The Second Class Passenger: Fifteen Stories

ing at the brisk fire in the steel grate-

ite panels gleaming discreetly in the light of the candles, made a chaste frame for her fragile presence. The window-curtains had been drawn to shut out the evening which shed its damp melancholy over the Faubourg, and to the girl the great, still

ink," said the Comtesse at la

rd to look at the little clock.

er gestures had the gentle delibe

But to think! To-night, for the first time I hear of Jeanne from one who saw her at the end.

, and her little thrill of

rl; "I see, but yo

se. "I will have consideration for my hea

the Comtesse's sudden emotion; it was a familiar tale, and not the loss familiar for being told in whispers. She had heard it first when she came from her English home to be the Comtesse's companion. It had been told to her officially, as it were, to guide her in her dealings with the Comtesse

he told her further. "It was a sad affair, and she had much tenderness for Jeanne." And that, at first, seemed to be the whole of it, though once or twice the uncle checked himself on the brink of details. But on this evening the tale was t

the gaunt footman opened the door and spoke his name. The Comtesse look

quiry. The Comtesse's inclination answered him. "Madam

wise face was brick- red, giving news of his long service under the sun of North Africa. He was short and slight, a tiny vivacious man, full of charming formalities, and there was

h idiom. "There is little that she can say. But she thanks Monsieur

thetic," he said seriously. "And for the trouble"-he n

him. "Monsieur is very

ggestion of admiration. He was a man panoplied with the civil arts; his long career in camps and garrisons had subtracted nothing of social dexterity. There

ertin that I am to speak?

hair. "Yes," she answered, in a voice

is agreeable, for it is a tale of tragedy." His eyes wandered for a moment; he seemed to be renewing and testing again the

sat in a cafe behind a little round table. It was thus one saw him most frequently, with his hard, swarthy face and moustaches that curled like a ram's horns. In such places he seemed most at home, with men about him and cards ready to his hand; and yet-has Madame seen the kind of man who is never wholly at his ease, who stands for ever on his guard,

ained into Algiers; it had its little world of men who gambled and drank much, and understood one another with a complete mistrust; it was with such as these that Bertin occupied his leisure. It was with them that his harshness and power were most effic

ly in her chair. "He had po

es, waiters, croupiers and the poor women who made up the background of his life. I have thought, sometimes, that it is easy for a man to be loved, Madame, if he will take that respon

question, and the Comtesse answe

groom, and a Belgian who passed for an artist. It was de Sailles who pointed them out; and in effect it was a group to see with emotion. The lady-she was known to you, Madame? Then the position will be clear. She was of that complete and perfect type we honor as the Parisienne, a product of the most complex life in the world. She was slender and straight-ah! straight as a lance, with youth and spirit and buoyancy in the carriage of her head, the poise of her body, the color upon her cheeks. But it wa

brought back,' said Vaucher

rime,' said

child; but his thought was not easy to follow. He gave Bertin's group another look under puckered brows, and then tur

impasse, and one night there was a brawl there-an affair of a man drunk and angry, of a knife drawn and some one stabbed. Before, it might have passed; our discipline was indulgent; but now it took on the shape of a scandal. It was brief

iends,' he said; 'for

nd there is also de Sailles,' I reminded him. 'He has a ve

rtin,' he

which stood near Bertin's door. There was a babble of many voices after that scream-shouts of fury, the whining of the would-be assassin, and so on; he was about to pass on, when Bertin's door opened and a woman slipped out and stood listening on the pavement. Her attitude was that of one ready to flee, terrified but uncertain. As the noises within died down she relapsed from

e came out and gained thus the grace of an instant. There was never anything in life so pitiful, so moving, as the woman's strength that strangled down her sobs, dried the tears at their source, and showed to her husb

ucher was a man of heart. 'But w

actually forgotten. 'Oh yes. He spoke to me. That was it. He spoke t

ted before engaging. Bertin was very sober and serious, but one had only to glance at him to perceive a very heat of wrath masked under his heavy countenance. Vaucher was intent, wary, full of careful purpose. Their blades touched. 'All'ez!' There were a couple of moments of fencing, of almost formal escrime, and then Vaucher lengthened his arm and attacked. Bertin stepped back a pace, and, as Vaucher adva

ead. Madame shall be spared the particulars. I think he

eyes; he looked with a somber gaze at the Comtesse. She still held her favorite attitude, leaning a little to one side in her great

her head to look at her, surprised, for the thing was said

t," he said. But he glanced sharply at her serene, p

hin a year most of us were passing him without recognition, and there was talk of debts that troubled him. He had deteriorated, too; whereas of old he was florid, now he was inflamed and gross; where he had been merely loud, he was now coarse. Within eighteen months the Colonel had made him a scene, had told him sour truths, and shaken his finger at him. That power of his, Madame, was not the power that enables a man to hold his level. Even with the companions of his leisure, his ascendancy faded. I recollect seeing h

the fire, like one we

other of his shrewd

ental funds; again I will spare Madame the details; but certain of them which should have passed through Bertin's hands had not arrived at their destination. Clerks from a bank came to work upon the accounts; strange, cool young men, who hunted figures through ledgers as a ferret traces a rat under a floor. You must understand that for the regiment it was

like a fort. It was not till I had knocked many times upon the door that there came any response. At last I heard bolts being withdrawn-bolt after bolt, as if the place had

r and inquire

repeated after me. 'I

told her, and at that she whitened. '

fasten the door again, and she led me up the stairs to a

be seated,' she said,

in to

e little smile of a convention that is not irksome. Her voice, her posture, had that grace one knows and defers to at sight. It was all very wonderful to

ke together for some minutes, she at length, but he shortly; and then the doors slid apart a foot or so, and he came through sideways. He g

ning as a child will frown to keep from bursting into tears.

. 'It is a messag

t, staring at me heavily,

ave me the suggestion that he was accustomed to guard against eavesdroppers; all those poor forlorn gamesters and wastrels are full o

upon me for plain speech with the man, like that

for that and no more, and I recommend you to let the packages be few. If

ain and came a step nearer. 'You

nswered. 'That is what

felt as if I had struck him and spat i

ve I?' he ask

to-night,'

ons, but at that moment Madame Bertin appeared in th

?' she asked carelessly, co

e finished,'

in,' she said, 'and if I did not watch the time for him,

not much packing

n to that,'

aring to depart. Ma foi, I was ready to weep, as Vaucher

id. 'And if you should have anything further to say to

hat; my company would guard h

e very happ

He was standing between us, wordless and dull. He gave her a look of

ing, I believe!' she said, when

d not have chosen a b

athy, my admiration, my devotion, she offered only that bright surface of her schooled manner and disciplined emotions. While

ikely to have compan

e to him -a formal sons-officer with a warrant of arrest, a

ed her in her

hat drawback,' I said,

de in her ans

at her, the smile of amusement which answered it. And next I was seated beside him in the fiacre and she was framed in the door, loo

t that Bertin spoke. He lit a cigarette

luck from the

saying. And at the sound of my laughter he grinned in sympathy. He was a wond

n kind in your way. You didn't d

r. As the train moved away, I saw his face at the window of the carriage, ful

taring at his trimly

ked at him t

im again?

But possibly the tale

r eyes. "I must hear the rest," sh

aid the

omtesse thoughtfully. "Very har

Both he and the Comtesse seemed quite to have forgotten Elsie, listening on her stool in bewilderment

," she said, with a sigh. Elsie reached over th

onel shrugged

reconciled never to have it reopened. But it seems one can never be sure that a thing is ended; possibly Bertin in his hiding-place thought as I did and made the same mistake. I heard the news when I visited Algiers on my way to a post up-country at the edge of the desert. New powers had taken charge of our business; there was a new General, an austere, mirthless man, who knew of Bertin's existence, and resented it. He had been concerned here and there in more than one enterprise of an unpleasant flavor, and it was the General's intention to put a period to him. My friends in barracks told me of it, perfunctorily; and my chief sense was of disgust that Bertin should continue to be noticeable. And then I went away up-country, in

un on my heel to face it. From the hood of a bernouse there look

ently, and her eyes mocked me. She was the same as ever, impregnably the same; stress of mind, sorrow, exile, loneliness

er to my inquiries. 'On a camel from my home. I

at the season is good f

When one is acclimatized, seas

climatized, Mada

bernouse. 'Even t

ittle military train grunting and wheezing as it collected its

hat train?' s

ah,' I a

said, looking a

e to have her company,

I guessed forthwith th

w that if my going thit

her. I am sure

in an arch from horizon to horizon, blue and blinding; the heat was like a hand laid on one's mouth. I had with me my soldier-servant and a provision of food; there was something of both ecstasy and anguish in serving her needs, in establishing her comfort. She talked little and always so that I stood at a distance

The post was but a few structures of wood and mud, and, a little way off, the tents of the camp. In the east, the sky was red with foreknowledge of th

d at last she walked away, alone, to the huddle of little buildings, and I saw her pass am

ence and the bitterness of men whose lives are hidden things. With them were some elderly officers, whose only enthusiasms showed themselves in a crazy b

arious names, but we know him. A man wasted, thr

ave accepted

men we ask for, nor true men, nor even brave m

only with tables and chairs. A great Spahi, in the splendid uniform of his corps, lounged in one corner; a shrouded Arab tended the coffee apparatus in another; in the middle, with a glass before him, sat Bertin. The sun beat in at the open front of the building and spread the shadows in a tangle on its floor; he was leaning with both elbows on the t

looked up to me. His features labored

ulated hoarsely.

est you,' I told him. 'But you had better know t

ed. 'For

' I told him. 'For whate

s mind, like his body, was a shameful ruin. But the fact that he was not to be

,' he said, in a

knows,' I

shoot myself,' he went on. 'I know what she means

e daylight. He bawled an order to

ll come to,' he s

n whispers, staring at me heav

I asked him. Yes, Mada

ill confidentially. 'You see how it is? I have

aid the revolver on the table before him. He looked at it

t about me was still, yet overhead there was wind, for great clouds marched in procession across the moon, trailing their shadows over the sand. Bertin inhabited a little house at the fringe of the village; it looked out at the emptiness of the desert. I was yet ten paces fro

aid, 'let us walk here for a while. Captain Bertin is

before the house. 'I s

ld h

'It was pleasant for him to

of a man on the curtain-a man who lurched and pressed both hands to his head. I could not tell whet

s occupations here?'

in which he inter

write, concerning some matters of importance. I have promised him that for

e. She was erect and grave, with lips a little parted, staring before her; the heavy folds of the bernouse were like the marble robe of a statue. I glanced behind me at the lighted

doubt that it is safe to lea

e. The moon showed her to me clearly. Before the d

' she answered; 'no

'But if I might see him f

it on my lips to cry out, 'He is in there alone, working himself up to the point of suicide!' But I could not utter it. I could no more say it than I could have smitten her in the face

edy boxed up in the little house between the squalid town and the lugubrious desert-it sucked the strength from my bones. She continued to speak; the cultivated sweetness of her voice came and went in my

Look!' I

les,' she was saying, gazing out to the desert, with her

d the house. But it was too late. The shadowed hand-and

t she did not turn. 'What was

t speak. I had to gulp and

n. 'The hour is past, and the le

she agreed carelessly, and I

e end of all his laborings and groanings, the instant of resolution had come to him and

to me. It bore neither name nor address; the poor futile life had blundered out without even this thing completed. It was short, and to some wo

th hands as though supplicating him. Elsie Gray rose

hat letter?

nd extracted a dainty Russia-leather letter-case. From

welcome to the letter,"

it. She folded it in her t

en?" sh

l. "I took the letter and placed it in my poc

you?' she asked me suddenly; 'the

still a difficul

you for all your fri

at little lifting of the brows with which she answered my words. Awe, dread, passion-these were

p in his chair and

la Comtesse knows how she returned to

ou, Monsieur," she said. "You

plied, as he rose. "I

elle, go

behind him. The Comtesse raised her

e said. "I must re

The story was