"Indeed, no, I am sad."
"Wherefore sad? Is nickel proving a drug? Or sugar a failure? Don't
tell me that your father says sugar is falling." He glanced at the
letter, which she unconsciously held in her hand.
She saw his look, smoothed the letter a little nervously between her
palms, and put it into her pocket, saying: "No, my father has not said
that sugar is falling--but come here, will you?" and she motioned
towards the open window. When there, she said slowly, "That is what
makes me sad and sorry," and she pointed to the Semaphore upon the Hill
of Pains.
"You are too tender-hearted," he remarked. "A convict has escaped; he
will be caught perhaps--perhaps not; and things will go on as before."
"Will go on as before. That is, the 'martinet' worse than the 'knout de
Russe'; the 'poucettes', the 'crapaudine' on neck and ankles and wrists;
all, all as bad as the 'Pater Noster' of the Inquisition, as Mayer said
the other day in the face of Charpentier, the Commandant of the
penitentiary. How pleasant also to think of the Boulevard de Guillotine!
I tell you it is brutal, horrible. Think of what prisoners have to
suffer here, whose only crime is that they were of the Commune; that they
were just a little madder than other Frenchmen."
"Pardon me if I say that as brutal things were done by the English in
Tasmania."
"Think of two hundred and sixty strokes of the 'cat.'"
"You concern yourself too much about these things, I fear."
"I only think that death would be easier than the life of half of the
convicts here."
"They themselves would prefer it, perhaps."
"Tell me, who is the convict that has escaped?" she feverishly asked.
"Is it a political prisoner?"
"You would not know him. He was one of the Commune who escaped shooting
in the Place de la Concorde. Carbourd, I think, was his name."
"Carbourd, Carbourd," she repeated, and turned her head away towards the
Semaphore.
Her earnestness aroused in Tryon a sudden flame of sympathy which had its
origin, as he well knew, in three years of growing love. This love
leaped up now determinedly--perhaps unwisely; but what should a blunt
soul like Hugh Tryon know regarding the best or worst time to seek a
woman's heart? He came close to her now and said: "If you are so kind in
thought for a convict, I dare hope that you would be more kind to me."
"Be kind to you," she repeated, as if not understanding what he said,
nor the look in his eyes.
"For I am a prisoner, too."
"A prisoner?" she rejoined a little tremulously, and coldly.
"In your hands, Marie." His eyes laid bare his heart.
"Oh!" she replied, in a half-troubled, half-indignant tone, for she was
out of touch with the occasion of his suit, and every woman has in her
mind the time when she should and when she should not be wooed. "Oh, why
aren't you plain with me? I hate enigmas."
"Why do I not speak plainly? Because, because, Marie, it is possible
for a man to be a coward in his speech"--he touched her fingers--"when
he loves." She quickly drew her hand from his. "Oh, can't we be friends
without that?"
There was a sound of footsteps at the window. Both turned, and saw the
political prisoner, Rive Laflamme, followed by a guard.
"He comes to finish my portrait," she said. "This is the last sitting."
"Marie, must I go like this? When may I see you again? When will you
answer me? You will not make all the hopes to end here?"
It was evident that some deep trouble was on the girl. She flushed
hotly, as if she were about to reply hotly also, but she changed quickly,
and said, not unkindly: "When M. Laflamme has gone." And now, as if
repenting of her unreasonable words of a moment before, she added: "Oh,
please don't think me hard. I am sorry that I grieve you. I'm afraid
I am not altogether well, not altogether happy."
"I will wait till he has gone," the planter replied. At the door he
turned as if to say something, but he only looked steadily, sadly at her,
and then was gone.
She stood where he had left her, gazing in melancholy abstraction at the
door through which he had passed. There were footsteps without in the
hall-way. The door was opened, and a servant announced M. Laflamme. The
painter-prisoner entered followed by the soldier. Immediately afterward
Mrs. Angers, Marie's elderly companion, sidled in gently.
Laflamme bowed low, then turned and said coolly to the soldier: "You may
wait outside to-day, Roupet. This is my last morning's work. It is
important, and you splutter and cough. You are too exhausting for a
studio."