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"He has a face of ivory, and eyes like torches, and he carries a silver sword." "But what the devil is his face like ivory for, my fanfarons?" "So that he shall not blush for us. He is a grand seigneur," they shouted back. "Why are his eyes like torches, my ragamuffins?" "To show us the way home." Valmond appeared upon the balcony. "What is it you wish, my children?" he asked.
The child saw further; perhaps the artistic strain in her gave her keener reasoning. "Father," she said, "Monsieur Valmond wants you for a soldier." "Wants me?" he roared in astonishment. "Who's to shoe the horses a week days, and throw the weight o' Sundays after mass? Who's to handle a stick for the Cure when there's fighting among the river-men?
This was why Valmond interested her not as a man, a physical personality, but as a mystery to be probed, discovered. Sentiment? Coquetry? Not with him. That for less interesting men, she said to herself. Why should a point or two of dress and manners affect her unpleasantly? She ought to be just, to remember that there was a touch of the fantastic, of the barbaric, in all genius. Was he a genius?
The lock was still on the doors, the walls were intact, there was no window for entrance or escape. He had vanished as weirdly as he came. All day the people sought the place, viewing with awe and superstition the shed of death, and the spot in the smithy where, it was said, Valmond had killed the giant. The day following was the feast of St. John the Baptist.
But Elise Malboir, abundant, true, fine, in the healthy vigour of her nature, with no dream in her heart but love fulfilled she was no part of his adventure, but of that vital spirit which can bring to the humblest as to the highest the good reality of life. It was the poignancy of these feelings which, later, drew Valmond to the ashes of the fire in whose glow Elise had stood.
It was as if a soul leaned out of the casement of life, calling into the dark and the quiet which may not be comprehended by mortal man. "Monsieur Valmond!" Her trembling hands were stretched out before her yearningly. The Cure moved. She turned towards the sound with a pitiful vagueness. "Valmond, O Valmond!" again she cried beseechingly, her clouded eyes straining into the silence.
As Valmond bowed, a thought seemed to fetch down the pink eyelids, and she stretched out her hand, which he took and kissed, while she said in English, though they had been talking in French: "A traveller too, like myself, Monsieur Valmond? But Pontiac why Pontiac?"
Valmond took the seat offered him beside the Cure, who remarked presently: "My dear friend, Monsieur Garon, was saying just now that the spirit of France has ever been the Captain of Freedom among the nations." Valmond glanced quickly from the Cure to the others, a swift, inquisitive look, then settled back in his chair, and turned, bowing, towards Monsieur Garon.
It was a saying long afterwards among the Old Guard, though it may not be found in the usual histories of that time, where every battalion, almost every company, had a watchword, which passed to make room for others, as victory followed victory. "Soldier of the Old Guard," said Valmond again, "how came you by those scars upon your forehead?"
De la Riviere opened the door to go out, after bowing to the Cure and the avocat, who stood up with mannered politeness; but presently he turned, came back, was about to speak, when, catching sight of a miniature of Valmond on the avocat's desk, before which was set a bunch of violets, he wheeled and left the room without a word.
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