "Confessed about the abduction of the girl?" she in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 "Pshaw, my dear, don't use such tall words. If ab- 
 duction there was, it was he who was abducted. I am an 
 average moral man, I take it, and a pretty good Catholic, 
 but I cannot find it in my heart to utterly condemn him 
 for doing what was, after all, only an idiotically chivalrous 
 thing." 
 
 "You surprise me!" 
 
 "Hear me out, if you please. You wished to know, 
 remember, and I'm about to tell you briefly how matters 
 stand, although, in my opinion, such tales are not im- 
 proved by the telling. The girl fled to him at night, 
 pursued by a vile little reptile of an uncle, who was de- 
 termined to incarcerate her in some provincial St. Lazare, 
 whereupon he took her away by sea to northern Brittany." 
 
 " But does he love her, then ?" Madame de Brielle asked, 
 in astonishment. 
 
 "No, not in the least; on on the contrary which is 
 the most marvellous part of the story. He does not and 
 
 366 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 never did love her. * It seems that the good God has still 
 a little room here below for simple-hearted fools. No; 
 he burdened himself with her out of sheer pity; that's 
 Loic in well in all the magnificence of his imbecility, 
 if you'll agree to put it that way." 
 
 "I don't agree." 
 
 "Very well, then. Let me finish. They had lived 
 there for six or seven weeks in absolute solitude when the 
 girl's mother arrived, accompanied by gendarmes, if you 
 please, and, after indulging in a highly dramatic scene, 
 bore her daughter away, making, as one might say, a 
 gift to Loic of his own liberty." 
 
 "Good Heavens, didn't she try to blackmail him ? The 
 occasion was propitious." 
 
 "Not in the least; she played her role of indignant 
 parent to perfection. But now comes the climax. Who 
 do you suppose paid the score for this effective de"noue- 
 ment?" 
 
 "Not Genevieve?" Madame de Brielle cried, starting 
 to her feet with the first thoroughly undignified motion 
 she had ever been guilty of. "Not Genevieve?" 
 
 "Yes, Genevieve! I assure you, Elizabeth, I do not 
 like all this, especially as our dear sister-in-law employed 
 as her agent the brother of that fellow Rivier whom I 
 dismissed from Kergoat for gross immorality and mis- 
 conduct some years ago, and who has lately succeeded in 
 reingratiating himself with her. I know the man; he is 
 a damned scoundrel pardon the adjective who would 
 sell his immortal soul, if he could get a bid for it. He 
 also hates Loic, especially since your quick-fisted nephew 
 threw him down-stairs when he came, sent by Genevieve, 
 to remonstrate with him at La-Roche." 
 
 "He came to re-mon-strate with Loic?" 
 
 "He did, and got for his pains only a tenth part of 
 
 367 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 what he deserved. It was he who served as go-between 
 later on, and I assure you that when Loic, who at first 
 had wrapped himself in obstinate reticence, came to this 
 portion of the narrative, he lost every vestige of his cele- 
 brated self-control. You'd have thought the boy was 
 possessed. It was a regular Kergoat rage, let me tell you. 
 Well, to conclude, he came away from Finisterre vowing 
 vengeance upon everybody, even his mother, but at 
 Kernole' he met Kerdougaszt you remember him; he 
 is a remarkable old fellow a marvel in these days of " 
 
 "Yes! yesl Go on, go on, Re'neT' 
 
 "As you will. He told everything to Kerdougaszt, 
 who spoke so wisely to him that he managed to save us 
 all from an open scandal, and Genevieve from a final 
 break with her son. Loic reached Kergoat in a tamed 
 and softened mood, conscious that his conduct had, from 
 his mother's point of view, been pretty bad, and quite 
 ready, therefore, to forgive and be forgiven. So, if 
 Genevieve had only " 
 
 The Countess was leaning forward, staring with haggard 
 eyes at her brother. "Genevieve!" she exclaimed. "Ah! 
 I have done with her; she is oh, never mind what she 
 is but tell me, did she refuse to accept his apol- 
 ogies?" 
 
 "Yes. There were doings, it seems. At any rate, 
 Loic flew off again in a paroxysm of fury equal to her own, 
 came here to Paris, and is now going to the dogs as fast 
 as he can." 
 
 There was a long silence in the exquisite little museum 
 of souvenirs, personal and historical, which the Countess 
 de Brielle called her boudoir, while she, magnificent in 
 pansy velvet and diamonds she was going, later on, to a 
 ball at the Austrian Embassy paced up and down to 
 control her indignant agitation. 
 
 368 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Do you know," she said at last, stopping in front of 
 her brother "do you know that there is only one person 
 in the world who could check him?" 
 
 "Yes, I know Gaidik; but she's thousands of miles 
 away, and has enough of her own troubles, poor child, 
 so she is quite out of the question; moreover, even she 
 would find it no small task to make him hear reason now. 
 He has taken the bit between his teeth and is going a 
 tremendous pace. Happily his income is a big one; but 
 even that cannot suffice him at the present rate. Race- 
 horses, steam-yachts, and other less innocent amuse- 
 ments cost something." 
 
 "What possesses him?" 
 
 "I don't know. There is more here than meets the 
 eye. If at least I were certain that he is quite rid of the 
 Billots, but that is impossible to assert." 
 
 "Rid of the Billots! You don't mean to tell me, 
 Re'ne', that there is still danger in that direction?" 
 
 "I am afraid so. Loic declared to me that he will 
 always consider himself responsible for the girl's welfare. 
 He has received no communication from her so far, save 
 a short letter which he believes to have been dictated to 
 her, and in which she declares herself reconciled to her 
 fate. On the other hand, Ghislain d'Yffiniac, who, since 
 his uncle's stroke of paralysis, has been staying with him at 
 La-Roche, has written to say that she is living, as before, 
 at her uncle's shop; but somehow or other I don't feel at 
 ease, in spite of these favorable circumstances. That 
 girl will not, if she can help it, lose her chance of casting 
 a grapple upon him again. Remember what I tell you 
 to-night, Elizabeth we have not yet reached the end of 
 all this, and with a nature like Loic's one never knows 
 what is to come next." 
 
 Had Count Re'ne' but known it, this sad prophecy was 
 
 3 6 9 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 at that very moment being fulfilled in a singularly start- 
 ling fashion. 
 
 The winter in Paris that year happened to be a more 
 than usually gay one, and among the gayest and most 
 reckless was as his uncle had stated the young Marquis 
 de Kergoat. He lived alone in a magnificent apartment 
 on the Avenue des Champs Elyse'es, although his mother, 
 tormented by one of her periodical fits of remorse, had 
 opened her splendid Hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, 
 and would have given much to see him consent to take up 
 his quarters there. This he absolutely refused to do, 
 just as he had refused to occupy, even for one night, his 
 rooms at Kergoat on the occasion of his last interview, 
 taking up his quarters instead at the "bachelor pavilion" 
 in the park. He appeared to be suffering from an in- 
 satiable thirst for continual change and novelty. He 
 had purchased en bloc, from a ruined acquaintance, a 
 superb racing-stud, and backed his own horses heavily at 
 Chantilly or La Marche; he rode steeplechases, danced, 
 flirted, gave sumptuous entertainments, and had, in a 
 few short weeks, become the rage to such an extent that 
 no fete was considered perfect which he did not grace by 
 his presence. Before him stretched an incessantly vary- 
 ing kaleidoscope of amusements and pleasures, when, 
 on the night mentioned, he was suddenly pulled up in that 
 easy, swinging gallop by the cruelly weak hand of a wom- 
 an whom he did not love and who was not worthy of one 
 glance from his eyes. 
 
 He had been dining with some friends at his club and 
 was later to meet them again at that very ball in honor 
 of which his aunt had donned a portion of her historic 
 diamonds. He had not heard again from Rose, and here 
 no news was distinctly good news. No fresh complica- 
 tion was to be feared now, he felt certain, since the girl 
 
 370 
 
THE "BACHELOR'S PAVILION" IN THE PARK AT 
 KERGOAT 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 was safe at La-Roche, and yet, in spite of all this, Loic 
 had a singular presage of disaster weighing upon him. 
 
 When leaving the club he sent away his carriage, pre- 
 ferring to walk home, for the night was one of fine and 
 moonlit beauty. The air was brisk with the cleanly 
 smell of a light frost, and the neat, exquisitely swept 
 boulevards, flooded with the silvery light from above, 
 commingling with that of the interminable cordons of 
 electric lamps shining white beneath the still leafless 
 trees, were tempting for pedestrians. He walked slowly 
 along, picturing to himself what this same hour was like 
 at Kergoat. The sea lay level before him, shining 
 gloriously under the moon shining, too, were the ivy- 
 mantled walls of the chateau and Gaidik's broad balcony 
 the gulls' feeding - place. A faint odor, compounded 
 of a fragrance as of violets from the salt-marshes, of 
 bruised sea-weed, peat fires, and the great cedars in the 
 park, was in his nostrils, and calm serenity smiled at him 
 from the time-toned grays and storm-washed duskiness 
 of the towering cliffs. Truly the whole scene had the 
 vividness of reality, and as he viewed it bitter regret 
 surged up in him. Between him and the past there seem- 
 ed all at once to rise a grim barrier, and he felt suddenly 
 as if the future were never again to be what the past had 
 been. With an impatient exclamation which made a 
 sergent-de-ville turn and look suspiciously at him he 
 fell into a more rapid step and reached his house in no 
 very gay mood. 
 
 Letting himself in with his latch-key, he did not at 
 once summon his valet, but walked into his study, where 
 the very first thing that caught his eyes beneath the circle 
 of light from a reading-lamp on the desk was a thick 
 letter addressed in rather unformed, angular characters 
 traced in violet ink. For a moment Loic stood looking 
 
 37 1 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 at it blankly, and as if almost fearing to touch it; then 
 brusquely he took it up and tore it open. His hands 
 trembled a very little as he turned page after page, arid 
 when he had finished he sat down wearily, and with one 
 finger began polishing one of the silver corners holding 
 in place the pale-blue blotting-paper of the writing-pad. 
 The action was that of a child attempting to conjure 
 away some of the tedium of a hard lesson by playing with 
 what comes nearest to hand. His head was bent over 
 the bright corner-piece as if he were lamentably short- 
 sighted and wished to give the greatest possible atten- 
 tion to a difficult task, and it was only when he had kept 
 up the regular motion of his finger for fully five minutes 
 that he raised his eyes and looked somewhat vacantly 
 at the orderly array around the blotter, the gold-and- 
 jade pen-holders in their separate trays, the pencils, well- 
 sharpened and neat, ranged carefully upon the rungs of a 
 quaint little bronze ladder, the ink-erasers, and many- 
 colored sticks of sealing-wax lying in the bowl of a small 
 antique lamp, and finally at the huge bouquet of violets 
 against which leaned Gaidik's miniature the one he had 
 brought away in his pocket from Yffiniac on the night 
 of his flight with Rose. 
 
 All this just then seemed to have a hypnotic fascination 
 for him, but the detailed examination of his writing-table 
 brought him apparently no nearer to the solution of the 
 bitter problem evolved by that fateful letter, for he sud- 
 denly rose and began to pace up and down the long room 
 with the regularity of a ship's commander on his quarter- 
 deck. 
 
 The shock which he had just received was for the mo- 
 ment disabling, for in it seemed embodied all the brood- 
 ing, the regrets, the dull, vague apprehensions of the last 
 hour, and it took him a little while before he could ex- 
 
 372 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 amine the situation in all its new aspects and wellnigh 
 insurmountable difficulties. So Rose claimed his imme- 
 diate help! She was again being grossly maltreated, and 
 that at a moment when women possessing a legitimate 
 claim upon the man they love are surrounded with more 
 than usual care and devotion. Had he, Loic, suspected 
 that the weeks of his imbecile surrender to her imploring 
 passion had had such a result, he would not, cost what it 
 might, have left her a moment in the hands of her mother 
 and uncle that thought alone would have made her 
 sacred to him and yet at that thought the whole world 
 turned to a veritable hell around him. He felt like a 
 man in the resistless swing of a whirlpool, and a boundless 
 rage against himself boiled up within him, mixed with a 
 profound anguish of suspicion and distrust. 
 
 What if it was untrue ? Was Rose at that very minute, 
 perhaps, smiling to herself at the simplicity of the trap 
 which she had set for him? Would he not be an idiot, 
 and worse than an idiot, if he took this bait like some 
 silly, staring fish ? Why should he believe her on evidence 
 of so diaphanous a kind, why take her word, the word of 
 a woman trying by every means to reconquer her lost 
 lover, clinging desperately to a last flimsy chance? Yet 
 she might be telling the truth, after all, poor little wretch- 
 ed girl, not yet eighteen, who was face to face with the 
 greatest pain, the greatest joy of womanhood, and who 
 implored him, her only friend, her only hope, to rescue 
 her before it was too late. 
 
 At intervals of seemingly incalculable length he heard 
 the clock on the mantel-piece ring the hours and half- 
 hours, and but for that and the slow crumbling of the 
 logs on the hearth he could well have believed that time 
 had ceased. A temporary death and stagnation filled 
 the big room, into which no sound penetrated save the 
 
 373 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 muffled rumbling of carriage-wheels from the avenue 
 below. But the intolerable fret of irresolution was slowly 
 passing away, and out of the dense mist of doubt and of 
 vacillation, duty as he considered it duty to a help- 
 less woman, to an unborn child, dimly shaped itself and 
 defined itself gradually before him in all its implacable 
 severity of outline. It moved at a very slow pace towards 
 him, this stern figure of duty, but, nevertheless, it reached 
 him at last and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. The 
 hour for action had come. 
 
 One last turn up and down the room, one weary sigh 
 wrung from him by a last struggle, and calmly, deliber- 
 ately he returned to his writing-table and sat down 
 before it. 
 
 "No, Gaidik," he murmured, drawing the violets reso- 
 lutely forward so as to hide the reproachful eyes of the 
 miniature, "I must not look at you to-night. I don't 
 want to think of you even!" Then pulling towards him 
 a sheet of paper, he wrote, rapidly: 
 
 "Be in the shop next Monday afternoon without fail" 
 
 This he neither signed nor addressed, but, folding it into 
 as small a volume as possible, he rang for his valet. 
 
 Robin perceptibly started when he entered the room 
 and looked at his master, but Loic did not take any note 
 of this, and, rising, said as quietly as if giving an every- 
 day order: 
 
 "Robin, I want you to do me a rather peculiar service. 
 It is necessary that you should start by the early train 
 for La-Roche-Sur-Yon. Things of the most serious im- 
 portance depend upon your doing exactly what I tell you. 
 As soon as you arrive, go to the Parjumerie Lierre but 
 here; stop a moment; tell me first, do either M. Lierre 
 himself or his sister, Madame Billot, know you?" 
 
 374 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "No, Monsieur le Marquis. During Monsieur le Mar- 
 quis's stay at Monsieur le Marquis d'Yffiniac's I never 
 once entered that shop, and although I know Monsieur 
 Lierre and Madame Billot by sight, I do not think that 
 they know me. Mademoiselle Rose alone " 
 
 "Very good. I trust to your cleverness to approach 
 Mademoiselle Rose when and as best you can. It would 
 perhaps be wiser for you not to go to the shop, but of that 
 you alone can be judge. You must contrive to give her 
 this slip of paper without being detected. If it so hap- 
 pens that you can speak to her, tell her not to worry, and 
 that I shall come for her on Monday afternoon. Nothing 
 more ; but even that is not necessary, for she will under- 
 stand, I dare say, without explanations. As soon as 
 you have done this come back here immediately. Also, 
 do not forget that one indiscreet word on your part would 
 irretrievably ruin me and cause no end of unfortunate 
 complications, perhaps even something much graver, but 
 I know that I can trust you." 
 
 The man's honest face grew red with pleasure, his 
 mouth broadened into a smile. 
 
 "I think so, too, Monsieur Loic," he said, his mind 
 suddenly reverting to old days when he and his young 
 master had been boys together and playfellows at Ker- 
 goat. 
 
 " Good lad!" Loic said, smiling too. "Go and get some 
 sleep; it is very late, and the Austrian Embassy will have 
 to do without me to-night. Ah! this is for you, too, 
 Robin," and he handed him some money. "Good-night 
 Yes, your hand, old fellow; you are the only friend I can 
 rely upon just now, God help me!" and he turned brusque- 
 ly away. 
 
 Robin literally adored Loic and knew him far too well 
 not to understand that this was not a mere errand of 
 
 375 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 gallantry upon which he was being sent. With his usual 
 noiseless rapidity he crossed the room, entered his mas- 
 ter's bedchamber, removed the clothes lying in readiness 
 there and in the adjoining dressing-room, turned down 
 the lights, and disappeared through a door leading to an 
 inner hall. His faithful heart was heavy within him, 
 although pleasure and pride in seeing himself so implicitly 
 trusted made his pulses beat high. 
 
 "Lord, I should like to have a go at that hair-dresser 
 fellow!" he muttered to himself as he proceeded to make 
 his few preparations for the journey. " I wish he and his 
 precious sister and Mamzelle Rose were all three at the 
 bottom of the sea. They're a bad lot, and will do for 
 Monsieur Loic between them before all is said and done!" 
 
 These bellicose feelings did not, however, prevent him 
 from accomplishing his mission with the tact and clever- 
 ness of a diplomat, and even his bitter resentment was 
 somewhat melted when he at last came face to face with 
 Rose. 
 
 The girl was literally reduced to nothing. Always 
 thin, she was now absolutely skin and bone, and her eyes, 
 in spite of the little painful droop of the eyelids, looked 
 owlishly enormous in her dead-white face. They had, 
 moreover, an expression which would have conveyed to 
 the slowest brain the idea that this girl dreaded to wake 
 up in the morning, and consequently slept very little, if 
 at all. Robin was not a particularly sensitive or imagina- 
 tive youth, and yet he was softened more than he quite 
 realized by the sight of her woe-begone expression. 
 
 She was fortunately alone in the shop when, after 
 vainly trying to encounter her outside, he finally came 
 lounging in, his soft felt travelling-hat pulled well down 
 over his eyes, and, the day being cold, his coat-collar 
 turned up as far as it would go. Her mother, uncle, and 
 
 376 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sister were eating their early dinner in the back shop, from 
 whence they could watch her easily, but they were not 
 quite within ear-shot, and, having fallen into one of their 
 eternal quarrels, failed at first to notice his entrance. 
 
 The fading light of a gloomy afternoon was fully re- 
 flected on the girl's face as she stood behind the counter 
 dusting some bottles of perfume, and Robin, leaning 
 against the show-case separating them, looked keenly at 
 her. 
 
 "I have something here for you from Paris," he said, in 
 a low voice, and quickly, deftly, he slipped the folded 
 paper Loic had given him into her hand. 
 
 She snatched it with a little gasp of surprise, and turned, 
 if possible, yet paler, every vestige of color leaving even 
 her lips; then she gave a terrified look over her shoulder 
 at the group next door sitting around the table. 
 
 " You are not to worry," Robin continued, in a monoto- 
 nous, carefully subdued tone. "Do as that paper tells 
 you and all will be well." 
 
 "Who's that?" called out the uncle's grating voice. 
 
 "A gentleman who wants some of your Essence de 
 Lierre!" Rose answered, with surprising presence of 
 mind, rattling the flacons in front of her. 
 
 "Yes, please, two flacons," Robin said, aloud, catch- 
 ing the spirit of the affair and pulling some money from 
 his pocket with a cheerful jingle of coins. "Your hands 
 are trembling," he whispered, "and your mother is look- 
 ing this way also your sister; don't wrap them up"; 
 and, thrusting the two little brilliantly gilded bottles into 
 his capacious pocket, he murmured, as he turned to go, 
 "Remember, Monsieur Loic will be here Monday," and 
 was gone. 
 
 Rose had opened her lips to speak, but pulled herself 
 hurriedly together and looked carelessly away from 
 *s 377 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Robin's retreating form, for there, peering stealthily into 
 the shop round the door-jamb of the inner room and 
 barely visible in the shadow, was Monsieur Lierre. 
 
 "Who was this particulier?" he said, worming him- 
 self in. "He looked like a stranger." 
 
 Rose by this time had every sense keenly alert, and 
 succeeded in looking almost unconcerned. 
 
 "I think that it was one of the new gentlemen at the 
 Ecole de Dressage," she replied, as indifferently as possi- 
 ble. 
 
 "You think, eh?" Lierre echoed, sneeringly. "Well, 
 I don't. I believe it was somebody vastly different. I 
 was deliberating about that when you saw me at the door, 
 and wondering where I had seen that chap before." 
 
 Rose made a movement with her shoulders indicative 
 of utter ignorance, while her uncle, with his mouth half 
 open, a little wreath of smoke from the cheap cigar he 
 was smoking curling from the corner of it, stared sus- 
 piciously at her. 
 
 "Are you quite sure you don't know who it was?" he 
 asked, ironically. 
 
 Rose replied almost immediately: 
 
 "Quite sure. He never was here before." 
 
 "Come here, Aline!" Lierre cried. "I think your 
 daughter requires a little watching. I really believe she's 
 receiving messages right under our noses. You'd better 
 see to it." 
 
 Before the last words were well out of his mouth Ma- 
 dame Billot appeared, holding her dinner napkin in one 
 hand and still chewing a mouthful of cake, her very 
 fashion of entering truculent, as if her foot was in full 
 readiness to kick anything or any person especially her 
 daughter that might come in her way. She, too, had 
 changed, and had lost much of her beauty and freshness; 
 
 378 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 her gestures were nervously restless, and she was evidently 
 boiling over with chronic exasperation. 
 
 "What's that?" she cried. "Receiving messages 
 Rose?" 
 
 Rose again shrugged her shoulders and continued to 
 busy herself with the flacons, powder-boxes, gayly deco- 
 rated cakes of soap, and jars of sachet-powder piled 
 almost breast-high on the top of the show-case behind 
 which she stood. Her lower lip was pressed upward, 
 forcing the upper one slightly out of place, in a sullen 
 way which implied a singular force of resistance. 
 
 "Is what your uncle says true?" the mother threaten- 
 ingly demanded. "Answer me, or I'll get in there and 
 box your ears!" 
 
 Rose moved along the curving counter and brusquely 
 turned on and lit a brilliant gas "sun -burst" above her 
 head, thus flooding the whole place with light and mak- 
 ing it possible for the passers-by to discern everything 
 that was going on within the shop. 
 
 "Uncle's lying as usual," she said, with a coarse in- 
 tonation Loic had never heard from her. 
 
 "Lying, is he!" Madame Billot almost shrieked, en- 
 raged beyond measure at seeing her threat rendered null 
 and void by her daughter's clever manoeuvre. "Well, 
 that may be, seeing it's him, but, lying or no lying, I'm 
 sick of having to watch you, and I'm going to take you 
 on Sunday to your grandmother's beyond the marshes. 
 There'll be no need for much watching there, and she's 
 not the one to be hoodwinked by you, my girl, you can 
 take my word for it!" 
 
 Rose's back was turned. She had begun to dust with 
 a light feather plumeau the thick glass shelves rising, 
 with their load of garishly labelled perfumery, tier upon 
 tier to the dado of roughly painted ivy branches sur- 
 
 379 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 rounding the whole shop. At her mother's words a 
 wave of crimson rose to her face and she but half sup- 
 pressed a cry of pain. 
 
 "Oh, you don't like the idea? Perhaps it interferes 
 with your plans," Monsieur Lierre called out, at random, 
 quite ignorant of the accuracy of the shot. 
 
 "Hold your tongue, little man; leave her to me. I 
 can manage her without your help," snarled the widow. 
 "And you, Seraphine," she continued, turning furiously 
 upon her second daughter, who had followed her in and 
 was snickering tantalizingly and making a long nose at 
 her sister, "let me see your heels. Your place is up- 
 stairs at your copy-books; go instantly!" 
 
 "Oh, pshaw! don't put on such airs," the lanky but 
 extremely pretty fourteen-year-old girl said, contemptu- 
 ously, but putting the whole width of the floor, never- 
 theless, between her mother and herself. "Go for Rose; 
 she's used to it," and with a final grimace she scampered 
 away, singing at the top of her lungs: 
 
 "Je voudrais que la Rose 
 Fut encore au Rosier, 
 Ou que son ami Pierre 
 Fut encore a ses pieds!" 
 
 Madame Billot threw her napkin on the top of a pyra- 
 mid of artistically scaffolded tooth and nail brushes with 
 such violence that she brought them down with a loud 
 clang upon the counter, and started in pursuit, one hand 
 furiously uplifted, while Rose sank wearily upon a high, 
 revolving stool, one of a stationary row that stood along 
 the front of the show-case. 
 
 "Look here!" Monsieur Lierre said, leaning forward 
 and bringing his fierce, sallow face within an inch of her 
 own. "I'm up to your pretty game, my little pet! 
 
 380 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 You're trying, maybe, to give us the slip again, but pas 
 de fa Lizette! To the marsh-lands you shall go, and if 
 that don't answer " 
 
 "What do you mean?" Rose asked, straightening her- 
 self on the narrow, slippery seat and looking fearfully at 
 him. 
 
 "That I know yet of another prison for you, if that 
 don't suffice," he replied, with a derisive little laugh 
 "a place where gay birds like you must needs roost 
 alone!" He might have been speaking to a creature 
 fallen into the lowest depths of the gutter, so intense 
 was his contempt and ferocity. 
 
 Rose's eyes flashed dangerously, and her white teeth 
 clinched for a moment over her lower lip. 
 
 "I won't go!" she cried, passionately. 
 
 The hair-dresser burst into a loud guffaw; the idea 
 of Rose resisting him seemed infinitely diverting. "You'll 
 have to do as you are told," he said, as soon as he could 
 speak. "You are no longer Madame le Marquise de la 
 Main-Gauche, but merely little Rose Billot, my much- 
 dishonored niece, and I can force you to my will. Voila ! 
 D' you think that I'm minded to have you discredit us 
 all a second time with the Nobility and gentry here, and 
 turn my shop into a howling wilderness? If your gam- 
 bades had been of a nature to bring me new customers, I 
 might have winked at them; but for you to decamp 
 with the intimate friend of all the great houses here is a 
 little too much for me to swallow. D' you want to beggar 
 us? Nay, my sweet Rose, don't hang your head; you've 
 got a kind uncle who'll put a spoke in your wheels, never 
 fear." 
 
 Rose, staring hopelessly into the little villain's face, 
 knew that she was utterly in his power bound hand and 
 foot. She could not resist either him or her mother, and, 
 
 381 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 least of all, could she prevent them from consigning her 
 to the marsh-lands, where her hard-hearted, harsh-spoken 
 grandmother who abhorred her daughter-in-law and 
 grandchildren alike would make her life a hell. She re- 
 alized that, now that their suspicions were once aroused, 
 they would drag her relentlessly away, preventing her 
 from being at the shop on the Monday appointed by 
 Loic; and at the thought she felt herself going stark, star- 
 ing mad. The color which had been ebbing slowly from 
 her face now burned there again brilliantly, her lips felt 
 dry and shrivelled as if she had just passed through a 
 sirocco, and her heart throbbed painfully it seemed to 
 be in her throat. 
 
 "Are you convinced?" went on Lierre, with the de- 
 liberate cruelty of a tyrant. "Do you see how neatly 
 caught you are?" 
 
 His victim winced, and her pale eyes wavered, as if 
 she were about to give way to panic and run straight 
 out of that place of torment, she knew not whither. 
 
 " Our little town is getting too hot to be safe for you 
 the marshes will prove cooler see!" Lierre was now 
 bending over her like a man holding a whip over a cow- 
 ering dog. "Besides," he concluded, "there isn't a 
 paroissien under fifty years old at your granny's farm 
 that's reassuring, too, after a fashion, being given your 
 inflammable nature!" and with a contemptuous nod the 
 terrible Lierre pirouetted on his heel to go and resume 
 his now ice-cold demi-tasse, calling out over his shoulder 
 as he went: "Had it not been for fear of your cursed 
 Marquis's interference you'd long have been in a reform- 
 atory; but, after all, the marshes will be just as safe. 
 Trust your loving granny for that." 
 
XIX 
 
 Wide -spread and stretching from the solid shore 
 
 Leagues to the low horizon, all the fens 
 
 Lay flat and shameless to the misty sun; 
 
 The thick air danced with heat, and unreal sounds, 
 
 Like curlew's cry or dreary insect's hum, 
 
 Held converse with the silence, that replied 
 
 With all the hopeless voices of the winds, 
 
 Susurrus of reeds, or billowing of the grass, 
 
 Bubbling of exhalations, or small life 
 
 That squeaked or splashed unseen; yea, of the clouds 
 
 Shadows alone seemed living things, and they 
 
 Darkened the scrofulous levels in their haste 
 
 To flee and pass beyond! M. M. 
 
 As far as the eye could reach the unbroken levels were 
 covered with low, rank growth, with here and there a 
 scrubby willow mile after mile without variety, with- 
 out hope, and beneath it the stagnant waters of many 
 marsh pools glittered sullenly. Here and there broad 
 patches of tall reeds raised their dishevelled heads, the 
 wicked green of their ribbon-like foliage wholly un- 
 dimmed by the slight frost which had occasionally come 
 at night during the winter just past only serving to 
 heighten and intensify the melancholy effect of the great, 
 gloomy expanse. 
 
 One's thoughts turned inevitably to the thousands of 
 Blues that had been engulfed in these ghastly morasses 
 during the Chouan wars, whose ghosts are believed by the 
 peasantry to drift hopelessly forever in the night mist 
 above the tufted grasses. Lives are constantly lost 
 
 383 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 there, and not even the sea so the Vendeens say shall 
 give up at the last judgment dead so countless as the ter- 
 rible bog. 
 
 It was a still, lifeless day; there was no sun, and the 
 sky, of a uniform pearl gray, had that delicate, cottony 
 appearance which in other climes would have presaged 
 snow. 
 
 Walking one before the other, Madame Billot and Rose 
 were cautiously proceeding upon a narrow track that 
 alone offered a firm foothold and to deviate from which 
 would be fatal, for on each side of it quaked lakes of semi- 
 fluid mud, mottled over by broad flakes of mosslike 
 vegetation bursting into unhealthy eruptions of glittering 
 blisters prismatic as soap-bubbles. 
 
 As the two women advanced the path grew narrower, 
 until it really became a difficult problem not to slip 
 from it into the clucking sloughs licking at its base, and 
 Rose, who was carrying a heavy valise, groaned and 
 stopped for a moment to change it from one hand to the 
 other. 
 
 "Yet another joy which I owe to you!" her mother 
 angrily exclaimed, pausing, too, and glaring back at her 
 daughter. "If at least we could have come yesterday, 
 but in that storm it would not have been possible, and 
 now your uncle is alone at the shop on a market-Mon- 
 day. God knows what imbecilities he will manage to 
 commit." 
 
 "Was it I who asked you to come?" Rose angrily pro- 
 tested, her eyes, disfigured by constant weeping, blazing 
 in her white face. She was growing absolutely desper- 
 ate, for it was now clearly impossible for her to escape, 
 and she just then hated her mother with a ferocity border- 
 ing on madness. 
 
 "No, Mamzelle Chiffon," the widow replied, contemptu- 
 
 384 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ously. "You certainly did not ask to come. In fact, I 
 wouldn't be surprised to find that you had plotted some- 
 thing vastly different for to-day's entertainment." 
 
 "What do you mean?" the girl cried, gulping down a 
 sob and letting the valise drop at her feet, where it lay 
 almost half off the tiny track. 
 
 "Pick it up, you slut!" Madame Billot commanded, 
 harshly. "I'll throw you in after it if you let it slip one 
 inch farther!" 
 
 "Pick it up yourself!" Rose, now quite beside herself, 
 shrieked back. "Why should I carry it all the way? 
 You are stronger than I am, and I'm sick of being your 
 servant!" 
 
 "You are, are you? Well, you won't be after this; 
 you'll be your grandmother's, and she isn't going to spare 
 you, for I'm going to tell her all about your disgraceful 
 conduct, never fear. She's a bigoted woman, is Grand- 
 maman Billot, and she'll make you suffer for your sins 
 day and night." 
 
 "That's what we will see!" snarled the girl, defiantly. 
 "I may have something to say -about your own doings. 
 Did she expect a mother like you to bring me up as a 
 Rosiere?" 
 
 "Sacree Carne!" screamed the other, her face distorted 
 with fury. "You you deserve to be killed, that's what 
 you deserve! Imputing your debor dements to me! Wait 
 till we come to a place where I can get at you you'll lose 
 nothing by the delay!" 
 
 They were standing within a few feet of each other at 
 a spot where the width of the trail barely allowed one 
 person to stand upon it. This was the very navel of 
 the bog, a cuplike depression softly clucking and trem- 
 bling in slimy, sticky greed. A sinister place, indeed, 
 filled with the choking exhalations of decaying vegeta- 
 
 385 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 tion a slow, relentless whirlpool, from the clutches of 
 which it would be vain to try and extricate one's self if 
 once it held its prey. 
 
 Aline Billot, clasping and unclasping yearning hands, 
 would have given ten years of her life to be able to close 
 them about the girl's throat. They were no longer 
 mother and daughter, but two crazed rivals glaring sav- 
 agely at each other, and who would stop at nothing, not 
 even crime, in their exacerbated hatred. 
 
 "You'll not escape again!" Aline fairly yelled. "You'll 
 never see your Marquis any more, even if he were not 
 long since sick of you!" 
 
 "I'll escape you, and that at once!" Rose retorted, 
 between closed teeth, and with a last flash of courage and 
 despair she turned to run, but before she had taken two 
 steps the widow, jumping over the valise, was upon her, 
 and a miracle alone saved them from rolling together 
 into the chuckling slough. 
 
 "We'll fall in!" Rose gurgled, putting out all her 
 strength to disengage herself; but the elder woman's 
 hands held her like tentacles, and the girl felt that it 
 must now be a fight to the finish between them. With 
 one supreme effort she freed her bursting throat and flung 
 her mother from her, falling herself to her knees as Aline 
 staggered over the edge of the track and fell with a thick 
 splash into the gently rocking depths of the quagmire. 
 
 In a flash Rose was up again, and, not daring to look 
 back, her ears filled with the ghastly cries for help behind 
 her, she fled like the wind, straight before her, escaping a 
 hundred deaths by mere instinct, and sobbing and shriek- 
 ing wildly as she ran, like one utterly demented. 
 
 Faster and faster she ran, her feet hardly touching 
 the ground, her breath coming in gasps, sweat pouring 
 like rain from her face, stumbling, falling, dropping from 
 
 386 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sheer exhaustion, only to stagger to her feet and dash 
 on again, until at last she saw before her the gaunt tele- 
 graph-poles of the high-road looming above the thicket 
 of bulrushes fringing the embankment, and realized that 
 she must pause and set her disordered clothes to rights or 
 else be stopped and questioned by the first person she 
 chanced to meet. 
 
 With a violently beating heart and shaking from head 
 to foot with terror and fatigue, she stopped on the edge 
 of a pool of almost clear water that reflected like a mirror 
 of bronze, and, bending over it, looked at herself. With a 
 cry of dismay she recoiled, for the haunted creature 
 which looked back at her from that glassy surface had 
 nothing in common with the young girl who had passed 
 there an hour before. The smooth complexion was now 
 blotched and mottled with patches of white and bluish 
 red, the forehead and cheeks were streaked with mud 
 and sweat, and there was foam on the quivering lips. 
 For a few seconds she stood there chattering and panting, 
 her brain in a tumult; then, realizing dimly that she must 
 not delay in effacing those telltale stigmas, with shaking 
 fingers she adjusted her clothes, straightened her hat, 
 smoothed her dishevelled hair, and finally, dipping her 
 handkerchief in the slough-water, rubbed off the grime 
 from her hands and face as quickly and as thoroughly 
 as she could. 
 
 The sober, respectable, country highway dozed peace- 
 fully in the thin haze rising from the sea, with the lazy, 
 good-natured platitude of French chausstes. No one was 
 in sight; as far as she could gaze the broad, whitish 
 ribbon was bare, and she set off at a brisk pace, forcing 
 her quaking legs to steadiness and praying with all her 
 might that her strength might endure until the end. 
 
 The end what was that to be? She drearily decided 
 
 387 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 that if Loic did not come she would kill herself nothing 
 but that could save her from the consequences of the 
 horror she had just left behind her; and as she went she 
 mumbled, half aloud, the outlines of the plans forming 
 gradually in her aching head. 
 
 How she accomplished this return trip she never quite 
 remembered; it remained with her afterwards as some 
 fearful nightmare she dared not recall to mind, and dur- 
 ing which she had groped about in a sort of paralyzing 
 numbness, conscious of but one wish, one instinct, and 
 that to reach the rendezvous, whatever the cost, what- 
 ever the pain. Strangely enough, the thought of her 
 mother sinking gradually into the relentless, choking 
 mud where she, her daughter, had thrust her did not 
 trouble her just then ; Loic and the almost insurmountable 
 difficulty of joining him in time alone was seared upon her 
 dazed mind, excluding everything else; and when at last 
 she reached La - Roche it was with an exclamation of 
 delirious joy that she recognized from afar the familiar 
 show-windows of her uncle's shop. 
 
 With a tension of all her nerves she steadied her pace, 
 hurriedly glanced into a neighboring pastry-cook's mirror- 
 like window to see if she now looked more human, and 
 quickly, noiselessly, walked into the parjumerie with 
 an apparent sang-froid which cost her the last remnants 
 of her force of endurance. Her luck still held, however, 
 for Monsieur Lierre was busy shaving a distinguished 
 patron whose throat, by-the-way, he came near to cut- 
 ting in his astonishment but whose presence prevented 
 the immediate demand for explanations; and, save a 
 "What, you, Rose?" uttered in a tone of profound stupe- 
 faction, Lierre suffered her to come up to the counter 
 unhindered. As she bent her steps towards the brass- 
 bound, winding staircase leading directly from the back 
 
 388 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of the shop to the upper floor, however, he called out, 
 "Where's your mother?" and, recognizing the necessity 
 of an immediate reply, she managed to answer, in a voice 
 almost steady: 
 
 "Stopped at the butcher's to get something for din- 
 ner." 
 
 "All right," was the curt rejoinder. "Don't go up- 
 stairs. Take off your hat here and wait till she comes." 
 
 There was nothing to do but to obey instantly, and 
 with a heart beating to suffocation the girl snatched off 
 her sadly bespattered toque, threw it beneath a counter, 
 and slipped into her usual place, wondering dully whether 
 she was too late, whether Loic would keep his word and 
 perchance arrive before the customer left, or whether she 
 would, after all, have to face her uncle. 
 
 She was so tired that as soon as she sat down she felt 
 her burning eyes close in almost irresistible torpor. Re- 
 action was setting in, and she could hardly refrain from 
 rolling to the floor. God! if only she could lie down for a 
 few minutes, just long enough to relax her aching muscles. 
 Stealthily she reached for a flacon of aromatic vinegar 
 and dabbed her forehead with half its contents. Her 
 ears were buzzing, every one of her nerves tingled sep- 
 arately, and a feeling of intolerable nausea made her 
 clinch her teeth and hold on with clammy hands to the 
 edge of the show-case, which, fortunately, partially con- 
 cealed her from view. 
 
 One by one she mechanically counted the minutes 
 solemnly ticking from the flowered "grandfather clock" 
 in the corner, while her hallucinated eyes showed her 
 rows of old gentlemen being shaved and groomed instead 
 of the solitary one over whom the nheavily frowning 
 Monsieur Lierre was bending. In a few moments he 
 would have done, for already he was reaching out for the 
 
 389 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 powder-box and then what? How could she explain 
 her mother's non-appearance, her own return to this 
 place from which she had been banished no, no, she 
 would not even try, but as soon as all hope of Loic's 
 arrival was past and there was little left of it now, 
 since it was already after three o'clock she would rush 
 out, run to the river, and drown herself. Perhaps Loic 
 had already come and gone, although this seemed scarcely 
 possible, for then Monsieur Lierre would not have been 
 able to maintain the comparative calm which enabled 
 him to jest feebly with his patron, and flourish towels and 
 brushes in very nearly his customary bustling, obsequious 
 manner. 
 
 Rose's hearing, rendered singularly acute by the agony 
 she was enduring, was strained to catch the slightest 
 outside noise, and she could have screamed with ex- 
 asperation, when suddenly the shaven one began to laugh 
 boisterously at some inane joke or other of her uncle's. 
 
 Some centuries ago or was the stroke still resonant ? 
 the clock had struck the half-hour, when she heard a 
 noise which sent her heart hammering crazily once more 
 against her ribs. She could not immediately localize or 
 identify it, but in a flash its direction and nature came 
 to her. A carriage probably a four-in-hand was ap- 
 proaching from the nearest street, and in a few seconds 
 more she caught sight of it reflected in the mirror behind 
 her. It was moving at a very rapid pace, and she could 
 see that it was a mail-phaeton drawn by four magnificent 
 bays and driven by Loic de Kergoat, with his valet Robin 
 beside him. 
 
 Slowly, cautiously, Rose glided bent almost double 
 behind the protecting counter, reached the end of it un- 
 perceived, snatched the door open, and clanged it after 
 her at the precise moment when the horses reached the 
 
 39 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 edge of the sidewalk, and with a crisp, crunching sound 
 of dancing hoofs were stopped in a masterly fashion im- 
 mediately opposite to her. 
 
 "Jump in!" Loic commanded, and, dragged up by 
 Robin, she found herself on the box-seat and the horses 
 tearing down the length of the Place at a gallop before 
 she fairly realized what had happened. As they turned 
 into a side street she caught a glimpse of her uncle stand- 
 ing with uplifted arms, gesticulating violently on the 
 threshold of the shop, and saw several pedestrians stop 
 short to gaze open-mouthed upon the boldest elopement 
 on record, then she fell fainting back against Robin. 
 
 The whole thing happened so quickly that the on- 
 lookers could have believed that their imaginations had 
 played them some trick had it not been for the sight of 
 the half-demented Monsieur Lierre, his face purple, his 
 lank hair on end, spluttering and cursing as he started 
 in wild and vain pursuit of the vanishing phaeton a 
 sight which certainly testified to the reality of so un- 
 heard of an incident. 
 
 ******* 
 ******* 
 
 Above the great marsh flocks of water-fowl had gath- 
 ered. Something disturbed their ordinary quietude, and 
 a great flutter of wings broke the primaeval silence of the 
 broad reaches, where since the beginning of the world 
 the vegetable kingdom had asserted its unquestioned 
 sovereignty. From the dense thickets of reeds and 
 ribbon -grasses, impenetrable to the foot of man, defying, 
 in spite of their individual weakness, his prying hand, 
 there rose the angry boom of bitterns, the screech of 
 startled plovers, and the melancholy appeal of bright- 
 plumaged ducks and soberly clad widgeons, while far 
 up in the sky some inquisitive ravens streaked the dark 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 clouds with their sombre flight. The short day was 
 drawing to an end; soon night would be creeping up to 
 claim the bogland where her rule is more absolute than 
 anywhere on the solid earth, for there it shows black, 
 indeed, both above and beneath in the inextricable tangle. 
 This particular gloaming seemed, somehow or other, 
 singularly sinister and inhuman. Nevertheless, a human 
 being was there the cause of all this unrest and agita- 
 tion of winged life a man who was creeping step by 
 step along one of the narrow tracks, and bringing to 
 bear upon this task that sense of direction or trailing 
 instinct with which gypsies and Indians are dowered. 
 
 It would appear that he was quite as much at home in 
 the labyrinth of a Vendeen marsh as in the grassy paths 
 of the orchard at Kergoat, for even in the early gathering 
 twilight, intensified by banks of looming storm-clouds, 
 he kept unerringly to the perilous little path, and had he 
 not been burdened with the dead weight of an uncon- 
 scious woman he would have made comparatively light 
 work of the matter. 
 
 For a very long time he had been scrambling and 
 stumbling along, obliged frequently to pause for breath 
 for Aline Billot was no light-weight and he was be- 
 ginning to be keenly conscious that did he fail to reach 
 the Billot farm before night was upon him he risked being 
 forced to remain in the marsh till daylight. It was getting 
 cold, too, and all the while that darkness which he dreaded 
 was stalking him with stealthy tread. Anathematizing 
 these adverse circumstances and condemning bogs to 
 summary judgment, Malghorn bent all his energies to 
 reach the little farm. He knew that he had only to fol- 
 low the wandering track; but would he be able to do this 
 if he could no longer distinguish it from the sombre 
 greenery which concealed a horrible death on both sides 
 
 392 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of it? Meanwhile, his lips parted breathlessly and his 
 muscles cracked under the burden in his arms. Was the 
 woman still alive ? She did not give any sign of conscious- 
 ness, and not even the faintest tremor moved her limply 
 pendent limbs or caused her slime - caked clothes and 
 dismally matted, drooping hair to stir ever so slightly. 
 
 At last Malghorn came to a wider space made by the 
 intrusion of a curious coulee of solid land into the bed of 
 the bog, and with a grunt of relief lowered his burden to 
 the ground. 
 
 "Dead or alive," he muttered, "this is not quite the 
 bit of evidence Maitre Rivier expected me to get!" He 
 wiped his dripping brow on his coat-sleeve, and calmly 
 resumed his monologue: "I wonder" casting specula- 
 tive eyes upon the prostrate form at his feet "if the 
 game was worth the candle, and whether I'll get anything 
 more pleasing out of it all than a foundered back and a 
 ruined suit of clothes?" Then addressing himself di- 
 rectly to the senseless woman, he continued: "It was 
 touch-and-go for you, la p'tite Mere. Suppose I hadn't 
 been sent to spy around your blessed mother-in-law's 
 farm this morning, you'd have had your bellyful of mud 
 by now perhaps you're dead as it is; but, in any case, 
 you owe me a fine candle! Or suppose you hadn't been 
 able to grab hold of the corner of that valise!" And judg- 
 ing with reason that it behooved him to hurry, now that 
 his strained muscles felt a little rested, he stooped down, 
 and, taking the inert weight beneath the shoulders, lifted 
 it bodily from the puddle of mud and ooze in which 
 he had carelessly laid it, and resumed his painful way 
 
 towards the Ferme des Marais. 
 26 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 You may overthrow a Virtue, may eradicate a Vice, 
 
 But if they form alliance and combine, 
 Know then that hostile Fortune has against you thrown the dice, 
 
 Oh, recognize at once the fatal sign! 
 For the Good excuses t'other, and they guarantee each other, 
 
 And the False becomes supporter of the True, 
 And to tear their roots asunder you may strive until the thunder 
 
 Of the Judgment Day shall make the world anew. ** M 
 
 " you alone can now interfere, and perhaps make 
 
 that unfortunate boy understand that he is sacrificing his whole 
 life and all his chances of happiness ! Tell him that a Marquis de 
 Kergoat has no right to fling away honor, fortune, and the esteem 
 of his Peers for the sake of a wretched girl picked up in the gutter, 
 or even for that of a bastard bastards are deplorably out of 
 date, my poor Gaidik, we are no longer living in the days of 
 Froissart! besides, this one is of the wrong sex! Loic can provide 
 as handsomely as he pleases for both the mother and the child, 
 but he must leave them; this collage cannot be endured! You 
 are my only hope, and since your uncle Re"ne and I are assuming 
 the responsibility of bringing you back from so very far away, 
 we trust that you will leave no stone unturned to put an end to 
 this terrible situation. Your mother must be mad! For years 
 she prepared her son's ruin, and now she is doing, wittingly or 
 unwittingly I don't know which all she can to precipitate the 
 end. C'est a se casser la tete contre les murs! Read this inter- 
 minable letter carefully and act accordingly, my dear child. 
 
 "Ever your loving aunt, ELIZABETH." 
 
 THE reader was seated in a train rushing at full speed 
 over the last miles of the Dover-London line. It was a 
 summer evening, but wreaths of dun-hued fog were, 
 nevertheless, creeping in through the open windows 
 
 394 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 from the amazing tangle of streets and houses consti- 
 tuting Europe's largest metropolis, and casting an addi- 
 tional gloom upon Gaidik, who, with a quick, impatient 
 gesture, folded the oft -read document once more and 
 slipped it into a side -pocket. She had not changed 
 much, had Gaidik; hers was still the same slight, girlish 
 form, her calm gray eyes still sparkled with that iron 
 pride of all high-caste Bretons who, bearing names al- 
 most dangerously historic, have been brought up to carry 
 their heads above the petty strifes and disgustful strug- 
 gles of modern times. There was an air of extreme 
 determination about her whole small person, and be- 
 tween her eyebrows a fine line denoting the deep con- 
 centration of her thoughts. For a moment she gazed 
 unseeingly at the ugly thoroughfares and the dingy 
 tenements, then slowly and with the careful attention 
 which she accorded to all she did, she drew her long suede 
 gloves over the dazzle of emeralds and diamonds upon 
 her fingers, smoothed the last wrinkle around her slender 
 wrists, and then sat quietly inhaling the fragrance of a 
 large bouquet of violets which had lain in her lap, while 
 the train lumbered heavily on, to be blocked at Cannon 
 Street, and there stand stock-still, wrapped about by the 
 dismal, smoke-grimed atmosphere, until at last the line 
 cleared, the great locomotive clanked on and screeched 
 itself nerve-wrackingly into the terminus. 
 
 Silently the brother and sister greeted each other, both 
 marvelling, during that first moment, that there should 
 be so little change in their respective faces, upon which 
 was just then an identical look of exceptional force of 
 endurance strained to the uttermost. 
 
 There were unshed tears in Gaidik's eyes, and perhaps 
 Loic also did not feel quite sure of himself, for he turned 
 his head away as, pressing her arm closely within his own, 
 
 395 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 he hurried her away under his footman's umbrella for it 
 had begun to drizzle towards his waiting brougham, 
 where a huge bouquet of pearl-hued orchids gleamed 
 upon the seat in a welcome of ghostly whiteness, be- 
 neath the mist -smeared electric lights. 
 
 As soon as they were in the carriage, however, he drew 
 the glass up with an impatient gesture and threw his 
 arms passionately about his sister; but still neither 
 spoke, and it was only when they had reached the great 
 hotel facing the Park, and the privacy of the suite ordered 
 by telegraph for her, that he at last broke a silence al- 
 most oppressive in its duration and import. 
 
 "You have come," he said, slowly, "on a hopeless 
 errand, my poor little girl. I hate to tell you such a 
 thing at the outset, but your letter left me no doubt as 
 to what you wish to accomplish, and it is best that I should 
 be quite frank with you, is it not?" 
 
 Gaidik was silent for a moment, then, looking steadily 
 at him, asked, quietly: 
 
 "Have I then lost all my influence over you, Loic?" 
 
 "Don't pretend to ignore your powers," he replied, 
 beginning to pace up and down. "You are, on the con- 
 trary, the only being in the world who has any influence 
 at all; but circumstances are vastly different from what 
 you believe them to be." 
 
 "Possibly," she said, gently; "and whatever these 
 circumstances may be, I am here to hear your reasons 
 for causing me so much pain, Loic." 
 
 He winced, for this was just what he had dreaded; 
 he was about to cut to the heart this little sister whom 
 he adored, and whom he had not seen for so long. 
 
 "Since that is so," he said, vainly attempting to speak 
 as calmly as she did, " I ask you before we go any further 
 to hear patiently what I have to tell you. Oh, it will 
 
 396 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 not take long," he continued, with inexpressible bitter- 
 ness. "In an hour or so I can easily show you what a 
 hash I have made of it all!" 
 
 "Don't speak like that!" Gaidik exclaimed. "Do you 
 think it is agreeable for me to hurt you like this imme- 
 diately on arriving?" 
 
 ' ' I know ! I know ! ' ' Loic answered, sorrowfully. " It is a 
 bad business for us both ; but please, please, Gaidik, listen 
 indulgently to what I have to say, for I want you to know 
 my motives for doing what I have done, and we must 
 face the ordeal as best we can." And without giving him- 
 self time to lose courage, he at once began the recital of 
 all that had befallen him since his return from the United 
 States, doing so frankly, simply, and without a single 
 reticence. 
 
 Gaidik heard in absolute silence. She did not once 
 interrupt him, nor did she comment upon what he was 
 saying, but he several times saw her lips quiver and her 
 eyes fill with instantly repressed tears. 
 
 "That is all?" she asked, when he at last paused. 
 "You are sure that you forget nothing?" 
 
 "That is all," said Loic, "and I have forgotten noth- 
 ing." 
 
 She rose, came close to him, and, laying both hands 
 on his shoulders, said, with a pitiful effort to control the 
 trembling of her lips: 
 
 "What I want to know is what you and I have ever 
 done to deserve all we are both going through. Why 
 couldn't we have been left together to live our lives side by 
 side ? None of this should have ever happened ; but ev- 
 erybody seems to have conspired to separate us by plots 
 and lies and to wreck not only one but two lives." Her 
 voice broke and she pressed her face against his breast, 
 fighting hard for composure, while he, afraid to speak 
 
 397 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 lest he should lose all self-control, held her tightly in his 
 arms. For a few seconds they remained thus, and then 
 Gaidik raised her white face, and, looking deep into his 
 eyes, said, pleadingly: 
 
 "It is not yet too late, Loic. Think how young we 
 both are! There are many, many years still before us! 
 Are we to spend them apart always ? Is it you now who 
 are deliberately going to build up an impassable barrier 
 between us, and that for the sake of a woman whom you 
 do not love, for whom you have already sacrificed so 
 much, and who is in no wise worthy of you?" 
 
 "And what about the child?" 
 
 The words fell like lead upon Gaidik 's heart. She 
 drew away, and with hands clinched together so violently 
 that her rings actually cut into her flesh, moved a few 
 paces from him. 
 
 "Don't make it too hard for me, Gaidik!" Loic ex- 
 claimed, imploringly. "Surely you do not want me to 
 abandon that poor, helpless little thing?" 
 
 "No!" Gaidik replied, resolutely; "give her to me! 
 I swear to you that I shall bring her up as if she were my 
 own, and that she will never know what it is to be mother- 
 less. Surely you must see that it is her best chance! 
 Do not say no, my darling, my darling! We have al- 
 ways been all in all to each other. Listen to me now! 
 Don't ruin your whole life! Can't you understand that 
 I'm in the right, that you have carried your chivalrous 
 behavior towards this woman already too far?" 
 
 "And you!" he cried, desperately. "Can't you see 
 that it is impossible for me to do what you ask?" 
 
 "Why?" she demanded, bending once more towards 
 him, tense and quivering from head to foot. "Why?" 
 
 "Because she, Rose, will not consent to give up her 
 child, and has the whip-hand of me there ; because I am 
 
 398 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 caught, trapped, by my very love and tenderness for 
 this baby that she knows I will not leave behind." 
 
 Gaidik looked at him in infinite distress. "Oh!" she 
 said, bitterly. "So that's her little game, is it? That's 
 how she hopes to finally force you to marry her! And 
 it is perchance reserved for me to see you, Loic de Ker- 
 goat, the brother I am so proud of, take to wife this " 
 She stopped, afraid of giving full rein to her rising anger, 
 and in a tone which cut him like a knife, she continued: 
 "Do you realize that this would be the first mesalliance 
 in our family during fourteen hundred years ? I will no 
 longer speak of myself, since that seems without avail, 
 but of your own responsibilities towards your people, 
 past and present. That may serve better! Do you 
 really mean to bring disgrace and dishonor upon all of 
 us? Even a marriage would repair nothing! At best 
 it could only take place out of France, and be but a dole- 
 ful farce a thing to be ashamed of for ever and ever 
 since you will never obtain Mamma's indispensable 
 consent." 
 
 "You forget," he said, gravely, "that there is very 
 much to be ashamed of on both sides!" 
 
 "How!" she cried, instantly aglow with indignation. 
 "You have something to be ashamed of with regard to 
 this girl ? You who have behaved with such idiotic unsel- 
 fishness, who have accepted for her sake a situation which 
 is adequate to avenging all the crimes of the Borgias! 
 Ah, leave me alone, you seem to have lost all power 
 of judgment! I know you, Loic, you have persisted in 
 this folly chiefly to fight your mother's machinations ; had 
 it not been for her, or had I been there, you would never 
 have begun it in the first place! It will be my eternal 
 regret that I was not there! But now the time has come 
 to act sensibly at last!" 
 
 399 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Don't talk to me of my mother!" he interrupted, with 
 a violence in which she recognized the sting of a home- 
 thrust. "The way she has acted through all the abomi- 
 nable persecutions she directed against Rose made it 
 impossible for me not to stand by her. Why, had I not 
 carried her off by main force from La-Roche, and then 
 from France, Madame de Kergoat would have, thanks to 
 her powerful influences, lodged her in St. Lazare, and 
 my little girl would have been born in a den of fallen 
 women, thieves, and assassins." 
 
 Gaidik stamped her little foot. "But all this is now 
 past!" she in turn interrupted. "There is no longer any 
 question of St. Lazare. You can provide for the girl 
 and buy off the baby. Are you sure you are not still 
 ready to sacrifice us, both yourself and me, to the satis- 
 faction of beating your mother to the end ?" She paused, 
 sorry to have been betrayed into saying that, for, after 
 all, this was their first hour together after a long, weary 
 separation, and she could not bear to see the look in his 
 eyes. With a swift repentance she slipped to her knees 
 before him where he sat, as once many years before in her 
 tower-room at Kergoat, and, nestling close to him, said, 
 penitently: "Forgive me, my own Fre"rot. Don't let us 
 talk any more about this, for the present, if possible. We 
 must not spoil this first evening utterly. To-morrow, when 
 we have thought it over more, it will be time enough. 
 Just now we are both overwrought and do not see clearly." 
 
 A light of relief crossed Loic's face. He kissed her 
 tenderly, and, smoothing back the "honeylocks " he loved 
 so well, murmured: 
 
 "Oh, I'm only too anxious to shelve this miserable 
 question at least for the present; I only wish I could 
 do so once and for all, for I cannot endure the thought 
 of opposing you, my own Gaid my dearest of all " 
 
 400 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 Their nerves were so fearfully jangled that it took all 
 their will-power to cast off the burden of the situation, 
 even temporarily; but they succeeded during the next 
 few hours in conjuring up, after a fashion, the never-to- 
 be-forgotten days of their childhood, that already seemed 
 so long ago, and nothing save an occasional indefinable 
 tension in Loic's attitude or a strained note in Gaidik's 
 voice really recalled to them the grim shadow that wait- 
 ed outside the door. This one evening was in spite of it 
 all an oasis of delight to both, and when they parted her 
 eyes sought his with a misty gaze that made him wince, 
 and he felt her hands clinging to his with a desperate 
 grip, as if she dreaded this would be the last of their old 
 times together, and she would never have him for her- 
 self again. 
 
 As soon as he had gone an intense grief descended 
 upon the poor girl and swept her away in its feverish 
 mill-race of dreads and anxieties. Knowing her brother 
 as well as she did, she felt a sickening sense of failure, al- 
 though the decisive discussion had been postponed until 
 the next day. She faithfully observed her promise to 
 go to bed immediately, but only found a vocal darkness 
 and unprofitable tossings, and when at length a weary 
 slumber came, it was even more bitter than her waking 
 thoughts. Again and again she started from tormented 
 dreams. Now it would be her Fre*rot's marble-white 
 face floating amid inky waves, with closed eyes and the 
 blue, pinched look of death about the lips and nostrils, 
 that tore her almost with a shriek from her pillows ; now 
 it was his mangled and bleeding body that was dragged 
 into her presence by a woman whose face she vainly 
 tried to see. Again and again she sat up in bed, her 
 heart hammering like mad, her cheeks covered with 
 
 401 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 tears, and finally, as the first streaks of the mid-summer 
 dawn began to show in faint tints of primrose above the 
 trees of Hyde Park, she rose, and, without summoning 
 her maid, bathed and dressed. 
 
 No longer could she endure the indecision, the misery, 
 the gnawing apprehension; she must see Loic, and that 
 at once. The thought of ever putting herself into open 
 and rancorous antagonism to him was one which she 
 could not endure, and yet an inward suggestion, often 
 repressed, told her that she was pleading a hopeless 
 cause. Nevertheless, the matter could not hang in the 
 balance any longer; one way or the other it must be 
 clinched without further delay. 
 
 Loic had appointed to meet her at her apartments at 
 noon, but she ordered the carriage to drive immediately to 
 Richmond, in which vicinity he had installed himself with 
 Rose and the baby. As she paced up and down, waiting, 
 her burden of misery was suddenly increased by another 
 heavy though^ which had already grinned at her from 
 behind his chair at dinner the night before. She had 
 noticed that he, formerly the most abstemious of men, 
 who, save for a few boyish frolics, had never taken a 
 glass of wine beyond a very moderate allowance, and, in 
 spite of his Western experiences, scarcely ever touched 
 spirits, had drunk far more deeply than she had ever seen 
 him. The de Kergoats were famed for the steadiness of 
 their heads, and Loic, their worthy descendant, had not 
 as the phrase goes "turned a hair," but still, now that 
 she came to think of it, the quantity he had taken 
 was disquieting, whether one looked upon it as a mat- 
 ter of regular habit or merely as a bracer taken on oc- 
 casion. 
 
 At that thought Gaidik, the self-controlled and calm, 
 fell into a bottomless gulf of despair. Was his association 
 
 402 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 with that woman going to make him turn to such a means 
 of consolation and comfort? What was to be done? 
 How should she act in order to extricate him from all 
 this net-work of dangers ? Her reasonable mind no longer 
 made itself heard, and amplifying her former forebodings 
 she conjured up the most fearful pictures of his future, 
 shuddering at each new creature of her imagination, until 
 their very extravagance brought a reaction. 
 
 "This comes from having had a bad night and no 
 breakfast!" she muttered, wrathfully. Surely she had 
 been temporarily mad to think even for an instant that 
 her Loic, her own plucky Frerot, could ever fall so low as 
 that! How shamefully she had insulted him in letting 
 her thoughts dwell on such impossibilities, and, thorough- 
 ly disgusted with herself, she hastened to her carriage and 
 drove away. 
 
 It was glorious weather, and even London, the fog- 
 centre of Europe, for once allowed nature to have her own 
 sweet way. As the inconceivable meanness of the city 
 streets fell behind the swiftly trotting horses, Gaidik felt 
 herself gradually revive. Perhaps, after all, matters were 
 not so desperate. In a very little while she would see 
 Loic, and what might not all her arts of persuasion, back- 
 ed by a great love, accomplish ? As for the extreme un- 
 conventionality of her going to hunt him up at this, his 
 more than unofficial home, such a trifle did not weigh 
 with her just then more than a feather. 
 
 The place where Loic had pitched his temporary tent 
 lay well away from the coach-road, some miles from any 
 railway station, and nestled cosily on the flank of a gorse 
 and heather covered hill which reminded Gaidik de- 
 liciously of Brittany crowned by a pine forest. The 
 house itself was an old manorial dwelling, a graceful suc- 
 cession of rose-garlanded gables built of white-faced red 
 
 403 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 brick beautifully toned by age, and surrounded by broad 
 terraces overlooking a blossoming park. 
 
 From the lodge-gates the ground rose rapidly across 
 sweeping lawns dotted with clumps of rhododendrons, 
 and as Gaidik was swiftly driven along she caught sight 
 of a much beribboned nurse wearing the gorgeous costume 
 of a Bourguignonne Nounou, walking with stately dig- 
 nity beneath the trees and bearing in her arms her lace- 
 swathed nursling. This made her heart bound in her 
 breast Loic's first-born poor, little, innocent baby, the 
 chief cause of all her distress and of his! She bit her lips 
 and resolutely turned her eyes away, bringing them to bear 
 upon a footman who, at the approach of the carriage, was 
 hurrying down the terrace steps to meet it. There was 
 profound astonishment in this personage's eyes, in spite 
 of his well-trained rigidity of mien ; evidently visitors of 
 her type were not habitual here, and it was with profound 
 deference that he expressed his regrets at his master's 
 absence. Indeed, his Lordship had been gone since yes- 
 terday at noon, and had left no word as to the hour of his 
 return. Gaidik felt for a second the whole force of the 
 adage about hope deferred, but suddenly had another 
 thought. After a moment's hesitation: "Then is her 
 her Ladyship at home?" "Her Ladyship" the words 
 forced themselves with extraordinary difficulty from the 
 Grand Dame's lips, but the die was now cast; she 
 would see this thorny Rose who had torn so many lives, 
 and as in response to the evidently amazed assent of the 
 powdered-headed official she alighted and followed him 
 into a thickly carpeted hall, she murmured under her 
 breath, "Allah! c' etait ecrit!" 
 
 Two more footmen rushed to the assistance of their 
 colleague, in order to usher her with proper ceremony 
 into the drawing-room, where she calmly awaited Mile. 
 
 404 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Rose Billot! The apartment was spacious and luxuri- 
 ously furnished, but Gaidik noticed there a certain je ne 
 sais quoi, which displeased her. To begin with, there 
 were no flowers either in the deep embrasures nor on 
 any one of the tables and consoles; a gaudy bonbon-box 
 lay upon the floor surrounded by a shower of multi- 
 colored fondants; the cushions of the sofa were disar- 
 ranged; on the chairs and lounges were scattered mag- 
 azines, books, and other trifles which certainly had no 
 business there; and one of the handsome lace window- 
 curtains was looped back in the middle with a common 
 hair-pin! At this last damning piece de conviction, 
 Gaidik's shoulders went up with a little shrug of pity, 
 and turning away she almost fell over an open guitar- 
 case wherein two little white kittens were struggling for 
 the possession of a chop-bone. 
 
 "Careless servants," she commented; "pompous but 
 decidedly careless, which is strange in England, where 
 servants are generally good. But those can't be blamed, 
 after all," she concluded, with that little smile of well- 
 bred cynicism which is the despair and envy of the 
 parvenu. And then she added, softly, in a vastly dif- 
 ferent tone, a "Poor Loic!" which brought tears to her 
 eyes. 
 
 One always sees with delight a skilled swordsman 
 take up the foil, and had there been an observer hidden 
 behind that hair-pin-looped curtain he would have keen- 
 ly enjoyed the sight of Gaidik, as hearing a sudden rustle 
 of silk against the closed door, she mechanically squared 
 her shoulders and faced round, looking straight in front 
 of her with that perfect self-possession which is in-bred, 
 not acquired. Presently, after what seemed an unneces- 
 sarily long interval, the door opened slowly, hesitatingly, 
 and Gaidik became vaguely conscious of a desire to smile, 
 
 405 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 for there entered a girl dressed in the latest fashion; no 
 furbished-up gown from the hands of a provincial dress- 
 maker, or ready-made frock purchased at a more or less 
 expensive shop, but a unique creation from some great 
 couturier, a sumptuous azure satin affair which might 
 have been worn by a Queen for a Royal five-o'clock tea; 
 and the practised flash of Gaidik's experienced eyes saw 
 that it had been hastily donned to dazzle her, and was 
 carelessly buttoned over a crushed and crumpled night- 
 rail! The brown hair surmounting the insignificant face 
 was more than allowably tousled and was garnished with 
 a delicious little morning-cap of lace and pale-blue gauze, 
 which had seen already too much service not to be 
 shamed by the unworn brilliancy of that turquoise-hued 
 tea-gown. The observer behind the curtain would have 
 laughed out loud if death itself were to be the penalty 
 of his indiscretion, so ludicrous was the contrast between 
 this intempestive finery and the extraordinary chic and 
 fitness of Gaidik's plain, biscuit-colored batiste, graceful 
 hat wreathed with pale lime - blossoms, long, tan suede 
 gloves, and little brown shoes peeping forth from the 
 delicate frou-frous of a Valenciennes petticoat. 
 
 There is nothing so disquieting as the unknown motive, 
 which disquietude may be pardoned in Rose as she ad- 
 vanced towards her unexpected visitor. She saw at a 
 glance so great was their likeness that this must be 
 Loic's sister, and yet her presence there was so stupefy- 
 ing that she was unable to bring herself to believe it 
 possible. 
 
 This doubt was easily read by Gaidik, and in a perfect- 
 ly natural tone she said, courteously: 
 
 "I must introduce myself. I am Monsieur de Ker- 
 goat's sister." 
 
 Rose winced. "Monsieur de Kergoat!" Why did she 
 
 406 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 not say "Loic " ? But she tried to conceal her embarrass- 
 ment, and, indicating a chair, asked rather too off-hand- 
 edly: 
 
 "Won't you sit down?" 
 
 That Gaidik hesitated only for the fraction of a second 
 before accepting the proffered seat must be placed to 
 her credit. As she did so, a strong whiff of the scent 
 Rose used reached her nostrils, and she gulped; it was 
 musk, that parfum par excellence du trottoir, and her feel- 
 ing of dislike for the girl grew into instant repugnance ! 
 
 "I am here this morning rather too early, I fear to 
 see my brother; but hearing that he was absent, I thought 
 it best to ask you to receive me," she said, gently, never- 
 theless, and without a trace of hauteur or coldness. Rose 
 was nervously twirling the long ribbons of her magnifi- 
 cent sash, and the very softness of the tone made her 
 feel uneasy, for reasons of her own. Loic also had the 
 secret of it, and it always seemed to open unbridgeable 
 gulfs between them when he used it. 
 
 . "It is very kind of you to have come," she said, awk- 
 wardly. "Would you like to see Baby?" 
 
 This was a facer. Gaidik read the girl too well to 
 imagine for an instant that this acceptation of her pres- 
 ence as though she had come to pay a polite visit was 
 purposely put forward; that would have been far too 
 clever a move for such as she. No, it was certainly sheer, 
 cowlike stupidity, but it staggered the woman of the 
 world none the less for a fleeting instant. 
 
 "Pardon me," she said, extinguishing from her voice 
 all the apparent good -will of her premiere - maniere , "I 
 have asked to see you simply in order to tell you a few 
 things which it is necessary for you to know." 
 
 "Oh," Rose said, sullenly, "I can guess what it's 
 about! You'd like to separate me from Loic!" 
 
 407 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I would scarcely have put it so bluntly," Gaidik re- 
 plied, perfectly unruffled, "but since you take it that 
 way, I am entirely ready to state that this is exactly 
 why I have come to London from half across the world." 
 
 "I thought so," Rose sneered, with an attempt at im- 
 pertinence which even in her own eyes was completely 
 foiled by the other's imperturable calm. 
 
 "Pray let us leave acrimony out of this discussion. I 
 have no ill-feelings towards you personally; I know all 
 you have gone through, and am sorry for you; but still 
 this does not alter the fact that you are hopelessly ruin- 
 ing my brother's life." 
 
 "I don't see why you say that!" Rose exclaimed. 
 "He is not the first great gentleman to have a liaison." 
 
 "Certainly not!" Gaidik acquiesced. "But this par- 
 ticular case is different, for if my brother persists in living 
 with you it means his breaking forever with his family, 
 his friends, his entire milieu. It also means his con- 
 demning himself to absolute isolation, and his risking to 
 be saddled with a Conseil Judiciaire, which will deprive 
 him for many years of the control of the greater part of 
 his money. Do you follow me?" 
 
 Rose, sitting bolt upright, was staring incredulously 
 at her visitor. This was a woman whose words com- 
 manded respect. Had she, Rose, then been lulling herself 
 into false security ? She could scarcely treat such a warn- 
 ing with contempt. Her pink - and - white complexion 
 slowly turned gray, yet she strove to hold her ground, 
 and although her voice shook a little, she said, with as- 
 sumed confidence: 
 
 "It will never come to that! His mother wouldn't 
 dare!" 
 
 "Yet that is precisely what she is now trying to do as 
 a last means to her end; indeed, had it not been for our 
 
 408 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 aunt de Brielle and the Comte de Kergoat, the thing 
 would in all probability have been already accomplished." 
 
 Gaidik spoke without the least passion or emphasis ; she 
 was merely stating facts which could speak for them- 
 selves with a terrible significance. Rose fidgeted uneasily 
 in her chair, stole a side-long glance at her adversary, 
 and suddenly her pale eyes flaming with malice, she said, 
 brutally : 
 
 "I am not holding Loic by force. If he is willing to 
 leave me and to give up his child, of course we must go." 
 
 Gaidik looked curiously at her. She felt the thrust, 
 but her voice was cruelly indifferent as she replied: 
 
 "Precisely! I quite understand that your child is 
 your sharpest weapon. However " She did not finish 
 the sentence, for unfortunately the door was pushed 
 open and the imposing Nounou, carrying her nursling, 
 strode unceremoniously in. With an exclamation of re- 
 lief Rose, conscious of her opportunity, ran towards her, 
 snatched the baby from her arms, and, dismissing her 
 with a curt word, rushed back to Gaidik, saying, tri- 
 umphantly : 
 
 "Do you think he will give that up easily?" 
 
 She had pushed aside the long lace veils, and, holding 
 the white chrysalis towards Gaidik, she continued: "He 
 is so proud of her, and he always says that she is the 
 image of you! I can see now that it is true!" 
 
 Mechanically, Gaidik took the soft, warm bundle and 
 gazed with a strange blending of delight and pain at the 
 loveliest baby -girl she had ever seen. Yes, it looked 
 ridiculously like her, and like Loic, too; there was abso- 
 lutely nothing " Billotesque " in those extraordinarily and 
 prematurely formed features. The large, gray eyes, 
 cherubically thoughtful and grave ; the delicately aquiline 
 nose an unheard of thing in the generality of babies; 
 a? 409 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the firmly arched lips nay, even the fine little curling 
 tendrils of silky, copper-hued hair peeping forth beneath 
 the lace hood were purely Kergoat, and Kergoat at its 
 best! 
 
 Gaidik gazed and gazed at the small face as if both 
 Loic's fate and her own were written there, and Rose, 
 who watched her with catlike attention, guessed the 
 meaning of the suspicious moisture gathering in the 
 eyes so much like her Baby's, but scarcely the iron self- 
 control which prevented that moisture from becoming 
 tears. 
 
 "We have called her after you," she said, coaxingly, 
 "although as yet we say Kikette that's more baby- 
 like"; and bending close over the little one, she snapped 
 her unpleasantly square-tipped white fingers, crooning in 
 the nasal tones which some women deem it necessary to 
 adopt when speaking to infants: 
 
 "Allans Kikette faites risette a Tantante!" 
 
 Gaidik in her amazement nearly dropped her light bur- 
 den; and yet, yes, this was really her niece her own 
 flesh and blood; there could be no doubt about that! 
 Indeed, so great was the spell of that baby -beauty, so 
 enthralling the throng of memories, of yearning emotions 
 that looked up at her out of those solemn baby eyes, 
 that she almost forgot the incongruity of the thing and 
 hardly heard Rose chattering tirelessly on. 
 
 "Isn't she lovely? I'm sure, if her grandmother once 
 saw her, she'd forgive Loic at once," that silly young 
 woman at last concluded. 
 
 This roused Gaidik. She looked keenly at the girl, 
 again wondering whether this was clever insolence; but 
 no, the wheedling voice was corroborated by the nervous 
 attitude and the embarrassed eyes that fell before her 
 own. It was only another shift of an ignorant, over- 
 
 410 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 awed woman, uncertain of her ground, and vacillating 
 between propitiation and defiance. 
 
 "Ah, you want my brother to marry you!" she said, 
 coldly, drawing back a step. Her heart was like lead, for 
 the sight of that adorable baby made it clear to her how 
 fast Loic was held, and marriage, alas! seemed no longer 
 such an utter impossibility. 
 
 Rose flushed crimson. "No!" she said, angrily. "No! 
 No! That, never!" 
 
 "Oh-h-h!" murmured Gaidik, and that was all. 
 
 The silence that followed was as tense as if something 
 in the atmosphere was about to snap. It lasted only a 
 moment, but long enough for Gaidik to see as by the 
 sudden flash of a search-light, or as if a heavy veil had 
 suddenly become transparent, leaving the girl's motives 
 bare, and Rose felt that it was so! 
 
 "You fancy that you hold him more securely as things 
 are, thanks to that poor, little, dishonored child?" Gaidik 
 asked at last. For the first time there was something 
 in the low, level tones that cut like the lash of a 
 whip. 
 
 Rose did not answer; she was looking attentively at 
 the carpet and seemed to be counting the flowers woven 
 into its rich texture. 
 
 "You think that you hold him more securely thus?" 
 repeated Gaidik. 
 
 "No! No!" Rose muttered, feebly; she was paralyzed 
 by a feeling that was quite new to her the horrid 
 sensation that something had gone from her, her power 
 to hoodwink, to misrepresent, to resort to subterfuge. 
 Her strongest, indeed, her only shield had fallen before 
 Gaidik's penetrating eyes, and, thoroughly disarmed, she 
 instinctively made a little, appealing gesture towards her 
 adversary that, however much it might have influenced 
 
 411 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic, was quite thrown away upon his sister. Then, sud- 
 denly recollecting herself: 
 
 "It's it's not true!" she cried, breathlessly, fright 
 and anger making her voice shake. "Besides, you have 
 no business to to try and turn me inside out like that. 
 You have no right you are cruel and unjust. I don't 
 even know what you mean with all those finasseries!" 
 
 "Oh yes, you do," said Gaidik, inexorably; "you are a 
 very shrewd young woman in your little way! You have 
 found out that once married he would wield absolute 
 power over you and your child, and in the paltriness of 
 your soul, in the smallness of your trust in him, you 
 imagine that he would then discard you and keep his 
 little daughter. I do not compliment you on your 
 point of view." 
 
 Rose was now gasping like a swimmer in stormy waters. 
 She had not even the presence of mind to resume her 
 seat, but remained awkwardly standing before her ac- 
 cuser. "It's not true!" she cried again, defiantly. 
 
 "Why, you have already admitted it," was the cold 
 reply. "You will neither marry him nor relinquish him. 
 Do you expect me under such circumstances to refrain 
 from throwing my weight into the balance against you?" 
 
 "I don't care!" Rose exclaimed again, suddenly re- 
 lapsing into the manners of the home circle at the Par- 
 fumerie Lierre. " If you do, you'll lose what's left to you 
 of Loic. Had he loved you really, d' you think he would 
 have run off with me ? But you were thousands of miles 
 away attending to your own affairs. What do you come 
 now and try to interfere for? It's too late; he is mine. 
 I love him, and I'll keep him!" 
 
 Gaidik was smiling, but there was something in that 
 frosty little smile that made Rose pause. 
 
 "So that is what you call love?" Gaidik said, mechani- 
 
 412 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 cally tightening her hold upon the baby, now crowing 
 happily against her shoulder. "You know that you are 
 dooming both your child and your child's father to abso- 
 lute misery, and yet you can talk of love!" She rose 
 from her chair, kissed Kikette's soft little face tenderly 
 before handing her back to her mother, and continued: 
 "If you loved him you would set him free and let me 
 bring up this little one. It seems much to ask, perhaps, 
 and before seeing you I might have hesitated to demand 
 such a sacrifice, but now I read you too well to think that 
 it is your heart that is concerned in all this. f You would 
 not cling very long to my brother if he were penniless, 
 and if, imbittered by the consequences of his folly, he no 
 longer treated you with that chivalrousness which is so 
 new to you. Remember that we are ready to give you 
 a fortune if you will do as I say, a fortune which will 
 enable you to lead a free and happy life wherever you 
 wish. It would be better for you, after all, to do this 
 than to drag him down to ruin, for what will you have 
 then?" 
 
 " I don't believe a word you say. You're only trying 
 to frighten me!" Rose muttered, sullenly. 
 
 " I am not. I am offering you your only chance under 
 the circumstances. A demand for marriage I could 
 have understood, but your cold-blooded calculations are 
 beyond me. You know that your only hold upon my 
 brother is through this child, and you think by such means 
 to play fast for him and loose for yourself. Believe me, 
 you will earn your own punishment," and with a slight 
 inclination of the head she turned towards the door. 
 
 "Don't go like that!" the terrified Rose cried, trying 
 to bar the way. She would have given much to know 
 what this cold-faced, impassive woman was about to do. 
 
 "Why not?" Gaidik asked, pausing for a second. 
 
 413 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "We have, I think, nothing further to tell each other. If 
 you change your mind, pray remember that our offer 
 stands good, and that, personally speaking, no sacrifice 
 will be too great for me to make for my brother's sake." 
 Then, without another word, she passed out of the 
 room to her waiting carriage. It was characteristic of 
 her that, although she walked slowly, she never turned 
 her head. 
 
3800ft HID 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 O thou Hesperia, latest sprung of all 
 
 The sea-born sirens, richly dowered heir 
 
 Of gracious legend far Homeric isles 
 
 Avalon and Atlantis ah, too oft 
 
 Nearer approachment doth reveal in thee 
 
 All the stern lineaments of thy rugged sire, 
 
 The swart sky-bearer of the Afric shore, 
 
 Whom the swift hero with the Gorgon's head, 
 
 Turned to ridg'd granite overgrown with pines! 
 
 Henceforth should they who would adventure them 
 
 To win thy golden apples, think upon 
 
 Thy guardian dragon, and their limbs endue 
 
 With mightiest mail and strength of Heracles. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 THE pretty, sunlit rooms looked upon one of the most 
 pleasant views in New York. From the parlor win- 
 dows one could see the silver-gray waters of the Harlem 
 River winding slowly and silently down towards the 
 huge city, between its abrupt green banks spanned by 
 the towering white piers of the Aqueduct and the bold, 
 steel arch of Washington Bridge banks just then tufted 
 with soft-foliaged trees and bathed in the warm, mellow 
 glow of spring. 
 
 The flat on the upper floor of a handsome new house, 
 built entirely of gleaming white stone, was comfortably, 
 even elegantly, furnished, and in the dainty hues of the 
 curtains and carpets, the chaste shapes of the tables, 
 chairs, and lounges, one could easily trace the taste of a 
 well-trained and well-bred purchaser. There were but 
 
 417 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 few pictures on the cartridge-papered walls, but these 
 pictures were all good a few proof -engravings, two or 
 three masterly water-colors, a marine scene in sepia, on 
 each side of the chimney-piece a couple of exquisite min- 
 iatures of the eighteenth century, and between two win- 
 dows the magnificent pastel portrait of a woman in Court 
 dress, surmounted by a Ducal Crown. 
 
 This for the parlor. The dining-room was finished in 
 light oak, and on the carven sideboard and narrow side- 
 tables were some pieces of massive antique silverware, 
 and a few choice bits of almost transparent porcelain 
 and gorgeous Faienza, which had certainly not first seen 
 daylight either on those shores or during our era. The 
 two bedrooms, too, had an aspect entirely uncommon 
 to New York flats, the toilet-set basking on the bureau 
 of that occupied by the master of this small but surpris- 
 ingly dainty establishment was of ebony, with heavy 
 gold monograms and Marquis's coronets ; and was further 
 characterized by a wealth of ivory boot -jacks, expensive 
 boot-trees, teak-wood whip-stands, a couple of tiger-skins, 
 against which were fastened trophies of costly arms, and 
 a bewildering confusion of box-spurs, hunting-stirrups, 
 curb-chains, silver and gold mounted flasks, riding-sticks 
 of astonishing variety, and an array of tall boots, denot- 
 ing better than any words could do the favorite occupa- 
 tion of their owner. 
 
 The apartment, in fact, was as odd as it was picturesque 
 a high degree of merit in our levelling and vulgar age ; 
 and to live in it would scarcely have been a penance to 
 any one even a person accustomed to much grander 
 dwellings had it not been for many things that will 
 hereafter be explained. 
 
 Trotting back and forth from one room to another, on 
 tiny, slippered feet, or teasing the big hound that lay in 
 
 418 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 statuesque repose upon the hearth-rug, a lovely baby 
 girl, with great, gray eyes and a halo of ruddy silken curls, 
 was pouring out a rapid series of prettily lisped ques- 
 tions in French to her mother, who, leaning against one 
 of the parlor windows, was lazily watching, between dis- 
 mally prolonged yawns, the glory of the setting sun il- 
 luminating with all the fires of a general conflagration the 
 million windows of Harlem, New York, and even, like tiny 
 points of flame, the distant factories of Long Island City. 
 
 She turned as a woolly head and a print-enwrapped 
 pair of shoulders were thrust through the half -open door 
 leading into the passage, and a "black but comely" ser- 
 vant-girl inquired, in accents worthy of Brer Remus him- 
 self, whether "de Boss wus gahn to be home foh dinnah." 
 
 "You meen my 'usband?" quoth the lady, languidly, 
 moving towards her. 
 
 "Yes'm, Is'poseso!" 
 
 "I doo not know ven 'e come," again drawled Madame, 
 in the most uncertain of Franco-Saxon; and, as with a 
 scream of delight her little daughter rushed away in the 
 wake of Dinah's flying pink skirts and white apron, she 
 resumed her all-absorbing occupation of yawns and gaz- 
 ings until the gold and rose slowly died out of land and 
 sky and twilight shed its gray ashes upon the world. 
 Then she woke with a start from the dull reverie which 
 had kept her so long at the window, and, scratching a 
 match, taken from a delicious little burnished - silver 
 stand, against the side of a highly polished and engaging- 
 ly new bookcase, turned on the gas of the chandelier 
 and flooded the place with brilliance. 
 
 "Kikette! Kikette!" she called, and, receiving no 
 answer, she dragged herself to the kitchen, where, seated 
 on a low chair beside Dinah, the little girl was playing 
 with a lapful of green pease and listening in wide-eyed 
 
 419 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 delight to the story of "De possum dat had gawn to de 
 frolic." 
 
 The child's supper of bread and milk and soft-boiled 
 eggs having been duly administered, her nightly toilet 
 performed, and she having thereupon been tucked into 
 her cosey little bed, in spite of many tearful protests and 
 passionate prayers to be allowed to wait up for "dear, 
 sweet Papa," Rose, the evening being cool, sat down 
 by the bright flames of the parlor gas-log and resumed her 
 eternal and profitless dreams. 
 
 That she should be unoccupied was no unusual thing, 
 nor was she unaccustomed to being alone, yet there 
 was something dissatisfied and sullen about her face, and 
 she cast now and then nervous little glances over her 
 shoulder as if apprehensive of something. 
 
 Everything had been going wrong, from money up- 
 ward, with her and Loic, and since their arrival in New 
 York bringing along what capital he had been able to 
 scrape together from that wreck of his finances so truly 
 prophesied by Gaidik disappointments and embarrass- 
 ments had gathered thickly around them. 
 
 It was altogether Loic's fault, Rose thought in her 
 gentle gratitude; but she was past finding consolation in 
 this reflection her usual solace! She had no faith in 
 his power of remaking a fortune with horses horses 
 even as a means of livelihood were more than ever de- 
 testable to her and she would have liked him to invest 
 the poor little nest-egg lying at a Wall Street bank in 
 some more solid commercial venture, but he was absurdly 
 proud, was Loic according to her ideas, at least and 
 strongly opposed to her views of the case. He had told 
 her with his brave smile to make herself quite happy, 
 to leave things to him, and to go on living in what com- 
 fort he could procure for her and Kikette while he be- 
 
 420 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 stirred himself, a statement which she had greeted with 
 a mournful sigh and a deluge of apprehensive tears, end- 
 ing in a "Dieu merci! your mother can't live forever with 
 her delicate health !" which had brought about her ears a 
 long-remembered flare of the celebrated Kergoat temper. 
 
 This was soon after their arrival in America, at a time 
 when their affairs were behaving in a peculiarly mercurial 
 and distressing fashion, and when, still bewildered by the 
 novelty of everything around her, she was convinced that 
 they would have done better to have remained in Europe, 
 and, even at the cost of every conceivable humiliation, to 
 have accepted the help of those among his family and 
 friends who were still ready to proffer it. 
 
 In fact, the humiliation was not obvious to her mind 
 at all, only to Loic's. "Look here, Rose," he had said, 
 "Gaidik is the only human being from whom, if matters 
 ever come to that point, I shall consent to take a sou. 
 In the mean while I do not propose to play the part of 
 poor relation and to take a back seat on the scene of my 
 former affluence. Here in America which is the land 
 for people of daring and energy I can work and await 
 the time when the clouds will roll away, so don't say 
 anything more about what you don't understand." 
 
 Rose sat long before the burning gas-log, but at last 
 she heard the grating of a latch-key in the outer door, 
 and, jumping to her feet, ran into the hall preceded by 
 Teuss to meet her handsome Marquis-lover now plain 
 "Meester Kergoat" as she pronounced it! He looked 
 weary and a trifle harassed. 
 
 "Have you dined?" she asked, as, throwing off his 
 light co vert -coat he turned towards his bedroom, his 
 spurs clinking softly at every step. 
 
 "No, of course not. I came straight from the riding- 
 school, and if you have something warm to give me I 
 
 421 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sha'n't be sorry, for I'm dog-tired and I had nothing but 
 a sandwich at noon." 
 
 "All right, I'll get it ready; but why do you trouble to 
 dress ? You are not going out again, are you ? Put on 
 your slippers and your smoking- jacket." 
 
 "Not a bit of it. You know that I hate those slip- 
 shod ways; besides, I may have to go down-town again 
 worse luck!" 
 
 "Oh-h-oh!" This dolefully, and then, after a pause, 
 "Let me bring you some brandy; it will cheer you 
 up." 
 
 "No, no, not before I've eaten something." The pro- 
 test came back from a distance amid a clatter of im- 
 patiently-drawn-off boots and creaking boot- jacks; but 
 Rose, quietly stubborn, made a bee-line for the dining- 
 room cellarette, and, pouring out a brimming wineglassful 
 of liqueur-brandy, brought it to him in the hope that it 
 would put him in a more rosy temper. To urge stimu- 
 lants upon him was part of her policy. If she was in a 
 gay mood, she considered that it insured his being re- 
 sponsive, while if, as usual, she wanted to grumble and 
 complain, she hoped it would keep him quiet and enable 
 her, therefore, to do so undisturbed. As soon as she 
 was certain that he had swallowed the drink down to 
 the last drop, she disappeared to get what she was pleased 
 to call his dinner, for, it being Dinah's night out, she had 
 to take this care upon herself. 
 
 Half an hour later, Loic, in faultless evening dress, 
 was seated at table before a couple of poached eggs 
 served in the little tin pan wherein they had been cooked 
 a bottle of beer, and some cold remains of chicken 
 promiscuously piled upon a chipped plate from the hand- 
 some Dresden " onion - pattern " service bought by him- 
 self only two months before a transaction which this 
 
 422 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 man, brought up to eat off Sevres and gold-plate, had 
 considered praiseworthily economical. 
 
 The cloth was stained with jam at the place marked by 
 Kikette's high-chair, the uncut loaf, flanked by a kitchen 
 carving-knife, basked upon the cloth in lazy disregard of 
 the silver basket reserved for its use, the dainty little 
 jardiniere containing ferns which Loic had selected look- 
 ed withered and dusty for lack of proper care, and, the 
 gas being out of order in the dining-room, two tin kitchen 
 candlesticks with guttering candles adorned the wrinkled 
 centre of the table. Rose, sour-faced and corsetless, clad 
 in a once white wrapper, without a collar, trailing half a 
 yard of frayed lace frill dismally behind her, came in from 
 the pantry pressing a dish of cheese and a carafe of 
 claret against her heart. 
 
 "My dear girl," Loic said, wearily, "why do you let 
 things go like that?" He looked wretchedly ill at ease 
 and out of his element, and as he glanced around him a 
 flush of shame rose to the very roots of his hair. " Surely," 
 he continued, gently, "you could get Dinah to water the 
 ferns, put fresh napery on the table, and prepare a lamp 
 when the gas is restive." 
 
 "She can't do everything," Rose replied, sulkily, "and 
 what does it matter, anyway we are poor people now , 
 we don't need to put on airs." 
 
 "Well, soap and water don't cost much. Look at your 
 dressing-gown. I hate to find fault, but it is an abomina- 
 tion, Rose! I cannot imagine how you can bear to wear 
 such a thing, especially since you still have lots of nice 
 clothes." He had pushed his sorry meal aside, and was 
 lighting a cigarette at one of the disgraceful candles, 
 his brows knit in a frown which even his desire to avoid 
 a scene could not quite smooth away. 
 
 "Oh, my peignoir is well enough," she replied, sitting 
 
 423 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 down sideways on Kikette's chair and beginning to bite 
 the meat off a chicken-bone which she held in her fingers. 
 
 "Damn it all, haven't you had your dinner?" he asked, 
 angrily. "It's past nine o'clock! What have you been 
 about?" 
 
 "Don't get angry, Loic," she replied, her mouth full. 
 "I ate the rest of Kikette's bread and milk and one of 
 her eggs. I'm not hungry." 
 
 "Really, Rose, this is too bad!" he exclaimed, dashing 
 his cigarette viciously upon his half -rilled plate. "I want 
 you to eat properly, and when I am not here to get Dinah 
 to serve your meals in a Christian fashion. What do 
 you suppose she thinks of such doings ? And my poor 
 little Kikette, is all this a proper training for her?" 
 
 Rose flushed, and, eager to turn the conversation from 
 what she knew by experience to be a peculiarly perilous 
 topic, set down the half -gnawed bone and offered to go 
 and make Loic a cup of coffee. 
 
 "Oh, keep still coffee is an ' after - dinner ' refresh- 
 ment," he said, with light sarcasm. "I don't need any!" 
 
 "Well, then, take some Chartreuse, at least." And, 
 rising again before he could prevent her, she placed be- 
 fore him the temptingly arrayed cellarette and poured 
 him out a most unusually imposing bumper of the above- 
 named liqueur, which he absently began to sip. 
 
 "The box from Gaidik arrived this afternoon," she 
 resumed, cutting herself a slice of cheese and beginning 
 to munch it without bread. " I did not open it, since you 
 forbade me." 
 
 Loic, at the name of Gaidik, had instinctively set down 
 his glass, and the color brought by annoyance and the 
 first swallows of the fiery liquid to his tanned face slowly 
 ebbed away again. 
 
 "All right," he said, quickly. "I'll see to it by-and- 
 
 424 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 by. Meanwhile I might as well tell you that I've rented 
 a place in the country, a very pretty old place but little 
 over an hour from town, with lots of pastureland, a 
 quaint old house, where you and Kikette will be very 
 comfortable, and good stable accommodation for the horses 
 I am going to take for training and breaking-in. You 
 had best begin soon to pack up, for we must leave here 
 before the end of the month." 
 
 Rose heard him out dismally, her face gradually puck- 
 ering up into a menace of tears. She was not sufficiently 
 alert to keep up with Loic's rapid flight of thoughts and 
 plans, and she looked bewildered in her short-witted in- 
 dolence. 
 
 "Are you in earnest?" she asked, her lips trembling, 
 her remaining bit of cheese held in mid-air between the 
 table-cloth and her mouth. 
 
 " In the deadliest earnest," he replied, in the half-mock- 
 ing tone which he never did learn to lay completely aside. 
 
 "You really are going to become a trainer?" 
 
 "Certainly; it's the only thing I can do!" he exclaimed, 
 with dawning impatience. "This riding-school business 
 is heart-breaking. We are a lot of poor devils there 
 three or four smashed-up Aristocrats like myself, and five 
 or six German and Austrian ex-cavalry officers all trying 
 to make a living by teaching young ladies and fat old 
 gentlemen to ride, on commission. I do not, in spite of 
 my working like a dog, make much more at this game 
 than what pays for my cigarettes and the 'treats' I am 
 forced to squander upon a lot of hangers-on and would-be 
 patrons. When our money is gone, what shall we do, 
 please?" 
 
 There was a little pause. Rose's tears had begun to 
 flow, and Loic was looking fixedly out of the window, 
 through which, far below the terrace-like avenue whereon 
 as 425 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the house was built, the myriad lights of the enormous 
 city gleamed like armies of glowworms on a background 
 of suffused darkness. 
 
 "What objection can you have to my idea?" he asked, 
 suddenly. 
 
 Rose raised her head and looked at him in resentful 
 sullenness. Her hair had partially slipped from its 
 moorings, and the yellow glow of the candles fell upon 
 her insignificant face and streaming eyes. 
 
 "I'm afraid of it, Loic," she sniffed. "I'm sure it will 
 turn out badly." 
 
 "Well, you're a cheerful young lady!" Loic said, rising 
 and walking to her side. "Don't be foolish, my girl," 
 he added, soothingly, gently patting her shoulder. "I 
 want to make some money it will be a novel and ex- 
 hilarating experience to me; besides, it is absolutely 
 necessary that I should do so." Then, bending over the 
 nearest candle to light a fresh cigarette, he continued: 
 "This interdiction devised by my estimable Uncle Paul, 
 and duly carried out by seven carefully chosen members 
 of my family, prevents me from touching a penny of the 
 revenues to which I am entitled until my mother's death, 
 as you very well know. All my available capital is gone, 
 all excepting what remains of the forty thousand dollars 
 I brought here. That is why I insisted upon coming to 
 America; that is why I want to become a trainer, why 
 I don't mind confessing to a low greed of gain, and why, 
 also, I ask you, Rose, to be brave and to help me as 
 much as you can, for you and I have begun badly as 
 badly as the most evilly romantic might desire." And 
 he looked at her with one of his most winning smiles, 
 but Rose did not move, and his face grew grave and stern 
 again, to conceal a throb of utter misgiving and dis- 
 couragement. 
 
 426 
 
-"* 
 
 PRINCE PAUL 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "I am afraid you don't understand," he said, shrugging 
 his shoulders, "so let us go and open Gaidik's box." 
 There was the old yearning tenderness in his voice as he 
 pronounced his sister's name, and he led the way into 
 the next room with a tired, dispirited step. 
 
 Genevieve de Kergoat had taught h ^r son that "Self" 
 with a huge capital "S" and self alone reigns in the 
 world, and upon this principle he had acted for a time, 
 after a fashion , but long ere this he had discovered to his 
 cost that for people of his and of Gaidik's stamp this 
 amiable theory was untenable, and that its broad cynicism 
 was lamentably erroneous. Better would it have been 
 for both, nevertheless, if they could have put it in prac- 
 tice, since now their two lives were irretrievably saddened, 
 their hopes shattered, and their hearts sore with the in- 
 consolable pain of their separation. Too late Loic had 
 recognized the full extent of his folly, but he never let 
 that be noticed, and, although he felt bitter against Rose, 
 yet as he bent with hammer and chisel above the square, 
 deal case addressed in Gaidik's firm, distinct writing, he 
 refrained from any chiding in his abhorrence for hurting 
 anybody's feelings, though Rose, sullen and resentful, 
 certainly did not deserve such forbearance. 
 
 The lid removed, Loic with tender fingers was begin- 
 ning to push gently aside the folds of tissue-paper cover- 
 ing the contents of the box, when he abruptly stopped. 
 
 "Kikette must see this!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "You are not going to wake her up, are you?" queried 
 Rose, peevishly. "She'll never want to go to sleep 
 again." But he had already left the room, where he re- 
 appeared a few minutes later carrying the deliciously 
 flushed and delighted little maid wrapped in a swan's- 
 down -lined dressing-gown, and with azure slippers on 
 her rosy feet. 
 
 427 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "There now, my pet," he said, triumphantly, setting 
 her down amid a nest of sofa-cushions, "we will see what 
 there is for you in there." And with sudden energy he 
 set to work unfolding paper after paper and exhibiting 
 with boyish pleasure each object to his tiny daughter. 
 
 "What can there be in this long package?" Rose asked, 
 suddenly "the one tied with pink ribbons?" 
 
 Loic did not at once reply, but handled the long, nar- 
 row box for a few seconds in silence, his eyes curiously 
 attentive and grave. As he turned back the inner cover, 
 the light from the chandelier shone upon a length of 
 handsome, silver -gray silk accompanied by a generous 
 allowance of exquisitely embroidered dress trimmings, 
 topped by dainty gloves and lace handkerchiefs. At 
 length he looked up. 
 
 "See what those things say for themselves," he said, 
 in a queer, changed voice; "they are obviously for you," 
 and he handed the open carton to Rose. He was deeply 
 touched, and his whole expression was softened and 
 genuinely happy while he resumed the unpacking of the 
 wealth of lovely things still half filling the deep chest 
 and heaped them around Kikette, who at each new sur- 
 prise loudly shouted for joy. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when at last the end of the dis- 
 play was reached, and Loic, much to Kikette's disgust, 
 snatched her away from her new treasures and bore her 
 to her satin-lined crib, promising to sing her to sleep. 
 
 "Papa," she said, a little later, in her pretty, uncer- 
 tain English, and patting his cheeks with both her chubby 
 hands, "you is not miserable wretched is you?" 
 
 "No, sweetheart why?" he asked, in astonishment. 
 
 "Because oor eyes is all damp while oo sing, and I was 
 finking p'rhaps you is sorry Aunty Gaid is not here wif 
 us." 
 
 428 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 And just then at the door Rose appeared, saying, 
 plaintively, "I told you, Loic, she wouldn't go to sleep 
 again." Then to Kikette, in angry tones: "You are a 
 very naughty little girl. Papa's grog will be all cold." 
 
 There was no doubt about Loic's punishment being a 
 severe one, and none knew this better than himself. 
 Nevertheless, there were not many things that had power 
 really to cast him down, and, thanks to this, the miseries 
 of the past years had altered him less than might have 
 been expected. He was meant for luxury, great wealth, 
 the glitter of every magnificence. He had none of these 
 things now, but he was still the brave, dashing Loic of 
 old, and he threw himself body and soul into his installa- 
 tion at "Cinnamon Hill " for such was the spicy name 
 of the place selected for his new venture. Working day 
 and night, packing up, travelling to and fro, seeing people 
 at impossible hours, returning to his dismantled apart- 
 ment long after midnight, tired out but still full of hope, 
 he completed his preparations with unimpaired good- 
 humor, and finally, on a stormy afternoon, when wind 
 and rain were doing their best to wreck the beauty of 
 the spring woods, he and his little Smala landed at the 
 big, long-uninhabited house which was to be yet another 
 home to them. 
 
 Not as easily as he had at first thought had he suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining horses to train, but he based great 
 expectations upon six or seven raw broncoes purchased 
 from a bunch offered for sale by some speculative cow- 
 boys on an unbuilt Harlem block. These were good 
 material and cheap, for, as he said, confidently and very 
 truthfully to Rose, "there are few people who'd care 
 to tackle and break in that sort of cattle." 
 
 The house stood high-perched on a narrow ridge of 
 well-timbered ground, commanding long views of rolling 
 
 429 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 meadows alternating with the lighter green of newly clad 
 trees. To the east wended one broad, macadamized road, 
 and to the west another identical one, disfigured by the 
 slender wires and tall pillars of electric car-lines. At the 
 foot of the sloping and neglected garden there was a 
 small pond, of excellent use for horses, and beyond the 
 stables and barn a distant view of the bay was glimpsed 
 from the grassy southward brow of the hill above the 
 flat roofs of two or three other villas, which also had long 
 since seen their day, and were now rented at prices which 
 would have made their original millionaire owners turn in 
 their graves. 
 
 The fact that the whole locality had gone hopelessly 
 out of fashion, however, was scarcely a trouble to Loic, 
 who, beaming with pride, kept repeating, " Fifty dollars 
 a month for over forty acres and a house full of twenty- 
 foot rooms and forty -foot salons; isn't that dirt cheap?" 
 
 To be sure, these once gorgeous apartments were rather 
 ghastly of aspect in their present nakedness. The gilding 
 of the cornices had turned to a dingy brown, the wall- 
 papers were faded and sun-eaten beyond belief, and the 
 tout-ensemble spoke loudly of that artistically dispiriting 
 era, the modern past. Also, in this stormy weather 
 the out-door advantages were not evident, though only a 
 day before a glance through the rickety window-frames 
 would have fallen upon sloping lawns blue with violets 
 under the May sunshine, fringed with purple lilac and as 
 yet flowerless syringa, and punctuated with delicious 
 tangles of leaf and blossom which represented long-for- 
 gotten flower-beds, relapsing into exquisite, untutored 
 nature. There were dark, clean-smelling pines to con- 
 trast with the paler tints of elms and maples, and an 
 orchard of pink-and-white bloom that canopied silvery 
 Stars-of -Bethlehem and yellow daffodils beneath, all of 
 
 430 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 which was cause for much rejoicing, according to Loic, 
 whose spirited description reconstructed the landscape 
 almost as well as the sun would have done. But Rose, 
 seated on a packing-case in the immense drawing-room, 
 refused to find consolation in such nonsensical trifles, 
 and almost rivalled the extraordinarily heavy rain beat- 
 ing against the cloudy panes by the flood of tears to 
 which she gave way, in spite of a for-once-genuine desire 
 not to annoy Loic and upset Kikette, who was wildly 
 dancing with joy at being let loose in this great, bare 
 house. 
 
 " Come, come, Rose cheer up, my girl!" Loic cried, gay- 
 ly, "this place will be a perfect little paradise when once 
 we have put it to rights." He was kneeling before the 
 cavernous chimney and lighting what he termed a "camp- 
 fire" with a deftness which did him the greatest credit. 
 "Wait and see what can be done with it before you give 
 way like that," he continued, his cheery voice half lost 
 in the roar of the crackling wood and the whistling of 
 the wind descending like an avalanche down the flue. 
 
 "I'm not good at arranging rooms," whimpered Rose. 
 "I'm not clever, like you, Loic." 
 
 "For which you may thank a gracious Providence," 
 he interposed, stepping back a pace to admire his handi- 
 work. "Clever chaps like me are what the generality of 
 people call fools ; but there, take Kikette up-stairs. John, 
 my Irish acquisition and general factotum, has lighted a 
 roarer in your bedroom, and as soon as his better half 
 has succeeded in making the kitchen range work down- 
 stairs, I'll bring you a cup of tea to set up your nerves 
 and warm you to the occasion." 
 
 There is something in a gentleman's nature that pre- 
 disposes him to leniency towards a mental and social in- 
 ferior, and when that inferior is a small woman, for whose 
 
 431 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sake out of a mistaken sense of honor one has sac- 
 rificed all, the feeling is intensified and helps a man like 
 Loic to prendre son mat en patience. And yet when 
 Rose departed, preceded by the merrily echoing laughter 
 of Kikette, his look pursued her; he drew in his breath 
 sharply, and paused for a few seconds on the brink, as 
 it were, of this new life, looking drearily far beyond the 
 chasm separating him from the past, a chasm wherein he 
 had sunk everything that he most valued and loved, re- 
 taining but one joy, one hope, one raison d'etre Kikette! 
 
 Dusk was falling outside, and the big, gloomy room was 
 illumined fitfully by the rising and falling flames in the 
 cracked, white marble chimney-piece, and through a 
 window which he had just thrown open, to get rid of some 
 wholly superfluous smoke wreaths, the rain -soaked air 
 entered, laden with that singular feeling of enervating 
 relaxation and limpness which some steadily falling spring 
 showers bring in their softly murmuring train. A scent 
 of lilac reached him, stabbing him to the heart with all 
 the bitter poignancy of the familiar thing under alien 
 and unfriendly skies. Abruptly he squared his shoulders. 
 "Come, come, my lad," he muttered, with set teeth, 
 "none of that!" And with a little shiver he turned again 
 to his work. 
 
 His scanty furniture, which was even then being 
 brought in by the van-men, made a disappointingly small 
 display. It had looked quite sumptuous in the Harlem 
 Bonbonniere, but here He contemplated it gravely, 
 yet already, with something like humor dawning in his 
 eyes (he and Gaidik were like that they never found any- 
 thing that daunted them for long), once more the man, 
 whose only care it was how to make things comfortable 
 for Kikette and Rose. This, under the immediate cir- 
 cumstances, was a question of some magnitude; but the 
 
 432 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 next morning found him whistling merrily in the midst 
 of a much-reduced chaos, from which, as the days went 
 by, he speedily and capably evolved a well-ordered es- 
 tablishment, that, if planned on a very humble scale, still 
 bade fair to blossom later on into what he confidently 
 expected would prove a rattling success. 
 
 Rose, infected by so much bravery and good temper, 
 did her best at first alas! it was not much to help him. 
 She was, unfortunately, sorely handicapped by her in- 
 ability to speak English fluently although for one usually 
 so dull she was perfecting herself in this extremely anti- 
 Latin language with great rapidity and, moreover, she 
 had no one to consult about the management of a com- 
 paratively large household on strange shores, no one to 
 whom she could turn for advice. She had to work it 
 out by herself, and it happened that this young woman 
 could scarcely be classed among those who are sufficient 
 unto themselves, strong to hold to their purpose, to sub- 
 due their weaknesses and keep silent about their failures. 
 She therefore ended by seeing nothing but what she 
 called the cruelty of her own life, which to her had now 
 lost all its gilded romance, and was all plain facts and 
 arid duties. She had never been brilliant or amusing; 
 now she went about her new tasks with an air of en- 
 forced resignation somewhat galling to behold, spoke in 
 a subdued voice, and evidently considered herself to be 
 a victim deserving of much pity. 
 
 Four months elapsed, and the excitement created by 
 the installation of the little family and of a stableful of 
 horses had long subsided. Things took an every-day 
 course, and Loic was still in daily expectation of the 
 tremendous success he had predicted for his venture. 
 Having left behind him home, wealth, and love, he was, 
 nevertheless, facing discomfort, anxiety, and the pos- 
 
 433 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sibility of failure with an entirely unruffled brow. He 
 did not. permit himself to contemplate the dangers that 
 lay ahead, and kept his high courage intact, although 
 his view of the future perhaps erred on the side of con- 
 fidence, considering the host of parasites that had now 
 assembled around him to practise upon his open heart 
 and open hand a motley crew of famished European 
 exiles, who, having once hoped to achieve their ambitious 
 aims in the equine line of business, had miserably tum- 
 bled into drink and evil ways. 
 
 They formed a harassing pack of decently clad men- 
 dicants, and descended upon him at all hours under the 
 pretext of canvassing for customers, but in reality to 
 swallow multifarious liquors beneath the drooping wis- 
 taria blossoms of the saddlery veranda, their boots ele- 
 vated to a level with their noses upon the creeper-grown 
 railing, and smoke oozing from their lips in lazy clouds. 
 They one and all recognized that Le Patron -as they 
 called Loic was a remarkable horseman, the best judge 
 of cattle, and the finest trainer they had ever encountered, 
 and decided that by attaching themselves to him they 
 had a very fair chance of retrieving their fallen fortunes. 
 He himself, if the truth must be told, was amused in his 
 loneliness by their ready banter; perhaps a little pleased, 
 too, by the flattery and deference with which they so 
 lavishly and, after a fashion, cleverly fenced him in; and 
 even when, having imbibed too freely of his generously 
 poured first-class beverages, they grew somewhat noisy, 
 he did not have the heart to send them packing, and 
 merely shrugged his shoulders indulgently. 
 
 Among connoisseurs Loic was well-known already as 
 an expert. Always admirably horsed, his saddlery ex- 
 hibiting the newest improvements, his stables abound- 
 ing with the newest things out in the way of sanitation 
 
 434 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and fittings in spite of their old-fashioned inconvenience 
 of build his stock fed as no dealer ever dreamed* of feed- 
 ing his, he commanded their applause and admiration, 
 although they shook doleful heads over the business 
 aspects of his venture, contending, with some reason, 
 that one could run an establishment in such a way for 
 pleasure, but not for gain. This aristocratic dealer and 
 trainer, who showed them around his paddocks, clad in 
 irreproachable riding-gear and mounted on his favorite 
 hunter, Murmur, a magnificent dapple - gray, possessed 
 of a fine, bold eye and an inexpressibly difficult temper, 
 almost awed them. They did not understand him. He 
 was so unwilling, apparently, to push a bargain, so royal- 
 ly ready to meet a customer half-way, and so idiotically 
 eager to point out the defects of the horses he had for 
 sale. A gentleman ah, they should rather think so; but 
 a successful seller of horseflesh hum! hum! that was a 
 different story altogether. 
 
 Who on earth was he, anyhow ? Some began to think 
 him a Royal Prince in disguise, exiled for deep political 
 reasons ; but why was he married for married they 
 naturally believed him to be to such a singular little 
 person? Mrs. Kergoat they generally pronounced it 
 "Cur-gote," which always sent Loic into fits of laughter 
 did not appeal either to the American element around 
 her or to her Lord's exotic parasites. Several among the 
 latter "smelt a rat," as they gracefully expressed it, and 
 looked at each other with covert smiles of scornful amuse- 
 ment when she spoke of her "usban" ex -gentlemen 
 these, who before yielding, greatly to their detriment, to 
 an unquenchable thirst for whiskey - and - water (say a 
 thimbleful of cold water to a tumbler of spirits) , had seen 
 much of the world on both sides of the herring-pond. 
 No beauty, no wit, not a single talent, no chic, no savoire- 
 
 435 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 faire, no monde. "They " knew better than to think such 
 a woman capable of ever having successfully played the 
 matrimonial card; but there was the child, and even 
 their sodden brains and toughened hearts could under- 
 stand that wellnigh any sacrifice could be made for the 
 sake of such a perfect little creature. Time had not only 
 intensified in Kikette that resemblance to Gaidik in 
 feature and coloring of which her father was so proud, 
 but had even added further likenesses of bearing and 
 character that brought his love for her to the point of 
 slavish adoration. 
 
 "Isn't she the image of Gaidik?" he said to Rose one 
 morning, when he had brought his little maid round to 
 the house riding a Shetland pony the size of a big dog. 
 She sat in her saddle like a Royal Princess, and her whole 
 attitude, her inexpressibly amusing air of superb self- 
 possession and ease, were so comically like her aunt's 
 that he stepped back a little to look his fill at her. 
 
 Rose, leaning over the piazza rail, frowned heavily 
 any mention of Gaidik always brought that expression 
 to her face and contemptuously shrugged her shoulders, 
 which movement brought Loic's attention her way. 
 
 "What are you frowning about?" he asked, irritably. 
 "Have I said anything to offend you?" 
 
 "No-o-o," she drawled, gazing superciliously at the 
 little girl and pony, "but one might think that you are 
 glad she is so unlike me." 
 
 He stared, for although well aware of Rose's rancorous 
 jealousy, yet lately she had fallen into the habit of carry- 
 ing this unpleasant defect a little too far. Scarcely could 
 she endure his speaking to any other woman ; and as there 
 was a bevy of madcap girls in the neighborhood, all of 
 them thoroughly smitten with him and making up to 
 him in the funniest and most barefaced manner, her 
 
 436 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 black looks and sulks greatly complicated an already 
 sufficiently vexatious situation; but to have her so 
 openly show her antipathy for Gaidik was somewhat de 
 trop, and his frown more than matched her own as he 
 replied : 
 
 " If you like to take it like that you have my permission 
 to do so, but let me tell you that jealous women are a 
 nuisance, and that I am not minded to stand much more 
 of your bullyragging in that direction." 
 
 "I'll never get accustomed to see you flirt with every 
 petticoat you meet," she said, aggressively, flicking wrath- 
 fully at the delicate tendrils of the superb honeysuckle 
 which made that old piazza a thing of beauty. 
 
 "Be careful what you say, Rose," he whispered, bend- 
 ing towards her; and, as Kikette started her pony away 
 at a foot-pace towards the orchard, he added, in a louder 
 voice, "And remember that years ago I warned you that 
 fidelity was not among the promises I was ready to make 
 to you ; it's not in my line!" Then he turned to follow the 
 child. 
 
 He was thoroughly angry, and his face was still as 
 black as thunder when he caught up with her. 
 
 "There's two gentlemen, Sor, come to have a look 
 round," his head-groom said, running towards him at 
 that moment. "Be aisy, Sor," he continued, "if ye mane 
 to show them Flying Fox to-day ; begor, he's acting like 
 a divil intoirely, wid his wicked eye enclosed." 
 
 The two "gentlemen" were a stout individual with a 
 large, clean-shaven face, whereon " horse - dealer " was 
 plainly written, and a tall, lanky man of the same pro- 
 fessional stamp, whose bibulous countenance was illu- 
 mined by small, shrewd brown eyes. Both wore breeches 
 and gaiters, and each raised one finger to their respective 
 Glengarry caps in salutation as Loic approached. 
 
 437 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "What can I do for you?" asked the latter, rather 
 shortly, for he was still thinking of Rose's taunts. 
 
 "Well, Governor," the stout one replied, in a loud, 
 affable voice, "we've come to look round your hunters; 
 we need some nice, workman-like nags, and we thought 
 that maybe you could oblige us." 
 
 "Is it for yourself?" Loic asked, and, as he expected, 
 found out that it was not, but was meant for a couple of 
 "friends" of the would-be purchasers, who wanted 
 "something handsome to carry a rider pleasantly, clever 
 across country, with a good turn of speed," etc., etc. 
 
 "We'll walk around the stables first," Loic proposed, 
 leading the way, " and then we can go on to the galloping 
 ground, where I have a few good made-up leaping-places." 
 
 "That's a very likely animal!" shouted the broad- 
 shouldered man. "What's his figure, Governor?" and 
 he pointed to a rather leggy thorough-bred colt, slightly 
 over sixteen hands, sidling and backing restlessly in the 
 yard, where a groom was exercising him by hand. This 
 was Flying Fox, and he certainly looked just then as 
 if he had "his wicked eye on closed!" 
 
 "That's scarcely what I'd call a pleasant carrier," 
 Loic objected, smilingly quoting from the demand made 
 upon his stables. "Not a bad-shaped one, as you can 
 see for yourselves although there's a trifle too much day- 
 light under him but very hot-tempered and fidgety. Do 
 you really want to see him moving?" 
 
 "Yes, I must say I would," was the reply, and Flying 
 Fox was a few minutes later, with difficulty, prevailed 
 upon to accompany the other horses, now being led out, 
 to a large pasture wherein Loic had caused a few hurdles, 
 a couple of doubles, an Irish-bank, and a respectably 
 high, loose stone wall to be erected. 
 
 One after the other he put his sale-hunters over the 
 
 438 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 jumps at steeple chasing speed, and finally ranged along- 
 side of the two visitors. 
 
 "Before we decide, we must see that bay colt have a 
 shy at the 'leps,'" remarked the stout dealer, evidently 
 an Irishman, although he put on all the British "side" 
 he could. 
 
 "Very good, I'll give him a bit of a round first to take 
 the edge off his temper," Loic said, preparing to exchange 
 the filly he was riding for the excited steeplechaser just 
 then tearing and snatching at his bit and dancing round 
 and round his groom as if treading on red-hot plates. 
 In a second more he had the bay well in hand and was 
 flying down the field, sitting squarely in the saddle, as 
 serenely composed as if he were occupying a well-cush- 
 ioned arm-chair. 
 
 The stout dealer slapped his leg enthusiastically. 
 "Bedad that's a rider worth two!" he said, nudging his 
 companion, and at that moment Loic put his animal 
 into a stretching gallop and headed him for the leaps. 
 The first was a tall fence, laced high and stiff with thorn, 
 and Loic loosened Flying Fox to his full will. No 
 question here of whip or spur. The horse's grand stride 
 swept along till his hoofs seemed scarcely to touch the 
 ground, and with the smooth flight of a swallow he rose 
 to the jump, landed clear, and sped on straight as an 
 arrow towards the other obstacles. 
 
 A few minutes only had gone by in that splendid flight, 
 and Flying Fox was racing as gamely and as fast as 
 at the first hedge, past the gate to the pine-wood, past 
 the paddock rails and the broad, silvery trunks of the 
 tall beech-trees overshadowing the down track, when 
 suddenly Kikette, fired by her father's example, escaped 
 from John's custody and charged on her little pony to 
 meet him. Loic's shout of warning came too late, for, 
 
 439 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 frightened by the steeplechaser's thundering onrush, the 
 Shetland shied violently, pitching the little maid head- 
 foremost right into the middle of the course, and al- 
 most beneath Flying Fox iron-shod feet. In the age- 
 long instant that followed, some of the on-lookers turned 
 away their heads, others, who stared with a terrible fixed 
 fascination to see the child trampled for the horse was 
 at his utmost burst of speed and there was no time to 
 turn saw, almost simultaneously with Kikette's fall, 
 Loic swing down and forward from the saddle, Cossack- 
 fashion, and barely snatch her from beneath the gallop- 
 ing hoofs. 
 
 There was a moment's silence while the colt swept by, 
 then as his rider reined him in, and, turning, came back 
 bearing the little girl safe and sound upon his saddle- 
 bow, all hands rushed forward as by one impulse with 
 frantic yells of applause. Loic dismounted into the 
 hubbub, outwardly despite the extreme pallor of his 
 face calm and impassive as ever, but really with deaf 
 ears and unseeing eyes. It does not fall to the lot of 
 every man to pit his own skill and sinew against the iron 
 hand of death for all that is left to him of life and love! 
 
 As for the two dealers, their enthusiasm knew no 
 bounds. Flying Fox, whom Loic surrendered with great 
 reluctance, was only one of a bunch of horses that they 
 purchased. Then declaring with much pungency and 
 picturesqueness that they had never met with an occa- 
 sion that presented so many indubitable and pressing 
 indications for drink, they settled down to make a day 
 of it, and departed late at night in a state of mushy and 
 maudlin sentiment, swearing to recommend to as many 
 of their confreres as possible "thish truly ad'm'r'ble 
 'shtablishm't." 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Black storm! black storm! and below the weight 
 Of whelming surge doth the battered bark 
 Drive like an arrow sped by Fate 
 At the heart of the roaring dark. 
 Dim Shapes leap up from the keel beneath 
 And whitely grin with their baffled teeth, 
 Or shouldering heavily, huge and tall, 
 Poise, curve, and crash like a shattered wall. 
 Oh sing confusion of sight and sound 
 Closed in the core of a hissing swound! 
 And gasp, if the blood course red and warm 
 In the unchilled veins, 
 
 Black storm! M. M. 
 
 SNOW was falling softly and relentlessly, falling as it 
 never falls in France, and the thermometer was some- 
 thing below zero. This winter, the first of their stay 
 in America, was unusually severe, and the present storm 
 the tail-end of a blizzard blown over from the Far 
 West had been for two days steadily drifting in ex- 
 haustless clouds past the frozen window-panes. Every 
 tree in the grounds had on its leeward side a high, nar- 
 row wedge of accumulated snow tailing off to a sharp 
 point, and the white monotony of the landscape where 
 it was visible the sense of isolation conveyed by the 
 impenetrable atmosphere lay like lead upon Rose's heart 
 as she paced nervously up and down the long, cold 
 drawing-room, wrapped in a fleecy shawl of pink-and- 
 white Algerian silk, which had been included in the huge 
 Christmas-box sent by Gaidik. 
 ao 441 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Affairs had not been going well after all with the trio 
 at Cinnamon Hill, thanks to an inconceivable streak of 
 bad luck, two horses having died of pneumonia, and a 
 handsome pair of trotters having run away from John, 
 after that worthy's indulging in a drop too much of "the 
 cratur," with the result that both had injured themselves 
 past healing and had had to be shot. These were very seri- 
 ous losses, and had strained Loic's slender resources to the 
 uttermost, as Rose bitterly reflected while sniffing at the 
 lingering aroma of tobacco and spirits that gave the 
 room a slightly dissipated fragrance, which no amount 
 of airing could dispel. There was a pitiful lack of 
 femininity there, no dainty hand had draped the rigid 
 green curtains made of some pretty material bought by 
 Loic at a clearing-sale, the few pictures and photographs 
 hung more or less lopsidedly on the endless area of 
 faded paper, and no pretty little work-basket or stray 
 bit of embroidery enlivened the tables, upon which books, 
 pipes, cigarette-boxes, unemptied ash-trays and sporting 
 journals lay in hopeless confusion. Rose was not the 
 woman to make home "homelike," or to spread comfort 
 about her, and yet she wondered why Loic came back 
 reluctantly to it even when having eaten but a flying 
 meal wherever business had taken him so thoroughly 
 tired out and dispirited that he fell asleep with his boots 
 and spurs still on in the first convenient chair. 
 
 She looked very limp and forlorn in her ill-made gown 
 of brown flannel and her exquisite shawl already torn 
 and stained in three or four places as she wandered 
 back and forth trying to think where the money was to 
 come from to pay household expenses. The bills lately 
 had been running on at a terrific rate. The butcher's 
 and grocer's were gigantic, the milkman a crabbed per- 
 sonage, with a face which Loic claimed was bound to 
 
 442 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 sour his wares had been openly rude to her when she 
 had asked him to await the end of the month for settle- 
 ment of his interminable memoir e. This was not, how- 
 ever, Rose's most pressing trouble, she had another which 
 she hugged to her bosom with vindictive persistency, mak- 
 ing of it an excuse for all her own delinquencies namely, 
 her ever-increasing and not always entirely causeless 
 jealousy. 
 
 Loic was no saint, as he himself candidly avowed. 
 Moreover, he had warned her in all frankness at the be- 
 ginning of their sorry liaison that he intended knowing 
 himself as he did to remain complete master of his 
 actions. He would that he had promised and very 
 nobly kept be kind and generous to her, she would be 
 his first care, and she had been so always, save for little 
 Kikette. Since their arrival in America, he had repeat- 
 edly implored her to marry him, in order to terminate 
 an awkward situation and legitimize the child, and it 
 was she who had most stubbornly and to him incompre- 
 hensibly refused, declining to give her reasons for so 
 extraordinary a course of conduct, but adhering to it 
 with sullen obstinacy. He had been loyal, therefore, 
 and more than loyal to his engagements, but her martyr- 
 mind would not admit this, and she considered herself 
 deeply injured whenever a pretty face appeared above 
 her narrow horizon. As a helpmate Rose was, alas, next 
 to useless, and any illusions which Loic might ever have 
 entertained as to the possibility of training and educating 
 her to a higher level had long since been dispelled. Dur- 
 ing the days of past prosperity she had shown some little 
 adaptability in aping the styles of dress and manner of 
 a certain "smart" class of women, and had imagined 
 herself to be quite a model of elegance, but adversity 
 had brought her down with a rush to a point very much 
 
 443 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 below that ambitious high-water mark, and in the proc- 
 ess she had lost, or at all events chosen to discard, even 
 that neatness and housewifely practicality which so 
 strongly characterize the French bourgeoisie. Both ways 
 she was now a declasse, and the girl who had worn 
 cheap, gay dresses and had travelled in her mother's 
 wake to horse-shows and sea-side resorts during intervals 
 of competent shop-tending, or the fine madam who had 
 donned Worth tea-gowns at ten o'clock in the morning, 
 in no way resembled the crushed, resentful, peevish, un- 
 happy woman now pacing the floor behind those snow- 
 blinded windows. 
 
 Kikette was up-stairs playing with Mrs. John's two lit- 
 tle girls, as was testified by the loud bumps and bounds 
 overhead, and the loud yells of joy which now and again 
 rent the muffled silence of the big house. Daylight was 
 rapidly fading, and with a shiver Rose threw a log on the 
 dying fire and began to light the lamps for gas, of course, 
 there was none in this old-fashioned modernity of a 
 dwelling. Just as she was fitting to a none-too carefully 
 polished lamp-globe its frayed and much-battered, frilled 
 shade, the jingle of spurs and the creaking of a door made 
 her turn round to see Loic enter, accompanied by Teuss. 
 
 " Never heard of such luck in my life!" he said, wearily, 
 throwing his fur-lined top-coat on a sofa, and walking 
 to the fire, which he kicked into something like brilliancy 
 with the toe of his boot. "I'd made sure I would win 
 back a lot of what I had lost by selling Mirza and AH, 
 next month, and, now they're both down with the flue. 
 Caught cold in those rattle-trap stables, and it '11 be a 
 miracle if I pull them through." 
 
 Rose groaned, and, sinking on a chair near the table, 
 exclaimed, dismally: 
 
 "Are you sure that they have really got influenza?" 
 
 444 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Sure as fate! I don't know what I'll have to do! 
 Chuck up the whole thing most likely, for I'm about stone 
 broke." 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" she asked again, in the 
 same doleful voice. 
 
 "It's not hard to understand, I should think!" he re- 
 torted, with another kick at the logs. "At the end of 
 my tether, that's what I am, put in plain language. 
 The money at the bank is at an end, and there are the 
 debts which must come to I'm damned if I know to how 
 much I never thought I'd be dishonorable enough to 
 run into debt; but the devil's against me, and I don't 
 think I can pull out this trip." 
 
 He threw his cigarette into the fire with an air of 
 finality, which made her quake where she cowered on 
 her low chair. 
 
 "And what am / to do about the bills and the ser- 
 vant's wages and the feedman and the rent? The agent 
 has already been here three times, and he is threatening 
 to turn us out," she moaned, rising and drawing nearer 
 to him with hands imploringly out-stretched, as if ex- 
 pecting to have him fill them with a shower of gold. 
 
 "How am I to know!" he repeated, savagely. "We 
 owe money everywhere it seems to me. Sharp & Cut- 
 ting, the grocer-butchers or butcher-grocers, if you prefer 
 it that way, are threatening to sue me if I don't give 
 them at once a substantial sum listen to that a sub- 
 stan-tial sum, so if I don't hand it over !" 
 
 "It's all your fault, anyhow," gulped Rose, "with 
 your eternal procession of spongers who drink enough 
 to float a ship, and are always dining or lunching here. 
 Much do they care about us now!" She choked, and 
 then continued, in a voice of despair, "And the neighbors, 
 too; these Legrand girls who live here more than at their 
 
 445 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 own home, and whom you treat like Princesses, because 
 they flatter you and grovel at your feet making calf's 
 eyes." 
 
 Loic, who was now pacing restlessly about the room, 
 followed step by step by Teuss, the ever-faithful, flung 
 round and faced her. 
 
 "Do you imagine that I am in a mood to listen to one 
 of your jealous rhapsodies!" he said, fiercely. "Was it 
 not you who landed the whole band upon my shoulders, 
 because you wished to prevent that pretty little Mrs. 
 Clafton, who hates them, from coming to learn to ride 
 here. There's no harm in those Legrand girls. They 
 are good-natured gawks, and were very kind to you 
 when you were ill last month, and, what's more, they are 
 much more your friends than mine." 
 
 "My friends!" Rose almost screamed; "my friends! 
 They give me a limp handshake and an impertinent stare 
 apiece when they arrive, and then cluster round you 
 while I sit in the background or prepare refreshments for 
 them. Nice friends, indeed!" 
 
 Loic shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "Since 
 your mind appears to run on flirtations," he retorted, 
 "I have intended to warn you for some time that it would 
 behoove you to keep away from the yard. I have often 
 a whole pack of people there that are not fit company 
 for a decent woman! I'm not saying a word, mind you, 
 against horsemen as a class. I know dozens worth their 
 weight in gold, but those broken-down jocks and ex- 
 head-grooms, whom I have to employ for the sake of 
 cheapness, are in with a different lot, and I dislike your 
 peregrinations to the stables at all hours." 
 
 "You let Kikette go there whenever she wants to!" 
 Rose put in, acidly. 
 
 "Kikette! Just as if that had anything to do with 
 
 446 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 it! A baby but with you it's different. I don't want 
 to hurt your feelings, my girl, but you have a way of 
 engaging them in a lively badinage which does not be- 
 come my my wife." 
 
 Rose turned crimson, for she did not dream that Loic 
 knew of those little visits to the yard, since they always 
 took place when she thought him securely out of the 
 way. She was perfectly aware that the fashion in which 
 she brightened up on these occasions would have set his 
 teeth on edge, but somehow or other she felt quite in her 
 element there, she was free to giggle and gush and fish 
 for compliments from these coarse-tongued men, who 
 despised her, had she but known it, for a wretched, whim- 
 pering coward with horses, but found it politic to in- 
 gratiate themselves with "the Missus," and in that hope 
 bandied vulgar witticisms and questionable repartees 
 with her. She now glanced at Loic apprehensively, for 
 there was a metallic hardness in his eyes which spelled 
 anger. The more she tried to explain now, the less he 
 would believe her, and, afraid to make a muddle of the 
 whole business, she tried to divert the current of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 "Is it necessary to have six men permanently in the 
 yard?" she asked, dolefully. 
 
 "Yes!" in a tone of laconic severity that put an 
 end to her hopes of provoking a discussion on this point. 
 
 Hastily changing her ground, she therefore tried again. 
 "Why don't you write and ask your beloved sister to 
 help you?" 
 
 This question had been thrashed threadbare many 
 times, but for that very reason it might now serve to turn 
 the conversation. 
 
 "Because I won't!" he replied, frowning. "She sent 
 an extravagant lot of presents at Christmas, and a check 
 
 447 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "for Kikette" as she delicately put it that paid all the 
 back rent and many things besides. You could manage 
 much better if you wanted to, but you have a slack hand 
 and you are hopelessly unpractical. John's wife is the 
 real backbone of this establishment. She alone keeps 
 things together after a fashion." 
 
 "What am I to do when there is no money ?" she asked, 
 in tragic accents. 
 
 "Money has nothing to do with most of your neglects!" 
 Loic retorted, resuming his promenade up and down the 
 room. "Poverty can be made much more endurable 
 than you make it. I once saw a great lady, who, finding 
 herself suddenly in far worse straits even than we are in 
 now, became after a few months of hardly bought ex- 
 perience the most capable and graceful of common- 
 sense housekeepers, and what's more she never com- 
 plained or wept, but was always brave and cheery and 
 anxious to make the best of everything." 
 
 Rose gave a disdainful shrug; she knew who he was 
 alluding to, and this only added to her rancor. Straighten- 
 ing herself with an angry flounce "You're in a position 
 to cast blame on others, aren't you ?" she sneered. " God, 
 but I'm sick of it all!" she continued, with unwonted 
 violence, for generally sulkiness and martyr-like postures 
 were her favorite weapons. " If this sort of thing is what 
 you brought me away from my home for, I wish you'd 
 left me there! Even Uncle Lierre and Mamma were not 
 as cruel as you are!" 
 
 An abrupt gesture of Loic's cut short the rest of the 
 tirade. "Your your Mother " he said, in a low voice, 
 and stood as if transfixed, gazing at her in utter amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 Shortly after Kikette's birth a vilely written anony- 
 mous letter no doubt the work of Malghorn or Rivier 
 
 448 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 had acquainted him with the all-but-fatal tragedy in 
 the marsh, and had filled him with almost insurmount- 
 able horror, but Rose was very ill at the time, indeed, 
 her life and the baby's were hanging in the balance, and 
 there could be no thought of interrogating her. Later 
 on, a supreme feeling of delicacy, backed up by a natural 
 disinclination to pursue the question, had constrained 
 him to silence, although he had often wondered that she 
 herself should not once have tried to discover whether 
 her mother had really perished in that awful pit of quak- 
 ing mud. Until to-day, neither her name nor that of her 
 uncle had ever been uttered by Rose, and that she should 
 invoke both on the present occasion, and in such a wise, 
 staggered him completely. 
 
 Rose, who did not at all comprehend what was pass- 
 ing in his mind, stared at his extraordinarily harsh and 
 contemptuous face, at first stupidly, then with growing 
 fright. She had only seen him look like that on some 
 very particular occasions, and her venomous little flame 
 of rage went out with abject haste. "Don't be angry, 
 mon petit Loic," she begged. "I swear I didn't mean it! 
 I'm sorry! I ought to have remembered that you are 
 tired. Ah, yes, you are tired you should have some- 
 thing to brace you up. Voulez-vous un petit grog mon 
 pauvre Men?" and running to a corner-closet she has- 
 tened back holding a brimming glass of brandy, but with 
 a gesture of disgust Loic pushed it from him, and for a 
 few seconds tragedy hung silently suspended in that 
 bleak, shadow-filled room. 
 
 A violent ring at the front-door bell interrupted the 
 scene. 
 
 " Heavens! is some one trying to tear down the house ?" 
 Rose cried, though her heart bounded with relief, and 
 setting down the glass she ran towards the hall, where 
 
 449 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 she found Mrs. John in the act of admitting half a dozen 
 girls, who, with loud laughs, were shaking the snow from 
 their hoods and cloaks. 
 
 "Oh, my dear Mrs. Rose, don't be horrified at our un- 
 earthly appearance!" exclaimed their leader, an aston- 
 ishingly tall, raw-boned damsel, with a pair of large, dark 
 eyes and a set of beautiful teeth that lighted up frankly 
 ugly features. She had the voice of an excited guinea- 
 hen, and, rushing past her hostess, she advanced with im- 
 mense strides towards Loic with out-stretched hands, talk- 
 ing all the time. "Ha, I catch you tippling all by your 
 own sweet self in the gloaming, My Lord!" Loic, thor- 
 oughly unnerved, was gulping down the last drops of the 
 brandy Rose had brought him, to conquer the sinking feel- 
 ing that the worries of the day and the scene which had 
 just taken place had brought about. 
 
 That sinking feeling was not new to him, nor, alas, 
 was its hitherto infallible remedy! 
 
 "Can't me have a weenie little nippy, too?" continued 
 the irrepressible damsel, squeezing his hand as if it had 
 been shut in a door her's were larger than his own and 
 just as masculine "me'se so vewy, vewy told," she con- 
 tinued, lisping in what she thought the most babyish and 
 bewitching fashion, and then starting to dislocate her 
 five-foot-eleven of flat-bosomed femininity in a sort of 
 wild, impromptu dance, which she called her "French 
 cang-cang." 
 
 "Bugler, bugler, sound the advance!" yelled her com- 
 panions, invading the drawing-room with a musky flut- 
 ter of skirts, and throwing at Loic a shower of little snow- 
 balls which fell in every direction, and promptly began 
 to melt on all the chairs and tables. 
 
 Reckless of mood and responding to the whip-lash of 
 that insane bumper of raw spirits, he retaliated with a 
 
 45 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 handful of cards, picked up from the nearest arm-chair 
 where Kikette had earlier in the day been building castles 
 with them; and the fun became fast and furious, the 
 volleys dying away in dropping shots after a heated en- 
 gagement only through lack of ammunition, and after 
 the sofa-cushions and even the sporting papers and books 
 had been called into requisition. Chairs were upset, one 
 curtain had been pulled down from its rod, and the empty 
 whiskey -glass lay shivered to atoms upon the carpet. 
 
 Then there was a respite during which "Goosie" and 
 "Tottie" and "Gussie" and "Gabbie" and especially 
 "Carrie," their leader also affectionately denominated 
 "Monkey" manfully partook of hot spirits-and water, 
 "Monkey" sitting kittenishly on the carpet at Loic's 
 feet, her big eyes upturned, assuring him that she felt 
 like hugging him for being "such a dear, darling duck 
 of an Aristocrat." 
 
 This flattering craving was not as mutual as Rose 
 might have imagined, however, and, to tell the truth, Loic 
 felt a trifle disgusted as well as exceedingly ashamed that 
 he had allowed himself to be inveigled into such fool's 
 play, and greeted with positive relief the sudden appear- 
 ance upon the scene of four boisterous and horsey gentle- 
 men, loudly proclaiming that the car-lines being snowed- 
 up, they were forced now to throw themselves upon their 
 good friend's hospitality for the night. 
 
 Rose, with an agonized look, fled to investigate the 
 preparations for dinner, while "Monkey," rising from 
 the floor with a burst of hoydenish laughter, attacked 
 one of them, her great chum, "Tommy -Tiddles," a 
 diminutive Scotchman with very bright blue eyes and 
 a very red face, asking him whether he was not in luck to 
 find so charming a refuge in heathenish America. "A 
 sweet place, like a regular corner of the old country, you 
 
 451 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Scotch broth of a boy!" she cried, waltzing round him 
 with Loic's banjo, upon which she was beating as on a 
 tambourine, raised high above her head. ''And we, too, 
 are all 'furriners' here assembled, Scotch and 'Oirish' 
 and Frenchy and 'Dutch,'" she repeated, "the whole 
 crew of us, not one lanky Yankee among us, my 'Tommy 
 TiddlesF " And encircling his little waist with her power- 
 ful arm, she lifted him from the floor, giggling hysteri- 
 cally. 
 
 "Oh, come, 'Monkey,' that's not fair!" interposed 
 'Tottie,' her face heated and her hair coming down in 
 dishevelled tangles about her shoulders. "Don't you 
 know that Loic adores America?" they all called him 
 Loic in moments of effusion. 
 
 "He don't!" 
 
 "You're both ungrammatical and wrong. He do!" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "I appeal to 'hisself!'" 
 
 Loic felt inclined to box their ears, but restraining this 
 pardonable inclination, replied, quietly: "I do then! 
 America is a first-class place to live in. I've found much 
 kindness here and a long-sight better hearts than on the 
 other side of the water. So there!" 
 
 "'Ear! 'Ear!" clamored half a dozen voices. "And 
 what shall we 'ave after this wery nice 'armony?" 
 
 "Bravo, Loic!" squealed the breathless little Scotch- 
 man, stamping his feet gleefully. "Bravo! Bravo!" 
 
 "Not at all bravo!" screamed "Monkey." "His 'Lud- 
 ship ' is most ungallant, and we will show our displeasure 
 by instant departure. Our fond parents are waiting 
 dinner for us, anyway," and beckoning, dramatically, 
 to the rest of the girls scattered about the room, she 
 
 452 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 commanded: "Form into line! Now, one, two, three; 
 one, two, three mark time to the right-about, forward, 
 march!" And imitating between her half -closed teeth, 
 with lamentable accuracy, the shrill sounds of a fife, she 
 headed the petticoated patrol into the hall, and from 
 there into the white whirl outside, their discordant voices 
 echoing back from behind the dancing snow-wreaths for 
 fully five minutes before they were at last swallowed up 
 in that of the increasing storm. 
 
 Meanwhile, by the united exertions of Rose, Mrs. John 
 and Mrs. John's eldest boy a clever little lad of twelve 
 the operation of getting a dinner sufficient for so many 
 extra mouths was going ahead. Rose was a good hand 
 at cooking when she was so minded, but her apprehen- 
 sions were great while conjecturing whether the Boeuf 
 a la mode en gelee, which was her masterpiece, and upon 
 which she had relied for Sunday, would prove sufficient, 
 and whether the apple-tarts Mrs. John was turning out 
 could be made to go round. Loic was inexorably hos- 
 pitable, and, manlike, could never understand why the 
 impromptu arrival of half a dozen guests need make any 
 difference. Also, as she well knew, he was determined 
 that the table appointments should always be as perfect 
 as their limited resources would permit, and she made 
 several anxious excurisons to the dining-room in an 
 attempt to contrive a decorative centre-piece of red 
 apples and oranges, since all the hyacinth and Fresia- 
 bulbs which Loic had planted and tended for that pur- 
 pose, in a pretty majolica jardiniere, had come to grief 
 through her forgetting for two consecutive nights to 
 close the pantry window whereon they lived. 
 
 Besides "Tommy Tiddles" there assembled, an hour 
 later, round the board one Boutey, a fat, grandly mus- 
 tachioed Belgian, who, according to his own declarations, 
 
 453 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 had once been when, he did not state, nor for how long 
 the most prosperous horse-dealer in King Leopold's 
 dominions! Just now, as he enthusiastically explained, 
 he was on the point of concluding a huge deal with his 
 native land for the purchase of artillery-horses in Amer- 
 ica. At his side sat a clean-shaven, bald individual, ex- 
 cessively self-assertive and lavishly provided with the 
 outrecuidance and bagou of his beloved country the 
 south of France and, lastly, a thin, haggard-looking 
 Parisian, and a pompous, dark-bearded man with a 
 grandiloquent way of talking about his "place" in West- 
 chester, where, if one was to believe him, "the best polo 
 ponies in the States, Sir," were to be found. The "place," 
 by-the-way, was not his, and he merely mismanaged it 
 for a blind and confiding millionaire who knew less than 
 nothing about either polo or ponies, but since he claimed 
 to be a Norman which he was not and darkly hinted 
 at the frightful reverses which had forced his whole 
 family to abandon title and castles and himself to earn 
 his bread by the sweat of his brow, it would have been 
 sheer cruelty not to try and help him bear up against 
 these undeserved misfortunes by treating him always 
 with the utmost kindness and deference. Indeed, so suc- 
 cessful did Loic's efforts in that direction prove that on 
 this particular occasion he unbent to the extent of sing- 
 ing at dessert, for the benefit of the delighted Kikette, 
 a comic song accompanied by a measured tinkle of his 
 knife blade on the rim of his finger-bowl, the refrain: 
 
 " Et Milor etait meltde, trts metede, bien melede!" 
 
 as well as the sea-sick gurgles of a "Milor" crossing the 
 Channel under difficulties, being rendered with such in- 
 tense realism that he literally convulsed the company, 
 all excepting Loic, who endeavored to conceal his lack 
 
 454 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 of appreciation, since for once in a way he had the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing Rose literally choking with laughter. 
 She had never enjoyed herself better, as she remarked 
 while wiping the tears from her eyes. 
 
 However, she shortly afterwards left the gentlemen 
 to their wine there was plenty of it, never fear in 
 order to carry the struggling Kikette to bed, and as soon 
 as she was alone with her in the great, gloomy bedroom, 
 immediately above, she instantly relapsed into her usual 
 despondent mood, and began once more to dwell with 
 intense bitterness upon the future which she felt certain 
 would bring her nothing but neglect, injustice, desperate 
 misery, and final ruin! 
 
 Kikette, kneeling beside her little blue-and-white bed, 
 was saying her prayers, the old Breton prayers taught 
 her as soon as she could speak, by her father, perhaps 
 more because of dear personal souvenirs of what he and 
 Gaidik had been used to repeat night and morning than 
 from any sense of duty, while through the floor there rose 
 the muffled refrain of another comic song with which 
 "Tommy" was now favoring his host, and the rousing 
 chorus of which was: 
 
 " And 'er golden 'air was a'anging down 'er back!" 
 
 "Tommy" was inimitable at comic songs. 
 
 Probably the words reminded Rose of "Monkey" and 
 her band, for just as Kikette was about to rise from her 
 knees, she put her hand on the child's shoulder, and 
 whispered : 
 
 " Here, repeat after me: 'Bless my dear Papa and make 
 him give up the bad women who take him away from 
 Mamma.' ' Mechanically the little thing obeyed, but 
 suddenly she stopped, and looking in her fluffy, white 
 night-gown, like some miniature avenging angel, she 
 
 455 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 jumped up, and turning upon her mother a pair of flash- 
 ing gray eyes, startlingly identical in harshness and con- 
 tempt with those Rose saw so frequently now burning 
 in Loic's face, exclaimed, furiously: 
 
 "Papa would not let himself be taken away! You 
 mustn't make me say lies like that!" The scorn on her 
 small, pink face was scathing, and Rose collapsed. 
 
 " And 'er golden 'air was a'anging down 'er back!" 
 
 "Tommy" was blithely singing down-stairs. 
 
 "You won't tell Papa, darling," the mother implored, 
 kneeling beside her angry child. "Promise, and I'll give 
 you lots of bonbons!" But Kikette was not so easily to 
 be appeased, and for some time after she had been tucked 
 within her azure blankets, she still kept bouncing in- 
 dignantly about, glaring wide-eyed at her mother's fig- 
 ure silhouetted against the window, through which she 
 was staring sullenly at the whitened darkness without. 
 
 An hour or so later, a startling uproar ascended from 
 below, the angry snarl of voices raised to their highest 
 pitch making every word plainly discernible, and Rose, 
 who had been sitting moodily in the night-lamp-lighted 
 room, jumped up with startled eyes and blanched cheeks 
 and opened the door, murmuring, "My God, they are 
 quarrelling what can it be!" 
 
 The tumult still increased, then there was the sound of 
 a dog's angry growl, and Loic's masterful tones, saying, 
 "You'd beat my dog, would you " then the crash of 
 somebody being forcibly separated from his chair. 
 
 Kikette had awakened with a start, and was now sitting 
 bolt upright in bed listening. 
 
 "Oh, Kikette, they're killing each other down there!" 
 the judicious mother cried, agonized with terror. "Go 
 and call Papa away; I daren't!" 
 
 456 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Swift as a swooping swallow the child jumped out of 
 bed, her glorious hair ruffled into a shining aureole. "I'm 
 not afraid of them!" she said, contemptuously, and hold- 
 ing up her long night-gown with one chubby hand, she 
 ran out of the room, the sound of her little bare feet 
 paddling briskly down-stairs being immediately followed 
 by the opening of the dining-room door. All this had 
 happened so quickly that Loic was still holding the 
 would-be Norman Nobleman by the scruff of the neck, 
 while "Tommy" hung desperately to Teuss's collar the 
 dog was not an easy brute to restrain when once roused. 
 On the floor lay a broken chair, and from an overturned 
 bottle of whiskey a stream of liquid gold bubbled on to 
 the carpet. 
 
 "Papa, come here at once!" an imperious baby voice 
 cried from the threshold, the peremptoriness of the 
 order emphasized by the angry stamp of a rosy, dimpled 
 foot brought down with all the force of that muscular, 
 healthy little body. 
 
 Loic let go of the Norman's coat-collar with such sud- 
 denness that the drunken carcass rolled heavily back- 
 ward, and lay supine beside the streaming whiskey, 
 then catching his breath, as if he had himself received a 
 heavy blow, he sprang over the ruins of the chair, snatched 
 Kikette up, and with a stifled sob of despair and shame 
 raced up-stairs holding her tightly in his arms. 
 
 Rose, huddled against the bedroom door, made way 
 for them, speechless with fear, her legs trembling so much 
 that she could barely stand, for one look at Loic's face 
 had been enough to show her what manner of fury she 
 had roused by sending the child down. 
 
 "Did you do this?" he said, facing round fiercely, 
 Kikette still clasped close to his breast. He spoke be- 
 tween clinched teeth, and his lips were chalk-white. 
 30 457 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Rose tried to answer, but her mouth only twitched, 
 and no sound came. 
 
 "You deserve," continued the low voice, laden with 
 unspeakable rage and contempt "you deserve oh, I 
 don't know what you deserve, you coward!" and, passing 
 her by, he carried Kikette into his own room, slamming 
 the door so violently after him that the glass of one 
 window fell in with a crash, followed by a whirl of dan- 
 cing snow-flakes, and a blast of wind which extinguished 
 the lamp. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Life was host here, at his call 
 Came the merry spirits all, 
 Elfins of the middle air 
 Leagued against the lurker Care: 
 Led by Youth in dance along 
 Jest and Laughter, Joy and Song 
 Held revel here, whereof there calls 
 No echo from these ruined walls. 
 Out are the torches, and the still 
 Chambers, the empty wind doth fill 
 And the room of airy powers 
 Ashes, heaped by mocking Hours. 
 
 On a skull. M. M. 
 
 ANOTHER weary day had dragged almost to its close, 
 and Rose, once more was pacing the drawing-room, feel- 
 ing all about her the stillness of an impending crisis. 
 It was not snowing now, but the whole country lay 
 motionless and dreary beneath a heavy white mantle, 
 and across the gray sky a troop of crows scientifically 
 wheeled and manoeuvred, while far above the summits 
 of the darkly pencilled pines, a single sable bird seemed 
 to be circling upon a sentinel round, and calling out orders 
 to the rest in a peremptory, saw - like voice. Every 
 branch stood motionless under its burden of frozen 
 crystals, and Rose shivered every time she passed be- 
 fore the windows and glanced hatefully at this immobile 
 landscape, which a true lover of nature must have ad- 
 mired in its whitened, silent grandeur. Loic and Kikette 
 were away with the Legrands, he for the sake of his little 
 
 459 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 maid having accepted an invitation to a sleighing-party, 
 and a twenty-four-hours' stay with some friends at a 
 considerable distance away, which she, Rose, in a fit of 
 perversity, had stubbornly refused to join. 
 
 Suddenly the door was violently thrown open, and 
 Mrs. John rushed in, white and excited. "Mum!" she 
 stammered, "the sheriff and four men are coming up 
 the path. John is afther mating thim by the gate, and 
 they say as they are going to sell iverything here over 
 our heads." 
 
 Rose walked unsteadily to the nearest chair and sat 
 down heavily. So the blow had fallen at last! What 
 was she to do now? Where could she hide herself? 
 
 "We kin lock thim devils out!" Mrs. John continued, 
 volubly, her self-possession reasserting itself. "Sure 
 Teuss wouldn't let any one touch the door, and me and 
 John can shpake to thim from the upper hall-window, 
 and tell thim that the master not being here, we can't 
 let thim in. But what ails ye, Mum ? Faix ye mustn't 
 go and faint now; the Lord knows it ain't the time 
 to do that, nor to keep your tongue froze in yer 
 head!" 
 
 No answer beyond a look of pale horror. 
 
 "Save us and send us!" poor Mrs. John cried, utterly 
 nonplussed, and shaking Rose rhythmically by the 
 shoulder. "You're looking own sister to a corpse, and 
 here they are, too!" as a loud ring echoed through the 
 house. "What d' ye want done, thin?" 
 
 Again the bell was pulled wellnigh out of its socket, 
 and Rose closed her eyes tightly and drew in her head 
 between her shoulders like a turtle warding off a blow, 
 at which show of cowardice Mrs. John could not conceal 
 her indignation. 
 
 "And is it that ye've no backbone at all at all!" 
 
 460 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 she scolded. "Faix, thin, I'll go and shpake to thim mis- 
 self. I know thim well. Haven't I come here a young 
 married woman and reared five fine childer right on 
 this very place? The shame of it, the shame of it! And 
 'tis yourself as ought to rout thim out, glory be to God!" 
 And straightening her own back with grim determina- 
 tion, she gave up the attempt to rouse her mistress, and 
 departed to ''shpake to thim divils," according to her 
 programme. 
 
 Meanwhile, Rose, her hands clasped convulsively to- 
 gether, still shivered and quaked in her chair. It was a 
 terribly nasty business all round, and she was, alas, not 
 the woman to bravely face so desperate a situation; but 
 suddenly she looked up with a flash of hope. Teuss, all 
 his great fangs bared, was standing before her protect- 
 ingly, his hackles on end, a fire of rising rage turning 
 his beautiful, golden eyes into live coals. And twining her 
 cold, trembling fingers into his collar, she at last rose to 
 her feet just as Mrs. John came running back, her face 
 now scarlet with wrath, crying: 
 
 "They're commanding every wan about as empariouS 
 as Lords ; they ordered the horses out, and some of thim 
 are running thim down like the wind to the village. Ye 
 must face the sheriff, Mum ; sure he won't ate ye, or he'll 
 be capturing us also, bad cess to him!" 
 
 At that moment John himself came in looking un- 
 usually serious, and wearing his Sunday coat over his 
 stable clothes. 
 
 "The sheriff must shpake wid ye, Mum," he said, very 
 stiffly, "the master not being here!" and, accepting silence 
 for consent, he vanished, while his wife and Rose, between 
 them, held Teuss back from hurling himself after him to 
 the rescue. 
 
 Two minutes later a tall, red-whiskered man, with 
 
 461 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 prominent blue eyes and a splendid watch-chain, was 
 ushered into the room. 
 
 "Ah," he said, looking sharply at Rose, "Mrs. Cur- 
 gote?" 
 
 Rose bowed awkwardly, and said " yes " in a faint voice. 
 
 "I'm here, Ma'am with a writ of execution from Sharp 
 & Cutter's, general purveyors, empowered to seize your 
 husband's goods and chattels. I've already attached a 
 fur overcoat in the hall, and sent the horses and car- 
 riages away. Is the house furniture in your name?" 
 
 Rose's face became flame-color. She misinterpreted the 
 question, but her interlocutor took a mistaken view of 
 that flush, and, thinking it the result of virtuous indig- 
 nation, said, in a milder, almost kindly tone: 
 
 "Well, it's often done to preserve the wife's interests. 
 Was it bought in your name, Ma'am?" 
 
 "What, ze furniture?" she asked, confusedly. "No, 
 no, everything belongs to my 'usband!" And then all 
 of a sudden the hitherto bewildered and terrified woman, 
 encouraged by the deputy-sheriff's unexpected friendli- 
 ness, raised her head and spoke. "It ees a shame!" she 
 cried, now absolutely shaking with rage. "My 'usband 
 ees a Nobleman, un Aristocrate, a Marquis! Do you bnder- 
 stan' ? I am ze Marquise de Kergoat ; if you do not be- 
 lieve me look at zis " pointing at a brooch made from 
 one of Loic's breast-pins, a pretty little enamelled coronet, 
 set with diamonds, which fastened her dingy dressing- 
 gown. "Ze de Kergoats 'ave millions. My sister-in-law 
 ees a Duchess, do you 'ear, scound-r-rele and you'll be 
 punishe for zis outrage cette abomination!" Teuss, as 
 if he wished to protest against this astonishing indis- 
 cretion, and preferred to personally interfere, gave a low, 
 threatening growl, and the deputy-sheriff stepped back. 
 
 "You hold that dog," he said, angrily, "and don't you 
 
 462 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 try to frighten me with your rigmaroles. I don't care 
 a rap who your sister-in-law is or your husband, either, 
 for the matter of that. He owes money and must pay, 
 that's all I know. Have you the cash to settle? No! 
 Well, then, I must do my duty. I wasn't inclined to be 
 hard on you, but I don't like your tone, my young lady, 
 and I want none of your impudence." 
 
 Once more Rose collapsed; her attempt at what she 
 mistook for the hauteur befitting a great lady having 
 proved a failure, she instantly resorted to wheedling and 
 tears. "Oh, Monsieur, I did not mean to insult you; 
 pleaze, pleaze forgive me!" she stammered, beginning to 
 sob bitterly. 
 
 Mrs. John, looking on in disgust, turned to the deputy. 
 "She don't know any better, Mr. Hook!" she said, in a 
 vigorous whisper. "The boss is different; it's a pity he 
 ain't here! Tell me and John what's doing and we'll 
 'tend to it. This sort of work won't do at all, at all, and 
 don't torment her any further, Sir, av ye please, the poor 
 crature." 
 
 "Ah, now, that's more like business!" he willingly 
 approved, his anger fading at once before her good 
 sense. "Go and separate all her personal belongings 
 and the child's from the rest; you can put aside the 
 gent's clothing, too." 
 
 "What about his fur-coat, thin?" Mrs. John stoutly 
 interrupted. 
 
 "That's a luxury; he don't need it," the officer of the 
 law retorted, smartly; "but hold on, I'll go with you and 
 show you what to take and what to leave," and uncere- 
 moniously turning his back upon " Madame la Marquise," 
 he followed the grenadier-like figure of Mrs. John up -stairs, 
 Rose, still convulsed with weeping, letting them go with- 
 out raising a finger to detain them. 
 
 463 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 What was she to do, she thought, desperately ? Could 
 she remain in that dismantled house to await Loic's re- 
 turn? No, she had best join him at once and tell him 
 what had happened. Oh, why had she not disobeyed 
 and written to Gaidik? To be sure Loic would never 
 have forgiven it, not only as a transgression of his in- 
 dependent principles, but because the affection of these 
 two, strong and jealous as ever, was a sort of sacred 
 ground upon which one trod only at one's imminent 
 peril ; but would not even that peril have been preferable 
 to what had just happened ? She leaned her elbows on 
 the nearest table and tried hard to think. It was im- 
 perative for her to come to some decision now, at once. 
 She felt that she could not seek advice from the Johns, 
 to whom, moreover, a large amount of wage was due. 
 Could she "sneak" her coat and hat from up -stairs and 
 make good her escape without being noticed? 
 
 On tiptoe and holding on for protection to Teuss's 
 collar, she stole into the hall and listened. The voices 
 of the party above were distinctly audible floating down 
 through the open doors of Kikette's little room. 
 
 "It's himself as would be cut to the heart to see the 
 darlin's bed go!" Mrs. John was saying; then again, after 
 some less distinct sentence in a man's deep tones, her 
 somewhat piercing notes were raised in protest. "Och, 
 don't take her silver mouse! Poor little spalpeen! We 
 call her 'Mouse,' too, because she's so quick and cliver, 
 an' she has lashin's of mice for toys. Saints alive, he 
 buys her iverythin' she wants; he is a nate an' lovely 
 young man ' Rose stopped to hear no more, but, 
 dragging Teuss after her, crept step by step up the back 
 stairs to her own room, where she hurriedly dressed her- 
 self in a warm gown and cloak, and without even think- 
 ing of putting a few necessaries in a hand-bag, snatched up 
 
 464 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 her meagre purse and Teuss's leash, and silently slipped 
 from the house by one of the French windows of the 
 empty drawing-room. 
 
 From the lower drive a sheriff's officer espied her 
 he had been watching there for some time and as she 
 hurried along with her formidable escort he stepped forth 
 and barred the road. 
 
 "You can't take that dog away; he is valuable proper- 
 ty," he said, holding out his hand for the leash, but 
 Teuss, firmly planted on his four strong, tenacious feet, 
 gave so ominous a growl that the man fell back in dis- 
 may. 
 
 "Don't touch 'eem, 'e vould keel you!" Rose cried, 
 terror-stricken, and, profiting by the man's bewilderment, 
 she flew past him and ran down the long, snow-packed 
 path, weird with the suggestive shadows thrown by its 
 tall, double hedges. Once she ventured to look back 
 over her shoulder, and shuddered as she saw lights mov- 
 ing behind the windows of the grim old house. Surely 
 the search for her had already begun, and again she ran 
 as she had never run in her life before, save once from 
 a woman drowning in the fetid ooze of a great Vendeen 
 marsh. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Six miles from the railway, in a ramshackle farm- 
 house, which one approached by a dismal "dirt road," 
 deeply rutted with wagon-wheels, Loic and Kikette and 
 Rose found a refuge in their distress. "Tommy Tiddles" 
 had boarded there one summer "for a song," as he 
 graphically and truthfully put it, for little else had he 
 ever paid, and it was he who, much moved by his friends' 
 misfortunes for he was really not a bad-hearted lad 
 had recommended the place to them. 
 
 The first impression that one received upon entering 
 
 465 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 the house was due to an overpowering odor of eternally 
 boiling corned-beef and cabbage diluted with the effluvia 
 from the neighboring cow-stables; the second for the 
 senses were dulled to intervening phenomena was af- 
 forded by a glimpse into a parlor of prim, chill, stiff 
 neatness, furnished in battered, "Early-Victorian" ma- 
 hogany and horsehair, and more resembling a meeting- 
 house than a habitable room. There was a bare little 
 entrance-hall, papered some decades back in merciless 
 blues and yellows, a frowsy living-room, littered with 
 the belongings of all its daily inmates, and, finally, a 
 nearly perpendicular staircase leading to the upper floor, 
 which was divided into what "Tommy" called the 
 rabbit-hutches i.e., a dozen tiny, low-ceiled, white- 
 washed rooms, six of which were rented to "city-folks" 
 during the summer months, and the remaining six oc- 
 cupied all the year round by the worthy farmer, his good- 
 natured, corpulent wife, their two sons, and four stalwart 
 daughters. 
 
 Outwardly the farmstead was not a thing of beauty, like 
 its namesakes of England and France which, verdure- 
 bowered and vine-clad, spread their idyllic charm over 
 many picturesque miles. One came upon it suddenly, 
 at the end of the above-mentioned, tortuous, deep-rutted 
 road, in all its unadorned nakedness; first, a great, dingy, 
 yellow barn, then a dilapidated cowshed, with a gigantic 
 pile of all manner of refuse the delight of the chickens 
 and ducks at its entrance, and, finally, huddling into the 
 other buildings as if thoroughly ashamed of its ugliness, 
 the dwelling itself, a square frame-house, painted in the 
 same butter -tint as the barn, and, like it, long since 
 streaked with the lamentable black finger-marks of rain 
 and storm. 
 
 The farmer was a tall, spare man, with a hatchet face 
 
 466 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and an excellent heart, which he took the greatest pains 
 to conceal beneath unpleasantly boorish manners. His 
 wife was short and stout, and of an equally kindly tem- 
 per, and the boys and girls were simple-minded, good- 
 natured young people who soon adored Kikette, pros- 
 trated themselves before Loic, and did their best to 
 console and cheer the drooping Rose, who, since her 
 eventful flight from Cinnamon Hill, spent her life in tears 
 and lamentations. 
 
 The wreck of Loic's fortunes was now complete; noth- 
 ing remained to him from all that had been his save his 
 clothes, a boxful of papers and photographs, Gaidik's 
 picture and miniature saved as by a miracle through 
 Tommy's energetic agency and, lastly, his beloved Teuss. 
 Kikette and Rose's clothes had been rescued, too, but 
 that was all; and, without money, without hope, without 
 help from any source, he set himself once more to the 
 bitter task of trying to find a place at some of New York's 
 riding-schools, in order to earn wherewithal to pay for 
 their board at Caulfield's Farm. 
 
 Wearily, day after day, he rose at five, and, when un- 
 able to get a lift on one of the milk-wagons going to the 
 station with their noisily rattling cans, would tramp it 
 along the snow -covered roads. When he started, the 
 short winter day had not begun to break, and the heavy, 
 sluggish darkness hung over the land, making walking a 
 difficult matter. The weather was still very cold, and 
 he sorely missed his fur coat, which he had left at home 
 to be seized by the sheriff, having donned that day a 
 short, wolf-hide jacket, preferable for sleighing purposes, 
 and which, alas, was now in pawn. 
 
 It was now that he began to realize the loss of a cer- 
 tain physical elasticity, a certain unwearied freshness of 
 strength that he had always possessed. Troubles and 
 
 467 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 disappointments had begun to tell even upon his iron 
 constitution, additionally undermined by constant im- 
 prudences, over-fatigue, an absolute disregard for any 
 sort of regularity in eating his meals, and frequent doses 
 of stimulants taken when he had no time and often 
 no money to go to a restaurant, or when he thought it 
 necessary to propitiate possible employers by treating 
 them frequently and generously for generous he always 
 was to the point of recklessness, whatever the state of 
 his own finances might be. He reasoned with himself 
 about his weaknesses and deficiencies during these long 
 tramps through drowsy country lanes and along the 
 crowded streets of the huge, selfish city, reasoned with 
 himself until his gnawing anxieties became dulled by 
 fatigue, and it was only by a violent effort that he would 
 pull himself together and straighten his shoulders to 
 enter with his old, proud, devil-may-care bearing the 
 various establishments where he still hoped against hope 
 to obtain remunerative work. 
 
 One cold, bitter night, when the densely falling snow 
 was whirled in a wild waltz by a headlong wind and piled 
 in deep drifts on streets and housetops, Loic, footsore 
 and deadly weary, was trudging down Eighth Avenue 
 along the park wall. He had been detained far beyond 
 his usual time by the owner of a small horse-dealing es- 
 tablishment in Harlem, who seemed inclined to accept 
 his services, and, having thus lost all chance of catching 
 the last train out to Caulfield's Farm, was now on his 
 way to seek a night's lodging at some cheap hotel down- 
 town. With his shoulders hunched and his chin upon 
 his breast, he plodded obstinately against the blinding 
 gusts upon the long, weary journey necessitated by his 
 lack of car-fare, his mind burdened with gloomy thoughts. 
 He was feeling particularly unequal to the struggle of 
 
 468 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 life, unusually useless and inapt, hot with rage at cir- 
 cumstances, and with contempt of himself because he 
 had but one talent to offer the world in exchange for a 
 living, and that, one which the world seemed to hold in 
 slight esteem. 
 
 Stopping to take breath and to straighten his aching 
 neck as he reached Fifty-ninth Street, he suddenly be- 
 came aware that a new roar was overtopping that of 
 the storm, sweeping across the deserted streets with an 
 even fiercer blast than that of the wind, and, wiping the 
 moisture from his eyes, he saw above the housetops a 
 red glow burning through the snow-shroud in the direc- 
 tion of Fifth Avenue. At once his heart gave a leap, 
 and, forgetting his fatigue, he started across town at a 
 run, in obedience to an impulse that was at first instinc- 
 tive, but gradually formulated itself as he dashed on 
 through the white, whirling veil. 
 
 It was a big hotel which was on fire, one where, years 
 before, during his first trip to America, he had spent 
 some pleasurable and amusing weeks. From the roof 
 thick volumes of black smoke were belching forth, lined 
 with vivid crimson by the roaring flames below, while 
 at the wide-open windows the half-clad forms of frenzied 
 men and women could plainly be discerned, yelling wide- 
 mouthed for assistance. The sidewalks were thronged 
 with weeping, shrieking women, wearing, for the most 
 part, little besides their night-gowns, and holding con- 
 vulsively to their breasts the few valuables that they had 
 snatched up when aroused from their first slumbers by 
 the terrifying cry of "Fire!" while others were throwing 
 satchels and even valises and light trunks into the street, 
 thus grievously endangering the lives of the firemen 
 heroically swarming towards the burning-hot walls, axe 
 and rope in hand. Trucks and engines were thundering 
 
 469 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 up from all directions, for the dreaded "Third Alarm" 
 had some time since been sounded ; but even the splendid 
 New York Fire Department was for once wellnigh pow- 
 erless in the face of that hurricane of smoke and flames. 
 
 Fully a dozen engines were at work now, puffing and 
 pumping imperturbably, and adding their ear-piercing 
 whistles to the appalling hubbub, while the red cinders 
 from their furnaces sizzled and went out with a succes- 
 sion of tiny breaths of expiring steam in the black slush 
 of fast-melting snow-drifts. 
 
 A fierce joy ran through Loic's veins like a generous 
 wine, and the thought that had been shaping itself in 
 his mind sprang to his lips: "Here, at least, is something 
 I can do!" 
 
 Without an instant's hesitation he made use of his 
 powerful shoulders to force a way through the surging 
 crowd, and, reaching the fire lines, found himself face to 
 face with an Inspector of Police whom he happened to 
 know he knew by now many people of many different 
 callings, did Loic. 
 
 "May I lend a hand?" he asked, shortly, nodding 
 towards the fiercely lighted windows crowded with strug- 
 gling and shrieking humanity. 
 
 "That you, Mr. Curgote?" the officer replied, without 
 showing the least astonishment at the request. "Pass 
 if you feel like it; there are women and children being 
 roasted and trampled in there who'll be glad enough to 
 be rescued," and, without another word, he rushed away 
 to attend to his own business. 
 
 A few seconds later Loic was groping his way along 
 corridors so dense with black vapor that he could scarce- 
 ly breathe, and which seemed to lead to the very fires 
 of hell. But what were to him tottering staircases, 
 elevator shafts transformed into volcano-throats, and 
 
 470 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 scorching floors that quivered and buckled like lava- 
 crusts above the roaring furnace below, since at last he 
 had his opportunity to do something worthy of him, 
 and since he felt himself superbly fit to accomplish it? 
 He afterwards remembered these things disconnectedly, 
 as one recalls fragments of a nightmare together with 
 others ghastly figures of shrieking women ablaze from 
 head to foot, and heaps of half -naked humanity piled up 
 on chaotic landings wondering how he had managed to 
 persevere as long as he had done in that terrible, self- 
 imposed task, how he had escaped uninjured during 
 journey after journey through the choking reek, the 
 scorch of the flames, with blinded eyes and gasping lungs 
 bearing so many unconscious or madly writhing forms 
 to the icy outer air and safety. 
 
 It was a very different Loic who, just as the new day 
 was breaking, picked his way among the innumerable 
 lengths of hose just being withdrawn from the collapsing 
 walls, and which writhed about him like knots of tangled 
 snakes. His head was erect, his shoulders squared, and, 
 in spite of crushing fatigue, of aching muscles, of a pair 
 of frozen ears, and of hands bruised and bleeding, he 
 looked so extraordinarily happy that those around him 
 stared open-mouthed at this strange figure, clad in burned 
 and torn clothes, that gazed up at the murky, snow-filled 
 dawn with so strange an expression of thankfulness. 
 They took him for one of the rescued. How few among 
 them could have understood why this desperate labor 
 and imminent peril should have gained for him a reserve 
 of strength and hope that endured for many a weary 
 
 day to come! 
 
 ******* 
 
 In the spring Loic had at last one little stroke of luck. 
 He was getting thoroughly desperate, when, through the 
 
 471 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 agency of a friend, he was brought into contact with a 
 rather superior sort of horse-dealer and trainer who 
 owned just such another establishment as he himself had 
 so greatly hoped to make of Cinnamon Hill, and who, after 
 a couple of interviews, completely won by Loic's straight- 
 forwardness and modesty, offered him the position of 
 stable-master and headman. The salary was only twenty 
 dollars a week, but there was a little house to be had 
 gratis on the place a tiny cottage, wreathed in roses, 
 where Kikette could again play at will on her own domain ; 
 so Loic jumped at the chance, and early in May the little 
 family took possession of it with hearts full of gratitude. 
 Bob Mildway, the owner of ''Rose-Dell" and Loic's 
 "boss," though he himself rode but indifferently, knew 
 a good thing when he saw it, and since he never allowed 
 any one to get to the blind side of him in a bargain, was 
 doing well in his business. He picked up good-looking 
 cattle at cheap rates, had them put in hard condition 
 and well broken, and ultimately sold them as made 
 hunters and park-hacks for six or eight times the amount 
 they had cost him. Indeed, he would long since have 
 been a rich man had it not been for the difficulty he had 
 hitherto found in discovering a really honest and trust- 
 worthy trainer and breaker, and also for the fact that, 
 much against his wife's advice, he dabbled on the turf and 
 the stock-exchange, and was often badly hit. He was a 
 tall, silent man, with a solemn face and a long, melan- 
 choly nose; but Mrs. Mildway, a petite, vivacious creat- 
 ure, with beautiful dark hair and eyes, always exquisite- 
 ly dressed, clever, energetic, and an excellent manager, 
 was the veritable soul of the place. She shrugged her 
 shapely shoulders when her husband talked about bad 
 times, curtailed income, and hampered business condi- 
 tions, and, indeed, thanks to her constant attention, there 
 
 472 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 was no sign of shabbiness or stint about her house and 
 gardens. She kept an excellent cook, worked early and 
 late to assist her lord, and thus brought about such sat- 
 isfactory results that Loic often repressed a sigh of envy 
 as he remembered the slipshod, irresponsible fashion in 
 which Rose had performed similar duties. 
 
 Mrs. Mildway did not take a fancy to Rose, but she at 
 once fell a victim to Kikette's beauty and masterful lit- 
 tle ways, and sincerely pitied and admired Loic. She, 
 with her quick wit and experience, read the situation at 
 a glance, and when she saw with what will her husband's 
 new trainer set to work, esteem soon was joined to liking 
 where he was concerned. 
 
 Loic, indeed, labored like a slave. From the very first 
 all the horses passed through his hands; he had a won- 
 derful way with them, as she soon perceived, and he 
 was out on the training-ground from daylight to dark, 
 just coming in for his meals like the grooms, and starting 
 off again the minute he had swallowed the last mouthful. 
 At night he was tired enough to drop, and his hands were 
 quite raw from the constant handling of reins, stirrup- 
 leathers, and saddles ; but, in spite of it all, the relief caused 
 by the possession of a "steady job," and the regular hours 
 he was forced to keep, did him good. Indeed, a month of 
 this new life restored his health and appetite and brought 
 back hope to his heart. 
 
 His presence as Bob Mildway 's headman astounded 
 this worthy gentleman's distinguished patrons, for his 
 appearance was certainly not that of a salaried employe, 
 and they were lavish of their praise and outspoken ad- 
 miration. That "the Squire," as Mildway was familiarly 
 called, was overjoyed at this success would be saying too 
 much, and, although Loic held himself severely aloof from 
 the "social" side of the establishment, and fulfilled his 
 a* 473 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 duties more than conscientiously, with no thrusting for- 
 ward of his brilliant talents, and no flurry whatsoever, 
 displaying on the contrary great judgment and determi- 
 nation in keeping officially as much as possible in the 
 background, yet he felt from the first that his chief was 
 jealous of him and grudged him his superior abilities. 
 Vainly did poor Loic try to show himself yet more re- 
 tiring; the lady patronesses of the Rose-Dell training 
 establishment would not hear of his remaining absent 
 from the paper-chases organized by "the Squire," and 
 they spoke to him of his stable-master in terms of such 
 enthusiasm that, had they sworn to lose him his place, 
 they could not have gone more effectually about it. 
 
 Meanwhile, Rose, peering and watching through the 
 latticed windows of her tiny home, grew bitter as gall, 
 and vowed vengeance on the whole world of women. 
 
 "What's this flower?" she asked, peremptorily, one 
 evening as he entered the little kitchen where she was 
 preparing a late supper. " Give it here!" and she snatch- 
 ed it from his button-hole, her eyes alight with anger. 
 
 "Well, upon my word!" Loic gasped, utterly thunder- 
 struck by her extraordinary violence, but for once dis- 
 regarding all prudence, she flung the dainty yellow rose- 
 bud across the room, narrowly missing some slender- 
 stemmed glasses on the table, and hi tones hoarse with 
 rage, cried: 
 
 "111 poison myself if you continue to dare me like 
 that; yes, and my death will lie at your door!" Her face 
 was crimson, even her neck flamed; but Loic, who re- 
 membered an occasion, years ago, when he had been 
 nastily taken in by a pretence on her part to swallow 
 a dose of laudanum, with which she had merely rinsed 
 her mouth and stained her dress, afterwards twisting 
 and twirling convulsively on the floor, shrugged his 
 
 474 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 shoulders and began to unstrap his spurs without pay- 
 ing the slightest attention to this threat. He was, fort- 
 unately, in a very good temper, having just sold three 
 horses at a rattling good price, and received for once a 
 cordial "Thank you. You are doing splendidly," from 
 the delighted "Squire," else Rose would certainly not 
 have fared quite so well. Encouraged by his silence, she 
 continued, banging the dishes and plates violently about 
 in the narrow little sink: "You treat me abominably; 
 d' you think that I am always to be a mere drudge, good 
 enough only to cook your meals and bring up your brat 
 while you dance attendance on a lot of beastly, shame- 
 less women?" 
 
 "That's enough!" Loic said, sternly. "Are you mad? 
 And don't yell like that, you will wake up Kikette!" 
 
 "Kikette, always Kikette! You think of nothing but 
 her and your precious sister! Am I nobody? I don't 
 count in your eyes, I see, excepting as a butt for your 
 tempers and your bad compliments a fine life I'm lead- 
 ing here " She was about to descend again into the 
 arena of common invective, but the sight of Loic's dark- 
 ening brow made her think better of it, and, collapsing 
 instead into the nearest chair, she burst into a tempest 
 of those unlovely tears and gurgling sobs of which she 
 had the secret, and which, somehow, disfigured her for 
 hours after the storm had passed. 
 
 Often had Loic gently and patiently reasoned with her 
 on such occasions, but these had been too frequent lately 
 to create much impression upon him now, and, utterly 
 disgusted, he left her to her meanings and sniffings, clos- 
 ing the door after him. Truly, everything seemed to con- 
 spire against the possibility of his ever redeeming the 
 sorrowful past! What with the hard work he was doing, 
 the influence of the sporting crowd surrounding him a 
 
 475 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 hard-drinking, fast-living one, indeed and the miseries 
 of his life with Rose, he had reached the top of a slope 
 down which it is difficult not to slide swiftly. An over- 
 wrought body and an overstrained heart are bad helpers 
 in such a situation, and a bitter curse was on his lips as 
 he turned into his own room adjoining that where Kikette 
 lay asleep in her little white cot. 
 
 The moon, sailing in a cloudless, sapphire sky, was 
 beginning to touch with silver the nodding roses around 
 the open casement; and, as he paused at the communicat- 
 ing door, a long, shining ray stole in and crept along the 
 trailing folds of the blankets with which the child was 
 covered. Rose's sobs, persistent, wilfully long-drawn, 
 and stubborn, fell exasperatingly on Loic's ear; they 
 were really too loud and came with too much emphasis 
 to be considered a spontaneous expression of true grief; 
 and, enervated beyond measure, he crossed over to the 
 tiny dining-room and quickly poured himself out a glass 
 of brandy, which he dashed down at one gulp. The 
 spirits ran through his veins, diffusing instantly a grate- 
 ful feeling of slight exhilaration, and so satisfied was he 
 with its effects that, after a second's hesitation, he took 
 a second dose; then, going back to his room, he rinsed his 
 mouth with violet water, and, gently pushing Kikette's 
 door wide open, tiptoed to the side of her tiny bed. 
 
 The moon-ray had crept farther now to shed its white 
 caress upon Kikette, who, with her chubby hands clasped 
 beneath one rounded cheek, breathed softly through 
 parted lips, her extraordinary childish beauty etherealized 
 and intensified tenfold by the flood of pure, passionless 
 light aureoling it. 
 
 Slowly Loic bent over her, nearer and nearer, until he 
 knelt on one knee upon the drooping blankets. A great 
 hatred of himself was welling up in his heart, and the 
 
 476 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 moon-ray which so fitly enshrined the loveliness of the 
 child made his own handsome face look suddenly very 
 haggard and worn. His mind at that moment was a 
 chaos of conflicting emotions, the Leitmotif of which 
 was intolerable remorse remorse for having yielded to 
 Rose's entreaties at La-Roche-Sur-Yon, remorse for not 
 having devised a way to tear his little one from her grasp 
 and give her to Gaidik, who would have brought her 
 up in the milieu to which she belonged, remorse also 
 that he should have failed to maintain his little estab- 
 lishment at Cinnamon - Hill, and last, if not least, re- 
 morse and shame, too, for having gulped down that double 
 drink before coming to kiss his little maid good-night. 
 
 Of late he had been so much absorbed in his work 
 that he had hardly had any time to give her, and some- 
 how or other a great wave of disgust now rose in him 
 at the thought of the low and humiliating aspects of his 
 present life and the many degrading temptations it 
 brought with it. His hopes of remaking a fortune had 
 gradually given way to an overmastering desire of mere- 
 ly finding means to leave America and return "home" 
 not to Kergoat, of course, but to some humble corner of 
 Brittany, where in a lonely cottage he could live in 
 peace with Kikette, far, far away from all the disap- 
 pointments and struggles which were so hard to bear. 
 
 Kneeling there, close to that little bed, this desire all 
 at once took the form of a resolve. What allurements 
 that peaceful picture possessed! Yes, he would try now 
 to spend next to nothing, he would work day and 
 night, would bend his whole mind to making some money 
 on the sales which brought him each a little commission, 
 and when he had gathered together the needful amount 
 it wouldn't take so very long, after all he would go back 
 to dear old Brittany and lead the life that in sober earnest 
 
 477 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 he, at the moment, entirely believed himself to prefer. 
 A tiny chawmiere on the wildest and least-visited coast 
 of his own land, where life would cost next to nothing, 
 was all he demanded. There, with his little Kikette, he 
 would pass slow, charming, uneventful days, earning a 
 small but steady income by buying and selling those 
 sturdy little horses that are the staple of the Breton 
 markets. In a year why not perhaps less, if things 
 went passably well he would have made enough to 
 enable him to put his plan into execution, and in this 
 plan he saw no flaw. To Rose he gave but a passing 
 thought; no doubt she would be delighted, since he 
 would then be far removed from all that now so greatly 
 aroused her jealousy, and if she was not pleased well, 
 what did it matter, since Gaidik would certainly under- 
 stand and approve ? She had no idea of all he had gone 
 through, for his letters to her had always shown the 
 better side of things, and, when there was none whatso- 
 ever to show, he had not scrupled to be cheerfully men- 
 dacious ; but then he would at last make a clean breast of 
 the dingy, dismal past, and she, his darling sister, would 
 help him retrieve and forget it. And who knew but his 
 Conseil de Famille might then relent and grant him a 
 modest yearly sum to add to his resources, or perhaps 
 even restore his full revenues to him. 
 
 These thoughts passed through his brain in a soothing 
 glow of hopeful anticipation, and gently, very gently, he 
 bent and kissed Kikette's parted lips, lingering with his 
 head pressed close to hers on the soft pillow for a few 
 delicious minutes. Then, with infinite precaution, he 
 straightened himself, and, after one long, last, loving look, 
 noiselessly left the room by the open window, for he 
 could not afford to have all his good resolutions put to 
 flight by meeting Rose just then. 
 
 478 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 The moonlight glided from Kikette's window and crept 
 calmly on, bathing in its cool radiance first Loic's bed- 
 room, then the dining-room, where the brandy-bottle sat 
 like an ugly gnome on the centre-table, its gaudy, three- 
 starred label showing clearly against its deep golden 
 flanks, then slowly swept on to the vine-garlanded stoop, 
 where Rose, ever since she had heard the retreating, hur- 
 ried steps of Loic, was nervously pacing up and down. 
 Her whole being was trembling with anger and mad 
 jealousy, for she imagined that he had avoided her to 
 run to some gallant rendezvous, perhaps to join the giver 
 of that obnoxious flower now lying crushed on the kitchen 
 floor, and in her heart an unquenchable thirst for re- 
 venge grew and grew. 
 
 " Is your husband in ?" The voice was Bob Mildway's, 
 and it made her start with fear by its sudden hint of 
 opportunity. 
 
 She merely shook her head in eloquent denial, and 
 turned her swollen, tear-stained face full upon the as- 
 tonished "Squire." 
 
 "Is there anything amiss?" he asked, kindly, leaning 
 both arms familiarly upon the balustrade and removing 
 his cigar from his mouth. She made no reply, but al- 
 lowed her tears to flow again unrestrained she had a 
 talent that way which often stood her in good stead 
 and, meekly folding her hands around her wet handker- 
 chief, stood there in her plain gown and disordered hair, 
 the very picture of a broken-hearted, neglected, humble 
 wife. 
 
 "Tell me," the " Squire" persisted" I'm old enough to 
 be your father. Tell me, is it your husband who's been 
 making you cry?" The idea of Loic being brutal to a 
 woman seemed ludicrous even to him, but still her dis- 
 tress was so evident that he could not but rush to the 
 
 479 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 conclusion against his better sense that his model 
 stable-master must be at fault in this instance. 
 
 "No, no!" she sobbingly and weakly protested, " 'e 
 is ze best of 'usbands." (The " Squire " felt that she was 
 not speaking with conviction.) " 'E-e iz good when 
 when 'e iz not drinking," she moaned. "But zat brandy 
 oh! oh! oh! zat brandy makes him mad!" 
 
 Like all hard-drinking men, the good "Squire" had a 
 horror of drunkards, and never suffered his employes to 
 indulge in the use of strong waters. "Dangerous that, 
 for men who have to deal with unbroken horses," he 
 would say, with a sage wag of his melancholy nose. "I 
 always allow one day a month for a thorough good spree, 
 but no more!" To be sure, it had never occurred to him to 
 offer such a vent to his new "gentleman stable-master," 
 but as he listened to the "poor young wife's" appalling 
 revelations his brow clouded. Loic was in charge of his 
 whole establishment, and had practically limitless powers. 
 Could he, Bob Mildway, trust a man who lost in drink 
 his self-control to the point of maltreating a wretched 
 little woman no bigger than a riding-switch ? Of course, 
 he knew that Loic took a nip now and then ; indeed, they 
 had often taken a few glasses together in the "office," but 
 that he ever drank to excess was a surprise to him, and 
 not a pleasant one. 
 
 "I am concerned to hear this," he said, replacing his 
 cigar between his lips, and in his perturbation puffing a 
 cloud of smoke straight into her face. " I had no idea he 
 was that kind of a man, although we horsey people always 
 tipple a bit, of course, but he seemed a superior sort of 
 chap, and very popular with my lady patrons " Tact 
 was not included among the excellent "Squire's" nu- 
 merous qualities, and he did not even notice how Rose 
 winced at that ill-inspired outburst of praise. "A very 
 
 480 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 good rider, light hand, perfect judgment it's a pity, a 
 very great pity," he continued. "But do you really 
 mean to tell me that he ever gets what one might call 
 drunk? Cannot you stop him, Mrs. Kergoat? I am 
 sure you must have influence, a nice, wheedling little 
 thing like you!" 
 
 "Oh, Meester Mildway! If only I could stop 'im, but 
 I 'av not ze power, you see " And she hesitated and 
 looked piteously down at the wet handkerchief she was 
 kneading with restless fingers. "I am not clevare, not* 
 amusing, nor beautiful like zoze ozer weemen 'e admires ; 
 'e is tired of me long ago." And, glancing over at him 
 with brimming eyes, she added, under her breath: "Zey 
 also are too strong for me." 
 
 The "Squire's" already highly rubicund complexion 
 turned purple with indignation, and he uttered a tall 
 oath. "Women, too, eh ?" he exclaimed, with sanctimoni- 
 ous horror. "Those Frenchmen are all alike a wretched 
 lot where petticoats are concerned! Well, my poor child, 
 I'm awfully sorry for you; immorality is a thing I never 
 could understand; but cheer up, you mustn't take on 
 so; remember that you have your pretty little girl to 
 think of." And, without heeding the "Ah, yes, poor lit- 
 tle zing!" wrung from Rose by the mere mention of Loic's 
 over-petted and adored little daughter, he lifted his cap 
 a quarter of an inch above his head and strode away, in 
 a state of righteous wrath, along a flower-bordered path 
 where five minutes later he met Loic himself striding 
 home from his moonlight ramble, teeming with good re- 
 solves and happy plans, and humming softly, sotto voce : 
 
 "When all the world is old, lad, 
 And all the trees are brown, 
 And all the sport is stale, lad, 
 And all the wheels run down, 
 481 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Creep home, and take your place there, 
 
 The spent and maimed among; 
 God grant you find one face there 
 
 You loved when all was young!" 
 
 in no self -pitying spirit, but thinking of the one dear face 
 that he knew would welcome him as tenderly as ever. 
 
 "That you, Kergoat?" asked Bob, whose face was still 
 the color of old England's roast-beef. "Could you spare 
 me two minutes in the office? I'd like to speak to you 
 about the little bay mare. How was she to-day?" 
 
 "Went very well, Sir," Loic said, turning instantly to 
 accompany his chief to the yard, "a trifle tender on her 
 near fore when landing after a jump, but ' And here 
 followed a few minutes of "shop-talk" which brought 
 them to their destination, where they sat down on each 
 side of the office centre-table. 
 
 The " Squire," after turning up the gas, pushed a cigar- 
 box towards his stable-master and a silence ensued, which 
 Bob spent in rekindling his waning anger a rather ardu- 
 ous feat before the frank, honest, and eager expression of 
 his young employe's handsome face. That, a drunkard 
 and wife-beater? Impossible! But, still, he was a cursed 
 Aristocrat, a foreigner, and, urged on by his secret jeal- 
 ousy, Mildway was disposed to judge him harshly; so, 
 after making quite a business of lighting a cigar, splutter- 
 ing and puffing enormously over this simple process, he 
 said at last, with a pomposity that he mistook for ease: 
 
 "I've just had a little chat with your wife, Kergoat, 
 and, to be quite frank with you, I don't think that you 
 are treating her as you ought." 
 
 Here he stopped, for Loic was looking at him in a way 
 calculated to inspire caution in a far braver man. 
 
 "You may say it's no business of mine," he hurriedly 
 went on, energetically drawing courage from the singu- 
 
 482 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 larly refractory weed between his teeth; "but I'm a man 
 of experience, and, let me tell you, there was despair in 
 her face just now." 
 
 There was another silence, the dead silence that pre- 
 cedes a storm. Loic's eyes were fixed now on the floor, 
 and he was biting his under lip hard to prevent words 
 from escaping him which might cost him his place. 
 
 "Are you aware that that poor little woman is ter- 
 ribly unhappy?" continued the foolish man opposite 
 him, somewhat reassured by the lack of a response, and 
 puffing huge clouds of smoke towards the ceiling. 
 
 "Has she been invoking your protection?" Loic asked, 
 holding desperately onto the last shreds of a patience 
 which alone stood between him and utter ruin. 
 
 "No, certainly not; but you are in my employ, and I 
 feel in a measure responsible for the welfare of those 
 living on my estate," was the magnificent reply. 
 
 "Oh, pray don't let that weigh upon your mind; my 
 wife's welfare is in no way endangered, and, moreover, 
 I prefer to have sole control over my family affairs. 
 Outside of my duties in the stable, I think that you need 
 exercise no supervision over me." The retort was de- 
 livered in a tone which staggered the pompous "Bob," 
 for the courteous and deferential employe had suddenly 
 disappeared, to make room for a haughty Grand Sei- 
 gneur setting neatly back into his place a meddlesome 
 inferior. Too late Mildway saw the consequences of his 
 folly, too late he thought of the invaluable aid this young 
 man was to him, and, with a bitter pang, he seemed to 
 hear his own wife's reproaches when she discovered all 
 this. It was, therefore, in a vastly different manner that 
 he hastened to exclaim: 
 
 "You are wrong to take amiss what I've said, Ker- 
 goat. My intentions are of the best, and, personally, I 
 
 483 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 entertain a great esteem for you, but I found your wife 
 crying fit to break her heart, and I gathered from what 
 she told me well, to put it mildly, that you-^-well, 
 neglect and and are rough to her when 
 
 So thoroughly had he gotten himself entangled that 
 Loic, unable to endure much more, interrupted his stam- 
 merings with a peremptory: 
 
 "When what?" 
 
 "When you're drunk," blurted the floundering and 
 desperate "Squire." 
 
 "What the hell do you mean by that?" Loic said, 
 rising so abruptly that his chair fell over with a crash 
 upon the floor. Roused to a white heat, that young 
 Celt was not an agreeable antagonist, and his alarmed 
 chief recoiled with a scared look from the livid face and 
 blazing eyes confronting him, so convinced that this 
 was a raging, dangerous human animal, perfectly capable 
 not only of striking a woman but of committing any 
 other violent and criminal deed that a very little more 
 would have made him take to his heels. 
 
 For a couple of seconds they stared at each other; 
 then, with the characteristic squaring of his broad shoul- 
 ders, Loic reconquered himself perhaps the craven 
 terror in the "Squire's" eyes did the trick and said, 
 with surprising quietness: 
 
 "You will please accept my resignation. I leave here 
 to-morrow morning." And, turning on his heel, he passed 
 out of the "office," and, thanks to a woman's idiotic 
 treachery and a fool's gullibility, out of the life of the 
 man for whom he was in the way to earn a fortune. 
 
 " I leave here to-morrow morning." The words seemed 
 to deafen him as he crunched the gravel of a side-path 
 beneath his heels. Slowly, almost gropingly, he reached 
 a grassy bank beneath the one linden -tree he had ever 
 
 484 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 seen in America, sat wearily down, and began to wonder 
 idly and without much interest what he felt, but even 
 this just now was beyond him, and, save for the fact that 
 he was conscious of a slight qualm of nausea, he merely 
 realized that his brain, always so perfectly clear and 
 capable of receiving accurate impressions, was an utter 
 blank. There was a whisper of leaves faintly stirred by 
 the night breeze round him, and slender threads of broken 
 moon-rays flickered through the linden blossoms, the ex- 
 quisite fragrance of which carried him back dully and 
 but half -consciously to the great avenue at Kergoat, 
 where he and Gaidik used to gather huge basketfuls of 
 them for their mother's bath-sachets. 
 
 He sat perfectly quiet for a length of time which he 
 would have been totally unable to determine, watching 
 the countless brilliant little lights of the fire-flies as they 
 sprinkled up from the sward like the tiny bubbles in 
 soda-water, and he would perchance have remained much 
 longer in this curious numbed and almost trancelike 
 tranquillity had he not suddenly been partially roused 
 from it by the sound of Mrs. Mildway's voice coming 
 from somewhere behind the trees concealing him. He 
 had always remarked the harmonious depth of her tones, 
 and quite unconsciously, at first, he took pleasure in 
 listening to them. 
 
 "You cannot do that, Bob," she was saying. "You 
 cannot let him go. Run after him and apologize; you 
 were entirely in the wrong, and he is invaluable to us." 
 
 "I'll be damned if I do, Maria," came in answer the 
 surly growl of an angry man. "You are like the rest of 
 them, dead in love with his handsome face and grand 
 manners; but I'm sick of 'em both. You should have 
 seen him just now; why, there was murder in his eyes!" 
 
 Loic would have liked to rise and walk away, but he 
 
 485 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 found himself actually unable to make up his mind to the 
 effort it entailed, his muscles did not answer to the im- 
 pulse, and again he wondered apathetically why. His 
 cap was still in his hand, and he began to fan himself 
 mechanically with it, although the night air was de- 
 liciously cool and refreshing. After a few seconds he 
 stopped, and, pulling a long grass-blade from a tuft be- 
 side him, he gently bit it ; then, aware that he was doing 
 a childish thing, he let it drop on his lap and resumed 
 his idle staring at the fire-flies and at the threads of silver 
 light with which the hardly perceptible wind was spin- 
 ning so delicate and brilliant a web throughout the nest 
 of perfumed shadow made by the drooping branches of 
 the linden. 
 
 Again Mrs. Mildway was speaking: 
 
 "You are a fool, Bob. You have been jealous of him 
 all along, and now you are taking advantage of a stupid 
 quarrel to get rid of the only perfect assistant you ever 
 had. What does it matter to you how he treats his 
 wife, and how do you know that what she told you was 
 true ? She is a nasty little beast, if you want my candid 
 opinion, and I wonder how he can put up with her." 
 
 "There you are!" snarled the "Squire." "You, being 
 a woman, of course take his part and revile her. I can't 
 intrust my horses and my interests to a drunkard and a 
 profligate, anyway; that you must see, at any rate!" 
 
 "Pshaw! He does not drink a bit more than you do 
 yourself, and at least 'he' is a gentleman!" The voice 
 was no longer quite so harmonious ; there was a ring of 
 cold contempt in it, and the husband caught its sting. 
 
 " I'm surprised at you, Maria," he remonstrated. " It's 
 high time that he should be off, if that's your way of 
 thinking the damned, beggarly, out-at-elbows Aristo- 
 crat!" 
 
 486 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Loic, fully awake at last, jumped up, and, without car- 
 ing a jot whether he was heard or not, crashed through 
 the linden boughs and started at a rapid stride down 
 the road, aching from head to foot with the desire to 
 administer to his ex - chief the well - merited thrashing 
 from which his little wife's presence alone saved him; 
 and as he went he thought not of to-morrow and the 
 houselessness of to-morrow, but of the exquisite relief 
 it would have been to punch "Bob's" melancholy nose 
 out of all human semblance. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Dead calm! dead calm! nor a breeze that blows 
 
 And level the listless ocean-lawn, 
 Save a seldom ripple whence no one knows 
 
 That lappeth, and lo is gone! 
 The pale morn, fainting and all foredone, 
 Cowers at the feet of the coming sun, 
 And the blank day, fiery-fierce and bright, 
 Shudders at last into choking night. 
 Oh, sing of a sneering Thought, that saith 
 The balance droopeth from Life to Death! 
 And groan with the cordage dewed in balm 
 From the sweltering pine, 
 
 Dead calm! M. M. 
 
 "THIS will do very well," Loic said, quietly, pausing 
 on the threshold of the diminutive "apartment" he 
 had just visited. With a little nod and a suppressed 
 sigh, he turned towards the janitress a thin, middle- 
 aged Irishwoman, with a wisp of gray hair fastened on 
 the crown of her head and an expression of devouring 
 curiosity pervading her whole eager person and, taking 
 from his pocket an exquisite gold-mounted card-case 
 which made the worthy woman open her crafty little 
 eyes to their widest paid one month's rent in advance. 
 
 Twenty-one dollars this was astonishingly cheap for 
 New York, he thought, especially since the street was 
 broad and clean, the house one of a long row of green- 
 shuttered frame buildings overlooking the fresh and well- 
 kept lawns of a pretty cemetery, that formed a grate- 
 ful interval between the tall brick tenements and cheap, 
 
 488 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 dingy shops of the neighboring Avenue. Immediately 
 adjoining, a little Catholic church, covered with a thick 
 mantle of ampelopsis, which clothed it from high gabled 
 roof to granite basement in a constantly rustling armor 
 of overlapping pointed leaves, added to the rural aspect 
 of the place a priceless virtue in Loic's nature-loving 
 eyes. To be sure, the rooms there were two of them, 
 besides a kitchen no bigger than a pocket-handkerchief, 
 and a bath were neither very modern nor even very 
 convenient, but, as he casually remarked to himself, 
 "Beggars cannot be choosers" and he was very nearly 
 beggared now! Last of all, there was an unusually large, 
 neglected backyard, which he had stipulated could be 
 used as a run for Teuss. 
 
 "And the furniture, Sir?" the janitress said, tentative- 
 ly, breaking upon his meditations. 
 
 "Oh, that's all right!" he replied, hurriedly. "It will 
 be sent in to-morrow." And with four crisp twenty- 
 dollar bills all he possessed in the world still snugly 
 tucked away in that incongruous, gold -mounted case, 
 he took leave of the janitress and bent his steps towards 
 a furniture-shop, where, within the hour, he contracted 
 for just enough beds, chairs, tables, and other absolute 
 necessaries on the instalment plan to make immediate 
 occupation of the new quarters possible. 
 
 In the midst of the hurrying crowds he felt singularly 
 alone that afternoon; the passing faces, the roar of traffic, 
 the hustling and jostling around him, in no way disturbed 
 his thoughts, which, passing and repassing, crossing and 
 recrossing, went on upon their inexorable course wholly 
 unaffected by outward things: 
 
 "Quand jemiettais mon pain a 1'oiseau du rivage 
 L'onde semblait me dire Espere! aux mauvais jours. 
 Dieu te rendra ton pain! Dieu me le doit ton jours!" 
 
 32 489 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 These lines of the friendless and starving Moreau re- 
 curred to him with fatiguing persistency. He, too, had 
 in days gone by cast his bread upon many waters, giving 
 to all who demanded to many who did not with royal 
 generosity, but he still remained unpaid, unrewarded, 
 and he smiled his cynical little smile as he pondered on 
 his own present needs. 
 
 His lesson was wellnigh learned by now. He was re- 
 alizing, at last, how criminally he had thrown away his 
 life, neglected his unique opportunities, and sacrificed 
 all that was worth having all save Kikette. It was 
 almost too late now to reconquer and redeem the past, 
 and his course of duty was marked before him with 
 grim distinctness. Therefore he contemptuously set aside 
 every bitter thought as marking an unmanly tendency 
 to complain of the natural results of his own actions, 
 and devoted himself to keeping alive within his heart a 
 tiny flame of hope intermittently pulsating, now dim, 
 now bright, according to the moment, the centre of which 
 was Gaidik. Gaidik's courage, her fixity of purpose, her 
 unyielding tenacity, her love for and pride in him, were 
 the ideas upon which he bent his mind, to the end that 
 the long lane perchance might have a turning. 
 
 Kikette and Rose, once installed in the small rooms 
 overlooking the pretty, parklike cemetery, he set forth 
 anew in search of employment. It was weary, weary 
 work, this going from door to door, dressed in immacu- 
 lately brushed clothes, which were beginning to show 
 slight, but to him exasperating, signs of wear; this an- 
 swering advertisements almost invariably worthless; this 
 constant humbling of his pride to low, horsey people, 
 whom in days gone by he would not have deemed worthy 
 of a position in his own stables, but who to-day looked 
 hin>up and down as though he were some mere ques- 
 
 49 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 tionable piece of merchandise. A few weeks of it brought 
 Loic wellnigh to the limits of both courage and endur- 
 ance. To come home every night completely fagged, 
 to rise each morning with exceptional energies rearoused 
 to their keenest for another day of profitless tramping 
 and insufficient food eked out as before by spirits 
 ends by wearing both body and mind, and, although this 
 obstinate fighter's face was as unemotional and as hand- 
 some as ever, it speedily lost all its brightness, the eyes 
 became deeply sunken, and dark streaks showed beneath 
 them. 
 
 Rage at his helplessness often came nigh to choking him 
 after these long, dreary, disappointing quests, and his 
 returns to his dingy, barely furnished, ill-kept home 
 and his meagre supper served in a slip -shod fashion 
 by a soured, imbittered woman on the oil-clothed cor- 
 ner of a kitchen table were liable to be somewhat 
 stormy. 
 
 He had never forgiven Rose the teachery which had 
 caused him to resign his place as "Squire Bob's" stable- 
 master, nor was it likely that he would ever do so, for to 
 him there was something peculiarly ignoble in that short- 
 sighted and characteristically stupid bit of revenge, and, 
 although he never alluded now to the matter, she could 
 not think, without trembling all over, of the scene which 
 had taken place between them on that eventful night. 
 For the first time she had then seen to what height the 
 Kergoat temper could really rise, and a coldness that 
 increased with time had stood between them ever since. 
 She cringed and lied and prevaricated continually now, 
 and he despised her not only for this, but for the lack of 
 honest impulse which had prevented her from even ask- 
 ing his pardon and from relying upon the forbearance 
 and generosity which hitherto had never once failed her. 
 
 491 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 From the very beginning she had done little else than 
 shatter his illusions one after the other at first, perhaps 
 carelessly and because it lay in her nature to do so, but 
 for a long time past deliberately and she was now reap- 
 ing the fruits of her sowing. Gaidik and Kikette Loic's 
 two only remaining treasures were the objects of her 
 peculiar jealousy. In her lax way she certainly loved 
 her little daughter, yet that ever-increasing resemblance 
 to Loic's detested sister made her act, at times, towards 
 the child with extreme harshness and injustice this, of 
 course, happening only when Loic was out of the way. 
 
 He, poor fellow, still wrote letters full of hope and 
 cheery anticipation to Gaidik, but these documents, 
 never conspicuously coherent, were beginning to arouse 
 in their recipient fears that Fate was not really dealing 
 as leniently with her Fr6rot as she prayed daily that it 
 might; and, although she never for a moment suspected 
 the fearful odds besetting him on all sides, yet she fell 
 into the habit of sending "to Kikette" as she delicately 
 put it substantial checks, which, had she but known 
 it, alone saved the little family on more than one occasion 
 from utter destitution. With such a pitiful housekeeper 
 as Rose, however, debts grew daily in bulk. The poor 
 little rent became overdue, the tradespeople who fur- 
 nished the scanty daily provender clamored for their 
 humiliatingly infinitesimal bills, and Loic, almost des- 
 perate, took yet another step downward and resolved 
 to apply for a place as driver in a livery-stable. 
 
 One day, therefore, having carefully perused the ad- 
 vertisement columns of the newspapers, he set forth* 
 heavy indeed at heart, to offer his services in that capac- 
 ty to the owner of a prosperous Brooklyn establishment. 
 It was a glorious autumn day, mellow and golden, and 
 the touch of the sea-breeze on his face brought back the 
 
 492 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 memory of the long, idle, happy hours spent with Gaidik 
 on the green Atlantic waves, gliding from island to island, 
 from rock-girt cove to rock-girt cove, in their yacht, as 
 free and careless and whimsical as the sea-birds flocking 
 about them, and he winced. The glory of the western 
 sun lay ruddily over the river as he walked along the 
 Brooklyn Bridge, and for a few moments he stopped, like 
 one willing to seize upon a momentary distraction from 
 painful thoughts, to gaze at the broad, placid stream, 
 churned by the propellers of innumerable steam-craft, 
 and widening southward between the two huge wilder- 
 nesses of dreary brick to the beautiful blue bay and 
 charming vista of green hills beyond. 
 
 Turning abruptly away, he hurried on, and presently 
 reached a red brick building which formed the corner of 
 a busy thoroughfare and a little, quiet street running 
 northward from it, and, holding his resolution between 
 his teeth as one might say entered a neat little office, 
 where sat enthroned an eminently Hibernian-looking per- 
 sonage busily engaged in rolling a pencil to the top of 
 his blotting-pad and catching it with mathematical pre- 
 cision over and over again as it came down. Beside 
 him, and indulgently watching this harmless recreation, 
 lounged a tall, raw-boned man with straight, square 
 shoulders, chewing an unlighted cigar. He was clean- 
 shaven, and there was that about his sleek head and 
 somewhat harsh face which seemed to bespeak a sort of 
 smooth and compact self-complacency. 
 
 "I am here to answer your advertisement," Loic said, 
 in his ordinary, quiet way, although he felt intensely 
 ashamed of himself. 
 
 The livery-stable owner nodded hesitating!^, an ex- 
 pression of extreme astonishment shining in his blue, 
 Irish eyes, and, catching his down-rolling pencil, quite 
 
 493 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 haphazard this time, and with an inattentive hand, he 
 threw it on the desk. 
 
 "You want a place as driver here?" the other man 
 interposed, abruptly, casting a sharp, shrewd look at this 
 strange postulant, his perfectly cut, slightly worn attire, 
 handsome person, and strikingly aristocratic bearing. 
 
 Loic turned and looked at him in displeased sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "Yes," he said, stiffly. 
 
 "So! What's the matter with you? Damned hard 
 up, eh?" Then, noticing the angry light kindling in 
 Loic's eyes, he hastily added, with a smile that entirely 
 transformed his face, "Now don't be huffy, it isn't curi- 
 osity that made me ask that; I wouldn't mind betting 
 you're the very man I want to help me in a little venture 
 of my own the very chap I've been looking for!" 
 
 Loic seemed in no great degree impressed by these 
 flattering observations upon himself, and the hard look 
 still lingered in his eyes. 
 
 "Suppose we bid our friend here good-bye, and you 
 come along and have a bit of a drink with me," the 
 energetic gentleman continued, decisively. "You're not 
 the sort to sit on the box of a hired landau," he concluded, 
 fervently, with a boisterous laugh, looking the young 
 man up and down as he stood with one hand resting on 
 the edge of the desk. And he, returning the look, could 
 not repress a smile. 
 
 Knocked flat a score of times, Loic was only waiting 
 for his chance to pick himself up again and go straight 
 on, hands down and heels ready to spur on success. He 
 could certainly not afford to disdain any offer, and, al- 
 though not by any means enchanted with this would-be 
 patron's tone, he yet made up his mind with lightning- 
 like rapidity to give him at least the benefit of the doubt 
 
 494 . 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and to investigate the nature of the above-named ' ' little 
 venture." 
 
 William Larsen, the self-complacent, or rather 
 "Stumpy," as he was called by his intimates pre- 
 sumably because he was tall and thin and by no man- 
 ner of means what this sobriquet implied became 
 after half an hour's conversation with Loic filled with 
 delight at the possibilities presented to his mental vision 
 by the prospect of an association with such a man, and 
 as time went on his good opinion of his own discern- 
 ment, which was not small, certainly found no cause for 
 drooping. He was a merry fellow, was "Stumpy," a 
 man ever fond of his joke, and at first glance the living 
 semblance of bluff open-heartedness. Nobody could ac- 
 cuse him of being reserved, and, therefore, he was never 
 suspected of being extremely secretive two qualities 
 widely different, though identical to the popular mind. 
 
 As for his nationality, he proclaimed on all occasions 
 that he was American to the backbone, though his name 
 of Larsen plainly indicated the Swede. When reminded 
 of this he was wont to answer that a Swede he had only 
 been very long ago before he was born and that this 
 was not his fault, but his misfortune! Of a truth, 
 "Stumpy" was really a very slippery customer, ever on 
 the alert to get the better of all those with whom he came 
 in contact, and so clever and subtle, in spite of his con- 
 stant boisterousness of manner, that many, even of the 
 shrewdest, fell into his well -laid traps. 
 
 With Loic he proceeded even more guardedly and 
 cleverly than was his wont, explaining to him, with 
 much finish of detail, that having set aside a cosey little 
 sum of money from other successful ventures of a 
 nature unstated he had determined to open a "Ladies' 
 Riding Academy" in Brooklyn. For quite a while he 
 
 495 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 had had his eye upon a convenient, if rather dilapidated, 
 building, which when whitewashed and trimmed up a 
 bit would look "as smart as they make 'em" this be- 
 ing one of his favorite expressions. What had until now 
 delayed him was the impossibility of finding a partner 
 who'd be a "real sport" and yet an honest man a 
 "gentleman" after his own heart and when Loic vent- 
 ured to interrupt him in order to point out that the 
 first requisite of partnership namely, money was what 
 he lacked most, friend "Stumpy" worked himself into a 
 violent fit of indignation, declaring that there are assets 
 far more valuable than mere bullion, and that did Loic 
 possess millions, he, William Larsen, would not suffer 
 him to risk one single cent of those hoards in this enter- 
 prise. The shrewd Swede acutely realized that this 
 handsome young Aristocrat would be for him the best of 
 drawing-cards; and, after seeing him once on horseback, 
 his enthusiasm attained such heights of compliment that 
 Loic, greatly annoyed, felt like chucking the whole thing 
 and again trying his luck at some livery-stable. 
 
 However, the thought of his little Kikette and of all 
 he could' do for her should he be put in a position to earn 
 something more than daily wages stopped him, and, 
 with his old energy once more awakened, he threw him- 
 self body and soul into his new duties. He became at 
 one and the same time " Stumpy V buyer, trainer, rid- 
 ing-master, and general manager, and, thanks to his un- 
 tiring efforts, two months had not elapsed before that 
 worthy personage's "Ladies' Riding Academy" looked as 
 well established and as prosperous as if it had been a 
 paying concern for twenty years. 
 
 How could Loic have dreamed that the whole thing 
 was a mere plant, that Larsen, ever on the lookout for 
 swift and unscrupulous returns, was eager only to show 
 
 496 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 some well-to-do "sports" of his acquaintance an appar- 
 ently brilliant opportunity for investment, and that 
 when this ambitious goal was reached he would but 
 this is anticipating. 
 
 In the mean time, Loic worked and hoped and grew 
 once more cheerful, while "Stumpy" beat the big drum 
 about his wide-open doors, and, by way of neglecting no 
 detail, even the most unimportant, made great friends 
 with Rose, whom he treated as a dear and honored rela- 
 tive, and even ingratiated himself with Kikette, in- 
 variably calling her "My Lady," and addressing her with 
 a respect he did not even display towards his most gul- 
 lible patrons. 
 
 "Mouse," Loic said, one morning, to her, "we've got 
 a little pony at the 'shop' this being his diminutive for 
 "Stumpy's" magnificent riding academy "a little 
 pony that you could ride. Put on your hat and come 
 along; while I'm working the 'young unV in the ring, 
 you can amuse yourself with it. Mamma '11 fetch you at 
 mid-day." And thus, an hour later, Kikette and a 
 small golden chestnut horse the identical color of her 
 own exquisite hair possessed of a natty, clean-cut head 
 and great, soft, intelligent eyes, were regarding each 
 other with great interest. 
 
 "Well, well, My Lady!" quoth the enthusiastic 
 "Stumpy," "now don't you two seem made for each 
 other? Anybody 'd take a fancy to this 'ere little hawse 
 that 'd see him under you. Tell you what, come and 
 ride 'im every day, and we'll give you a commission 
 on the sale. Consider that, My Lady just consider 
 that!" 
 
 "That's a very good idea," Kikette answered, gravely, 
 watching with approving eyes the careful way in which 
 her papa's "partner" was settling the pony's bridle. " I'd 
 
 497 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 like to help Papa," she added, in her cool, patrician little 
 voice. 
 
 "Stumpy" glanced up at the strange child, and then 
 suddenly bawled out to Loic, who, in the centre of the 
 ring, was rebridling his own horse to his liking: "I say, 
 Kergoat, why don't you take My Lady 'riding on Tom 
 Thumb in Prospect Park? They make a picture, I tell 
 you, and she'd sell 'im for us like hot cakes." 
 
 Loic turned, flushing angrily, for the idea of enlisting 
 Kikette in " Stumpy V venture did not in the least appeal 
 to him, and he was on the point of bidding his enter- 
 prising partner go to the devil, when Kikette herself took 
 the law into her own hands, and so effectively did 
 she coax and implore that she gained her point, and 
 father and daughter were soon galloping side by side over 
 the tan-bark of a shady bridle-path, checkered with the 
 brilliant sunbeams of that peerless Indian-summer morn- 
 ing. 
 
 To say that Kikette and her little "hawse" attracted 
 attention would be to use quite the wrong expression, 
 for the early promenaders whom they encountered 
 actually stopped short to gaze as long as possible after 
 the dainty little Amazon and her handsome escort. In- 
 deed, Loic felt so proud of his little maid that he began 
 to take a more lenient view of "Stumpy's" new idea. 
 Why shouldn't Kikette ride daily with him in the park, 
 after all? Poor child, she had so few pleasures! And 
 watching her dancing eyes and the delicate color rising 
 to her cheeks, he indulged in a dream of many such joy- 
 ful outings in the near future. She was already such 
 good company, too, quick and observant, and always 
 with something to say for herself, that he spent that 
 morning the most charming two hours he could remem- 
 ber for a long time. "As long as I have her," he mused, 
 
 498 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 unable to detach his eyes from the pretty, little, dauntless 
 figure cantering bravely beside him, "how can I complain 
 of anything?" 
 
 When they finally reached the "Academy," they found 
 Rose awaiting them, apparently without too much im- 
 patience, for she was engaged in what seemed to be a 
 most interesting conversation with "Stumpy" in fact, 
 so absorbed was she that it was only when they were 
 almost upon her that she saw Loic and Kikette, and then, 
 her face resuming its usual sullen expression, she hur- 
 ried the child away with a sharp, aggressive air which 
 surprised Loic not a little. 
 
 That evening he came home unusually late. He was 
 to leave next morning for a forty-eight hours' trip to 
 Boston, where his energetic "boss" had begged him to 
 go and attend a horse-sale; and the thought of even so 
 short a separation from Kikette, together with a vague 
 but enervating feeling of dissatisfaction he could not 
 have reasonably accounted for, made him take it rather 
 amiss that his supper should not be ready, the rooms 
 untidier and more inhospitable than usual, and his little 
 pet already sent to bed. 
 
 "That's right," Rose said, peevishly, "scold me now 
 after I've been washing all your white stocks and mend- 
 ing your riding-breeches till my eyes ached. You're never 
 satisfied." 
 
 "Oh, look here, don't make me a scene, Rose," he 
 said, wearily. "I'm dog-tired, and in no mood to put 
 up with it. If there's nothing to eat in the house, there's 
 no earthly use in making a fuss; I'll just step round to 
 the avenue and get a bite somewhere." 
 
 "In order to rejoin your usual companions!" she 
 snarled, lighting the gas and violently flying to and fro, 
 her face pale with rage. "Do you think I don't know 
 
 499 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 like to help Papa," she added, in her cool, patrician little 
 voice. 
 
 "Stumpy" glanced up at the strange child, and then 
 suddenly bawled out to Loic, who, in the centre of the 
 ring, was rebridling his own horse to his liking: "I say, 
 Kergoat, why don't you take My Lady riding on Tom 
 Thumb in Prospect Park? They make a picture, I tell 
 you, and she'd sell 'im for us like hot cakes." 
 
 Loic turned, flushing angrily, for the idea of enlisting 
 Kikette in " Stumpy 's " venture did not in the least appeal 
 to him, and he was on the point of bidding his enter- 
 prising partner go to the devil, when Kikette herself took 
 the law into her own hands, and so effectively did 
 she coax and implore that she gained her point, and 
 father and daughter were soon galloping side by side over 
 the tan-bark of a shady bridle-path, checkered with the 
 brilliant sunbeams of that peerless Indian-summer morn- 
 ing. 
 
 To say that Kikette and her little "hawse" attracted 
 attention would be to use quite the wrong expression, 
 for the early promenaders whom they encountered 
 actually stopped short to gaze as long as possible after 
 the dainty little Amazon and her handsome escort. In- 
 deed, Loic felt so proud of his little maid that he began 
 to take a more lenient view of "Stumpy's" new idea. 
 Why shouldn't Kikette ride daily with him in the park, 
 after all? Poor child, she had so few pleasures! And 
 watching her dancing eyes and the delicate color rising 
 to her cheeks, he indulged in a dream of many such joy- 
 ful outings in the near future. She was already such 
 good company, too, quick and observant, and always 
 with something to say for herself, that he spent that 
 morning the most charming two hours he could remem- 
 ber for a long time. "As long as I have her," he mused, 
 
 49 8 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 unable to detach his eyes from the pretty, little, dauntless 
 figure cantering bravely beside him, "how can I complain 
 of anything?" 
 
 When they finally reached the "Academy," they found 
 Rose awaiting them, apparently without too much im- 
 patience, for she was engaged in what seemed to be a 
 most interesting conversation with "Stumpy" in fact, 
 so absorbed was she that it was only when they were 
 almost upon her that she saw Loic and Kikette, and then, 
 her face resuming its usual sullen expression, she hur- 
 ried the child away with a sharp, aggressive air which 
 surprised Loic not a little. 
 
 That evening he came home unusually late. He was 
 to leave next morning for a forty-eight hours' trip to 
 Boston, where his energetic "boss" had begged him to 
 go and attend a horse-sale; and the thought of even so 
 short a separation from Kikette, together with a vague 
 but enervating feeling of dissatisfaction he could not 
 have reasonably accounted for, made him take it rather 
 amiss that his supper should not be ready, the rooms 
 untidier and more inhospitable than usual, and his little 
 pet already sent to bed. 
 
 "That's right," Rose said, peevishly, "scold me now 
 after I've been washing all your white stocks and mend- 
 ing your riding-breeches till my eyes ached. You're never 
 satisfied." 
 
 "Oh, look here, don't make me a scene, Rose," he 
 said, wearily. "I'm dog-tired, and in no mood to put 
 up with it. If there's nothing to eat in the house, there's 
 no earthly use in making a fuss; I'll just step round to 
 the avenue and get a bite somewhere." 
 
 "In order to rejoin your usual companions!" she 
 snarled, lighting the gas and violently flying to and fro, 
 her face pale with rage. "Do you think I don't know 
 
 499 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 where and how you spend every minute of your spare 
 time?" 
 
 Loic shrugged his shoulders, heroically bridling his tem- 
 per. Two or three times of late he had returned to an 
 empty board, but an altercation with Rose was too 
 humiliating not to be avoided, if possible. Otherwise 
 the obvious retort would have been that she had evidently 
 been again chattering with the janitress, as she had lately 
 fallen into the habit of doing for hours together, since the 
 duties of their tiny establishment were certainly not 
 onerous, especially considering the way she took them! 
 But she, at once enraged by his refusal to reply, and 
 elated at the apparent success of her attempt to carry 
 the war into the enemy's country, cast all prudence to 
 the winds, and in the course of her ensuing reckless 
 harangue dashed a bowlful of soapy water so furiously 
 into the sink that the rebounding suds struck him full 
 in the face. 
 
 "Damnation!" he exclaimed, pulling out his pocket- 
 handkerchief to wipe his eyes. " Be a little more careful, will 
 you ?" But she was now past caring what happened next, 
 and, rounding upon him with dilated nostrils, she cried: 
 
 " What scent is that on your handkerchief ? You don't 
 have anything like that here! But why should I ask? 
 Of course, it's clear enough where you get such pestilential 
 perfumes from!" 
 
 Loic, now far too greatly aroused to stand any more 
 nonsense, took a step towards her, and as she bent for- 
 ward to snatch the bit of cambric from him, as she once 
 had done with the yellow rose-bud the innocent cause 
 of his disaster at "Squire Bob's" departing suddenly 
 from the astonishing courtesy he usually displayed tow- 
 ards her, he nicked her across the nose with it, saying, 
 with a little sneer: 
 
 500 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "How d' you like it? Is it to your taste?" 
 
 With a cry of fury she attempted to pass him and 
 reach the closed door of the little room where Kikette 
 lay asleep, but, divining her intention of avoiding the 
 anger she had kindled by sheltering herself behind the 
 child a trick she had already played on two or three 
 occasions he caught her by both arms, and, sitting her 
 down on a chair, said, sternly, his jaw set, his face white 
 to the lips: 
 
 "None of that, my girl! You and I have got to come 
 to an understanding, and that at once. I've stood all 
 I intend to stand from you, and if you don't change your 
 paces pretty soon I'll take Kikette away from you and 
 go and live with her somewhere else. This is no longer 
 a fit place for her." 
 
 Although trembling now with terror, Rose, thoroughly 
 exasperated by the jokes " Stumpy" had indulged in that 
 morning relative to Loic's successes with his lady pupils 
 jokes which to do him justice had not been meant 
 evilly, but purely from a mere wish to tease her a bit 
 did not as usual collapse, but, eying him with astounding 
 pertinacity, muttered something about being left, no 
 doubt, to starve in solitude. 
 
 "Rubbish!" Loic said, contemptuously. "You know 
 very well that I'll never be either unjust or cruel to you, 
 but as to allowing you to warp Kikette's mind with your 
 eternal suspicions, which you do not even take the trouble 
 to conceal from her or any one else no! You are getting 
 worse and worse, and life isn't possible under such con- 
 ditions." Then, rising angrily, he strode towards the 
 door, and, banging it after him, left her to thoughts which 
 were an almost equal mixture of rage, fear, and dismay. 
 
 At five the next morning he was gone, and she spent 
 his short absence in loudly lamenting her unhappy fate 
 
 501 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 rising vigorously in his mind. "Stumpy" was a g( 
 chap, after all, he said to himself, erratic and rather too 
 original, perhaps, but still it was splendid of him to have 
 picked up a penniless, broken-down chap like him, Loic, 
 made him his partner, and intrusted him with his most 
 valuable interests. At the thought, his chivalrous nature 
 urged him to do all that lay in his power whatever the 
 trouble, fatigue, or self-sacrifice to further to the utter- 
 most these sacred concerns. 
 
 On arriving in Boston, he found, much to his surprise, 
 that the sale which he had come to attend would not take 
 place till the next day but one, and, having put up at the 
 hotel recommended by "Stumpy," he immediately sat 
 down to write that worthy "sportsman" a letter ac- 
 quainting him with this contretemps; then, as his purse 
 was as short as his time was long, he went for a pro- 
 tracted ramble into the country, and, after a frugal din- 
 ner, to bed. 
 
 Late on the next afternoon, returning to his hotel from 
 another interminable and wearisome fldnerie, he was 
 handed a registered envelope addressed in " Stumpy 's" 
 sprawling caligraphy, and, turning into the ca}6, sat 
 down to read it. 
 
 It ran thus: 
 
 "DEAR OLD CHAP, I'm afraid that when you read this you'll 
 feel like killing yours truly. Fortunately my poor bones will 
 be out of reach of your iron fists! Dorit be too hard on me, how- 
 ever, even in your thoughts, although I'm a scapegrace, and the 
 trick I'm playing you deserves worse than a thrashing, but at 
 last I have my opportunity of clearing a respectable number of 
 thousands cheaply, and I'd be a fool not to take it. You're a 
 simple one and won't understand, but take my advice, don't go 
 back to the 'Academy'; you're supposed to be my partner, and 
 my howling creditors might try and make you responsible; but 
 no, see here, you can show them this letter if you like, I don't 
 care a damn, for I'm off with the boodle to parts where they won't 
 
 54 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 easily find me! I've sold eveything that was salable at a loss, 
 but what of that, it couldn't be helped and if you take my ad- 
 vice you'll skip over to Jersey and let the storm blow over. I'm 
 sorry, I assure you, and if I'd thought that you'd have consented, 
 I'd willingly have gone shares with you, for you're the finest man 
 I've ever known, which is just why I thought better of making 
 vou the offer. I enclose a yellow-back to meet your hotel ex- 
 penses. I wLsh I dared to send more! 
 
 "Forgive me, old man, I wish I was sure 'My Lady' and you 
 won't suffer. Rose is a bad egg and not worthy to black your 
 boots. 
 
 "Well, I am off ; very much ashamed of myself as far as you're 
 concerned, but only so far. STUMPY." 
 
 The waiter, bearing down at last upon Loic through the 
 crowded room, an engaging smile upon his bland, sallow 
 face, recoiled into a neighboring table, after one glance 
 at this singular customer, who, with dilated eyes, was 
 gazing at a letter trembling in his hands, and before the 
 knight of the apron could recover himself, Loic had risen, 
 and, striding past him, had walked out of the cafe. 
 
 It would be quite useless to dwell upon the days that 
 followed. All the hard years of training to misfortune, 
 all the sad experience gained by contending with the 
 inextricable meshes of the terrible net that had been 
 gathering its folds round him since he had left Yffiniac 
 with Rose, were powerless to lighten or to mitigate the 
 rage and consternation which filled " Stumpy V principal 
 victim, and make this supreme blow less felling. With 
 characteristic straightforwardness he hurried back to New 
 York as fast as steam could carry him, and from thence 
 to Brooklyn, where he quietly faced the exasperated mob 
 left behind by the defaulter. 
 
 Standing up like a man to the most humiliating, the 
 
 cruellest and hardest situation he had ever confronted, 
 
 he gave a full and minute account of his relations with 
 
 William Larsen. The narrative was clear, and not only 
 
 33 505 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 exceedingly coherent, but admirably adapted to the tem- 
 pers of his audience, although the speaker himself felt 
 that an even greater force and picturesqueness of phrase 
 would have failed to do justice to his erstwhile chief. 
 
 Fortunately his innocence was so patent, his confi- 
 dent fearlessness so impressive, that a very short time 
 sufficed to clear him completely. Nor did the occasion 
 lack its little touch of humor, for one of the stablemen 
 who had served under his orders they were all fulsome 
 in their praise of him, and unrestrained in their denuncia- 
 tions of the estimable Larsen eulogized poor Loic to 
 some of the assembled creditors in a speech that in spite 
 of the circumstances capsized everybody's gravity: 
 
 "There isn't a dacenter gentleman than 'im in this 
 blissed land," quoth the outspoken son of Erin, "with no 
 more pride about him than an ass, and honist as our pig, 
 who wouldn't take a bite he wasn't willin' to return twice 
 over." 
 
 This unsophisticated statement put the finishing 
 touch to a general sentiment in his favor, so that it 
 was actually amid murmurs of commiseration and in- 
 voluntary but none the less very deep respect, that the 
 door of "Stumpy's" riding-school gateway, alas, to 
 the land of phantom hopes closed behind Loic for the 
 last time! 
 
 He went home that night, realizing for the second time 
 in his life the incapacity to think. He felt crushed; 
 there was an intense pressure on his brain and an in- 
 tolerable weight at his heart. He had eaten nothing 
 all day, and scarcely anything since Larsen 's letter had 
 reached him, and dreading to encounter Rose's recrimina- 
 tions while in that depressed and almost irresponsible 
 condition, he turned into a bar-room before entering his 
 peaceful little street, and swallowed a couple of stiff 
 
 506 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 drinks. The raw spirits acted promptly and powerfully 
 upon his empty stomach and cleared his brain for thought, 
 but did not, as he had hoped, induce a more philosophical 
 view of the situation. What was he to do now, he pon- 
 dered, as he wearily bent his steps towards his unattrac- 
 tive home. Make a clean breast of the whole matter to 
 Gaidik and ask for her help? No! At least not yet! 
 That she would eagerly respond he did not doubt for a 
 moment, but he could not bring himself to confess to 
 the only person whose opinion he valued what a total 
 and wretched failure he had proved himself to be. There 
 was yet work which he could do, and would at once apply 
 for. One place he knew of where he could earn two 
 dollars a day washing carriages, and two dollars a day 
 would prevent Rose and Kikette from starving. He felt 
 that he would sooner sweep the mud from the streets than 
 surrender now, and, with teeth set and head held high, 
 he ascended the dark staircase. 
 
 Rose had her chance then! Had she met him with ten- 
 der sympathy, with a real comprehension of the distress 
 and humiliation which this man was suffering so keenly, 
 thanks to her alone, the day was won but was it likely 
 that she would do this ? As a matter of fact, she did not, 
 and received him, indeed, with so sour and bitter a mien, 
 and his story with such a shrewish and angry storminess, 
 that his whole being revolted. So this woman, with un- 
 kempt hair, with doubtful linen beneath a frowsy wrapper, 
 and sullen, repellent face, was what he had sacrificed 
 everything for even Gaidik ! He gazed at her blank- 
 ly for a few seconds, and then suddenly his power of en- 
 durance gave way, and like a torrent forcing its path 
 at last through the stoutest restraints, all that had lain 
 dormant within him for so many years broke from his 
 lips. He began at first with that semi-bantering light- 
 so; 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ness of manner, which was his when seriously touched, 
 and which had puzzled and bewildered far cleverer 
 people than Rose. He and she belonged to two stations 
 in life as far apart as two stations could be, and they had 
 never been "friends" in any sense of the word; for a long 
 time they had been mere chain-companions, intensely 
 alive as such companions invariably are to each 
 other's shortcomings, and as the rancor of the past rose 
 in waves about him to meet the exceeding misery of the 
 present, Loic's words borrowed from this dark con- 
 junction accents which were no longer those of banter, 
 and which made Rose shudder where she sat hunched 
 up on the edge of a chair, looking at him furtively between 
 down-cast lids. Never had he thus spoken, and noticing 
 the slight odor of whiskey lingering about him, from those 
 two unfortunate drinks, she decided that for her subse- 
 quent purposes he was drunk dangerously drunk ! That 
 which surprised and terrified her most, however, was that 
 he spoke slowly, almost softly, as he advanced with his 
 awful requisitoire an act of accusation directed, for 
 the matter of that, as much against himself as against 
 her the Kergoat temper had momentarily vanished, 
 leaving behind it something which filled her with a far 
 greater dread. 
 
 "And this," he concluded at last, "is what we have 
 done, you and I!" Then suddenly he laughed. 
 
 "Oh, don't!" she gasped. 
 
 "Don't what?" he asked, sitting quite still, his sunken 
 eyes fixed steadily upon her. 
 
 "Laugh!" she said, through her white lips. 
 
 "You may thank God," he said, in the same monoto- 
 nous, utterly unemotional voice, "that I am what I am. 
 Another man under similar circumstances might act dif- 
 ferently. If I were not what I am, your future would 
 
 508 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 be different; but you will perhaps know some day what 
 you have neglected what you have lost!" 
 
 " Oh-h!" she cried, as if he had hit her. " Oh-h, I hate 
 you you you beastly Aristocrat!" 
 
 He merely nodded his head, and, turning away, walked 
 quietly into the only corner of the little " apartment " 
 which he could call his own, a mere closet, where trunks 
 and boxes were piled up, but where, near the only window, 
 stood a little table with his writing materials and Gaidik's 
 portrait leaning against a vigorous plant of Marguerites 
 he had lovingly tended for months. In a corner stood a 
 rickety cane lounge, and on that after carefully locking 
 the door he flung himself at full length face downward, 
 sobbing like a child. 
 
 In later days Loic de Kergoat could bring back to his 
 memory no distinct recollection of how that night had 
 passed. There was an indefinite remembrance of the 
 steady, fatiguing rattle of the cable-cars on the neigh- 
 boring avenue, and the raucous howls of some belated 
 drunkards making the balmy autumn air hideous with 
 their obscene songs somewhere in the distance, mingled 
 with his blunted thoughts, as he finally glided away from 
 the agony that shook him into the sleep of utter ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 A little square patch of sunlight surrounded Gaidik's 
 picture as he at last awoke, unrefreshed and aching all over, 
 and for a long time he lay with eyes half closed looking 
 at it. The usual healthy brown of his face had faded to 
 an ashy tinge, and his hands were clinched at his sides. 
 It seemed as if he were listening to some far-off sound in 
 a total rigor of attention, and not one of his features 
 moved. Presently, however, full consciousness began to 
 return to his veiled eyes, and he slowly sat up with an 
 expression of surprise. He could not quite understand 
 
 509 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 as yet what had happened, why he was lying there fully 
 dressed, and especially why he did not as usual hear 
 Kikette's merry laughter and gayly trotting little feet 
 resounding on the carpetless floors. The faint surprise 
 reflected on his haggard face deepened after a moment 
 into anxiety, and, rising, he shook himself, and unlocking 
 the door passed into the sunlit little kitchen, hoping to 
 find the child there at her breakfast, as he always did 
 when by chance he overslept himself ; but it was empty, 
 as were the neighboring bedrooms and bath. Never be- 
 fore had Rose taken Kikette out, when he himself was 
 at home, without his permission, and a sudden pang of 
 real fear made Loic glance at his darling's small, cur- 
 tained bed. Could it be possible that she was sick, and 
 that the mother had gone for assistance, neglecting to 
 call him in her resentment for last night. With trem- 
 bling, hesitating fingers he pulled back the muslin dra- 
 peries and bent over the white pillow. No, thank God! 
 Kikette was not there; but what was that fastened by a 
 long hat-pin, where his little maid's sunny head usually 
 rested ? a closely written paper and as once, years be- 
 fore, in the case of a parting maternal missive, he seized 
 upon it with a heart full of black foreboding, and stood 
 reading it in the golden morning light. 
 
 "You need not search for us. We are with those who will 
 know how to guard us from discovery. Two or three times 
 lately you have raised your hand as if wishful to strike me, 
 and I don't care to await the moment when you do. I'll have 
 to hold strong guarantees of altered conduct before I return to 
 you again, or let you see Kikette, you may be sure! For years 
 I have trembled before you and been your slave, but I'm tired of 
 it now, as also of working for nothing. Half the labor I am doing 
 here will bring me good wages, which, at least, will be something, 
 and I'm going to try my hand at working for a reward. Later, 
 when I think that you have had sufficient time to regret your 
 brutality and injustice, I'll let you have an address where you 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET , 
 
 can write and tell me so. You were drunk last night, I am sure 
 of it, and I can see nothing for Kikette and me in the future 
 but starvation and blows, so bien au revoir, mon vieux, for the 
 present! You can tell whom you please that I'm lying, if you like, 
 you won't be believed; I've seen to that, and in America wife- 
 beaters are not looked upon kindly. It's I who hold the whip 
 now, thank God! ROSE." 
 
 Loic read this ignominy to the end, then swaying 
 slightly, as if the ground were growing unsteady beneath 
 his feet, he grasped the rail of Kikette's bed with both 
 hands to support himself. 
 
 "What is the matter? What is the matter?" he mut- 
 tered, helplessly. He stood rigid for a moment, and 
 then suddenly tottered forward and fell across the little 
 white cot. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Gray mist! gray mist! in a breathless pall, 
 Idle they swing to the swinging vast, 
 And the gray waves start from the smoky wall 
 Like memories from the past; 
 And a snaky Fear doth enfold the ship 
 As the chilling damp doth bead and drip, 
 And she faintly hearkeneth, twice, and thrice, 
 The surges gnash on the unseen ice. 
 Oh sing a world in a sodden shroud, 
 Of Faces glimpsed in the coiling cloud I 
 And whisper thin as their voices trist 
 As they fade and fail, 
 
 Gray mist! The Voyage M. M. 
 
 DAY and night Loic searched unremittingly. Wild 
 with anxiety, almost distraught by horrible fears for 
 his little Kikette, he haunted every place where there 
 was the slightest chance that she could have been taken. 
 Over and over again he appealed for assistance to the 
 French Consulate, twice he went to Caulfield's Farm, and 
 even for the absence of his darling somehow suggested 
 death to him visited the hospitals and the morgue, but 
 all his efforts were vain. Rose and Kikette had vanished 
 as completely as if the earth had opened to swallow them. 
 No neighbors could be found who had even seen them 
 leave the house. Assistance Rose must have had, though, 
 for she was without money, and since the Caulfields, 
 whom he considered well disposed to him, denied all 
 knowledge of the matter, he was forced to conclude that 
 she had utilized the long hours of his absence at work, 
 
 5 12 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 or in search of it, to form some connections which she 
 had carefully concealed. 
 
 It never for a moment entered his head that she had 
 fled with another man her lack of beauty and charm 
 alone seemed to set aside that solution of the question; 
 and, moreover, bad as he knew her to be, his honest nature 
 could not assimilate the idea of her taking Kikette with 
 her if doing such a thing. 
 
 About Rose's motives, however, he did not in the least 
 concern himself, and he only considered them at all in 
 the hope of chancing upon some clew to her whereabouts, 
 as one may calculate the landing of a bullet by gauging 
 the force behind it. All that affected him was the 
 knowledge that something terribly essential had been 
 torn out of his life, something the loss of which was like 
 slackening the sinews of the arm, extinguishing the 
 lamp within the brain and the fire within the heart a 
 loss that even more than physical fatigue made it seem 
 impossible to hold up his head with the old erectness, 
 or to walk without dragging feet. 
 
 Yet after the wild rush of the first few days, when it 
 at last became apparent that there was no trail to fol- 
 low, to remain inactive was an impossibility. Like a 
 dogged swimmer whose strength is exhausted, but who, 
 though blinded, dazed, and half conscious, still mechani- 
 cally maintains a feeble stroke, he tramped the crowded 
 streets hour after hour, questioning every policeman he 
 met, or hanging aimlessly about railroad stations, and 
 only returning to his deserted "home" ah, what an 
 irony lay in that word now to snatch a few moments 
 of nightmare-ridden sleep, from which he awoke with a 
 sense of bewilderment and heart-emptiness that made 
 him look more than once longingly at the revolver hang- 
 ing above his bed. 
 
 5*3 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Then, as soon as another morning had dawned, he was 
 off again. He felt no hunger he loathed the sight of 
 food and when at length his legs would carry him no 
 farther, he choked down a mere bite with the aid of 
 whiskey, in haste to resume his quest. He preferred the 
 whiskey ; it was cheaper (he had very little money left) , 
 and it seemed to dull sometimes that unrelenting pain 
 as of some cord strained to the utmost tension within 
 his breast. 
 
 At certain moments he wondered, with a throb of ap- 
 prehension, whether his brain was not giving way; he 
 caught strange inflections in his own voice which he knew 
 had never been there before, and in his dry, stony eyes there 
 was so terrible and hopeless an agony that he was con- 
 scious of the curiosity he aroused even in total strangers. 
 
 As day followed day, and hope grew less and less, 
 Loic slipped gradually into a state of despondent indif- 
 ference that words would be inadequate to express. The 
 world was like a dream to him, Kikette herself became 
 a half -remembered vision of aching remoteness, life, in- 
 deed, resolved itself into an alternation of weary mo- 
 tion and exhausted slumbers that carried him off to a 
 land of dreadful shadows. 
 
 At length, worn out in body and mind, he ceased his 
 peregrinations about the city, and took to brooding in 
 his empty rooms beside the wistful and deeply sym- 
 pathetic Teuss. Here a heavy drowsiness frequently 
 overtook him sure sign that the shock of the crushing 
 blow was beginning to pass away and one morning, after 
 having slept the clock twice around, he awoke, weak in- 
 deed, and with trembling hands, that, when he reached 
 for anything arrived sooner than he intended, but clear 
 in brain and confronted by a situation which gave the 
 necessary spur to his reluctant energies. 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 His money was exhausted. The last month's rent, 
 during a moment of comparative and provident affluence, 
 had been settled in advance, so he had merely to make ar- 
 rangements for the tradesmen's unpaid bills before seek- 
 ing yet cheaper quarters. These, after placing his few 
 poor sticks of furniture in storage, he found in a wretched 
 lodging-house, far down-town, taking with him only one 
 trunk containing his sadly diminished wardrobe and the 
 few souvenirs he valued, among which were some small, 
 broken toys the last Kikette had played with. In a 
 neighboring stable Teuss, the faithful companion and 
 sole remaining friend, was housed in a backyard beneath 
 a shed which would presently, during the coming winter, 
 be but a poor protection against the severity of New 
 York weather ; but he, unlike his master, had so far taken 
 no harm from their joint descent into those depths the in- 
 nermost heart of which had now almost been reached. 
 
 These brief preparations made, he marched one morn- 
 ing into a livery-stable and enrolled himself as carriage- 
 washer, this being the employment which, while paying 
 enough to keep body and soul together, was the most 
 mechanical and easily transacted of all, and afforded the 
 greatest amount of leisure in which to still search for 
 Kikette or to brood. Had a higher position offered 
 itself, it is doubtful whether he would have taken it. 
 Ambition and energy were dead in him. What he wanted 
 was Kikette, if he could recapture her, otherwise the 
 means of existence and peace ; peace and the cessation of 
 torturing thoughts were all he desired a dangerous state 
 of mind for a man to fall into, and one fraught with ob- 
 vious temptations. 
 
 After a few days Teuss was allowed to have quarters 
 on the scene of his labors, but this small privilege 
 a highly prized one for both master and dog was des- 
 
 5*5 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 tined in the fulness of time, alas, to be yet another source 
 of sorrow. 
 
 Meanwhile the young Aristocrat, born to love, to fight, 
 to defy death at the hands of enemies worthy of his 
 steel, like his ancestors had done before him for many 
 centuries, and to bear a brilliant part in some of those 
 undaunted epics which raise life out of the sludge of com- 
 monplace to the level of an heroic past, clad in a coarse 
 woollen shirt and an always amazingly clean pair of over- 
 alls, slaved away, brush and sponge in hand, at multi- 
 farious vehicles, as they returned mud-caked from picnic 
 parties, funerals, weddings, or other such celebrations, 
 grave or gay. 
 
 It was significant of the change in him that he was 
 disliked and avoided by his fellow-employe's, an aversion 
 in which Teuss, partly because of his master, partly 
 from the dog's own aloofness of temper, fully shared. 
 Loic, the friend of all the world, had always been adored 
 by his inferiors, and more than ever so by those with 
 whom, of late, evil fortune had placed him on a footing 
 of equality; but that charm had gone from him with 
 many other things, and in this haggard-faced, silent man 
 his present associates only saw a person whose aspect, 
 in spite of shirt-sleeves and blue jeans, was offensively 
 suggestive of a superior social sphere, and whose clean- 
 liness in the midst of a dirty occupation was little short 
 of insulting. At the same time there was that about 
 the new-comer that induced them to refrain from all 
 direct expressions of their sentiments, though at times 
 glances and muttered words passed from group to group 
 which might have attracted a less inattentive ear. 
 
 His first Sunday "out" was employed in going once 
 more to the Caulfields' farm, since he still could not help 
 believing that Rose had confided her whereabouts to 
 
 516 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 them, and that they alone could put him on the right 
 track. The farmer himself he could see but for a bare 
 instant he pleaded pressing business but the women, 
 fired by the fanaticism of what they deemed a worthy 
 cause, played their part so well what woman, even the 
 simplest, cannot do so on occasion that, more than ever 
 heavy-hearted, he tramped wearily back along that road 
 he had traversed so often a year ago. Then he had com- 
 plained of his lot, but what was it compared to the un- 
 utterable pain he now endured? 
 
 Had he but known it, the women who had so glibly 
 lied to him on that afternoon were, immediately after 
 his departure, in receipt of an extremely vigorous and in- 
 dignant rating from the husband and father, who, coerced 
 by them, had reluctantly consented to leave the matter 
 in their hands, and, manlike, was now cruelly sorry 
 for it. He alone of that prim household did not quite 
 believe Rose's tale of woe, and had been averse to re- 
 ceiving her beneath his roof after her flight. Indeed, he 
 had flatly refused to let her remain there, and she and 
 Kikette were now living with his buxom daughter Su- 
 sannah, who had recently set up a little boarding-house 
 in the neighboring townlet. 
 
 "Gumm it all!" the farmer was a strict church-goer, 
 and knew how to conveniently skirt profanity "gumm 
 it all!" he bellowed, angrily; "that poor chap isn't by a 
 gummed sight as black as he is painted, and if it wasn't 
 that I'd be disgracing you all by so doing I'd run after 
 him this same minute and tell him the truth. I tell you 
 what, Amanda," turning furiously towards his weeping 
 wife, "you'll be sorry some day to have acted that cruel 
 to him. I don't like this Mrs. Rose; she ain't straight, 
 in spite of her meek airs; and the leetle gal, Keeket, who 
 trembles in her teenchy shoes before her mamma if you 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 want to know the truth owned up to me that she'd never 
 seen her daddy strike her. She cried as if her leetle heart 
 would break when I asked her if she'd like to see him 
 again. I don't hold with them furriners, Amanda, but 
 he's a fine feller, drink or no drink, lies or no lies, and 
 you're a pack of fools to help her out, as you're a-doing," 
 
 Never had the worthy and preternaturally silent pater- 
 familias thus "unbuttoned his collar" to use his own 
 expression and his tearful womankind sat as quiet as 
 mice, trembling with terror. 
 
 "Ya-as," he resumed, striding violently up and down 
 the stuffy "parlor," "Mrs. Rose's leetle ways don't suit 
 me. Here she is playing waitress in pink gowns and 
 frilled aprons to the pack of drummers and other gummed 
 ijiots who board with Susannah. She likes it, too you 
 can see that with one eye closed better than looking 
 after her kid and her husband, and that while he is break- 
 ing his heart all alone workin' like a dog. Didn't you 
 notice his hands? They're rougher than mine, and all 
 swollen and scratched like. It makes me sick, d' you 
 hear, to think on!" and, with a violent bang of the door, 
 he left them appalled and dismayed, to go and air his 
 wrath among his pigs and chickens. 
 
 The shallow-natured Rose was, as he had said, quite 
 reconciled to her temporary lot. The feeling that she 
 was punishing Loic added delicious spiciness to her lit- 
 tle fugue punishing him with one last fell blow for his 
 self-forgetfulness, his long years of patient endurance, 
 his boundless sacrifices! She, Rose Billot, had it now in 
 her power to pay him back for not having loved her as 
 she understood love, for having conferred every benefit, 
 and given everything in return for nothing and wasn't 
 she enjoying this golden opportunity! Her flat, plebeian 
 foot was on his proud neck, and with a relish which made 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 her positively lick her thin lips, she, metaphorically speak- 
 ing, crunched her broad heel into his flesh, and said a 
 dozen times a day, exultantly, to herself, "C'est bien fait 
 pour lui /" 
 
 What means she had employed to silence and subdue 
 Kikette was and remained a secret. She was not par- 
 ticularly unkind to her, nor did she really ill-treat her, 
 for was she not her only trump -card ? But still she was 
 scarcely an ideal mother, and the child pined for her father. 
 In a little while Rose meant, of course, to return to Loic, 
 who, to recover his darling little daughter, would 
 naturally accept any terms she herself might choose to 
 impose! Yes, she would then, even, perhaps, grandly con- 
 descend to marry him that is, if the news from Brittany 
 seemed satisfactory to her. The Marquise de Kergoat, 
 by the last reports, was not in good health, and had, 
 moreover, never been very robust. Why, then, should 
 she not jaire une -fin, and bag the strawberry - leaved 
 coronet, together with Kergoat and all its inheritance of 
 grandeurs and magnificences ? What a final triumph 
 for Mr. Lierre's "dishonored" and despised niece it would 
 be! 
 
 That, after all, might perhaps be the best solution of 
 the dilemma, and blithely she moved among her friend 
 Susannah's free-mannered customers, with never a frown 
 or a sulk now, laughing, joking, even dancing with them 
 of a Saturday night in the dining-room, cleared of its 
 dingy tables, for she held a privileged position as bosom 
 friend of the "Madam," and took care to surround her- 
 self with a halo of romance which made the clerks and 
 commercial travellers gasp with curiosity, although she 
 now went by the plain and unaristocratic alias of "Mrs. 
 Thompson." 
 
 Susannah, gullible and good-natured as ever, paid her 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 eighteen whole dollars a month, which were recklessly 
 spent on gay prints for herself, bright ribbons for both 
 her and Kikette, and numerous other trifles that rejoiced 
 her vulgar pellet of a soul. 
 
 Ah, poor Loic! bending over his muddy task, had he 
 deserved quite all this and what was to follow? 
 
 "If in one month from now I haven't found my little 
 Kikette, I'll put my beastly pride in my pocket and write 
 the whole truth to Gaidik," this misguided and wretched- 
 ly unhappy man said to himself on the evening of one of 
 the first really severe days of the winter. He felt utterly 
 dejected and very ill, having caught a bad cold, thanks 
 to his perpetually drenched condition and waterlogged, 
 worn-out boots. Clearly he could not endure the present 
 state of affairs much longer. His slender earnings barely 
 fed him and his dog and paid for their comfortless re- 
 spective lodgings. That afternoon, too, he had had an 
 annoying affair, thanks to poor Teuss, who, hearing an 
 intoxicated driver belonging to the establishment snarl at 
 
 "that G d - stuck-up pig of a washer," as he was 
 
 pleased to call Loic, had suddenly flung himself at the 
 fellow's throat, and but for his master's lightning-like 
 interference would have instantly strangled him. There 
 had been something of a mele"e, and the much-frightened 
 and magically sobered coachman had taken himself off 
 muttering revengeful threats. "I'll remove Teuss from 
 there to-morrow," Loic pondered while trying vainly 
 to go to sleep on his hard and uninviting bed that night, 
 "for there's no knowing what that brute might do to 
 him." 
 
 Unfortunately, the brute had already acted, and when, 
 at five o'clock in the morning, Loic reached the stables, 
 he found the splendid dog lying inert on his litter of 
 straw, evidently ill. With a pang of apprehension tug- 
 
 520 
 
THE TRJDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ging at his heart, he went out again to procure some 
 fresh milk for him, but, in spite of an honest effort to 
 obey his master, Teuss could not swallow a drop of 
 it, and the "Vet," instantly summoned, declared that it 
 was a well-marked case of acute gastritis. At first it did 
 not occur to Loic that foul play had something to do 
 with this, he was too dazed and upset to think, for the 
 illness of his sole remaining companion and friend 
 canine though he might be was no trifle to him ; but as 
 the dreary hours wore on, and the dog grew from bad 
 to worse, a suspicion of the truth began to make its way 
 into his worried brain. 
 
 Fortunately the tragedy was a short one, and an hour 
 before dawn Teuss's golden eyes, that had been fixed 
 upon his master during all his pitiful agony, in an aston- 
 ished and pathetically helpless appeal, suddenly closed. 
 A last shudder shook the huge body, and the fine head 
 pillowed on Loic's lap grew rigid. 
 
 Gently disengaging himself, he rose and stood for a 
 few moments gazing at the gaunt form extended on the 
 straw at his feet; then, with an impatient gesture, he 
 drew the back of his hand across his eyes, and, bending, 
 lifted the limp, astonishingly heavy mass from the 
 ground as easily as if it had weighed but a few ounces, 
 and carried it across a yard to the small office, where by 
 chance that night the "Vet" in charge of the horses was 
 sitting up, to be near a serious case of pneumonia con- 
 tracted by a valuable "boarder" belonging to a wealthy 
 patron. With his foot Loic pushed the door open, and 
 in a singularly calm voice said to the amazed watcher 
 drowsing over a newspaper: 
 
 "Would you be so good, Sir, as to perform an autopsy 
 on my dog. Of course I'll pay whatever you usually 
 charge." The "Doctor" silently rose. He had often 
 
 34 5 2 I 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 puzzled over this singular carriage-washer, who bore 
 himself like a Prince while working like four ordinary 
 men, and suddenly, addressing him as an equal, he said, 
 speculatively : 
 
 "Have you any special reason for wishing it poison 
 for instance?" 
 
 "Yes," was the short answer. 
 
 "Very well. I'll begin at once, then, but I don't want 
 any pay, my dear fellow." And, without another word, 
 he instantly set about his task. 
 
 When Loic left the veterinary surgeon the cold, biting 
 wind of the yard made him. cough. He was walking slow- 
 ly, with out-stretched hands, for, although the bleak day 
 had begun to break, yet the gray, snow -laden atmos- 
 phere, contrasting suddenly with the warm light of the 
 office he had just quitted, seemed almost darkness to 
 him. 
 
 "Powdered glass!" he whispered twice, his lips scarce- 
 ly forming the words, as he obstinately paced up and 
 down near the side entrance used by the drivers arriving 
 to assume their day's work. "Powdered glass," he mur- 
 mured again, as if to sear upon his consciousness the 
 appalling barbarity of the thing. Snow, in tiny, feathery 
 flakes, was beginning to drop lightly from the low, 
 brooding sky, and mechanically Loic quickened his quar- 
 ter-deck promenade. 
 
 A few men, carriage - washers like himself and stable 
 hands, were now dragging drowsy feet across the pave- 
 ment towards the stables, but he paid absolutely no at- 
 tention to them, and kept his anxious eyes upon the 
 half-open street entrance. Then, as a certain heavy- 
 shouldered, burly form at last made its appearance, 
 quicker than thought Loic leaped to meet Teuss's 
 murderer. 
 
 522 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 " You hound!" was all he said. There was a quick dive 
 forward, a grip with iron arms, a backward step, and a 
 heave ah, what a heave! The bulky driver literally 
 flew over Loic's head to the other side of the yard, alight- 
 ing, unfortunately for his antagonist's purpose, upon a 
 heap of freshly removed litter. He had, however, scarce- 
 ly staggered to his feet before Loic was back at him, and 
 had begun to scientifically pound him into a jelly. There 
 was a general hubbub, several men sprang on Loic from 
 behind, and he disappeared in a tangle of arms and legs, 
 fighting on even when pressed down by the sheer weight 
 of numbers, struggling and writhing up from the ground 
 and lifting bodily the mass of his adversaries with him 
 as a stag does the pack of worrying hounds before the 
 " death." Then some one ran for an officer, and, with a 
 derisively gasped "Ten to one as usual!" Loic was over- 
 powered and taken, together with the badly damaged 
 driver and several of his more or less disabled friends, to 
 the nearest police-station. But in the rear of the pro- 
 cession walked the "Vet," who, witness of the incident, 
 was muttering mingled curses and praise in his short - 
 pointed beard, and who, as it happened, being the son- 
 in-law of the captain of police on duty, determined to 
 pull "that brave French lad" through, if it was in his 
 power to do so. 
 
 It apparently was, for, long before fashionable New 
 York opened its eyes that morning, Loic, bruised, bat- 
 tered, with one shoulder sprained, and still inwardly 
 raging as if all the demons of hell were making sport of 
 his soul, stopped at a bar-room, purchased a bottle of 
 whiskey, and, carrying it beneath his uninjured arm, 
 sought his miserable room, where he deliberately drank 
 it to the last drop before throwing himself upon his bed. 
 
 " No money, no job, no home, no hope!" he said, aloud, 
 
 523 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 with a little, sneering laugh, as he stretched himself 
 sleepily to his full length, "and I don't care a damn any 
 longer!" he added, defiantly, closing his burning eyes 
 to the ghastly morning light filtering through the dirty 
 window-curtains. 
 
 His arm was so painful and swollen when he at last 
 awoke that, dressing himself, he walked to the French 
 Hospital to have it attended to. " A pauper's way but 
 what else am I?" he reflected, bitterly, as he crossed the 
 dismal threshold of the gloomy building, which he was 
 not to leave for several days, since the examining physi- 
 cian, at the sound of his cough and the sight of his 
 flushed, feverish face, consigned him, after asking him a 
 very few questions, to a long, white ward, which strange- 
 ly reminded him of that of Pernambuco. 
 
 During the quiet hours he spent there he had full time 
 to ponder over his situation, and he had almost made up 
 his mind to write at once to Gaidik, when he received 
 news from her, thanks to his friend the veterinary sur- 
 geon, who frequently came round to visit him, and offered 
 to go to the post-office on his behalf. There were two 
 letters from her strange that he should have forgotten 
 the paste restante of late and he seized upon them 
 with feverish, delighted hands. Both contained sub- 
 stantial checks, and this instantly altered his immediate 
 plans by giving him the means to institute a last and 
 more complete search for his little Kikette. Moreover, 
 Gaidik he read it between the lines was herself going 
 through difficult and sorrowful moments, and on no 
 account would he just then add to her trouble. Surely 
 she had already suffered enough on his account, he re- 
 gretfully thought, smoothing the closely written sheets 
 upon his counterpane, so he must endeavor to pull 
 through a little longer without alarming and hurting her. 
 
 524 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Poor little Gaidik! She, too, was unhappy, and betrayed 
 so much distress at her prolonged and enforced separa- 
 tion from him that Loic cursed both their lucks beneath 
 his breath. 
 
 There was also a letter addressed in the well-known 
 round hand of Ghislain d'Yffiniac, which, had it not been 
 for the stimulus of the other two, he could scarcely have 
 ventured to open. All that life of which it would speak 
 was separated from him by such a bitter gulf! But, as 
 it was, he drew a long breath and doggedly set himself 
 to hearken across that abyss to the lengthy chatter of 
 his old friend. 
 
 Madame de Kergoat, it appeared whom, by-the-way, 
 Ghislain had only seen at a distance, for, of course, they 
 were still at daggers-drawn seemed haughtier and more 
 obstinate than ever, but shockingly altered in looks; in- 
 deed, her glorious, raven hair was now streaked with 
 silver, and her face drawn and harsh and lined; old 
 Kerdougaszt was no more, and his stalwart sons lived 
 now quite alone in their ruined tower; Kadok, too, had 
 joined the majority, having been drowned in a magnifi- 
 cently reckless attempt to rescue the crew of a sinking 
 sardine -boat during a fearful midsummer storm; the 
 Riviers were both prosperous exceedingly God afflicts 
 only those he loves, which is a consolation, no doubt, for 
 the afflicted! Gynette was travelling about the world, 
 alone, and, as Ghislain put it, " inabordable et farouche 
 comme Diane elle meme!" Loic sighed. "What a fool 
 I have been!" he muttered, and resolutely folded and 
 put away a letter so conducive to melancholy musings. 
 Nevertheless, the crisp rustle of Gaidik's checks acted 
 upon him as no medicine could have done, and the linger- 
 ing remnants of his attack of grippe were so successfully 
 blown away by the hope of all he could now achieve with 
 
 525 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 their help that two days later he was given his discharge 
 from the hospital. 
 
 Private detective agencies God save the mark! 
 swallowed with prompt avidity and without attaining, 
 alas, any result the sum which had seemed, comparative- 
 ly speaking, so large to Loic, and once again he found 
 himself no nearer his cherished aim, and practically 
 penniless. Now was the time for him to give up, and 
 he knew it. The winter was an extraordinarily severe 
 one, and, as Christmas approached, his heart completely 
 misgave him. On several occasions lately, in his des- 
 pair and misery, he had risked the succeeding sense of 
 shame and degradation and yielded to the overwhelming 
 temptation of temporarily forgetting his wretchedness in 
 drink. At first he hated the stuff, and shuddered when 
 bolting down the rapid and numerous doses required to 
 bring about the heavy, dreamless sleep, the mental an- 
 nihilation he longed for; but, alas, only too soon the 
 necessity of stimulation or of escape from tormenting 
 thoughts begot that desire for the thing itself, which 
 has been the undoing of so many, and with singular lu- 
 cidity and singular indifference to his subsequent fate, he 
 judged himself a lost man. 
 
 He was now living on the top floor of a small Raines- 
 law hotel, down-town. His room was a dismal one a 
 suicidal place, gloomy, dirty, shameful. Its faded and 
 worn carpet was patched, here, there, and everywhere, 
 with variegated remnants of long-departed predecessors. 
 The narrow, thinly mattressed bed, covered by a grimy 
 counterpane, stood in one corner facing a crooked basin- 
 stand, while the chronically unwashed window com- 
 manded an extensive view of flat roofs, whereon miser- 
 able rags were hung up almost perpetually to dry. In 
 default of blinds or curtains, Loic had nailed an old 
 
 526 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 horse-blanket before it, looped up during the day by a 
 leathern strap fastened to the lintel. Moreover, the 
 atmosphere of this attractive apartment was permeated 
 with the liquorous odors ascending perpetually from the 
 bar below stairs, mixed with the sour pungency of the 
 neighboring fish markets, the greasy fragrance of cheap 
 restaurants, and the all-embracing fumes of stale beer 
 sifted from other countless drinking saloons and "dives " 
 near by. 
 
 Late one afternoon, when a dense fog blurred the house- 
 tops in a morose, depressing sea of grimy shadow, pierced 
 at intervals by rusty iron smoke-stacks and the gaunt 
 chimneys of many factories, Loic, resisting the tempta- 
 tion of stopping at the "hotel" bar as he came in, climbed 
 up the foul, dark staircase and let himself into his room, 
 a sneer curling the corners of his mouth at the thought 
 of the paltry victory he had just won over himself. 
 
 For a few moments he walked up and down the filthy 
 carpet, beneath which he could feel the rough, disjointed 
 flooring at every step, and a twinge of utter desolation 
 penetrated his whole being. A chill, sour wind was blow- 
 ing in from the half -open window, and the sudden transi- 
 tion from the congested streets to this cold, hopeless-look- 
 ing place struck him to the very marrow. The sense of 
 how comforting just one swallow of whiskey would be 
 suggested itself imperiously, but he repulsed it vehement- 
 ly, his better nature savagely holding on to the promise 
 he had given himself of trying to find out if he was abso- 
 lutely dead to every courageous impulse. 
 
 This moment of complete revolt against temptation 
 surprised him, for it had seemed impossible to him lately 
 to reconquer himself in this life woven about with snares, 
 and throughout the dismal day a terrible fit of the blues 
 had lain upon him as heavy as lead. Sometimes in the 
 
 527 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 hurry and bustle of the streets, his misery was temporar- 
 ily lost sight of, but from early morning to the present 
 hour everything for once had seemed to him but one hor- 
 rible and profane nightmare. And now well, there was 
 a momentary blotting out of all else for him save this 
 tenacious resolution to combat his weakness. 
 
 Suddenly he stopped in his nervous promenade before 
 the small shaving - mirror hanging beside the blurred 
 window, blinked his magnificent gray eyes three or four 
 times as he looked at his thin, hard face, and with un- 
 utterable rage muttered to his own image, " Salaud Va!" 
 
 There he stood with raised fist, as if about to annihi- 
 late his reflection in a shiver of broken glass ; then slowly 
 he let his hand fall to his side, and became plunged in a 
 sort of horrified wonderment. 
 
 Even to this man, whose life for years had scarcely 
 ever run through one month without getting entangled 
 in some difficult knot or other, the present horror of the 
 situation gave an unconquerable shock. Again he ex- 
 perienced the nameless terror from which he had suffered 
 after poor Teuss's death, but in an aggravated form, 
 for then his health had still been fairly good, his strength 
 not greatly impaired, while now he felt ill and like one 
 definitely wrecked and floating on a yielding spar upon 
 an ocean of black despair. 
 
 What would come next, he asked himself, as sitting on 
 the narrow window-sill he vaguely watched the wreaths of 
 soot-tainted fog drift over the wet roofs. Forty feet below, 
 the tortuous, busy, crowded streets twisted and wriggled 
 through slime and gloom, filled to overflowing with men 
 hurrying home from their offices, and racing to reach the 
 elevated railroad stations before the great rush, if possi- 
 ble. From lower yet down-town the awful crowds 
 elbowed and pushed their way like a horde of ravenous 
 
 528 
 

THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 wolves. Old and young, well and badly dressed boys, 
 girls, women, and men, poor and rich, speaking every 
 language under heaven, jostling, grumbling, belated, 
 hurried along amid the roar of continual traffic, the 
 whistling of trains and ferry-boats, the stamping and 
 grunting of the huge dray horses dragging behind them 
 pyramids of barrels, rolls of leather, or of printing-paper 
 and other merchandise of a more or less unsavory kind 
 through the fierce entanglement of electric cars, auto- 
 mobiles, cabs and carts, in this ghastly labyrinth. 
 
 A deep abhorrence of his present fearful existence rose 
 up in him like some nauseating tide of mud, and for a 
 moment he longed to throw himself from that dizzy 
 window-sill upon which he sat, so as to end the struggle 
 now, immediately, once and for all, down there beneath 
 the stamping hoofs and crunching wheels. 
 
 But no! A Marquis de Kergoat does not yield to the 
 supreme and cowardly temptation of suicide. There was 
 no help for it, he must live on for the present, live on as 
 best he could or as evilly, he reflected, with his grim, heart- 
 rending little sneer until Gaidik rescued him for it had 
 come to that at last, he must write her the shameful truth. 
 
 A wave of furious disgust rose within him, and with a 
 curse he jumped up and groped his way through the now 
 almost absolutely dark room to a twisted gas-bracket to 
 which he applied a match. As he did so his feet came in 
 contact with the once natty steamer trunk which had fol- 
 lowed him in all his descending peregrinations, and where 
 he kept the wreck of his sumptuous wardrobe and his few 
 last souvenirs. It was now very much battered, but the 
 lock was a good one and had defied the deft and practised 
 hands of the "hotel" servants this word " hotel" always 
 made him laugh in connection with the wretched estab- 
 lishment he lived in. 
 
 5 2 9 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Stooping swiftly, he drew a key from his pocket, and 
 kneeling on the floor flung back the heavy lid. Impa- 
 tiently he threw aside the upper tray, and bent over 
 the curious collection of objects jumbled together below 
 it. A withered branch of holly, a broken amber cigar- 
 holder, half a dozen pocket-books and card-cases, from 
 which silver and gold crests and coronets had been ruth- 
 lessly torn, a gay cerise-silk cowboy handkerchief, some 
 spurs and curb-chains hopelessly entangled, a beautiful 
 writing-case exquisitely embroidered by Gaidik's hands, 
 but frayed and torn, were emptied out, together with 
 boots, shoes, and slippers, all much the worse for wear, 
 riding-trousers, pierced by long usage even through the 
 reinforcing leather, and a mass of poor, dilapidated ties 
 once perfect in make and color. 
 
 Quite at the bottom of the trunk lay an ungainly 
 bundle wrapped in brown paper, loosely tied with a string, 
 and a broad pasteboard box; these he took and flung 
 upon the rickety table, the hideous red-and-yellow cover 
 of which was to him a constant eyesore and nightmare. 
 Then, still surrounded by the litter of heterogeneous ar- 
 ticles, rising like a tide about his feet, he sat down on a 
 dangerously shaky chair, and, drawing the table towards 
 him, opened the pasteboard box with slightly unsteady 
 hands. 
 
 Within, photographs were tightly packed, pictures of 
 friends long lost sight of, of women who had loved 
 him, of distinguished men, diplomats, soldiers, sailors 
 with whom he had consorted nay, several large-sized 
 ones, bearing the autographs of Sovereigns with whom 
 he had been persona gratissima, and which would have 
 fetched a high price in the American society market 
 but, thank Heaven he had not come to that yet! 
 His face became more and more clouded as he fingered 
 
 530 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 them, and bitter thoughts of wrongs done to him, of 
 numberless injustices and cruel sorrows and disappoint- 
 ments, surged up in his mind, his nostrils dilating, his 
 upper lip contracting until his even, white teeth became 
 visible. 
 
 For several minutes more he turned the pictures quick- 
 ly over, his hands grasping and relinquishing them ner- 
 vously, until he came upon a square portfolio of royal blue 
 leather clasped with exquisitely wrought silver Fleur de 
 Lys this was intact, and he held it moodily, gazing at 
 its untarnished splendor amid ail those ruins, with a sort 
 of mocking surprise. Outside, rain, mixed with sleet and 
 snow, had begun to fall heavily, and the big drops pat- 
 tering on the window-sill made a mournful accompani- 
 ment to his thoughts. 
 
 At last, with a curious, feverish agitation, he unfast- 
 ened the catch, and there before him stood revealed 
 Gaidik, in Court dress, in riding-habit, in hunting-cos- 
 tume, in ordinary street attire, in profile, full-face, three- 
 quarters, but always "his" little Gaidik, the dear "com- 
 rade" of childhood days, the tender and loyal sym- 
 pathizer of all his sorrows, the dispenser of his few real 
 joys. 
 
 Why had he not listened to her? Why, at least, had 
 he not long ere this turned to her for help and as of old 
 for comfort and consolation ? Ah, yes, he had indeed 
 been a wicked, wicked fool! And softly closing the port- 
 folio he reached out for his writing-case, eager not to 
 lose another minute before retrieving this folly of pride 
 and obstinacy which so long had kept him silent. As 
 he feverishly searched for pen and note-paper, a handful 
 of vari-colored pawn-tickets fluttered to the ground, and 
 impatiently he bent to pick them up, glancing involun- 
 tarily at each individual one as he did so. There was, 
 
 53 1 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 indeed, a very complete collection there, ranging from the 
 earlier ones that testified to the remarkably dispropor- 
 tionate sums loaned upon the black pearl studs Gaidik had 
 given him after his return from Pernambuco, the Bre'guet 
 repeater and matchless engraved sapphire seal-ring his 
 mother's presents on his twenty-first birthday and many 
 other costly articles of a similar nature to the pitiful 
 reminders of more recent moments when he had shame- 
 facedly pledged every object he possibly could do with- 
 out, even much-worn wearing apparel, pipes, boots, and 
 riding-gear. 
 
 With an impatient sigh he threw the lot into the open 
 trunk, and drawing his chair to the table, once more 
 buckled down to the task of writing the most painful and 
 humiliating letter he had ever penned. Page after page 
 he wrote, never hesitating, hardly ever raising his eyes 
 from the paper, and when he at last stopped, he shook 
 the loose leaves together and counted them there were 
 ten with a feeling of supreme astonishment at the 
 facility with which this confession, so long dreaded, had 
 been accomplished; then he rose from his seat, and, 
 snatching up his hat and thin, spring overcoat the 
 only one he now possessed hurried off to the post-office, 
 dreading to find it already closed. 
 
 At a run he traversed the distance separating him from 
 Broadway, but, glancing at the big City Hall clock, 
 slackened his pace, for it was still much earlier than he 
 had imagined indeed, so absorbed and full -hearted 
 had he been while writing that he had performed, with- 
 out being aware of it, a most surprising literary feat 
 in record time, describing the events of years in a frank, 
 concise, nay, a truly masterly fashion, which no knight 
 of the pen, even the ablest and most concise, could 
 have hoped to excel. "// faut avoir vecu ce que Von 
 
 S3* 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 ecritV the greatest of French writers has truthfully 
 said. 
 
 Moved by an impulse which he himself could not have 
 explained, Loic, before posting the bulky envelope al- 
 ready half-drawn from his pocket, turned towards the 
 paste - restante window, not that he had great hopes of 
 finding anything there, but just because it seemed the 
 thing that should first be attended to, and to his extreme 
 surprise two letters were thrown before him on the nar- 
 row ledge, the uppermost one from Gaidik, the second 
 were his eyes playing him a trick, or was the second 
 really from Rose? 
 
 Trembling from head to foot, he sought a deserted cor- 
 ner beneath an electric globe and tore it open with fin- 
 gers which had suddenly turned ice-cold. The pointed 
 characters of the well-known writing traced as ever in 
 violet ink fairly danced before him, and it was only by 
 using all that remained of his self-control that he could 
 at last force himself to master the faintness insidiously 
 creeping over him nay, even when he had read the short 
 note four times over did he grasp anything further than 
 the blissful fact that Kikette was well, and that should 
 he, Loic, consent to send to a given initialled address a 
 solemn promise not to attempt to detain the child, she 
 would be allowed to come and spend Christmas Eve 
 with him, under safe escort this heavily underscored. 
 
 What mattered to the young father, shaking there 
 beneath the pulsating electric light as if suddenly stricken 
 with ague, whether Rose had been actuated by tardy 
 remorse, or whether as was really the case dire neces- 
 sity was the true cause of this first step towards a rap- 
 prochement. In days gone by he might have puzzled, 
 might have very likely reflected that this offer was the 
 result of disappointment with a self -selected way of life, 
 
 533 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 perhaps of the impossibility of continuing this very mode 
 of existence; but now all Loic thought of was that in 
 less than a week he would again hold his little Kikette 
 close to his heart that heart beating just now, as it often 
 had of late, so violently and irregularly against his ribs! 
 This despaired of joy fairly suffocated him, and drawing 
 his handkerchief from his pocket he wiped the perspira- 
 tion from his forehead and the palms of his hands before 
 opening the second letter. 
 
 "Ah, my little Gaid!" he whispered, as a check flut- 
 tered from it to his feet. "So it is again you who will 
 make it possible for me to treat Kikette worthily!" And 
 with a little gasp, which was almost a sob, he tore out of 
 the post-office and home beneath the now heavily falling 
 snow, without even being conscious that he had eaten 
 nothing since morning and was utterly played out. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 Dark night! dark night! and the clouds hang low, 
 The blackness lights with the flashing foam, 
 And a broken spar that heaveth slow 
 In the dead waves, drifting home. 
 Oh well the day would reveal indeed 
 The crust of shell and the trail of weed, 
 The scar and seam of the ebb and flow 
 Since a ship went down in the long ago! 
 Oh! mourn that lip -bitten agony, 
 The last grim swirl of the grisly sea! 
 And moan with the winds of the headland height 
 And the surfless sands, 
 
 Dark night! The Voyage M. M. 
 
 THE deep-red curtains were drawn carefully over the 
 windows; in the open fireplace several logs crackled 
 gayly; and beneath the four lighted gas-jets of a pass- 
 ably tasteful little chandelier, Loic stood at the small 
 centre - table busily engaged in decorating a diminutive 
 Christmas-tree, proudly rising from a square, green china 
 box. 
 
 None would have known him again for the haggard, 
 sombre, miserable man who had entered the General Post- 
 office five days before. There was now a brightness in 
 his eyes and a color in his face which transformed him 
 completely, and made him almost again the Loic of the 
 past, and as he worked he actually sang a gay little 
 Breton sailor song, the refrain of which rhymed remark- 
 ably well with his thoughts: 
 
 535 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 " Vive, vive, vive la Bretagne! 
 Vivent, vivent, vivent les Bretons I 
 Comprenan Ket 
 
 Ar Gallek: 
 Preguet, preguet 
 
 Brezonnek ! 
 Vive la Br6tagne Vivent les Bretons!" 
 
 He had put his time and money to good use since then ; 
 beginning early the next morning by quitting his dismal 
 quarters at the Raines-law hotel, and hiring for a month 
 paid in advance the first-floor front rooms and bath of a 
 quiet little house in an up -town side street owned by a 
 worthy elderly widow, who kept but a few select lodgers 
 to eke out her slender income. He then had proceeded 
 to add some long-needed necessaries to his attire, and 
 with a heart rendered light as a feather by hope and 
 happy anticipation, had gone on a grand shopping ex- 
 pedition with a view to preparing more than one delicious 
 surprise for his little Kikette. 
 
 How greatly he had enjoyed this none but a poor 
 devil who has been weaned from every joy, even the 
 smallest, for many dreary months could realize, and 
 with characteristic self - f orgetfulness and generosity he 
 had spent quite a little fortune on choice toys and dainty 
 refreshments, not to forget the tiny Christmas-tree and 
 its various luxurious appurtenances, which had cost him 
 endless thought and cogitation. 
 
 Holding a silver-clad angel in one upraised hand, he 
 now stepped back to judge of the best nook wherein 
 to enthrone this glorious little personage among the clean- 
 smelling, crisp branches]which already bent beneath their 
 glittering load of tinsel trifles and rose-hued candles. 
 
 "That's it!" he murmured, with a laugh, as he tri- 
 umphantly set it astride a fuzzy twig immediately above 
 the hoary head of a richly fur-wrapped Santa Claus. 
 
 536 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 "Couldn't be better!" And again the refrain of his song 
 filled the festive little room: 
 
 Vive! vive la Bretagne Vivent les Bretons! 
 
 "Lor', Sir!" exclaimed his landlady, who had twice 
 knocked without being heard, and had just pushed open 
 the door. "Lor,' Sir, but you did make the place look 
 purty ! How did you manage to fix up all those garlands 
 of holly and mistletoe around the ceiling in so little 
 time?"' 
 
 Loic turned quickly on his heel. "Oh, is that you, 
 Mrs. Cramp ? I was just going to run down and interview 
 you about the chocolate you promised to be so kind as 
 to make for my little girl! You know she'll be here in 
 less than an hour now, and it's such beastly weather that 
 she'll need something warm to drink at once!" 
 
 " To be sure, Sir! To be sure!" the good lady acquiesced. 
 "But you should take something comforting yourself; 
 you must be fagged out working like that since early 
 morning. I'm sure you didn't even trouble to go out 
 and get yourself a bit of lunch?" 
 
 "To tell you the truth, I did forget," Loic said, laugh- 
 ing, as if mentioning the best of jokes. "But come here, 
 Mrs. Cramp, I want to show you this little monkey dan- 
 cing on his barrel-organ. Isn't that the funniest thing you 
 ever saw?" And with eager hands he took from its tis- 
 sue-paper wrappings a mechanical toy, the price of which 
 would have kept him in comfort for many a day only a 
 short week before, and which made the honest Mrs. 
 Cramp almost weep with admiration. Every present 
 was displayed separately to her, and it was only when 
 she had tasted the bonbons and had smacked her lips 
 over a few of the hot-house grapes lying in readiness on 
 a prettily decked side-table that he at last consented to 
 
 35 537 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 let her bustle down-stairs again to make him what she 
 called ' ' a strong cup of coffee and a couple of nice, thin 
 slices of buttered toast," which dainties she brought up 
 and forced him to partake of instantly under her ma- 
 ternal supervision. 
 
 Snow was falling thickly all over New York, decking 
 it in a gleaming mantle of exquisite whiteness for the 
 coming holidays; and as Loic, left alone once more to the 
 enraptured contemplation of his elaborate preparations, 
 peeped between the window - curtains to watch for his 
 little Kikette's approach, he wondered whether in all 
 that big, overgrown, busy city there existed just then one 
 more joyful papa than himself. 
 
 Soon, however, a little impatience began to taint his 
 light-hear tedness. The hour appointed was passed by 
 fully fifteen minutes, and, restlessly snatching up his 
 cap, he ran down to the f/ont-door, for fear that Kikette's 
 "reliable escort" might in the gathering gloom miss the 
 house. For a long time he stood on the fast-whitening 
 steps, darting alert glances from one end of the street to 
 the other, and finally, after a swift run to his rooms to 
 see whether everything was still in the same exquisite 
 order the chocolate steaming by the fire and the paper 
 spills wherewith to light the candles undisturbed he took 
 to pacing up and down from one avenue to the other in 
 intolerable restlessness, beneath the densely falling flakes, 
 conjuring up in his excited mind all the catastrophies 
 which might cause so unaccountable a delay. 
 
 An hour went by, then another, but still no Kikette, 
 and, nearly beside himself with anxiety, Loic retraced his 
 steps for the last time and sought his quarters with the 
 ridiculous hope that the child might perhaps have slipped 
 by him in the darkness and that she was even now wait- 
 ing for him up there. 
 
 538 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 He took the stairs in four bounds, and impatiently 
 pushed the door open, to be greeted, of course, but by 
 fresh disappointment, and, with a hopeless glance of 
 misery at the pretty array, the delicate gouter, the 
 brilliant fir-tree standing, as it were, sentry-like on the 
 threshold of so much promised joy, he sat wearily down 
 for a moment. 
 
 He had hardly done so when a loud tap made him 
 bound to his feet, glowing with hope again, to be con- 
 fronted in the doorway by Mrs. Cramp's Hibernian 
 slavey, holding a letter in her hand. "This is just afther 
 being left by a man for ye," she said, devouring the 
 magnificences around her with eyes opened to their utter- 
 most extent. 
 
 "Is he waiting?" asked Loic, through parched lips. 
 
 "No, Sor, he runned away like a thafe," was the pleas- 
 ing answer, and, with an idiotic, nerve - splitting laugh, 
 she was gone. 
 
 "Having learned how low you have fallen," wrote 
 Kikette's mother, "I have made up my mind to put off 
 sending my child to see you until your ways of life are 
 different. Some friends of mine saw you disgustingly 
 drunk several times, so there's no use in denying it. I 
 cannot expose Kikette to such a revolting spectacle. 
 Besides which I have made up with my present employer 
 the quarrel that induced me, in a moment of anger, to 
 write you the other day, so we will remain as we are for 
 a little longer, if you don't mind." 
 
 Calmly, quietly, Loic folded the paper, thrust it into 
 his pocket, and, crossing over to the fire, mechanically 
 removed the chocolate from its immediate vicinity. In 
 the same almost automatic fashion he closed the bonbon 
 boxes, swept the paper spills into the grate and the neatly 
 tied-up gifts onto the sofa, then he put on his thin coat 
 
 539 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 and hat, carefully brushing them both first, and, stand- 
 ing in the middle of the room, one hand on the catch of 
 the last remaining gas-jet, he said, aloud, while turning 
 it out, "And now I'm going to justify my reputation 
 and get "disgustingly" drunk." 
 
 Four days of such carousing as he had never even 
 dreamed of before left Loic a physical as well as a financial 
 wreck, and, when he at last returned to his rooms, his 
 landlady cried out at the mere sight of him. 
 
 "For the Lord's good sake, Mr. Kergoat, what have 
 you done to yourself?" she exclaimed, her chubby face 
 puckered up with alarm. "It's too bad. You must go 
 to bed, and that at once, too," she continued, preceding 
 him briskly up the stairs and speaking in her maternal, 
 fussy way, but he merely nodded his head, and, while she 
 was down-stairs "after a cup of scalding hot tea, to put 
 life into you," as she explained, he hastily gathered a 
 few last remaining objects of slight but "pawnable" 
 value into a hand-bag and noiselessly slipped away again 
 into the night. 
 
 He was frightfully shaky, and the prolonged whistle of 
 an elevated train, screeching suddenly above his head, 
 made him jump almost out of his boots ; also, it seemed to 
 his weakened eyes as if threatening shadows dodged his 
 steps, stretching menacing arms towards him from every 
 sombre nook all the way to the Bowery, where at last he 
 arrived, bathed in perspiration, spite of the weather's 
 truly arctic temper. 
 
 "Only two tollars dis dime," the Jew said, contemptu- 
 ously pushing to one side, with repulsively dirty fingers, 
 the objects Loic had silently placed on the counter, but, 
 raising his red-rimmed eyes to the set, desperate face be- 
 fore him, he added, craftily measuring the broad shoul- 
 ders of his customer: "If you should habben to know 
 
 540 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 somepody to vatch my goots turing the rest of de 
 holitays, I vould villingly bay him dat sum for efery 
 night. I haf tiamonds of crate value here, and I am 
 not quiet apout them chust now, mine vriend." He 
 had had dealings with Loic before, and accorded him 
 a respect which was partly the result of a really keen 
 insight into human nature and partly due to the large 
 profits he had made on earlier and far more important 
 transactions. 
 
 "All right," Loic said, curtly, pocketing the two filthy 
 greenbacks. " When do you wish me to begin ?" 
 
 " At vunce, mine goot vriend at vunce. I am chust 
 going to glose up, and if you vill badrol bevoor my vin- 
 dows I vill bay you at seven o'clock do-morrow morning 
 ven I gome." 
 
 Those were sinister nights in the broad, deserted, foul- 
 smelling thoroughfare, where the bitter winter blasts 
 chased one another from doorway to doorway, while 
 on their whistling course down side streets towards 
 the fog-shrouded, ice-laden waters of the river; the 
 weather was relentless in its cruelty, snow giving place to 
 sleet and sleet to squalls of freezing rain, with tireless 
 perseverance, and Loic, keeping his weary vigils from 
 midnight to seven, made the acquaintance of more hor- 
 rors than even he had ever suspected the world could 
 encompass. 
 
 One thought alone sustained him. He had, late on 
 Christmas Eve, posted the letter to Gaidik held back 
 until Kikette's promised visit should show him how the 
 land would lie in the future forgetting, unfortunately, 
 in the turmoil of the moment, that it did not con- 
 tain his new address and all he now desired was to 
 keep body and soul together until his sister rescued him. 
 His pride was so utterly broken that he barely resented 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 his present mode of earning enough to accomplish that 
 aim; and yet when, on New-Year's Eve, he arrived at 
 his post, through streets crowded with merrymakers, ex- 
 asperatingly blowing on tin trumpets, and had dutifully 
 received the Jew's instructions to " Be very alerd, mine lat, 
 on agound of de toughs," his eyes puckered queerly as 
 he murmured to himself, swinging on his heel to com- 
 mence his endless promenade in the teeth of a cutting 
 northeaster: "Pretty work for my father's son to do! 
 So ennobling! So grand! So worthy!" And the wind 
 having extinguished his cigarette, he thrust his hands 
 deep into his pockets, and, turning up his threadbare, 
 flimsy collar, resumed his round. 
 
 Slowly the ice-shod hours wore on, desperately, slowly, 
 especially as long as the turmoil inherent to December 
 3ist in New York lasted ; and when at length the tin-horn 
 blowers had departed, leaving the snow and a few warmly 
 coated policemen who nodded sympathetically to Loic 
 now and again in sole possession of the desolate Bowery, 
 the latter was forced to accelerate his steps in order not 
 to literally freeze alive. 
 
 Towards four o'clock he paused for a few moments, 
 thoroughly exhausted, in a deep doorway, to recover his 
 breath, for the wind cut like razor-blades, and his chest 
 hurt him surprisingly with every inhalation of the deadly 
 atmosphere. By the light of a forlorn street-lamp he 
 noticed a poor, little, half -frozen sparrow, who, like 
 himself, had sought shelter in that partially screened 
 corner, and who, with lamentably flurried feathers, cow- 
 ered in its farthest angle. Stooping quickly, Loic gen- 
 tly lifted the shivering bird from the ground, and, hold- 
 ing him between his numbed fingers, looked curiously 
 at him. 
 
 "We are incorrigible rowdies, you and I eh, little 
 
 542 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 chap?" he murmured softly, standing slightly twisted 
 to one side and patting the ruffled wings with one finger. 
 "Hopeless scamps, both of us; still, it is not right that we 
 should be perishing with hunger and cold like this, is it ?" 
 The bright, jetty, twinkling eyes seemed to wink ac- 
 quiescence and implore assistance at one and the same 
 time so drolly that with a short, shamefaced laugh Loic 
 slipped the pitiful mite within his waistcoat where, to 
 be truthful, but little warmth was to be found, alas! 
 then, with a more cheery "And now let's patrol some 
 more," he faced the weather with renewed courage. 
 
 At that very moment Rose was romping with a party 
 of Susannah Caulfield's paying guests to the accom- 
 paniment of a cracked piano and a weezy accordion, 
 the bad feeling between her and her simple-minded 
 employer a thing of the past, and her own confidence in 
 the future wholly restored. She had often put her one 
 talent to excellent use in convincing cleverer people than 
 poor Susannah of the integrity of her cause against Loic 
 people who should have known better, and who believed 
 her in spite of themselves perchance a great actress had, 
 after all, been lost in her; and, gayly relying upon the 
 fruition of the second dose of punishment she had admin- 
 istered to Loic, she vaguely determined being in a par- 
 ticularly jovial mood to write him again in a little 
 while yes, even to let him see Kikette, if he deserved 
 it never dreaming that this time she had perchance 
 drawn the net so tightly that he might never get free 
 from its throttling meshes again. 
 
 Slowly the night wore on, and just as Loic was going to 
 quit his beat in search of a few hours of sorely needed 
 rest, a fluttering at his breast reminded him of his feath- 
 ered prote'ge'. Slipping his hand within his waistcoat, 
 he produced the captive and tossed him into the slightly 
 
 543 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 thawing air. With a sharp little cry, the sparrow flew 
 to a telegraph wire overhead, and thence looked downward 
 at his rescuer in an alert and independent fashion, shak- 
 ing his cramped wings, puffing out his chest, and flirting 
 his absurd tail from side to side. 
 
 "Is that how you say 'Thank you'?" Loic remarked 
 from the sidewalk below. "You're very human which 
 means that, after all, you're not more ungrateful than 
 other friends that I've obliged. Good-bye, little chap," 
 and, with an amused nod and a parting wave of the 
 hand, he took his way through the awakening streets 
 to his lonely lodging. 
 
 On returning to his rooms upon the last day when his 
 services as watchman were required, the holidays being 
 over, Loic heaved a deep sigh of relief, for the effect of 
 the hardships undergone during those freezing nights 
 was beginning to get the better of his strength of en- 
 durance. 
 
 He awoke after his first long sleep with a feeling of 
 lassitude positively oppressive in its intensity, and a fear- 
 ful headache pressing the back of his eyes like hot lead. 
 His bath made him shiver, and he vainly attempted to 
 swallow the coffee which motherly Mrs. Cramp insisted 
 upon making for him. She was not satisfied with her 
 interesting lodger, was Mrs. Cramp ; he was a sore puzzle 
 to her, a puzzle she tried quite uselessly to solve; but a 
 warm corner of her childless heart had opened widely to 
 him, and it was with genuine concern that, gazing intent- 
 ly at the curious, drawn look about his eyes late in the 
 afternoon, she said, stoutly: 
 
 "You are ill, Mr. Kergoat, and you must not on any 
 account go out again. Indeed, you should let me send 
 for a doctor at once." 
 
 A doctor! Loic smiled a little wanly. Five dollars 
 
 544 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 capital do not encourage one to appeal to the medical 
 profession, and, as for the dispensary or hospital, he was 
 resolved not to go there again. He had been treated 
 kindly during his attack of grippe, but the dismalness of 
 the thing gave him the horrors, and so, shaking his head, 
 he merely replied: "I do feel a trifle queer, but it's only 
 fatigue, and I'll be all right in a day or two, Mrs. Cramp. 
 Still, I think I'll take your advice and stay at home." 
 
 Heavy-eyed and clogged of brain, he threw himself all 
 of a heap on the small sofa as soon as she had reluctantly 
 gone, and lay there, witn eyes closed, wondering why his 
 chest felt so leathery inside and why there was so strangely 
 uncontrollable a twitching in all the muscles of his legs. 
 The room seemed insufferably hot, too; but when he pain- 
 fully rose and opened a window his teeth began to chat- 
 ter, and, having closed it again with an effort, he went 
 back to his sofa and fell into so heavy a sleep that Mrs. 
 Cramp had to shake him into consciousness when, tow- 
 ards night, taking the law into her own hands, she re- 
 appeared with the doctor she had sent for in her growing 
 anxiety. This professional gentleman stopped suddenly 
 in the middle of a slightly pompous sentence, when he 
 glanced at the thermometer he had just removed from 
 his patient's mouth and saw what was recorded on it, 
 and although Loic noticed the incident and guessed its 
 cause, he was by now far too ill to care much about it. 
 Indeed, he let himself be helped to bed with an apathy 
 so unlike his brisk, hopeful self that even Mrs. Cramp, 
 who had known him only for so short a time, shook her 
 head despondently. 
 
 ' 'What is the matter with him?" she asked of the doc- 
 tor, as soon as she had him alone in the hall. 
 
 "I don't know," he replied, hesitatingly. "It may be 
 a mere heavy cold, but his temperature is so high that I 
 
 545 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 am inclined to think it influenza; he looks dissipated, too 
 drinks hard, I have no doubt. Well, if he is no better, 
 you can send for me in a day or two." And scenting but 
 little glory and less money in the case of so obscure and 
 probably impoverished a person, the doctor took his 
 departure with inimitable alacrity; but next day Mrs. 
 Cramp started back appalled when a lividly blue face, 
 bedewed with perspiration, drawn and terribly angular, 
 confronted her upon the pillows as she entered the 
 room. 
 
 "Mercy on us!" she exclaimed, bending towards him. 
 "You are enough to scare anybody this morning; 'tain't 
 influenza you've got, take my word for it! That doctor's 
 made a mistake, sure! Lord, but you did give me a 
 turn!" 
 
 Loic, speaking in a low, muffled voice and in the jerky 
 manner caused by a knifelike pain that thrust him 
 through the ribs, courteously apologized for having given 
 her "a turn," whereupon the good soul gave vent to a 
 torrent of words, concluding with: "You don't know how 
 much this reminds me of Cramp's last illness he died of 
 pneumonia, poor dear, and he was as brave as a lion 
 about the pain, though it did make him swear some 
 when it got to be at its worst!" 
 
 Loic smiled quietly. "I assure you," he said, "that I 
 sympathize with Mr. Cramp, though in deference to 
 you who, alas! are not my wife I'll try and go him 
 one better and not swear in your presence, at least!" 
 " They say," he added, half to himself after a moment's 
 interval, "that it goes hardest with men who have 
 been drinking a bit heavily!" 
 
 "That's just what the doctor told my old man," ac- 
 quiesced that lamented gentleman's garrulous widow; 
 then hastily bethinking herself, she continued, "but you 
 
 546 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 are lots younger than he was, and lots stronger, too, so 
 that even if it is pneumonia you have every chance!" 
 
 "Thank you!" gasped Loic. "I'm not a bit afraid, I 
 assure you. Ah, Mere Corentine vous avez ete bonne pro- 
 phetesse ma pauvre chere vieille!" 
 
 "How?" Mrs. Cramp asked, apprehensively. 
 
 "Oh, nothing! I'm not off my head yet; but you can 
 send for the doctor if you like, my good Mrs. Cramp 
 although I scarcely think that he will leave wealthier 
 patients for my sake and I don't care a damn whether 
 he does or not," he added, when she had rushed out of 
 the room almost panic-stricken. " If only I can see Gaidik 
 once just see Gaidik once again that's all I ask; and 
 if even that is refused who knows but only afterwards 
 will we begin our true life together she still here I 
 ah! who knows!" 
 
 Waking from a restless doze, a little while later, he 
 stared in surprise at the smoky ceiling his mind wan- 
 dering slightly. "It's all my fault all my fault!" he 
 murmured, in a short-breathed drone. "I was always a 
 fool and stubborn as a mule, but when you come for 
 me, Gaid, you'll see I'll do better you'll bring Kikette 
 back poor little Kikette and we will be happy at last. 
 It was only a nightmare, those years and months and 
 days my own Gaid!" His fingers picked aimlessly at 
 the counterpane, and finally raising himself painfully 
 on his uncomfortable and tumbled pillows, he managed 
 to draw towards him a small table upon which lay spread 
 the contents of that brown-paper parcel from the very 
 bottom of his trunk, the portfolio filled with Gaidik's 
 photographs, and the writing-case, and at last feebly 
 grasped a slim roll of parchments from which great seals 
 depended attached by faded ribbons. "Ah," he whis- 
 pered, with a low laugh, which made him cough, "the 
 
 547 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 old records fifth century fourteen hundred years it's 
 a long spell of nobility to have it end like this " and 
 again he laughed. 
 
 Suddenly the blind, unseeing look in his eyes vanished, 
 and he turned them consciously to the door which had 
 opened again softly. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Cramp," he said, in a voice just audible 
 "brought me something again? You are kind!" 
 
 Mrs. Cramp came up to the bed, holding in one hand 
 a pale yellow envelope, and in the other three or four 
 pink and white camellias. 
 
 "There now, drat you, Sir, you've uncovered your 
 poor chest again! You're too bad!" she said, quite cross- 
 ly for her. " I've sent after the doctor, and here's a tele- 
 gram just come for you, that's been lying at your old 
 rooms down-town for a week ; it was a new hand, it ap- 
 pears, that didn't know you, as took it in, and what with 
 one thing and another they didn't think to send it up till 
 to-day and," she volubly continued, "here's some flow- 
 ers, too, since you like them so much, which my little 
 niece has brought me and ' ' 
 
 At sight of the envelope, Loic's ashy face had flushed 
 lividly. "Give it to me!" he cried, hoarsely, struggling 
 to sit up, but Mrs. Cramp held him down, and, seeing how 
 terribly his fingers trembled, tore it open for him and 
 spread it out before his eyes: 
 
 "I am coming to you. Don't give up hope, all will be well. 
 Tenderest love. GAID." 
 
 ******* 
 It was evening, only a little after moonrise, and some 
 wonderful silver rays flooded the room. There was but 
 little apparatus of sickness or medicine there no doc- 
 tor, no medicine which perhaps allows one to die easier. 
 Beneath the lamp on the little table near the bed, a 
 
 548 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 handful of simple, home - grown flowerets basking in a 
 white china cup, gave, as Loic had said an hour before, 
 a comfortable look of home to the whole place, and on 
 a chair near the bed the toy monkey, selected so glee- 
 fully for Kikette's Christmas, was dancing and chatter- 
 ing like mad, having been wound up at his particular 
 request great baby that he still was in spite of all to 
 while the time away. 
 
 He had been very restless since the receipt of Gaidik's 
 message, but he was lying quiet just now, his head turned 
 sideways on the pillow, his cheek pressed to Gaidik's 
 miniature, at which he glanced now and again with un- 
 speakable love and longing. 
 
 "Will she be in time?" he thought, a little drowsily, as 
 Mrs. Cramp, who, seeing him so much calmer, and fond- 
 ly imagining this to be a good sign, was explaining how 
 futile had been her efforts to get the doctor, and it was 
 almost with his old, mocking smile that he murmured: 
 "Thrifty man, that doesn't like to waste his visits! 
 But never mind, Mrs. Cramp, you will be rewarded 
 Gaid will see to that!" 
 
 A fearful attack of coughing interrupted him, and in 
 his distress he sprang to his feet, with the desperate hope 
 that he could at last get a deep breath thus. 
 
 "No! No! child, you mustn't!" Mrs. Cramp cried out, 
 endeavoring to restrain him ; but that magnificent strength 
 of his was not yet quite gone, even if the poor, overstrained 
 heart refused to do him service any longer, and she could 
 not force him down, in spite of all her efforts ; but suddenly 
 he fell back of his own accord, gasped once or twice, and 
 
 lay quite still. 
 
 ******* 
 
 A light step raced up the stairs, and Gaidik, breathless, 
 haggard, travel-worn, stood in that silent little room. 
 
 549 
 
THE TRIDENT AND THE NET 
 
 Her expression was so forbidding that poor Mrs. Cramp, 
 who had met her at the front door and now entered after 
 her, recoiled in dismay. The paper-white face, the sav- 
 agely glittering eyes, and the extraordinary rigidity of 
 the tensely braced little figure, frightened her almost out 
 of her wits, but yet at last she ventured to touch on< 
 tightly clinched hand timidly, in her overwhelming sym- 
 pathy for that voiceless, tearless agony, and Gaidik turned 
 suddenly upon her: 
 
 "Do you think that any one will dispute him to me 
 now?" she demanded, fiercely. 
 
 
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