My Neighbor Raymond Part 44

"How kind you are to come to see me, Monsieur Dorsan, and to think of me sometimes!"

"Don't you think of me, Nicette?"

"Oh! all the time! but that's no reason why--why--I mean, it's very different!"

"What were you doing when I came?"

"I was writing, monsieur--learning my lesson."

She blushed as she said it. I glanced at the table and saw several sheets of paper covered with large letters--a name written again and again--and that name, mine! Poor Nicette!

I looked at her; she blushed even more, and stammered, lowering her eyes:

"I beg your pardon, monsieur, for taking your name for a copy; but I thought that my benefactor's name ought to be the first thing that I wrote."

I took her hands and pressed them.

"Really, Nicette, I do not deserve so much friendship--if you knew me better!"

"Oh! I know you well enough by all that you have done for me."

"Are you happy now?"

"Yes, monsieur; I can't be more so."

The tone in which she said that, and the melancholy expression of her face, gave me much food for thought.

"You seem to me much changed, Nicette."

"How, monsieur?"

"You are pale, and a little thinner than you were."

"But I am not sick."

"Perhaps this smell of flowers----"

"Oh! I've been used to that a long time."

"I miss in your manner that light-heartedness and vivacity that I noticed at the time of our first meeting."

"Oh! a person can't be always the same."

"Still, if you have nothing to distress you----"

"No, monsieur, no, I haven't anything."

"Your eyes tell me the contrary. Dear Nicette, you have been crying."

"No, monsieur; and even if I had--why, sometimes one cries without knowing why, and without being unhappy."

We said nothing more. I did not choose to question her further, for I thought that I could guess what caused her distress. She did not look at me again; doubtless she was afraid that I would read her eyes. She was pensive and silent. Nor could I find anything to say. Her sadness had infected my heart. But the silence had a charm which we both enjoyed.

However, I thought that I ought to try to divert her thoughts, and at the same time turn my own mind from reflections that were too hazardous.

I went to the table and looked at the paper and the writing.

"You write well already, Nicette."

"Not any too well yet, monsieur; but I hope, with time----"

"Do you still take lessons?"

"No, I haven't any teacher now; he said things to me that I didn't like; he didn't want to give me the word I wanted for a copy; he always made me write: _Commencement, commonly, exactly_; and I didn't see why I couldn't learn just as well by writing _Dorsan_ as _commonly_, although it isn't so long. That made him angry, so I sent him away; I can get along without him. I know how to write the small letters too."

"Let me see."

"Oh! my hand would tremble before you, monsieur."

"Why so? I will give you a lesson."

"Will you, really?"

"Why, yes; to be sure."

She seated herself at the table; I placed a chair close beside hers, put my right arm about her, and guided her hand with mine; my face touched her hair; her whole body was against mine; I inhaled her sweet breath, and I could count the beating of her heart. Ah! what pleasure that lesson afforded me! Unconsciously, without premeditation, I made her write _I love you_ again and again. My hand trembled as violently as the hand I was guiding. But a tear fell from her eyes. The pen dropped from our hands. I have no idea how it happened; but Nicette's pretty face was hidden against my breast, her two arms were about me, and mine pressed her fondly to my heart. At that moment I felt that even if Madame de Marsan, or any other woman, were present, I would not put Nicette's arms away.

We had been a long while in that position and did not think of changing it. Nicette was happy, and I--I must confess it--enjoyed a pleasure that I had never known before, a pleasure of which I had no conception, undisturbed by any desire for which I need blush. But, engrossed as I was by the present, I could not answer for the future; another caress might kindle a conflagration.

There came a loud knock at the door of the shop. Nicette started from my arms, and I looked at her with some disquietude.

"Who can have come to see you so late? You told me that you had no acquaintances."

"I don't know who it is; I don't expect anybody!"

Her eyes rea.s.sured me; they could not lie! But the knocking was repeated, and we distinguished these words:

"Open the door, open quick, Mamzelle Nicette! your mother's very sick and wants to see you."

Nicette ran to the door and recognized the daughter of one of Madame Jerome's neighbors. The girl told her that her mother had had an apoplectic attack as the result of a violent quarrel with her daughter Fanchon; and feeling very ill, she longed to see the child she had so unjustly turned out of doors. Nicette flew about the shop; in an instant she had taken off her ap.r.o.n and put on her cap.

"Adieu, adieu, Monsieur Dorsan!" she said, in a trembling voice, and with eyes filled with tears; "my mother is sick and I must forget everything."

We left the shop; she took the little girl's arm and dragged her away; the child could hardly keep pace with her. I soon lost sight of them.

Sweet girl! she possessed all the virtues, and I loved her better than I thought, more dearly than I had ever loved. The most convincing proof that I really loved her was that I had thus far respected her innocence; but I felt that I must avoid going to see her at night; to be alone with her would be too dangerous. If it had not been for that knocking--I do not know what might have happened.

I decided to return to Madame de Marsan, so as to turn my thoughts from Nicette; I must give my brain occupation, in order to allow my heart to become calmer. By that means I should at least provide myself with a pardonable motive for my new follies.