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By Root 2079 0

rue Maqua. As she emerged into what was once the inner garden, now paved over except for a lawn surrounded by some superb trees, giant elms dating from the last century, she was at first surprised to see a sentry posted in front of the locked door of a coach-house, until she remembered that she had heard the day before that the cash of the 7th corps was deposited there, and it struck her as odd that all this gold, millions it was said, was hidden in this coach-house while they were already killing each other all round. But just as she was going up the service stairs to get to Gilberte’s room another surprise brought her to a standstill, such an unexpected encounter that she came down the three steps she had already climbed, wondering whether she dared to go up and knock. A soldier, a captain had crossed her path, swift as a vision, and vanished. Nevertheless she had had time to recognize him, having seen him in Charleville at Gilberte’s when she was still Madame Maginot. She walked about in the courtyard for a few moments, looked up at the two lofty windows of the bedroom, the shutters of which were still closed. Then she made up her mind and went up all the same.

On the first floor she thought she would knock on the door of the dressing-room as an intimate childhood friend who sometimes came for a morning chat. But this door had not been shut properly in a hurried departure, and was ajar. She only had to give it a push and she was in the dressing-room and then in the bedroom. It was a room with a very lofty ceiling from which hung voluminous red velvet curtains which surrounded the whole bed. Not a sound, the sultry silence of a happy night, nothing except a regular, almost inaudible breathing in an atmosphere vaguely scented with essence of lilac.

‘Gilberte!’ she whispered.

The young woman had gone to sleep again at once, and in the dim light coming through the red window curtains she had her pretty round face, set in the pillow, resting on one of her bare arms and surrounded by her lovely rumpled black hair.

‘Gilberte!’

She stirred, stretched, but did not open her eyes.

‘Yes, good-bye… Oh, never mind…’

Then, looking up, she recognized Henriette.

‘Oh, it’s you!… What’s the time, then?’

When she learned that it was just six she was somewhat embarrassed and joked to cover it up, saying it was no time for waking people out of their sleep. Then in answer to the first question about her husband:

‘But he hasn’t come back yet, he won’t before nine, I think. What makes you think he will come home so early?’

Henriette, seeing her smiling away in drowsy contentment, had to insist.

‘I’m telling you, they’ve been fighting in Bazeilles since dawn, and as I’m worried about my husband…’

‘Oh my dear, you’ve no need to be,’ exclaimed Gilberte. ‘Mine is so cautious that he would have been here hours ago it there had been the slightest danger… Get along with you, so long as he doesn’t come back there’s no need to worry.’

This thought made a strong impression on Henriette, for it was quite true that Delaherche was not the sort of man to take pointless risks. She was quite reassured, went over and pulled back the curtains and pushed open the shutters, and the room was lit up by the bright pinkish light from the sky in which the sun was beginning to pierce the fog with gold. One of the windows was half open and you could now hear the gunfire in this big warm room, so close and shut in until a moment ago.

Gilberte, half sitting up, with one elbow on the pillow, looked at the sky with her lovely light eyes.

‘So there’s some fighting,’ she said.

Her nightdress had slipped down and one of her shoulders was bare, showing her soft pink skin through the strands of her dark hair, and a strong aroma of love came from her awakening body.

‘They’re fighting so early, oh dear! It’s so silly to fight!’

But Henriette’s eye had been caught by a pair of army gloves, a man’s gloves, forgotten on a table, and she had not managed to restrain a start. Then Gilberte went very red and drew her over to the bed with a confused and affectionate movement