CHAPTER XXIX--THE PICTURE OF IT ALL
As far as his knowing anything of the customs of it all, it was likeleading a lamb to slaughter.
Villebon, lovely, vernal, at a later hour the spot for gay breakfastsand gentle rendezvous, had been designated for the meeting between Danand Poniotowsky. There in his motor he gave up his effort to set histhoughts clear. Nothing settled down. Even the ground they flew over,the trees with their chestnut plumes, blurred, were indistinct,nebulous, as if seen through a diving-bell under the sea. Fear--he didn'tknow the word. He wasn't afraid--it wasn't that; yet he had a certaintythat it was all up with him. He was young--very young--and he hadn't donemuch with the job. His father would have been ashamed of him. Then allhis thoughts went to Her. The two men in the motor floated off and shesat there as she had sat yesterday in her marvelously pretty clothes--herlittle coral shoes.
He had held those bright, little feet in his hand on the Thames day:they had just filled his great hands. Mechanically he spread out hisfirm, broad palms on the soft shoes. Letty Lane--Letty Lane--a shiverpassed through his body; the sense of her, the touch of her, the kisseshe had taken, the way she had blown up against him like a cloud--a cloudthat, as he held her, became the substance of Paradise. This brought himback to physical life, brutally. He was too young to die.
Those little, red shoes would dance on his grave. Was she asleep now?How would she know? What would she know?
Then Letty Lane, too, spirited away, and the boy's thoughts turned tothe man he was to meet. "The affairs are purely formal," he had heardsome one say, "an exchange of balls, without serious results."
One of his companions offered Blair a cigar. He refused, the ideasickened him. Here the gentlemen exchanged glances, and one murmured,"Is he afraid?"
The other shrugged.
"Not astonishing--he's a child."
At this Dan glanced up and smiled--what Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, hadcalled his divine young smile. The two secretly were ashamed--he wascharming.
As they got out of the motor Dan said:
"I want to ask a question of Prince Poniotowsky--if it is allowed. I'llwrite it on my card."
After a conference between Prince Poniotowsky's seconds and Dan's, theslip was handed the prince.
"If you get out all right, will you marry Miss Lane? I shall be glad to know."
The Hungarian, who read it under the tree, half smiled. The naivete ofit, the touching youth of it, the crude lack of form--was perfect enoughto touch his sense of humor. On the back of Dan's card Poniotowskyscrawled:
"Yes."
It was a haughty inclination, a salute of honor before the fight.
The meeting place was within sight of the little rustic pavilion of LesTrois Agneaux, celebrated for its _pre sale_ and _beignets_: theadvertisements had confronted Dan everywhere during his wanderings thosemiserable days. Under a group of chestnut trees in bright featheryflower Prince Poniotowsky and his seconds waited, their frock-coatsbuttoned up and their gloves and silk hats in their hands. As Blair andhis companions came up the others stood uncovered, grim and formal,according to the code.
On the highroad a short distance away ranged the motors which hadfetched the gentlemen from Paris, and the car in which the physician hadcome--an ugly and sinister gathering in the peace and beauty of theserene summer morning.
Finches and thrashes sang in the bushes, over the grass the dew stillhung in crystals, and a peasant walking at his horses' heads on the slowtramp back from the Paris market, was held up and kept stolidly waitingat a few hundred yards away.
Twenty-five paces. They were measured off by the four seconds, and attheir signal Dan Blair and the prince took their positions, therevolvers raised perpendicularly in their right hands.
Still more indistinctly the boy saw the sharp-cut picture of it all ...the diving-bell was sinking deeper--deeper--into the sea.
"If I aim," he said to himself, "I shall kill sure--sure."
Blair heard the command: "Fire!" and supposed that after that he fired.