Читать книгу The Bondwoman - Ryan Marah Ellis - Страница 3

Two mornings later M. Dumaresque stood in the Caron reception room staring with some dissatisfaction across the breadth of green lawn where the dryad and faun statues held vases of vining and blooming things.

He had just been told the dowager was not yet to be seen. That was only what he had expected; but he had also been told that the Marquise, accompanied, as usual, by Madame Blanc, had been out for two hours–and that he had not expected.

“Did she divine I would be in evidence this morning?” Then he glanced in a pier glass and grimaced. “Gone out with that plain Madame Blanc, when she might have had a treat–an hour with me!”

While he stood there both the Marquise and her companion appeared, walking briskly. Madame Blanc, a stout woman of thirty-five, was rather breathless.

“My dear Marquise, you do not walk, you fly,” she gasped, halting on the steps.

“You poor dear!” said the Marquise, patting her kindly on the shoulder. “I know you are faint for want of your coffee,” and at the same time her strong young arms helped the panting attendant mount the steps more quickly.

Once within the hall Madame Blanc dropped into the chair nearest the door, while the Marquise swept into the reception room and hastily to a window fronting on the street.

“How foolish of me,” she breathed aloud. “How my heart beats!”

“Allow me to prescribe,” said Dumaresque, stepping from behind the screen of the curtain, and smiling at her.

She retreated, her hands clasped over her breast, her eyes startled; then meeting his eyes she began to laugh a little nervously.

“How you frightened me!”

“And it was evidently not the first, this morning.”

She sank into a seat, indicated another to him, away from the window, removed her hat and leaned back looking at him.

“No, you are not,” she said at last. “But account for yourself, Monsieur Loris! The sun is not yet half way on its course, yet you are actually awake, and visible to humanity–it looks serious.”

“It is,” he agreed, smiling at her, yet a trifle nervous in his regard. “I have taken advantage of the only hour out of the twenty when there would be a chance of seeing you alone. So I made an errand–and I am here.”

“And–?”

“And I have determined that, after the fashion of the Americans or the English, I shall no longer ask the intervention of a third person. I decided on it last night before I left here. I have no title to offer you–you coldest and most charming of women, but I shall have fame; you will have no reason to be ashamed of the name of Dumaresque. Put me on probation, if you like, a year, two years!–only–”

“No; no!” she said pleadingly, putting out her hands with a slight repellant gesture. “It is not to be thought of, Monsieur Loris, Maman has told you! Twice has the same reply been given. I really cannot allow you to continue this suppliance. I like you too well to be angry with you, but–”

“I shall be content with the liking–”

“But I should not!” she declared, smilingly. “I have my ideals, if you please, Monsieur. Marriage should mean love. It is only matrimony for which liking is the foundation. I do not approve of matrimony.”

“Pardon; that is the expression of the romance lover–the school girl. But that I know you have lived the life of a nun I should fear some one had been before me, some one who realized those ideals of yours, and that instead of studying the philosophies of life, you have been a student of the philosophy of love.”

He spoke lightly–half laughingly, but the flush of pink suffusing her throat and brow checked his smile. He could only stare.

She arose hastily and walked the length of the room. When she turned the color was all gone, but her eyes were softly shining.

“All philosophy falls dead when the heart speaks,” she said, as she resumed her chair; “and now, Monsieur Loris, I mean to make you my father confessor, for I know no better way of ending these periodical proposals of yours, and at the same time confession might–well–it might not be without a certain benefit to myself.” He perceived that while she had assumed an air of raillery, there was some substance back of the mocking shadow.

“I shall feel honored by your confidence, Marquise,” he was earnest enough in that.

“And when you realize that there is–some one else–will you then resume your former role of friend?”

“I shall try. Who is the man?”

She met his earnest gaze with a demure smile, “I do not know, Monsieur.”

“What, then?–you are only jesting with me?”

“Truly, I do not know his name.”

“Yet you are in love with him?”

“I am not quite certain even of that,” and she smiled mockingly; “sometimes I have a fancy it may be witchcraft. I only know I am haunted–have been haunted four long weeks by a face, a voice, and two blue eyes.”

“Blue?” Dumaresque glanced in the mirror–his own eyes were blue.

“Yes, Monsieur Loris–blue with a dash of grey–the grey of the sea when clouds are heavy, and the blue of the farthest waves before the storm breaks–don’t you see the color?”

“Only the color of your fancy. He is the owner of blue eyes, a haunting voice, and–what else is my rival?”

“A foreigner, and–Monsieur Incognito.”

“You have met?”

“Three times;” and she held up as many white fingers. The reply evidently astounded Dumaresque.

“You have met three times a man whose name you do not know?”

“We are even on that score,” she said, “for he has spoken to me three times and does not know what I am called.”

“But to address you–”

“He called me Mademoiselle Unknown.”

“Bravo! This grows piquant; an adventure with all the flavor of the eighteenth instead of the nineteenth century. A real adventure, and you its heroine! Oh, Marquise, Marquise!”

“Ah! since you appreciate the humor of the affair you will no longer be oppressed by sentimental fancies concerning me;” and she nodded her head as though well pleased with the experiment of her confession. “You perceive how wildly improper I have been; still, I deny the eighteenth century flavor, Monsieur. Then, with three meetings the cavalier would have developed into a lover, and having gained entrance to a lady’s heart, he would have claimed also the key to her castle.”

“Astute pupil of the nuns!–and Monsieur Incognito?”

“He certainly does not fancy me possessed of either castle or keys. I was to him only an unpretentious English companion in attendance on Madame Blanc in the woods of Fontainbleau.”

“English! Since when are you fond enough of them to claim kindred?”

“He was English; he supposed me so when I replied to him in that tongue. He had taken the wrong path and–”

“And you walked together on another, also the wrong path.”

“No, Monsieur; that first day we only bowed and parted, but the ghost of his voice remained,” and she sighed in comical self-pity.

“I see! You have first given me the overture and now the curtain is to rise. Who opens the next scene?”

“Madame Blanc.”

“My faith! This grows tragical. Blanc, the circumspect, the dowager’s most trusted companion. Has your stranger bewitched her also?”

“She was too near sighted to tell him from the others. I was making a sketch of beeches and to pass the time she fed the carp. A fan by which she set store, fell into the water. She lamented until Monsieur Incognito secured it. Of course I had to be the one to thank him, as she speaks no English.”

“Certainly!–and then?”

“Then I found a seat in the shade for Madame Blanc and her crochet, and selected a sunny spot myself, where I could dry the fan.”

“Alone?”

“At first, I was alone.”

“Delicious! You were never more charming, Marquise; go on.”

“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 assure 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 analysis 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 butterfly 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 analysis 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.