The Gods are Athirst Part 29

"Venomous toad!"

"Tiger!"

"Vile serpent!"

Suddenly an elegantly dressed spectator clambers on to the edge of his box, pushes the bust, oversets it. The plaster head falls in shivers on the musicians' heads amid the cheers of the audience, who spring to their feet and strike up the _Reveil du Peuple_:

_Peuple francais, peuple de freres!..._

Among the most enthusiastic singers elodie recognized the handsome dragoon, the little lawyer's clerk, Henry, her first love.

After the performance the gallant Desmahis called a cabriolet and escorted the _citoyenne_ Blaise back to the _Amour peintre_.

In the carriage the artist took elodie's hand between his:

"You know, elodie, I love you?"

"I know it, because you love all women."

"I love them in you."

She smiled:

"I should be a.s.suming a heavy task, spite of the wigs black, blonde and red, that are the rage, if I undertook to be all women, all sorts of women, for you."

"elodie, I swear...."

"What! oaths, _citoyen_ Desmahis? Either you have a deal of simplicity, or you credit me with overmuch."

Desmahis had not a word to say, and she hugged herself over the triumph of having reduced her witty admirer to silence.

At the corner of the Rue de la Loi they heard singing and shouting and saw shadows flitting round a brazier of live coals. It was a band of young bloods who had just come out of the Theatre Francais and were burning a guy representing the Friend of the People.

In the Rue Honore the coachman struck his c.o.c.ked hat against a burlesque effigy of Marat swinging from the cord of a street lantern.

The fellow, heartened by the incident, turned round to his fares and told them how, only last night, the tripe-seller in the Rue Montorgueil had smeared blood over Marat's head, declaring: "That's the stuff he liked," and how some little scamps of ten had thrown the bust into the sewer, and how the spectators had hit the nail on the head, shouting:

"That's the Pantheon for him!"

Meanwhile, from every eating-house and restaurateur's voices could be heard singing:

_Peuple francais, peuple de freres!..._

"Good-bye," said elodie, jumping out of the cabriolet.

But Desmahis begged so hard, he was so tenderly urgent and spoke so sweetly, that she had not the heart to leave him at the door.

"It is late," she said; "you must only stay an instant."

In the blue chamber she threw off her mantle and appeared in her white gown _a l'antique_, which displayed all the warm fulness of her shape.

"You are cold, perhaps," she said, "I will light the fire; it is already laid."

She struck the flint and put a lighted match to the fire.

Philippe took her in his arms with the gentleness that bespeaks strength, and she felt a strange, delicious thrill. She was already yielding beneath his kisses when she s.n.a.t.c.hed herself from his arms, crying:

"Let me be."

Slowly she uncoiled her hair before the chimney-gla.s.s; then she looked mournfully at the ring she wore on the ring-finger of her left hand, a little silver ring on which the face of Marat, all worn and battered, could no longer be made out. She looked at it till the tears confused her sight, took it off softly and tossed it into the flames.

Then, her face shining with tears and smiles, transfigured with tenderness and pa.s.sion, she threw herself into Philippe's arms.

The night was far advanced when the _citoyenne_ Blaise opened the outer door of the flat for her lover and whispered to him in the darkness:

"Good-bye, sweetheart! It is the hour my father will be coming home. If you hear a noise on the stairs, go up quick to the higher floor and don't come down till all danger is over of your being seen. To have the street-door opened, give three raps on the _concierge's_ window.

Good-bye, my life, good-bye, my soul!"

The last dying embers were glowing on the hearth when elodie, tired and happy, dropped her head on the pillow.

THE END