The Bondwoman Part 8

"Faith! no chance to even play the lackey for her," he grumbled.

"There's an old saying that 'G.o.d is good to the Irish;' but I don't think I'm getting my share of it this day; unless its by way of being kept out of temptation, and sure, its never a Delaven would pray for that when the temptation is a lovely woman. Now wasn't she worth a day's journey afoot just to look at?"

He turned to his companion, whose gaze was still on the receding carriage, and who seemed, at last, to be aroused to interest in something Parisian; for his eyes were alight, his expression, a mingling of delight and disappointment. At Delaven's question, however, he attempted nonchalance, not very successfully, and remarked, as they re-entered the house, "There were two of them to look at, which do you mean?"

"Faith, now, did you suppose for a minute it was the dowager I meant?

Not a bit of it! Madame Alain, as I heard some of them call her, is the 'gem of purest ray serene.' What star of the heavens dare twinkle beside her?"

"Don't attempt the poetical," suggested the other, unfeelingly. "I am to suppose, then, that you know her--this Madame Alain?"

"Do I know her? Haven't I been raving about her for days? Haven't you vowed she belonged to the type abhorrent to you? Haven't I had to endure your reflections on my sanity because of the adjectives I've employed to describe her attractions? Haven't you been laughing at your own mother and myself for our infatuation?--and now--"

He stopped, because the Lieutenant's grip on his shoulder was uncomfortably tight, as he said:

"Shut up! Who the devil are you talking about?"

"By the same power, how can I shut up and tell you at the same time?"

and Delaven moved his arm, and felt of his shoulder, with exaggerated self-pity. "Man! but you've got a grip in that fist of yours."

"Who is the lady you call Madame Alain?"

"Faith, if you had gone to her home when you were invited you'd have no need to ask me the question this day. Her nearest friends call her Madame Alain, because that was the given name of her husband, the saints be good to him! and it helps distinguish her from the dowager.

But for all that she is the lady you disdained to know--Madame la Marquise de Caron."

McVeigh stared at him moodily, even doubtfully.

"You are not trying to play a practical joke, I reckon?" he said at last; and then without waiting for a reply, walked over to the office window, where he stood staring out, his hands in his pockets, his back to Delaven, who was eyeing him calmly. Directly, he came back smiling; his moody fit all gone.

"And I was idiot enough to disdain that invitation?" he asked; "well, Fitz, I have repented. I am willing to do penance in any agreeable way we can conjure up, and to commence by calling tomorrow, if you can find a way."

Delaven found a way. Finding the way out of, or into difficulties was one of his strong points and one he especially delighted in, if it had a flavor of intrigue, and was to serve a friend. Since his mother's death in Paris, several years before, he had made his home in or about the city. He was without near relatives, but had quite a number of connections whose social standing was such that there were few doors he could not find keys to, or a pa.s.sword that was the equivalent. His own frank, ingenuous nature made him quite as many friends as his social and diplomatic connections; so that despite the fact of a not enormous income, and that he meant to belong to the professions some day, and that he was by no means a youth on matrimony bent--with all these drawbacks he was welcomed in a social way to most delightful circles, and when he remarked to the dowager that he would like to bring his friend, the Lieutenant, at an early day, she a.s.sured him they would be welcome.

She endeavored to make them so in her own characteristic way, when they called, twenty-four hours later, and they spent a delightful twenty minutes with her. She could not converse very freely with the American, because of the difficulties of his French and her English, but their laughter over mistakes really tended to better their acquaintance. He was conscious that her eyes were on him, even while she talked with Delaven, whose mother she had known. He would have been uncomfortable under such surveillance but for the feeling that it was not entirely an unkindly regard, and he had hopes that the impression made was in his favor.

Loris Dumaresque arrived as they were about to take their departure, and Lieutenant McVeigh gathered from their greeting that he was a daily visitor--that as G.o.d-son he was acting as far as possible in the stead of a real son, and that the dowager depended on him in many ways since his return to Paris.

The American realized also that the artist would be called a very handsome man by some people, and that his gaiety and his self confidence would make him especially attractive to women. He felt an impatience with women who liked that sort of impudence. Delaven did not get a civil word from him all the way home.

Madame la Marquise--Madame Alain--had not appeared upon the scene at all.

CHAPTER V.

"But he is not at all bad, this American officer," insisted the dowager; "such a great, manly fellow, with the deference instinctive, and eyes that regard you well and kindly. Your imagination has most certainly led you astray; it could not be that with such a face, and such a mother, he could be the--horrible! of that story."

"All the better for him," remarked her daughter-in-law. "But I should not feel at ease with him. He must be some relation, and I should shrink from all of the name."

"But, Madame McVeigh--so charming!"

"Oh, well; she only has the name by accident, that is, by marriage."

The dowager regarded her with a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Shall you always regard marriage as merely an accident?" she asked. "Some day it will be presented to you in such a practical, advantageous way that you will cease to think it all chance."

"Advantageous?" and the Marquise raised her brows; "could we be more happy than we are?" The old face softened at the words and tone.

"But I shall not be always with you," she replied; "and then--"

"Alain knew," said the girl, softly. "He said as a widow I could have liberty. I would need no guardian; I could look after all my affairs as young girls could not do. Each year I shall grow older--more competent."

"But there is one thing Alain did not foresee: that your many suitors would rob you of peace until you made choice of some particular one.

These late days I have felt I should like the choice to be made while I am here to see."

"Maman! you are not ill?" and in a moment she was beside the couch.

"No; I think not; no, no, nothing to alarm you. I have only been thinking that together--both of us to plan and arrange--yet I need Loris daily. And if there should be only one of us, that remaining one would need some man's help all the more, and if it were you, who then would the man be? You perceive! It is wise to make plans for all possibilities."

"There are women who live alone."

"Not happy women," said the dowager in a tone, admitting of no contradiction; "the women who live alone from choice are cold and selfish; or have hurts to hide and are heart-sick of a world in which their illusions have been destroyed; or else they have never known companionship, and so never feel the lack of it. My child, I will not have you like any of these; you were made to enjoy life, and life to the young should mean--well, I am a sentimentalist. I married the one man who had all my affection. I approve of such marriages. If the man comes for whom you would care like that, I should welcome him."

"He will never come, Maman," and the smile of the Marquise someway drifted into a sigh. "I shall live and die the widow of Alain."

The dowager embraced her. "But for all that I do not approve," she protested. "Your reasons for not marrying do not convince me, and I promise my support to the most worthy who presents himself. Have you an ideal to which nothing human may reach?"

"For three years your son has seemed ideal to me," said the Marquise, after a moment's hesitation. The dowager regarded her attentively.

"He was?" she asked; "your regard for him does you credit; but, amber eyes, it is not for a man who has been dead a year that a woman blushes as you blush now."

"Oh!" began the Marquise, as if in protest; and then feeling that the color was becoming even more p.r.o.nounced, she was silent.

The dowager smiled, well pleased at her cleverness.

"There was sure to be some one, some day," she said, nodding sagaciously; "when you want to talk of it I will listen, my Judithe. I could tell it in the tone of your voice as you sang or laughed; yes, there is nothing so wonderful in that," she explained, as the girl looked up, startled. "You have always been a creature of aims, serious, almost ponderous. Suddenly you emerge like sunshine from the shadows; you are all gaiety and sudden smiles; unconsciously you sing low songs of happiness; you suggest brightness and hope; you have suddenly come into your long-delayed girlhood. You give me affectionate glimpses of the woman G.o.d meant you to be some day. It can only be a man who works such a miracle in an ascetic of nineteen years. When the lucky fellow gathers courage to speak, I shall be glad to pa.s.s judgment on him."

The Marquise was silent. The light, humorous tone of the dowager had disarmed her; yet she had of her own accord, and influenced by some wild mood, told Dumaresque all that was only guesswork to the friend beside her. How could she have confessed it to him? She had wondered at herself that she had dared, and after all it had been so entirely useless; it had not driven away the memory of the man at Fontainbleau, even for one little instant.

Madame Blanc entered with some message for the dowager, and the question of marriage, also the more serious one of love, were put aside for the time.

But Judithe was conscious that she was under a kindly surveillance, and suspected that Dumaresque, also, was given extra attention. Her confession of that unusual fascination had made them better comrades, and the dowager was taking note that their tone was more frank, and their att.i.tude suggested some understanding. It was like a comedy for her to watch them, feeling so sure that their sentiments were very clear and that she could see the way it would all end. Judithe would coquette with him awhile, and then it would be all very well; and it would not be like a stranger coming into the family.

The people who came close enough to see her often, realized that the journey back to Paris had not been beneficial to the dowager. It had only been an experiment through which she had been led to open her house, receive her friends, introduce her daughter; but the little excitement of that had vanished, and now that the routine of life was to be followed, it oppressed her. The ghosts of other days came so close--the days when Alain had been beside her. At times she regretted Rome, but the physician forbade her return there until autumn. She had fancied that a season in the old house at Fontainbleau would serve as a restorative to health--the house where Alain was born; but it was a failure. Her days there were days of tears, and sad, far-away memories. So to Paris she went with the a.s.sertion that there alone, life was to be found. She meant to live to the last minute of her life, and where so well as in the one city inexhaustible?

"Maman is trying to frighten me into marriage," thought the Marquise after their conversation; "she wants some spectacular ceremony to enliven the house for a season, and cure her ennui; Paris has been a disappointment, and Loris is making himself necessary to her."