F: JIG-FLOWERS
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE LADY OF THE 
 FLAG-FLOWERS
 
 THE LADY OF THE 
 FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 FLORENCE WILKINSON 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE AND COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 
 
 MDCCCXCIX
 
 COPYRIGHT 1899, BY 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO
 
 "PS 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 ANCESTORS 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE BUSH 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Father of Them All "j* 
 
 II. A Danse Dramatique .... 27 
 
 PART TWO 
 
 DEW-OF-THE-MORNING 
 
 I. On the St. Gabriel 
 
 II. An Open Mind .... 
 
 III. The Pique-nique . 
 
 IV. A Fancy ...... . . 
 
 V. Yvonne Makes a Promise . 77 
 
 VI. Blows A Fair Wind 8 
 
 VII. "Ah, ah, Cecilia." 
 
 yy 
 
 PART THREE 
 
 OPEN WINGS 
 
 I. The Winning-out of Willoughby . . Iir 
 
 II. Orchardhurst . . 
 
 III. First Times . . . . . . . 
 
 IV. Makers of Manners .... . l6l 
 
 V. Truth and Untruth ... I7 _, 
 VI. A Spring Walk . . . . . . JJ 
 
 VII. An Indian Heaven 
 
 VIII. When the Birds Fly . .. . . . . 211 
 5
 
 PART FOUR 
 
 WHAT THE WORLD BROUGHT 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Old Order Changeth 229 
 
 II. A Renewed Acquaintance . ... 235 
 
 III. Consummation 2 57 
 
 IV. The Clear Fountain 263 
 
 V. An April Miracle 
 
 VI. Another Renewed Acquaintance . . . 281 
 
 PART FIVE 
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG-FLOWERS 
 
 I. Before the Tenth 291 
 
 II. Jangling Voices 2 97 
 
 III. Willoughby Makes a Promise .... 303 
 
 IV. Yvonne s Great Day 3" 
 
 V. Helen s Letter 321 
 
 VI. The Derelict 327 
 
 VII. The Calling 337 
 
 VIII. At Chateauheriault 345 
 
 IX. After the Tenth 357 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 Heart s-Ease 3&i
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 ANCESTORS 
 
 "... enfin, voila la prediction d un sauvage 
 arrive. Le nomn6 Louis Atarice, a qui Louis Qua- 
 torze donna son nom, etant en France. ..." 
 
 Old Manuscript in the Archives 
 of Canada, Parliament Build 
 ing, Quebec.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 ANCESTORS 
 
 You will not go, Aymar?" plaintively 
 said Corisande, the Countess d Hery. 
 
 As she rested her elbow on the table, 
 holding the cards in her hand, the point- 
 lace fell away sumptuously from her ivory- 
 rounded arm. 
 
 The cards, after the German fashion, were 
 curiously engraved around the margin with 
 leaves and bells. The court-cards were roi, 
 chevalier and valet, and bore upon their 
 faces fantastic figures, often in attitudes of 
 grotesque combat. They were clothed, 
 some a la mode Grecq, others after the elab 
 orate fashion of the seventeenth century. 
 
 "I must go, Corisande," said Aymar. 
 "The King wishes it. " 
 
 Aymar Fleurnel, the Count d He"ry, looked 
 
 tenderly at the little face opposite him. His 
 
 tenderness was neither subjective nor objec 
 
 tive. It was always in the possessive case. 
 
 3
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 In the oval of the little face, dark lashes, 
 down-swept, hid the gaze he knew. The 
 baby curves of the mouth drooped with 
 incipient grief. Aymar and Corisande were 
 husband and wife and fond of each other, 
 which was more than a nine days wonder in 
 the court of the Grand Monarque. 
 
 "But Madame wishes you to stay," said 
 Corisande, still with her eyes upon her 
 cards. She would cry if she looked at 
 Aymar. To shed natural tears at the 
 Chateau d H6ry were worse than wicked, it 
 were stupid; and merely because one s hus 
 band was going over seas that were plainly 
 bourgeoise. And in mid-afternoon in the 
 chateau garden, at the piquet table ! 
 Clearly, Corisande could not cry. 
 
 "Therefore the King wishes me to go. 
 It naturally follows." 
 
 He laid a chevalier-de-carreau upon the 
 table. One noticed the exquisite oblong of 
 his polished nails, their pinkness, and the 
 symmetry of the white crescent at their 
 bases. 
 
 See if you can match my Bayard !" he said. 
 
 He wished that Corisande would raise her 
 eyes. He could not see how much she cared 
 when her lids were down. Aymar was a 
 4
 
 ANCESTORS 
 
 virtuoso in the emotions as he was in cards, 
 in heraldry, in falconry, and in all the other 
 fine arts of the times. 
 
 Grief should be esoteric, should be 
 expressed intimately, like the symbolism on 
 the azure shield of d Hery. 
 
 Corisande s black eyes, veiled by tears, 
 satisfied without exceeding. They were like 
 a deep, clear pool in the woods, when a wet, 
 overhanging branch suddenly patters a 
 silvery tremolo upon its ebony surface. 
 
 "Then I will go with you. And look, my 
 Alessandro takes your Bayard." 
 
 She drew the cards toward her and patted 
 them prettily. Then she raised her eyes to 
 her husband and smiled at him. 
 
 The brown water just trembled a little 
 now with the reflection of wavering leaves 
 above it. 
 
 "Shall I not go, Kebeco?" 
 
 She addressed a tame shrike that sat sul 
 lenly on a low branch of the mulberry-tree 
 growing against the garden wall. They 
 had named him Kebeco after that rock in 
 the new world on which had lately been built 
 the Chateau St. Louis. 
 
 Kebeco, realizing his chain, refrained 
 from making a strike at the taper finger 
 5
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 raised temptingly toward him. But he sank 
 his head down into his neck till the ruffled 
 feathers stood up angrily all around. He 
 looked like a Frenchman who shrugs his 
 shoulders up to his ears, with an indignant 
 "Je ne sais. " 
 
 "Aha!" laughed Aymar, imitating the 
 shrike, "Kebeco will not answer as to that." 
 
 "We will play on it, " said Corisande. "Qui 
 perd gagne. What do you say, Aymar?" 
 
 The shrike watched them with round, 
 gloating eyes. 
 
 "You are delicious. So be it," said the 
 Count. 
 
 His artistic sense was tickled by the 
 nonchalance of the idea. 
 
 She put down her valet-de-tre*fle. So they 
 played at piquet, the lady and the cavalier, 
 and the stake was whether or no she should 
 travel with him over-seas. Her skirt, that 
 was ashes-of-roses, made an ample glisten 
 ing circle about her on the close-cropped 
 green of the parterre. Lace ruffles fell 
 about his silk-stockinged knees, crossed 
 under the gilt and flower inlaid table. Her 
 face was like a fruit above the points of lace 
 that rayed stiffly out, plate-shaped, below 
 her chin. Her hair was dressed high and 
 6
 
 ANCESTORS 
 
 smooth, like the coiffure of Gabrielle 
 d Estrees in the portrait. The lofty puffs 
 above and the expansive collar below 
 enhanced the child-like softness of her con 
 tour and expression. Quaintly frivolous 
 they looked, like a picture on an ivory 
 French fan. 
 
 So they played at piquet together, Aymar 
 and Corisande. But the stake was posterity. 
 
 Two figures enter the garden now, that 
 one does not see in the painted pictures on 
 fans. One of them surely has never before 
 seen a chateau garden nor a cavalier and lady 
 playing at piquet. But for truth s sake 
 they must go into this picture. Also, it is 
 due to posterity. 
 
 "Voila!" said Aymar, seeing the figures 
 between the arch of twin oleanders trained 
 to intertwine. "The Abbe* Delfouche* and 
 his Savage." 
 
 After the new-comers had been greeted, 
 they sat down on the marble seat, built into 
 the wall below the purple-fruited mulberry. 
 Tall urns of flowers flanked it at either end. 
 
 "He is one of Pere Breboeuf s Hurons, " 
 said the abbot. "He has been with us three 
 months. It is his first visit outside convent 
 walls.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 "You honor us, Monsieur," said Aymar 
 to the Indian, hiding a smile behind his 
 curled mustache. 
 
 But the ends of the smile came out, and 
 were not lost upon the astute savage. 
 
 To Aymar s surprise, he was answered in 
 dignified, though broken, French. 
 
 "You smile, Monsieur," said Louis Atar- 
 ice. "In our country we do not jest with 
 strangers." 
 
 At the sound of the Huron s voice, Kebeco 
 shifted his position, hopping the length of 
 his chain to get a view of the stranger. 
 
 The Indian looked up, also the abbot. 
 
 "One of those little pie s greches, " said the 
 Count. "He was trained by a pupil of 
 Albert de Luynes. We have named him 
 Kebeco." 
 
 "Kebeco," repeated Louis Atarice, in 
 liquid syllables that at once transformed the 
 shrike s name into an unknown tongue. 
 "Kebeco!" 
 
 The shrike uttered a low, answering note, 
 and the red circles around his eyes gleamed 
 as he glowered at Louis Atarice. 
 
 While the shrike and the Indian looked at 
 each other thus, Corisande scrutinized her 
 visitor. The Hurons have been called the 
 
 8
 
 ANCESTORS 
 
 nobles of the Indians. His bronze features, 
 little written upon by play of emotion, yet 
 had not the blankness of an unlived life. 
 They were rather a mask, with the severity 
 of mystery its mold. His French garments 
 sat with conscious superfluousness upon his 
 classic person. Not Louis Atarice, but his 
 frivolous waistcoat was ill at ease. 
 
 "How like you our river?" asked Coris- 
 ande, putting down a card absently in 
 response to her husband s urgent brows. 
 
 "Much. For I have learned how far 
 superior is our Father of Waters, answered 
 Louis Atarice. 
 
 "But Paris?" said the abbot, amused at 
 his protege s lack of urbanity. 
 
 "It is not Ihonatiria, " said Louis Atarice, 
 blandly. 
 
 They all laughed, except the Indian. 
 Even Kebeco jeered a little, shutting one 
 eye. But the other eye was open, fixed 
 apprehensively on the Huron. Did he 
 recognize a kindred savagery in that impas 
 sive face? 
 
 Corisande and Aymar played on at piquet. 
 
 "Ventre Saint-Gris! as le roi Henri used 
 to say," cried Aymar. "I have won. You 
 have lost your stake, Corisande. 
 9
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Not so, Aymar, exclaimed the Countess, 
 as she pushed back her chair from the 
 table, and adjusted the emerald fleur-de-lis 
 at her tiny waist. "It is I who capot. " 
 
 "You forget, mon amie," laughed the 
 Count, "who wins, loses. The stake is 
 mine." 
 
 "You are going to join the Count de Buade 
 in New France, Monsieur?" inquired the 
 abbot, as they ascended together the ter 
 raced steps to the chateau. 
 
 "The King has sent me," said Aymar, 
 dramatically dolorous. 
 
 Then, veering round to vivacity : 
 
 "And behold, my compatriot!" 
 
 He spread out his jeweled hands toward 
 the Huron. But Louis Atarice was more to 
 him than compatriot, if he could only know 
 it. He was fellow-ancestor, as well. 
 
 Kebeco, left alone on the mulberry-tree 
 made a jab at an iridescent whir that 
 streaked past him. The humming-bird flew 
 on, unmolested, to his lilies. Kebeco fell 
 asleep, with one red-rimmed eye half-open, 
 turned toward the lilies. 
 
 10
 
 PART ONE 
 
 THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE BUSH 
 
 "It was na in the ha , the ha , 
 Nor in the painted bower, 
 But it was in the gude green wood 
 Amang the lilly-flower. " 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 ii
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FATHER OF THEM ALL 
 
 The blows of Babou, the Indian wood 
 cutter, rang against the great pine-tree, and 
 echoed through the quiet wood on the hill 
 side. 
 
 Yvonne, little and brown, sitting on a 
 stump, watched him. All the French-Indian 
 blood in her was stirred by the incipient 
 tragedy. The fir-trees that stood all around, 
 taciturn, they were watching, too. The 
 great pine-tree, he was the father of them 
 all. 
 
 Little Huron children down by the river 
 were gathering raspberries, and calling to 
 each other. Did they not hear the blows of 
 the wicked Babou s ax? How could they 
 then care to look for raspberries and ,to 
 laugh? 
 
 Old Mere Gaspard was picking everlasting 
 flowers over there in that hilly pasture. She 
 was going to make a bed of them. She was 
 bending over her bag, and did not seem to 
 listen to the cruel sounds. Did she not 
 13
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 know that the Father of them all was being 
 killed? But she had such wrinkly eyes, and 
 she stooped so, it was probable that she 
 did not know how very tall he was, and how 
 far he put his arms out, like a priest bless 
 ing the hillside. 
 
 The blows of Babou s ax still rang against 
 the resistant wood. 
 
 "Ma foi, he has the good heart!" 
 
 The little brown hands were tightly 
 clasped. 
 
 "He will not yield to that cruel Babou. " 
 
 A big, triangular gash began to show 
 white at the broad base of the trunk. 
 
 "Is not that enough? Why will he not 
 stop?" 
 
 Still the blows went on. The bronze 
 features of the cutter were as hard as ever. 
 
 "It is almost time for the great tremble to 
 come," Yvonne thought, "and then there 
 will be such a groan, and he will fall over, 
 the poor tree, with his beautiful arms out 
 spread " 
 
 She caught her breath with the horror of 
 expectancy. 
 
 "Perhaps he will fall on Babou s head, 
 and then he will be sorry, le me chant." 
 
 No, she could not stand it any longer. 
 14
 
 THE FATHER OF THEM ALL 
 
 She ran up, and out gushed a torrent of 
 expostulations upon stolid, astonished 
 Babou. 
 
 His children are all watching you. They 
 are hating you for it." 
 
 Her words came quickly, and there was a 
 sob behind them. She was too much Indian 
 to cry, but she was French enough to be 
 excited. Still, she was ashamed of the 
 choke in her voice. 
 
 "He has been so brave, and stood so 
 stoutly. Even now he will cure himself, the 
 dear tree, if you do not touch him again 
 with your stupid ax." 
 
 As Babou raised his arms imperturbably 
 for the next blow that was to strike deep at 
 the very heart of the wounded tree, Yvonne 
 jumped up with all her tiny strength, and 
 clung with both hands around his lifted 
 arm, her little moccasined feet dangling 
 some inches above the ground. 
 
 "Babou," she shrieked into his ear, "you 
 will be sorry some other day. Arretez! 
 Arretez ! 
 
 Her will glowed out of her eyes like two 
 wild beasts, and her shrill words hit him like 
 pebbles. 
 
 "Well, then, petite," he muttered, shaking 
 15
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 her off from his arm as if she had been a 
 persistent kitten, "I will leave it alone. 
 You are toute folle, but I will leave it 
 alone." 
 
 And the tree afterward grew and flour 
 ished, and Yvonne often sat in the angle of 
 its roots that protruded along the ground 
 like great, gaunt, knotted fingers, and 
 caressed the seamed and gummy scar where 
 Babou s ax had made the hollow. 
 
 "Le pauvre!" she murmured. "When this 
 one goes to heaven, the Blessed Virgin will 
 lean against his trunk and then he will be 
 all well." 
 
 And the branches of the tree, with their 
 multifarious sighs, seemed to its little 
 consoler to breathe a melancholy resignation. 
 
 Etienne Brusseau s house, where Yvonne 
 lived, stands on a knoll, with a rising hill 
 side behind it. The hillside is clothed with 
 fir and pine trees, sparsely scattered. From 
 the top of the hill, if one ever gets there 
 through the cedar and juniper underbrush 
 and the slides of rock near the summit, one 
 looks down on the plateau where the Indian 
 village lies. Let it be called La Jeune 
 Vallette, though that is not its name. 
 Little, rambling, vine-broidered houses, 
 16
 
 THE FATHER OF THEM ALL 
 
 painted gray by wind and weather, they 
 wander uncertainly over the irresolute 
 streets, up above and away from the reso 
 lute white high-road that with French pre-. 
 cision goes neatly from one Norman hamlet 
 to another. Down by the high-road is the 
 Huron Chapel, fashioned like the Holy 
 House at Loretto, built for the Indians two 
 hundred years ago when the remnant of 
 their scattered tribe found refuge in this 
 sequestered spot. The somber fir-woods 
 are all about, above and below and on 
 every side of the plateau ; and there to the 
 right the river St. Gabriel winds silverly 
 through its fringing trees, and below the 
 bridge, where one sees that flash of white, 
 it takes its foaming leap into the deep and 
 tortuous ravine. To the left, behind that 
 hill, is the Herb-Gatherers Village, white 
 houses sprinkled in a green valley, but they 
 are very far away, and no road goes there, 
 only a trail through the woods and a foot 
 path through the meadows ; so no one ever 
 visits them. They are an idle folk, who 
 dance all day Sundays, and speak a strange 
 patois of their own. 
 
 Off to the far north, toward La Montagne 
 Ronde, but away from Val Cartier, lies Les 
 17
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Cent Arpents, where other Indians live. It 
 is very lonely to live there, and they are 
 mostly old, old people, and some of them 
 have never been even to Chateaubourg, 
 where the White Sisters have a Convent 
 with beautiful statues among the trees in 
 their walled garden. There is where Yvonne 
 Brusseau went to school. The Sisters 
 were very good to her, and told her step 
 father, Monsieur Brusseau, the moccasin- 
 maker, that she was tres aimable and tres 
 sage. "Despite her Huron blood," they 
 had said among themselves, but they did not 
 say it to her stepfather, for Monsieur Brus 
 seau had married into the Huron tribe, and 
 his wife, who had been Madame Tahour- 
 enche", was little Yvonne s mother. 
 
 So Etienne took land in the Indian reser 
 vation, and built a house like the little Nor 
 man houses, with their gables and low eaves 
 and small windows and thick walls, that the 
 French cultivateurs live in and have always 
 lived in since their great-grandfathers came 
 over from Normandy hundreds of years ago 
 and built homes in La Nouvelle France, 
 just like the houses they had left behind 
 them among the Normandy pastures. 
 
 But Etienne Brusseau s house was larger 
 18
 
 THE FATHER OF THEM ALL 
 
 and more pretentious, and standing up 
 there on the knoll with the fir-wood behind 
 it, it seemed to command the village, as if it 
 had been the manse of a seignory. 
 
 Some of the trees had been cut down for 
 Etienne s winter firewood, and others to 
 make a road through to the river-pasture 
 where Etienne kept his cows. 
 
 But among those that were left was the 
 great pine-tree, with its plume-tipped 
 branches, its trunk that two men could not 
 hold between outstretched arms, and its 
 many mysterious voices. 
 
 "He talks the Huron tongue," said 
 Yvonne to her cousin, Poleon Gros-Louys. 
 The two children sat together at the foot of 
 the pine-tree. 
 
 Yvonne, like the others of her tribe, spoke 
 the French patois of the neighborhood. The 
 Huron language had not been spoken among 
 the Indians for years, being preserved only 
 in surnames, which were still given to those 
 of Huron descent, and in the patronymics 
 which remained. There was also a big 
 manuscript dictionary, which a Jesuit mis 
 sionary long ago had compiled, now 
 in the possession of Paul Tahourenche, 
 Yvonne s uncle, of noble stock, who swept 
 
 19
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 out the Chapel and made toy canoes for 
 a living. 
 
 "I know he talks the Huron tongue," 
 Yvonne repeated. I have heard Grandmere 
 say some words, and they are all soft and 
 gurgling, with little sighs in them like 
 that." 
 
 She listened awhile with a rapt expression 
 on her face, while the wind played delicately 
 in the branches. 
 
 Little Poleon was not given over to emo 
 tional imaginings. 
 
 "You say foolish things sometimes," he 
 remarked, dryly. "You are eight years old, 
 and you seem to know no more than Grand- 
 mere. " 
 
 "Grandmere is wise, even though she is 
 old," returned Yvonne. "When the tree 
 was young, oh, so many years ago, as long 
 ago as there are needles on the tree, even as 
 long ago as when Grandmere was little, like 
 me; we were all Indians here, and we 
 talked Huron, and the tree was young then, 
 and he learned the tongue, and now he is 
 old he cannot forget, canst thou, dear 
 tree?" 
 
 She put her cheek up against the trunk 
 affectionately. 
 
 20
 
 THE FATHER OF THEM ALL 
 
 "Sister Angelina says it is easy to learn 
 when one is young." 
 
 "Sister Angeline knows only a few 
 things," responded Poleon, with grave 
 intolerance. "She can neither paddle nor 
 swim, nor can she shoot a wild duck on the 
 wing, nor catch the big trout in the rapids. 
 All that I can do. 
 
 "It is true," replied Yvonne, admiringly. 
 "You are very wise, Pole on." 
 
 "There is but one thing that makes me 
 unhappy," continued Pole on, reflectively. 
 1 I am only twelve. It is such a long time 
 one has to wait to be a man. 
 
 "And what will you do when you are a 
 man, Pole on?" 
 
 "First, I will marry you, and then I will 
 go to hunt the big moose up where the 
 Mistassini River goes. Uncle Paul has told 
 me about it. 
 
 This large future did not produce upon 
 Yvonne the effect that the swarthy cousin 
 had desired. Instead, her lip trembled. 
 
 "Do you mean that you will leave me 
 alone while you hunt the big moose? I 
 shall not like it to stay alone. For I suppose 
 by the time that I am old enough to be 
 married, papan and maman tout le monde
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 will be old and withered, and will be sit 
 ting in front of the fire, nodding at the logs 
 when they turn and crackle. You will not 
 go away and leave me alone, Pole on?" 
 
 "You would be afraid to be in the woods 
 where the big moose are 
 
 "Pole on, I am not afraid when it thun 
 ders, nor am I afraid hardly ever. And if I 
 should be afraid I would say my beads so 
 fast that I would forget all about it." 
 
 "You were afraid when we went up the 
 Montagne Ronde last summer, the time 
 that I shot two partridges. 
 
 Poleon glowed at the reminiscence. 
 
 "I was afraid of la Jongleuse, not of the 
 woods. And you must remember, Poleon, 
 that then I was only seven. There is much 
 difference between seven and eight." 
 
 "There is no use in many words," said 
 Pole on, bringing together his thin lips in a 
 grim fashion that he had. 
 
 "I am going to marry you, and I am 
 going to hunt the big moose." 
 
 Then it was that the feminine in Yvonne 
 asserted itself. 
 
 "Perhaps I shall not want to marry you," 
 she said, with a dainty triumph in her 
 tone.
 
 THE FATHER OF THEM ALL 
 
 "You will have to want to," returned 
 Poleon. "I will make you." 
 
 "You will make me want to marry 
 you," said Yvonne, slowly, quite bewildered 
 by this invincible position. "I cannot even 
 make myself want to do a thing. Sister 
 Angeline told me it would be a great virtue 
 if I would learn the thirteen trials of Sainte 
 Elizabeth. I tried to want to do it, but I 
 could not make myself." 
 
 "But I can make you, I," said Poleon, 
 wriggling up the tree trunk and looking 
 down at her from over the lowest branch, 
 far above her head. 
 
 "You will forget to make me," piped 
 Yvonne. 
 
 "That is not my name," he called down. 
 "My name is Qui-n -oublie-jamais." 
 
 "Odilonrohannin! Odilonrohannin. Qui- 
 n -oublie-jamais," he chanted, in the 
 topmost branches of the Father-of-Them- 
 All. 
 
 Then "Climb up here, if you can," 
 tauntingly. 
 
 "I do not wish to climb," said Yvonne, 
 standing at the foot of the tree and gazing 
 up into the world of plumes. 
 
 "I am going down by the river to play 
 23
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 with Tissette and Evraud. We shall have a 
 war-dance. I shall enjoy that much 
 better." 
 
 She ran off, crooning, as she ran, an 
 Indian song her grandmother had taught 
 her: 
 
 "Wabose", wabose*, 
 Where, ah! 
 Where, ah! 
 Little white one, 
 Are you going? 
 Wabos6, wabose. " 
 
 Her voice had a haunting, tenuous sweet 
 ness, like the siffleur s that whistles by the 
 cold Canadian streams. 
 
 Pole*on, despoiled of the masculine privi 
 lege of flaunting the unattainable in the 
 face of femininity, climbed unhappily down 
 from the tree. 
 
 These two children represented the best 
 that there was in Huron stock. For two 
 hundred years their tribe had been settled 
 in the heart of a French people, there 
 on their plateau of La Jeune Vallette. 
 Scarcely differing in appearance from the 
 French habitans around them, they yet held 
 themselves apart and clung to the Huron 
 traditions with tenacious pride. The black 
 
 24
 
 THE FATHER OF THEM ALL 
 
 hair and eyes persist, to the last dilution, 
 with Indian blood, but the other features 
 become soon modified. The copper skin 
 fades out sometimes with the first cross 
 breed. 
 
 Poleon seemed a reversal to a more 
 primitive type, and bade fair to be the 
 counterpart of his ancestor Gros-Louys, a 
 son of Louys Amantacha, the interpreter, 
 who has gone into history through his con 
 nection with the Jesuit missionary, Pere le 
 Jeune. 
 
 Here and there, along Yvonne s ancestral 
 line, waved the plumes and clashed the 
 sword of a French chevalier. Soldiers of 
 fortune, they or their parents had emigrated 
 with Roverval, with Champlain, or with 
 Montmagny, and some savage beauty had 
 mitigated for them the horrors of the 
 wilderness. 
 
 As Pole on walked slowly to the house, 
 he saw the cure coming toward him. 
 
 I am looking for Yvonne, said the Cur6 
 St. Clair. 
 
 "She is dancing a war-dance down by the 
 river," said Poleon, with studied partic 
 ularity. "Did you wish to talk with her 
 about the Good God?" 
 25
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 Up from the river came Yvonne s clear 
 voice : 
 
 "Where, ah! 
 Little white one, 
 Are you going?" 
 
 The words lingered on the still air like 
 autumn leaves that circle and circle before 
 they reach the ground.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A DANSE DRAMATIQUE 
 
 Instead of the annual opera, La Jetme 
 Vallette has a war-dance. The French- 
 Hurons have carefully hoarded this tradi 
 tion, being encouraged thereto by occasional 
 visitors from Quebec, and once the Gov 
 ernor-General. 
 
 The dance is in three acts: Act I, Watch 
 ing for the Enemy; Act II, The Attack; 
 Act III, The Return. 
 
 Below the Falls, along the edge of the river 
 gorge, is a fir-wood. You enter the wood 
 just beyond the bridge where the Chateau- 
 bourg road crosses the St. Gabriel. An 
 Indian trail is like the odor of violets. If 
 you come too close you cannot perceive it 
 at all. Where the coppery needles have a 
 more slippery shine, there you walk. That 
 is the trail. You must not try to remember 
 your bearings, nor to note the landmarks. 
 Let the trail lead you along, and by and by 
 the sound of the rushing river down in its 
 narrow ravine comes more faintly to your 
 27
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 ears. You reach an open green set mys 
 teriously down into the heart of this somber 
 wood. The grass is short here, and under 
 the baby pines and firs the Indian pipes are 
 standing in little white brotherhoods, trans 
 parent ghosts of some dim revel. 
 
 Here the danse dramatique is danced 
 every August by La Jeune Vallette. From 
 out the charmed circle of the fir-trees, no 
 sounds of their revelry reach the outside 
 world. 
 
 The habitan jogs along in his cart to 
 Ancienne Vallette, while the olive-skinned 
 people of the plateau shake the calibash and 
 cry: 
 
 "Yo-hi-ouan." 
 
 The village Cure", Father St. Clair, said 
 mass every Sunday morning in the old 
 Huron chapel. He liked its dim old age 
 and naive suggestion of the forest. The 
 silver was the direct gift of the great Louis 
 to the Hurons, also the altar cloth, out of 
 which looks the embroidered face of the 
 Dauphin, with his tarnished gold-thread 
 hair, his round, incoherent eyes, and his 
 red, ropy lips. His expression is necessarily 
 somewhat disjointed. This venerated por 
 trait was embroidered by Madame La
 
 A DANSE DRAMATIQUE 
 
 Pompadour and other noble and pious 
 ladies of Louis court. And, of a summer s 
 day, the little pine-cones will tap against 
 the leaded window, and sometimes an 
 inquisitive squirrel pauses an alert instant, 
 dramatic hand on breast, peering above the 
 opened pane, when the Kyrie Eleison floats 
 out on a still morning. 
 
 Father St. Clair was a meditative man, 
 therefore he liked the Huron chapel, with 
 its old-world pictures and historic memories, 
 better than the parish church, gray and 
 Gothic, which was the pride of the habitan. 
 
 He went to the fir-wood this morning, 
 after mass, with his Life of St. Hieronymus. 
 Unconsciously, he followed the trail, and it 
 took him to the charmed green. He sat 
 himself down at the foot of an outstanding 
 fir and read: 
 
 "No labor is hard, no time is long, 
 wherein the glory of eternity is the mark we 
 level at." 
 
 He closed the book over his finger and 
 thought. Long ago an emptiness had come 
 into his life, and he had sought refuge 
 against it in the priesthood. There is no 
 sorrow more corrosive than emptiness. 
 With his long, thin, reaching fingers, his 
 29
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 thin lips that continually settled and 
 re-settled themselves into tired repose, his 
 deep-set gray eyes with their always 
 unanswered look, he was as different as pos 
 sible from his confreres of the provincial 
 church, upon whose faces rested the sodden 
 content, the thus-far-no-further peace that 
 the Roman Catholic faith so often confers. 
 A little figure sat on the ground a short 
 distance away, turned sideways from Father 
 St. Clair. He saw it as he sat there with 
 his finger in his book. It was little Yvonne. 
 She was swaying to and fro, as she swung a 
 basket that depended from a hemlock 
 bough. She crooned a lullaby. It was in 
 French, but the refrain was Huron : 
 
 "Oua-oua, oua-oui, 
 Sleep, little daughter, sleep. 
 
 Tis your mother watching by. 
 Swinging, swinging, she will keep 
 
 Little daughter, lullaby. 
 
 Oua-oua, oua-oui, 
 
 Oua, oua-oui." 
 
 Yvonne was crooning seductively, but 
 "little daughter" seemed uneasy in her 
 cradle. It was, in fact, a baby fox that 
 Poison had given her. Perhaps youthful 
 foxes are not accustomed to be rocked to 
 30
 
 A DANSE DRAMATIQUE 
 
 sleep, or perhaps they do not enjoy a cradle 
 song. Little Renard manifested the same 
 signs of agitation that other infants, under 
 similar circumstances, show. 
 
 A pair of pointed ears appeared once above 
 the basket-rim, and again they ^bobbed up, 
 with bright restless eyes beneath them. 
 That their mutinous efforts resulted in no 
 further success was due to a small brown hand 
 laid firmly upon the palpitating body of 
 the unwilling "little daughter." But the 
 crooning voice was hypocritically tender. 
 Yvonne was trying a new cradle-song. The 
 delicious tune of it rocked to and fro with 
 those haunting cadences and strange har 
 monic dips and changes J;hat characterize the 
 habitan songs. 
 
 "Le premier jour de Mai, 
 Que barrai-je a ma mie, 
 Que barrai-je a ma mie? 
 
 Une perdriole. 
 Qui vient, qui va, qui vole, 
 
 Une perdriole. 
 
 Up you go, down you go, so-so, so-so " 
 
 Father St. Clair did not read his St. 
 Hieronymus; the little bercetise charmed 
 him into a half-dream of the past. 
 31
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 ; Le second jour de Mai- 
 
 Yvonne s berceuse had infinite possibili 
 ties ; all the thirty-one days of May might be 
 enlisted to calm a troubled child, and all 
 things that creep or walk or fly might be 
 laid at its feet. 
 
 "Le second jour de Mai, 
 Que barrai-je a ma mie," 
 
 sang on Yvonne, but she had barely got to 
 the deux tourterelles when Renard leaped 
 clear of his odious cradle. He wore a pink 
 calico slip, belted most uncomfortably about 
 his middle, and ruffled absurdly about the 
 skirt. The gown had been fitted to him in 
 the upright position, and now that he stood 
 on all fours, the bow fluttering on his back 
 and the ruffle flapping about his bushy tail, 
 the "design" lost its fitness. Yvonne herself 
 laughed as the pink calico fox trotted 
 unconsciously away. 
 
 "Go then, thou," she cried. "It is time 
 for the second act to begin. 
 
 She thrust her head out from under the 
 branches. Her black, parted hair fell in 
 straight locks down her brown cheeks. 
 
 You see now that she notes the distant 
 presence of the enemy. 
 32
 
 A DANSE DRAMATIQUE 
 
 Back and forth she creeps, now with her 
 hand to her ear, now with her ear to the 
 ground, till she makes a sudden retreat and 
 crouches down low in the underbrush. The 
 air is heavy with suspense. You can see 
 the unconscious marauder drawing slowly 
 towards the toils. 
 
 Now Yvonne throws all caution to the 
 four winds of heaven. She rushes out from 
 her ambush and there sits Father St. Clair, 
 with his solemn gaze upon her. 
 
 Yvonne sees him, and he is sacred in her 
 eyes, not as the reverend Cure", but as valu 
 able stage property. For the furore is upon 
 her. 
 
 Her finger pointed at him, she sings again, 
 liltingly, scornfully: 
 
 "C etait un vieux sauvage 
 Tour noir, tout barbourilla." 
 
 Then with a sudden change of voice she 
 says: 
 
 "You are the old savage, Father. I have 
 discovered you. You must call for your 
 warriors. Now, quick. 
 
 "Ouich ka! Ouich ka." 
 
 The reverend priest springs to his feet. 
 "Yo-hi-ouan!" 
 
 33
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 How splendidly his voice rings out in the 
 war-cry ! 
 
 " It is magnificent, says Yvonne. Now 
 you are the warriors. They have come. 
 Tauntingly the song continues : 
 
 "Avec sa vielle couverte 
 Et son sac a tabac. 
 Ouich ka. " 
 
 The arrows fly thick and fast. Hither 
 and thither flees the helpless Cure"; his 
 black-skirted robe flaps out behind him like 
 a crow s wings. His gray hair floats under 
 his close cap. But the relentless pursuer is 
 ever at his back. 
 
 "Ah, ah tenaouich tenaga. 
 Tenaouich tenaga, ouich ka. " 
 
 "I have shot you three times in the 
 heart," says Yvonne, severely, fixing her 
 eyes upon the flushed face of the obliging 
 enemy. 
 
 "Why do you not fall dead?" 
 
 "Is it not possible that I may escape?" 
 asks Father St. Clair. 
 
 "You have escaped, some of you, but you, 
 you are the last foe, and you are to be the 
 dead on the field.
 
 A DANSE DRAMATIQUE 
 
 "How else should I sing the triumph song? 
 
 "Now, while I sing these last lines, I 
 will shoot you again, even though it be for 
 the fourth time. Then you fall. 
 
 "Ah, ah, tenaouich tenaga. " 
 
 "Yes, that is ravishing, so. You make a 
 beautiful dead." 
 
 She is left alone now, with the frenzy of 
 triumph in her unseeing eyes, and then the 
 maddening dance begins. Her little yellow- 
 moccasined feet twinkle up and down, her 
 black hair streams, her arms wave. It is the 
 great war-dance, transposed into the fem 
 inine key. 
 
 When it was all over and the panting little 
 breast had ceased to heave, Yvonne stood 
 quiet on the deserted battle-field. She put 
 up her hands and smoothed down her black 
 locks in a bewildered way. The Cure had 
 resumed his seat by the huge old fir. His 
 book was in his hand. 
 
 Ah, she was very wicked, she knew.it now. 
 She went up to the Cure; she put two 
 penitent hands upon his black-robed knees. 
 Her eyes brimmed with tears. 
 
 "Dear reverend Father, was it a mortal 
 sin?" 
 
 35
 
 PART TWO 
 
 DEW-OF-THE-MORNING 
 
 He followed on the footsteps he had traced 
 Till in high woods and forests old he came." 
 
 Tasso. 
 
 37
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 He had written to his friend, Madge Van 
 Eyck it was characteristic of him that his 
 most intimate friend was a girl: "After all, 
 nature is best. Nature, nature. Perhaps 
 the best I can do for the world and for 
 myself is to live, in some obscure wilderness, 
 a life as primitive and simple as that of the 
 habitans and voyageurs whose little white 
 washed cottages sprinkle these green hills 
 below the blue Laurentides. 
 
 And she had written to him in reply : 
 
 "From nature, through art, to nature 
 again. However, Pierce, your restless 
 spirit will not long be satisfied with mere 
 simplicity. You have gone through many 
 experiences, but those not the most vital. I 
 wonder how life itself will meet you." 
 
 "Is not this life?" he thought, as he floated 
 along a little Canadian stream, a few miles 
 above its foaming shallow rapids. 
 
 He had two companions, one a young girl, 
 olive-skinned and black-haired, the other an 
 39
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 old woman, whose darker hue showed her to 
 be of unmixed Indian blood. 
 
 "Monsieur Villeaubille, " said Yvonne, 
 "zaire ees my grandmozaire s house, at zait 
 montagne, far, far. See you zaire, gardez, 
 gardez. 
 
 Her English was delicious, mixed as it 
 was with French words and spoken with the 
 Canadian-French accent, its quick, dainty 
 upward inflection seeming to hold the 
 thought in a sort of deferential suspense. 
 She had, too, the trick, common among 
 the habitans, of repetition for the sake of 
 emphasis. 
 
 She spoke to him in English, except when 
 she became much interested in the conver 
 sation, or when the theme taxed too heavily 
 her slender vocabulary. 
 
 "Ze rivaire she wind much, and I zink we 
 shall haf of a storm. And ze courante is 
 against us, Monsieur Villeaubille. 
 
 Yvonne, according to her habit with other 
 words, lingered caressingly over this last 
 syllable. That particular prolongation was 
 pleasing to the young man. 
 
 He glanced up at the sky where the 
 clouds were gathering above the top of the 
 Montagne Ronde, dark, heavy clouds, 
 40
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 through which the heat-lightning flashed 
 fitfully. 
 
 "I do not fear ze storm, I," said Yvonne, 
 "but look, grandmere, wat was zait? Some- 
 zings wite ran past me, on ze vater. " 
 
 Grandmere started, and looked about her 
 uneasily. 
 
 It was the moon s reflection in the stream, 
 Mademoiselle Yvonne," said Willoughby. 
 
 From her place in the bottom of the boat 
 grandmere muttered an unintelligible some 
 thing. 
 
 In the shadow of the firs the canoe slid on 
 almost noiselessly, when out of the silence a 
 wail quivered in the air above their heads. 
 Yvonne suppressed a cry of terror, and 
 crouched down low in the canoe. Wil 
 loughby himself was startled by a voice so 
 human, so melancholy, sounding in that 
 solitude. 
 
 "I believe it is a child crying," he 
 exclaimed. "Let us go to the shore." 
 
 "Non, non, nevaire, Monsieur." Yvonne s 
 voice trembled, but she stopped the paddle 
 with her hand as he began to reverse the 
 canoe. 
 
 "Zaire was not ze place it sounded; it was 
 above us. We vill go on, qvick, qvick. " 
 41
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "It was a wild loon, perhaps, in passage," 
 Willoughby said. "They have a human 
 cry. 
 
 He was endeavoring to reassure himself as 
 well as the others, for fear is somewhat 
 contagious. 
 
 "It was not a loon, nor was it human," 
 the old woman spoke out in French for the 
 first time. 
 
 "Look there!" She pointed toward a bay 
 of the river that ran up into a marshy 
 meadow. 
 
 Willoughby looked, but in the twilight he 
 saw nothing except the white mist slowly 
 exhaling from the water and the flag-flowers 
 along the meadow-edge. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked, his curiosity fairly 
 aroused, for he perceived that it was some 
 thing definite which his companions feared. 
 
 "Tell me, Mademoiselle Yvonne." 
 
 Silence met his question the girl putting 
 her finger to her lips with the gesture of one 
 who dares not speak. Willoughby s vision 
 became preternaturally acute as the weird- 
 ness of the situation impressed itself upon 
 him. Watching the dusky shore, past which 
 they were closely skimming, he observed a 
 slight sinuous motion among the reeds of the 
 42
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 margin, and then something slid suddenly in 
 front of the canoe. It might have been an 
 eel or a water-rat. At a little distance from 
 them, above the white moss of a bog, a tiny 
 light wavered. It might have been a fire 
 fly. Yvonne also saw the motion and the 
 light. 
 
 "It is She," the girl cried, suddenly bow 
 ing her head forward upon Grandmere s 
 knees. 
 
 "La Jongleuse! She is following us 
 to-night. 
 
 "Hush, do not speak her name," said 
 Grandmere s husky voice, "or one of us 
 will be taken. 
 
 Again Willoughby asked, and more 
 earnestly, for an explanation. 
 
 "I vill tell you, Monsieur Villeaubille, but 
 it is somezings you vill not laike of hearing. 
 
 Then she continued rapidly in French, 
 giving her version, somewhat modified, of 
 the old legend current two hundred years 
 ago among the Algonquins, and still pre 
 served in tradition among the seignories of 
 Riviere-Ouelle. 
 
 "She comes at twilight when the mist 
 rises from the streams; when the whip- 
 poor-will cries among the grasses, then her 
 
 43
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 voice is heard, quavering and moaning like 
 a lost child in the lonely marshes. She 
 treads softly on the white, spongy moss, and 
 where her footprints are she leaves behind 
 her little pools of water. One cannot see 
 her, Monsieur Villeaubille. No, no. But 
 one can see the rushes moving where she 
 walks at twilight. For she gathers the pale- 
 purple sticky flag-flowers for her hair. Her 
 hair is long and waves in the breeze. Some 
 times one feels it brush the cheek, like the 
 touch of a dank water-weed. Evil, evil for 
 one whom she touches, Monsieur. 
 
 "Oui, oui, evil, evil," echoed Grandmere s 
 feeble voice. 
 
 "Where the alders droop and dip she loves 
 to go, and there she sits and swings her feet 
 in the water, and the cold low fog rises 
 about her. The siffleur whistles in the 
 woods. It is a warning. But the belated 
 fisherman hears the splashing of her feet, 
 and thinks the trout are leaping where the 
 current is swift in the deep pool. He 
 pushes his canoe under .the low-hanging 
 branches, and next morning one finds it 
 empty. 
 
 "Oui, oui, empty, empty," Grandmere 
 echoed. 
 
 44
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 "One can never see her, but sometimes her 
 long robe, which is the color of evening 1 , 
 leaves a trail of little stars behind it, pale 
 and yellow, among the sedges, or a sheet of 
 bluish light on the water where the scum is 
 like cream and the blue-winged dragon-fly 
 darts. Then we know She has been there, 
 the Jongleuse. 
 
 "Oui, oui, La Jongleuse," Grandmere 
 muttered. 
 
 "And along the Riviere du Grand Desert, 
 Monsieur Villeaubille, she floats at night. 
 The little boy who gathers blue-berries in 
 the swamps, the sun sets while he is still 
 far from home. Then he starts to return, 
 and he sees flicker a little light, there, 
 through the bushes, and he thinks it is the 
 candle in the kitchen-window of his home. 
 It is the Lady of the Flag- Flowers, for so we 
 will call her, Monsieur; we dare not speak 
 her name. He hears a call, faint, faint. 
 He thinks it is his mother calling the cows 
 in the pasture. He follows the call, so 
 faint, so faint, faint, and that little, little 
 light. In the morning, one knows that a 
 child is lost. 
 
 "Oui, oui, lost, lost," echoed Grandmere. 
 
 "Her eyes are blue, blue, like the flag- 
 45
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 flowers she twines in her hair, and her lips 
 are smiling always. She has many voices, 
 like the wind in the firs, sighing, sighing; 
 like the water on the shore, gurgling, plash 
 ing; like the little frogs that pipe in the 
 spring; like the grasshoppers, crackling, 
 clapping; like the little cricket, lonely, 
 chirping; and sometimes you can hear her 
 moan around the gray eaves of an empty 
 house, when the dead trees break and fall 
 on windy autumn evenings, and the long 
 mosses swing like an old man s beard from 
 the decaying hemlock. 
 
 "Where in heaven s name are we?" 
 exclaimed Willoughby, glancing at the 
 unfamiliar outlines of the landscape, dimly 
 descried in the darkness. 
 
 "It is the Riviere du Grand Desert," said 
 Grandmere, raising her head with more life 
 than she had heretofore shown. 
 
 Willoughby, in his attention to the young 
 girl s words, had unconsciously turned to the 
 left and paddled up the little river as far as 
 the white-moss bog that gives it its name of 
 Grand Desert. Over the low-lands, a pale 
 light shimmered uncertainly. 
 
 "Hasten to turn, vite, vtte," cried Yvonne, 
 clasping her hands nervously. 
 46
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 "The Lady of the Flag-Flowers has led 
 us here. 
 
 Back again in silence they went, while 
 Grandmere seemed to sleep in the bottom of 
 the boat. 
 
 There were two hours more of paddling, 
 but hardly a word was spoken. Grand- 
 mere s head had sunk upon her breast. 
 Yvonne s gaze was fixed earnestly upon the 
 young man s face, as if she found strength 
 there. Willoughby, watching the prow as 
 he sent it shooting through the water, had 
 ever before his eyes the vague, mysterious 
 image of the Lady of the Flag-Flowers. 
 
 They approached the hill-side on which 
 stood Grandmere s little white house. The 
 storm, that had been threatening for so 
 long, seemed almost ready to burst above 
 their heads. 
 
 "It is near midnight," said Willoughby, 
 as he turned the canoe toward the shore. 
 
 Then, by a sudden impulse, he leaned 
 toward Yvonne. 
 
 "You have not told me the name of La 
 Jongleuse, Yvonne?" 
 
 "Non, non, for it is ze bad fortune to 
 speak it." 
 
 "Nothing will harm you now, my child," 
 47
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 he answered, as he sprang from the boat and 
 pulled it up on the shore. 
 
 "If one speak her name, and the hour ees 
 midnight, then she vill appear, and if she 
 vill appear it be a sign of death." 
 
 He held out his hand to guide her to the 
 bank, and when he felt her fingers within 
 his own, a masterful desire grew strong in 
 him. His persuasion should conquer her fear. 
 
 "Yvonne, tell me her name." 
 
 He put his arm about her to steady her as 
 she wavered at his side. 
 
 "I shall let nothing harm you," and he 
 tightened his clasp of her hand. 
 
 "Monsieur Villeaubille, vy make you me 
 to speak? Her name, it ees Matshi Skeou, " 
 the young girl whispered. Her face, raised 
 to his, was illuminated by a flash of lightning. 
 
 Then, in the intense blackness that fol 
 lowed, there was a deafening noise, an aval 
 anche of sound crashing about them. A 
 tree in the neighboring forest fell, struck by 
 a thunderbolt. 
 
 Both ran to the canoe. Grandmere still 
 sat in the boat, her head sunk upon her 
 breast, motionless. 
 
 Yvonne laid a hand upon her shoulder, 
 but the old woman did not raise her head. 
 
 43
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 " Grandmere, " she cried, looking down 
 into her face. Then, "Malheur! Elle est 
 morte, morte," she shrieked. "La Jongleuse, 
 la Jongleuse!" 
 
 It was true. The old woman was dead. 
 Willoughby carried the burden to the 
 house, where the husband and a married 
 daughter awaited them. 
 
 He felt conscience-stricken. He knew 
 that Yvonne would regard him as responsi 
 ble for the calamity. Perhaps the supersti 
 tion had laid hold a little on him. At any 
 rate, he sincerely repented that he had made 
 the young girl speak the dreaded name. At 
 the same time, he felt tenderly toward her 
 in thinking how she had yielded to his 
 solicitation. And Grandmere was old and 
 feeble. Such deaths are not uncommon 
 among the very aged. 
 
 "What would you like to have me do?" he 
 asked her, after the grandmother s body had 
 been tenderly laid upon a bed. 
 
 "Shall I go for a priest?" 
 
 She looked at him with reproach in 
 her eyes, but her voice was low and 
 sweet. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Villeaubille, if you vould 
 be so good. 
 
 49
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 And he ran down to the shore again, in 
 the gathering storm, happy to do her 
 bidding. 
 
 "I fear she will never forgive me," he 
 thought, "until I have taught her not to 
 believe in her Lady of the Flag-Flowers." 
 
 So he resolved to teach Yvonne Brusseau, 
 to read with her, and talk with her, and 
 open her eyes to the broader life of which 
 now she knew nothing. 
 
 As he stooped over the canoe, he heard 
 light steps behind him on the grass. It had 
 been an uncanny experience even for Wil- 
 loughby, the night, the storm, the myste 
 rious glimpses of a strange and solitary 
 country, the weird tale of Indian supersti 
 tion, the dead woman, who had stirred not 
 in the canoe, Yvonne s cry, "La Jongleuse, 
 la Jongleuse!" no wonder that he started 
 when he heard the unexpected sound behind 
 him. 
 
 No wonder that a wild fancy made his 
 heart beat quick. 
 
 A slight figure stood beside him. Yvonne s 
 voice spoke. 
 
 "Monsieur Villeaubille, I vould not zait 
 you retourn to ze village. Ze time ees too, 
 too malfortunate. " 
 
 50
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 "But I wish to go if it will serve you, 
 Yvonne." 
 
 "I haf fear for you. I vish zait you not 
 go. Gardez! How dark ze naight makes 
 itself!" 
 
 "Yvonne, I fear nothing." 
 
 "Monsieur Villeaubille, tell me true, 
 true." 
 
 The young girl stepped up to him and 
 laid her two hands lightly, one on each of 
 his shoulders. 
 
 "Had you not fear zees momante? Haf 
 you not ven you hear my stepping zink ouf 
 ze Jongleuse?" 
 
 Willoughby laughed. 
 
 "Zen you vill not go. It ees ver bad sign 
 ven one hass her in ze mind. " 
 
 Willoughby felt himself swayed by the 
 force of the young girl s will. He also felt 
 himself swayed by a contrary force impel 
 ling him to go, as if in some way his decision 
 imported much to him. The Lady of the 
 Flag-Flowers had cast her spell over him. 
 Would she conquer? Would he yield? 
 
 "Grandmere ees dead. Ze priest, he may 
 come in ze morning. I vill be content of 
 zait." 
 
 Willoughby turned the boat upside down 
 51
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 
 
 upon the shore, and started back toward the 
 house with Yvonne. A long, low cry came 
 waveringly from the stream, and a cold 
 touch was laid upon his forehead. He 
 raised his hand to brush it away, but his 
 hand met only the empty air. 
 
 Pshaw ! " he said to himself. Then aloud : 
 "Yvonne, did you feel that bat?" 
 
 "No, Monsieur Villeaubille. " 
 
 A little winding path led through the 
 trees to the house. It was very dark, and 
 the branches which they divided across 
 their path sprang back again behind them 
 with snaps and crackles. 
 
 Willoughby thought he heard little move 
 ments, now on this side, now on that, some 
 times in front, sometimes behind. 
 
 "Yvonne, are there three of us here?" 
 
 The girl disengaged her hand from his 
 arm, and with an inarticulate scream, flung 
 from him through the trees and vanished. 
 
 Then a voice came to Willoughby, low and 
 flute-like, whether from above, from beside, 
 or from within, he could not distinguish. 
 
 "You have yielded through fear of the 
 Jongleuse. Therefore, you will fear her 
 always, and she will bring death to you 
 once." 
 
 52
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 In blind haste, he groped his way to the 
 open door of the cottage, through which the 
 light straggled. As he sought its refuge 
 something white and wavy disappeared in 
 the wood. It might have been the slim, 
 white trunk of a young birch that a flutter 
 ing bough disclosed and then concealed 
 again. 
 
 Yvonne was there before him, kneeling 
 by her grandmother s side, absorbed in her 
 prayers. The old man, too, was praying, 
 for the Hurons were very devout, and 
 always had recourse to their rosaries in 
 times of trouble. There was no room for 
 the young man in the cottage, so, after a 
 while, the aunt made him a couch on the hay 
 in the little barn, where he lay, long 
 awake, seeing the flashes of lightning 
 through the chinks in the walls, hearing the 
 rain fall in a steady monologue of patter on 
 the tin roof above him, and thinking of the 
 evening s occurrences, sometimes with a 
 smile, and sometimes with a shiver. 
 
 Grandpere, in his two-wheeled cart, 
 carried his wife s body back to the village 
 the next day. Pierce Willoughby went with 
 the others to attend the services in the 
 Huron chapel and sat beside Yvonne. 
 
 53
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Then, just outside the chapel, she was laid 
 to rest, in the Indian burying-ground. 
 
 Pierce Willoughby was the only stranger 
 in this Huron village where he was to 
 spend his summer. He was with the family 
 of Etienne Brusseau, the moccasin mer 
 chant. 
 
 Willoughby had finished his four years at 
 a western university. In the melee of col 
 lege affairs, he had been an ardent par 
 ticipant. Now he was merely a straggler on 
 the edge of life s battle. He had entered 
 college an evangelical Baptist, with the 
 intention of following his father s vocation, 
 the ministry. But since that time he had 
 passed through as many phases in his inner 
 experience as he had taken Double Minors 
 in the university curriculum. The close of 
 his university course had left him a liberal 
 in religion, a radical in politics, and at a loss 
 how to conform his lofty ideals of life with 
 the practical necessities of living. 
 
 His latest theory had been that civilization 
 itself was responsible for misery and crime, 
 such as he had come into contact with dur 
 ing his sociological studies. The abolish 
 ment of city life, with its complexities and 
 concentrations, seemed to him a desirable 
 54
 
 ON THE ST. GABRIEL 
 
 end. He had resolved that, when it was 
 possible, he would put into practice his pro 
 gressive ideas as to a retrogressive civiliza 
 tion, and go into the country, where, like 
 Tolstoi, he could live simply, and labor alike 
 with his hands and his head. 
 
 He had been called, by his practical fel 
 lows, a visionary and an extremist. How 
 ever, it was the rapid development of a 
 fertile mind and a susceptible nature that 
 had made him run the gamut of so many 
 changes. He had not had the maturity that 
 holds an argument in suspense. In reality, 
 he was open to the charge, not of too many 
 transitions, but of too many decisions. His 
 mind had grown a surplus of crops during 
 the last four years, and needed to lie fallow. 
 
 He had secured, upon his graduation, a 
 position on the staff of a western paper, 
 which would be open to him in the autumn. 
 And for his summer outing he had decided 
 to find some remote spot, where he could 
 get close to nature and to a primitive 
 people. 
 
 So it is that, on a quiet July evening, we 
 found him, with his Huron companions, fol 
 lowing the windings of the little Canadian 
 stream. 
 
 55
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AN OPEN MIND 
 
 It would have been difficult to determine 
 which learned the more, the university 
 graduate or the French- Huron girl, the 
 sauvagesse, as she naively termed herself. 
 Willoughby found in Yvonne a fascinating 
 combination of the two races from which she 
 was sprung. She had the quickness, the 
 light-heartedness, the vivacity of the 
 French, with the perseverance, the conser 
 vatism, and something of the subtlety of 
 the Indian. 
 
 Willoughby read English with her in the 
 three books that he happened to have with 
 him, Tennyson, Marcella, and Shakespeare. 
 
 The lyric poet became her delight, the 
 novel with a problem was a cold plunge for 
 her, but she stood it bravely. But of the 
 great dramatist she never tired. 
 
 "Gif me more of your Shakespere," she 
 would say again and again, and as they read 
 together of the Forest of Arden, Pierce 
 thought that he himself was there. 
 
 57
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Eet ees so nice," she would say. "So 
 ver ravissant. " 
 
 Willoughby had not expected to find an 
 intellectual congeniality in his pupil, but 
 even that was present to enhance the pleas 
 ure of these "lessons." The lessons, by the 
 way, must have been on the Meisterschaft 
 system, being largely conversational. 
 Yvonne s comments on life and things were 
 piquant and sometimes sagacious. 
 
 "Marcella she has sorry for ze poor 
 peoples. Yvonne struggled for self- 
 expression in the foreign tongue. 
 
 "Zhe bring zem her vat zhe know for 
 zey not well instruct. Zhe regarde zem 
 for to know better how zey haf ze feeling in 
 ze heart." 
 
 Willoughby listened keenly, for he knew 
 that Yvonne was leading up to some 
 definite point. 
 
 "You come here, Monsieur Villeaubille, to 
 regarde les Hurons, n est-ce-pas, an seek 
 well vat zey haf at ze heart. So, for to be 
 le meilleur instruct? J ai raison, Mon 
 sieur?" 
 
 Pierce was astonished at her acuteness. 
 
 "No, no, Yvonne," he said. "This life of 
 yours, though it is different from mine, is 
 58
 
 AN OPEN MIND 
 
 better. The world would be happier if 
 there were no cities, and we all lived so." 
 
 "An* no great city vaire one read an 
 understan and vaire much peoples live?" 
 
 Willoughby tried to explain to her his 
 latest theory. She shook her head help 
 lessly. The ultra-modernism of it was too 
 much for hei. 
 
 "Vat for you not life here all ze days, 
 zen?" she inquired. 
 
 Then for the first time the idea came to 
 Willoughby as a practical possibility that 
 after he had accumulated some modest sum 
 of money he might return to La Jeune 
 Vallette. To farm, to lumber, to trap, to 
 write such would be the course of his days. 
 With Yvonne s presence at his side, the life 
 seemed charming. 
 
 Yvonne s voice awoke him from his day 
 dreaming. 
 
 "It mus" be zait I go. My cousin Poison 
 return zis night of ze Restigouche contree. 
 
 They were under a wild-cherry tree, in a 
 pasture near the house. 
 
 What was that? A strange voice called, a 
 man s voice, and the words were strange. 
 The liquid Indian syllables rippled on the 
 air. Yvonne leapt to her feet with a laugh. 
 
 59
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Poison," she exclaimed. Then, to Wil- 
 loughby s inquiring look: "It is my Indian 
 name, Dew-of-the-Morning, it mean in 
 your English." 
 
 Somehow, Willoughby did not enjoy the 
 mention of this cousin whom he had not yet 
 seen, with his claim upon Yvonne s time, 
 and his intimate name for her, which Wil 
 loughby had not even known. 
 
 That evening he wrote to Madge Van 
 Eyck. She had been a neighbor of his in 
 an eastern town, where his father s church 
 had been, before he was called to the west. 
 "What has civilization done for the modern 
 girl that is worth while?" he wrote. 
 "Yvonne has never read George Meredith, 
 never seen a Poster Lady, never heard 
 Camille, and yet, in her setting, she is per 
 fect. 
 
 Madge wrote in reply: "It is only you, 
 then, that spoil the picture. And are not 
 you inconsistent, when you find primitive 
 simplicity so delightful, to try and educate 
 it away?" 
 
 This letter of Madge s irritated Pierce. 
 He took it from his pocket one day, and 
 read it for the third time. 
 
 "She doesn t believe in me," he said to 
 60
 
 AN OPEN MIND 
 
 himself. "She thinks I am pursuing a fad, 
 whereas I have struck at the heart of life 
 itself." 
 
 He did not see much of Yvonne for the 
 next few days. 
 
 Gros-Louys, the cousin, hung around her 
 when she was busy with household or garden 
 duties, and at the other times when Will- 
 oughby had been accustomed to give her 
 lessons. 
 
 Willoughby, left to himself, began to feel 
 a little lonesome. 
 
 "Can it be possible," he thought, "that 
 she actually prefers a young hunter s society 
 to mine?" 
 
 He was young, and the idea nettled him. 
 
 Then he began to analyze his own feelings 
 and discovered that he was jealous. 
 
 "And why not?" he said to himself, 
 angrily. "She is pure, beautiful, and 
 capable of the intensest feeling. What she 
 has not is the superficial gloss of society. 
 That I do not want. My friends will soon 
 find out that my ideas are not mere words. 
 
 Under the general thought of his "friends" 
 there lurked a more particular sub-conscious 
 ness. 
 
 It was at one of these times when Yvonne 
 
 61
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 and Gros-Louys were together that Will- 
 oughby received a letter from Madge. 
 
 It was a little patronizing in tone, twitted 
 him playfully about his "Indian princess," 
 and ended with an announcement of her 
 engagement to Horace Fenton, "whom, of 
 course," Madge said, "you must know. His 
 people spent their summers in Spuyten Kill, 
 and were our neighbors. 
 
 "Remember him!" Willoughby laughed. 
 He remembered Miss Van Eyck s playful 
 analysis of his character. 
 
 "Well, that s the way with women," he 
 said aloud, as he tossed the letter into his 
 drawer, where its mates of the same chirog- 
 raphy lay. 
 
 He felt that he had thus completely 
 summed up the light and unstable qualities 
 of the race of women. 
 
 "And I really thought at one time I loved 
 her a little, he said. 
 
 He recalled their long walks over the Spuy 
 ten Kill hills together, and the evenings on 
 the cool piazza at Orchardhurst. And how 
 she had clasped his hand in both hers when 
 he bade her good-bye, and said that his 
 friendship meant much to her. 
 
 "And now engaged to that pale-haired 
 62
 
 spook of an architect, Fenton!" he mut 
 tered. 
 
 The sound of voices from the river path 
 sent him to his window, and there, picking 
 her way from stone to stone through the 
 boggy field between the wild-rose bushes 
 and the tall, purple milk-weeds, came 
 Yvonne. Gros-Louys was behind her, 
 carrying on his head his birch-bark canoe. 
 
 She was really a beautiful girl, with a 
 fawn s grace and freedom in her move 
 ments. How charmingly she balanced her 
 self from stone to stone, and what vivacity 
 in her quick turns and glances as she tossed 
 back her sallies at Gros-Louys ! 
 
 Now her words came up to him, as she 
 poised herself on the stone wall before 
 descending, her two arms outspread, hold 
 ing the branches of the wild cherry tree on 
 either side of her, and her head, with its 
 shining black topknot, tilted sideways 
 toward her cousin. 
 
 "Lui, je ne 1 aime pas, et toi je ne t aime 
 point, she said, with pretty emphasis, and 
 then leapt down and ran into the house. 
 
 "Lui, je ne l aime pas," he repeated her 
 words. They were talking then of love. 
 The idea dawned upon him gradually. 
 63
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Yvonne and himself, and love. And she 
 had said she did not love him. At that 
 moment he began to love her. 
 
 "Et toi, je ne t aime point." 
 
 He was glad of the "point." 
 
 64
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PIQUE-NIQUE 
 
 There came a day when Yvonne was to 
 take the younger children of the family for 
 a "pique-nique" to the woods. She chose 
 the pine woods below the Falls. Willoughby 
 was asked to go, also Gros-Louys. 
 
 As it neared sunset, Willoughby suc 
 ceeded in getting Yvonne by herself. Gros- 
 Louys had gone for water to the spring that 
 trickled down over the rocks in the Bois-des- 
 Erables. The children were exploring the 
 little path that swung dizzily around the 
 face of the cliffs above the river. Yvonne 
 and Willoughby rested themselves on the 
 coppery needles at the foot of a huge old fir. 
 The rushing of the waterfall came soft to 
 their ears. The shafts of pinkish sunlight 
 penetrated sparely the twilight of the wood. 
 Yvonne s black head leaned against the 
 scarred gray tree-trunk, and Willoughby was 
 stretched at her feet. 
 
 "This is the first of September," he said. 
 
 65
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "I must leave these solitudes soon and work 
 for a living. 
 
 "And how ees eet you vill vork, Monsieur? 
 Vit your hands?" 
 
 "No, Yvonne, with my head. I shall 
 write for a newspaper and be none the 
 better for it. And people will read what I 
 write and be none the better for that. But 
 by and by I shall return here and live as 
 your people do, and then " 
 
 He looked up into her velvety eyes, which 
 dilated as they rested on his face. 
 
 "Then, Yvonne I shall want you." 
 
 "You vill vantof me, Monsieur? Andvy?" 
 
 "I shall want to be simple, like you, 
 Yvonne, and to live happily as our ancestors 
 did; to toil with the hands a little, as your 
 father does, in the field, and to love, Yvonne, 
 to love I to love you, and you to love me, 
 here in the forest. 
 
 He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. 
 
 With his words the love in his heart 
 expanded to fuller growth. 
 
 "Monsieur, vous m aimez-au grand 
 serieux! Moi, Yvonne Brusseau, une 
 sauvagesse?" 
 
 "Oui, ma che rie, je t aime avec tout le 
 coeur. 
 
 66
 
 THE PIQUE-NIQUE 
 
 He rose and drew her with him to her feet. 
 The blue eyes and the black eyes met and 
 pledged each other in deep draughts of gazing. 
 
 Alors, Monsieur, with a superb motion of 
 surrender, she put her hands about his head, 
 drew his lips down to hers, and kissed him. 
 
 "Monsieur," whispered Yvonne, "I shall 
 go vit you to ze great ceety and learn much 
 tings?" 
 
 No, my Yvonne, you will stay here and 
 wait for me, and I will come back soon." 
 
 "An" what for, Monsieur, I shall not go 
 vit you and learn ze maniere of you peoples 
 an learn not be sauvagesse no more?" 
 
 "Yvonne, you are like a violet, one of 
 those little purple-lined violets that we find 
 in the springy moss in the Bois-des-Erables. 
 If we should pluck it up and take it into 
 the city and plant it there on the Rue 
 Fabrique by the Basilique, would it bloom 
 and live? No one would look at it. It 
 would die. 
 
 "And it is so with you, sweet. You 
 belong here in the forest, where you were 
 born. I will not ask you to live my life, but 
 I will live yours. 
 
 She had been listening to him intently. 
 Then she exclaimed: 
 
 67
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Zait ees not right so. Ze poesie say " 
 
 And springing away from him, she 
 
 stretched out her arms yearningly toward 
 
 the western sun that quivered through the 
 
 trees. Her black eyes were full of longing. 
 
 "Across ze hills an far away 
 
 Beyon zeir utmos perple reem, 
 An* deep into ze dying day 
 Ze happie preencess follow heem. " 
 
 Her rich voice died away with a passionate 
 quaver. If she had been on the stage one 
 would have said that her art was perfection. 
 
 "I am ze preencess an I follow you, Mon 
 sieur, so, like ze poesie you teach me say. 
 
 She ran up to him and put her arms about 
 him pleadingly. 
 
 "You vill take me, Monsieur? You vill 
 not go way from Yvonne?" 
 
 With a young girl fluttering upon his 
 breast, her cheek against his neck and melt 
 ing eyes meeting his own, what could a 
 young man do? Willoughby thought grimly 
 of his father s parsonage fronting the 
 straight, unshaded street, and of himself 
 opening the iron gate, an Indian beauty 
 upon his arm. Then he thought of his 
 bachelor den at the Hall, and of the dingy 
 
 68
 
 THE PIQUE-NIQUE 
 
 office down-town, where a city editor s duties 
 awaited him. These three places refused 
 to relate themselves in any manner to 
 Yvonne Brusseau, whom he held in his arms. 
 
 Twilight comes early in a fir-wood, and 
 already the dusk began to creep like a 
 haunting dream through the trees. 
 
 "You haf fear," cried Yvonne, in her 
 mellow, piercing voice, pushing the young 
 man from her. 
 
 "La Dame aux Glai euls hass come 
 between us and makes you fear. You haf ze 
 look upon ze face." 
 
 And, in truth, Willoughby s discomfort 
 had been reflected in his features. 
 
 "Ze Lady of ze Flag-Flowers! It ees 
 She, it ees She," wailed Yvonne. 
 
 "Why talk such folly, Yvonne, my dear? 
 You do not believe in La Jongleuse. You 
 have told me so. 
 
 "I haf say zait ven I am vit you. Par- 
 example, one cannot know all zings. Zere 
 is somezings, triste, mysterieuse, zait make 
 you go an I I rest here an nevaire, 
 nevaire vill you be return for Yvonne. 
 
 "Do you love me?" said Pierce, ener 
 getically. 
 
 "Oui, Monsieur." 
 
 69
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "And I love you. Then nothing will 
 come between us. I will return when I can 
 make a home for you, and you will wait for 
 me, and be true to me?" 
 
 vShe did not answer. 
 
 "Yvonne." 
 
 "Oui, Monsieur." 
 
 "You will wait for me?" 
 
 "I don know zait, " she said, coquettishly. 
 
 The children s voices were heard coming, 
 and Gros-Louys deep bass, singing a French- 
 Canadian boating-song: 
 
 "Par derrier chez mon per 
 
 Lui ya-t-il un bois joli. 
 Le rossignol y chant, 
 Et le jour et la nuit. 
 Aurai-je Nanette? " 
 
 "But you love me?" 
 
 Pierce was urging her with more vehe 
 mence than he had heretofore shown. 
 
 Yvonne listened, not to the near, but to 
 the far-off voice : 
 
 "Aurai-je Nanette? 
 Je crois que non. 
 Aurai-je Nanette?" 
 
 "Yvonne!" 
 
 70
 
 THE PIQUE-NIQUE 
 
 "Ze to love an to wait, zey be ver differ 
 ent ting," laughed Yvonne. 
 
 "You have been fooling me," said Pierce. 
 "You love your cousin, and you are going 
 to marry him." 
 
 "Aurai-je Nanette? 
 Je crois que oui," 
 
 came the far-off voice, nearer now. 
 
 "Moi! Gros-Louys!" Yvonne s scornful 
 laugh pealed through the wood. 
 
 She ran from him now, gathering up her 
 skirts to leap over a fallen trunk, on her 
 way to regain her fellow-picknickers. They 
 were halloaing to her from the homeward 
 path. 
 
 Her voice mingled with the others in the 
 familiar French-Canadian chorus: 
 
 "Par derrier chez mon per 
 Lui ya-t-il un bois joli. 
 Le rossignol y chant 
 Et le jour et la nuit." 
 
 Faintly it floated back to him, a wistful 
 melody. And again Gros-Louys splendid, 
 passionate basso : 
 
 "Aurai-je Nanette? 
 Je crois que oui." 
 
 7i
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A FANCY 
 
 What a strange disease love is! How it 
 makes the feet light and the heart full the 
 head swim, and the arms ache! How the 
 divergent roads of life converge to one, and 
 that one leads to Her ! How the Past drops 
 away, and the Future closes up, and the 
 Present envelops us in its luminous mantle ! 
 
 It was the day before Willoughby s 
 departure. Yvonne, elusive and baffling 
 since the day of the "pique-nique," would 
 not go for a walk with Willoughby, as he 
 desired. He went alone, following a wood- 
 path that wound in and out in a way that 
 wood-paths have, till it finally emerged in a 
 little clearing, where the Petite Riviere 
 empties into the larger stream He sat 
 down on a stone by the water s edge. The 
 moon, like a great expanding flower, 
 blossomed through the fringe of alder trees 
 on the further side of the river. Occasion 
 ally a fish leaped up from the still, brown 
 water. A blackbird whistled. On a hill- 
 
 73
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 ridge in the west the taciturn firs stood up, 
 black against the lemon -colored sky. Deli 
 cate spirals of mist began to float upward 
 and spread out over the water. Willoughby 
 thought of Yvonne and was unhappy. 
 Grimly he reflected that he had been able to 
 cure her of her superstition, but could not 
 cure himself of his love. 
 
 Then a figure, silently as the mist comes, 
 arose on the other side of the Petite Riviere. 
 Still as a fir-tree it stood. The pale oval of 
 the face was framed fantastically with dark 
 flowers. 
 
 "Yvonne!" called Pierce. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 Then, "Yvonne!" again, was followed by 
 a cry from the other side, indistinct and 
 eerie. 
 
 "Malheur! Malheur! La.Jongleuse!" 
 
 Straining his eyes through the twilight, 
 Willoughby saw that the figure had disap 
 peared. He was alone. 
 
 What an elfish fancy of Yvonne s! Or 
 had he been dreaming? 
 
 When he bade her good-bye the next 
 morning, she looked reproach at him. 
 
 "You do not understand," he murmured. 
 "You cannot go with me. Why will you 
 
 74
 
 A FANCY 
 
 not be kind? Promise you will not forget 
 me." 
 
 "Ze good Saint Antoine, he know zait I 
 am not capable to forget. 
 
 Then the little train came puffing in, 
 odorous of the wood which it burned, and 
 out of its one car the few passengers 
 alighted. An excursion party of French 
 people from the Lac St. Gabriel, ten miles 
 away, and Poison Gros-Louys returned from 
 guiding two "riches Americains" to Lake St. 
 John. Pierce and the one other passenger, 
 a woman with a hamper of moccasins for a 
 shop in Quebec, stepped aboard. Some 
 men piled on more wood behind the engine, 
 every one cried "Au revoir" and "Bon 
 voyage." 
 
 Yvonne handed him, through the car 
 window, a bunch of the purple fire-weed 
 and waxy pink dog-bane, and he was off. 
 The train twisted its way through the beau 
 tiful Chateaubourg valley, past the mead 
 ows powdered white with daisies, spangled 
 with buttercups, and ruddy with sorrel ; the 
 hill-sides dotted with the little houses, 
 dazzling white in the September sunlight, 
 gray-roofed, almost to the ground, and then 
 in sight of Quebec, its metal roofs sparkling 
 
 75
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 like gold, its many steeples pointing 
 upward, and the gray citadel crowning all. 
 And in his young, confident way, Pierce 
 imagined himself returning a year, two years 
 later, still with the same ideals in his head 
 as he never was to return and finding 
 Yvonne, with the black hair and the earnest 
 gaze, basket-weaving as he never was to 
 find her again.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 YVONNE MAKES A PROMISE 
 
 During the year that followed Willottghby s 
 departure, Yvonne developed from childhood 
 to womanhood. Her love for Willoughby, 
 though only a sentiment, and a waning one, 
 had opened her eyes to unknown possibili 
 ties. She longed for something she knew 
 not what. The village life became distaste 
 ful to her. She suffered keenly, and dimly 
 reproached her lover in her heart. He had 
 taught her what was better, and then left 
 her to what was worse. Though she did not 
 express it definitely, this was what she felt. 
 
 Yvonne sat so much by herself, alone, 
 with folded hands, that her mother feared 
 she would turn religieuse. She would not 
 even go with her family when they made 
 their annual visit, with other Hurons, to 
 Riviere-du-Loup. 
 
 Her love for Pierce Willoughby was tinged 
 with a shade of resentment. He wrote to 
 her still, it is true, but why did he not come? 
 she thought. 
 
 77
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 And she wrote to him. That was her only 
 hold on the fascinating outside world. 
 
 Time moves so slowly at La Jeune Val- 
 lette one does not realize the breakneck 
 speed it has in a city editor s office. 
 
 Work, unromantic and untheoretic, lorded 
 it over Pierce Willoughby, and he bowed 
 tinder the yoke. He, too, was developing. 
 There is nothing that will knock the dreami 
 ness out of a man faster than to slave for a 
 managing-editor, of tireless energy and iron 
 will. For sheer lack of time to think, Wil- 
 loughby was losing his idealism, and replac 
 ing it with socialism, it is true, but of the 
 practical and every-day sort. 
 
 As his weekly letters to her testified, he had 
 not forgotten Yvonne. Though his Canadian 
 summer had faded away into dreamland, yet 
 her image was clear before him. He kept 
 upon his desk her picture, taken the autumn 
 after his departure by a traveling photog 
 rapher. The likeness was not good, ex 
 cept about the eyes. They looked straight 
 out of the picture at him with all their 
 old-time depth and softness. There was, 
 perhaps, a shade of sadness in the ex 
 pression. 
 
 I will go to her, thought Willoughby, 
 78
 
 YVONNE MAKES A PROMISE 
 
 "when another year is over, and I can get 
 two weeks off. " 
 
 But he did not say he was coming, for he 
 imagined she would tire of his continual 
 assurances. 
 
 He felt that Yvonne eluded him a little, 
 but he loved her all the more. So, thinking 
 of her, he did not think of other women. 
 He had reached the equilibrium of man 
 hood. His heart was fixed on the far-off 
 hope. 
 
 During that second summer, Poison Gros- 
 Louys laid siege to Yvonne, in the silent, 
 savage fashion. He would follow her 
 everywhere, and do her bidding always. 
 He was content to paddle her for hours on 
 the river, rewarded by the sight of her in 
 his canoe, though she would not speak a 
 word to him. 
 
 "Yvonne," said he, on one of these word 
 less voyages, "I can stand this no longer. 
 We must go to Father St. Clair and be 
 married. 
 
 "You are good, Poleon, " she replied, 
 simply, "but I cannot marry you." 
 
 Then he broke out tauntingly: 
 
 "You are thinking of that American, so 
 white-handed, who played with you. He 
 
 79
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 will never come back again. It amuses him 
 to write to a little Indian girl. He is laugh 
 ing this moment with some blue-eyed Amer 
 ican lady, perhaps she is even his wife, and 
 he is showing her your letters." 
 
 "You lie," cried Yvonne. "But he may 
 show my letters to all the world. I say 
 nothing in them. That is not why I cannot 
 marry you. 
 
 "You are not promised to him?" 
 
 "No, Poison, I am not." 
 
 "But I have heard you say to him that you 
 would never forget him. " 
 
 "It is the truth, my cousin. I will never 
 forget him. An Indian does not forget. 
 
 Something in her tone made Poison look 
 at her twice. 
 
 "Ma cherie!" he exclaimed. 
 
 It was the first term of endearment he had 
 ever used toward her. 
 
 Then he went on: 
 
 "I love you so much, Yvonne, that I must 
 have you. By our Blessed Lady, I must. 
 
 "How much do you love me, Pole on?" 
 
 "As the trout loves the pool, as the 
 ouananiche the rapids, as the stag the moun 
 tains so I love you," said the swarthy 
 hunter. "I cannot live without you." 
 80
 
 "As the kingfisher loves his prey," said 
 Yvonne, "so you love me, Poleon, dead or 
 alive. 
 
 "It is so," said Poleon, gravely, "I would 
 rather have you dead than another s. 
 
 "That is wrong," answered Yvonne. 
 "Father St. Clair says it is a mortal sin to 
 love anything so. 
 
 "If you promise me, Yvonne," said 
 Poleon, "I need not commit the mortal sin. 
 For I know that if you promise me you will 
 be true." 
 
 "I will promise you, Poleon, that if I am 
 ever married to another " 
 
 "If you are ever married to another!" 
 broke in Poleon, explosively. 
 
 "You will kill him," finished Yvonne, 
 quietly. 
 
 "I will kill him," he repeated. 
 
 "But it will be a mortal sin," the girl 
 added. 
 
 Then, "Dear Poison," she whispered, as 
 he lifted her out of the canoe. 
 
 There was something in his barbaric 
 nature akin to hers. 
 
 81
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 The second summer after her marriage 
 Madge Fenton and her husband, Horace, 
 took a summer outing in Canada. On their 
 way down the St. Lawrence they spent a 
 few days at Riviere-du-Loup. It is a quiet 
 little watering-place, and besides the sea 
 bathing, the golf, and the inevitable hotel 
 dances in the evening, there is little to inter 
 est American visitors. The American sum 
 mer resorter is not content with such 
 simplicity as is his Canadian cousin. 
 
 The Fentons, at first, found much amuse 
 ment in sitting on the hotel piazza., quiet 
 observers of Canadian provincial manners. 
 The Quebec girl, with her tightly-stayed 
 undersized figure, fussy clothes, frizzled 
 hair, after the fashion of the royal prin 
 cesses, and sailor hat tilted forward, is as 
 different a type from the New York girl as 
 if she belonged to another race and con 
 tinent. 
 
 83
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Have you heard that the Indian basket- 
 makers are coming here to-day, eh?" 
 
 A Quebec lady, with white cotton gloves 
 on her hands and diamonds in her ears, 
 addressed Hrs. Fenton. 
 
 "Are they, indeed?" said Madge. "Where 
 do they come from?" 
 
 "They are Hurons from La Jeune Val- 
 lette. You ll have been there, eh? There s 
 a lot of folks goes out to see the Falls from 
 Quebec. You ll just be on your way to 
 Quebec now, I fancy?" 
 
 The Indians had their booths in a long 
 lane leading up from the beach on the sandy 
 street. Daily they brought out their wares and 
 stolidly exposed them in front of the hotels. 
 
 One among them, a young girl, attracted 
 attention. She sat on the floor of her little 
 booth, curled up among the bright-colored 
 satiny straws and glistening olive -green 
 strings of sweet grass. She was always 
 busy with her plaiting and weaving and 
 ready with a nod and smile for the passers- 
 by whom she knew. Her brown, delicate- 
 skinned face was a perfect oval ; her smile 
 displayed teeth white and small like a 
 child s; her black hair was soft and smooth; 
 and her eyes lit up her whole expression. 
 84
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 "The girl would really be handsome," 
 said Horace Fenton, "if one of your New 
 York tailors should get hold of her." 
 
 "She is a beauty!" exclaimed Madge, 
 warmly. "Let s go talk to her. " 
 
 They discovered that she talked English, 
 and they were more than ever charmed by 
 her wonderful eyes. 
 
 Madge, always on the alert for new 
 experiences, pleaded for lessons in basket- 
 weaving, and these the girl promised to give 
 her. During the first lesson Madge found 
 out her name, Yvonne Brusseau. 
 
 As she and her husband were looking at 
 some sweet-grass fans of Yvonne s making, 
 Madge said in a low voice to her husband : 
 
 "This is Willoughby s girl, Horace, 
 Yvonne Brusseau." 
 
 "Monsieur Villeaubille?" the girl spoke 
 quickly, looking up from the porcupine-quill 
 embroidery upon which she was engaged. 
 "You know heem? He rest vit us in my 
 stepfazer s house eet ees two years, long 
 time ago. 
 
 "He is a friend of ours," Madge replied. 
 "We have often heard of you from him." 
 
 "Mais," added Yvonne afterwards, when 
 she and Mrs. Fenton were strolling through 
 85
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 the woods together, "je ne suis pas sa 
 blonde. 
 
 She used the St. Gabriel provincialism for 
 sweetheart. 
 
 "Vous n en etes pas capable, petite bru 
 nette," laughed back Madge. 
 
 Two weeks went by at Riviere-du-Loup, 
 during which the friendship between Madge 
 and Yvonne ripened. Madge learned of the 
 Shakespeare readings; of Yvonne s convent 
 schooling; of her cousin Poleon, "le grand 
 chasseur;" and of the simple village -life at 
 La Jeune Vallette. 
 
 "How charming it must all be!" she 
 exclaimed. "How I envy you your life, 
 Yvonne!" 
 
 Yvonne laughed, showing her pretty 
 white teeth. 
 
 "So Monsieur Villeaubille say. But he 
 not come back no more. So you, too, 
 Madame, but I see you nevaire again." 
 
 There was the shade of a question in her 
 voice, and wistfulness in her black eyes. 
 
 Madge took her hand impulsively. 
 
 "If it be God s wish, Yvonne, we shall 
 meet again. 
 
 "Le grand Dieu, he not trouble himself 
 vit so little affair as of mine. Mais, ze good 
 
 86
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 St. Antoine, I pray to heem zait he send 
 Yvonne her wishes. 
 
 "And what is that, my dear?" 
 
 "I am capable of more ssaa ia " with a 
 dramatic gesture over tne woven tmngs 
 heaped about them. "I have visions zat 
 come to me, an voices zait I hear like 
 Jeanne d Arc. But zey are not ze blessed 
 Angels. Non, non." 
 
 Yvonne laughed again, and said no more. 
 
 The stay at Riviere-du-Loup had ended, 
 and Madge and Horace took the Saguenay 
 trip to Lake St. John. Up that strange 
 volcanic-riven gorge where the still, black 
 waters lie, watched over by the measureless 
 silence of its cliffs and then the Lake St. 
 John country with its wild forests and rush 
 ing streams, and the one great hotel in 
 explicably modern among the cleared 
 lumbering-camps along the shores of the 
 mighty lake. 
 
 Madge and Horace sat in the luxurious 
 dining-hall under the softened radiance of 
 electric lights. White-capped maids moved 
 noiselessly over the polished floors, carrying 
 trays of imported delicacies among the cos 
 mopolitan assemblage of guests. There 
 were Englishmen making the tour of the 
 87
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "provinces"; Canadians, both French and 
 English; and Americans of every type. 
 There was the sporty New York alderman, 
 who had just exchanged his leathern hunting- 
 breeches and spiked boots for an evening 
 suit ; and at the next table Milord Anglais, 
 who rented the Great Cascapedia River. 
 
 "Horace, there is Professor Willings, " 
 said Madge, looking toward a studious- 
 browed man, who with two young men 
 occupied a table near them. 
 
 "They say he has a lodge on the Mistassini 
 River where he lived alone for a summer, 
 talking only with Indians and eating frogs 
 legs and crows meat." 
 
 "And there is a broker, I know," said 
 Horace, "who s on the New York Exchange. 
 He s got a good coat of tan, though." 
 
 "And that stately gentleman there," said 
 Madge, "has been pointed out to me as the 
 Bishop of Labrador, whose diocese includes 
 this Lake St. John country. 
 
 "No, I will not have bisque glacee. " 
 This to the maid. "Bring me blueberries 
 and cream." 
 
 "How strange it seems, Horace, to be 
 refusing bisque glace"e where there are bears 
 chained behind the house !
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 "And playing golf ," said Horace, "within 
 shouting distance of Montagnais wigwams." 
 
 "And a caribou -hunt in the morning," 
 added a young man at their table, "and come 
 home to lead a cotillion in the evening. 
 
 To fish for the ouananiche in the pools 
 about the Grand Discharge and to shoot the 
 rapids of the Saguenay in a canoe are the 
 two events of a visit to Lake St. John. 
 
 Madge was an enthusiastic sportswoman, 
 and the ouananiche is the king of game fish. 
 The lithe curves of its satiny body as it leaps 
 in silvery ellipses again and again from the 
 water in a dazzling shower of spray, this 
 sight alone is recompense for the disap 
 pointment that awaits the amateur angler 
 when the spirited creature jumps from the 
 hook almost at the boat s rim and drops a 
 plumb line downward, a glistening streak to 
 depths unknown. 
 
 "And now for the rapids!" said Madge, as 
 she and her husband stood on the purple 
 rocks that heap the shore of the great lake 
 about the Island House. 
 
 "I have hired two Montagnais," said 
 Horace, "who are, I believe, specially 
 skilled with the canot d e corce, and will, if 
 any one can, take us through alive."
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "How gruesome you are!" exclaimed 
 Madge, clearing at a bound a particularly 
 wide chasm between two rocks, with the 
 glorious sense of freedom that a woman in a 
 short skirt enjoys. 
 
 "But it s dangerous," insisted Horace, 
 whose caution was greater than his wife s, 
 "and I value my life, and yours, too, dear." 
 
 "And where would the pleasure be with 
 out the danger?" asked Madge, surveying 
 her husband from her vantage-point of 
 higher rock. "Look, there are our guides. 
 How silent these Montagnais are! I wish 
 they would chatter a bit. One would feel 
 more cheerful." 
 
 They climbed down the rocks to the nar 
 row beach where they were to embark. 
 Two canoes were there, each with two 
 Indians. 
 
 "But we are to go in the same canoe," 
 said Madge. 
 
 "Non," muttered one of the guides. 
 "Much danger. Better one. Not take 
 three, one canot. " 
 
 He shook his head and looked loweringly 
 at the other three Indians. All four shook 
 their heads, muttering, "Non, non. " 
 
 I will not be separated from you," 
 90
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 exclaimed Madge. "Think how I should 
 feel if you should be caught by the rapids, 
 and I should go safely. We must be 
 together." 
 
 Horace laughed at her folly, but signified 
 her wish to the Indians. Two of them 
 turned away, as if washing their hands of so 
 foolhardy a proceeding. Their countenances 
 were indicative of deep disgust. 
 
 "Three, one canot. Too much," said 
 Francois, the Montagnais whom Fenton had 
 first engaged. 
 
 "I take you I " said the other, and 
 
 then he said something in Indian to his com 
 panion. 
 
 After a deal of talk the matter was finally 
 arranged, and Madge and Horace settled 
 themselves in the bottom of the canoe, with 
 an Indian at bow and stern of their frail bark. 
 
 It shot out over the still waters of the lake 
 among the many islands that cluster about 
 the Grande Decharge. 
 
 In the pools some of their fellow-guests of 
 the night before were casting the fly for the 
 ouananiche. They passed the Remous de 
 la Vache Caille, pools where the churned 
 froth from the rapids stands in curdled 
 creamy clots on the dark water. 
 91
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 1 Good luck to you, shouted their fellow- 
 diner, whipping his fly line into the froth of 
 the Remou. 
 
 They looked back to see an ouananiche 
 glistening in its momentary spring, five feet 
 above his taut-held line. 
 
 Excitement and suspense were in the air. 
 
 They involuntarily dropped their voices to 
 a whisper, and Madge grasped her hus 
 band s hand. 
 
 Frangois and Pierrot, their two Indians, 
 knelt like posts at either end of the canoe, 
 their paddles keeping time with each other 
 in strong dip and turn. 
 
 Now they heard the roar of the rapids 
 where the lake pours out down its steep 
 incline into the swirl and spume of the 
 river. 
 
 Madge tightened her grasp of Horace s 
 hand. 
 
 "Do you hear it?" she whispered. 
 
 She caught her breath with the anguish of 
 intense anticipation. 
 
 Pierrot, in the stern, looked for a moment 
 backwards at his comrade, who paddled with 
 his face down-stream. They knelt back to 
 back. His mouth was set like a vise, and the 
 perspiration stood in beads on his upper lip. 
 92
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 He was facing up-stream again in an 
 instant, but the canoe had rocked a little with 
 the slight twist of his body in turning. 
 
 "Le diable!" muttered Francois in the 
 prow, his broad shoulder and back immov 
 able as if made of wood. 
 
 Now the dark tide carried them more 
 swiftly, and Madge could see ahead the 
 white grinning of the rapids as they snarled 
 among rocks and shallows. 
 
 She saw how much depended on the skill 
 and steadiness of the canotiers. An 
 instant s hesitation would dash them 
 against the rocks ; a wrong turn of the pad 
 dle and they would be swerved round and 
 engulfed by the furious current. Keep the 
 prow pointed straight and sure through the 
 one narrow channel, foam and rage though 
 it might, and they would be carried, with 
 terrible speed, but safely, over the rapids, 
 down to where the waters flowed more 
 smoothly between widening shores. 
 
 A canoe containing one Indian was follow 
 ing close behind them in their course. 
 
 He was a fellow of magnificent build, 
 square- jawed, and holding his head erect as 
 few of the Montagnais do. He handled his 
 canoe like a born voyageur. 
 93
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Horace watched him, while Madge, sitting 
 opposite, had her eyes painfully dilated, 
 watching the smother of foam into which 
 they seemed about to plunge. 
 
 Now they were in it, the thick spray 
 tumbling over them, dashed into their faces, 
 and pouring down their oil-skin coats, as the 
 fragile bark trembled in the fierce current. 
 They were blinded with the fleecy foam that 
 enveloped them. 
 
 Madge did not scream when she felt her 
 self seized by the superhuman hand of the 
 whirlpool. She was too terrified for that. 
 Her heart stood still. But a worse sensation 
 was to follow. She did not know till after 
 ward that Pierrot did what every Montagnais 
 shudders even to dream of by the campfire 
 at night he lost his paddle! Fatal loss! 
 The light canot d e*corce was jerked out of 
 its channel. 
 
 "Perdu!" shouted Pierrot, in a terrible 
 voice. 
 
 The canoe was held for an instant atop of 
 the furious seethe, poised by a chance 
 equilibrium of currents that contended with 
 each other for possession of the treasure. 
 Madge knew that there had been an acci 
 dent by the sudden change in the boat s 
 
 94
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 motion. She seemed wrapped about with a 
 foamy veil of rainbow light and tumultuous 
 sound. All conscious thought and memory 
 slipped away from her. She was an unborn 
 soul in a crystal sphere of calm within this 
 circle of wrath. And the unborn soul 
 wondered. That was all. 
 
 She could never have guessed how long 
 this crystal moment lasted. The sphere 
 broke and in a kind of dream she saw her 
 self floating out upon the dark smoothness 
 of a wider stream. The rapids were behind 
 them. 
 
 They now drew up on the shore. The 
 exhausted Indians flung themselves upon 
 the beach. All their ruddy-copper hue had 
 left them, and they were yellow pale. 
 
 Horace took Madge into his arms and 
 held her there. She quivered from head to 
 foot. 
 
 She never knew till afterward how it had 
 all happened; how when Pierrot had lost 
 his paddle and the helpless boat was poised 
 across the current, ready to be engulfed, the 
 Indian behind them, quick as lightning, had 
 flung them his paddle, far out down the 
 stream, and the desperate Pierrot had 
 reached for it, picked it up, and straightened 
 
 95
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 the canoe with a few powerful strokes, and 
 so their lives were saved. 
 
 And then the brave fellow had leaped 
 clear of his spinning canoe out into the 
 swift-running stream. 
 
 There had been fishermen on the shore 
 who watched him as he disappeared from 
 view in the black depths of the water. 
 
 How smoothly it seemed to flow, the 
 black water ! But the awful depth, and the 
 strength of the current, only the Indian 
 voyageur would know. 
 
 Here it was that the young Englishman, 
 Talbot, made his mad venture last year on 
 a reckless bet with his comrades. The 
 smooth stillness of the upper current has a. 
 sinister quiet when one reflects on the arms 
 underneath that suck and draw down. He 
 was never seen again. Only a Montagnais 
 Indian, who mended his canoe a hundred 
 miles down on the lower Saguenay, reported 
 afterward that on that same day he saw a 
 white hand up-flung from the river just 
 that and nothing more. 
 
 But on this day, the swimmer s head 
 appeared above the water again, and the 
 desperate battle was waged man against 
 demon. 
 
 96
 
 BLOWS A FAIR WIND 
 
 For long it seemed that he could not with 
 stand, for ever, as he made for the shore, 
 the demon-water pulled him down down 
 down-stream. But ever he set his face like 
 a gladiator s and struck for the shore again. 
 So that to the on-lookers he seemed to be 
 motionless, there where his head first 
 appeared above the water. 
 
 "Bravo Bon gargon!" they shouted to 
 him. But the demon-water roared and hissed 
 in his ears and drowned the human cry. 
 
 Yes ! He moves ! He gains the shore 
 by inches. Nearer and nearer but the 
 strokes of his arms are feebler, and the 
 forehead and eyes barely show above water. 
 And still the demon is strong and tugs at 
 him. 
 
 His senses have grown benumbed. The 
 keen desire for life is dulled. The water 
 roars in his ears. 
 
 "What use? Give it up. Down I go 
 away I go how good to struggle no more ! 
 Let the demon have me 
 
 Surely, surely he will not fail now. Now, 
 at the last moment, when he is so near the 
 shore. So near he cannot dream how near 
 three boat-lengths and they can reach 
 him with the rope. 
 
 97
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Some one starts to sing the chasseur who 
 ran back for a rope. Why should he sing, 
 when a brave man meets his death? 
 
 " Via 1 bon vent, 
 Vial joli vent, 
 Ma mie m appelle. " 
 
 Very loud and clear it floats out over the 
 water, the old familiar song. 
 
 "Blows a fair wind, 
 Blows a fine wind, 
 And my love calls me." 
 
 Ah, the swimmer has not gone under! 
 There he is again, and swimming manfully. 
 
 "Via 1 bon vent, 
 Via 1 joli vent, 
 Via bon vent, 
 Ma mie m attend. " 
 
 The American girl in the Scotch Tarn 
 o Shanter, who stands by her ruddy-faced 
 father watching the scene, hides her face 
 on his corduroy coat, and cries. 
 
 They are pulling him in now. He has 
 clung to the rope. 
 
 4 Blows a fair wind, 
 Blows a fine wind, 
 Blows a fair wind, 
 And my love waits for me. "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 "AH, AH! CECILIA" 
 
 Fenton hunted him up that evening and 
 brought him over to the Island House. The 
 ladies crowded round him with butterfly 
 compliments. 
 
 "C est r en," he said, in answer to all, 
 turning his keen eyes and slow smile upon 
 the women. "Je 1 ai fait pour m plaisir." 
 
 Fenton paid him a price for the canoe, 
 which they said was a beautiful one of his 
 own building. It had been swept down the 
 rapids and dashed to pieces like an egg shell 
 on the rocks. He received the money with 
 out a demur. His manners were royal in 
 their gravity. 
 
 "And your name?" asked Madge, ear 
 nestly. 
 
 He looked her full in the eyes, as few 
 Montagnais will do. This square look, with 
 the erect carriage of the head, Madge 
 noticed. But he was not a Montagnais, as 
 she learned from his answer. 
 
 99
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Poleon Gros-Louys," he answered, "a 
 Huron." 
 
 He still looked at Madge, for he liked the 
 gray sincerity of her glance. 
 
 "Then you are Yvonne Brusseau s 
 cousin," she exclaimed, "and live at La 
 Jeune Vallette. " 
 
 "Oui, oui, Madame," he answered, the 
 slow, strong smile again taking possession of 
 his face. 
 
 "That is not enough," said Madge to her 
 husband, looking at the bills which Poleon 
 held crushed in his hand. "Our lives are 
 worth more than that." 
 
 "What would you like?" said Fenton to 
 Gros-Louys. "Name me anything and you 
 shall have it, if it is within my power. " 
 
 The Indian did not answer for a minute. 
 He was reading Fenton s face. Then he 
 looked at Madge, and said, speaking French : 
 
 4 1 will take a day or two, and after name 
 what is in my heart, Madame." 
 
 For when he was asked to name his desire 
 his first thought had been Yvonne, his Dew- 
 of-the-Morning. 
 
 The Fentons took Gros-Louys for guide, 
 and made the week s trip, by forests, streams 
 and portages, from Lake St. John to La
 
 "AH, AH! CECILIA" 
 
 Jeune Vallette. It was a new experience 
 for them both. The primeval woods are a 
 revelation. City-bred "people, [whose souls 
 are still open to wind and star, are taught by 
 such green, silent days and vaulted nights 
 that half of life has not been understood 
 before, and the other half misunderstood. 
 
 When Madge sat on the "gallerie" of 
 Etienne Brusseau s house, a star-lit, autumn 
 evening, after her arrival, with Yvonne by 
 her side, she was wiser and younger than 
 she had ever been before. 
 
 Horace sat on the steps with Etienne and 
 Gros-Louys, smoking and exchanging experi 
 ences with them, like the cosmopolitan that 
 he was. Etienne told of the porpoise-fish 
 ing, and the loups-marin at Riviere-Ouelle 
 when he was younger. Gros-Louys, slowly, 
 between long whiffs at his pipe, told of the 
 great elk he had shot after two weeks hunt 
 ing alone on the northern ranges of the 
 Laurentides. 
 
 Within, from the cave, came sounds of 
 tumultuous mirth. "Charle 1 Acadien" 
 was there, a vagrant Acadian youth who 
 picked up a precarious living from village to 
 village by the exercise of nimble feet and a 
 nimble tongue. Rat-tat-tat, came the sound
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 of Aimers broomstick on the floor of the 
 cave, while 1 Acadien kept time in one of his 
 endless elaborate dances. At each new 
 figure in the dance, shrill peals of laugh 
 ter ran around the circle of little Brus- 
 seaus, within which he whirled. Still the 
 relentless rat-tat-tat went on, the sweat 
 streamed from the 1 Acadien s broad, pasty 
 face, the light feet twirled and twisted, the 
 children shrieked, and Madame, sitting by 
 the great wood-filled stove, with her baby- 
 boy in her arms, smiled absently as she 
 crooned : 
 
 "Le troisieme jour de mai 
 Que barrai-je a ma mie. " 
 
 Father St. Clair came into the yard, find 
 ing his way carefully in the darkness among 
 the tall trees. 
 
 "Dieu vous b6nisse, mes enfants, " he 
 said, as the men rose at the foot of the 
 steps. 
 
 He climbed the steep, high steps slowly, 
 and sat down beside Yvonne and Madge. 
 
 "So this is the American lady Yvonne has 
 told me of," the priest said, giving Madge 
 his satiny hand-clasp. 
 
 "Bien venue, Madame."
 
 "AH, AH! CECILIA" 
 
 He looked at her searchingly. Her face 
 was illumined by the lamplight that shone 
 through from the little parloir. He noted 
 the unworldly mouth, and the child-like 
 gray eyes that were black in that half light. 
 
 "One to be trusted," he thought, "and 
 who has never known sorrow." 
 
 "An-na-o-ta-ha," said Gros-Louys from 
 below, in a voice unusually low and tender. 
 "Descend. I would speak with you." 
 
 The French-Canadian priest and the 
 American woman talked together all that 
 evening, while the stars waxed and waned 
 in the black spaces of the great sky, and the 
 chill September wind sighed in the tops of 
 the tall pines. 
 
 Madge drew her furs about her and led 
 the ; Abbe along with tactful question and 
 comment. She learned the simple history 
 of La Jeune Vallette ; of the fete du riviere 
 and the danse dramatique ; of the Brusseaus ; 
 the Gros-Louys, the Sioiiis, and the Tahou- 
 renche*s; of the First Communion; the 
 masses; the Sisters of Marie-Joseph; the 
 Maison du Roi, where his people had lived 
 for hundreds of years. He even vaguely 
 outlined his own life to her. 
 
 "But one must efface one s self, " he broke 
 103
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 off. "I live in my people and my books. 
 One need not often think of one s self when 
 one has those, Madame. The Holy Church 
 is my earthly love." 
 
 Leaning forward, he smiled sadly into the 
 face of the happy young wife. 
 
 She smiled back, wonderingly. 
 
 Dear Abbe", if you had won your earthly 
 love, where would the Holy Church have 
 been? 
 
 Yvonne and Poison paced up and down on 
 the short-trodden grass among the oaks and 
 pines. 
 
 "An-na-o-ta-ha," said Poleon, "the Amer 
 ican Monsieur will do what I wish in return 
 for the aviron I sent him. What is your 
 wish, that I may ask it of him?" 
 
 Yvonne took Poleon s great hands in her 
 small brown ones, and danced round him. 
 
 "Mon per* n avait fille que moi 
 Encor sur la mer il m envoie. 
 Sautez, mignonne, C6cilia, 
 Ah, ah! Cecilia, 
 Ah, ah! Cecilia." 
 
 She sang this madly, dancing back and 
 forth in front of him as far as the limit of 
 his arms would let her. 
 104
 
 "AH, AH! CECILIA" 
 
 "Why don t you answer then, ma mie?" 
 he asked, drawing her up to him with 
 brusque emotion and looking down closely 
 into her little face, vague and pale in the 
 starlight. 
 
 "And have I not answered then, big 
 cousin, " she replied, calling him by the name 
 he did not like. She slipped out of the girdle 
 of his arms, but still held him by the finger 
 tips. 
 
 "Encor sur la mer il m envoie. " 
 
 "I want to go with the American Madame, 
 Poleon, far away to her place, and learn 
 what La JeuneVallette will never teach me." 
 
 "And then ?" he said, almost roughly, 
 
 drawing her up to him again. 
 
 "Ah! bah! Je ne sais. " She shrugged 
 her shoulders. 
 
 "Then no. I will ask him some other 
 thing. A big canot d ecorce for myself, or 
 a beautiful picture of St. Anne for Tante 
 Marie, your mother. " 
 
 "You are cruel, Poleon. You torture me. 
 Why did you ask me my wish at all. Great 
 bear, with the big paws! Don t crush 
 me so!" 
 
 "It is you that are cruel, An-na-o-ta-ha, 
 105
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 tna mie. To ask for your one wish, to go far 
 away. 
 
 "Ah, but you will let me go. " She clung 
 to him and smoothed his bronze cheek 
 caressingly : 
 
 "One little wish like that for Yvonne." 
 
 "And what for Poleon?" he asked. 
 
 I will love you, she breathed. 
 
 "Mignonne!" 
 
 His strong arms enfolded her again. 
 
 "And marry me?" 
 
 The young girl cast a long look forward 
 into the future. 
 
 "When I return to La Jeune Vallette, " 
 she" said, simply. 
 
 In this manner was Yvonne s promise 
 made. 
 
 In a few days more arrangements were 
 completed between the Fentons and Brus- 
 seaus. The expense of Yvonne s education 
 was to be borne by her parents and by 
 Poison, who always aided the family of his 
 aunt, so called, with whom he had always 
 lived. 
 
 Madge left it in this way for the sake of 
 their self-respect, though she anticipated that 
 the cultivation of this whim of hers would 
 draw upon her own resources. 
 106
 
 "AH, AH! CECILIA" 
 
 At last they were on the deck of the Mon 
 treal steamer. Yvonne, dressed as a Val- 
 lette Huronne had never before been, stood, 
 pale, flashing-eyed, till Poison and her 
 mother left the steamer. With a sigh of 
 relief she turned away toward Point Levis, 
 while her kinspeople still waved adieu to her 
 from the pier. In the mind of that 
 untutored child the wildest tumult had 
 arisen No bourgeois dreams of happiness 
 floated before her: a fine house like those 
 she had just seen that morning on the St. 
 Louis road ; clothes such as the ladies wore 
 who drove out to see the Falls in the sway 
 ing, white-cushioned caleches; rings like 
 those in the windows along the Rue Fab- 
 rique. Of such stuff was not the vision 
 that floated before Yvonne. It was some 
 thing indefinable, but without it life was 
 empty. 
 
 She stood on the deck till the boat had 
 steamed past the promontory and citadel, 
 past Wolfe s Cave, and the long, low 
 curves of Sillery, past Cap Rouge, and 
 had left behind all that might have been 
 familiar to her. Then she turned to Madge 
 Fenton, who sat in a camp-chair watching 
 her. 
 
 107
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 "I am ver bad," she cried, impulsively. 
 " Already I forget myself of my friens an 
 not say for zem au revoir. It ees for I am 
 raveesh by wan dream." 
 
 T03
 
 PART THREE 
 
 OPEN WINGS 
 
 ; Thirst for the unknown, passionate love of life." 
 
 A mi et s Journal. 
 
 109
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WINNING-OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Willoughby was in the midst of his first 
 campaign. Every honorable means had 
 been employed since his nomination to make 
 his election sure. Yet machine influence is 
 too insidious to be circumvented by any but 
 the most experienced politician. Could he 
 rely upon the people for his support without 
 the aid of the leaders? This question was on 
 his mind as he prepared for his evening s 
 work on the platform. 
 
 He was on the point of setting out for the 
 Independent meeting when a card was 
 brought to him. Willoughby was surprised. 
 Compromise? Could it be that this man 
 recognized the strength of the new move 
 ment? The great man entered. "Tommy" 
 was a man of few words, and came at once 
 to the point. 
 
 "Willoughby," he said, "I want to make 
 a deal with you. I ve watched your cam 
 paign so far, and know pretty well the pull 
 you have with this reform push. But let me
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 tell you right here, you can t drive that man 
 Mcllhaney out of the council. You ve got 
 a strong pull on the whitewashers, but they 
 haven t got the stuff to put up. Let me tell 
 you right here, it ll take hard cash and lots 
 of it to turn down Jim Mcllhaney." 
 
 Tommy bit the end off his cigar viciously, 
 and cast a knowing look across the table 
 at Willoughby : 
 
 "See?" 
 
 Willoughby did "see," but said nothing. 
 Then Tommy continued, laying before 
 Willoughby the scheme by which the latter s 
 campaign might be won, and no harm to 
 any one. Tommy, having had his say, rose, 
 planting his feet widely apart, and thrust 
 his thick, beringed hands into his trousers- 
 pockets. He looked at Willoughby, waiting 
 for an answer. 
 
 Willoughby was perplexed. Here, he 
 knew, was a certain method of winning out. 
 As the prospect of his election by aid of the 
 gang arose in his mind, his doubt increased 
 as to his ability to win without their aid. 
 Of course, he was playing into the hands of 
 a bad man, for that "Tommy" had some 
 private ends to be served, Willoughby was 
 certain. But as far as he knew, the New City
 
 THE WINNING -OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 proposition was a good one, and would 
 benefit the working people back of the 
 yards. If Jim Mcllhaney won out, the prop 
 osition would fall through, and there would 
 be one boodler more on the council 
 whereas, with him, Willoughby, as alderman 
 from the Fifteenth ward, something, if not 
 much, could be accomplished toward cleans 
 ing municipal politics. As a step toward 
 political preferment, Willoughby did not 
 value his victory. Still, the case was not 
 clear. 
 
 Upon his return from the campaign meet 
 ing, Willoughby found a letter on his desk 
 with the pinkish Canadian stamp upon it. 
 He sank into an easy-chair and put his feet 
 up on the railing of the corpulent black- 
 bellied stove that in winter heated their 
 plebeian chambers. Pfeffer, his fellow- 
 socialist, was sleeping heavily in the other 
 room. 
 
 Willoughby knew that the letter was from 
 Yvonne Brusseau. He held it in his hand 
 and thought. His love for her had come at 
 a transitional time in his character. Many 
 of the fluctuating currents of his life had 
 since then set in an opposite direction from 
 that towards which they had formerly 
 113
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 tended. But through them all, like the 
 steady stream that swings below the ocean- 
 tides, had flowed his devotion for Yvonne. 
 In her, he had found, or dreamed that he 
 found, the ideal love of his heart. He knew 
 that she had not pledged herself to him, but 
 curiously enough, he felt himself pledged to 
 her. Modern exigencies, inexplicable to the 
 French- Huron girl, had kept him from her, 
 had kept her from believing in the truth of 
 his love. If it were not for this, he thought, 
 she would unhesitatingly have given him her 
 promise. He wrote her letters full of affec 
 tion, but did not blame her that her answers 
 were uncertain in tone. Dear little Yvonne ! 
 How could she understand? He was 
 thankful to have her answers at all, and 
 only prayed that no impetuous lover might 
 carry her off before he could find it possible 
 
 to claim her as his wife. Wife Now, 
 
 with the unopened letter in his hand, he 
 questioned himself. Would he find her the 
 same, would he feel the same, as he had 
 found her, as he had felt in the maple-wood 
 by the St. Gabriel? He tried to imagine her 
 as head of some modest menage on no, not 
 in this dingy quarter; away from here, on a 
 shady side street, with little squares of 
 114
 
 THE WINNING -OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 green grass and lilac-bushes in the front 
 yards, where white-capped maids open the 
 doors when the electric bell rings. Yes! 
 He could call up the picture she would be 
 very dainty and piquant sitting there at 
 the head of the table, behind the silver 
 coffee-urn. She would be in scarlet he 
 always liked her in that scarlet cotton gown. 
 Her black hair and little white teeth when 
 she dimpled and smiled, and the satiny 
 touch of her small fingers, her quaint 
 foreign English, with its sweet, lisping 
 inflections he could almost hear it now, 
 her "Monsieur Villeaufo //^. " 
 
 Willoughby s eyes were closed. The 
 ugly, corpulent stove and Mr. Thomas 
 Rossiter s printed card were forgotten. 
 Again the wind sighed in the fir-trees, and 
 the St. Gabriel, far down below in its narrow 
 bed, boomed sleepily like dreaming thunder. 
 
 Yes, he would have old Otto over to spend 
 the evening Otto with his preposterous 
 attitudes and bristling pompadour of sandy 
 hair. He would sit and pound the table 
 and talk Carl Marx at them, while he and 
 Yvonne ah yes he and Yvonne 
 
 Otto Pfeffer s heavy snoring in the other 
 room awoke him from his reverie.
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 There stood the corpulent stove, and Mr. 
 Thomas Rossiter s name stared down at him 
 where Otto had stuck it with its edge under 
 the woodwork of one of the door panels. 
 
 "Rex mortuus est. Vivat Rex," Pfeffer 
 had written under it in great black scrawls. 
 
 Waltz music began to strike up from 
 Schumacher s Hall behind the saloon on the 
 corner. He could just hear the push of the 
 dancers feet upon the floor. 
 
 He opened the Canadian letter. It was 
 dated : 
 
 La Jeune Vallette. 
 Dear Monsieur Willoughby : 
 
 You are kind still to had thought of me, 
 though it is long time that I do not see you. 
 Petit Hilaire he grow one big little boy and 
 very good. Ernestine was at the Convent 
 de Marie-Joseph. She grow very nice lit 
 tle girl, with so yellow hair like papan 
 Etienne. 
 
 I want ask you not to think of Yvonne no 
 more. I say one time I like you very 
 much, but that so long time ago and you 
 been gone. I read one nice book with the 
 dear Abbe* every mornings. It is English 
 
 I had not thought of you now any more. 
 
 [Oh, Yvonne!] 
 
 I don know what I do to-morrow year. 
 Maybe I go way to Monre"al and be Gray 
 Sister. 
 
 116
 
 THE WINNING-OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 So I write you my adieu. You will not 
 care of not hearing of Yvonne. 
 
 Votre amie du temps jadis, 
 
 Yvonne Brusseau. 
 
 My maman wishes me to have my cousin 
 in marriage Pole on demand me now this 
 many a times 
 
 Pierce could not help but smile at the 
 naive little postscript, but he folded the 
 letter tenderly and put it back into its 
 envelope. 
 
 Dear little Yvonne ! He must seek her at 
 once. Things might take care of them 
 selves. Let his bank-account go hang. 
 He would manage for them both, some 
 how. The "modest me nage" dwindled to a 
 three-room flat. That letter was impera 
 tive. Delay might be fatal. His Yvonne 
 married to another, to Poleon Gros-Louys! 
 
 He pushed his chair back noisily, and 
 walked up and down between the green- 
 calcimined walls of the dimly-lighted room. 
 
 "Himmel!" muttered Otto Pfeffer, turn 
 ing over uneasily in his sleep, "what are you 
 up to, old man?" 
 
 Willoughby s eyes fell on Rossiter s card 
 and on the Evening News which lay on his 
 
 "7
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 desk, open at Jim Mcllhaney s speech in 
 Ashfield Hall. 
 
 That campaign! His nomination! The 
 dishonest alderman against whom he was 
 running! The election on which so much 
 depended! These rushed into his mind. 
 Could he run away from his campaign? 
 Could he desert the cause he was enlisted to 
 support? Now, above all, when the city 
 boss had almost thrust victory into his 
 hands ! 
 
 Willoughby stood stock-still in the center 
 of the room. His mental and his physical 
 attitude exactly corresponded. He was at 
 a dead stand. Two conflicting emotions 
 within his breast had locked arms and were 
 motionless. Full five minutes he stood 
 thus. Then he sat down and wrote to 
 Yvonne a letter of fervent asseveration, of 
 reluctant delaying, of manly pleading. 
 
 Hastily he sealed it. The morning light 
 was already showing in the gray sky above 
 the low roofs and sheds that stretched away 
 below his back window. 
 
 The gas-light still shone from the oval 
 windows in Schumacher s Hall, whence 
 came the languishing strains of the Home, 
 Sweet Home waltz and the tired tread of the 
 
 118
 
 THE WINNING -OUT OP WILLOUGHBY 
 
 last dancers feet. Willoughby seized his 
 hat and went out into the street to mail his 
 letter at the corner box. 
 
 The early workmen were already filing 
 down Libby Avenue into the Yards. A 
 somber procession of toil, with their dis 
 colored clothes, stolid faces and swinging 
 dinner-pails. 
 
 By the saloon Willoughby bought a morn 
 ing paper of a newsboy. His eye caught 
 this heading: 
 
 "Mcllhaney Turned Down. 
 Rossiter and Mcllhaney Disagree." 
 
 Further down he read : 
 
 "It is rumored that Pierce Willoughby, 
 the Fifteenth Ward candidate, is to be given 
 a place on the Republican ticket. The 
 party leaders admit the strength of the 
 reform movement. It is thought that Wil 
 loughby s name will strengthen the whole 
 ticket. There is no doubt that this new 
 move will insure the election of the young 
 reform leader. The Independents are con 
 gratulating themselves upon the prospective 
 success of their nominee. 
 
 The nomination had thus been thrust upon 
 Willoughby before he had decided the ethics 
 of the matter. Thereupon he decided not 
 119
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 to decide it, but let the circumstance be his 
 guide. 
 
 Now he and Otto were having it back and 
 forth in one of their most fervid discussions. 
 In such discussions Otto was always the 
 Mountain and Pierce the Plain. Valentino, 
 their Italian neighbor and co-worker, fer 
 vidly listened. 
 
 "The trouble is just here," said Otto, 
 knocking the ashes from his pipe upon the 
 table, "you re sailing under the colors of a 
 rotten machine Gott in Himmel! What s 
 the matter?" as he was interrupted by 
 laughter from the Plain. 
 
 "That s all right," said Willoughby, "we 
 won t mind mixed metaphors." 
 
 "Now you are going in as Rossiter s man, 
 and the mass of the people won t know what 
 your dashed exalted reform-purposes are, 
 will they? Bless them! not they! And 
 they won t care, not a whit. They vote for 
 you because you re run by the party leaders. 
 So the people aren t educated up to it as 
 they ought to be by a landslide of votes in 
 favor of clean politics. You throw all that 
 away by this gol-darned compromise of 
 yours. 
 
 Otto was glaring at the heap of ashes on 
 
 120
 
 THE WINNING -OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 the table. His big, honest cheeks were 
 flushed under his light, straggling whiskers. 
 Valentino thrust his thin, nervous fingers 
 through his black, longish hair. He 
 admired Pfeffer. He loved Willoughby, but 
 thought that Pfeffer was in the right. 
 
 "His voice is vehement, friend Willough 
 by," Valentino said, "but his eyes see 
 clearly." 
 
 "As I was saying," Pfeffer went on, not 
 minding the interruption, "that s donkeyism 
 number one. What we want is not so much 
 votes as opinions, and them you re not going 
 to get without a fight. It s the fight we 
 want. Without it, victory is a sham. 
 
 "Second, not only will this agitation in 
 favor of the Independent movement be lost, 
 but a lot of folks will believe you ve made a 
 deal of some kind, and you can t harry them 
 out of the belief. So you ll not only spoil 
 the chance of adding to our side, you ll sub 
 tract some who aren t over-confident now 
 of any one s honesty. That s donkeyism 
 number two 
 
 "There s only one more thing to be said," 
 added Willoughby, quietly, "which is, that 
 I have made a deal and the boodlers are 
 going to profit by it 
 
 121
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Diablemento!" exclaimed Valentino. 
 "No one but yourself should say that of 
 you." 
 
 "But I was coming to it," said Otto. 
 That would be donkeyism number three. 
 
 "Do you believe it?" asked Willoughby. 
 
 "I believe in the ugly central fact of 
 donkeyism, " replied Otto, "but I believe 
 you ll kick clear of it, my boy." 
 
 There was silence in the room for several 
 minutes, while Otto smoked, Pierce 
 thought, and Valentino shifted his long 
 legs uneasily, looking from one to the 
 other. 
 
 "What did you say?" asked Otto. 
 
 "I did not say." 
 
 I want you to. 
 
 "You know just my position, Pfeffer. I 
 am running for honest administration. I 
 shall tell the people so. I go in with clean 
 hands. Let the people suspect me if they 
 will. Better men have been suspected 
 before. It s wiser to fight in the council 
 than to fight to get in and fail. 
 
 "You re obdurate, then, I see," said Otto, 
 bluntly. Good-night. 
 
 "What! You re not going with me to 
 Ashfield Hall to hear my speech?"
 
 THE WINNING- OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 "Tonner and blitzen, no! I m going to 
 turn in early. 
 
 "And you?" asked Willoughby. 
 
 "I shall be there," said the Italian. 
 
 Rossiter was to come for Willoughby at 
 half-past seven to take him over to the hall 
 where he was to make his speech, calling 
 down the Democratic candidate for the 
 same office and extolling the purity of his 
 own intentions. But the speech was not to- 
 be what Rossiter expected, nor, indeed, what 
 Willoughby himself had planned when they 
 started out together in a cab for Ashfield 
 Hall. 
 
 "Rossiter," said Willoughby, as they 
 neared the hall, "I m not quite clear on this 
 New City scheme that you say will come up 
 in the committee " 
 
 "Well, you know Mcllhaney is dead 
 against it." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And we re for it." 
 
 Willoughby recoiled at the "we," and 
 said: "That s not so sure, is it?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I must know more of it, first." 
 
 This was the time that Rossiter over 
 reached himself. The corporation attor- 
 123
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 ney s comment on the sameness of human 
 nature came to his mind. 
 
 "He wants to see the color of his pay," 
 Rossiter thought, and so he lighted the fuse 
 which set on fire the powder that later 
 burst the bomb-shell of that memorable 
 evening. 
 
 "You can trust Elkins, " said Rossiter. 
 Til have a cool thousand from him, and as 
 for your share of the chink, why, Tommy 
 Rossiter s word is as good as gold, any 
 day." 
 
 "Do you think, sir," retorted Willoughby, 
 in a blaze, "that I am in this thing for the 
 boodle? Am I the man to blackmail corpora 
 tions or block public enterprises " 
 
 Willoughby s voice had risen in his heat, 
 but the cab had stopped before Ashfield Hall. 
 
 The city boss was getting out, with a smile 
 upon his lips at the new candidate s "dra 
 matics." 
 
 Ashfield Hall was filled to the utmost, and 
 the air was blue with smoke. It was 
 largely an assembly of laboring men, Ger 
 mans, Irish, Poles and Bohemians mixed. 
 Some few "tough-nuts" and loafers stood in 
 the passage-way and by the door. They 
 were largely Mcllhaney s "boys," who had 
 124
 
 THE WINNING -OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 come to make trouble for the green speaker. 
 In front, occupying chairs, were the Inde 
 pendents from the eastern side of the ward, 
 thinking men of integrity who had been 
 culled from the ranks of both parties. The 
 majority of the audience were stupidly 
 staunch Republicans, who had been obedient 
 henchmen of Tommy s and of his ward- 
 heeler for years. 
 
 They were mostly Yards laborers, scrap 
 ers, cutters, ribbers, packers, shacklers, with 
 an assortment of that rougher class who 
 handled the knives on the "Beds." There 
 were also bosses from the different depart 
 ments and artisans and shop-keepers, whose 
 wares were displayed within and without the 
 shops with the queer foreign signs that lined 
 the avenue. 
 
 Willoughby was introduced by Mr. Thomas 
 Rossiter s flowing periods, as "the man of 
 the future, the exponent of the triumphant 
 new Republicanism. Reference was made 
 to the Monitor s successful fight against a 
 certain infamous bill, to the Park Commis 
 sion on which Willoughby had served and 
 through which had been obtained Sobieski 
 Park, in the New City neighborhood, and to 
 a Relief Bureau which Willoughby had 
 125
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 organized tinder the auspices of the Monitor, 
 and which had helped many during the hard 
 times the preceding winter. Every one of 
 these apt allusions was met by a vigorous 
 round of applause. 
 
 After such an auspicious introduction, the 
 young politician stepped forward on the plat 
 form. His old speech he had utterly dis 
 carded, and his new speech was seething 
 inarticulately within him. It would make 
 a great difference whether that speech were 
 reported subjectively or objectively. It was 
 one speech that Willoughby thought he 
 made and another that the people heard. 
 But all were agreed that it was the most 
 peculiar campaign utterance that ever went 
 out from Ashfield Hall. 
 
 Whether it was the medieval look of vas 
 salage on the faces before him or Otto s 
 "donkeyism" still ringing in his ears, Pierce 
 could think of nothing but Giordano Bruno s 
 symbolism of the ass. 
 
 Whimsically enough, the first words that 
 surged to his lips were these : 
 
 "Of two sorts are the bipeds superior 
 and divine, inferior and vulgar. 
 Of two kinds are the asses domestic and 
 savage " 
 
 126
 
 THE WINNING -OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 Looking down at the astonished herd 
 before him, he barely saved himself from 
 this and then suddenly saw his own image, 
 a leader of them, there on the platform, and 
 divinely stupid. Again out of the confusion 
 of his mind, these words arose : 
 
 "The whole animal kingdom is governed 
 by the ass, on whom the gods have con 
 ferred preeminence and a post in the poop. 
 
 It was scarcely an appreciable minute, 
 however, before he, commenced speaking, 
 and every eye was riveted upon his hard-set 
 face, with its glittering blue eyes and 
 cynically-smiling mouth. 
 
 "Fellow-citizens," he said, "I stand here 
 before you as a renegade 
 
 "What kind o brigade is that?" shouted a 
 voice in the rear. 
 
 "It s the brigade we all belong to who 
 don t live up to our convictions." 
 
 "If it s convictions you re talking about, 
 I m not in it," said the man, with meaning 
 less smartness. 
 
 "Shut up! Give the feller a chance," 
 added another of Mcllhaney s boys. 
 
 But Willoughby s voice bore down these 
 last two comments as he went on : 
 
 "Not as an exponent of Republicanism, 
 127
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 new or old, triumphant or defeated, do I 
 stand here. In city politics, I am not 
 Republican, no, and shame beit to me that I 
 must say it in so public a place and in this 
 public way I will not serve under the 
 Republican machine " 
 
 There was breathless silence when a 
 young fellow by the door with a cigar in his 
 mouth and a derby hat over one ear, called 
 out: "He s got a jag on. Turn him out." 
 
 "I withdraw. I wish I could find words 
 strong enough to express my scorn for the 
 machine methods and machine motives, 
 which have been revealed to me this evening 
 more clearly than ever before. Citizens of 
 the New City, I reprobate myself that for 
 one moment I dreamed that reform could 
 result from compromise. I repudiate my 
 nomination. 
 
 Here his voice was drowned by mingled 
 roars and hisses from the central mass of 
 Republicans, who began to realize the sig 
 nificance of his words. 
 
 "I demand a right to be heard " thun 
 dered Willoughby, and above the storm of 
 voices his voice predominated and won him 
 a respite. 
 
 "I withdraw, I have said, from the Repub- 
 128
 
 THE WINNING-OUT OF WILLOUGHBY 
 
 lican gang ticket, but not from the field. I 
 am here to stay. I am here to fight. 
 
 Willoughby, squaring his shoulders against 
 the turbulent crowd, looked every inch a 
 fighter. He had lost that hesitation which 
 marked his first utterances. Opposition and 
 scorn had roused the animal in him. 
 
 "I made a mistake. I have admitted it. 
 I am back again under the old standard to 
 fight for the same cause which I falsely sup 
 posed could be served under the enemy s 
 ensign. Fellow citizens, I summon you 
 here to rally around me all who want an 
 honest administration, who want clean 
 streets, who want their own pockets replen 
 ished by the results of their own enterprise, 
 who want compensation for the franchises 
 they bestow, who want service from the 
 great corporations without the cost of black 
 mail laid upon their own shoulders. That is 
 what this man here, who is your leader, 
 would have done. If I had gone into the 
 council under his patronage, his purse 
 would have jingled with gold. 
 
 Willoughby s voice went on, drowning the 
 cries of "Prove it! Prove it!" that inter 
 rupted him here. He continued speaking of 
 the value of an educational campaign, of 
 129
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 the necessity of a party behind the Inde 
 pendent movement. He exposed the cor 
 ruption of the council, the greed of the 
 aldermen, the soullessness of certain com 
 panies, in scathing terms. He held his 
 audience by the fierce magnetism of his 
 personality and the sheer brute force of his 
 words. 
 
 But when he ceased speaking, the spell 
 was loosed and the assemblage broke up 
 into the wildest uproar. The Independents 
 rallied round him and forced their way out 
 of the hall. 
 
 Otto Pfeffer, who was there, of course, 
 during the whole meeting, seized one arm 
 and Valentino the other. They hurried off 
 together to the quiet, monotonous street. 
 
 "He s a talker all right," said the saloon 
 keeper, who had shouted "Turn-coat." 
 
 "But he s squashed himself at the polls, 
 sure enough. What a d d fool ! 
 
 "Otto," said Willoughby humbly, as the 
 two stumbled round in their dark rooms, 
 "am I a donkey?" 
 
 "No," roared Otto, with unnecessary 
 vehemence, "you re not the ass at the poop, 
 you re a man." 
 
 130
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ORCHARDHURST 
 
 The haze-empurpled air of autumn hung 
 like a visible revery over the orchard slopes. 
 The faint fragrance of burning grass on a 
 near-by hill gave a cooked tang to the 
 atmosphere. Through the long mellow 
 spaces of the afternoon came the cheery 
 voices of apple-pickers on their ladders 
 among the trees and the occasional rich 
 drumbling of the apples, poured from the 
 baskets into the barrels. 
 
 Dr. Van Eyck, like a long-bearded tutelary 
 genius of apple-harvest, sat on an overturned 
 barrel in the lane, alternately puzzling out 
 lines of a sonnet-acrostic and bellowing 
 directions to his men. It was almost time 
 for Brockton to return with the mail. Mail 
 time for Dr. Van Eyck was the pivotal point 
 of the day. Not that he was a man of 
 affairs, for except in his own estimation he 
 was the lord of unlimited leisure, being a 
 retired physician, and having no cares in 
 life but a small orchard and a large, self-
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 inflicted correspondence. But to what per 
 son engaged in extensive sonneteering and 
 having at his command a sufficient number 
 of stamps for "submission," would not mail 
 time be the pivotal point of the day? 
 Besides the latent possibilities of eager 
 editorial acceptance in every unopened lot 
 of letters, there were six weekly religious 
 papers coming in, a medical journal, and 
 proofs of scientific pamphlets, privately put 
 forth from time to time. 
 
 "Hi there, Cordey, turn those pippins in 
 more gently." The doctor interrupted 
 himself in mid-line. "You re bruising 
 them, man. And pick out a bushel of the 
 finest russets to send over to Mrs. Wilmot s. " 
 
 The barrels beneath the trees were begin 
 ning to round up with glistening green- 
 cheeked apples. 
 
 Brockton sauntered down the hilly road 
 to the house. The road wound between 
 old-fashioned shrubbery, weigelias, smoke- 
 bushes, lilacs. He was espied from afar by 
 his father. 
 
 "Bring them here, "he shouted, with the 
 superb confidence of one who has never 
 been disappointed by post-office returns. 
 
 His voice, in volume and ferocity ,was out 
 132
 
 ORCHARDHURST 
 
 of all proportion to its intent, having often 
 times a most salutary effect upon careless 
 apple pickers. Even stolid Draper, the 
 almost stone-deaf, bent old gardener had 
 been known to quiver an eyelash at one 
 terrific admonition of the doctor s. 
 
 Brockton sauntered across the over-long 
 grass of the lawn. Brockton always saun 
 tered. More especially if all about him were 
 flurried and hurried did his attitude assume 
 an elegant lassitude. You would misjudge 
 him if you deemed this due to perversity. 
 It sprang from a large-minded desire to 
 counteract evil tendency in others. 
 
 Only one letter, father, the young man 
 smiled, "and that from Madge." 
 
 He strolled off through the trees toward 
 the grape-trellis that on a southern slope 
 hung heavy with dark blue fruit. Im 
 maculately groomed and tailored as he 
 was, with his clean-shaven, indifferent face 
 and listless walk , he was quite out of keep 
 ing with the hearty old country place, with 
 its air of bounteous good comradeship and 
 unconventional ease. 
 
 He was the inexplicable member of the 
 Van Eyck family. He inherited neither the 
 teeming if somewhat bespent energy of his 
 133
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 father nor the graceful and unobtrusive 
 activity of his mother. Unlike his sister 
 Helen, who seemed a delicate embodiment 
 of conscience, so carefully were thought and 
 deed in her adjusted to the requirements 
 of equity, Brockton scorned the idea that 
 right and wrong should enter into a man s 
 calculations. It was beneath him entirely 
 to weigh life in the balance. His wishes 
 were their own justification. 
 
 Since college, he had been able to find no 
 calling nicely suited to his particular line of 
 ability. He had finally, as it was supposed, 
 settled down to a life of gifted irresponsi 
 bility. This was the general belief, though 
 the j^oung man himself had never been 
 known to make a definite statement on the 
 subject. Definite statements were also 
 among the details that dignity forbade. 
 From time to time he made brief trips to 
 New York, where he was supposed by his 
 father to be visiting his college friends 
 and by those friends to be transacting impor 
 tant business for his father. 
 
 His sister Madge, who was living in 
 
 town, saw little of him at these times, and 
 
 was not quite gratified with the little that 
 
 she did see. She was keener to observe in 
 
 134
 
 ORCHARDHURST 
 
 him the traces of dissipation than his con 
 fiding parents or the blameless Helen. 
 
 Needless to say, Brockton Van Eyck was 
 lightly esteemed by the good dames and 
 burghers of his own little Dutch village 
 among the hills. 
 
 Spuyten Kill mingled the characteristics 
 of suburb, country village and resort, and 
 only with its residents in the last capacity 
 did Brockton care to affiliate himself. But 
 as he did not keep a saddle horse nor a 
 kennel of dogs the young men failed 
 entirely to understand him ; and as he had 
 never disturbed himself in gallantries the 
 maidens looked upon him with pale interest. 
 Madge had been the saving member of this 
 family ; when she had been Miss Van Eyck, 
 friendly with the burg, cordial with the 
 suburb and chatty with the fashionables 
 from town. No wonder that she had mar 
 ried, in the normal way, and as Mrs. Fenton, 
 was a recognized leader in certain New 
 York circles. 
 
 Helen Van Eyck, a girl of eighteen, 
 haughtily timid and little understood, now 
 more alone than ever, found the long 
 country year full of golden quiets, among 
 her books at Orchardhurst. 
 135
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 Gathered at the tea-table that evening, 
 with the western sun flickering through the 
 wistaria and woodbine, and touching here 
 and there the china and glass, the family 
 were listening to Madge s letter, which had 
 been prefaced by Dr. Van Eyck s 
 
 "A most remarkable document from our 
 daughter Madge." 
 
 Interested silence followed its conclusion. 
 Dr. Van Eyck, out of respect to his sex, had 
 the habit of deferring first to his son in fam 
 ily discussions. 
 
 "Well, Brockton?" he inquired. 
 
 "The olives, Eliza," said the young man, 
 and this more important matter having been 
 disposed of, Brockton proceeded. 
 
 "Most absurd. That we should receive 
 an untutored savage into the bosom of our 
 family ! And for an indefinite time ! If she 
 doesn t weary of us before we do of her, we 
 shall be harried into our graves before 
 Christmas." 
 
 "Cornelia?" 
 
 Dr. Van Eyck, who loved a lengthy and 
 well-ordered domestic conference, had 
 turned to his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Van Eyck was a woman of decided 
 convictions, but gentle of speech. 
 136
 
 ORCHARDHURST 
 
 "I want to hear what you and Helen have 
 to say," she replied. 
 
 "As for me," the doctor began, "it will 
 be a heavy addition to my burden of 
 responsibilities, but Madge describes the 
 child as interesting and rarely intelligent. 
 Her education, even in the English lan 
 guage, will be no slight task, and as for her 
 training in domestic and social felicities, 
 Helen would, no doubt, find that within her 
 sphere of duty. The girl will, of course, 
 gain a great deal besides the direct instruc 
 tion. 
 
 "Ah, the incomparable atmosphere! 
 What will she not absorb!" drawled 
 Brockton. 
 
 Then we are to turn her out, the doctor 
 went on, "educated, civilized and an orna 
 ment to society. I think it will be a valu 
 able experiment. 
 
 "Well put," said Brockton. "The experi 
 ments of fools are of value to the wise. " 
 
 It was Helen s turn. Eagerly she pleaded 
 for Yvonne Brusseau. Something in the 
 novelty of the idea and in her sister s 
 description of the girl s fresh, simple nature 
 appealed to her. Helen s rare enthusiasms 
 were oftenest for causes other than her own.
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Helen and Pocohontas!" laughed Brock 
 ton, "what a delicious contrast it will be!" 
 
 "And now, Cornelia?" 
 
 "It will certainly be a serious responsi 
 bility," said the wife, knowing well on 
 whose shoulders the responsibility would fall. 
 "But Madge says the girl has great possi 
 bilities and is unhappy where she is. It 
 would be cruel to put her under the 
 restraint of a boarding-school, and she 
 would certainly have opportunity for a some 
 what free and natural development with us. 
 It seems an opportunity^for good which we 
 should not refuse. And, by the way, when 
 did Madge say she was coming out? 
 Wednesday? Why, that is this evening." 
 
 "And there they are now," cried Helen, 
 hearing the sound of carriage wheels on the 
 gravel road beneath the window. 
 
 "Bravo for the new regime," said Brock 
 ton, smilingly, under his breath. 
 
 He sprang to unfasten the glass doors 
 opening on the porch and took his mother s 
 arm over the threshold, as they all hastened 
 out to meet the new arrivals. 
 
 But mockery and philosophy alike were 
 confuted by Yvonne s presence. She might 
 have been any little black-eyed French- 
 138
 
 ORCHARDHURST 
 
 Canadian girl, in ordinary attire, rather 
 than the petite sauvagesse they had pic 
 tured her. Helen and her mother, how 
 ever, welcomed the disillusionment. Yvonne, 
 shyly silent and reserved, was spectator 
 more than participant of the first gathering 
 and made many reflections of which her 
 face gave small sign. 
 
 Madge filled the room with a breeze of 
 conversation and laughter till finally it was 
 bed-time. 
 
 It was not more than a week after this 
 that Yvonne, fully ensconced at Orchard- 
 hurst, was presented by the doctor with a 
 sonnet-acrostic, beginning: 
 
 "Yclad in native charms, th ingenuous 
 maid." 
 
 What follows is part of a letter which 
 Yvonne wrote to her mother after she had 
 been a few months at Orchardhurst : 
 
 Chere Maman, 
 
 Here one has to walk many arpents to 
 reach a wood and when one is in the wood 
 it is only a few minutes before one sees light 
 through the trees and it is the open again. 
 I walk with Monsieur the Doctor. He pulls 
 the petals of the flowers apart and makes 
 me to look at them through a glass and 
 gives every bit a long name in Latin. 
 
 139
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Monsieur le Cure" would understand the 
 Latin, but it is not agreeable for a girl to 
 say such long words. 
 
 Monsieur is a good man, but he writes 
 something they call a sonnet. It is neces 
 sary that it be of a certain length and it is 
 oftentimes about a person. It is a very 
 curious thing, very difficult to write and 
 also to read understandingly. He has 
 written one for me because he can begin the 
 lines with the letters of my name, for there 
 are just fourteen letters in Yvonne Brusseau. 
 Monsieur is very glad when he knows a 
 name fourteen letters long. 
 
 No more of this, for it is something I do 
 not well understand. 
 
 Monsieur Brockton is idle all day, doing 
 different things but nothing with his hands. 
 He takes pictures of trees and sometimes of 
 me. He likes to have me accompany him 
 when he goes with his camera. He says I 
 have an artist s eye. An artist s eye is not 
 to like a red brick mansion on a high hill 
 with little fir and cedar trees cut and twisted 
 till they resemble a bad dream. For there 
 is a place like this here, chere Maman, which 
 a rich man built because he wished that the 
 people should know the money he had. 
 This is horrible. An artist s eye is to like a 
 stone wall when it is tumbling down and a 
 scarlet woodbine is creeping over it, also the 
 inside of a dark wood when it is midday and 
 tall flowers stand like white candles in the 
 shadows. Monsieur Brockton and I have 
 140
 
 ORCHARDHURST 
 
 found a wood like that. At the summit is 
 an old tower which one built long ago for 
 the view. One can climb to the top and see 
 the river which is wide and blue, beautiful 
 almost as the St. Laurent, and the tops of 
 the trees in the village below and the white 
 roofs of houses. 
 
 There is hunting here, but not such as 
 Pol eon finds on la Montagne Ronde and in 
 the Restigouche forests. 
 
 The young men buy a fox and drive him 
 off into the fields. Then they dress them 
 selves in scarlet and go on horses after- him. 
 This is called a Hunting Club. Monsieur 
 Brockton does not care to hunt. He likes 
 best to sit and talk, sometimes even with 
 me. His hands are very white, like a 
 priest s. When he smiles his face is pleas 
 ant. Tell Poleon that I do not much like 
 Monsieur Brockton. I like a man who is 
 strong and has brown hands and does not 
 look strangely at you. 
 
 His sister Helen I love rnuch.^ She has 
 the good heart and eyes of truth/ We read 
 books together and are like sisters. I can 
 speak the English trts bien, she says. 
 
 Madame the mother is perfect in all 
 respects, and amiable to me as if I were her 
 daughter. Madame Fenton comes out often 
 and I tell her all things. 
 
 We have silver forks at table and many 
 
 plates to eat from. A woman cooks in the 
 
 kitchen and another stands behind us to 
 
 hand us the dishes. The crumbs must be 
 
 141
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 removed between dinner and fruit, and one 
 must sit very straight with folded hands 
 and not assist. It is often irksome. 
 
 I study many hours and learn out of 
 books. 
 
 When I long for you, che"re Maman, and 
 for petit Hilaire and all the little ones, I run 
 away over the hill and walk up and down 
 alone, talking to you in our own dear French. 
 There is a lonely lane by the tower-wood 
 where I go. I take off my hat and sit on a 
 stone and call aloud, and there is one pine 
 tree which is a friend to me. 
 
 If one should see me he would wonder at 
 la petite sauvagesse, for here people do not 
 run with the little wild animals alone on 
 hill-sides nor spend all the day with the 
 birds by the river swamp, but they go 
 walking by twos for an hour with parasols to 
 keep the sun from their cheeks. 
 
 And when they hear a bird sing, they go 
 home and hunt it down in a book so as to 
 know by what name to name it. 
 
 No, Maman, I do not see Monsieur Wil- 
 loughby, nor do I write to him. He does 
 not know where I am and I am glad. I 
 have learned a sonnet of Monsieur the 
 Doctor, and often I say it to him for his 
 delight. He likes me to say poems, more 
 particularly when he has written them. 
 
 There are many books in the house, as if 
 it were the Curb s, and we must walk lightly 
 on the floors and when visitors come we 
 ask them to play the piano and to sing. 
 
 142
 
 ORCHARDHURST 
 
 All is different, and it often wearies me, 
 but I am happy, for I am in the world and 
 not in La Jetme Vallette. 
 
 One cannot live forever in Vallette. 
 There are things beyond which I am begin 
 ning to see. 
 
 i43
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 There were a great many First Times in 
 Yvonne s experience. She did not grow up 
 to them as most young girls do, but they fell 
 upon her out of the skies. 
 
 There had been the First Party, the First 
 Play and the First Shopping-Tour. On 
 these occasions she observed with outward 
 passivity the genus, modern society. Her 
 gravity was adjudged due to her lack of 
 fluent English. In reality, it was the 
 speechlessness that accompanies a flood of 
 new impressions. If there was one social 
 knack Yvonne possessed, it was that of 
 maintaining silence. Her silences were 
 neither bete nor gauche. They were 
 expressive and even interesting. 
 
 The Indians are inveterate gamesters. 
 Yvonne handled life as a card-player plays a 
 new game. She was slow to show her hand 
 and quick to follow a lead. She reserved 
 her trump cards for the last. 
 
 By virtue of these gifts or intuitions, she 
 145
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 saved herself from any glaring blunders 
 She learned early that to do as other peo 
 ple do, is the Golden Rule of society. 
 
 To be sure, she had sometimes shown 
 amazement over things at which one is sup 
 posed to conceal amazement, such as, shop 
 windows, polite lies, and de collete gowns. 
 She had commenced answering in good faith 
 a social fusillade of questions not meant to 
 be answered. She had been on several 
 occasions conspicuously silent when things 
 were discussed concerning which she was 
 ignorant. Things of which society is ignor 
 ant she kept to herself. 
 
 Tissette and Poleon would not harmonize 
 with Brockton nor Helen Van Eyck. The 
 danse dramatique and the fete du riviere 
 would not find a proper setting in Spuyten 
 Kill or Riverside Drive. The Herb-gather 
 ers Village and Broadway were too far 
 apart. 
 
 Whether she lived at all in the old life, or 
 longed for it, the Van Eycks never knew. 
 There were the weekly letters to maman, 
 and others, not so frequent, to Poleon, to 
 both of which there came infrequent replies. 
 There were occasional little gifts sent to 
 Tissette or Aime", or petit Hilaire. These 
 146
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 were the only visible signs that the French- 
 Huron girl remembered the home of her 
 race. Of the village and the people she 
 would never speak. 
 
 It was Yvonne s second winter and there 
 came another of her First Times. Mrs. 
 Fenion was giving a tea, and Yvonne was 
 invited. She wore a Spanish costume, with 
 rings in her ears, and her brown arms bare. 
 Mrs. Fenton had dressed her so, for she was 
 to read from the Spanish Gypsy. 
 
 She made a striking figure, of course, and 
 her "reading" was one of thel" features" of 
 the afternoon. 
 
 "I m sure I ve seen you before, Miss 
 Brusseau," drawled a blond young man. 
 He had just been introduced to her, at his 
 own request, by Helen Van Eyck. 
 
 "Weren t you at the Castelmari salons in 
 Paris last winter?" 
 
 I was never in Paris, said Yvonne, with 
 her precise English, "and I am sure* you 
 have never seen me before." 
 
 The young man gave her a second look of 
 genuine surprise. He was shocked at her 
 literalness. 
 
 "I shall see you to-morrow night, I hope," 
 he continued, rather aimlessly. 
 147
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Where?" said Yvonne. 
 
 But the blond young man was talking to a 
 girl in a Gainsborough hat, and now he and 
 the hat were edging towards the tea-room 
 together. 
 
 "It was the Coddingtons ball to-morrow 
 night he meant," said Helen Van Eyck s 
 quiet voice beside Yvonne. 
 
 "Almost every one is going. He was 
 trying to place you. 
 
 "And Paris?" questioned Yvonne, with 
 the eager smile of a learner. 
 
 "He wondered where you got your French 
 accent." 
 
 "You were delicious, my dear," said a 
 large lady in black satin, to whom 
 Yvonne had been introduced ten minutes 
 before. 
 
 "How do you do it?" 
 
 "I do what?" said Yvonne. 
 
 The large lady had laid her hand upon 
 Yvonne s arm and was pushing past her with 
 this bit of patronage, but was stopped by 
 Yvonne s blunt rejoinder. 
 
 "Quite ignorant, poor thing!" she said to 
 herself. "I suppose she is paid." 
 
 "Why, the accent and the phrasing and 
 all that. It s so good so foreign, you know. 
 148
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 Don t you think so, Miss Van Eyck? Yes, 
 Colonel Dennery, I m with you." 
 
 This to a tall man with military mustaches 
 who had turned to look for her. Then she, 
 too, was en route for the tea-room. 
 
 "She didn t stay long enough to find out 
 your nationality," said Helen. "That was 
 what she was after. It s Mrs. Cornelius 
 Higgins. She s always on the lookout for 
 celebrities. 
 
 "Don t you love Tschaikowsky?" said a 
 sharp-featured young woman, holding a can 
 died fig between her gloved finger-tips. 
 
 She had drifted up beside Yvonne, who 
 still stood in the embrasure where the tide 
 of congratulatory small-talk had left her after 
 her reading. 
 
 A bushy-haired young man was at the 
 piano then, but how was Yvonne to know 
 that the lavender-gloved young woman 
 referred to his music and not to the candied 
 fig? 
 
 I never tasted it before, replied Yvonne. 
 
 Fortunately her reply was lost in the burst 
 of hand-clapping that succeeded the murmur 
 of voices at the close of the musician s 
 rendition. 
 
 "Magnificent, wasn t it?" exclaimed a girl 
 149
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 on the window-seat, who had been telling a 
 story vigorously during the music. 
 
 "Such technique!" murmured her vis-a 
 vis, and each took the other quite seriously. 
 
 "Let s talk to that fascinating Miss 
 Brusseau. They say she s a great friend of 
 Madge Fenton s. " 
 
 This from the vigorous talker. 
 
 Then, leaning forward, she addressed 
 Yvonne, who stood by the heavy curtain, 
 finding a spectacular interest in the scene 
 around her, made possible by her ignorance 
 and self-possession. 
 
 "Herr von Wertheimer interprets Wagner 
 delightfully, don t you think so?" 
 
 The girl was not sure that he had been 
 playing Wagner at all, but she had put the 
 question safely. 
 
 Yvonne thought a moment before answer 
 ing. This was unusual, and it made its 
 impression upon the glib society girls. 
 
 "Do you mean the music?" asked Yvonne, 
 a bit puzzled, but framing her sentence with 
 care. 
 
 "How remarkable!" thought the girl who 
 had addressed her. Then, as Yvonne 
 seemed waiting for an answer, she re 
 plied : 
 
 150
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 "Yes, I did enjoy his rendition of that last 
 theme, didn t you?" 
 
 "I really didn t listen to it," said Yvonne, 
 unaware of her uniqueness. "There was so 
 much conversation, one could not hear. 
 
 What a strange young person ! the two 
 girls remarked afterward to Mrs. Cornelius 
 Higgins. "Where does she come from?" 
 
 Brockton had stood near Yvonne during 
 this last passage and overheard it. 
 
 "I say, Miss Brusseau, you gave those 
 girls some jolly answers. May I sit down 
 on this window seat beside you?" 
 
 "They thought me stupid," said Yvonne. 
 "But yes, you may. If they knew how 
 much I had learned in the last two years, 
 they would think so not again. 
 
 The crowd in the drawing-room was thin 
 ning out now. People had stopped coming 
 and ladies in fluffy wraps were going out. 
 The streets were dark. Carriage numbers 
 were bawled out and the slamming of doors 
 was heard, as the wheels rumbled away with 
 departing guests. 
 
 "This is just the nice time," began Brock 
 ton boyishly, when a lady who had been say 
 ing good-bye to the receiving line came up, 
 holding out her hand.
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 She was a tiny body, with a soft, wrinkled 
 little face, framed in youthful curls, and a 
 pair of sharp, bird-like eyes. 
 
 Van Eyck muttered something under his 
 breath which the tiny lady would not have 
 liked to hear, and withdrew to a portfolio of 
 foreign views. 
 
 "Mrs. Fenton has been telling me what a 
 charming gift you have," the lady was say 
 ing, in her modest little voice, scrutinizing 
 Yvonne as keenly as the bird does the 
 worm. 
 
 "Indeed, I am so sorry to have missed 
 your delightful reading. I had come from 
 Mrs. Syswick s . You know Mrs. Syswick?" 
 
 "No, I do not know her." 
 
 "No? I thought that every one knew her, 
 especially you artistic people. One could 
 see to look at you that you are an artist. 
 Something you picked up on your travels?" 
 
 She was fingering the Spanish scarf with 
 a deferential touch, but her glance was 
 inquisitorial. 
 
 She had failed to get satisfaction from 
 Mrs. Fenton as to Yvonne s identity, and 
 was now pitting her adroitness, unconscien- 
 tiously, against a young girl s inexperience. 
 
 "No, it is Mrs. Fenton s," said Yvonne. 
 152
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 "Ah! Really quite Castilian. You have 
 known Mrs. Fenton a long time, I presume. 
 She tells me you are spending the month 
 with her." 
 
 The little lady paused and looked 1 . There 
 was demand in her look. Yvonne ignored 
 it, toying with the fringe of her scarf, eyes 
 downcast. 
 
 " I do not speak your English very good, 
 she said sweetly, flashing her black eyes 
 upon the little lady. 
 
 It was as if in apology for her scant 
 replies, and yet, very subtly, it had the 
 effect of a dismissal. 
 
 The baffled little lady moved away, and 
 Brockton suddenly lost interest in the port 
 folio and was at Yvonne s side. 
 
 "By Jove, that was a good one, though!" 
 he ejaculated. "You turned her down 
 neatly, Yvonne." 
 
 Yvonne looked at him gravely and said : 
 
 "I did not love that lady. She tried to 
 conquer me with her eyes. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Fenton was walking up to them 
 with William Fitz-Simmons, a Younger Son, 
 at her elbow. 
 
 "Here comes that British bulldog pup, r 
 muttered Brockton in Yvonne s ear. 
 153
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 "Aw, this ain t fair at all," said Fitz-Sim- 
 mons, "you re making yourself the best- 
 hated man in the room, Van Eyck. 
 
 His very blond mustache was curled and 
 parted above thick red lips that failed to 
 look anything but juicy. 
 
 Yvonne, in surprise, glanced about the 
 nearly-deserted apartments. No one was 
 left in the drawing-room but a lady and 
 gentleman in the doorway who were talking 
 to some departing guests; Mrs. Higgins 
 interviewing the bushy-haired young man 
 at the piano ; and two elderly young women 
 from Yonkers who stood waveringly near 
 the supper-room. They were debating 
 whether they should take the next train, or 
 go into the supper-room unescorted. 
 
 "It is very kind of Mr. Van Eyck to talk to 
 me when I am left by myself," said Yvonne. 
 
 Fitz-Simmons forgot to say anything, so 
 abashed was he by this lack of insincerity. 
 
 "Really, aw, that s very good," he said, 
 deciding to take it as a joke. 
 
 Then, as Mrs. Fenton made some remark 
 to her brother, he remembered his errand, 
 and said: 
 
 "Miss Brusseau, may I take you into the 
 tea-room?" 
 
 154
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 "She promised to go in with me," ex 
 claimed Van Eyck, dropping a sentence 
 unfinished. 
 
 Fitz-Simmons moistened his red lips a 
 little, and looked at Yvonne. 
 
 4 I did not promise, but I will go with Mr. 
 Van Eyck, said Yvonne serenely. 
 
 And she smiled graciously upon the out 
 raged Younger Son. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was not long before Fitz- 
 Simmons called at the Fentons . Yvonne 
 was there, of course, and before he left he 
 had arranged to take her to the St. Botolph 
 Club exhibition. 
 
 The afternoon of the exhibit arrived and 
 Yvonne and the Younger Son, in due form, 
 set out together. 
 
 Fitz-Simmons was a very young man and 
 a very impecunious one. He had, how 
 ever, expectations and a family tree. Add 
 to this, a British crudeness, and the belief, 
 into which some gossip had fooled him, that 
 Miss Brusseau was an heiress, and one may 
 understand a state of mind susceptible to Miss 
 Brusseau s naive charms. 
 
 They had been standing for some time in 
 front of a purple landscape when Yvonne 
 said, in her prettily deliberate English : 
 
 155
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Have we not looked at it assez long 
 temps? Let us try that wheatfield in the 
 corner. 
 
 "You don t suppose I ve been looking at 
 the picture, Miss Brusseau, when you are 
 beside me." 
 
 Yvonne s brown cheeks crimsoned. 
 
 Sit down here on the sofa. I want to say 
 something to you." 
 
 "I beg of you!" laughed Yvonne, "it is 
 perilous." 
 
 "You re the only " the Younger Son s 
 voice was thick with suppressed eagerness, 
 but changed, as a woman with an hysterical 
 aigretted bonnet took the remaining third of 
 their sofa. She was conning her catalogue, 
 but had one ear open toward the interesting 
 couple, the tall and very fair young man 
 with the aristocratic bearing, and the olive- 
 skinned girl in the otter cape. 
 
 " person I ve met who likes that 
 Monet," he finished, coolly. 
 
 "One must imagine to like it," answered 
 Yvonne. 
 
 "Quite so. I could imagine something 
 else and like that. 
 
 The hysterical bonnet had risen, and was 
 moving toward a Portrait of a Lady. 
 156
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 "Vraiment," said Yvonne, "that meadow 
 with the what do you call it, la brouil- 
 lard " 
 
 "Never mind," said Fitz- Simmons, laying 
 his hand on hers behind the shelter of her 
 big muff on the seat between them. 
 
 "I must have one little chance. Miss 
 Brusseau, do you Don t look at that ugly 
 old peasant woman on the wall. Look at 
 me!" 
 
 The hysterical bonnet, which must have 
 had remarkable discrimination, was near 
 them again. Its owner was deeply interested 
 in the "French Peasant-Woman," 
 
 "Hove" 
 
 The lavender bonnet s catalogue fluttered 
 unseasonably to the floor. 
 
 The Younger Son started. 
 
 " a good effective woman-annihilator, 
 don t you?" 
 
 Yvonne leaned back against the cushion, 
 and laughed softly for a whole minute. 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" she moaned, overcome with 
 mirth by the tragedy of his face. 
 
 Then they sat silent for some time. 
 
 Yvonne proposed going into the water-color 
 
 room, but Fitz-Simmons was sulky and 
 
 would not stir. So she went by herself, and 
 
 157
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 returning, found him still sitting on the 
 sofa. The tragic look had mitigated. 
 
 "Miss Brusseau, " he began stiffly, "I wish 
 to avow my feelings " 
 
 Why did that sudden impulse come to 
 Yvonne? She was looking at the "French 
 Peasant- Woman." The impulse came to 
 her, and she acted on it. 
 
 "She looks so precisely like my grand 
 mother," said Yvonne. "My grandmother 
 wore a wadded skirt just below her knees. 
 She never had a hat on in her life. " 
 
 "Wh-wh-what?" exclaimed the English 
 man. His grandmother lived in a Hall and 
 wrote on crested paper. 
 
 When the passion for disclosure seizes one, 
 it is irresistible. 
 
 Yvonne was dimly thinking : 
 
 "When I have finished telling him, I will 
 see what he will say." 
 
 He looked at her fixedly while she went 
 on: 
 
 "My grandfather never slept on a bed. 
 And I" 
 
 "And you?" he repeated automatically. 
 
 " I never wore a pair of gloves till I 
 came to Spuyten Kill." 
 
 Yvonne was looking at the man s kid 
 158
 
 FIRST TIMES 
 
 gloves that lay in glossy propriety beside her 
 muff. 
 
 "I never heard of caviare toast before a 
 certain dinner two weeks ago. I 
 
 The consternation on the Younger Son s 
 face spurred Yvonne to cap the climax. 
 
 "I have often danced a war-dance with 
 feathers round my head. 
 
 "You re not chaffing me?" he faltered. 
 
 "By the tomahawk of my grandfather, I 
 swear it is the truth," said Yvonne solemnly. 
 
 "May I ask for an explanation of the 
 riddle?" demanded the young man, whose 
 British pride began to bristle. 
 
 "Je suis une sauvagesse, " said Yvonne, 
 repressing a laugh with such vigor that her 
 voice trembled impressively. 
 
 "My cousin hunts the caribou in the far 
 north. His name is O-dil-o-ro-han-nin. " 
 
 It was five o clock and the attendants were 
 ostentatiously putting out lights. 
 
 They rose to go. The Englishman s bear 
 ing was more than ever patrician as he 
 handed Yvonne into a coupe*. 
 
 "What was it you began to say when I 
 interrupted you?" asked Yvonne. 
 
 "Nothing worth while, I presume," he 
 answered, with a thankful sobriety. "Your 
 159
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 fascinating autobiography has driven it from 
 my head. Really, you have the advantage 
 over us people whose antecedents are so 
 tiresomely ah unexceptionable. Yes, 
 drive to Thirty-fifth Street," he said to the 
 coachman, as he closed the door. 
 
 160
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MAKERS OF MANNERS 
 
 A six-acre place is a little world in itself. 
 Here you may have your wilding nook by 
 a meadow runnel where the violets enamel 
 the ground in the spring and the gardener s 
 spade in the lettuce-bed strikes the ear dim 
 and far-removed. Or on that secluded bank 
 by the fence behind the small apple-trees, the 
 wild strawberries grow in luscious clusters 
 glowing deep down in thicks of grass. In 
 autumn, over the stone wall by the hickory 
 trees, the woodbine clambers, reddening, 
 and the choke-cherry tree in an angle drips 
 with glistening black fruit. There is the 
 remote upland, where the timothy-grass and 
 feathery wild carrots wave and the meadow- 
 lark builds its nest in a hollow. 
 
 At the top of the garden the amenities of 
 cultivation decline gradually into a thicket- 
 studded wilderness. The trim rows of 
 gooseberry and currant bushes dwindle here 
 to a scattering vagrant or two, ripening late 
 and seldom visited. 
 
 161
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 The knot-grass spreads unmolested be 
 tween the tall corn, and a detached grape- 
 trellis cherishes its pink, long clusters, half 
 forgotten. 
 
 Up here Yvonne could sit under a balsam- 
 poplar tree, with the dry yellow grass rust 
 ling about her knees, and forget entirely that 
 within calling distance was a rambling, 
 white-painted house with people inside in 
 due bondage to domestic routine. 
 
 Here she sat one mild afternoon in late 
 autumn, book in hand, but absorbed in other 
 thought. Little tufts of wool from the tree 
 flecked the grass about her. The tented trees 
 on the orchard slopes, globed with late-ripen 
 ing russets, sheltered her from occasional 
 passers-by on the highway. She seemed 
 shut off from human life. Only now and 
 then in the pauses of the sighing Indian 
 summer, came the click of Draper s lawn 
 mower back and forth, and sonorous puffs 
 of the doctor s directing voice. 
 
 Yvonne had occasionally been called upon 
 to take part in a dramatic representation for 
 Helen s Shakespeare Club. To-day she was 
 studying for a rehearsal, but her thoughts 
 would not stay with Katherine. 
 
 She had been two years at Orchardhurst 
 162
 
 MAKERS OF MANNERS 
 
 and the problem of life had begun to present 
 itself to her. The Future troubled her. 
 That morning she had received a letter from 
 Madame Brusseau. She must now be bien- 
 instruite. It was costing beaucoup d argent. 
 They were glad she was so well content, 
 but it was time to think of marriage. Poleon 
 would come for her in the spring, after his 
 return from the moose-hunting by Lake St. 
 John, 
 
 So this was to be the end of it all. After 
 all her vague hopes and visions, La Jeune 
 Vallette again and Poleon. It must not be. 
 Yet she belonged to Poleon, did she not? 
 He had sent her money. And if she 
 returned to La Jeune Vallette she would 
 marry him. She had promised it. A 
 Tahourenche is true to her word. For all 
 Yvonne s French abandon and lightness she 
 was a Tahourenche and a Huron still. She 
 was bound to Poleon if she returned to La 
 Jeune Vallette. If she did not return, she 
 was bound to him still by the many gifts he 
 had sent her. 
 
 They should all be paid back to him. Ah, 
 Poleon, you do not know what a power of 
 will there is in that firm-set little mouth and 
 behind those dark, unsmiling eyes. 
 163
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 The thought of Pierce Willoughby had 
 come to Yvonne many times of late. The 
 thought of him was a smoldering ember. 
 True, she had refused to answer his letters, 
 there were three unanswered and Madge, 
 who alone knew of their relation, was 
 pledged to secrecy. He did not know, he 
 could not dream, where she was. Still, she 
 was resentful at his long silence. 
 
 Perhaps she would like to see him again. 
 But no, he had left her once. How she 
 would disdain him now ! He would find her 
 different, would he not? 
 
 The Van Eycks sometimes spoke of him. 
 He wrote books and his name was some 
 times in the papers. 
 
 How well she had loved him in the Bois 
 des Erables! 
 
 Does she love him now? 
 
 But Yvonne does not stop to analyze her 
 feelings. A Tahourenche" is not introspec 
 tive. 
 
 The Future was like a storm-cloud above 
 her head as she turned to her book ag-ain. 
 
 "You are pensive, little one," said a low 
 voice. 
 
 Brockton Van Eyck dropped down beside 
 her. 
 
 164
 
 MAKERS OF MANNERS 
 
 "Helen is a hard task-mistress. Would 
 you not like me for a school-master better?" 
 
 His slow words lingered about her like a 
 caressing breeze. She met his light brown 
 eyes fixed, half-admiringly, half-playfully, 
 upon her. 
 
 Perhaps the Future had left its shadow 
 upon Yvonne s face. That moment a subtle 
 something passed between these two. 
 Brockton realized Yvonne as a woman 
 worthy of his siege. Yvonne felt Brockton 
 as a man, and a man who moved her. 
 A thrill is untranslatable. In this instance, 
 coarsely paraphrased, with them both it 
 was a sense of relationship. Whether it was 
 to be love, or hate, or submission and 
 mastery, neither could have known. 
 
 Yvonne trembled a little, as the thrill sent 
 its darting messages through her blood. 
 
 "I am sad," she said, meeting Brockton s 
 eyes, "but I cannot tell why." 
 
 This was true. 
 
 "It is not the book?" said he, putting his 
 hand on the "Shakespeare which lay on her 
 lap and letting it remain there. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Nor Helen?" 
 
 "Never. Helen is my dear friend." 
 165
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Do not dear friends ever make one sad?" 
 
 "I do not know." 
 
 There was an intimate quality about these 
 questions that half puzzled, half pleased 
 Yvonne. 
 
 "It is not I that make you sad?" 
 
 Yvonne laughed at the unexpectedness of 
 the idea. 
 
 "Why do you laugh?" 
 
 Brockton was very serious. 
 
 "You, how could you make me sad?" 
 
 The aloofness of the you was unmistakable. 
 
 Brockton s gravity grew deeper, but within 
 himself he smiled. 
 
 "You laugh because you say to yourself 
 that I am not a dear friend, and therefore 
 how could I make you sad?" 
 
 He spoke deliberately, as if to a child. 
 
 "Is it not so?" Yvonne returned quickly. 
 
 Brockton continued with a sophistical 
 gleam : 
 
 "Helen cannot make you sad because she 
 is a dear friend, and I cannot make you 
 sad because I am not a dear friend. There 
 fore it is proved you are not sad." 
 
 Yvonne, quite aware of the sophistry, as 
 Brockton knew she would be, laughed more 
 merrily than before. 
 
 166
 
 MAKERS OF MANNERS 
 
 "It is proved I am not sad," she replied, 
 "because you have made me laugh." 
 
 Brockton returned to his serious look. 
 
 "But you have made me sad because you 
 say I am not your dear friend. That is 
 unkind. 
 
 "I did not wish to be unkind. I am 
 sorry. 
 
 "Then you will tell me of what you 
 thought?" 
 
 "Must I?" 
 
 "To prove your repentance." 
 
 "Then I will, Mr. Van Eyck," she said 
 simply, a little resolve suddenly forming 
 itself in her brain. 
 
 "If Helen is Helen, I am Brockton," he 
 said, moving round in front of her and 
 lying, half-reclined, on the ground so that he 
 might look her in the face as she talked. 
 
 Brockton had never noticed before how 
 agreeable it was to watch her. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 He moved a little nearer her and played 
 with a fold in her skirt. 
 
 Yvonne told him the story of Willoughby 
 and herself. She named no names. She 
 spoke of herself as another. Brockton under 
 stood better than Yvonne imagined. 
 167
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Did he love the girl if he left her? and 
 she would have gone with him!" 
 
 "Cold-hearted fool!" exclaimed Brockton. 
 "By George, Yvonne, he did not love y 
 her as I should love a girl. 
 
 "Or he was not truthful? He deceived 
 her and did not love her at all?" 
 
 "So much the better for me. If he had 
 loved as he ought, what chance should I 
 have now?" 
 
 Brockton, somewhat doubtful, was risking 
 a bold venture. 
 
 Yvonne s pale, dark cheeks were tinged 
 like a newly opened hickory-nut. 
 
 "You do not think it was I?" 
 
 "No," said Van Eyck with ready men 
 dacity, "but if it had been you and I had 
 been he lucky dog Yvonne, there would 
 have been a different story." 
 
 The girl s eyes dropped under the bold 
 amber gaze. 
 
 "But I am glad he lied, f or y she may 
 find a man to love her more truly?" 
 
 Brockton turned his face away from 
 Yvonne s, as if with a sudden overstress of 
 emotion. 
 
 He sprang to his feet and made a few 
 paces up and down in the grass. 
 
 168
 
 MAKERS OF MANNERS 
 
 Yvonne sat bewildered tinder the poplar 
 tree, pulling apart a tuft of wool that had 
 drifted to her lap. 
 
 "I have interrupted your study." Van 
 Eyck s voice was changed and dry. "Let 
 me help you a little. I will be Henry to 
 your Katherine. 
 
 Yvonne gathered herself together with an 
 effort and took up her lines. Her reserve 
 of self-control was great and she did not 
 show by a flutter the agitation that was 
 within. 
 
 "Your majesty shall mock at me. I can 
 not speak your England. 
 
 Brockton was piqued at her calmness. 
 
 "O fair Katherine, if you will love me 
 soundly with your French heart, I will be 
 glad to hear you confess it brokenly with 
 your English tongue. Do you like me, 
 Kate?" 
 
 Yvonne steadied herself before his glow 
 ing look. 
 
 "Pardonnez-moi. I cannot tell vat is 
 like me. 
 
 So the royal love-making went on, 
 infused on Brockton s side with more of 
 Van Eyck than was compatible with King 
 Henry V. 
 
 169
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Yvonne, however, was so bland to his 
 innuendo that he decided his former role 
 was preferable. 
 
 Let us shut up the book and talk a little 
 more, Yvonne. La grande passion in 
 Shakespeare does not interest as much as 
 your eyes. 
 
 "Your majeste have fausse French 
 enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle 
 dat is en France," Yvonne continued 
 demurely. 
 
 Brockton, glancing down the page, 
 decided that he would continue. It was 
 worth the experiment, at least. 
 
 "Den it shall also content me." 
 
 Yvonne could not resist giving a shy 
 glance, provoquante, at the handsome face 
 bending over the book. 
 
 " Then I will kiss your lips, Kate. 
 Yvonne! but I must, you know, to carry 
 out the part. 
 
 How near the face was to hers ! Should 
 she let him master her, or should she have 
 the mastery of him? The kiss of surrender 
 in the Bois -des Erables rose before her. 
 How unlike that face with its stern gravity, 
 to this, with the mocking smile upon it ! 
 
 "The kiss is not necessary," said Yvonne. 
 170
 
 MAKERS OF MANNERS 
 
 "It is most desirable," answered the man, 
 still smiling. 
 
 Then he rose to his feet abruptly and left 
 her. Did he see that cold Memory standing 
 between them? 
 
 He had the air of one who has tired of a 
 bauble and tosses it down in disgust. 
 
 As he sauntered down the grass-grown 
 road, toward the house, his long shadow 
 stretched behind him in the level gold of 
 the setting sun.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 More potent than disparity in intellectual, 
 emotional or racial point of view is disparity 
 in the moral point of view. It is a vital 
 separating force between two persons in 
 other respects akin. 
 
 There was this chasm between Helen and 
 Brockton Van Eyck. By the same rigid 
 standard which regulated Helen s own life 
 did she judge others. Her estimate of 
 Brockton was perhaps more immitigable 
 that he was her brother. One s personal 
 responsibility for one s blood-relations has 
 often this rasping effect. It might be noticed 
 that the brother and sister had never owned 
 an intimate friendship in common, which 
 is a significant sign. 
 
 During the two years of Yvonne s stay at 
 Orchardhurst, she and Helen had been 
 strongly drawn toward each other. The 
 serene steadiness, the individual reserve in 
 the one found its counterpart in the passion 
 ate freedom, the racial reserve in the other. 
 173
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 But as Brockton and Yvonne s enigmatic 
 relationship ripened, Helen and Yvonne drew 
 apart. Helen was consciously sorrowful, and 
 Yvonne,by turns, puzzled and then forgetful. 
 
 Brockton s apathy had at last thoroughly 
 been awakened by the mingled shyness and 
 daring of the little French- Huron girl. Her 
 capricious gaiety and indifference had all the 
 effect of the most finished coquetry. 
 
 Yvonne was secretive, as shy of expression 
 as any of her forebears that ever tiptoed in 
 silence along a dusky trail. Her frankly 
 confidential manner, her airy vivacity that 
 had won the heart of responsive friends, 
 were only surface froth upon a stream that 
 bubbled up here and there into the light but 
 had its subterranean channel steadfastly 
 underground. She had not yet found her 
 self. This gave her the haunting pensive- 
 ness that touched Helen s heart and filled 
 it with anxiety. Helen distrusted Brock 
 ton s gallantries. She discovered in him a 
 dangerous capacity of fascination. In fact, 
 he had just discovered it himself. 
 
 But the unfathomable look that had crept 
 into Yvonne s eyes was the look of a soul 
 that does not know itself. 
 
 So the winter wore away. Always the
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 shadow of the Future darkened Yvonne s 
 horizon. Many a time she wept, kneeling in 
 her room before her blue-robed statuette 
 of the Virgin. Many a time, at early mass 
 in the little village church, after the 
 befeathered servant-girls had gone out, 
 Yvonne poured out her soul before the 
 folded hands of the Christ. But no help 
 came. The excitement of Brockton s low 
 whispers and gazing eyes, of the dulcet tete- 
 a-tetes by the library fire when the family 
 had gone to the Club, the tantalizing pas 
 sages on the stairs, as he waylaid her of an 
 evening, all these were a stimulant to her 
 from day to day. 
 
 Brockton thought that he was amusing 
 himself. Little did he dream of the long 
 future when Yvonne s image would be 
 always before his eyes. 
 
 In the spring, Yvonne was to spend a 
 week with Mrs. Fenton in town. It was a 
 keenly anticipated occasion. Madge was to 
 give a dinner and the French Consul was to 
 be invited and Yvonne was to wear a yellow 
 gown. It was a present from Madge and 
 seemed to Yvonne a bit of the other world. 
 
 She remembered how, long ago, when she 
 was a child by the St. Gabriel, she had 
 175
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 waded out to pull great bunches of the wild 
 fleur-de-lis and the yellow water-lilies. She 
 had sat under the firs with the gorgeous 
 blooms in her lap and wondered if anywhere 
 in the world there were little girls who wore 
 clothes such as those, shaded purples like 
 the sky before a storm, and a yellow sash, 
 like the golden heart of the flower. Or were 
 there ladies clothed superbly in yellow, a 
 glory that would stand out all around them 
 on the floor, as the great thick lustrous yellow 
 petals swell out on the water? 
 
 That impossible fancy had come true and 
 here was she, with a gown as yellow as the 
 lily and as full of shimmering lights as the 
 flag-flower petals. 
 
 As the crowning touch to this bliss, Pierce 
 Willoughby was to witness her triumph. 
 
 He had just written to Madge that he 
 was to be in town and she had bidden him 
 to the dinner. 
 
 "I shall be glad to see him again. I 
 wonder if he would know me," cried 
 Yvonne, her eyes dancing with excitement. 
 
 "He would know you out of a thousand, 
 child. You have not changed as much as 
 you think. 
 
 "I have not changed at all. I know more, 
 176
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 but I am still the same, the very same, as 
 at Jeune Vallette. " 
 
 Helen and Yvonne were dressing together 
 before the dinner. Eliza had come in from 
 Spuyten Kill with Helen and was acting as 
 lady s maid for the occasion. 
 
 "Well, what do we think of Peter Ever- 
 sham ?" asked Helen. 
 
 Madge had bought Willoughby s new book 
 and the two girls had been reading it all the 
 afternoon. 
 
 "It sounds like him." 
 
 "You speak as if you knew him, child." 
 
 " I do know him, said Yvonne, one of her 
 sudden moods taking hold of her. "He 
 spent the summer at Jeune Vallette. He 
 said he loved me and then left me. 
 
 She was talking in French now, but in the 
 most casual tone of voice, as if lovings and 
 leavings were every-day occurrences with 
 her. 
 
 "What do you mean?" cried Helen, slow 
 to grasp so startling a confession. 
 
 "That is what I mean. " 
 
 4 And you loved him?" 
 
 "I told him so." 
 
 "Then I despise him," said Helen with 
 deliberate intensity.
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Why don t you say something, Yvonne? 
 Do not you hate him?" 
 
 "He was a cold-hearted fool," said 
 Yvonne lingeringly, in unconscious repeti 
 tion of Brockton. 
 
 Her foreign accent relieved this little 
 speech, in some degree, of its baldness. 
 But her heart smote her. So he was 
 insincerity and Brockton was truth! She 
 could not help but compare the two men. 
 Nevertheless, it had taken Willoughby 
 five minutes to say what Van Eyck had 
 been about a year and had not quite said 
 yet. So this is sincerity and that was un 
 truth. 
 
 "I was only a child," said Yvonne, self- 
 compassionately, "but I suffered." 
 
 Eliza Blodgett went stolidly about the 
 room, with her square English figure and 
 well-trained tread, arranging things, while 
 the two girls talked together in French. 
 
 "Eliza, what was that book you lent me 
 last week when I was ill?" 
 
 "Do you mean Wooed, not Wedded, Miss 
 Brusseau?" 
 
 The woman s face lighted up as she 
 turned toward Yvonne. The girl, with her 
 dark face, foreign ways and gentle courtesy 
 178
 
 toward Eliza, had come to be a shrine before 
 which all her flowers of romance were 
 secretly laid. 
 
 "That tells the story, Helen. He is a 
 grand gentleman and she the simple country 
 maiden. He plays with her, and then, 
 promising to return, leaves her. 
 
 "How does it end, Eliza?" 
 
 "Sir Bertram marries the Lady Selina, 
 Miss Brusseau, " said the woman, with eager 
 detail. "She is false to im and at last e 
 returns to seek the little love of is youth, 
 and the poor gentleman finds she has died 
 of a broken eart. It is a grand book at the 
 h end, Miss Van Eyck. I could ha wrung 
 my andkerchief out three times a-mopping 
 uv my h eyes h over it." 
 
 "The broken heart might be exchanged 
 in your story, said Helen. 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 "He returns; you have not died; he woos 
 again; you may supply the denouement, 
 Yvonne. 
 
 Charming ! exclaimed the girl, dimpling 
 with mischief. 
 
 "You will lead him on, Yvonne, and 
 then" 
 
 "And then I am implacable." 
 179
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "That is where the Indian blood comes in, 
 eh?" 
 
 Helen touched Yvonne under the chin. 
 
 "I don t deny it. I have the Huron idea 
 of heaven, torturing my enemies." 
 
 The gay little laugh wreathed the grim 
 idea with garlands. 
 
 "And still," judicial Helen said, "he first 
 gave you the cup of life to taste." 
 
 "And took it away when I had put my 
 lips to the brim, 
 
 "Perhaps," Helen relented, "he was 
 sincere and would have returned to you " 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 "And would have lived the simple life he 
 believed in " 
 
 "Pah!" came from Yvonne. 
 
 "And would have outgrown it and brought 
 you back to the world with him 
 
 "Trop de badinage," laughed Yvonne. 
 "Stop, Hel&ie." 
 
 She went to the mirror to survey her com 
 pleted toilet. The yellow dress was heavy 
 and lustrous, with a barbaric touch of dusky 
 purple about the low-cut neck. It brought 
 out the brown tints in her skin and 
 emphasized her natural pallor. She sur 
 veyed herself with dissatisfaction. 
 180
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 "It extinguishes me," she said, looking 
 backward at the reflection of herself. 
 
 She faced round again. 
 
 "Too much la Huronne!" she exclaimed. 
 
 Her face suddenly took on, to herself, the 
 look of Tissette Gros-Louys. It seemed 
 brown and narrow, with bird-of-prey eyes 
 and too white teeth. Shaking herself free 
 of the thought, she pinned a purple fleur-de- 
 lis in the hair that crowned her head. Helen 
 had brought a bunch of them from 
 Orchardhurst that afternoon. 
 
 "Now you will do," she said, dusting 
 some powder over her cheeks, and adjusting 
 her expression to her costume. It was 
 wonderful how the uncompromising Indian 
 look had given way before the new resolve. 
 It was thus that she went downstairs. 
 
 The French consul was there ; also Fitz- 
 Simmons, through the death of his father 
 and elder brother become Lord Alstonmeade ; 
 Brockton Van Eyck, the traces of last 
 night s dissipation immaculately groomed 
 away; Tom Barry, the English actor; and 
 a group of lovely women. There was 
 Cornelia Livingston, short, plump and 
 piquant, who did the petite blonde to per 
 fection; Helen, slim and erect, with thin 
 
 181
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 lips well-curved, and straight eyebrows 
 meeting above keen gray eyes; Elizabeth 
 Dawson, whose father was a senator, and 
 whose sweet blue eyes and ready smile had 
 served her father many a turn, they said, in 
 Washington; and Yvonne Brusseau, the 
 purple fleur-de-lis in the satiny loops of her 
 black hair. 
 
 A subdued murmur of pleasure arose when 
 word was passed that Pierce Willoughby 
 was to be a guest that evening, for every 
 one was interested to meet the author of 
 "Peter Eversham, Reformer." Pierce 
 Willoughby was announced and Yvonne 
 Brusseau watched the entrance of her old 
 friend and lover. She saw a tall, well-knit 
 young man, close-shaven, the clear forward 
 glance of the eyes and the firm mouth and 
 chin showing something of the strength 
 that bade fair to make him a leader in the 
 political and civic life of the western 
 metropolis. His forehead and eyes were in 
 such notable contrast with the lower part of 
 his face that people often remarked, referring 
 to the one and the other: "There lies his 
 failure, and there, his success." He had 
 the eyes of an enthusiast, a dreamer, while 
 his mouth and chin, resolute almost to 
 182
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 hardness, belonged to the aggressive man 
 of action. 
 
 All that Pierce Willoughby saw in Mrs. 
 Fenton s drawing-room, all that he ever 
 remembered of his first entrance there, was 
 a shimmer of yellow, a stately inclination of 
 a little dark head, crowned with a purple 
 flag-flower; and a pair of black eyes, that 
 veiled their glances as they met his own. 
 
 Yvonne s place at dinner was next to the 
 Frenchman, Amadis de Rocelles. The 
 Consul thought she had worn the fleur-de- 
 lis in compliment to France. Willoughby 
 thought it in memory of La Jongleuse. Both 
 men were puzzled, and both pleased. 
 Willoughby noticed at table that his friend 
 Madge had become, in the five years since 
 he had seen her, a little more gracious, a 
 little more reposeful, but with the same 
 direct, spontaneous speech, unassuming 
 dignity, and sparkle of magnetism that made 
 a circle of good fellowship of the people 
 whom she might have about her. He sat 
 between Helen Van Eyck and Elizabeth 
 Dawson, and opposite him was Yvonne, a 
 picture that he never forgot. Conversation 
 glanced from topic to topic ; Tom ^Barry s 
 new play was mentioned, which he was to 
 183
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 bring out in the fall ; the prospect for the 
 intercollegiate boat race; a New York 
 society woman s venture into millinery and 
 the new police-commissioner s stand, on 
 which Willoughby spoke, as he had come 
 to the city to look up that and kindred 
 subjects. 
 
 Willoughby held the attention of the table 
 for a few moments while he talked about 
 civic conditions in the west. He assumed 
 the unnecessary authority that a young man 
 sometimes will among new acquaintances. 
 
 "The indifference of the educated," he 
 said, "is more sinister than the corruption 
 of the masses." 
 
 His earnestness jarred a little on the 
 flutter of dinner-talk. Socialistic ideas had 
 not penetrated thoroughly into polite society, 
 and though Willoughby had not propounded 
 any radical theory, there was something 
 uncompromising about his tone. It smacked 
 of social documents. 
 
 "We Americans," said Fenton, as 
 relevantly as he thought best, "should 
 study London municipal management. 
 The city boss is our dangerous element." 
 
 "True," said Barry lightly, "but pictur 
 esque. Our municipal politics are dull and 
 184
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 tame compared with the drama that Tam 
 many offers. 
 
 "I agree with you, Mr. Barry," said 
 Elizabeth Dawson, who did not quite get the 
 difference between municipal politics and 
 diplomatic teas in Washington. "These 
 attache s with curled mustaches and foreign 
 ambassadors with gorgeous clothes. Don t 
 you like it, Mr. Fenton?" 
 
 "Immense!" assented Fenton heartily. 
 
 Everybody laughed and the conversation 
 drifted off again, till Willoughby brought it 
 back by telling a story of a reform candi 
 date s defeat through the assistance which 
 he accepted from the head of a well-known 
 temperance organization. This malaprop 
 reinforcement ruined his chances with the 
 laboring people. After the election, the 
 supposed coadjutor received a lucrative 
 appointment from the successful candidate 
 and upon being reproached by the defeated 
 reformer for his change of base, replied with 
 a sneer: 
 
 "I was working for my man all along. " 
 
 It was a striking story and Willoughby 
 told it well. It illustrated the crying need 
 of business acumen among those who enter 
 political life to purify it. 
 185
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "That s an artistic tale," said Helen Van 
 Eyck, when he had finished. 
 
 Perhaps she knew the comment would 
 displease him. He had told the story not 
 in the dilettante but in the good-citizen 
 spirit. There was something about him that 
 roused her antagonism. Whether it were 
 his crudeness, his egotism or his apostolic 
 severity, she would not have been able to say. 
 
 "It s more than a good story, Miss Van 
 Eyck, it proves something." 
 
 "What does it prove, Mr. Willoughby?" 
 
 Willoughby glanced at the questioner a 
 moment and decided that it would not be 
 worth his while to answer her seriously. 
 
 "That a gentleman should keep out of 
 politics, perhaps," he replied, and then 
 turned to Elizabeth Dawson with some light 
 remark. 
 
 Helen felt that Willoughby had been 
 taking her estimate, and resented it. 
 
 They were speaking afterward of a college 
 man who had achieved several degrees but 
 had been in practical life a notable failure. 
 
 "Don t you think, Mr. Willoughby, that 
 most of us are educated beyond our ca 
 pacity?" said Helen, fixing her serious gaze 
 on Pierce. 
 
 186
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 "Beyond what is good for us?" he ques 
 tioned tentatively. 
 
 "Civilization was once your bete noir, Mr. 
 Willoughby. Are you still afraid of it?" 
 asked Yvonne, leaning forward. 
 
 Her speech had the foreign flavor that lent 
 piquancy to what she said. 
 
 Pierce was surprised at this allusion to 
 the past, but took it as a challenge and 
 replied: 
 
 "The theory I used to hold, Miss 
 Brusseau, I have found out this evening is 
 not of universal application. 
 
 In the drawing-room after dinner Tom 
 Barry had been mimicking a "negro" 
 minstrel whose performance he had seen in 
 a London music hall. Under cover of the 
 laugh that followed, Willoughby said to 
 Yvonne in a low voice : 
 
 "Yvonne, have we nothing to say to each 
 other?" 
 
 "Of what should we speak?" she said in 
 her quietest tone. 
 
 "Have you forgotten the day-dream by 
 the St. Gabriel? I have not. And the 
 all the rest. And you you carry with you 
 this evening a living memory, Yvonne. 
 
 He looked at the flower in her hair. 
 187
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 She took it out and let the limp, crepy 
 petals curve caressingly over her fingers. 
 
 "Oh, la Jongleuse!" she exclaimed, with 
 such a merry laugh that Pierce understood 
 all at once how little he had understood 
 the Yvonne of Vallette. Amadis de 
 Rocelles cast his jaded eyes over to the divan 
 and envied the man who could summon such 
 a delicious ripple. Tom Barry wished he 
 could hire a laugh like that for his play, 
 "The Foolish Virgins." 
 
 "I must see you again," Pierce went on 
 rather incoherently, but feeling that each 
 moment with her might be the last. "It is 
 rare good fortune to have you here." 
 
 "Yet, if you had your way, I should still 
 be there." 
 
 Yvonne s tone and look were reproachful. 
 Pierce waited a moment for the arch smile 
 that he thought would follow. But Yvonne 
 did not smile. 
 
 "Yes," he answered gravely. 
 
 "Are you glad or sorry that I am here?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "I am glad and I am sorry," he returned. 
 * If I knew what difference it would make 
 with me, I should know which to be. 
 
 He was looking at her intently. She 
 
 188
 
 TRUTH AND UNTRUTH 
 
 flushed and rose to meet Madge, who was 
 approaching them. They had asked for a 
 dramatic reading from Miss Brusseau. She 
 demurred smilingly, saying: 
 
 "I am afraid of that Mr. Barry." 
 
 She finally chose the poison-scene from 
 Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet imagines 
 the horrors of the tomb. Tom Barry s face 
 assumed an expression of polite interest; 
 Brockton s of undisguised admiration. 
 
 De Rocelles, as Yvonne took her place on 
 a low stool between portieres, ran a con 
 noisseur s eye over the details of her costume 
 and figure. 
 
 "Do you approve?" whispered Tom 
 Barry, with the merest suggestion of a 
 twinkle in his sad, humorous eyes. 
 
 Yvonne interpreted Juliet s emotion some 
 what in the conventional way, not over 
 doing it, however, as so many actresses have 
 done. 
 
 Tom Barry s expression changed from 
 polite to genuine interest and when she 
 finished he exclaimed, meeting her eyes, 
 which sought his : 
 
 "Capital." 
 
 Yvonne paled a little. Madge saw that 
 she was deeply moved by the commendation. 
 189
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 Before he left the Fentons that night, 
 Willoughby decided that the police business 
 would require, instead of two days, two 
 weeks of investigation. 
 
 190
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A SPRING WALK 
 
 Van Eyck and Willoughby were leaving the 
 house together after the dinner. They had 
 been old-time neighbors for many years, but 
 never chums. Pierce Willoughby had been 
 a serious lad. The burden of life was thrust 
 early upon his shoulders, and he had found 
 little in common with the boyish dilettante- 
 ism of Van Eyck. But as they walked down 
 the street they felt that sense of intimacy 
 which a renewal of old relations will some 
 times bring. If one meets a fellow-towns 
 man in a foreign land, one grasps him by 
 the hand like a dear comrade. Also, each 
 had perceived in the other s bearing toward 
 Yvonne a curious something which was as 
 obvious as it was indefinite. 
 
 Brockton concluded that Yvonne s unique 
 grace had made an impression, and he was 
 rather pleased. Just as in the fall, her little 
 triumph at the tea had first awakened him 
 to her charm, so now Willoughby s evident 
 191
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 interest added new piquancy to the game he 
 was playing. 
 
 "Our little protege* has hit it off pretty 
 well, he remarked, lightly. 
 
 "Indeed, she has wonderfully developed," 
 answered Willoughby, taking for granted 
 that the mere fact of their previous acquaint 
 anceship was known. 
 
 "Oho," thought Brockton, piecing together 
 the fragments of Yvonne s story. "It was 
 you, then?" 
 
 He was quick to know that "cold-hearted 
 fool" had been misapplied. His perception 
 of character was as keen as Helen s, but 
 unlike her, he would not regret the misappli 
 cation. On the contrary, he was a little 
 glad. 
 
 The two men continued, touching casually 
 on current affairs in politics and literature. 
 
 "Run out to Orchardhurst before you go," 
 said Van Eyck, cordially, as they parted at 
 a street corner. Willoughby resolved that 
 he would, and when the more urgent invita 
 tion came from Mrs. Van Eyck he eagerly 
 accepted. 
 
 It was one of those youthful spring days 
 when the trees are misted as if a green spray 
 had broken over them, and the blossomy tips 
 192
 
 A SPRING WALK 
 
 of birches and alders are a delicate intima 
 tion of the fires of autumn. Underneath 
 the austere trunks of the forest trees the 
 footling oaks were as rosy and velvety as a 
 baby s cheek. By the released blue of April 
 waters the bodiless chimes of hylodes 
 twinkled widely. 
 
 It was one of Yvonne s holy-days, and she 
 was going to church, the little church away 
 down among the crooked village streets on 
 the sandy bluffs above the river. Will- 
 oughby was at Orchardhurst, and four of 
 them were taking the walk together, a good 
 three miles from the doctor s house on its 
 hill-slope. 
 
 Spuyten Kill lies windingly among its 
 hills, with its one broad road running north 
 and south between overarching trees and 
 walled estates, breadths of billowy lawns 
 and porticoed stately houses. Between 
 these and the river are the steep village 
 streets, lined with shops and little, old- 
 fashioned, white-fenced houses of plain 
 folk, and above stretches the undulating hill- 
 country. Long country roads twist and 
 climb eastward past the mile-long boundaries 
 of manorial owners, woodland patches, rich 
 swamps and untenanted hills. 
 193
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 It was a country that Willoughby knew 
 and loved. It moved him intensely to think 
 that the girl he loved had become part owner 
 with him of this cherished loveliness. 
 
 The three miles stretched most alluringly 
 before him as they passed out of the gate 
 and began to descend the long hill toward 
 the broad village street. But as perverse 
 chance would have it, Brockton strode for 
 ward by Yvonne, and Willoughby was left to 
 walk with Helen and watch Yvonne s black 
 hair and the nodding "yellow daisies" on 
 her hat, or her side glances toward her com 
 panion in the snatches of their animated 
 talk. 
 
 He had even an insane desire to know 
 what they were saying, and an entirely 
 unreasonable irritation with Helen for a 
 remark interrupting a laugh of Yvonne s 
 that had just drifted back. 
 
 It is hard to get away from one s youth 
 ful conceptions. Willoughby s memory of 
 Helen was of a silent child who did not give 
 herself to others. Somehow, he did not 
 expect to come into contact with her. There 
 is nothing duller than intercourse without 
 contact. As for Helen, she attributed Will- 
 oughby s undisguised preoccupation to his 
 194
 
 A SPRING WALK 
 
 sense of self-importance and this strength 
 ened her prejudice against him. 
 
 "At the top of that slide of rock," said 
 Willoughby, pointing ahead, "and just under 
 the fence, there used to be a little colony of 
 dark purple long-stemmed violets. I am 
 going to look for them now." 
 
 He sprang up the road-side bank. 
 
 "Just as they were ten years ago," he 
 exclaimed, bringing back a cluster in his 
 hands. 
 
 He divided the flowers between Yvonne 
 and Helen. As he handed them to Yvonne, 
 Helen heard him say : 
 
 "Do you remember the purple-lined white 
 August violets by the spring in the maple- 
 wood?" 
 
 "The violets that would have died in the 
 Rue Fabrique?" she answered, remember- 
 ingly, teasingly. 
 
 As their eyes met Helen caught herself 
 watching them and reflecting: 
 
 "One would have said his are the plead 
 ing and hers the eyes that mock. " 
 
 It occurred to her that there was a chance 
 of his sincerity. She repelled the thought 
 as disloyal to Yvonne. 
 
 "How deep-seated is this love of place!" 
 
 IQ5
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 mused Willoughby, half to himself, as he re 
 sumed his walk by Helen. "It is a curious 
 thing that never since I left Spuyten Kill ten 
 years ago have my dreams been elsewhere. 
 Whenever they have had a local habitation 
 and a name it has been here. I have some 
 times returned from an assignment on a 
 horrid railroad strike or from a detail in a 
 midnight police-court only to spend my 
 night wading in the peaceful little Pokamo 
 or hunting blackberries in sequestered 
 thickets." 
 
 "It must be a pleasure," said Helen, "to 
 free one s self in dreams of painful reali 
 ties." 
 
 She was touched by the simplicity of Wil- 
 loughby s tone. 
 
 " In sleep a king, but waking, no such 
 matter, quoted the young man. 
 
 Helen drew him on to tell of his news 
 paper experiences. But they were all so 
 novel to her she could not throw herself into 
 them. They drifted apart again. Will- 
 oughby felt her lack of sympathy, and an 
 awkward silence ensued. 
 
 They were passing now along the village 
 highway. In contrast with well-kept lawns 
 and trim shrubbery was one old place, over- 
 196
 
 A SPRING WALK 
 
 grown lilac-bushes guarding it from the 
 street, the gray, weather-beaten wooden 
 house standing far back among pine-trees, 
 and a brindled cow grazing on the shaggy, 
 erst-time lawn. 
 
 A little wicket-gate opened invitingly into 
 the street, tempting one within to follow a 
 winding path that seemed to end in a little 
 circular pavilion. 
 
 "And here the thirsty traveler may enter 
 in and drink," said Willoughby. "What a 
 hospitable thought of the old gentleman s! 
 How often have I stooped down and called 
 him blessed!" 
 
 They wended their way to the little 
 pavilion that sheltered a deep stone-built 
 spring. How dark and cool it was! The 
 green moss was thick as plush on the stone 
 sides above the water. 
 
 Pierce was eagerly first in reaching down, 
 arm s length, into the limpid pool and put 
 ting the sparkling, overbrimming tin cup 
 into Yvonne s hand. 
 
 "And here one may rest weary limbs," 
 said Brockton, throwing himself languidly 
 down upon the circular stone bench. 
 
 "The April sun is really hot," and Helen 
 sat beside him. 
 
 197
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 Willoughby seized the opportunity for a 
 few murmured words to Yvonne. 
 
 "I am going to show Miss Yvonne the 
 rockery behind the house, he remarked to 
 brother and sister. "I presume it will have 
 dwindled sadly since the days when it 
 seemed to my youthful eyes a fragment of 
 Alpine landscape." 
 
 He seemed very blithe and buoyant as he 
 walked away with Yvonne. A comfortable 
 family silence ensued on the circular bench. 
 
 When the walk was resumed, Brockton, 
 taking the initiative, was Yvonne s compan 
 ion again. The two men looked at each 
 other a moment, with mutual recognition of 
 a vague rivalry. 
 
 Helen and Pierce talked little. The 
 beautiful street looped and unlooped itself 
 before their footsteps. The afternoon air 
 was full of twitterings of home-building 
 birds. Little children were picking dande 
 lions in sunny yards. The blue river shone 
 here and there in glimpses at the end of 
 cross-roads. All was bathed in that gentle 
 pathos of spring, the pathos of a hundred 
 forgotten springs gone before, like the 
 pathos of remembered laughter from lips 
 that are dead. 
 
 198
 
 A SPRING WALK 
 
 It is a great joy to me, said Willoughby, 
 in a deep, moved voice, "that Yvonne 
 should know all this of mine as I know that 
 land of hers. " 
 
 Helen looked at him in surprise, for he 
 spoke like a man who has always been true 
 to truth. Willoughby noticed her look, and 
 thought he had gone too far in self-reveal- 
 ment. 
 
 Just then Brockton and Yvonne, ahead of 
 them, paused at an intersection of roads. 
 The cross-street led to the little Catholic 
 church on the low sand-hill by the river. 
 Brockton was remonstrating with Yvonne, 
 and then Willoughby saw him snatch her 
 hand and hold it for a moment to his breast. 
 It was the passionate, quick gesture of one 
 who thinks himself unnoticed. 
 
 Willoughby, in the midst of a sentence, 
 was suddenly silent, as if he had been 
 struck. Helen, looking up, saw the pained 
 look of him. 
 
 "I am going to leave you here," said 
 Yvonne. "No, do not accompany me. It 
 is only a few minutes walk. I will meet 
 you after vespers " 
 
 "We might go round to the Old Dutch 
 Church in the Hollow, began Helen. 
 199
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "And I will join you on the bridge over 
 the Pokamo, in about an hour," Yvonne 
 replied. 
 
 The three walked slowly on, when Will 
 oughby stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Pardon me," he said, "we used to go to 
 church together at Jeune Vallette. I should 
 like to do so again for old times sake." 
 
 Brockton acknowledged himself check 
 mated as Willoughby s rapid retreating steps 
 sounded down the road. During the after 
 noon s walk, with all his facility in innuendo 
 and flattery, he had been casting about 
 Yvonne the subtle bonds of a strong, un- 
 uttered passion. 
 
 He recognized the dominating quality in 
 Willoughby, the strong, unswervable cur 
 rent of his nature, and Brockton resolved 
 to counteract any renewed influence he 
 might exert over Yvonne. Not that he 
 himself was serious in his desire to win her. 
 Marriage had never entered into his head 
 except as ridiculous folly. Nevertheless, 
 he believed himself in love with her, and 
 wanted at least the delicious titillation of 
 inspiring love in return. Yvonne s difficult 
 reserve and the tacit rivalry of Willoughby 
 made this end more than ever desirable, but
 
 A SPRING WALK 
 
 it must be accomplished without self-com 
 promise. 
 
 Yvonne, with her ununified aims and 
 desires, was bewildered by the manifold 
 phases of life. The rich warmth of an 
 unsurrendered nature, longing for outlet, 
 surged up continually in her heart, like a 
 restless tide against the sea-wall. 
 
 Her ears were full of Van Eyck s melting 
 tones, and her pulses still throbbed with his 
 touch, and now she drooped beneath Wil- 
 loughby s intense gaze and the repression of 
 his voice. With a long sigh of relief, she 
 threw herself on her knees in the clammy 
 gloom of the tawdry little church and told 
 her prayers with passionate fervor. And as 
 she prayed, she forgot the blue shimmer of 
 spring outside and the shadow of the Future 
 was again above her head. Only a few more 
 weeks and it would be upon her. The 
 dreadful Known would take the place of the 
 beautiful Unknown. 
 
 201
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 AN INDIAN HEAVEN 
 
 Yvonne was spending a few days with 
 the Fentons in town. It was her last 
 month, and they were doing their best to 
 make her happy. 
 
 Helen was also there, having come into 
 town, servant-hunting. Eliza Blodgett was 
 homesick, and had announced a speedy 
 return to England. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, in the absence of 
 their guests, were talking things over. 
 "Things" usually meant Yvonne. 
 
 "And though it is no sign," Madge 
 said, "that if a man is unhappy with 
 out a girl he will be happy with her, 
 still I think that Yvonne is well adapted to 
 Pierce. 
 
 "He is certainly unhappy without her," 
 said Mr. Fenton, and just then Mr. Will- 
 oughby was announced at the door. He 
 came in with Helen Van Eyck, and both of 
 them looked serious. They had met, as 
 Helen explained, in the park, and had found 
 203
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 that they were directed toward the same 
 destination. 
 
 "And we have been having the most 
 delightful quarrel," said Helen, with a 
 doubtful glance at Pierce. 
 
 It is dangerous to carry on a discussion 
 with a person whom we analyze unfavorably. 
 
 "Over what?" said Madge, handing Helen 
 a cup of tea. 
 
 "Quite impersonal the character of 
 Ibsen s Brand." 
 
 "I will leave it to Mrs. Fenton whether it 
 was impersonal or not," said Pierce, with a 
 slight smile. "Miss Van Eyck, in conten 
 tion against my statement that Brand was 
 not a natural character, points to me and 
 calls me Brand." 
 
 "And don t you think he is?" asked 
 Helen. "Wouldn t he stake all on a theory 
 and sacrifice the common duties of life for a 
 beautiful idea?" 
 
 "What did Brand do? I have forgotten," 
 asked Madge. 
 
 "I know," said Yvonne, who entered in 
 time to hear the last question. "I went to 
 Professor Thorwald s lecture last week. 
 He gave up the woman he loved, rather than 
 give up an idea. 
 
 204
 
 AN INDIAN HEAVEN 
 
 Yvonne s face, as she said this, bore a 
 look of eerie innocence. Helen looked at 
 her sharply. Knowing a little of the rela 
 tions between her and Willoughby, Helen 
 felt the thrust. She saw that Pierce had 
 suddenly sobered, and that the lines about 
 his face were drawn. 
 
 After Helen had gone home, Pierce and 
 Yvonne were left by themselves in the 
 library. 
 
 The girl, in her new environment, was 
 still a study to the young man. She seemed 
 to fit in admirably with Morris tiles, Vene 
 tian water-colors, teak-wood tables and 
 French-bound books, and yet, he could but 
 wonder. 
 
 "Why do you look at me so? It is not 
 polite." 
 
 Willoughby laughed apologetically, and 
 admitted that he was thinking. 
 
 "It is so unusual, you know, to see any 
 one think that it puzzled me," Yvonne went 
 on. 
 
 She fingered the red roses which Will 
 oughby the day before had brought her. 
 
 "You are quite happy here?" he ques 
 tioned vaguely. "It satisfies you? You 
 have everything?" 
 
 205
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Yvonne looked about her as if in search of 
 an answer. Her eyes rested on a Sevres 
 bowl that held Roman hyacinths. She 
 turned her eyes toward Willoughby, and 
 they looked like a purple-black cloud that 
 has in its heart the forked lightning. 
 
 Only one thing I lack, she burst out, 
 "a mountain forest." 
 
 "You have the park," Willoughby said, 
 with gentle irony, "and also the apple-trees 
 at Orchardhurst. You should be content. 
 
 "They smell of man," said Yvonne, 
 fiercely. "Do you remember the forest on 
 la Montagne Ronde? Untamed from base 
 to summit, lonely, dense, still. And one 
 startled deer looking at you, when you have 
 sat under an oak for an hour." 
 
 Willoughby was unconsciously led on by 
 her reminiscent semi-confidential tone. She 
 had baffled him somewhat these last few 
 days. He had not dared to say to her 
 words that were in his heart. 
 
 "Yvonne, I believe I, best of all, under 
 stand you. I knew you then, and I know 
 you now. 
 
 "How little, either then or now!" she 
 thought. 
 
 But aloud: 
 
 206
 
 AN INDIAN HEAVEN 
 
 "Yes, Pierce, you knew me dans le 
 temps jadis." 
 
 Again she led him on, for a swift impulse 
 had come to her an impulse such as Indians 
 have. 
 
 "I was young then," he said, "and fool 
 ish. My views have changed, but not my 
 heart." 
 
 As she lleaned toward him and listened 
 eagerly, hope began to revive in Will- 
 oughby s heart. 
 
 "I, too, was young," she said, "and fool 
 ish. I, too, have changed, but I have not 
 forgotten." 
 
 She wished Poleon could hear her. 
 
 Willoughby smiled to think how they were 
 talking like two old sages. 
 
 "We are neither of us very old," he said. 
 "Life lies before us just as it did then, only 
 now we need not delay our pilgrimage, and 
 we want no guide." 
 
 "And where does the way go?" asked 
 Yvonne, following his mood deliciously. 
 
 "I only know where mine goes." Will 
 oughby was intent and earnest. "Where 
 you are. Let us never be separated again." 
 
 "We have been separated so long," said 
 Yvonne, as if urging an impersonal cause. 
 207
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 "We shall be all the happier now," 
 answered Willoughby, with tender vehe 
 mence. 
 
 An expression flitting across Yvonne s face 
 made him fear. 
 
 "What is it?" he said, apprehensively. 
 * There is nothing to come between us? 
 Yvonne, tell me but once more that you love 
 me, as you did 
 
 "Dans le temps jadis, " said Yvonne, 
 repeating the phrase which she loved so 
 well. 
 
 At last her cup of triumph was full. 
 
 "Then and now are two different words," 
 she went on coldly and precisely. 
 
 "When you come to pick up the bauble 
 that you once threw away " 
 
 "Threw away! Yvonne!" said Will 
 oughby, reproachfully. 
 
 "That you once threw away," Yvonne 
 was taking a solemn, youthful joy in the 
 melodramatic "you find it is yours no 
 more. Pierce Willoughby, you come too 
 late." 
 
 "This is your revenge," he said, brokenly, 
 with no shade of bitterness, "and now that 
 you have had it, be content. 
 
 With his own great, abiding love, he could 
 208
 
 AN INDIAN HEAVEN 
 
 not but imagine he would find some response 
 in her. 
 
 "Say but the word, Yvonne, and I will 
 take you anywhere, do all that you ask. 
 You loved me once. Surely you love me 
 still." 
 
 Yvonne rose with a dramatic air of dis 
 missal. 
 
 "You forget how long ago," she said, with 
 careless scorn, "and it wearies one to wait." 
 
 She put out her hand. 
 
 "But we may be good friends, Pierce, for 
 I learned from you my first lesson." 
 
 The French blood conquered the Indian. 
 Her resentment was appeased. She began 
 to have pleasant thoughts of Willoughby, 
 and even to pity him. 
 
 But to him her patronage was crueller 
 than her scorn. 
 
 The next day he called at the Fentons to 
 say good-bye. He saw only Helen and 
 Yvonne, as Madge had gone out. There 
 was that coldness in his manner which with 
 some men marks the suppression of strong 
 emotion. After ten minutes, during which 
 nothing particular was said, he rose and 
 shook hands with them both. 
 
 "Good-bye, Miss Van Eyck." 
 209
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Good-bye, Miss Brusseau, Yvonne," he 
 added, in a lower tone. He held her hand 
 an instant longer than he ought to have 
 done, and then left. 
 
 Helen walked to the window, and watched 
 him, a strong, athletic figure, as he strode 
 down the street. 
 
 "So he really cares for her," she thought. 
 
 He stumbled over a child s sled that lay 
 on the sidewalk. 
 
 "He is not looking where he goes," she 
 said to herself. 
 
 Then returning to the table she exclaimed, 
 with apparent irrelevance : 
 
 "Yvonne, I believe you have no heart." 
 
 "I believe so, too," said Yvonne. "But 
 you advised it. 
 
 "He deserves it," said Helen, "but then 
 I am sorry for him. 
 
 "II ne me fait rien," answered Yvonne. 
 "He would have left me there, like a lost 
 child on the moon," 
 
 210
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 It was six o clock in the morning 1 and 
 springtime in the Park. Yvonne was alone, 
 on a little walk that wound in and out 
 among rocks and wild places, up hill and 
 down hill, between flowering shrubs here 
 and under spreading branches there. The 
 air was sweet with spring smells of blossom 
 ing bushes and trees. Here the lilacs were 
 a mass of purple, and there the flowering 
 quince bourgeoned out in crimson. The 
 wild columbine nodded its honey-horns 
 between crevices of the rocks, and where 
 there was a light layer of soil the saxifrage 
 spread itself out like a white powder. 
 
 Yvonne climbed up the tortuous path 
 until she came to a little upland where there 
 were apple-trees in bloom. The dew still 
 shimmered on the circular spider-webs that 
 lay on the short-cropped grass. Yvonne 
 stood still and took off her hat. She went 
 under an apple tree and looked up into the 
 sky, deliciously blue in the rifts of the pink-
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 petaled fragrance above her. She drew a 
 long breath. 
 
 Then a thrush on a neighboring locust 
 broke out into a glorious, passionate bubble 
 of song. 
 
 "Oh, you dear world!" Yvonne said, lift 
 ing her arms as if to embrace the uni 
 verse. 
 
 "Green things and blue things and pink- 
 and- whiteness. Dear May! How I love 
 you! Dear God, I cannot enjoy them 
 enough. 
 
 Then in the midst of all that rapture a 
 coldness crept over her. 
 
 "Ah, it is I," she cried, still with hands 
 upraised. "I. What do I want? Dear 
 God, why am I here? Tell me." 
 
 She waited, with lips parted, looking 
 upward into the luminous blue of heaven. 
 
 A little shiver of breeze sent a flurry of 
 petals down upon her face and hair. 
 
 Love love love " warbled the 
 
 thrush. 
 
 "No, not love." Yvonne dropped her 
 arms. "It is beyond me. I cannot love." 
 
 She thought of Van Eyck. She thought 
 of Willoughby. She shuddered when she 
 thought of de Rocelles. 
 
 212
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 "No, no, not marriage I am beyond 
 it." 
 
 "Love love love," warbled the thrush. 
 
 "Dear God, no. Not Pol<on. I will not 
 love him. Not yet, not yet. Not in Jetme 
 Vallette again. Not my people." 
 
 She dropped on her knees beside the rough 
 tree-trunk, her crisp skirt flaring out over 
 the wet grass. 
 
 Her lips moved as if in prayer. 
 
 A blackbird near by frolicked out a snatch. 
 
 Yvonne rose and tripped into the little 
 gravel path. The wet, pink petals still 
 clung to her black hair. 
 
 "Pivart crie 
 Signe de la pluie " 
 
 She piped the rhyme of her childhood. 
 
 Then the joy of life seized her again, and 
 holding up her pink cotton skirt in either 
 hand, she fell to singing and dancing as she 
 had used in the fetes du riviere by the St. 
 Gabriel. 
 
 It chanced that a horseman was taking his 
 early ride on the bridle-path not far away. 
 He heard the singing voice and stopped, 
 watching the gay little figure in its dramatic 
 evolutions. 
 
 213
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 The song was Cecilia, and the last time 
 Yvonne had sung it was under the pine-trees 
 in front of Poleon. It runs thus: 
 
 Mon per n avait fille que moi. 
 Encor sur la mer il m envoie. 
 
 Sautez, mignonne, Cecilia, 
 
 Ah! ah, Cecilia. 
 
 (Here one dances.) 
 
 Encor sur la mer il m envoie. 
 Le marinier qui m y menait 
 
 (Here one mimics the sailor.) 
 
 Sautez, mignonne, etc. 
 (Here one dances.) 
 
 Le marinier qui m y menait, 
 (Here one mimics a love-sick sailor.) 
 
 II devait amoureux de moi 
 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 II devait amoureux de moi. 
 Ma mignonette, embrassez-moi. 
 
 (More mimicry.) 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 Ma mignonette, embrassez-moi 
 Nenni, Monsieur, je n oserais. 
 214
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 (One mimics a shy but not unwilling girl.) 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 Nenni, Monsieur, je n oserais, 
 Car si papan le savait. 
 
 (One mimics a stern papa.) 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 Car si papan le savait, 
 Fille battue ce serait moi. 
 
 (One mimics a frightened girl.) 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 Fille battue ce serait moi, 
 Voulez-vous, bell , qui lui dirait? 
 
 (Lover holds her in his arms now. ) 
 (Refrain and languishing dance.) 
 
 Voulez-vous, bell , qui lui dirait? 
 Ce serait les oiseaux des bois. 
 
 (One mimics the birds.) 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 Ce serait les oiseaux des bois, 
 Les oiseaux des bois parlent-ils? 
 
 (One mimics the sailor s amaze.) 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 Les oiseaux des bois parlent-ils? 
 
 Ils parlent frangais, latin aussi. 
 
 215
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 (One is saucily triumphant.) 
 (Refrain and dance.) 
 
 Ils parlent francais, latin aussi, 
 Helas! que le monde est malin. 
 
 (One is comically sad.) 
 
 D apprendre aux oiseaux le latin. 
 (Laughter, dance and refrain.) 
 
 Sautez, mignonne, Cecilia. 
 Ah, ah! Cecilia. 
 
 "Bravo!" said a voice behind her. 
 
 Yvonne looked round. It was Tom Barry 
 who had alighted from his horse and was 
 leading him across the grass between the 
 little apple-trees. 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Yvonne, in the 
 Jenue Vallette way, throwing up her hands. 
 "Mr. Barry!" 
 
 "Miss Brusseau!" exclaimed the actor, 
 with assumed equal surprise. 
 
 Then they both laughed and felt well 
 acquainted. 
 
 "What are you doing here so early in the 
 morning?" asked Tom Barry. 
 
 "Une petite sauterie. Et vous?" 
 
 "Watching it. It was delicious, my 
 child." 
 
 216
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 Yvonne looked unusually child-like in her 
 morning frock, her hair a little disordered 
 and her cheeks dusky warm. 
 
 She dropped a quaint courtesy in return 
 for Mr. Barry s compliment. 
 
 "Really!" he repeated. "You would 
 take a London music-hall by storm. Where 
 did you learn such a pretty piece?" 
 
 "In my home; in Canada. You know, I 
 am a French-Canadian. And of the Huron 
 race, long ago. I can do ever so many more 
 pieces like that. Could I earn my living by 
 singing and dancing them?" 
 
 Yvonne was talking excitedly, for an idea 
 had burst in her brain. 
 
 The English actor was taken aback. He 
 had met Yvonne under conventional sur 
 roundings, and had never imagined her as 
 having other than the conventional ante 
 cedents. 
 
 l May I walk with you?" he said. I must 
 take Trouble back to the bridle-path, where 
 he belongs. We will walk on the meadow 
 there, beside." 
 
 Yvonne was pinning on her straw hat, 
 and under its yellow brim, with the black- 
 eyed Susans nodding above, she looked 
 tawnier and prettier than ever. 
 217
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 She had received a letter from her cousin 
 Pole on the evening before, in which he had 
 said that they would send her no more 
 money, and he was coming soon to take her 
 back to La Jeune Vallette. It was this 
 unwelcome news which had stirred her up 
 to the early morning walk in the Park. 
 Yvonne could always think better under the 
 open sky. 
 
 "I want so much to earn my living," said 
 Yvonne, gravely. 
 
 Tom Barry looked at her curiously. 
 
 "You see," she went on, confidentially, 
 4 I have no money of my own, and my cousin 
 is coming to get me, and I will not go with 
 him. No, never." 
 
 "Have 3 r ou consulted with your friends?" 
 said Tom Barry, trying to get the conversa 
 tion back upon a more formal basis. 
 
 "Mon Dieu, no," said Yvonne, shrugging 
 her shoulders. I am afraid they are tired 
 of me already, and they could not interfere 
 with the wish of my family. I will not be 
 dependent. They have done too much for 
 me now. No, to be free, I must run away 
 and no one must know where I am Mr. 
 Barry, will you help me?" 
 
 "I sail for England to-morrow," he said. 
 218
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 "Oh!" She stood still and clasped her 
 hands about his arm. 
 
 "Take me with you. I will sing and 
 dance for you in your theater. 
 
 Poor Yvonne! She did not understand 
 the cold, kindly barrier that Mr. Barry put 
 up between himself and her pleadings. So 
 gracious he had been a moment ago, and 
 now she felt as if there were a stone wall 
 between them. 
 
 I am afraid in my theater there would 
 be no opportunity for such work as yours. 
 But if you should ever come to Lon 
 don, Miss Brusseau, I will put you in the 
 way of some people who might be useful to 
 you." 
 
 Yvonne clutched at the straw. 
 
 "You think I could really please people in 
 the theater?" 
 
 Tom Barry was sorry he had committed 
 himself so far already. But if the girl was 
 in earnest it would do no harm to tell her 
 the truth. 
 
 I should have to see your work under 
 different circumstances to give a candid 
 opinion. But I think you would have great 
 talent as as a vaudeville artist " 
 
 "Thank you," said Yvonne. 
 219
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 After that she became quite commonplace 
 again. 
 
 It was during the morning of that same 
 day that Madge and Horace were talking 
 together. 
 
 "I feel as if this were the end of the 
 chapter with our prote ge , Madge. She has 
 sent Willoughby away. Brockton? He is 
 never in earnest. What next?" 
 
 "I am disappointed, Horace. Pierce told 
 me how much he cared for her. He s such 
 a single-hearted fellow. I believe she s been 
 the dream of his life ever since he first knew 
 her." 
 
 "And you don t think she cares for him in 
 the least?" 
 
 "No, I think not. But somehow I don t 
 understand her. She seems to have no 
 sentiment, for a young girl. 
 
 "And what s worse," Fenton said, "she 
 has no worldly wisdom to take its place. 
 
 "For instance," Madge went on, "she 
 shows no more feeling for Pierce Will 
 oughby, that splendid, genuine fellow, than 
 she did for a starched youth like Fitz-Sim- 
 mons. And Pierce, he is bound up in her. 
 But, as Helen said, he will go on doing his 
 work in life, trampling his feelings under 
 220
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 foot, too proud to grieve, too brave to falter, 
 till his heart and brain are burnt out 
 together." 
 
 "Helen said that, did she?" mused Fenton. 
 "Don t you think that Helen understands 
 Willoughby wonderfully well?" 
 
 They heard a slight sound from Mrs. 
 Fenton s sitting-room, which adjoined the 
 library, and Yvonne appeared through the 
 portieres. 
 
 "I have been sleeping," she said. "I was 
 up too early this morning. 
 
 "Five o clock, was it?" answered Horace. 
 "That is a brutal hour, Yvonne." 
 
 The girl picked up her hat from the table, 
 and walked toward the door. 
 
 "I am going down-town with Helen," she 
 said. "Au revoir, mes amis." 
 
 She waved them a kiss through the door 
 as she went out. 
 
 Husband and wife looked at each other. 
 
 Helen and Yvonne, walking past the shops 
 on Sixth Avenue, talked idly. Such things 
 as the kaleidoscopic windows brought to 
 view iridescent bubbles of glass, turquoise - 
 blue fantasies in millinery, blossoming white 
 heather, jeweled barbarities in buckles, 
 sinuous poster-ladies, these were their 
 221
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 themes of discourse, till Helen cried sud 
 denly : 
 
 "I am sick of it all, Yvonne. Child of the 
 wilderness, how can you be content?" 
 
 "Perhaps I am not," said Yvonne, remem 
 bering her sunrise feelings under the apple- 
 trees. 
 
 "What then?" asked Helen. 
 
 "Who knows?" and the shadow of the 
 pine-tree crept over Yvonne s face, the pine- 
 tree under which her forebears had fashioned 
 arrows centuries ago. But Helen had never 
 known the pine-tree and did not observe its 
 shadow. 
 
 "As for me," Helen went on, "life holds 
 little in store for those who begin with 
 everything." 
 
 She bowed to a young woman who was 
 passing. She was dressed with a certain 
 freedom and walked with an air of detach 
 ment from her surroundings. 
 
 "What a thoughtful face!" said Yvonne. 
 
 "It is Miss Stuart. She is just home 
 from college on her spring vacation. I wish 
 I were a college woman, Yvonne." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "They have so much to think about 
 besides the passing fashion. Their lives are 
 
 222
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 full. And if they don t want to live in one 
 world, they have others. 
 
 "Each on his separate star?" laughed 
 Yvonne. 
 
 "They believe in things as they see them 
 For the God of things as they are, finished 
 Helen. 
 
 "You should have been one of us at La 
 Jeune Vallette. " 
 
 "Ah, but I could not have forgotten, as 
 you have done, Yvonne." 
 
 "One does not forget," said Yvonne. 
 "But sometimes one does not talk." 
 
 "Oh," answered Helen. It was a quick, 
 reflective "oh," like a comet that leaves a 
 tail of light behind it. 
 
 Yvonne was thinking of her cousin, The- 
 One-Who-Never-Forgets. 
 
 "What I need," added Helen, with appar 
 ent, not real, irrelevance, "is the sting of 
 something to make me work. Poverty, for 
 instance. I believe I could write. " 
 
 "Do it," cried Yvonne. "And if you 
 would only like Pierce Willoughby, he would 
 help you, I am sure." 
 
 "He is clever, but too much le poseur, is 
 he not?" said Helen. "I believe I could 
 never accept his judgments. He surveys 
 223
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 his intellectual self in a looking-glass, and 
 puts on or takes off as is becoming to him. 
 
 "You and he " began Yvonne, with a 
 
 mischievous intonation. 
 
 "Please!" remonstrated Helen, gravely. 
 
 They had reached the tailor s, and Helen 
 said she would go in for her fitting. So 
 Yvonne left her there, with a gay good-bye. 
 
 When Helen returned to dinner that even 
 ing Yvonne had not yet arrived. 
 
 "It is very strange, " Madge was saying, 
 and then the servant came in with a note. 
 
 Madge read it in silence. Her face turned 
 white, and she handed it to Helen. The 
 note was a brief one from Yvonne, saying 
 that she had left them all. They were not 
 to look for her nor trouble themselves. She 
 would return sometime, but till then let it 
 be as if they had never known her. 
 
 The days passed, and despite their utmost 
 efforts they found no clew to the where 
 abouts of the missing girl. The boy who 
 brought the note had gone. Helen knew 
 nothing of her friend from the time when 
 they had parted on the street. 
 
 Madge remembered that Yvonne had 
 received a letter from Canada the evening 
 before her disappearance, the contents of 
 224
 
 WHEN THE BIRDS FLY 
 
 which had apparently disturbed her. They 
 also recalled their conversation in the library 
 the next morning, which Yvonne might 
 have overheard. 
 
 She has gone to her woods again, said 
 Horace. "Longing for the wilderness may 
 have seized her, a longing the Indian and 
 the gypsy can never overcome. 
 
 Madge wrote to Madame in Canada and 
 her husband to Pierce Willoughby. By and 
 by came a stormy visitor from La Jeune 
 Vallette in the person of Poleon Gros-Louys. 
 The Fentons entertained him kindly, and 
 told him the extent of their endeavors. He 
 spent the days in ceaseless walking up and 
 down of New York s streets and avenues. 
 He peered into the oddest corners and 
 searched the unlikeliest places. But his wood 
 craft stood him in small stead amid the intri 
 cacies of a great city. Finally, with a gruff 
 good-bye, he parted from his host and hostess. 
 
 After a period of distraction and suffering, 
 the Fentons and the Van Eycks settled back 
 into the old life. Yvonne s room was kept 
 ready for her, with all her small possessions 
 put carefully away, her prayer-book and 
 rosary lying where she had left them, on the 
 table below the brown image of St. Antoine. 
 225
 
 PART FOUR 
 
 WHAT THE WORLD BROUGHT 
 
 Where Love is, there will I be also, said Fear." 
 
 Landor. 
 
 227
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 
 
 In the great vacancy that death leaves, 
 Helen sat with Madge and Horace in the 
 swept and garnished house at Orchardhurst. 
 How pitifully silent it seemed, with the yel 
 low leaves falling outside and the orange 
 sun hanging like a lantern in the smoke- 
 darkened sky! Forest fires had been rag 
 ing, and the day was close and still. Never 
 again would she hear the doctor s admoni 
 tory roar, as he watched Draper puttering 
 about the currant bushes. No more his 
 deep, burring monotone, pacing up and 
 down the porch of a summer evening, and 
 grandly mouthing to himself passages from 
 his favorite Milton. The old gardener 
 might burn all the pea-brush now and the 
 little paths go unhoed all autumn. 
 
 It was a bitter emptiness, and still bitterer 
 
 was the thought of her mother s room, 
 
 untenanted by that gentle spirit. She who 
 
 had been the center of life at Orchardhurst 
 
 229
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 had departed her way, leaving her children 
 alone in the swept and garnished house, in 
 the aching solitude of that lonely autumn. 
 
 "It almost seems," said Helen to Madge, 
 "as if it could not be true. I think some 
 times it is a horrible dream, and I shall wake 
 and come downstairs in the morning to 
 find them at the breakfast table just as I 
 used." 
 
 Madge s grief was more for Helen than 
 for her own loss. It seemed as if the very 
 ground had been taken away from under 
 Helen s feet. The crushing bereavement 
 had followed so closely upon Yvonne s dis 
 appearance, and then Brockton, as soon as 
 was decent, sooner than was kind, had 
 drifted off to" that limbo of aimless Bohe- 
 mianism, abroad. 
 
 Orchardhurst was to be closed or sold and 
 Helen was to go to her uncle, Benjamin 
 Wylie, in the west. 
 
 It was better for her to live down her sor 
 row under new conditions, and there in her 
 uncle s childless home her steady will soon 
 asserted itself, and she resumed life, grave, 
 it is true, and unbuoyant, but courageous for 
 the future. 
 
 She fell to reading the serious authors 
 230
 
 THE OLD ORDER CH ^GETH 
 
 which she found in her uncle s well-stocked 
 library. For, although a business man, he 
 dabbled a little in books, and liked to show 
 on his shelves such names as Mazzini, 
 Coate, Spenser, Benjamin Kidd, and the 
 Webbs. He was distinctly a capitalist, but 
 if he had not been that he would surely have 
 been a socialist. This sounds puerile, but 
 nevertheless is true. It was through Mazzini 
 that Helen found her way to Arnold House. 
 She took a class and then her fate was 
 sealed. She became a Fabian. There she 
 heard of Willoughby, for the Arnold House 
 people were his staunch adherents. She 
 began to wonder how she would find him if 
 she should meet him again. She realized 
 that her point of view had changed since 
 those days at Orchardhurst. 
 
 Willoughby and the Fentons made a pil 
 grimage that same year to La Jeune 
 Vallette. Pierce could not get rid of the 
 notion that Yvonne s cousin had something 
 to do with her disappearance. 
 
 "The fellow has an iron will," he said, 
 "and was bound that he would have 
 Yvonne. And he exerted an influence over 
 her which I could never understand. 
 
 "But," said Mrs. Fenton, "think of her 
 231
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 note. There seemed to be no coercion 
 about that. 
 
 "One never can know," replied Will- 
 oughby. She had heard from him the even 
 ing before her disappearance. Perhaps he 
 had told her to meet him somewhere in the 
 city." 
 
 "But he came to see us in person, Pierce, 
 in answer to our letter sent to Vallette, " 
 argued Madge, "and was almost crazed over 
 the news." 
 
 Pierce shook his head incredulously. 
 Newspaper experience had taught him to 
 open his eyes to the many possible solutions 
 of a mystery. 
 
 "The letter may have been forwarded 
 back to him in New York," he remarked, 
 casually, "and the manner may have been 
 assumed." 
 
 "We can easily find out at La Jeune 
 Vallette where he was at that time," said 
 Madge. 
 
 "Unless the family are in the conspiracy, 
 too," added Fenton, who was almost con 
 verted to Willoughby s theory. 
 
 The visit to Yvonne s former home 
 resulted in nothing. Poleon Gros-Louys was 
 there, silent and moody. They saw him in 
 232
 
 THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 
 
 front of his cottage, making a canoe. They 
 learned that he had been away when the 
 letter reached Vallette, hunting, Madame 
 said, somewhere in the woods. They had 
 the letter sent to Chicoutimi, where they 
 thought he might happen to stop on his 
 way home. They could learn nothing from 
 Gros-Louys himself, who only scowled and 
 muttered when he was addressed. The 
 neighbors said he had been like that ever 
 since his return from hunting the winter 
 before. 
 
 So they left the little village, huddled in 
 picturesque confusion on its pine-circled 
 upland, within sound of the rushing St. 
 Gabriel. The bell was tolling for vespers in 
 the Huron chapel as they went by, and the 
 people were straggling in to service, like 
 sheep dumbly following each other to the 
 fold. Willoughby slipped away from the 
 others and entered the chapel. In the nar 
 row wooden pews the people knelt, grossly 
 reverent, mumbling their prayers. The 
 silver image of Our Lady looked benignly 
 down on the altar-cloth, embroidered for 
 her by the wicked ladies of Louis the Fif 
 teenth s wicked court. The priest was 
 intoning with his back to the people, and 
 
 233
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Yvonne s half-brother, in white surplice, 
 held the tall candle up behind the chancel 
 railing. There, kneeling and mumbling, 
 with withered hands ^clasped, was the oldest 
 woman in the village, with her blanket 
 wrapped about her shoulders and falling in 
 fringes over her baggy trousers below. 
 And by her side was her husband, toothless 
 and blind, his white locks strongly con 
 trasted with his coppery, netted skin. On 
 the floor, in front of their low bench, knelt 
 her little half-brothers and sisters, a bright- 
 eyed, nimble-tongued brood. Here Will- 
 oughby had sat with Yvonne, years ago, 
 when she was in the innocence and charm of 
 her untaught youth. Here she had knelt, 
 in her red knit bodice and short skirt, and 
 counted off the beads on her wooden 
 rosary, black lashes hiding the brilliance of 
 her eyes. Then Willoughby saw another 
 picture glow of candle-light and crimson 
 of roses, a vision in yellow that smiles at 
 him across a table. 
 
 Willoughby breathed a prayer for her 
 safety and went out, 
 
 234
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Valentino had at last been admitted to 
 Benjamin Wylie s office. 
 
 "I repersent the Dorsey Square Assosha- 
 tion of Journeymen Tailors and Finishers," 
 he began, in a pleasant tone, "and I have 
 came to you as one of the biggest employers 
 and perducers of tailor-made garments 
 
 Wylie looked steadily at the young man, 
 noted the unkempt black hair falling over 
 the dejected forehead and the full red lips, 
 also the battered Derby hat and the tag of 
 thread on the wrinkled velveteen waistcoat 
 where the button should have been. Having, 
 as he would have expressed it, sized the 
 young man up, he began to scrutinize his 
 own polished finger-nails, with gross inat 
 tention to the speaker. At the first break 
 he was intending to dismiss him. 
 
 Valentino continued unabashed : 
 
 " to s licit your int rust and your 
 
 infloonce in a matter which lays to the heart 
 235
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 of yourself and your employes and a large 
 body of sufferin poor." 
 
 He spoke with the volubility of a labor- 
 union orator, the long words rhythmically 
 surging up at intervals, like the seventh 
 wave along an ocean shore. His illiteracy 
 was of the cosmopolitan nature that char 
 acterizes the speech of the partially educated 
 American public speaker. Only his liquid 
 tones and mellow rolling r s betrayed his 
 foreign origin. 
 
 "What do you want?" said Wylie, not 
 lifting his eyes from his nails. "Charity, I 
 suppose?" 
 
 "Not charity, Mr. Wylie. Justice." 
 
 A note of imperiousness in the stranger s 
 voice made Wylie look at him. 
 
 Valentino returned the look with his 
 large, glittering eyes, and repeated, rather 
 melodramatically : 
 
 "Not charity, Mr. Wylie. Justice." 
 
 "Well?" said Wylie, sharply. 
 
 "You send out from these here cuttin - 
 rooms, Mr. Wylie, garments which your 
 men finish in their homes. You make use 
 to give them, also, to outside workers, 
 as bastes and hems and presses them in the 
 ten ments where they live." 
 236
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 "You are a garment- worker?" Wylie 
 interrupted. 
 
 "No. I am an ag tator. " 
 
 "You are paid by " 
 
 "No one," Valentino interrupted. "I 
 translate. I have worked on Labor Bureau 
 Statistics. I keep myself so." 
 
 "You belong to some Union of inside 
 finishers?" 
 
 "There aren t no such union," said Valen 
 tino. 
 
 "Explain yourself," said Wylie, with the 
 curtness of capital to labor. 
 
 Valentino laid his faded brown Derby hat 
 upon the floor and took from his pocket a 
 mass of papers, foolscap sheets, pasted 
 together in a long string. 
 
 "This here is a p tition, signed by eight 
 hundred and ninety-six fin shers, to this 
 following uffect: that you furnish inside 
 shops, electric power, modern machines, and 
 all that, for the op rators on garments. This 
 will remove off o you the infamy uv under- 
 payin and overworkin women and childrun. 
 Your employe s won t hev no more chance to 
 kill theirselves slavin fer you nights and a 
 big number more who are out uv a job gets 
 employment steady." 
 237
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 He unrolled the yards of names toward 
 Mr. Wylie, who took up the soiled end 
 gingerly between shapely finger tips. 
 
 "You labor agitators are never satisfied," 
 said Mr. Wylie. "Is it not enough that I 
 employ three hundred cutters and as many 
 finishers and give them the best of facilities 
 for their work? If they take garments home 
 to finish, it is so much more money in their 
 pockets. 
 
 "But ef you would hev give them work 
 room opportoonity, with machines and a 
 plant all right, their lives ud not been 
 threw away in the onwholesome ten ments, 
 strainin " 
 
 "But these outside workers," interrupted 
 Mr. Wylie, with the magnanimity of one who 
 accepts an argument thrust upon him, "are 
 women and children who must work in their 
 homes or not at all. You would not take 
 the bread out of the mouths of helpless 
 widows and orphans. It is such people who 
 do my outside work during our busy 
 season." 
 
 Wylie spoke with finality, and slid down 
 the lid of his desk. Valentino rose, too, and 
 his voice trembled. 
 
 "I m not denyin* that leg power and 
 238
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 ten ment labor is cheaper, but it is God s 
 word I m repeating that the laborer is worthy 
 of his hire." 
 
 Wylie was slipping into his silk-lined over 
 coat. 
 
 "You are ratin the gold uv one man to be 
 higher then human lives. One woman, 
 stitched to her grave ; one laborer, hounded 
 to pauperism, are worth more, a many 
 fold, than the lucre you re losin your soul 
 for." 
 
 Valentino stood in the doorway that led 
 from the merchant s private room to the 
 outer office. 
 
 Wylie made no answer. He was indu 
 rated to reiteration and insistence. 
 
 Amasa Valentino pointed a lean, brown 
 finger at him and raised his voice. 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord I ull cause the ar-r- 
 rogancy of the pr-roud to cease. 
 
 The trilling of his r s was like a clarion 
 herald s cry of battle. 
 
 "1 ull make a man more pr-r-recious than 
 fine gold; even a man than the golden 
 wedge of Ophir-r. 
 
 His limp collar was frayed at the edges, 
 his waistcoat was unbuttoned and faded, his 
 finger nails were dirty and untrimmed, but 
 239
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 * 
 
 at that moment he towered above the mer 
 chant and the merchant knew it. 
 
 The smooth-haired clerks who sat at their 
 respective desks about the large office turned 
 round and regarded Valentino with curiosity 
 as he walked out into the wareroom. 
 
 Only a few days after this fruitless inter 
 view Valentino and Willoughby were walk 
 ing together. 
 
 "So you spake the words of the Lord to 
 him, like any modern Jeremiah?" 
 
 "I did," answered Valentino, "and found 
 him as hardened as the Israelites of old." 
 
 His Protestant Piedmontese training made 
 the young agitator a storehouse of Scrip 
 tural quotation. 
 
 Willoughby laughed a little, and then 
 sighed. 
 
 "If you had asked me beforehand, Valen 
 tino, I should have told you not to attempt 
 it. It is a waste of ammunition as yet. Mr. 
 Wylie, to the world s thinking, is an 
 upright, large-minded man, but, of course, 
 in the Fabian way, unenlightened. 
 
 "I have enlightened him a little," said 
 Valentino, in his child-like manner. "The 
 darkness of Egypt was upon his face." 
 
 "It s a case of flesh-pots with all of them, 
 240
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 I fancy," mused Willoughby. "Well, the 
 Monitor is going to make a fight against 
 tenement labor. The sweat-shop law ought 
 to be revised. Perhaps we can accomplish 
 something in that line." 
 
 "With our present legislature?" 
 
 Valentino shrugged his shoulders incredu 
 lously. 
 
 "Mr. Willoughby!" 
 
 "Miss Van Eyck!" 
 
 Willoughby and Helen Van Eyck had met 
 face to face upon the avenue. 
 
 "This is an agreeable surprise. You are 
 making us a visit?" 
 
 "No, I have come to live. I am with my 
 uncle, Mr. Wylie. You know we have given 
 up Orchardhurst. 
 
 Her voice was a little uncertain. The 
 unexpected sight of Willoughby had brought 
 back that last happy year with her parents 
 and the memory of beloved Yvonne. 
 
 Willoughby s eyes were misted as he held 
 out his hand to her in silent sympathy. 
 
 After Valentino had been introduced, 
 Helen told of her class at Arnold House, for 
 which she was bound that afternoon. 
 
 "I, too." said Valentino. "May I join 
 you, Miss Van Eyck?" 
 241
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Helen assented, somewhat stiffly. 
 
 The results of that afternoon were many. 
 
 "A few months ago," thought Helen, 
 "how I should have wondered!" 
 
 That a man could dress like a mechanic 
 and quote Mazzini ! That a man could use 
 bad grammar and be an intellectual stimulus 
 to her ! That he should be at his ease with 
 her and she with him ! 
 
 These were some of the things at which 
 three months before she would have won 
 dered. She was still new enough to Arnold 
 House work to dwell on antitheses, so fre 
 quent as to be commonplace in a social 
 settlement. 
 
 Valentino had also given her a new idea of 
 Willoughby. She learned of his daily sacri 
 fices and of his political valor. She began 
 to realize that devotion to a cause may seem 
 to an unsympathetic outsider like egotistic 
 aggressiveness. She had a glimpse of his 
 relations with the working class. She was 
 too ignorant then to know how vital and 
 simple those relations were. 
 
 "He s one of God s angels," Valentino 
 had said, "with a head of iron and a heart of 
 milk." 
 
 "If ever I done a good day s work it s this 
 242
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 one," said Valentino, coming into Will- 
 oughby s room late in the evening. 
 
 Willoughby raised his head from his desk 
 to look at the young Italian. 
 
 "I ve took Benjamin Wylie s niece about 
 among Benjamin Wylie s hired laborer-rs." 
 
 "Where have you taken Miss Van Eyck?" 
 
 Willoughby s tone was almost stern. 
 
 "Oh, she didn t know them was her 
 uncle s slaves. I didn t tell her. She had 
 asked me to take her among some of my 
 Italian families. So I did. I did." 
 
 Valentino s eyes glittered with exulta 
 tion. 
 
 "She won t forget it in many a long day. 
 We went to the Saranellis. I have told you 
 about them, over the Jewish butcher shop in 
 a rear tenement on Liberty Street. What a 
 name that is, Willoughby ! The Stars and 
 Stripes ud blush to wave over that street. 
 The Saranellis, you know, are nigh stitched 
 to death a ready. The child, Giulio, was 
 dying on his bed, and the fine cloaks heaped 
 above him. 
 
 The cold realism of Valentino s tone indi 
 cated pitiful familiarity with suffering, 
 familiarity that bred self-repression, not 
 indifference. 
 
 243
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 "You didn t take Miss Van Eyck into that 
 hole?" Willoughby spoke more sternly. 
 
 "I did. What was good enough for her 
 uncle s cloaks was good enough for her." 
 
 Valentino s face was uplifted. 
 
 "But I didn t tell her that. She only 
 looked about and looked about, and put her 
 handkerchief up to her eyes. I told her 
 how late they worked, and what they was 
 paid. She listened and looked. She didn t 
 ask no questions, but her eyes was like the 
 pit of wrath." 
 
 The two men sat silent for some time. 
 
 Then, "You will call upon Miss Van Eyck, 
 sometime?" delicately, from Valentino. 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 "I didn t show her the half. She couldn t 
 hev stood no more, poor-r young lady. Nor 
 I didn t su jest no rem dy. " 
 
 "You left that for me I understand." 
 
 It was some time before Willoughby 
 plunged into his work again that evening. 
 His heart burned with the sense of impend 
 ing possibilities. 
 
 When he called on Helen they had a 
 
 long, long talk. She asked a great many 
 
 questions, and he told her a great many 
 
 things. Their hand-clasp when he left 
 
 244
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 meant that they were pledged to a common 
 cause. There is nothing that will bring a 
 man and woman more quickly together than 
 to be pledged to a common cause. 
 
 "My uncle wants to meet you," said 
 Helen to him the next time they met. 
 "The Monitor represents a great deal that 
 politically he s opposed to, of course, but 
 he s interested in the things you say. I m 
 going to have you over to dinner next week, 
 if you ll come. We re very commonplace 
 and uninteresting after Bohemia, I know. 
 But you will consent, won t you?" 
 
 "It will be a privilege, Miss Van Eyck. " 
 
 "But you mustn t speak about about It. 
 I ve been talking to him, and he s quite 
 stirred up. He mustn t dream for a 
 moment that he s being managed. It must- 
 be all his own initiative." 
 
 "I understand. And thank you, Miss Van 
 Eyck." 
 
 Helen was delighted at the result of the 
 acquaintance she brought about between her 
 uncle and Pierce Willoughby. She was 
 devoted to her uncle and valued his personal 
 judgments. He conceived a great liking for 
 Willoughby, and opposed as their views 
 were, each admired the other. 
 245
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "He s got a pretty clear head, that fel 
 low," said Mr. Wylie, "and he s a man, 
 straight through. You would never have 
 expected it, with his opinions." 
 
 "You respect his opinions, too, uncle?" 
 Helen asked, smiling. "They are part of 
 him." 
 
 "I do, my dear, I do. If I were as free as he 
 is, I might do differently maybe, maybe." 
 
 "Why are you not free, Uncle Benjamin? 
 With your money and your influence you 
 might do so much. 
 
 "That s the trouble, Helen. My money 
 ties me down. You don t understand " 
 
 He pulled his gray mustache thoughtfully. 
 Helen sat closer to him and laid her hand 
 affectionately in his. The seed she had 
 planted had begun to grow. 
 
 "Let me understand, uncle," she said, 
 gently. "Let us talk about things 
 together. 
 
 As time went on, Willoughby learned 
 more of Helen s needs and desires. She 
 wanted to devote her life to serious ends 
 and thought somewhat of journalism. She 
 was clever with her pen and keen-witted 
 enough to perceive the elements of a suc 
 cessful "story." 
 
 246
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 After she had done some apprentice work 
 on special subjects, Willoughby made a 
 place for her on the Monitor. 
 
 A deep and sincere nature that errs in 
 judgment of another is apt to indulge in an 
 almost expiatory admiration after that early 
 judgment is reversed. It was somewhat so 
 with Helen, as regards Pierce. This sense 
 of her past injustice made her heart open 
 more widely than would otherwise have 
 been possible to the magnetic influence of 
 Willoughby s strong and winning.personality. 
 
 Helen sat in her room one evening read 
 ing, when she came upon a little newspaper 
 slip between the pages of the book. It con 
 tained a wood-cut of Willoughby, taken from 
 some western paper. Yvonne, long ago, 
 had given it to her, half in fun, and under 
 neath had written, "For Helen." Helen 
 looked long and earnestly at the familiar 
 features, firm and characteristic even in the 
 wood-cut, and smiled at the inscription in 
 Yvonne s Frenchy, irregular little hand, 
 "For Helen." It set her to thinking, and 
 while she was thinking, she smiled, uncon 
 sciously. 
 
 It was a gusty August night. The wind 
 blew and the rain slapped against the win- 
 247
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 dow. And now Helen s thoughts turned to 
 Yvonne. Strange little, half -real creature, 
 slipped away so utterly out of her life. She 
 took Verony s portrait and studied Yvonne s 
 face. The Indian blood ran very faint in 
 her, but Helen had always felt the inscru 
 table shadow of the forest in her eyes. The 
 French laughter, gaiety and grace were 
 what others saw. 
 
 "But you might as well seek your reflec 
 tion in a waterfall as understand the soul in 
 Yvonne," said to herself Helen. "Like a 
 waterfall, she continually slips from you, 
 foam and gleam atop, but underneath the 
 compelling call of the sea. 
 
 Helen fell asleep and dreamed. She sat 
 in the library of her country home. Her 
 feet rested against the fender of the fire 
 place. The coals glowed in the grate. It 
 was half-dark in the room, but the fire-light 
 glinted here and there, touching a little 
 table by the window where Yvonne s hat 
 lay, the yellow straw hat with the black- 
 eyed Susans around it. In the glass above 
 the mantle Helen saw a man standing in the 
 doorway. Softly he came forward. He 
 saw the yellow hat and touched it with a 
 sort of reverent amusement. 
 248
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 "Because it is Yvonne s," Helen thought, 
 with a curious pull at her heart. 
 
 In the semi-light she was as yet unob 
 served. Then he walked slowly to the fire 
 place, Helen watching him in the glass. 
 She felt his presence behind her. 
 
 "I will shut my eyes and seem asleep," 
 she thought. 
 
 The delicious touch of finger-tips was 
 on her temples, and a man s lips were 
 pressed to her forehead. Then she began to 
 awake. 
 
 "He thought I was Yvonne," she said, in 
 the first stupor of transition from dream to 
 reality. Again was that curious pull at her 
 heart. 
 
 As consciousness cleared, she became 
 aware that the face of the man in the 
 glass was the face of Pierce Willoughby. 
 
 From this time on, harder than any other 
 task that she performed was the task of con 
 cealing her love for Willoughby, a love 
 which was both the joy and the pain of her 
 life. 
 
 Manners are somewhat clipped in the 
 
 west, and especially in a big newspaper 
 
 house where every one is rushed for time 
 
 and the spirit of merciless competition is 
 
 249
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 rife. No one, however, had ever failed to 
 pay Miss Van Eyck her due of deference. 
 She carried with her an atmosphere of 
 gentle breeding which was felt even by pert 
 office-boys and jaunty stenographers. The 
 lily-like erectness of her carriage, which 
 was her chief distinction, had its counter 
 part in her character. Fastidious without 
 affectation, and proud without haughtiness, 
 she went about her daily work, making few 
 friends, no enemies. 
 
 A Dr. Shriver, one of their advertising 
 agents, always seemed nettled by Helen s 
 reserve. He was one of those men who 
 must always be with every one on a familiar 
 footing. With his great red cheeks, adorned 
 by pendent, crinkly whiskers, his small eyes, 
 gleaming with gross mirth, and his greasy 
 waistcoat, unbuttoned over the portly 
 stomach, he was the one person whom 
 Helen dreaded to meet. He would, as he 
 went by, compliment the women on their 
 good looks and jocularly poke the men, his 
 fat sides shaking with laughter. 
 
 Willoughby heard one day in Helen s 
 office, adjoining his, the unctuous voice of 
 Dr. Shriver. 
 
 "I wish the man would keep his place," 
 250
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 he thought, knowing the discomfort Helen 
 experienced in his presence. 
 
 A burst of laughter from the beef-eater 
 was suddenly checked by something from 
 Helen which he could not hear, and then 
 her words came to him as her office door was 
 opened. 
 
 "Good-day, Dr. Shriver. I must beg of 
 you not to call again, as I shall always be too 
 busy to see you." 
 
 Willoughby heard her clear, cutting tone, 
 and felt the scorn which dilated her nostrils 
 and flashed from her eyes. 
 
 The next moment Dr. Shriver was at his 
 door. Willoughby wheeled round sharply 
 in his chair, ready to rebuke the man 
 severely if he had the chance, but Shriver 
 spoke first. Raising his voice spitefully, he 
 said: 
 
 "Tell your lady-love, Willoughby, she 
 needn t be so d d offish " 
 
 "Out of here," roared Willoughby, 
 aroused at the man s insult. He sprang 
 from his chair and Dr. Shriver, like a cowed 
 bully, shambled rapidly down the corridor. 
 
 "Don t you ever show your face in these 
 offices again," he added, angrily, following 
 him to the elevator. 
 
 251
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Shriver muttered sheepishly about "some 
 people who couldn t take a joke." 
 
 Willoughby went to explain matters to the 
 ""chief," and that day the Englishman lost 
 his job. 
 
 Helen, leaving the office at five o clock, 
 passed Willoughby in the hall. She gave 
 him a grateful smile as they bowed, and he 
 noticed how flushed and tired she looked. 
 
 Not long after this was Memorial Day. 
 Otto Pfeffer persuaded Willoughby to remit 
 work for a few hours. He had arranged a 
 partie carree for the north shore. He had 
 married, some time before, a little school 
 teacher, a rosy-cheeked young woman who 
 had been a classmate of his at college. In 
 marrying him she had married his philos 
 ophy as well. They kept house together on 
 the dingy street, and while he visited his 
 patients, she made friends with her polyglot 
 neighbors or read Hegelian treatises in the 
 barely-furnished front room. It was Otto s 
 plan that Willoughby should invite Miss Van 
 Eyck. He himself would be accompanied 
 by his wife. 
 
 The woods on the bluff murmured sooth 
 ingly. All about them under the trees the 
 mandrake held up its little green umbrella 
 252
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 over its precious waxen bud. A few late 
 violets were in bloom. The water stretched 
 away, an iridescent sheet, rippling from 
 amber-brown, pale green and pinkish- 
 amethyst near the shore to deeper greens 
 and blues and violet purple out toward the 
 sky-line. 
 
 Helen had her Arnold with her. The 
 Pfeffers had settled themselves some dis 
 tance away. They had brought with them a 
 bulky volume of Schopenhauer for light 
 reading. 
 
 "It is not moonlight, but let us have 
 Dover Beach," said Willoughby. 
 
 He ensconced himself comfortably against 
 a tree. Helen read. As she turned a leaf 
 a scrap of paper fluttered to the ground. It 
 was the wood-cut, with Yvonne s inscrip 
 tion. Pierce put out his hand to catch it. 
 
 "Don t! Give it to me!" Helen cried, 
 quickly. Her dream was vivid in her mind. 
 
 A second after she could have bitten the 
 tongue out of her head for those words. 
 For, as she spoke, Willoughby, looking at it, 
 read aloud the brief inscription and turned 
 to her with a smile and a casual remark upon 
 his lips. Poor Helen! Somehow, she had 
 lost hold of herself, and she knew it. As 
 
 253
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG- FLOWERS 
 
 her eyes met his they told her story. Noth 
 ing that might happen could alter it. Will- 
 oughby was keener-visioned in such matters 
 than he had been years ago. A simple look 
 had laid her soul bare. Her scarlet cheeks 
 were unwilling witness to the betrayal. 
 Willoughby was glad for her that no third 
 person was present. 
 
 "You read," she said, abruptly handing 
 him the book. 
 
 He took it gravely, not looking at her, 
 and read on without interruption till the 
 Pfeffers rejoined them. As for Helen, she 
 was like one who sees the springs where her 
 life rose and the sea where it goes. 
 
 Helen s aunt, Mrs. Wylie, was at home 
 just then for one of her brief visits. She 
 was one of those globe-trotting women 
 whose health requires a different climate for 
 every season of the year. Disapproving 
 much of Helen s serious tendencies, she 
 looked her over critically. 
 
 "Your eyes are too large, my dear, and 
 your hands tremble. You had better drop 
 this beastly scribbling of yours, and go with 
 me to Norway this summer. 
 
 "I think it is only a change of work I 
 need," replied Helen. "Perhaps I had 
 254
 
 A RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 better consider Mr. Hathaway s offer," she 
 turned to her uncle, "and do the reviewing 
 for his magazine. The hours would not be 
 so long nor the office-routine so exacting. 
 With no weak longing nor despair she set 
 her face toward the future. For time will 
 bring opiate of forgetfulness, and life will 
 bring tonic of labor. 
 
 255
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CONSUMMATION 
 
 "I think that I must abide by my deci 
 sion," said Helen, looking, as she spoke, at 
 the glass paper-weight on Willoughby s 
 desk. 
 
 "We will ease up the work for you, Miss 
 Van Eyck. We will get some one else to 
 take the current notes. You may arrange 
 your office-hours to suit yourself. 
 
 What an ugly one ! thought Helen, still 
 looking at the paper-weight. "I wonder if 
 he has no better." 
 
 "We would do a great deal to keep you 
 with us. We consider your work valuable. 
 
 "You are kind, Mr. Willoughby. " Helen 
 had raised her eyes to his watch-chain, and 
 was counting the links. "It is not merely 
 that the work is too taxing. 
 
 "If there is any other department " 
 
 "No, no. I should not wish you to make 
 any change " 
 
 She raised her eyes to his cravat, and 
 decided that he had tied it himself. 
 
 257
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "I do not urge you for our sake alone, 
 Miss Van Eyck. Whatever is best for your 
 self, of course " 
 
 Willoughby was interested in her literary 
 success, and felt that the change she con 
 templated would be a misstep for her. 
 
 Helen was grateful for the dryness of his 
 advice. 
 
 "If you would take the week s vacation, 
 Miss Van Eyck, which you so much need, 
 and during that time leave the matter open, 
 we should be obliged to you." 
 
 Helen raised her eyes to his face. 
 
 I will do so, she replied, hating herself 
 for her weakness. 
 
 Willoughby, in the courteous fashion that 
 he had, accompanied her to the elevator. 
 A "He s an awful nice man, don t you think 
 so?" graciously remarked Miss Donahue, a 
 stenographer, as they descended together. 
 "He seems kinder young, but he s a smart 
 writer, and a regular dude f er politeness. 
 J The place seemed sordid without Miss Van 
 Eyck. Willoughby missed his frequent 
 contact with her mind. He learned how 
 much he had been relying on her quick, 
 clear judgments and sympathetic analyses. 
 
 "We must get her back," he thought, as 
 258
 
 CONSUMMATION 
 
 he read the tamer copy that her substitute 
 sent in. 
 
 When her week s vacation lengthened to 
 two he found that he missed something 
 besides her judgments and analyses. He 
 missed her. 
 
 When Helen learned of her uncle s final 
 determination to furnish inside work-rooms 
 for the finishing of his custom-made gar 
 ments, her heart leaped with joy. It was a 
 forward step in industrial progress. 
 
 If, through her instrumentality, in even a 
 small degree, it had been effected how 
 Amasa Valentino s eyes would glow and his 
 voice would thrill! Pierce Willoughby also 
 she tried to repress a too personal emotion 
 at the thought of the pleasure he would 
 feel. 
 
 She sent a special messenger inviting 
 them both to dinner that evening. 
 
 "I have a piece of good news for you," 
 she added in her note. 
 
 Willoughby, on account of the invitation, 
 returned from the office earlier than usual. 
 He stepped across the hall to Valentino s 
 room. Valentino, in his shirt-sleeves and 
 stocking-feet, was standing over his little 
 oil-stove, stewing some dried tomatoes. 
 259
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "We are bid out to dinner, Valentino," 
 said Willoughby, "with Benjamin Wylie. " 
 - There was an unusual light in his eyes. 
 
 Valentino turned round, the iron spoon in 
 his hand. He understood the "we" in its 
 editorial sense. He waved the spoon 
 ironically : 
 
 "You go to sup with princes and poten 
 tates," he replied. "It is well." 
 
 "Miss Van Eyck has invited us both. She 
 says she has some good news for us. You 
 will go?" 
 
 Valentino stooped and picked up a shoe 
 from under the bed. It was rusty-red color, 
 and the sole was half gone. He laid it 
 down and held up the other. It was cracked 
 and split across the uppers. 
 
 "My gala best," he said, calmly. "Pre 
 sent my excuses. Tell her I have a previous 
 engagement, a date with the Conto di Rag- 
 gedo Boota. That is myself." 
 
 "Come," said Willoughby. "The shoes 
 can be blacked. They will pass muster. 
 
 "There are other engagements," pursued 
 Valentino, pointing to his frayed and faded 
 coat that hung upon the wall, "with the 
 Barono di Tatterda Coata. No, my friend, 
 it is impossible. I cannot condescend to go. 
 260
 
 CONSUMMATION 
 
 I am too proud to wear my insignia among 
 the ignorant. Addio. " 
 
 Willoughby and Helen sat before the open 
 fire in the library. It was a chilly June 
 evening. It was not seven o clock, and Mr. 
 Wylie had not yet returned from town. 
 Mrs. Wylie, upstairs, was making her usual 
 elaborate dinner-toilette. Helen unfolded 
 to Willoughby her uncle s plans, while the 
 firelight played on her thin, delicate face. 
 Her expression was almost etherealized. 
 Pierce, as he watched and listened, felt steal 
 over him a tranquil sense of solitude a 
 deux, and perfect harmony with one s com 
 panion. He looked at Helen with new eyes, 
 and decided that she was the woman. 
 
 When dinner was announced much had 
 happened between them. It was a very happy 
 dinner for them both. Mr. Wylie seemed 
 nobler and larger-hearted than he had ever 
 seemed before. Mrs. Wylie, even, was less 
 frivolous and worldly-minded than had been 
 her wont. 
 
 They had a few moments alone with Mr. 
 Wylie before Willoughby left. Willoughby 
 told Helen s uncle of the promise his niece 
 had given him. 
 
 Benjamin Wylie put a hand upon the 
 261
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 shoulder of each. "My daughter and my 
 son," he said, tenderly. 
 
 Willoughby stood over Valentino s bed at 
 eleven o clock that night. He told him first 
 the gospel of the workshop. He ended 
 with the gospel of the heart. 
 
 Valentino sprang up and embraced him. 
 
 "Let us give thanksgiving together and 
 make a solemn sound, he cried. 
 
 "Not too solemn a sound, though," said 
 Willoughby, "the Bohemian woman beneath 
 has a sick baby. 
 
 "And will you bring her over here to 
 live," asked the Italian, "a la modo Pfeff- 
 erino?" 
 
 262
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CLEAR FOUNTAIN 
 
 "You just lay down a bit, dearie, and rest 
 yoursel ," said the woman, "while I run out 
 and fetch a jug of milk and some marmalade 
 for our tea. 
 
 The girl lay down wearily upon the carpet- 
 covered sofa, and scrutinized for the hun 
 dredth time the print of Queen Victoria and 
 the lithograph of Derby Day, that hung 
 upon the wall. 
 
 "Has Minchins come again with that bill 
 for the dress?" asked the girl, when the 
 woman returned. 
 
 "Never you mind if e as, the nasty 
 thing. E can wait till the h end of the 
 week. E won t go starvin . You ll be get 
 ting your wage by a Saturday, won t you?" 
 
 The girl nodded. 
 
 "An* you did fine, this h afternoon. Cur 
 rant, that s my sister s usband, e says, 
 She s gettin to andle er legs better (hex- 
 cusin the disrespec to you, dear, e don t 
 mean naught). They giv you a good call 
 back last night, too. You re dark, but 
 263
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 good-lookin , when you re made-up, in par 
 ticular " 
 
 "Tell me, Eliza, am I dark, too dark for 
 an English girl like an Indian or a gypsy?" 
 
 "Laws, no. They be poor critters, as 
 can t talk h English. " 
 
 There was silence for a few moments, 
 while the woman bustled about the room 
 preparing tea. 
 
 "Mr. Brockton was ere to see you this 
 morning. Ere s is bloomin pasteboard. 
 But I wouldn t waken you, becuz you was 
 sleepin sweet as a baby." 
 
 "I m glad you didn t, Eliza. He knows I 
 don t wish to see him." 
 
 "I didn t like the looks of im, not at all. 
 E ad the smell of drink on im, an e 
 andled is sovereigns too free. There 
 dassn t none o them fine gentry come 
 palaverin round me or I ll show em the 
 way h out, double-quick, too. Currant, e 
 knows ow to deal with such trash. E s got 
 a wrist like a h ox s." 
 
 "Eliza, dear, tell me, shall I ever, ever be 
 a great actress? Shall I be even as good as 
 Bella Percy? Answer me truly," the girl 
 asked, after a pause. "Am I as good as 
 Bella Percy, for instance?" 
 264
 
 THE CLEAR FOUNTAIN 
 
 "No, dearie, I can t just say you re as 
 good as Bella Percy. Not so catchy-like, 
 you might say. She don t mind if a fellow 
 gives her a smack on the cheek, after the 
 curtain drops. That s what Currant, e 
 says. An she tips em all the wink, the 
 hussy. But they likes it, they does. Let 
 me show you, Miss, ow you must do. I ve 
 been goin to them music- alls now fifteen 
 years excep for the time I was in the 
 States, an I knows all their tricks." 
 
 She lifted her skirt, displaying her clumsy 
 ankles in their unbleached cotton stockings. 
 
 "My legs ain t as good as yours, but I ll 
 just give you a taste of the h idea. You 
 throws your foot h out so, an you kicks 
 igh igher than that. It s h all in my 
 head, but I can t just do it with my feet. 
 They re contrary. Then you cocks your 
 pretty cad to one side an looks knowin an 
 sings it so. 
 
 It would have been whimsical were it not 
 pathetic, to see the thick-set middle-aged 
 woman trying to instruct the black-eyed girl 
 in the art of vaudeville. 
 
 "The trouble is," said the girl, rising 
 impetuously and letting an unregarded sofa- 
 pillow fall on the ffoor behind her, "I don t 
 265
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 want to do it. I could do it well, but I 
 don t want to." 
 
 The woman quietly picked up the pillow. 
 
 "You re above it, dear," she said. 
 "That s my h understandin of it. I can see 
 it in your face while you stand there a- 
 singin . You looks at the beer-mugs, an 
 the smoke, an all the togged-out girls there 
 from the East End, and then, just as you is 
 goin to let yourself h out an all the men is 
 ready to clap you, you draws back into your 
 shell an it flats out. 
 
 "It s not what I was meant for," cried the 
 girl, passionately. "But when I play in 
 Marianne Mr. Barry is using his influence 
 to get me in with the Druid Company 
 then, I will put my whole soul into it. My 
 whole soul!" 
 
 The girl ended almost with a sob. She 
 went to the window, and stood with her 
 back to the woman, looking out into the 
 street. When she turned round, there were 
 tears in her eyes. 
 
 "Little Hilaire will be eight years old 
 to-day," she said, "and think of it! He was 
 only a baby when I left. And Ernestine, 
 she may be married by this time. They have 
 all forgotten me, even maman, for she has 
 
 266
 
 THE CLEAR FOUNTAIN 
 
 her other little ones. They have all for 
 gotten me." 
 
 The girl repeated it wistfully. 
 
 "All except my cousin. He will never 
 forget. My poor cousin. 
 
 She buried her face in her hands. 
 
 "Laws, dearie, don t take on so." 
 
 The girl pushed away the comforting hand 
 and rose to her feet with a strange upward 
 gesture of her arms. She seemed as a bird 
 with clipped wings that vainly attempts to fly. 
 
 "Pol6on, I am^ coming!" she screamed. 
 "I hear you calling me. I will come. 
 A-ah " 
 
 "What is it, dearie? Ave you got a pain 
 to your stummick? Take a few draps of 
 this cordial. Twas a shillin a bottle. It s 
 sure to be fine. 
 
 "I am going to my people I am going to 
 Pole*on." The girl turned fiercely upon the 
 woman. 
 
 "Straight away, Miss?" said the woman, 
 soothingly. "But you aven t the money to 
 go to Polong." 
 
 "Wait a minute. I will sing them a 
 French song to-night. Be quiet! It will 
 come to me in a moment. Hush! Now I 
 have it. Listen ! 
 
 267
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 The girl stood still, gaze fixed on the 
 pastry-shop sign across the street. She saw 
 the plumes of a pine-tree waving darkly 
 against a blue sky. The sound of a distant 
 waterfall came to her ears, mixed with the 
 laughter of children. 
 
 She sang. The soul of the waterfall was 
 in her voice, wild, mysterious, unearthly : 
 
 "A la claire fontaine 
 
 M en allant promener 
 J ai trouve* 1 eau si belle, 
 Que je m y suis baigne 
 
 Lui ya long temps que je t aime, 
 
 Jamais je ne t oublierai." 
 
 The melody is heart-breaking. 
 
 s\ z p 
 
 
 ! I l I 
 
 
 i P j 
 
 f(\\ I J 
 
 
 * ^ * 
 
 
 9 
 
 SazaE * 
 
 
 
 
 * * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V i* IV 
 
 
 j |v ^ 
 
 r 
 
 r P i 
 
 XL 
 
 
 
 . p 
 
 
 3oS * J * 
 
 
 ^ * m 
 
 
 * -j * 
 
 "Jamais je ne t oublierai," 
 the girl sang over. 
 
 The woman sat on the sofa, her apron up 
 to her eyes. The girl sang on with the look 
 268
 
 THE CLEAR FOUNTAIN 
 
 of a star-gazer on her face. She was deaf to 
 her own voice. In the humble little room, 
 it floated like a living thing. 
 
 "Sous les feuilles d un chene 
 Je me suis fait secher, 
 Sur la plus haute branche 
 Le rossignol chantait. 
 
 Lui ya long temps que je t aime, 
 Jamais je ne t oublierai." 
 
 The singing voice soared up. The ceiling 
 became the sky, and there was infinite space 
 within the four walls of the room. 
 
 "Sur la plus haute branche 
 Le rossignol chantait 
 Chante, rossignol, chante, 
 Toi qui as le coeur gai. 
 
 Lui ya long temps que je t aime, 
 
 Jamais je ne t oublierai." 
 
 The woman rocked back and forth on the 
 sofa, weeping. The voice cleft its way once 
 more through upper air, a lost bird seeking 
 for its mate. Exquisite despair poured 
 forth like wine from a broken goblet. 
 269
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Chante, rossignol, chante, 
 Toi qui as le coeur gai, 
 Tu as le coeur a rire, 
 Moi, je l ai-t-a pleurer. 
 Lui ya long temps que je t aime. 
 Jamais je ne t oublierai. " 
 
 The spent voice drifted downward. That 
 wistfullest of all songs ebbed out like a sob 
 bing tide upon the shore. 
 
 ~ A A 
 
 r r j pr 
 
 
 
 
 irn/i 
 
 v * J 
 
 * 
 
 
 i i 
 
 lEZaE 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -0- 
 
 
 V r 
 
 
 
 s .. 
 
 p N 
 
 -rL J 
 
 R t J r 
 
 
 - IS -K 
 
 J - 
 
 -m-*- 
 
 /^ J 
 
 * 
 
 -0 0- 
 
 a j. 
 
 
 "You do be breakin my eart, Miss 
 Yvonne," said the woman, shamefacedly 
 mopping her eyes. 
 
 "But h it s enough to make a cow cry. If 
 they don t be all beasts at the all to-night, 
 you ll bring down the ouse as sure as my 
 name s Eliza Blodgett. " 
 
 The woman, since she had left service, 
 had relapsed into the Cockneyism in which 
 she had been bred. 
 
 "The voice of you when you sang that 
 270
 
 THE CLEAR FOUNTAIN 
 
 long-long ! It went right to my ead like 
 a glass of spirits. 
 
 A feverish flush had overspread Yvonne s 
 face. The woman drew her down beside her 
 on the sofa, and laid her cool hard palm upon 
 the girl s hot forehead. 
 
 "You ave het yourself all h up, dearie. 
 Now set down an ave a dish of tea an a 
 bit of bun. You ll be a-coolin while 
 you re a-h eatin ." 
 
 271
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AN APRIL MIRACLE 
 
 It was April, but still winter in La Jetme 
 Valletta. The snow lay white on the open 
 spaces of the Laurentian hills, and gleamed 
 between the dark trunks on its forest-clad 
 slopes. In the meadows of the habitans the 
 brown grasses flecked here and there the 
 white mantle of snow, and by the many 
 fences bounding their long, narrow fields the 
 everlasting flowers barely pushed up their 
 downy heads, yellow above the blue-white 
 snow. "For as high as the everlasting 
 flowers grow in summer, so high will the 
 snow be in winter," was a saying among the 
 housewives on the Chateaubourg road. 
 
 The rapids of the St. Gabriel fell in a 
 tenuous stream between contorted walls of 
 ice. 
 
 Aubin St. Clair drove his little traineau 
 briskly along the creaking road from 
 Ancienne Vallette to his own house, le 
 Maison du Roi. It was the oldest dwelling- 
 house in the neighborhood, and had retained 
 273
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 its name ever since the days when Canada 
 had beloned to France and France had a king 
 and le Capitaine had commanded the block 
 house, which, on account of its military 
 character, was called by the simple folk "Le 
 Maison du Roi. " 
 
 Aubin was muffled up to the ears in a bear 
 skin coat out of which his round, red face, 
 white-fringed, showed like the rising harvest 
 moon. 
 
 Poleon Gros-Louys slouched along the road 
 in a moose-skin coat, much worn. A rab 
 bit s bushy tail hung limply from one of the 
 capacious pockets. 
 
 "Stop, you beasts!" called Aubin, in a 
 cheerful growl, to his dogs. "Good-day, 
 neighbor. How goes it?" 
 
 Aubin was one of the few French habitans 
 who would stop to exchange civilities with 
 the people of the Huron village. 
 
 "So-so," muttered Pole*on, "I ve been in 
 the bush cutting wood. 
 
 "There s a good bit of snow on the moun 
 tains yet, I imagine," returned the other, 
 "but about here promises a big thaw soon." 
 
 He looked at his dogs, from whose shaggy 
 sides the steam was rising. They snapped 
 at each other playfully. 
 274
 
 AN APRIL MIRACLE 
 
 "It s up to one s waist where the blue 
 berries grow," returned Poleon, beginning 
 to pass on. 
 
 He had been, for him, unusually loqua 
 cious. 
 
 "But how are all your people?" called 
 Aubin. 
 
 "Is Ernestine still at the Sacre Coeur? 
 What an amiable young girl that is ! And 
 Auguste, is he learning well to cut the 
 moccasins?" 
 
 Aubin s solitary yellow tooth in his wide- 
 apart mouth, gave him a look of simple 
 good-heartedness that even Gros-Louys 
 could not resist. 
 
 He answered Aubin s inquiries briefly. 
 
 "But Yvonne? How fares she? Do 
 you get news of her since she left the Amer 
 icans there? Ah, that is a sad thing, Poison. 
 Keep up a brave heart, man. The good 
 God may yet send her to you. Look here. 
 
 The old man reached down into a pocket 
 and brought out a Quebec paper, a rarity in 
 those parts. 
 
 Ecoutez ! What I read this morning A 
 
 young girl, who had been stolen away from 
 
 her home in Maine, two years ago, and had 
 
 not been heard from since, has reappeared. 
 
 275
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Her mother had gone to pray for her in the 
 church, and had devoted an offering to the 
 Virgin Mary. When she returned her 
 daughter stood in the doorway of her house. 
 The young girl seemed dazed, and could tell 
 nothing of her journey back to her home. 
 It was without doubt through the direct 
 intervention of the blessed Mary! 
 
 Poison listened doggedly. He was not so 
 religious as the people about him. The little 
 tale did not send the thrill through him that 
 it did through old Aubin. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said. "It was in Maine. 
 Things may happen in Maine which never 
 come to Vallette. 
 
 "Take the paper," said Aubin, kindly, 
 thrusting it into his hand. It may bring 
 you comfort. Au revoir 
 
 Marchez done, he said to his dogs, who 
 yelped and flourished their black tails with 
 eagerness to start. 
 
 Poison took the paper and looked at it 
 with eyes unaccustomed to letters. When 
 he came to the sudden turn by the chapel 
 that leads to the straggling streets of La 
 Jeune Vallette, he sat down in the sun on 
 the steps of the church. 
 
 He spread the paper out awkwardly on his 
 276
 
 AN APRIL MIRACLE 
 
 knees, and scanned it. The printed words 
 were like so many hieroglyphics to him, 
 but he would not have had old Aubin know 
 with how much difficulty he read. He 
 selected one item and began to spell it out 
 laboriously. He spelled along as far as the 
 name Yvonne. 
 
 "Y-v-o-n-n-e," he went over the letters 
 again, in great excitement. 
 
 "Who knows," he said, "but this may tell 
 about her? I will take it to the Abbe St. 
 Clair and let him read it to me." 
 
 He went on rapidly down the road, across 
 the bridge, around the curve by the old saw 
 mill, and then with long, loping strides he 
 descended the deep hill to the great, gray 
 stone church and the priest s home. 
 
 The Abbe St. Clair lived the life of a 
 recluse in his immaculate house, with its 
 trim French garden. He was content with 
 his secluded parish because it gave him 
 time for study and immunity from care. 
 He came to the door at Poleon s knock, a 
 finger keeping the place in the Latin book 
 which he held in his hand. 
 
 "Enter, Poleon," he said, regarding him 
 with the abstracted look that seldom left his 
 eyes. 
 
 27?
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 He took him to his study. 
 
 "Read it, please," said Pole on, handing 
 him the paper and putting his finger on the 
 item. 
 
 The Abbe* read: 
 
 "Report has it that a well-known English 
 novelist is writing a play for Mdlle. Yvonne 
 Yriarte. It deals with a French-Indian 
 legend current in lower Canada. 
 
 "It is she, it is she!" exclaimed Poleon, 
 his excitement knowing no bounds. "It is 
 our Yvonne, father. Lower Canada 
 French- Indian. Now we shall find her. I 
 will go and bring her back. 
 
 "This is dated from Paris," said the 
 Abbe", "and Yvonne is an actress." 
 
 "What does she do then, father?" 
 
 "She plays, perhaps dances, in theaters, 
 for the amusement of all the world. It is a 
 dangerous pastime. 
 
 "Father, how does one go to Paris?" 
 
 " "Pis a difficult journey," said the 
 Abbe", "a long journey. You love Yvonne, 
 you have never been happy since she 
 left." 
 
 The Abbe took off his spectacles, which 
 had become misty, and wiped them on his 
 fine linen handkerchief. 
 278
 
 AN APRIL MIRACLE 
 
 "I dream of her at night, father. One is 
 lonely without her." 
 
 "A winsome, black-eyed creature," said 
 the Abbe, reflectively. "The sisters at the 
 Convent du Sacre Coeur spoke highly of her. 
 I fear she has gone astray. The church 
 would gladly help reclaim her to its bosom. 
 
 "I would go with you, son," he said. "I 
 have long thought of going across the sea 
 Rome, Paris. The Abbe" Clement has seen 
 them, why not I? But it costs dear." 
 
 He spread out his empty hands express 
 ively. "And you?" 
 
 "I have enough, enough," answered 
 Pole"on. 
 
 "I will think this over," said the Abbe. 
 "Who knows but we may go abroad 
 together, you, my son, and I?" 
 
 His thin, white fingers closed warmly 
 about the large dark hand of the Indian 
 hunter. 
 
 "God speed you," he repeated, "and 
 grant that you may find your little Yvonne." 
 
 She is Dew-of-the-Morning, said Pole"on. 
 "She is Dew-of-the-Morning, and when the 
 dew dries up, the flowers hang their heads." 
 
 279
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ANOTHER RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Two men sat side by side in the stalls of a 
 London theater. One was rather a striking 
 figure, slender, well-knit, a slight forward 
 inclination of the shoulders, as of one who 
 bends much over a desk, his hair a little 
 silvered at the temples, a firmly-featured 
 face, clean-shaven, the boyish candor of the 
 blue eyes contrasted with the sad fixity of 
 the mouth. The other man was of the pink- 
 necked, thick-chested British type. His full 
 lips and heavy chin were offset by a finely- 
 modeled forehead and shrewd gray-blue 
 eyes. 
 
 "If you run down to Purple-Tops," said 
 the latter, "I ll show you some of our cross 
 country riding. You ride to hounds over 
 there, I fancy?" 
 
 His "over there" had the polite vagueness 
 of an Englishman who has never visited 
 America, and never intends to. 
 
 "Not much in the middle west, where I 
 have lived. There s a hyphenated fellow or 
 281
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 two who goes into it, but the rest of us don t 
 have time." 
 
 Oglethorpe was compassionately silent. 
 He was feeling for common ground with 
 this Willoughby, whose last book, "The Fate 
 of an Ideal, had been so successful in Eng 
 land. Oglethorpe was by profession both 
 author and playwright, but he had a singular 
 objection to identifying himself with the 
 literary clique. He was even somewhat 
 aggressive in flaunting his other interests 
 and shunning altogether "chatter about 
 Shelley." 
 
 "If you go farther west, though, into the 
 Rockies," Willoughby went on, filling up 
 the gap of his companion s silence, "you will 
 find big shooting elks, moose and bear. 
 
 "By George!" exclaimed Oglethorpe, 
 regaining interest in the American, "you 
 have a box out there and go often?" 
 
 "I worked a ranch one summer, while I 
 was still in the university, and did some 
 hunting, but never since. The hunting 
 about Chicago is more exciting." 
 
 "Really!" exclaimed the Englishman. 
 
 Then the play began. A little servant- 
 maid was one of the cast, taking rather a 
 prominent part.
 
 ANOTHER RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 "Now that s a clever piece of acting!" 
 said Oglethorpe, after one of her exits. 
 
 He was not looking at Willoughby, and 
 would not, in the obscurity, have noticed 
 how the program in his hand shook. 
 
 "Who is she?" Willoughby asked. 
 
 "Yvonne Yriarte. She s been in vaude 
 ville till now. This is her first attempt in 
 legitimate drama. Tom Barry s back of 
 her, I believe. 
 
 "She s she s been in London long?" 
 
 "Really, he is warming up," thought the 
 Englishman, rejoicing that, at last, he had 
 struck common ground. 
 
 "I don t know. I ll take you round to her 
 after the play, if you like. I know her fairly 
 well. She s a clever little thing, and quite 
 charming, off the stage. 
 
 Willoughby was wrapped in the play 
 again. He did not notice the acting. 
 Rachel might have been on the boards and 
 he would not have seen her. The little 
 servant-maid, with her adorable accent, he 
 followed. She had the same voice that had 
 thrilled through the Bois-des-Erables. 
 
 They made their way to the green-room 
 after the play. She was standing with her 
 back to him when he entered the room. A 
 283
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 stout woman was wrapping her up in her 
 cloak. Two or three men were already 
 there. Hearing Willoughby s steps, she 
 turned round. With a gesture of delight, 
 she let her cloak fall backward to the floor, 
 and running up to him she put her hands on 
 his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. 
 
 My good friend ! she exclaimed. 
 
 It was as simple and natural as a child s 
 action, and having done it, she was no more 
 embarrassed than a child. She looked 
 round toward the others. 
 
 "He was my good friend long ago," she 
 said, "and first taught me what life was. 
 Why don t you congratulate me, Pierce?" 
 
 "I will I do " stammered Will- 
 
 oughby. 
 
 He began to realize the situation and the 
 cool scrutiny of the men. 
 
 "I must see you to-morrow, Yvonne." 
 
 "You are going to reproach me, I know," 
 she answered, "but I want much to see 
 you." 
 
 She named her street and the number. 
 
 Pierce went to his room for a night of 
 
 fevered dreams. From the moment that 
 
 Yvonne s lips had touched his cheek the old 
 
 spell began to bind itself anew about his 
 
 284
 
 ANOTHER RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 heart. He had no thought of being un 
 true to Helen. He did not think of her at 
 all. 
 
 Willoughby found his way to the queer 
 little street off Tottenham Court Road. In 
 the stuffy sitting-room, as he sat and waited 
 for Yvonne, he noticed the hideous carpet 
 and threadbare sofa. 
 
 Yvonne had lost her airy manner of the 
 night before. He noticed the shadows 
 under her eyes and the wan look of her 
 mouth. 
 
 "She has suffered and fought, and per 
 haps not conquered," he said to himself. 
 
 His heart went out to her in her defeat. 
 
 She answered his questions gravely, giv 
 ing him her history since she had left New 
 York with Eliza Blodgett. 
 
 "It seemed that I must go in that way," 
 she said. "Madge would not have per 
 mitted it, and my cousin would have come 
 for me if he had known where I was. 
 
 "It must have been hard for you," said 
 Pierce. "It was hard for us. " 
 
 She did not answer. Then : 
 
 "I have been waiting till till there was 
 something worth telling before I wrote to 
 my friends. I have not written yet. 
 285
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 She held her hands tightly clasped in her 
 lap and looked down. 
 
 "Your friends will be glad " there was 
 intensity in the commonplace adjective 
 "glad to hear from you." 
 
 "I shall write to them after the tenth," 
 said Yvonne. 
 
 She looked at Willoughby with a deep 
 smile in her black eyes. 
 
 "Something will have happened then, " she 
 went on, mysteriously, "worth the telling." 
 
 She sat there smiling and silent, the 
 inward glow of a great secret upon her face. 
 
 Willoughby told of his visit to Vallette, 
 while Yvonne turned aside to hide her tears. 
 
 "But now let me hear of yourself," she 
 said, "and of all my friends." 
 
 So he told her of the Fentons, and of the 
 baby boy who prattled in their home; of 
 sweet Elizabeth Dawson s sickness and 
 death; of Cornelia Livingston s marriage. 
 
 "And the Van Eycks, " he began, choosing 
 the words in which to tell her of the change 
 at Orchardhurst. 
 
 "I know. It is so very sad," she ex 
 claimed. "Brockton has told me. Yes, I 
 have seen him, but not often. 
 
 They were quiet together, for of Brockton 
 286
 
 ANOTHER RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 she could say no more. Willoughby, from 
 contempt of a man lost to all sense of per 
 sonal and family honor, kept sternly silent. 
 
 "How lonely for dear Helen!" 
 
 Yvonne s words came to him with a shock. 
 He went on to speak of Helen s home in the 
 west, of her uncle, of the Monitor. He 
 began to tell of their engagement, but the 
 words were like knife-points in his throat. 
 So he told of other things. 
 
 "I am rejoiced Helen has found her 
 work," Yvonne said. "Tel bel esprit. And 
 it has been my great hope, Pierce, that you 
 and she might learn to know each other. 
 
 "We we " stammered Willoughby. 
 
 Then the Evil Angel, who comes at least 
 once in a lifetime between us and Oppor 
 tunity, stepped in and laid her finger on his 
 lips. 
 
 "We are very good friends." 
 
 If he had finished his sentence as he had 
 begun it, another would have been saved, 
 how much suffering, and he, how much 
 remorse ! 
 
 287
 
 PART FIVE 
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG FLOWERS 
 
 "Je dirais au roi Henri 
 J aime mieux ma mie 
 
 Au gue, 
 J aime mieux ma mie." 
 
 Vielle Chanson. 
 
 289
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BEFORE THE TENTH 
 
 "What! You, Yvonne?" 
 
 "Assuredly." 
 
 "I thought so. You re not in haste?" 
 
 "I am, Brockton." 
 
 "It s a sin. Haste makes waste. Sit 
 down here a bit in the square. I have the 
 key in my pocket. It s very necessary that 
 I should talk with you. 
 
 But impossible. I must get home. 
 
 "May I walk with you, then? Let me 
 carry the fish." 
 
 "How did you know?" 
 
 "Some men are born to knowledge, and 
 others have it thrust upon them. Let me 
 take them." 
 
 "What gallantry! I can t fancy you 
 carrying a brown paper parcel." 
 
 "It shan t be a matter of fancy, but fact." 
 
 "There, if you will. But don t keep me 
 standing here, with that goggle-eyed man 
 staring at us. Let us sit down. 
 
 "As I suggested at the start." 
 291
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Well, Brockton, what do you want?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 "Same old " 
 
 Don t revile yourself, Yvonne. 
 
 "Seriously, Brockton, I must say what I ve 
 said before. You re really quite decent this 
 morning, and I wish you to understand me. 
 I shall never give you the answer you want. " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because it doesn t sound pretty to say it 
 because I don t want you." 
 
 "If you smile at me like that I shall go 
 crazy. 
 
 "I ll look like this, then, if you prefer. " 
 
 "No, never. I didn t mean what I said. 
 You have frowned on me so much lately, you 
 know, that it quite upset me to have you 
 smile. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "What was I saying? See how strange 
 that man looks there, laughing at us through 
 the trees!" 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 There, deuce take it I beg your pardon. 
 
 "I see nothing, Brockton." 
 
 "Neither do I, now. It was a streak 
 across my eyes. Yvonne. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 292
 
 BEFORE THE TENTH 
 
 " You re having the deuce of a time, 
 you know you are. Why won t you let me 
 help you? Carrying home dried herring like 
 any lodging-house slavey. 
 
 "I m thankful to have dried herring to 
 carry. 
 
 "If you ll only have me, you may buy a 
 whole herring-fishery. I ve money to burn, 
 and I m going to the dogs with it as fast as 
 I can without you." 
 
 "But I don t want to go there, even with 
 you, Brockton." 
 
 "Yvonne ! I could be a man, if you would 
 help me. 
 
 "Brockton, be a man first! Take hold of 
 yourself. 
 
 "I m not on speaking terms with myself. 
 We re continually at odds. But if you were 
 interested, it would be all different. Think 
 of what we could do, where we could go. Are 
 you happy, Yvonne?" 
 
 "No, not now. But It is coming." 
 
 "What is coming?" 
 
 "I can t tell you what. A piece of good 
 news. Then I shall be happier. Then I 
 shall be satisfied to return." 
 
 "Where, pray?" 
 
 "To my people." 
 
 293
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Must it be a secret, this piece of good 
 news?" 
 
 "From you." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "It concerns besides yourself a a man?" 
 
 "Perhaps, but it s not not " 
 
 "It isn t?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not so bad a piece of good news as I 
 feared. Will you ever tell me?" 
 
 "After the tenth, if I see you." 
 
 "I will see you after the tenth, then. I 
 shall remember. Ah, don t go Yvonne, 
 won t you have me? You would have taken 
 me once, wouldn t you? That time, you 
 remember?" 
 
 "I remember." 
 
 "Would you?" 
 
 Maybe. But now 
 
 "Bloomin" fool that I was!" 
 
 "Brockton, don t look at me so wildly. 
 What do you see?" 
 
 "Nothing. I did see something. It s 
 gone now, flown away. What were we 
 talking of ? Oh, you. " 
 
 "Brockton, I am sorry. I am very 
 sorry." 
 
 294
 
 "You can t be half sorry enough for a poor 
 devil like me. If you only knew 
 
 If you only knew. We have each of us 
 our trouble. We must fight it out alone. 
 And the Great God understands." 
 
 "There is no hope for me?" 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 "You mean it?" 
 
 "Yes, good-bye." 
 
 "By George, then, I was bad enough 
 before, but I ll be worse now. There s 
 nothing left to live for. What rot it all is ! " 
 
 He dug his stick into the ground with 
 an ugly oath, and watched Yvonne s little 
 figure, as she walked away down the street, 
 carrying her brown paper parcel. 
 
 295
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 JANGLING VOICES 
 
 He sat alone in his chamber, and heard 
 jangling voices. 
 
 "You are doing no wrong to visit her," 
 cried One. "You are interested in her wel 
 fare. She needs your friendship." 
 
 "You are more than interested," said the 
 Other. "You should leave London and not 
 see her again. 
 
 "That would be an admission of cow 
 ardice," said the One. "Stay and follow 
 your own innocent fancy. The time will 
 come soon enough when duty will command 
 you. You are sick. You need the relaxation. " 
 
 "Nothing can require a moral relaxation, " 
 said the Other. "The more you give way 
 to it the stronger this passion will become. 
 You know it is not a true, right love. You 
 are bound to another. Think of her. 
 
 "She is far away. She will never know. 
 And if she should know, she would not be 
 troubled. Yvonne is her friend, too." 
 
 "What are you wasting your time and 
 297
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 your heart-beats for? Nothing. She cares 
 no more for you than for the fellow-actors 
 with whom she plays at love and hate. 
 When all is said and done, what have you? 
 Indifference here, contempt there and 
 remorse in your own heart. 
 
 Daily Sin and Conscience fought this 
 battle, and the man within whom Sin and 
 Conscience do daily battle becomes worn 
 with eternal hearing of their jangling voices. 
 
 "End it all and write to Helen," said the 
 Other. 
 
 Willoughby took up his pen. 
 
 "My dearest," it wrote. 
 
 "What beautiful sincerity!" sneered the 
 One. 
 
 Willoughby threw down his pen. I can 
 not write to her, he savagely said. 
 
 "To write to her as I have been doing is 
 falsehood. 
 
 "Ah, then you know you are false," the 
 jangling voices began again. 
 
 " Admit it, " quickly interrupted the One. 
 "Many men have been so. You might be 
 much worse than to be false. 
 
 "But why need it be false? You have 
 simply found your mistake. Better now 
 than afterwards. More merciful for both 
 298
 
 JANGLING VOICES 
 
 you and Helen. Win Yvonne. Helen 
 would not wish the semblance of your love 
 without the reality. You are only just to 
 her in following your own heart." 
 
 False, false, false ! And so the jangling 
 voices went on. 
 
 Far away in a western city Helen Van 
 Eyck sat before her desk. 
 
 "It is two weeks that I have not heard 
 from him, she was saying to herself. 
 
 Yvonne s letter lay before her on her 
 desk. The thought of her own unanswered 
 one to Pierce lay heavy on her heart. For 
 the twentieth time that day she took the 
 calendar in her hand and counted off the 
 days since her letter had been posted. For 
 the twentieth time that day she came to the 
 same conclusion. His copy came to the 
 office with unfailing regularity. And he 
 had seen Yvonne ! 
 
 Her love and her pride fought with each 
 other. Her nature was the kind that can 
 not endure uncertainties. It must have 
 finality. Stronger than most women in 
 bearing the irrevocable, she was weaker than 
 many in enduring suspense. She loved 
 Willoughby, but her strong will made her 
 heart renounce its hope. She still believed 
 299
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 in him too much not to love him. She still 
 loved him too much to be bitter. But she 
 determined to write a letter to him which 
 should release him from his engagement. 
 
 There could be but one reason for his 
 silence. He had met Yvonne. His love 
 for her had returned. Doubtful how to 
 unravel the complication, honesty keeps him 
 silent both to her and Yvonne. Helen did 
 not blame him at all ; rather herself that she 
 had accepted him, knowing his past love for 
 Yvonne. 
 
 This was the letter she wrote : 
 
 "My Dear Pierce: 
 
 "In our absence from each other of the 
 last few months, we have perhaps learned 
 to know our own hearts better. 
 
 "I sometimes think that a lifelong union 
 needs a lifelong preparation. However that 
 may be, I have decided that our engagement 
 was a mistake. Much as I honor you and 
 esteem you " 
 
 Helen set her teeth as she wrote this, and 
 after she had written it she laid her head 
 down upon the table and sobbed. 
 
 " 1 cannot marry you. It is foolish to 
 
 ask or to offer reasons for a decision like 
 
 this. The decision alone is reason enough. 
 
 I know that you are both generous and 
 
 300
 
 JANGLING VOICES 
 
 wise, and will ask neither for explanation 
 nor change. There can be none of either. 
 "But I shall remain always, 
 "Your friend, 
 
 "Helen Van Eyck." 
 
 She read the letter over with dry, burning 
 eyes. 
 
 "When he has this," she said, "he will not 
 blame himself any more. Of course I could 
 not pretend that I still thought he loved me. 
 But he will think that the misunderstanding 
 and mistake have been mutual and he will 
 be happy. 
 
 Then: "Oh, Pierce, Pierce!" she moaned. 
 
 Perhaps the thought came to her, as it will 
 again and again to loving women, that her 
 recreant lover might, after all, return 
 
 After a while she lifted her head from her 
 desk and wrote another letter, different from 
 the previous one. But when she had com 
 pleted it, she tore it up and sent the first. 
 
 Then she took from her drawer a packet of 
 Willoughby s letters. Very dear they had 
 been to her. Every page and every line 
 had brought joy. 
 
 Her lips twitched. 
 
 "I mustn t have these things lying 
 around, she said. 
 
 301
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG - FLOWERS 
 
 She crumpled them, one by one, in her 
 hands, and threw them into the empty grate. 
 She wondered at herself for the trouble she 
 was taking. 
 
 "Quite as if I were building a fire," she 
 said ironically, as she touched the match. 
 
 The papers writhed and curled as the 
 flames crept round them. They huddled 
 together or recoiled as the light gusts from 
 the chimney chased them. They seemed to 
 be shuddering at their own fate. One par 
 ticular sheet Helen watched. It had a will 
 of its own and fought the enemy heroically. 
 Slowly they encroached upon its fairness. 
 They licked away with their red tongues the 
 written lines that picketed its territory. 
 Now the heap of papers below it fell into 
 charred, glossy scraps. On the blackened 
 leaf that Helen watched one patch of white 
 ness remained. Leaning over, she could 
 read the words: "I am eagerly waiting " 
 She put out her hand to rescue it, but a 
 little leaping scorpion frustrated her purpose. 
 There was nothing else left to satisfy the 
 fire. Fire and letter perished together. 
 The black ashes quivered in the grate. 
 
 "In a moment they will be as quiet as I," 
 said Helen. 
 
 302
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WILLOUGHBY MAKES A PROMISE 
 
 Willoughby stood by the fireplace, finger 
 ing a china dog with a blase" expression that 
 stood on the mantel. It wore a cynical smile 
 about its flat, painted lips. Yvonne sat at 
 the center-table, her elbows resting on the 
 olive-green felt cover. She looked up at 
 Willoughby. 
 
 "You have been so kind, so very kind to 
 me," she said, pensively. 
 
 "I have not been kind. I should have 
 been glad if I could have done more, much 
 more." 
 
 Willoughby was restraining himself with 
 difficulty. He had purposely put the center- 
 table between himself and Yvonne. 
 
 "And now you are come to say good-bye, 
 and it may be another long space of years 
 before I see you again," said Yvonne, with 
 a quiver of the lip. 
 
 Willoughby looked away from her to the 
 china dog, which leered at him unpleasantly. 
 All the protective instinct in him was stirred 
 303
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 by Yvonne s homesick sadness. If he had 
 found her a successful actress, encompassed 
 by the graces of life, he would have had less 
 temptation. But, in the sordid parlor, 
 alone, unbefriended, Yvonne, with the 
 quivering lip and the wistful gaze! It 
 was more than his human nature could 
 resist. 
 
 Yvonne had dropped her head down 
 between her arms. A flood of memories 
 came to her of the time when Willoughby 
 had first known her and before yes, long 
 before that, when she was little and had sat 
 with Poleon at the foot of the great pine- 
 tree. With her face hidden from him on the 
 table, she was crying. And Willoughby 
 stood above her. His hands hovered over 
 her head. 
 
 "My little girl," he said. 
 
 His voice was a caress. 
 
 Perhaps Yvonne did not hear him. She 
 looked up with a smile. The tears still 
 stood in her eyes. 
 
 "I do not want you to go yet. You are 
 leaving before my great day. You are leav 
 ing before the tenth. 
 
 "And what is to happen on the tenth?" 
 
 "The crown of all things, the flower of 
 304
 
 WILLOUGHBY MAKES A PROMISE 
 
 life. It is my Great Day. You will wait 
 till then, Pierce?" 
 
 Willoughby could not but smile back at 
 ner. She was so like a happy child, whose 
 soul swells with a secret. 
 
 "You want me to stay very much, very 
 much indeed?" He felt the ground give 
 beneath his feet. He had been so sure of 
 himself when he had turned off Tottenham 
 Court Road, and now, where was he? 
 
 "Ah, yes, very much indeed. You will 
 promise me?" 
 
 Willoughby was standing by the mantel 
 piece again, and the hand which toyed with 
 the china dog trembled. The china dog s 
 long, painted lips were insolently knowing 
 when Willoughby answered: 
 
 "Yes, Yvonne. I will promise." 
 
 Eliza Blodgett, entering at that moment, 
 startled Willoughby. The china dog fell 
 from his hand and crashed on the tiles of the 
 narrow hearth. 
 
 "I a most feel like as if I ad lost a blood- 
 relation, said Eliza, brushing up the pieces 
 after Willoughby had gone out. "The 
 gentleman said ow e d bring^meh another, 
 but h another couldn t fill the place of Splop. 
 E was named h after Splop, my sister s 
 305
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 bull-terrier; e was a fat and lazy critter, 
 but ad that wise look about is eyes an 
 mouth as was remarkable." 
 
 Richard Oglethorpe, Tom Barry and 
 Pierce Willoughby were dining together at 
 the Club. 
 
 "To-morrow is Yvonne s Great Day," 
 said Barry, smiling at Oglethorpe. 
 
 Willoughby started. In fact, his nerves 
 had been very shaky, of late. He did not 
 look like a man who was enjoying a well- 
 earned vacation. His face was thinner than 
 when he had come to London, and his eyes 
 were no longer fearless. 
 
 "It s out in the evening papers by this 
 time, so we were to tell you at dinner," said 
 Barry to Willoughby. 
 
 Then Oglethorpe went on to explain that 
 he had been writing a play for Miss 
 Brusseau. It was the dramatization of an 
 old Algonquin legend that had been pre 
 served by the French habitans in remote dis 
 tricts of Lower Canada. 
 
 "They believe in a sort of witch who 
 haunts their streams. They call her La 
 Jongleuse, or the Lady of the Flag- Flowers. 
 The heroine of the drama is a girl who plays 
 the witch at times and finally, in this guise, 
 306
 
 WILLOUGHBY MAKES A PROMISE 
 
 frightens away her peasant-lover. A French 
 officer comes adventuring about, and she 
 runs off with him. She is afterward visited 
 by Nemesis in the shape of the real Jon- 
 gleuse, who appears to her, and she falls 
 dead. 
 
 "I do not know what the critics will say 
 to the supernatural element I have worked 
 in, but the scenic effect will be great. It s 
 rather an emotional piece, but I think Miss 
 Brusseau capital for that eerie will-o -the- 
 wispish sort of thing, don t you?" 
 
 "Perhaps. I hope so," Barry returned, 
 doubtfully. "She will succeed there if it s 
 in her to succeed at all. You see, Mr. 
 Willoughby, this has been written expressly 
 for her, and gives an opportunity for all that 
 fine, delicate, sprightly sort of work in 
 which she s at her best. Folk-songs, dances, 
 and all that. You know, Oglethorpe, I 
 really think the girl has great talent if she 
 can only work it out. She has never once 
 seemed fairly pulled off. 
 
 "This setting takes her back, then, to a 
 familiar atmosphere, and you think she will 
 find herself there?" queried Willoughby. 
 
 "Quite so," answered the actor. "lam 
 immensely interested in the outcome. I m 
 307
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 sorry she s not backed by a better company, 
 and hasn t a more progressive management. 
 But genius will ovecome a great deal. I ve 
 done the best I could for her. And really, 
 it s her final venture. Her whole career, 
 you might say, is at stake. 
 
 Poor little Yvonne! So this was her 
 Great Day ! She herself could not have been 
 more harassed by excitement than Will- 
 oughby was, over the coming crisis. 
 
 "It s been a fancy of hers to keep it out of 
 the papers and from every one but those 
 immediately concerned," Barry went on. 
 "That s why it wasn t announced before." 
 
 "Isn t that rather too bad?" questioned 
 Willoughby. "Doesn t the advertising go 
 a great way?" 
 
 "I think it doesn t matter," replied Barry. 
 "If it s a fiasco, the less said the better. If 
 not, we will put some red-hot stuff, as you 
 Americans say, into the papers, and make 
 it go." 
 
 "What do you call the play?" asked 
 Willoughby of Oglethorpe. 
 
 "The Lady of the Flag-Flowers. I 
 
 rather think the French has a weirder 
 
 sound, don t you la Dame aux Glaieuls? 
 
 By the way, Barry, how did the last re- 
 
 308
 
 WILLOUGHBY MAKES A PROMISE 
 
 hearsal come off? I was sorry I couldn t be 
 there." 
 
 Barry hesitated. 
 
 "Like fireworks," he said. "Intermit 
 tently, splashes of light and then darkness. 
 A rocket-streak and then a stick." 
 
 Willoughby was invited to join the Barrys 
 and Oglethorpe in their box for the opening 
 night. 
 
 "She has been keeping it a secret espe 
 cially from you," said Barry. "You know 
 something, I believe, of the original set 
 ting." 
 
 309
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 YVONNE S GREAT DAY 
 
 The hours dragged themselves along, the 
 next day, till evening came. 
 
 Tom Barry, Mrs. Barry, a stately lady, an 
 actress of the old school, and Willoughby, 
 stopped with their four-wheeler at Eliza 
 Blodgett s for Yvonne. 
 
 "It s h all in your mind," said Eliza to 
 Yvonne, as she put a cloak around her, "it s 
 h all in your mind, w ether you wins the 
 game or not. It s the plucky eart that 
 comes in the winning mare, as Currant, e 
 says." 
 
 "Think what it means, Eliza dear," 
 Yvonne s soft voice was thick with excite 
 ment, "if the people like me to-night." 
 
 "It s money in your pocket, p unds and 
 shillin s, that s w at it is." 
 
 "It s more than that. It s my soul in 
 heaven," Yvonne answered, huskily. 
 
 The four people drove along in silence for 
 some time. Yvonne was first to break the 
 silence. 
 
 311
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "My friends," she said, "they all come 
 back to me to-night, those twilight places; 
 the pointed firs, the white mist creeping 
 over the water, the white-moss swamp where 
 I used to dread her La Jongleuse. " 
 
 She shivered slightly. They wondered at 
 her mood, whether it were part of her acting 
 or not. As the carriage rattled across the 
 brilliance of Oxford Street and down the 
 narrow darkness of Drury Lane, she put her 
 hand over into Mrs. Barry s. 
 
 "I feel afraid," she said. "I can see Her 
 now. She has such cold eyes. Her hair is 
 so long. She steps so softly in the dark 
 ness ! 
 
 Willoughby, far withdrawn into himself, 
 heard her words as if they came from an 
 unknown country. He was trembling, too. 
 Vague memories and regrets and the 
 Shadow of Remorse, clustered round him. 
 
 They stepped out into the glare of light 
 before The Druid. 
 
 Willoughby was at the keenest pitch of 
 excitement. He could hardly wait for the 
 curtain to roll up. When it did, it disclosed 
 an English scene-painter s notion of Canada. 
 It was rather German than otherwise, with a 
 rushing stream in the background and pine- 
 312
 
 YVONNE S GREAT DAY 
 
 clad hills against the sky very blue and 
 curly as to stream, and very green and 
 peaky as to hills. A Swiss chalet at 
 the right stood for a habitan s cottage. 
 Tinkle of cow-bells is heard, and Anaide s 
 father and mother appear, engaged in the 
 conventionar"gesticulatory peasant couple s 
 conversation."^ Well and good so far. There 
 is a ripple of laughter from the lane toward 
 the left. Anaide rushes in, still laughing. 
 It is Yvonne. She wears the red knit 
 bodice and the dark blue skirt of the Bois- 
 des-Erables. Willoughby catches his breath 
 and looks. Yes, it is the same. Her black 
 hair hangs in two braids. In one hand she 
 swings a queer, ruffled white hat. She still 
 laughs. She tries to explain to her parents. 
 She cannot for laughter. 
 
 Then the audience breaks into laughter 
 and applause. Yvonne has scored her first 
 hit. Willoughby was the only one in the 
 house who had not laughed. 
 
 In comes Jean, the peasant lover. His 
 red woolen cap is comically awry. His eyes 
 are big with fright. The scene goes on. 
 Anaide is here, there and everywhere. She 
 is a sprite, an Undine. The audience are 
 delighted. 
 
 313
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 The old folks have gone in now. Anaide 
 seizes clumsy Jean by the wrist and induces 
 him to try a little sauterie. 
 
 Then she sings. It is the "Sautez, 
 mignonne, Cecilia," the little chanson that 
 first charmed Barry in the Park. 
 
 "Ma mignonette, embrassez-moi. 
 Nenni, Monsieur, je n oserais " 
 
 Yvonne s voice lilted upward like a 
 meadow-lark s. The freshness of it, the 
 naivete, her fawn-like timidity, were like a 
 glimpse of the Golden Age to the world- 
 weary men and women who saw her. For 
 once, Yvonne had found herself in her art. 
 
 "Nenni, Monsieur, je n oserais, 
 Car si papan le savait, 
 
 Sautez, mignonne, Cecilia 
 Ah, ah, Cecilia." 
 
 The quality of youth in her voice was 
 irresistible. The pathos of her innocence 
 misted the eyes of many a hardened theater 
 goer. 
 
 "Les oiseaux des bois, parlent-ils? 
 Us parl nt francais, latin aussi." 
 
 What a dear, trustful child it is !
 
 YVONNE S GREAT DAY 
 
 "Us parl nt franc, ais, latin aussi. 
 Helas ! que le monde est malin. 
 D apprendre aux oiseaux le latin." 
 
 Even Willoughby forgot for the moment 
 the botched-up setting. Hill and stream 
 were bathed in reality. It seemed the 
 morning mists were on them. The Nor 
 mandy song, with its quaint patois, the 
 vivid grace of the little peasant girl, were a 
 revelation to the spectators. The curtain 
 went down on an enraptured audience. 
 
 Barry and Oglethorpe were shaking hands 
 with each other and exchanging congratula 
 tions. 
 
 "She s a shower of sparks to-night," 
 exclaimed Barry, beaming on Oglethorpe. 
 "In perfect form! No one could have taken 
 it better." 
 
 "I didn t know myself I d done so good 
 a piece of work," exclaimed Oglethorpe, 
 beaming on Barry. 
 
 "You humbug!" Barry returned, genially. 
 
 The party were finding their way to the 
 green-room to applaud the little actress in 
 person. 
 
 "There is only one thing to make it com 
 plete," whispered Yvonne to Willoughby. 
 315
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "I wish my cousin Poison could see me 
 to-night." 
 
 Willoughby, as he went out, thought he 
 recognized a familiar face by the door, a 
 man to whom the attendants were denying 
 admittance. He seemed to be somewhat the 
 worse for liquor, and was laboring under 
 great excitement. When he took his seat in 
 the box again Pierce recalled the face as 
 that of Brockton Van Eyck. 
 
 The play went on. Anaide is the lady 
 now, the darling of a French chevalier. She 
 has been taken to France, and little dream 
 ing that she is mistress and not wife, delights 
 her lover in the seclusion of a hidden bower. 
 The chateau-hall on the stage was harmoni 
 ously set out. Flaring logs in the deep fire 
 place touch with red the carved figures on 
 the high-backed oaken settle, and gleam on 
 the crossed swords above the prie-dieu 
 chair. Candle-flames, like white tapering 
 flowers, in their brazen sconces, fleck the 
 darkness of tapestried walls. A great 
 golden harp is dimly lustrous against one 
 corner. The polished floor reflects the 
 various lights like black ice on a starry even 
 ing. Now the master of the house enters, 
 debonair and courtly, his glossy curls falling 
 316
 
 YVONNE S GREAT DAY 
 
 over the careless grace of a crimson mantle. 
 He seats himself in his high, carven chair. 
 His greyhound is at his feet, slender head 
 between outstretched paws and watchful 
 eyes on the crackling logs. The Count lays 
 his plumed hat on the ebony table, beside 
 the silver loving-cup with convolute han 
 dles. His white hands on his velvet lap are 
 delicate as cameos. He looks toward the 
 stairway, waiting for the lady Anaide. Her 
 voice floats ahead of her in a fairy gossamer 
 of song : 
 
 "Quand j etais chez mon pere, 
 Gai, vive le roi. " 
 
 Slowly she comes down the sweeping 
 curve of the chateau-stair. Like one to the 
 manorborn she walks. The trail of her 
 skirts is epic. The poise of her head is 
 poetry. Her bare, slender shoulders curve 
 like a lily out of the leafy greenness of her 
 shining gown. 
 
 "Superb!" murmured Oglethorpe. "One 
 would think there were centuries behind 
 her." 
 
 "Wait till La Jongleuse appears," Barry 
 whispered, forgetting his doubts of the day 
 before. "That will be a creation." 
 31?
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Willoughby was not in the box, nor was 
 he on earth. Somewhere in space he floated 
 on a new planet. 
 
 "Quand j etais chez mon pere, 
 Gai, vive le roi, 
 
 sings Anaide, descending. 
 
 The Count has sprung forward to greet 
 her, when he is stopped by a sudden com 
 motion at the outer door. It is thrown open 
 by a messenger, booted and spurred. 
 
 "Madame the Countess," he announces. 
 
 Tall, imperious, the forgotten wife 
 enters. Her blue eyes glance keenly about 
 the hall, from her husband in his transfixed 
 attitude, to the flower-like figure beside the 
 baluster. 
 
 Yvonne pauses one perfect moment on the 
 last tread of the stately stair, the song 
 hushed on her lips, a gazelle s question in 
 her black eyes. No one has yet spoken a 
 word. It is so still in the house one might 
 hear a ribbon fall, when a man s voice from 
 the twilight of the pit cries out : 
 
 "Mon Dieu, c est ma petite Yvonne." 
 
 The sharp report of a pistol follows. 
 Yvonne flings out one arm and has fallen on 
 the polished floor. The candle, from its 
 318
 
 YVONNE S GREAT DAY 
 
 sconce, falls too, struck by her out-flung- 
 hand. The green shimmer of her twisted 
 skirts is like April sunshine on the black 
 floor. 
 
 It was all so quick and so silent that people 
 hardly knew what it meant till they saw the 
 curtain drop. Then they realized that an 
 accident had happened. 
 
 319
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HELEN S LETTER 
 
 "Did I dream that I heard my cousin s 
 voice?" 
 
 The question seemed to cost her an effort. 
 
 Poor Poison ! My brave cousin ! If he 
 had come these many, many miles to look 
 for me! But I was going to him, was I not? 
 Did I not tell you, Eliza, that if my Great 
 Day was good to me, then, after a while, I 
 could go to Poison? For it takes much 
 money to go so far, so very far, and one must 
 carry remembrances back to one s family." 
 
 Yvonne looked pitifully child-like as she 
 lay there on the pillow. 
 
 "Dear Yvonne," said Pierce, "you will be 
 strong again and may return to Vallette, if 
 you wish it. We will take you there. 
 
 "I was doing well, was I not? I knew I 
 was doing well. I was happy. My Great 
 Day had come, but I had not yet shown 
 them all I could do. And then, and then 
 this. Why should one have wished to hurt 
 me?" 
 
 321
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 1 He was, I think, not in his right mind, 
 Willoughby answered, slowly. "He did not, 
 himself, know what he did. 
 
 He mercifully kept from her the name of 
 the man who had been arrested. 
 
 "If I were a saint this would be called a 
 trial, would it not?" said Yvonne. "When 
 I was little, at the Convent, Sister Angeline 
 taught me about the trials of the blessed 
 saints. They were so very difficult to 
 understand. You do not know, Pierce, do 
 you, how difficult it is to understand? Last 
 night I was just beginning to understand, 
 and now it is all dark again." 
 
 "It s trying to the h eyes to av much light 
 when you lays in bed that way, said Eliza. 
 "I kep it shaded in here a-purpose. " 
 
 Richard Oglethorpe came in that morning 
 to inquire after Yvonne. He brought Will 
 oughby s mail from the Club. The top 
 letter on the pile, as Willoughby laid them 
 on the table, was Helen s. Yvonne s face 
 brightened. 
 
 "It is from Helen, Pierce. I know her 
 writing. 
 
 Willoughby s heart smote him, but he 
 made no answer. 
 
 "And Helen writes to you, and has not 
 322
 
 HELEN S LETTER 
 
 answered my letter at all. Read it, Pierce. 
 Perhaps she sends some message to me. 
 
 "Not now, Yvonne." 
 
 "Yes, yes, now," insisted she, with the 
 privileged petulance of the sick. 
 
 Then she noticed Willoughby s face. 
 
 "There is something you are keeping 
 from me, she exclaimed, weakly, but with 
 that dramatic intonation so natural to her, 
 "something I ought to know." 
 
 Willoughby opened his letter and read it. 
 He read it again. He scarcely grasped its 
 meaning. Released! Helen released him! 
 And he was to ask no reason. But the mes 
 sage did not lift the weight from his heart. 
 
 "She, too, then, has found the pledge 
 burdensome she, too!" 
 
 He had taken those words of hers at their 
 face-value. They were no better to him 
 than ink, but she had written them in blood. 
 
 "Let me see it." 
 
 Yvonne s voice aroused him from his 
 stupor. She had been watching him 
 intently. 
 
 "I will let it tell its own story," he 
 thought. "She would have to know in the 
 end." 
 
 Without a word he handed her the letter. 
 323
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 She read it and laid it on the bed beside 
 her. 
 
 "In answer to something from you?" 
 
 The note of inquisition in her voice was 
 accompanied by a curious effect of great 
 self-restraint. 
 
 "To nothing from me," answered Will- 
 oughby. 
 
 "Since ?" The self-restraint was 
 
 greater. 
 
 "Since I saw you." 
 
 There was tense silence. 
 
 "But it seems," said Willoughby, con 
 fusedly, "that Helen also had misunderstood 
 her heart. 
 
 "Helen had misunderstood!" 
 
 The thin walls of self-restraint crumbled 
 away. Yvonne s scornful voice pierced 
 them through. 
 
 "Have you not read her letter? Blind, 
 blind! And you have thrown away that 
 love for me." 
 
 She turned her face away from him and 
 closed her eyes. 
 
 "You want me to go," said Willoughby, 
 brokenly. "You will never wish to see me 
 again. 
 
 Yvonne did not stir or speak. 
 324
 
 HELEN S LETTER 
 
 "There s two queer ones h outside 
 h inquiring for Miss Yvonne," said Eliza 
 Blodgett, tiptoeing in and speaking to Will- 
 oughby in a sick-room whisper. 
 
 "Did they give their names?" 
 
 "They spoke some sort of gibberidge 
 w ich I couldn make out. Perhaps they re 
 not right i the ead, for they couldn t 
 h understand my h English, neither. One 
 of them has a sort o pumpkin skin an 
 h eyes that looks clean through you. 
 T other one is a priest, I take it, with the 
 black skirts to is coat and the cross e wears 
 on im. I stood em in the all, till I should 
 h ask you." 
 
 Willoughby went out and saw in the hall 
 Pole on Gros-Louys and the Abbe St. Glair. 
 
 325
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DERELICT 
 
 When the derelict, the prey of wind and 
 wave for many a year, floats up against the 
 noble ship that has just foundered on a rock, 
 what will they say to each other? 
 
 Pierce Willoughby sat with Brockton Van 
 Eyck in his prison cell. 
 
 Willoughby had read that afternoon before 
 the Gracchian Club a paper called "The 
 Reformer and the Outcast." It had been 
 promised months before. He had made a 
 powerful appeal to society to gather in the 
 outcasts by making them feel that the world 
 was fellow-sharer with them of their guilt 
 and suffering. 
 
 When he first met Van Eyck his hand- 
 grasp had been hearty, but he could not 
 keep the alien look out of his eyes. He saw 
 two men sitting side by side. One was the 
 Van Eyck of years ago, of the Fen tons 
 dinner-table, the finished product of Ameri 
 can idlesse, with his languid satire, his Eng 
 lish slang, clever by imitation, a gentleman 
 327
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 by inheritance. There is a pink flush under 
 the coolly-staring eyes and a nerveless droop 
 at the corners of the clean-shaven lips. 
 But so carefully groomed is he from head to 
 foot that such slight traces of excess lend 
 almost an air of patrician lassitude to his 
 handsome features. 
 
 And here sits the other, with that dreadful 
 look on his face of a man who has done with 
 life and dares look neither behind nor 
 before. 
 
 The respectful clothes of years ago, guilt 
 less of wrinkle and bulge, are replaced by 
 the indulgent clothes that lashly yield to the 
 relaxed outlines of the body, hooping over 
 the sunken chest and creasing around the 
 flaccid waist. 
 
 Swollen eyelids droop over wandering eyes 
 and a dark mustache shades the flabby lips. 
 
 Willoughby had wished to come as a 
 friend and helper, but he underwent a 
 physical and moral revulsion in the presence 
 of such degeneracy. That Yvonne should 
 suffer at the hands of him seemed intoler 
 able. 
 
 What he had planned to say, wise words 
 of cheer and counsel, slipped from him. 
 When one s will is at war with one s feelings 
 328
 
 THE DERELICT 
 
 the result is often a vacuum. Therefore he 
 sat silent, seemingly on the point of speech, 
 with a curiously pained look in his blue eyes 
 and his mouth sterner than usual. 
 
 His silence stung Brockton to reckless 
 utterance. 
 
 "I don t care a rap what they do with 
 me." He flung one leg over the other and 
 thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. 
 "It s a bad world; better out of it than in. " 
 
 "For the world!" Willoughby thought, and 
 instantly scorned himself for the alien cold 
 ness which he could not conquer. 
 
 "It was myself I meant to send out no 
 one else not her. Oh, not her." 
 
 Brockton s voice quivered, and he dropped 
 the bravado. "How is she?" 
 
 Willoughby held back for a moment from 
 an answer. 
 
 The blurred eyes steadied themselves on 
 him. "She is not " 
 
 "No, no," Willoughby answered, wildly. 
 She lives. She may recover. 
 
 "You have talked with her? What does 
 she say? Does she know ?" 
 
 "She knows nothing, of you," answered 
 Willoughby, loathly. 
 
 "Thank heaven!" 
 
 329
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 The tears coursed down his cheeks. "I 
 I loved her, Willoughby. She could have 
 made anything of me." 
 
 He drew himself up with a phantasma 
 goric show at manliness. 
 
 "I would not have hurt a hair of her head. 
 I would have stood up for her against the 
 world, by God, I would." 
 
 The maudlin tears fell again. 
 
 "I can t tell what I do at times. I m a 
 staring idiot or the whole world s a staring- 
 idiot." 
 
 He leaned forward and whispered 
 hoarsely into Willoughby s face. 
 
 "I hardly knew what happened that night. 
 I took my pistol out, I thought I did. I 
 don t know what I did with it. The sight of 
 her drove me wild. Then I heard the shot. 
 I didn t know I had shot till they gathered 
 round and cursed me. My eyes play the 
 mischief with me. But I didn t care if they 
 dragged me off. Curse you, you bloomin 
 fools." 
 
 "Why can I not say a word?" Willoughby 
 thought. "Why am I speechless before siich 
 need?" 
 
 "Hypocrite," his conscience suddenly 
 accused him. "You are stooping down as if 
 330
 
 THE DERELICT 
 
 from a height, when you should stand face 
 to face with this man. You, fallen too, like 
 him." 
 
 Pierce roused himself to speak, hushing 
 the voice that snarled at him within. 
 
 Do not think of the past. Think of what 
 you yet may be. God has given us that 
 great gift, the future. We can build up 
 again what has fallen down. 
 
 His voice rang hollowly in his own ears. 
 
 "D the future," exclaimed Brockton, 
 
 with an oath. "It s what I m always 
 thinking about. It s hideous. " 
 
 "God!" cried Willoughby. He dropped 
 on his knees beside the window; his fore 
 head touched the bars. 
 
 The keeper who sat outside the door 
 watched him woodenly. 
 
 His own Future came before him then, a 
 ghastly apparition. She stood with a sneer 
 upon her lips, pointing at Helen, straight 
 brows severely drawn over gray eyes of 
 reproach; at Yvonne, with her face turned 
 toward the wall. Behind his Future stood 
 Public Reform, a noble figure of immaculate 
 mien; on the other side crouched Private 
 Dishonor. And the faces of both were his 
 own. 
 
 33i
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Pray!" said Brockton. "You are a 
 good man. Pray, quick. 
 
 He propped himself up upright on the 
 pallet, his two arms rigid by his side, his 
 clenched hands indenting the mattress, as 
 he pressed his weight upon them. 
 
 "I cannot," said Willoughby, curtly. "I 
 am guiltier than you. " 
 
 He still knelt, having no thought but of 
 his own degradation. 
 
 "You have not been false to a true 
 woman. I have. You have not paraded 
 before men. I have. You have not 
 deceived yourself. I have. " 
 
 Drily, without a trace of sentiment in his 
 voice, he spoke. He was strangely 
 unmoved. But he still knelt. 
 
 Then some one prayed, not Willoughby. 
 Van Eyck, who had never prayed before, 
 spoke to his Maker. He spoke of himself as 
 if he had been another. He spoke to God 
 as if God had been a man. He did not 
 know that he spoke aloud. 
 
 "God, you gave him your terrible gift of 
 too much. They were all his, once, and 
 more, all that a man craves and more. He 
 took from your hands and was not satisfied. 
 
 "God, you starved him with satiety, you 
 332
 
 THE DERELICT 
 
 impoverished him with abundance. In the 
 blaze of the sun the soul wilted. With the 
 never-ceasing showers the roots rotted away. 
 There is no longer room for him in the 
 garden. Pull up the exhausted plant and 
 toss it away. God, I beseech you, forget 
 him utterly!" 
 
 The deep silence that falls between two 
 persons fell between these two. It was 
 deeper than the silence of solitude. The 
 Devil listened, not understanding the 
 prayer. For it was his prayer, "God, for 
 get him utterly. 
 
 And one of the prayers ascended to heaven. 
 
 Van Eyck, sitting tipright on his bed, 
 with unbuttoned vest and damp hair matted 
 on his forehead, drew a long sigh. "To be 
 forgotten!" That was the goal of his 
 desires. What a pitiful period to the manu 
 script of life! That all one s strivings 
 should come just to this! To be blotted off 
 the slate! 
 
 The darkness settled round him in the 
 cell. The street sent up an inarticulate 
 murmur. 
 
 Willoughby s head, as he knelt in front 
 of the window, caught the fading streaks of 
 light from the iron-barred sky. 
 
 333
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 The prayer went on. The man on the 
 pallet listened now. 
 
 "Thou God, who makest the grass to fade, 
 who pluckest up the strong tree by the roots 
 that it perishes utterly, merciful God, who 
 scatterest the seeds abroad, that the dead 
 plants live an hundred-fold, pluck from this 
 poor withered stem its seed of life and plant 
 it in fruitful soil. Merciful Creator, water it 
 with thy Goodness and cause thy sun to 
 shine upon it, that it may grow again to be 
 fair and strong. 
 
 "Son of God, we have sinned, we have 
 sinned. Not for honor, not for hope, not 
 for love, do we beg. Not for life we have 
 lost. But that we may enter thy kingdom 
 with Salvation writ on our foreheads. 
 Lamb of God, that washest away the sins of 
 the world, grant us thy Peace." 
 
 "Time s up," said the warden, knocking 
 on the door. 
 
 Willoughby took Brockton s hand. His 
 Saxon instinct made him commonplace 
 again. 
 
 "Thank you," he said. 
 
 But he had no response. The man s 
 ringers were limp in his grasp. Willoughby 
 looked closer and a vacant stare met his 
 
 334
 
 THE DERELICT 
 
 gaze, an unseeing stare from the bloodshot 
 light-brown eyes. 
 
 "Something will come to her on the 
 tenth," Van Eyck was muttering. "She 
 will be happy at last at last. 
 
 335
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CALLING 
 
 There is no place in the world so quiver 
 ing with high-strung intensity as a great 
 railway station. The air is palpitant with a 
 thousand decisions and undecisions. Not 
 the lobby of the House before the reading of 
 a capitalist s bill, not a down-town hotel on 
 the eve of a general election, not a news 
 paper office before going to press, not even 
 the corridor of a woman s college at com 
 mencement time, can show a tithe of the 
 taut and screaming electricity that tingles 
 through one s blood in a railway station just 
 before an overland train pulls out on its 
 momentous journey. 
 
 Three men had passed under the grim 
 castellated entrance of Euston, and were 
 waiting for the Midland Express. Only one 
 of the three was unmoved by the babel 
 around them, and he was the one who had 
 never before seen its like. The crimson- 
 painted engine slid round the curve and 
 stood waiting before the platform. An 
 337
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 army of porters and passengers ran hither 
 and thither. Boxes and portmanteaus were 
 piled in inextricable confusion. People ran 
 helplessly back and forth from coach to 
 coach. The bell began to toll dreadfully. 
 The glaring engine puffed slowly forward. 
 The last belated traveler was forbidden 
 right of way by a Rhadamanthine officer. 
 Puff, screech, groan; thud, thud, thud, the 
 Midland Express was fairly off, watched 
 by admiring eyes of station loungers and 
 employe s. Calm reigned out of chaos, a 
 calm that by contrast seemed a negation of 
 life. 
 
 The Abbe St. Clair read absorbedly by 
 the coach window. Poison and Willoughby, 
 opposite, talked. 
 
 A common love and a common sorrow had 
 brought these two natures together. Dis 
 similar almost as if born on different 
 planets, they had each understood the other 
 from the moment of the colloquy in Eliza 
 Blodgett s hall. No jealousy, no rivalry, 
 marred the perfect understanding. For two 
 enemies may clasp hands on the battle-field 
 at evening. 
 
 They talked, but they did not converse. 
 An Indian does not converse. Something 
 338
 
 THE CALLING 
 
 in his unwonted surroundings, in the fore 
 boding sense of calamity, perhaps the 
 detachment from life one experiences in the 
 onward oblivious rush of a railway train, 
 broke down Poison s reserve. He lost him 
 self in monologues. At rare intervals, when 
 Willoughby spoke, he listened without 
 seeming to listen. 
 
 "In the great northern country one is 
 alone for days. There is no sound but the 
 far howl of a wolf and the creaking of a 
 frozen bough in the bitter wind. Some 
 times there is soft stepping around the door 
 at night. But the camp-fire guards you. 
 All is white, white. One is always alone. 
 It is good to be alone. Men are not like 
 fishes to go in sliddering shoals or like 
 screaming terns to travel in black wedges or 
 like cattle to huddle together in a shed. I 
 have lived a hundred lives in a day in the 
 great north country. I go swiftly on snow- 
 shoes over the deep, deep snow/and my soul 
 walks beside me. One has to be silent 
 many days, and the forest must be great, 
 and then in the long, white hours your soul 
 will walk beside you. You can hear her soft 
 breathing like a sigh of wind in the topmost 
 plumes of a tall pine when the underwoods 
 
 339
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 are still. She is like a clear, white shadow, 
 and she says: Here am I. You are no 
 more alone. 
 
 "One must know the forest first, where 
 the moose-beds are in the big swamps and 
 where the winding streams, locked in ice; 
 where the underbrush is like a solid wall, 
 and where the open country sets in. Then, 
 on a windless night one steps out, noiseless, 
 and calls the moose. If the wind blows, 
 ever so gently, one must be to the leeward 
 of the wind, or the moose will smell you, a 
 man. A moose is wise. He has a soul as 
 large as a man s. He has knowledge. 
 Sometimes he is enchanted, the old Indians 
 say. They mean the soul of a man has 
 gone into him. When a moose with his red 
 eyes and his great antlers stands above a 
 man and stamps the life out of him with his 
 strong, iron hoofs, the life of the man goes 
 into the moose. So they say, and then he is 
 enchanted. I do not know whether this is 
 so. I have known things more wonderful. 
 
 "It was a moonlight night up by the Mis- 
 tassini River. The ground had been locked 
 for weeks, and the snow was crusted over 
 hard as glass. That day the south wind had 
 blown and the snow on the trees in the open 
 340
 
 THE CALLING 
 
 places had melted a little at noontime and 
 fallen. St. Christophe! What a night it 
 was to call the moose ! One could walk on 
 the snow like a feather on the sea. The 
 snow dropped from the branches and one 
 could move through the brush without fear. 
 On a still night even a Huron will be 
 betrayed by his noise. The south wind 
 blew the smell of me back. The moose 
 were hungry, and would be coming out to 
 feed. 
 
 "I had my rifle ready and stood behind a 
 tree. I called them. Sacre", how I called! 
 One who has heard the moose call can never 
 forget. One long note pulled out like pain, 
 and after, breaking into a hundred stars that 
 dance away alive through the forest. Then 
 you gather them all in again like darting 
 minnows in a net, all in your mouth until 
 your body is full of breath, and then your 
 soul goes out of your mouth again as white 
 and round and shining as the moon. That 
 is the moose-call. Even an enchanted 
 moose could not have doubted that call. I 
 heard them coming from the bogs. Far 
 away the branches crackled, and the snow 
 crashed once beneath the feet of a buck. 
 They are careful as a cat, and will often step 
 34i
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 as velvetly. So this was a good sign. I 
 knew I had given the call of a Gros-Louys. 
 I waited. They were coming toward me, 
 two, it might be three, and I had my rifle 
 ready. 
 
 "The moon looked down through the trees. 
 The shadows on the snow were very black. 
 Then something happened. I did not know 
 what it was, but the moose suddenly 
 stopped. They heard something which I 
 did not hear, for a moose is wiser than a 
 man. 
 
 "I listened, and I heard it, too. It was 
 not like any moose-call I had ever heard, but 
 the animals believed it. It was as if each 
 one were rushing to his mate. There was a 
 mighty crackling and crashing, and then I 
 heard them, kak, ak, k; pung, ung, ng; 
 clid, id, d. All the noise of them grew faint 
 and fainter in answer to that strange, new 
 call. 
 
 " O-dil-o-ro-han-nin. It was the voice 
 of my mate, too. My heart grew tight as I 
 heard it, and I dropped my rifle. 
 
 " O-dil-o-ro-han-nin. As faint as a star 
 
 at sunrise, deep like the eyes of a wounded 
 
 doe. Now near and now far, it sounded 
 
 through the forest by the Mistassini River. 
 
 342
 
 THE CALLING 
 
 Sometimes in the branch above my head and 
 sometimes from the moon. 
 
 "I answered the call. That is why I am 
 here." 
 
 The train was speeding through rural 
 England now, on its way to Scotland and 
 Yvonne. Little red thorpes, snug farms 
 amid their hedge-rows, rushed into and out 
 of view. 
 
 The long English twilight began to fall. 
 
 " gray twilight poured 
 
 On dewy pastures, dewy trees, 
 Softer than sleep all things in order stored, 
 A haunt of ancient Peace." 
 
 343
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AT CHATEAUHERIAULT 
 
 In the lowlands of Scotland where the 
 noble estates of Scotch baronets and English 
 peers sweep mile on mile with becoming 
 British gravity, stately forest, billowy 
 meadow and dappled lawn, crowned by dig 
 nified mansions, massive gray of stone, soft 
 ened here and there with green of ivy, amid 
 all this serious, substantial beauty,* lies the 
 rococo anachronism of Chateauheriault. 
 
 Centuries ago a nobleman of France had 
 married a daughter of Scotland, and had 
 held broad acres in both countries. When, 
 in the course of years, his French property 
 was wrested from him this Scottish home 
 stead was refashioned into the exact likeness 
 of the French chateau, once his. It was in 
 the early sixteen hundreds, when Renais 
 sance architecture and Italian gardening 
 were in vogue. The remodeled mansion 
 bore his family name and was ever afterward 
 known as Chateauheriault. 
 
 From the laughing pink and white stone 
 
 345
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 face of the turreted, towered and balconied 
 mansion the land slopes down in six ter 
 races till it can slope no longer, and falls 
 -off into the fir-shaded ravine where the 
 bracken and bluebells hang in the spray- 
 misted twilight, and, in the bottom dark 
 ness, the Maryburn, glinted with amber, 
 purls along to the Clyde. The Count 
 would stand on the stone steps of the 
 sixth terrace, so the stories run, leaning 
 over the balustrade, and look down on the 
 shadowed glen so unmitigably Scotch, 
 where the artificial lake and the swans 
 should have been, and say with a smile and 
 a shrug how it reminded him of his nearest 
 neighbor, a Scotch laird, some miles away, 
 whose conversation would begin most clas 
 sically French, and end with the broadest 
 Scotch. 
 
 He must have been a fanciful old lord, 
 this Count D Hery, for the six terraces were 
 each named for one of his six daughters, 
 Isabeau, Marie, Alixe, Heloise, Lilys and 
 Reine, and one can still trace, in the worked 
 iron of the benches, that are set into the 
 green banks, the twisted initial of each 
 name, ending with the elaborate R, in the 
 flourishy iron seat on Reine s Terrace. So, 
 346
 
 AT CHATEAUHERIAULT 
 
 at least, the story goes, and has been handed 
 down from family to family and from 
 retainer to retainer. Old Sandy, the pres 
 ent gardener, will also point to a thicket of 
 shrubs and trees that cuts off Isabeau s Ter 
 race from the rose-garden and is commonly 
 known as "The Six." He will explain to 
 you, with many twinklings of the eye and 
 strokings of the stubbly chin, how these are 
 the Six Daughters, planted originally by the 
 old lord and renewed ever since by nature 
 or art. Ilex for Isabeau ; myrtle for Marie ; 
 acacia for Alixe; hawthorn for Heloise; 
 laurel for Lilys, and the rose-tree for 
 Reine. 
 
 "They are varry bonny lasses, ye ken," 
 old Sandy says, and, indeed, nothing could 
 be more charming than the mass of roseate 
 loveliness when the Six are in bloom. 
 
 All along the stone wall that bounds the 
 terraces on one hand, climbing trees have 
 been set, quaintly flattened out in espaliers 
 against its sunny face, and between them 
 the lawless roses from the rosary beyond 
 run riot. Old-fashioned roses all, with old 
 names that seem to carry something of 
 scent and glow in their syllables ; the climb 
 ing Provence roses, a very abandon of 
 
 347
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 plump pinkness and profusion; the yellow 
 eglantine; the Ayrshire rose, climbing too, 
 but pale and scarce - petaled beside its 
 southern sister; the York and Lancaster, 
 red and white harlequin of the garden ; the 
 little Burnet roses, white, pink, and yellow; 
 and sweetest of all, the cinnamon and moss- 
 roses, with their darling buds and odor of 
 the spice-box. 
 
 At the other end the terraces are guarded 
 by a hedge of shrubbery, tree-of-heaven, 
 large-leaved and pale-flowered; althea, with 
 its great, vivid, pink blooms ; the Italian may 
 and laburnum, showering gold. Here and 
 there gateways are spaced between taller 
 trees planted apart and trained to interlace, 
 slim, glossy-leaved oleanders and mulber 
 ries, dropping their purple single berries. 
 
 The Barrys had taken Chateauheriault for 
 the season, and here, when Yvonne s illness 
 proved obstinately lingering, she herself 
 was brought. 
 
 "Scotland is not a pretty place, but the 
 h air is maybe fine," said Eliza, bidding her 
 good-bye. "They be great for porridge, 
 w ich is not so bad, but my sister as was 
 there telled me of summat they call haggis. 
 It s nasty stuff, and I doubt you could stand 
 348
 
 AT CHATEAUHERIAULT 
 
 it. Your stummick s too h English for such 
 furrin messes." 
 
 Yvonne was very happy at Chateauheri- 
 ault, happier than she had been in many 
 years. She would lie on Isabeau s Terrace 
 in the sun, propped up by pillows and 
 cushions, and watch the finger on the sun 
 dial follow the slow hours round, while Tom 
 Barry read to her melodious passages from 
 English poets. One thing alone troubled 
 her, the separation between Helen and Will- 
 oughby. A cable message had been sent 
 to bring Helen over, and Yvonne cherished 
 a solemn hope that the meeting would 
 result in their reunion, "and perhaps before 
 I die." 
 
 The last three words she had spoken 
 aloud. 
 
 "Dear child," said Barry, "that will be a 
 long time. What are you going to do 
 before you die?" 
 
 "I do not know how long a time," replied 
 Yvonne. "The days go very gently here. 
 Even one day is long. See how slowly the 
 shadow moves on the dial s face." 
 
 "Do the days seem so long, Yvonne?" 
 asked Barry, with sudden compassion. 
 
 "It is peaceful to have them long," 
 
 349
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 Yvonne answered, "for I am tired, just a 
 little tired, but I like to lie here and rest. 
 I am waiting for my friend Helen. That is 
 the only reason I should want the slow hours 
 to hurry. 
 
 When Helen came to Chateauheriault, the 
 last shadow left Yvonne s face. 
 
 "Why do you cry?" she asked, laying her 
 hand on Helen s head, beside her on the 
 pillow. 
 
 After a while, Helen was calmer. 
 
 "I understand," whispered Yvonne, "it 
 is not for me. But one who loves does not 
 need to cry. Love will bring fulfillment. 
 
 As Helen was silent, Yvonne asked, 
 timidly: "You still love him, Helen?" 
 
 " Yes, " came from Helen in a voice of rich 
 self-surrender. 
 
 "Friend of mine!" Yvonne s eyes were 
 fervid with prescience. 
 
 How much Willoughby had suffered in the 
 past weeks Helen realized when she saw 
 him. The grayer hair, the thinner face, the 
 deeper lines, the haggard eyes she could 
 have wept for pity. They clasped hands 
 gravely, Pierce with bowed head and 
 chastened look, Helen very pale, delicate 
 lips severely set to control her emotion, 
 350
 
 AT CHATEAUHERIAULT 
 
 Yvonne watched them from her window as 
 they paced up and down together, in grave 
 converse, on Isabeau s Terrace. 
 
 That evening, when all three were again 
 together, Yvonne looked from one to the 
 other. 
 
 Pierce, Helen has forgiven you, she said. 
 
 As Willoughby s eyes rested on Helen 
 they overflowed with the great repentance 
 that had followed the remorse. 
 
 "Yvonne," said Helen, breaking the si 
 lence which followed, "he and I both know 
 that it can never be. 
 
 "For I am not worthy of her, " Willoughby 
 added. 
 
 Yvonne put her hand to her side. "Mon 
 Dieu," she exclaimed, "how it hurts me!" 
 
 When the pain had passed she opened her 
 eyes and smiled. 
 
 "Pardon me, it is gone now," she said, 
 adding in a different voice, I am glad you 
 are together again with me. It is no matter 
 what you say. You do not understand, for 
 you cannot read the future." 
 
 She was smiling as if for some deep, 
 inward joy, nor did she again seem troubled 
 over anything. During the time that fol 
 lowed a blither little spirit than hers had 
 351
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 never been known. In her room, looking 
 out over the quaint flower-inlaid lawns, or in 
 her reclining-chair by the old sun-dial on 
 Isabeau s Terrace, she was like the soul of 
 spring, spring that passes, gladdening the 
 earth that it leaves. 
 
 Sandy had brought her in some of the 
 hardy little flowers that made the many- 
 colored borders around the chateau. There 
 was purple of Canterbury bells, the yellow 
 and violet of zinnias, the hoary blue of 
 mourning-bride, the fragrant orange wall 
 flowers, the pheasant s eye pink, with its 
 raggedy velvet petals, all in a gorgeous 
 bunch of variegated color, texture and form. 
 Barry read to her from the Shepheards 
 Calender: 
 
 "Bring hether the Pincke and purple 
 Cullumbine, 
 
 With Gelliflowres, 
 Bring Coronations and Sops in wine, 
 
 Worne of Paramoures: 
 
 Strowe me the ground with daffadowndillies, 
 And Cowslips and Kingcups and loved 
 Lillies : 
 
 The pretie Pawnee, 
 
 And the Chevisaunce 
 
 Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice. 
 352
 
 AT CHATEAUHERIAULT 
 
 "How pretty!" cried Yvonne. "Those 
 are the flowers we have at Jeune Vallette. 
 The pretie Pawnee with us is all purple 
 and yellow and little, like what you call 
 heart s-ease, and the fayre flowre Delice, 
 that grows wild in the meadows along the 
 river-edges. 
 
 They were all quiet. The fragrance of 
 the wall-flowers stole subtly into the air. 
 
 "I am only waiting now till my cousin 
 comes," said Yvonne, "and the dear 
 AbbeV 
 
 That had been a curious expression of 
 hers which Barry had noticed before. She 
 was "only waiting." 
 
 On the day that Poison was expected 
 Yvonne was so much stronger that they 
 moved her out upon the terrace for the 
 warm afternoon sun. She lay with her back 
 to the sunny south wall, where the quince- 
 tree grew and the Provence roses boldly 
 clambered over. Down at the end of a 
 green vista twin oleanders were trained to 
 intertwine. 
 
 "I somehow feel," said Yvonne to Helen, 
 "as if I had lived here before. Strange, is 
 it not?" 
 
 Then Poleon and the priest, who had 
 
 353
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 arrived a few minutes before, came between 
 the arch of the trees, stepping softly upon 
 the close-shorn grass. 
 
 The kindly, inscrutable eyes of the Abbe* 
 looked into her own, and only he saw the 
 joy that was in them. The long sunny 
 afternoon went by. Slowly the shadow 
 moved on the sun- dial s impassive face. 
 The sound of Sandy s hoe was heard, weed 
 ing the parterres below them on Alixe s 
 Terrace. Poleon, Yvonne and the Abbe" 
 were a little group by themselves. 
 
 "Je suis contente, contente, " Yvonne 
 murmured. I hear them talking now, the 
 pine-trees of my home." 
 
 When the sun sank lower they were all 
 gathered round her. The scythes of the 
 mowers in a distant meadow beat a swishing 
 measure, sleepily. The pink sunlight, 
 slanted over the fir-trees of the glen, touched 
 Yvonne s forehead. 
 
 "Yes, Poison," they heard her say, "if 
 you wish it, I also am content. 
 
 Then that little group were witness to the 
 solemn ceremony of the Roman Catholic 
 Church which made Pole on Gros-Louys and 
 Yvonne man and wife. 
 
 "We were promise of each other ven we 
 
 354
 
 AT CHATEAUHERIAULT 
 
 were ver 1 small," she said, softly, relapsing 
 into the broken English of her childhood. 
 4 Il-y a longtemps dans le temps jadis. He 
 vass of my peoples. I haf made him much 
 misere. He gifs me ze pardon. I ask ze 
 grande pardon of all. 
 
 Then she took Pierce s hand and laid it 
 upon Helen s as they sat beside her. 
 
 "Voila!" she said, Vest bon comme <ja. 
 N est pas, mes amis?" 
 
 The sun sank lower yet. The shadow on 
 the dial crept round. The odor of the 
 cinnamon roses floated over the wall. 
 
 "Ah, mon Dieu!" Yvonne spoke, almost 
 inaudibly. "It makes so dark. Hold me, 
 Poleon. I can no more see. " 
 
 With her hand in her cousin s, she was 
 happy again. Only once after that did she 
 fear. The long Scotch sunset purpled the 
 old terraced garden. The Maryburn gurgled 
 deep down in its glen. 
 
 "La Dame aux Glaieuls!" Yvonne cried. 
 "I haf fear. She come all sof ly " 
 
 The priest stepped in between Yvonne 
 and Poleon. 
 
 "Fear not, my child!" he said, "look to 
 the Savior and the Lord of your soul. " 
 
 He held the crucifix up before her eyes. 
 
 355
 
 THE LADY OP THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 "Sweetest Lord Jesus," she murmured. 
 The sun-dial was all in shadow now. 
 "Yvonne!" cried Poison, in a great voice 
 of grief, "Dew-of-the-Morning! My wife!" 
 
 356
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AFTER THE TENTH 
 
 "Suffering from mental aberration. Of 
 unbalanced mind, had been the finding of 
 the court upon the case. 
 
 Strong influence had been brought to bear 
 that the verdict might not be severe. It 
 was only at rare intervals now that he was 
 sane and clear. His memory had utterly 
 gone. He had forgotten the night of The 
 Lady of the Flag-Flowers. He did not even 
 know for what he had been imprisoned. He 
 talked little. He seemed to see strange 
 sights and hear strange sounds. He would 
 sometimes look up with a startled air or 
 seem listening for a far-away voice. 
 
 "Is it after the tenth?" he kept asking his 
 custodians. "She promised to tell me her 
 secret after the tenth." 
 
 They decided to take him to Chateauheri- 
 ault. 
 
 The coverlet under which Yvonne lay was 
 strewn with flowers, not pale blossoms, 
 heavy-scented, but the gay, homely blooms 
 
 357
 
 THE LADY OF THE FLAG -FLOWERS 
 
 of old gardens. Scattered all above her 
 they were, purple of Cullumbines and pink 
 of Coronations ; Gilliflowres, cinnamon roses 
 and the "fayre flowre Delice. " She looked 
 like a child fallen asleep in summer s lap. 
 Her dark hair was loose about her face, as 
 she had worn it long ago at Jeune Vallette. 
 The little features, in their repose, bore the 
 sealed look that marks the Indian. The 
 shadow of a smile lingered about the still 
 mouth. 
 
 "Do not waken her. She is asleep," they 
 said to Brockton. 
 
 "She smiles," he spoke very gently. 
 "She has her secret all to herself, and the 
 great God understands. 
 
 358
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 BKARTS-EASC 
 
 To nothing dreadful, but to the place from whence 
 thou earnest, to things friendly and akin to thee." 
 
 Epi:titus. 
 
 359
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 0*0*0* 
 
 HEART S-EASE 
 
 The St. Gabriel dashes, broad-spread in 
 woolly-white foam, over the rocks of the 
 rapids, tosses into an intricate wonder of 
 spray and gathers itself together for the 
 long, desperate, downward plunge through 
 the narrows of the fir-darkened gorge. All 
 this turbulence is spanned by the expression 
 less bridge, and the old mill looks down on 
 the frenzied river, in quiet wonder. On the 
 outskirts of the woods beyond the bridge the 
 firs are taciturn. Young birches are near 
 them, the wind rippling over their watery- 
 twinkling leaves. They whisper among 
 themselves like mystery-hugging children. 
 Up and down the high-road goes the slow, 
 intermittent stream of human life. The 
 habitan jogs by in his two-wheeled cart to 
 Ancienne Vallette. Two little bare-legged 
 Huron boys swinging their pails of blue 
 berries, come from the Chateaubourg moun 
 tain. A woman with a basket of flowers 
 drifts wearily along. Her large, flat hat is 
 361
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 tied down under her chin with faded ribbon. 
 There are rings in her ears, and her blue 
 eyes in her brown, wrinkled face have an 
 uncanny paleness. She sells flowers to the 
 sight- seers that drive out from Quebec, wild- 
 flowers from the field and garden geraniums 
 and pansies, tied together in incongruous 
 nosegays. The habitans call her La Dame 
 aux Fleurs. Now a two-wheeled cart comes 
 slowly along, and turns into the high-road 
 from the Chemin de Misere. A farmer and 
 his two little girls sit together, and on their 
 laps rests a small white coffin. Except 
 white streamers that float from their bon 
 nets, they are scrupulously in black from 
 head to foot. From Misery Road comes the 
 cart with its sad little burden. The same 
 cart that carries the beets and the squashes 
 to the Lower Town Market carries some 
 little Lucette to her last resting-place in the 
 parish graveyard beside her mother. The 
 stocky white horse droops his head as if in 
 sympathy with the grief of its master. All 
 exposed to the public gaze, they go by, but 
 wrapped in the inviolate seclusion of sor 
 row. 
 
 The little Huron children cease their 
 chatter. The Dame aux Fleurs rests her 
 362
 
 HEART S -EASE 
 
 basket on the railing of the bridge and drops 
 an ave. The weather-beaten guide, who 
 has been mending his canoe on the steps of 
 his house in the Huron village, leaves his 
 work and goes into the somber chapel. 
 Perhaps he, too, will pray for some remem 
 bered dead. 
 
 In the burying ground a man and a woman 
 stand side by side. To both of them the 
 place is fraught with an unforgettable past, 
 to the man who has twice before been 
 here, but long ago, and to his wife newly 
 wed, who sees for the first time La Jeune 
 Vallette. 
 
 They stand by a little stone sunk slant 
 wise in the straggling grass and wild- 
 flowers. On its moss-grown, unpolished 
 face one may faintly decipher the unskillful 
 letters, "En- memoire," and below one 
 reads, "Yvonne, epouse beaucoup-aime"e. " 
 
 Many years the spring has blossomed and 
 paled above the stone, and the wild-flowers 
 brightened and drifted away, in winged 
 seeds and wisps of down. In winter, the 
 deep snow has set its seal on the ground, 
 and only a frayed tuft of everlasting-flower 
 above the snow s blue whiteness speaks of 
 the life that is sleeping. 
 363
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 Along the length of the mound some care 
 ful hand has pulled away the yarrow and the 
 daisies and planted it with purple and yel 
 low heart s-ease. The round, small faces of 
 the flowers look up like innocent, wondering 
 children. 
 
 A blithe catch of song comes from a 
 passer-by on the Chateaubourg road : 
 
 "Win I Nanette? 
 
 I think I may. 
 Win I Nanette? 
 
 Ah, nay; ah, nay." 
 
 364
 
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