CHAPTER III
THE GOOSE

Jim Horton had had a narrow escape from discovery. But in spite of his precarious position and the pitfalls that seemed to lay to right and left, he had become, if anything, more determined than ever to follow the fate to which he had committed himself. There now seemed no doubt that Moira was in all innocence involved in some way in the blackmailing scheme which had been the main source of livelihood for the Quinlevin family for many years. And Moira did not know, for the Duc de Vautrin, of course, was the source of the Irish rents to which she had alluded. And now he was refusing to pay.

It was clear that something unpleasant hung in the air, an ill wind for the Duc de Vautrin and for the plotters, Moira's father and Jim Horton's precious brother. And it seemed quite necessary in the interests of honesty that he, Jim Horton, should remain for the present in the game and divert if possible the currents of evil which encompassed his interesting sister-in-law.

One thing he had learned – that by taking refuge behind the barriers of his failing memory, it might be possible to keep up the deception, at least until he was out of the hospital and a crisis of some sort came to relieve him of his responsibility. Indeed there was something most agreeable in the friendly regard of his brother's loveless wife, and under other circumstances, the calls of this charming person would have been the source of unalloyed delight. For as the days passed, more and more she threw off the restraint of her earlier visits and they had now reached a relationship of understanding and good-fellowship, most delightful and unusual in its informality.

Jim Horton was progressing rapidly and except for occasional lapses of memory, easily explained and perfectly understood by his visitors, gained health and strength until it was no longer a question of weeks but of days when he should be able to leave the hospital and accept the invitation of his newly discovered relatives to visit the studio apartment. He had made further efforts through the hospital authorities to find some trace of the missing man but without success, and in default of any definite plan of action chose to follow the line of least resistance until something should happen. Barry Quinlevin visited him twice, but spoke little of the affair of the Duc de Vautrin which it seemed was being held in abeyance for the moment, preferring to wait until the brain and body of the injured man could help him to plan and to execute. And Jim Horton, finding that safety lay in silence or fatigue, did little further to encourage his confidences.

Thus it was that after several weeks he impatiently awaited Moira outside the hospital. It was a gorgeous afternoon of blue and gold with the haze of Indian Summer hanging lazily over the peaceful autumn landscape. An aromatic odor of burning leaves was in the air and about him aged men and women worked in road and garden as though the alarms of war had never come to their ears. The signing of the armistice, which had taken place while Horton was still in his bed, had been the cause of much quiet joy throughout the hospital. But with the return of health, Jim Horton had begun wondering what effect the peace was to have upon his strange fortunes – and upon Harry's. He knew that for the present he had been granted a furlough which he was to spend with the Quinlevins in Paris, but after that, what was to happen? He was a little dubious too about his relations with Moira… But when he saw her coming down the path to the open air pavilion with Nurse Newberry, all flushed with the prospect of carrying him off in triumph in the ancient fiacre from which she had descended, he could not deny a thrill of pleasure that was not all fraternal.

"Behold, mon ami," she cried in greeting, "I've come to take you prisoner."

He laughed gayly as he took her hand.

"And there's a goose in the pantry, bought at a fabulous price, just waiting for the pan – "

"Be sure you don't kill your prisoner with kindness," put in Nurse Newberry.

"I'll take that risk," said Horton genially.

"Sure and he must," put in Moira. "It isn't every day one brings a conquering hero home."

"Especially when he's your husband," said the artless Miss Newberry wistfully.

Jim Horton had a glimpse of the color that ran like a flame up Moira's throat to her brow but he glanced quickly away and busied himself with a buckle at his belt.

"I want to thank you, Miss Newberry," he said soberly, "for all that you've done for me. I'll never forget."

"Nor I, Lieutenant Horton. But you're in better hands than mine now. A week or so and you'll be as strong as ever."

"I've never felt better in my life," he replied.

They moved toward the conveyance, shook hands with the nurse, and with Harry's baggage (which had just been sent down from regimental headquarters) upon the box beside the rubicund and rotund cocher, they drove out of the gates and toward the long finger of the Eiffel Tower which seemed to be beckoning to them across the blue haze above the roof tops.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. In the ward, in the convalescent rooms or even in the grounds of the hospital, Moira had been a visitor with a mission of charity and cheer. Here in the fiacre the basis of their relationship seemed suddenly and quite mysteriously to change. Whether Moira felt it or not he did not know, for she looked out of her window at the passing scene and her partly averted profile revealed nothing of her thoughts. But the fact that they were for the first time really alone and driving to Moira's Paris apartment gave him a qualm of guilt on account of the impossible situation that he had created. He had, he thought, shown her deep gratitude and respect – and had succeeded in winning the friendship that Harry had perhaps taken too much for granted. It had given Jim Horton pleasure to think that Moira now really liked him for himself alone, and the whole-heartedness of her good fellowship had given him every token of her spirit of conciliation. She had had her moods of reserve before, like the one of her present silence, but the abundance of her vitality and sense of humor had responded unconsciously to his own and they had drawn closer with the artless grace of two children thrown upon their own resources. And now, here in the ramshackle vehicle, for the first time alone, Jim Horton would have very much liked to take her by the hand (which lay most temptingly upon the seat beside him) and tell her the truth. But that meant Harry's disgrace – the anguish of her discovering that such a friendship as this with her own husband could never be; for in her eyes Jim Horton had seen her own courage and a contempt for all things that Harry was or could ever hope to be. And so, with an effort he folded his arms resolutely and stared out of his window.

It was then that her voice recalled him.

"Can't you smell that goose, Harry dear?" she said.

He flashed a quick smile at her.

"Just can't I!" he laughed.

"And you're to help me cook it – and vegetables and coffee. You know" – she finished, "nothing ever tastes quite so good as when you cook it yourself."

"And you do all the cooking – ?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Sometimes – but more often we go to a café. Sometimes Madame Toupin helps, the concierge– but father thinks my cooking is the best."

"I don't doubt it. I shall, too." And then, "where is your father to-day?"

She looked at him, eyes wide as though suddenly reminded.

"I forgot," she gasped. "He asked me to tell you that he was obliged to be leaving for Ireland – about the Irish rents. Isn't it tiresome?"

"Oh," said Horton quietly. "I see."

He turned his thoughtful gaze out of the carriage window into the Avenue de Neuilly. The situation had its charm, but he had counted on the presence of Barry Quinlevin.

"How long will he be gone?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied, "a week or more perhaps. But I'll try to make you comfortable. I've wanted so to have everything nice."

He smiled at her warmth. "You forget that – that I've learned to be a soldier, Moira. A blanket on the floor of the studio and I'll be as happy as a king – "

"No. You shall have the best that there is – the very best —mon ami– "

"I don't propose to let you work for me, Moira. I can get some money. I can find a pension somewhere near and – "

She turned toward him suddenly, her eyes very close to tears. "Do you wish to make me unhappy – when I've tried so hard to – to – "

"Moira!" He caught her hand to his lips and kissed it gently, "I didn't mean – "

"I've wanted so for you to forget how unkind I had been to you – to make this seem like a real homecoming after all you've been through. And now to hear you talking of going to a pension– "

"Moira – I thought it might be inconvenient – that it might be more pleasant for you – "

He broke down miserably. She released her fingers gently and turned away. "Sure Alanah, and I think that I should be the judge of that," she said.

"We'll say no more about it," he muttered. "But I – I'm very grateful."

Moira's lips wreathed into an adorable smile.

"I've been thinking the war has done something to you, Harry. And now I'm sure of it. You've been learning to think of somebody beside yourself."

"I'd be pretty rotten if I hadn't learned to do some thinking about you," he said, as he looked into her eyes with more hardihood than wisdom.

She met his gaze for the fraction of a minute and then raised her chin and laughed merrily up at the broad back of the cocher.

"Yes, you've changed, Harry dear. God knows how or why – but you've changed. You'll be paying me some compliments upon my pulchritude and heavenly virtues by and by."

"Why shouldn't I?" he insisted soberly when her laughter subsided. "Your loveliness is only the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace. I'm so sure of it that I don't care whether you laugh or not."

"Am I lovely? You think so? Well – it's nice to hear even if it only makes conversation. Also that my nose is not so bad, even if it does turn piously to Heaven – but there's a deep dent in my chin which means that I've got a bit of the devil in me – bad cess to him – so that you'd better do just what I want you to – or we'll have a falling out. And that would be a pity – because of the goose."

He laughed as gayly as she had done.

"I've a notion, Moira," he said, "that it's my goose you're going to cook."

"And I've a notion," she said poising a slim gloved finger for a second upon his knee, "I've a notion that we're both going to cook him."

It seemed too much like a prophecy to be quite to his liking. Her moods were Protean and her rapid transitions bewildered. And yet, under them all, he realized how sane she was, how honest with him and with herself and how free from any guile. She trusted him entirely as one good friend would trust another and the thought of any evil coming to her through his strange venture into Harry's shoes made him most unhappy. But her pretty dream of a husband with whom she could at least be on terms of friendship must some day come to an end … And yet … suppose the report that Harry was missing meant that he was dead. A bit of shrapnel – a bullet – he didn't wish it – but that chance was within the range of the possible.

They had passed down the avenue of the Grande Armée, into the place de l'Étoile, and were now in the magnificent reaches of the Champs Élysées. Jim Horton had only been in Paris for five hours between trains, little more than long enough to open an account at a bank, but Moira chattered on gayly with the point of view of an intime, showing him the places which they must visit together, throwing in a word of history here, an incident or adventure there, giving the places they passed, the personality of her point of view, highly tinged with the artist's idealism. From her talk he gathered that she had lived much in Paris during all her student days and except for the little corner in Ireland where she had been born and which she had visited from time to time, loved it better than any place in the world.

"And I shall teach you to speak French, Harry – the real argot of the Quartier– and you shall love it as I do – "

"I do speak it a little already," he ventured.

"Really! And who was your instructress?"

The dropping intonation was sudden and very direct.

Jim Horton looked out of the window. He was sure that Harry wouldn't have been able to meet her gaze.

"No one," he muttered, "at least no girl. That's the truth. We had books and things."

"Oh," she finished dryly.

Her attitude in this matter was a revelation. The incident seemed to clarify their relations and in a new way, for in a moment she was conversing again in a manner most unconcerned. Friendly she might be with Harry for the sake of the things that he had accomplished, companionable and kind for the sake of the things he had suffered, but as for any deeper feeling – that was another matter. Moira was no fool.

But at least she trusted him now. She dared to trust him. Otherwise, why did she conduct him with such an air of unconcern to the apartment in the Rue de Tavennes? But he couldn't be unaware of the alertness in her unconcern, an occasional quick and furtive side glance which showed that, however friendly, she was still on her guard. Perhaps she wanted to study this newly-discovered Harry at closer range. But why had she chosen the venture? He had given her her chance. Why had she refused to take it?

The answers to these questions were still puzzling him when they drove up the hill by the Boulevard St. Michel —Boul' Miché