The Road to Paris Part 27

"It would be worth while, if mademoiselle were the daughter of Sestos."

"Has monsieur swum all the way from England?" asked the girl, evidently to show that she recognized his way of speaking French.

"Mademoiselle mistakes, doubtless for the first time in her life," said d.i.c.k. "I am an American, and if I have not swum all the way from America, I am at least as wet as if I had."

"Monsieur is indeed a veritable rain-storm. Alphonse, show monsieur to a room where he may dry his clothes. If he went home in them as they are, he might catch cold,--America is some distance away. You may leave me alone,--yonder comes Monsieur Marmontel."

The footman, resigning to her the parasol at a gesture, immediately led d.i.c.k, over gravel walks flanked by lime-trees and foliage, to a side entrance of the handsome house, and thence up-stairs to a chamber, in which another servant soon started a fire. After taking off his clothes to dry them, d.i.c.k donned a dressing-gown brought him by the footman. The chamber having been placed entirely at his service, he made use of its toilet articles to restore his best appearance. This done, and his clothes dried, he put them on again, and went out the way he had come, looking around, when he reached the front of the house, for some one to thank.

"The weather has changed as to monsieur," came a voice from a clump of shrubs, and the girl stepped into view, attended, as before, by the footman.

"It is true, mademoiselle. I no longer weep tears of Seine water.

Instead, I smile in my heart with grat.i.tude. May I know to whom my thanks are due? I am--"

"No, no, do not say who you are! One is far more interesting who remains unknown, and I am dying to meet an interesting person."

"I am sure mademoiselle would remain interesting, even if I knew her name."

"No, for as long as you don't know me I shall be just as interesting to you as your imagination can make me. Besides, the luxury of being unknown, at St. Ouen, where everybody knows me, is refreshing. It makes me seem another person."

She had led the way farther from the chateau while talking, and now she sat down on a rustic bench, and motioned Alphonse to take away the parasol. d.i.c.k saw no reason for an immediate departure, so he stood behind the bench, looking now at the girl, now at the large trees on the terrace.

"Do you know, an idea has come to me," said the girl, when Alphonse had taken his station some distance away. The dog now came bursting through some leafless foliage, and stood beside her, receiving her light caresses while the conversation went on.

"If ideas are as uncommon in France as they are elsewhere," said d.i.c.k, "you will be famous."

"I shall doubtless be famous some day, but not through this idea. It is not original. The Abbe Raynal and I used to amuse ourselves by means of it, but I knew all the while that he was the Abbe Raynal, and he knew that I was Germaine--_mon Dieu_, I nearly spoiled all by telling my name!"

"Germaine," repeated d.i.c.k. "I shall remember that, at least."

"I give you permission to remember it, only on condition that you promise not to find out who I am, or whose house this is."

"Very well. After all, I like mystery. I promise."

"So much the better. This is the idea. When I was younger, I used to have a little make-believe theatre, with miniature actors that I cut out of paper. The Abbe overheard me one day rehearsing them in a little comedy I had written, and offered to act with me whatever pieces required only two characters. We began with a piece containing a shepherd and a shepherdess, and, from acting that, we went a step farther, and continued to pretend that we were the shepherds, carrying out the illusion without premeditated speech or action. The Abbe had done similar things at Sceaux, in the time of the d.u.c.h.ess du Maine."

"I have read of the French n.o.bility having amused themselves in that way," said d.i.c.k.

"Yes, when all the world was reading 'Astree,' and a hundred years later, when Watteau and the opera brought shepherds into fashion again,"

replied this youthful prodigy of information. "It was a charming amus.e.m.e.nt, was it not? But the trouble was, when we attempted it, that no amount of imagination could transform the Abbe, with his 'History of the Two Indies' in mind, into a shepherd. You understand, I knew him so well. But you, of whom I know nothing, and who have come into my view in so strange a manner--"

"More like a river G.o.d than like a shepherd," commented d.i.c.k.

"Oh, shepherds often fell into brooks! Nothing could be more in character. Well, we are to play that you are a shepherd called--not Celadon; we sha'n't take our names from d'Urfe,--let me think--"

"Silvius," suggested d.i.c.k, remembering the shepherds of Arden, in Shakespeare.

"Yes, Silvius is a good name. And I shall be Amaryllis."

"And where are the sheep?"

"We shall have to imagine the sheep at present, though I can obtain some easily enough. Well, you shall come every day in a boat, in the afternoon, and I will be waiting somewhere near the place at which you landed this morning."

"And must I come as wet as I was this morning?"

"No. You shall be a dry shepherd hereafter. Come about two o'clock, if the weather is clear; but remember, I am not to know where you come from, or whither you go when you leave, any more than you are to know who I am. Now, that is all settled! Till to-morrow, Silvius!"

"But how am I to get home to-day? Would you have me swim?"

"No. Alphonse will show you out by the gate to-day, and you can go by land to your lodge,--remember, shepherds dwell in lodges. But after this you will come in a boat, and leave it at the sh.o.r.e to return by.

So, till to-morrow, Silvius!"

"Till to-morrow, Amaryllis!" said d.i.c.k, with a bow not very shepherd-like. Obedient to a word from the girl, Alphonse, who had heeded nothing of her talk if he had heard it, conducted d.i.c.k past the house and through more of the park, to a gate, which opened on a tree-lined avenue. d.i.c.k turned to the left, and a walk of about a mile and a half brought him to St. Denis, where he dined and spent the rest of the day thinking of his odd adventure.

He found himself looking forward to the next day with pleasure. The bright face and the expressive eyes seemed to draw him back towards St.

Ouen. He could not get them out of his mind. The knowledge of their proximity gave the whole neighborhood a new life and charm. He no longer wished to hasten from that neighborhood. Paris no longer lured him as with irresistible seductions. He found it now quite easy to tarry at the very threshold of the city.

"Can it be possible," he thought, "that I am falling in love with this child?"

He knew not that men twice and thrice his age--great men, whose names sounded through the world of philosophy and letters--had asked themselves the same question, regarding the same child.

The next morning, d.i.c.k visited one or two small shops in St. Denis, and added to his meagre supply of linen, handkerchiefs, and hosiery.

Considering the small stock of money he had left, this was a piece of extravagance, but he counted on immediate employment by Mr. Franklin, on reaching Paris. Such is the confidence of youth.

In the afternoon he hired a boat, this time without a boatman, and rowed alone to the appointed landing-place. As soon as he had made his boat fast, he saw his shepherdess approaching down the terrace, herself carrying the parasol, the footman standing back within hearing distance.

"Good day, Amaryllis!" he called out.

"Good day, Silvius! Follow me to my lodge." She led the way to a rustic open summer-house veiled by a clump of trees, the smaller ones forming a semicircle that enclosed a sunlit, gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce descending gradually from the summer-house to a row of shrubs that grew along the river.

"This is my lodge," she said, sitting on the bench that ran around the inside of the structure.

d.i.c.k sat on the step at the entrance, near her feet, and said, glancing at the clear s.p.a.ce before them:

"I see your lodge is situated so that you can sit in it and keep your sheep in sight while they graze."

"Yes, this spot is their favorite pasture, as you can see."

d.i.c.k looked at the invisible sheep dotting the clean sward. "So I perceive. But let me understand. Is this flock yours alone, or are my sheep also here?"

"Oh, you have left your flock on your own hillside, and have come up the stream to see me. Neglectful shepherd!"

"When a shepherd neglects his own sheep, and hies to the lodge of a neighboring shepherdess, you know what it is a sign of," said d.i.c.k.

"It is a sign that he likes to gossip."

"No; it is a sign that Cupid is at work."

Amaryllis blushed ever so slightly, but seemed pleased, and did not lose her composure. "Well, to be sure, that is what invariably occurs between shepherds and shepherdesses. I suppose there is no way of getting around it."