custom sometimesis with her mother's guests."
So actually she sat by him all through that delirious meal, talkingquietly to him in easy French, seeing that he was well looked after,mixing the salad-dressing, and even helping him with her own hand. And,later in the afternoon, while he was smoking in the courtyard, longingfor a sight of her as soon as her duties were done, she came again tohis side, and when he rose to meet her, she stood facing him a moment,full of a perplexing sweet shyness before she spoke--
"My mother thinks you ought to know more of the beauties of our littletown, and _I_ think so too! Would M'sieur like me to be his guide,perhaps? I can show him everything, for our family has lived here formany generations."
She had him by the hand, indeed, before he could find a single word toexpress his pleasure, and led him, all unresisting, out into the street,yet in such a way that it seemed perfectly natural she should do so, andwithout the faintest suggestion of boldness or immodesty. Her faceglowed with the pleasure and interest of it, and with her short dressand tumbled hair she looked every bit the charming child of seventeenthat she was, innocent and playful, proud of her native town, and alivebeyond her years to the sense of its ancient beauty.
So they went over the town together, and she showed him what sheconsidered its chief interest: the tumble-down old house where herforebears had lived; the sombre, aristocratic-looking mansion where hermother's family dwelt for centuries, and the ancient market-place whereseveral hundred years before the witches had been burnt by the score.She kept up a lively running stream of talk about it all, of which heunderstood not a fiftieth part as he trudged along by her side, cursinghis forty-five years and feeling all the yearnings of his early manhoodrevive and jeer at him. And, as she talked, England and Surbiton seemedvery far away indeed, almost in another age of the world's history. Hervoice touched something immeasurably old in him, something that sleptdeep. It lulled the surface parts of his consciousness to sleep,allowing what was far more ancient to awaken. Like the town, with itselaborate pretence of modern active life, the upper layers of his beingbecame dulled, soothed, muffled, and what lay underneath began to stirin its sleep. That big Curtain swayed a little to and fro. Presently itmight lift altogether....
He began to understand a little better at last. The mood of the town wasreproducing itself in him. In proportion as his ordinary external selfbecame muffled, that inner secret life, that was far more real andvital, asserted itself. And this girl was surely the high-priestess ofit all, the chief instrument of its accomplishment. New thoughts, withnew interpretations, flooded his mind as she walked beside him throughthe winding streets, while the picturesque old gabled town, softlycoloured in the sunset, had never appeared to him so wholly wonderfuland seductive.
And only one curious incident came to disturb and puzzle him, slight initself, but utterly inexplicable, bringing white terror into the child'sface and a scream to her laughing lips. He had merely pointed to acolumn of blue smoke that rose from the burning autumn leaves and made apicture against the red roofs, and had then run to the wall and calledher to his side to watch the flames shooting here and there through theheap of rubbish. Yet, at the sight of it, as though taken by surprise,her face had altered dreadfully, and she had turned and run like thewind, calling out wild sentences to him as she ran, of which he had notunderstood a single word, except that the fire apparently frightenedher, and she wanted to get quickly away from it, and to get him awaytoo.
Yet five minutes later she was as calm and happy again as thoughnothing had happened to alarm or waken troubled thoughts in her, andthey had both forgotten the incident.
They were leaning over the ruined ramparts together listening to theweird music of the band as he had heard it the first day of his arrival.It moved him again profoundly as it had done before, and somehow hemanaged to find his tongue and his best French. The girl leaned acrossthe stones close beside him. No one was about. Driven by someremorseless engine within he began to stammer something--he hardly knewwhat--of his strange admiration for her. Almost at the first word shesprang lightly off the wall and came up smiling in front of him, justtouching his knees as he sat there. She was hatless as usual, and thesun caught her hair and one side of her cheek and throat.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried, clapping her little hands softly in hisface, "so very glad, because that means that if you like me you mustalso like what I do, and what I belong to."
Already he regretted bitterly having lost control of himself. Somethingin the phrasing of her sentence chilled him. He knew the fear ofembarking upon an unknown and dangerous sea.
"You will take part in our real life, I mean," she added softly, with anindescribable coaxing of manner, as though she noticed his shrinking."You will come back to us."
Already this slip of a child seemed to dominate him; he felt her powercoming over him more and more; something emanated from her that stoleover his senses and made him aware that her personality, for all itssimple grace, held forces that were stately, imposing, august. He sawher again moving through smoke and flame amid broken and tempestuousscenery, alarmingly strong, her terrible mother by her side. Dimly thisshone through her smile and appearance of charming innocence.
"You will, I know," she repeated, holding him with her eyes.
They were quite alone up there on the ramparts, and the sensation thatshe was overmastering him stirred a wild sensuousness in his blood. Themingled abandon and reserve in her attracted him furiously, and all ofhim that was man rose up and resisted the creeping influence, at thesame time acclaiming it with the full delight of his forgotten youth. Anirresistible desire came to him to question her, to summon what stillremained to him of his own little personality in an effort to retain theright to his normal self.
The girl had grown quiet again, and was now leaning on the broad wallclose beside him, gazing out across the darkening plain, her elbows onthe coping, motionless as a figure carved in stone. He took his couragein both hands.
"Tell me, Ilse," he said, unconsciously imitating her own purringsoftness of voice, yet aware that he was utterly in earnest, "what isthe meaning of this town, and what is this real life you speak of? Andwhy is it that the people watch me from morning to night? Tell me whatit all means? And, tell me," he added more quickly with passion in hisvoice, "what you really are--yourself?"
She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyelids, hergrowing inner excitement betraying itself by the faint colour that ranlike a shadow across her face.
"It seems to me,"--he faltered oddly under her gaze--"that I have someright to know--"
Suddenly she opened her eyes to the full. "You love me, then?" she askedsoftly.
"I swear," he cried impetuously, moved as by the force of a rising tide,"I never felt before--I have never known any other girl who--"
"Then you _have_ the right to know," she calmly interrupted his confusedconfession, "for love shares all secrets."
She paused, and a thrill like fire ran swiftly through him. Her wordslifted him off the earth, and he felt a radiant happiness, followedalmost the same instant in horrible contrast by the thought of death. Hebecame aware that she had turned her eyes upon his own and was speakingagain.
"The real life I speak of," she whispered, "is the old, old life within,the life of long ago, the life to which you, too, once belonged, and towhich you still belong."
A faint wave of memory troubled the deeps of his soul as her low voicesank into him. What she was saying he knew instinctively to be true,even though he could not as yet understand its full purport. His presentlife seemed slipping from him as he listened, merging his personality inone that was far older and greater. It was this loss of his present selfthat brought to him the thought of death.
"You came here," she went on, "with the purpose of seeking it, and thepeople felt your presence and are waiting to know what you decide,whether you will leave them without having found it, or whether--"
Her eyes remained fixed upon his own, but her face began to change,grow
ing larger and darker with an expression of age.
"It is their thoughts constantly playing about your soul that makes youfeel they watch you. They do not watch you with their eyes. The purposesof their inner life are calling to you, seeking to claim you. You wereall part of the same life long, long ago, and now they want you backagain among them."
Vezin's timid heart sank with dread as he listened; but the girl's eyesheld him with a net of joy so that he had no wish to escape. Shefascinated him, as it were, clean out of his normal self.
"Alone, however, the people could never have caught and held you," sheresumed. "The motive force was not strong enough; it has faded throughall these years. But I"--she paused a moment and looked at him withcomplete confidence in her splendid eyes--"I possess the spell toconquer you and hold
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