The Strollers Part 29

"How do you do, Miss Duran," he said, having made his way to her box.

"Where did you drop from?" she asked, in surprise, giving him her hand.

"The skies," he returned, with forced lightness.

"A fallen angel!" commented Susan.

"Good! Charming!" cried the marquis, clapping his withered hands.

"Miss Duran, the Marquis de Ligne has requested the pleasure of meeting you."

She flashed a smile at him. He bent over her hand; held it a moment in his icy grasp.

"The pleasure," said Susan, prettily, not shirking the ordeal, "is mine."

"In which case," added Mauville, half ironically, "I will leave you together to enjoy your happiness."

Eagerly availing himself of the place offered at her side, soon the marquis was cackling after the manner of a senile beau of the old school; relating spicy anecdotes of dames who had long departed this realm of scandal; and mingling witticism and wickedness in one continual flow, until like a panorama another age was revived in his words--an age when bedizened women wore patches and their perfumed gallants wrote verses on the demise of their lap-dogs; when "their virtue resembled a statesman's religion, the Quaker's word, the gamester's oath and the great man's honor--but to cheat those that trusted them!"

The day's events, however, were soon over; the city of pleasure finally capitulated; its people began rapidly to depart. That sudden movement resembled the migration of a swarm of bees to form a new colony, when, if the day be bright, the expedition issues forth with wondrous rapidity. So this human hive commenced to empty itself of queens, drones and workers. It was an outgoing wave of such life and animation as is apparent in the flight of a swarm of cell-dwellers, giving out a loud and sharp-toned hum from the action of their wings as they soar over the blooming heather and the "bright consummate flowers." And these human bees had their pa.s.sions, too! their ma.s.sacres; their tragedies; their "Rival Queens"; their combats; their sentinels; their dreams of that Utopian form of government realized in the communistic society of insects.

"How did you enjoy it, my dear?" asked Barnes, suddenly reappearing at Constance's box. "A grand heat, that! Though I did bet on the wrong horse! But don't wait for us, Saint-Prosper. Mrs. Adams and I will take our time getting through the crowd. I will see you at the hotel, my dear!" he added, as the soldier and Constance moved away.

Only the merry home-going remained, and the culmination, a dinner at Moreau's, Victor's, or Miguel's, the natural epilogue to the day's pastime, the tag to the comedy! In the returning throng were creoles with sky-blue costumes and palmetto hats; the Lafourche or Attakapas planter; representatives of the older regime and the varied newer populace. Superb equipages mingled in democratic confusion with carts and wagons; the broken-winded nag and spavined crowbait--veterans at the bugle call!--p.r.i.c.ked up their ears and kicked up their heels like colts in pasture, while the delighted darkies thumped their bony shanks to encourage this brief rejuvenescence.

Those who had lost felt the money well spent; those who had won would be the more lavish in the spending. They had simply won a few more pleasures. "Quick come; quick go!" sang the whirling wheels. "The n.i.g.g.ard in pound and pence is a usurer in happiness; a miser driving a hard bargain with pleasure. Better burn the candle at both ends than not burn it at all! In one case, you get light; in the other nothing but darkness. Laughter is cheap at any price. A castle in the air is almost as durable as Solomon's temple. How soon--how soon both fade away!"

Thus ran the song of the wheels before them and behind them, as the soldier and Constance joined the desultory f.a.g-end of the procession.

On either side of the road waved the mournful cypress, draped by the h.o.a.ry tillandsia, and from the somber depths of foliage came the chirp of the tree-crickets and the note of the swamp owl. Faint music, in measured rhythm, a foil to disconnected wood-sound, was wafted from a distant plantation.

"Wait!" said Constance.

He drew in the horses and silently they listened. Or, was he listening? His glance seemed bent so moodily--almost!--on s.p.a.ce she concluded he was not. She stole a sidelong look at him.

"A penny for your thoughts!" she said gaily.

He started. "I was thinking how soon I might leave New Orleans."

"Leave New Orleans!" she repeated in surprise. "But I thought you intended staying here. Why have you changed your mind?"

Did he detect a subtle accent of regret in her voice? A deep flush mounted to his brow. He bent over her suddenly, eagerly.

"Would it matter--if I went?"

She drew back at the abruptness of his words.

"How unfair to answer one question with another!" she said lightly.

A pause fell between them. Perhaps she, too, felt the sudden repulse of her own answer and the ensuing constraint. Perhaps some compunction moved her to add in a voice not entirely steady:

"And so you think--of going back to France?"

"To France!" he repeated, quickly. "No"--and stopped.

Looking up, a half-questioning light in her eyes took flight to his, until suddenly arrested by the hard, set expression of his features.

Abruptly chilled by she knew not what, her lashes fell. The horses champed their bits and tugged at the reins, impatient of the prolonged pause.

"Let us go!" she said in a low, constrained voice.

At her words he turned, the harshness dropping from his face like a discarded mask; the lines of determination wavering.

"Let us go!" she said again, without looking up.

He made no motion to obey, until the sound of a vehicle behind them seemed to break the spell and mechanically he touched the horses with the whip.

CHAPTER IV

LEAR AND JULIET

Susan dismissed her admirers at the races with some difficulty, especially the tenacious marquis, who tenderly squeezed her hand, saying:

"Were I twenty years younger, I would not thus be set aside."

"Fie, Marquis!" she returned. "These other people are dull, while you are charmingly wicked."

"You flatter me," he cackled, detaining her, to the impatience of the thick-set man who was waiting to escort the young woman back to town.

"But do you notice the gentleman over there with the medals?"

"The distinguished-looking man?" asked Susan.

"Yes; that is the Count de Propriac. It was he who was one of the agents of Louis Philippe in the Spanish double marriage plot. It was arranged the queen should marry her cousin, and her sister the son of Louis Philippe. The queen and her cousin were not expected to have children--but had them, to spite us all, and Louis Philippe's projects for the throne of Spain failed disastrously."

"How inconsiderate of the queen! Good afternoon, marquis! I have been vastly entertained."

"And I"--kissing her hand--"enamored!" Then, chuckling: "A week ago my stupid doctors had me laid out in funereal dignity, and now I am making love to a fine woman. Pretty pouting lips!"--tapping her chin playfully--"Like rose-buds! Happy the lover who shall gather the dew!

But we meet again, Mistress Susan?"

"That will depend upon you, marquis," answered Susan, coquettishly, as a thought flashed through her mind that it would not be unpleasant to be called "Marquise," or "Marchioness"--she did not quite know which would be the proper t.i.tle. It was nearly vesper-time with the old n.o.bleman; he seemed but a procrastinating presence in the evening of mortal life; a chateau and carriage--

"Then we will meet again," said the marquis, interrupting these new-born ambitions.

"In that case you would soon get tired of me," laughed Susan.

"Never!" Tenderly. "When may I see you?"