The Bondwoman Part 6

"When he saw Madame Blanc placidly knitting under the trees, while I spread her fan to dry, he fancied I was in her service; the fancy was given color by the fact that my companion, as usual, was dressed with extreme elegance, whilst I was insignificant in an old school habit."

"Insignificant--um! There was conversation I presume?"

"Not much," she confessed, and again the delicious wave of color swept over her face, "but he had suggested spreading the fan on his handkerchief, and of course then he had to remain until it was dry."

"Clever Englishman; and as he supposed you to be a paid companion, was he, also, some gentleman's gentleman?"

She flashed one mutinous glance at him.

"The jest seemed to me amusing; his presence was an exhilaration; and I did not correct his little mistake as to mistress and maid. When he attempted to tell me who or what he was I stopped him; that would have spoiled the adventure. I know he had just come from England; that he was fascinating without being strictly handsome; that he could say through silence the most eloquent things to one! It was an hour in Arcady--just one hour without past or future. They are the only absolutely joyous ones, are they not?"

"Item: it was the happiest hour in the life of Madame La Marquise,"

commented Dumaresque, with an attempt at drollery, and an accompaniment of a sigh. "Well--the finale?"

"The hour ended! I said 'good day, Monsieur Incognito.' He said, 'good night, Mademoiselle Unknown.'"

"Good night! Heavens--it was not then an hour, but a day!"

"It was an hour, Monsieur! That was only one way of conveying his belief that all the day was in that hour."

"Blessed be the teachings of the convent! And you would have me believe that an Englishman could make such speeches? However, I am eager for the finale--the next day?"

"The next day I surprised Monsieur and Madame Blanc by declaring the sketch I was doing of the woods there, was hopelessly bad--I would never complete it."

"Ah!" and Dumaresque's exclamation had a note of hope; "he had been a bore after all?"

"The farthest thing possible from it! When I woke in the morning it was an hour earlier than usual. I found myself with my eyes scarcely open, standing before the clock to reckon every instant of time until I should see him again. Well, from that moment my adventure ceased to be merely amusing. I told myself how many kinds of an idiot I was, and I thrust my head among the pillows again. I realized then, Monsieur, what a girl's first romance means to her. I laughed at myself, of course, as I had laughed at others often. But I could not laugh down the certainty that the skies were bluer, the birds' songs sweeter, and all life more lovely than it had ever been before."

"And by what professions, or what mystic rhymes or runes, did he bring about this enchantment?"

"Not by a single sentence of protestation? An avowal would have sent me from him without a regret. If we had not met at all after that first look, that first day, I am convinced I should have been haunted by him just the same! There were long minutes when we did not speak or look at each other; but those minutes were swept with harmonies. Now, Monsieur Loris, would you call that love, or is it a sort of summer-time madness?"

"Probably both, Marquise; but there was a third meeting?"

"After three days, Monsieur; days when I forced myself to remain indoors; and the struggle it was, when I could close my eyes and see him waiting there under the trees!"

"Ah! There had been an appointment?"

"Pardon, Monsieur; you are perhaps confounding this with some remembered adventure of your own. There was no appointment. But I felt confident that blue-eyed ogre was walking every morning along the path where I met him first, and that he would compel me to open the door and walk straight to our own clump of bushes so long as I did not send him away."

"And you finally went?"

She nodded. "He was there. His smile was like sunshine. He approached me, but I--I did not wait. I went straight to him. He said, 'At last, Mademoiselle Unknown!'"

"Pardon; but it is your words I have most interest in," reminded her confessor.

"But I said so few. I remember I had some violets, and he asked me what they were called in French. I told him I was going away; I had fed the carp for the last time. He was also leaving. He had gathered some wild forget-me-nots. He was coming into Paris."

"And you parted unknown to each other?"

"How could I do else? When he said, 'I bid you good-bye, Mademoiselle Unknown, but we shall meet again.' Then--then I did correct him a little; I said _Madame_ Unknown, Monsieur."

"Ah! And to that--?"

"He said not a word, only looked at me; _how_ he looked at me! I felt guilty as a criminal. When I looked up he turned away--turned very politely, with lifted hat and a bow even you could not improve upon, Monsieur Loris, I watched him out of sight in the forest. He never halted; and he never turned his head."

"You might at least have let him go without the thought that you were a flirtatious matron with a husband somewhere in the back-ground."

"Yes; I almost regret that. Still, since I had to send him away, what matter how? It would have been so common-place had I said: 'We receive on Thursdays; find Loris Dumaresque when you reach Paris; he will present you.' No!"--and she shook her head laughingly, "the three days were quite enough. He is an unknown world; a romance only suggested, and the suggestion is delicious. I would not for the world have him nearer prosaic reality."

"You will forget him in another three weeks," prophesied Dumaresque; "he has been only a shadow of a man; a romantic dream. I shall refuse to accept any but realities as rivals."

"I a.s.sure you, no reality has been so appealing as that dream," she persisted. "I am telling you all this with the hope that once I have laughed with you over this witchcraft it will be robbed of its potency. I have destroyed the sacred wall of sentiment surrounding this ghost of mine because I rebel at being mastered by it."

"Mastered?--you?"

"Oh, you laugh! You think me, then, too cold or too philosophic, in spite of what I have just told you?"

"Not cold, my dear Marquise. But if you will pardon the liberty of a.n.a.lysis I will venture the opinion that when you are mastered it will be by yourself. Your very well-shaped head will forever defend you from the mastery of others."

"Mastered by myself? I do not think I quite understand you," she said, slowly. "But I must tell you the extreme limit of my folly, the folly of the imagination. Each morning I go for a walk, as I did this morning. Each time I leave the door I have with me the fancy that somewhere I shall meet him. Of course my reason tells me how improbable it is, but I put the reason aside and enjoy my walk all the more because of that fancied tryst. Now, Monsieur Loris, you have been the victim of my romance long enough. Come; we will join Madame Blanc and have some coffee."

"And this is all you have to tell me, Marquise?"

"All but one little thing, Monsieur," and she laughed, though the laugh was a trifle nervous; "this morning for an instant I thought the impossible had happened. Only one street from here my ogre materialized again, or some one wondrously like him. How startled I was! How I hurried poor Madame Blanc! But we were evidently not discovered. I realized, however, at that moment, how imprudent I had been. How shocked Maman would be if she knew. Yet it was really the most innocent jest, to begin with."

"They often begin that way," remarked Dumaresque, consolingly.

"Well, I have arrived at one conclusion. It is only because I have met so few men, that _one_ dare make such an overwhelming impression on me. I rebel; and shall amaze Maman by becoming a social b.u.t.terfly for a season. So, in future bring all your most charming friends to see me; but no tall, athletic, blue-eyed Englishmen."

"So," said Dumaresque, as he followed her to the breakfast room, "I lay awake all night that I may make love to you early in the morning, and you check-mate me by thrusting forward a brawny Englishman."

"Pardon; he is not brawny;" she laughed; "I never said so; nevertheless, Monsieur Loris, I can teach you one thing: When love has to be _made_ it is best not to waste time with it. The real love makes itself and will neither be helped or hindered; and the love that can be conquered is not worth having."

He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

"In a year and a day I shall return to the discussion. I give you so long to change your mind and banish your phantasy; and in the meantime I remain your most devoted visitor."

Madame Blanc was already in evidence with the coffee, and Dumaresque watched the glowing face of the Marquise, surprised and puzzled at this new influence she confessed to and asked a.n.a.lysis for. This book-worm; this reader of law and philosophy; how charming had been her blushes even while she spoke in half mockery of the face haunting her. If only such color would sweep over her cheek at the thought of him--Dumaresque!

But he had his lesson for the present. He would not play the sighing Strephon, realizing that this particular Amaryllis was not to be won so. As he received the coffee from her hand he remarked, mischievously, "Marquise, you did not quite complete the story. What became of the forget-me-nots he gathered?"

But the Marquise only laughed.

"We are no longer in the confessional, Monsieur," she said.