The Beloved Traitor (Mystery Classic). Frank L. Packard

have forgotten, with him it remained. It was curious—her form was even more like that dream statue than was Marie-Louise's. If by any chance she should already have gone! The thought, recurring, brought once more that twinge of dismay. Was it strange that he should want to see her again! True, she would never look at him like that a second time, she had been off her guard for that little instant when there had been no grand monde and no fisherman, but she was still the same beautiful woman, glorious in form and face—and the allurement of her presence was like some rare, exquisite fragrance stealing upon the senses, enslaving them.

      And now, as he approached the little village, and passed the first cottage, with the Bas Rhône in sight beyond, he found himself eagerly searching the beach, the single street for sign of her. But there was no sign. Everything about the village was as it always was every early evening in Bernay-sur-Mer, when it was summer and the light held late. Strewn out along the beach, the men were at work upon their boats and nets; the children played about the doorways; through the open doors one could see the women busy over the evening meal—nothing else! And surely there would have been some stir of excitement if the strangers were still there, at least amongst the children—it was an event, that, to Bernay-sur-Mer. They had gone then, evidently!

      Jean's eyes lifted from a fruitless sweep of the beach to fix on the figure of Papa Fregeau emerging on the run from the Bas Rhône.

      "The fish, Jean! The fish!" the fat little man called out breathlessly.

      "The fish?" repeated Jean—and then, a little sheepishly, stared into the empty basket.

      Papa Fregeau, who had reached Jean's side, was staring into it too.

      "Yes—the fish! The fish!" he shouted. "Where are the fish you promised to bring back?"

      And then Jean laughed.

      "Why," said Jean, "I—I think I must have forgotten them."

      Papa Fregeau was excited. He began to dance up and down, his fat paunch shaking like jelly.

      "Idiot! Imbecile!" he stormed. "Have I not had trouble enough without this! Sacré bleu de misericorde! What an afternoon! And you laugh—bête, that you are! And now what shall I do?"

      "Do?" said Jean—-and stopped laughing. "What is the matter?"

      "Matter!" spluttered the patron of the Bas Rhône. "Matter! Have I not told you what is the matter? The fish!"

      "Yes, but a few fish," said Jean, eyeing the other in a half puzzled way. "What are a few fish that you—"

      "You do not understand!"—Papa Fregeau was still dancing up and down as he kept step with Jean, who had now started on again toward the Bas Rhône. "Listen! They are Americans of Paris, they say! They arrive in an automobile this afternoon—mademoiselle and her father, the maid and the chauffeur. It is fine, they stop at the Bas Rhône and engage rooms. Excellent! Nothing could be better. There is profit in that. I carry the trunks, the valises, a multitude of effects that are strapped all over the automobile to the rooms, and am on the point of sending for Mother Fregeau at Marie-Louise's. Sapristi—I do not pretend to be a cook! They start out for a walk, the mademoiselle and her father—and the mademoiselle, before they are out of sight from the window, returns to say that they will not stay, that I shall repack everything on that accursed car in readiness for their departure on the return from their walk. Tourment de Satan!—very good, I repack it. And now you bring no fish!"

      Jean shrugged his shoulders.

      "Well, since they are gone, what does it matter?"

      "Gone! Tonnerre!"—Papa Fregeau's face was apoplectic, and his fat cheeks puffed in and out like toy balloons. "Gone! Have I not told you that they are not gone!"

      "You have told me nothing"—there was a sudden, quick interest in Jean's voice. "They are gone—and they are not gone! What are you talking about?"

      "I do not know what I am talking about!" snapped Papa Fregeau fiercely. "How should I know! It is first this, then that, then this, then that—it is a badauderie! She is crazy, the girl; the father is no better; the maid, Nanette, is a hussy. She slapped my face when I but paid her a pretty compliment; and Jules, the chauffeur, is a pig who lies on his back under the infernal machine and will not lift a finger with the baggage. Wait! Listen! Come here!" He pulled Jean in through the door and across the café to the bar at the far end of the room, where he hastily decanted a glass of cognac and tossed it off. "See! Listen!" he went on excitedly, replenishing his glass. "I repack everything on the machine again, which is out there behind the tavern. I climb the stairs and I descend the stairs three dozen times, there is always one more package. And then fifteen minutes ago mademoiselle returns from her walk alone, and waves her hands—pouf!—just like that—and she says: 'Monsieur Fregeau, we will stay; take the baggage back to the rooms!' C'est insupportable, ça!" Papa Fregeau flung out his arms in abandoned despair. "And now there is no supper for them. Sapristi, I am no cook; but I could cook fish if you, misérable that you are, had brought them—heh! And it is too late now to send for Mother Fregeau."

      Jean was paying but slender attention. They had not gone! They were going to stay!

      "Get Madame Lachance, next door, to help you," he said absently. Then abruptly: "Mademoiselle returned alone, you say—and what of monsieur, her father?"

      Papa Fregeau made a gulp at his second glass.

      "He is impossible!" he choked. "With him it is the sunset! Who ever heard of such a thing! He is on the beach to gaze at the sunset! Nom d'un nom, is it extraordinary that the sun should set! But it is not him, it is mademoiselle. I am sure he knows nothing of all this, and concerns himself less. It is mademoiselle's doing. And I have had enough! I will not any longer be made a fool of!" He banged his pudgy fist on the comptoir. "Is it to stand on my head that I am patron of the Bas Rhône! Sacré bleu! I will not support it! I tell you that I will not—" Papa Fregeau's mouth remained wide open.

      "Monsieur Fregeau!" a voice called softly in excellent French from the rear door. "Nanette is struggling with a valise on the back stairs that is much too heavy for her, and perhaps if you—"

      Papa Fregeau's mouth closed, opened again—and, in his haste to make a bow, the cognac glass became a shower of tinkling splinters on the floor.

      "But immediatement! Instantly, Mademoiselle!" cried Papa Fregeau effusively. "On the moment! A valise that is too heavy for her! It is a sacrilege! It is unpardonable! Instantly, Mademoiselle, on the instant! On the moment!"—and he rushed from the room.

      She stood in the doorway; and, from under bewitchingly half closed lids, the grey eyes met Jean's. And under her gaze that was quite calm, unruffled, self-possessed now, the blood rushed tingling again through his veins, and again he felt it mounting to his cheeks. She wore no hat now; and, with the sun's last rays through the doorway falling softly upon her wealth of hair, it was as though it were a wondrously woven mass of glinting bronze that crowned her head.

      Jean's cap was in his hand.

      "Oh!" she said. "You are the"—there was just a trace of hesitation over the choice of the word—"the man who passed us on the bridge a little while ago, aren't you?"

      There was something, a sort of indefinable challenge, in the voice and eyes, a carelessness that, well as it was simulated, was not wholly genuine. Jean's eyes met the grey ones, held them—and suddenly he smiled, accepting the challenge.

      "It is good of mademoiselle to recognise me," he answered.

      She stared at him for an instant, her eyes opening wide; and then, with a contagious, impulsive laugh, she came forward into the room.

      "Of course!" she cried. "You would answer like that! I knew it! You are less like a fisherman, for all your clothes, than any man I ever saw."

      "I?" said Jean, in quick surprise. It was strange she had said that! It was only that afternoon that Marie-Louise had said almost the same thing. Not like a fisherman! Why not? What was this imagined difference between himself and the other men in Bernay-sur-Mer?

      "Yes;