THE CHASE.
Claude came on close behind. No; now he could see his mistake, it was
not she. But he could not regret it. This was Marguerite repeated, yet
transcended. The stature was just perceptibly superior. The breadth
and grace of these shoulders were better than Marguerite's. The hair,
arranged differently and far more effectively than he had ever seen it
on Marguerite's head, seemed even more luxurious than hers. There was
altogether a finer dignity in this one's carriage than in that of the
little maid of the inn. And see, now,--now!--as she turns her head to
glance into this shop window! It is, and it isn't, it isn't, and it
is, and--no, no, it is not Marguerite! It is like her in profile,
singularly like, yet far beyond her; the nose a little too fine, and
a certain sad firmness about the mouth and eyes, as well as he could
see in the profile, but profiles are so deceptive--that he had never
seen in Marguerite.
"But how do I know? What do I know?" he asked himself, still following
on. "The Marguerite I know is but a thing of my dreams, and this is
not that Marguerite of my actual sight, to whom I never gave a word or
smile or glance that calls for redemption. This is the Marguerite of
my dreams."
Claude was still following, when without any cause that one could see,
the young man of the group looked back. He had an unpleasant face; it
showed a small offensive energy that seemed to assert simply him and
all his against you and all yours. His eyes were black, piercing, and
hostile. They darted their glances straight into Claude's. Guilty
Claude! dogging the steps of ladies on the street! He blushed for
shame, turned a corner into Exchange Alley, walked a little way down
it, came back, saw the great crowd coming and going, vehicles of all
sorts hurrying here and there; ranks of street-cars waiting their
turns to start to all points of the compass; sellers of peanuts and
walking-sticks, buyers of bouquets, acquaintances meeting or
overtaking one another, nodding bonnets, lifted hats, faces, faces,
faces; but the one face was gone.
Caught, Claude? And by a mere face? The charge is too unkind. Young
folly, yes, or old folly, may read goodness rashly into all beauty, or
not care to read it in any. But it need not be so. Upon the face of
youth the soul within writes its confessions and promises; and when
the warm pulses of young nature are sanctified by upward yearnings,
and a pure conscience, the soul that seeks its mate will seek that
face which, behind and through all excellencies of mere tint and
feature, mirrors back the seeker's own faiths and hopes; and when that
is found, that to such a one is beauty. Judge not; you never saw this
face, fairer than Marguerite's, to say whether its beauty was mere
face, or the transparent shrine of an equal nobility within.
Besides, Claude would have fired up and denied the first word of the
charge with unpleasant flatness. To be caught means to be in love, to
be in love implies a wish and hope to marry, and these were just what
Claude could not allow. May not a man, nevertheless, have an ideal of
truth and beauty and look worshipfully upon its embodiment? Humph!
His eyes sought her in vain not only on that afternoon, but on many
following. The sun was setting every day later and later through the
black lace-work of pecan-trees and behind low dark curtains of orange
groves, yet he began to be more and more tardy each succeeding day in
meeting his father under the riverside oaks of the Exposition grounds.
And then, on the seventh day, he saw her again.
Now he was more confident than ever that this vision and he, except in
dreams, had never spoken to each other. Yet the likeness was
wonderful. But so, too, was the unlikeness. True, this time, she only
flashed across his sight--out of a bank, into a carriage where a very
"American"-looking lady sat waiting for her and was gone. But the
bank; the carriage; that lady; those earlier companions,--no, this
could not be Marguerite. Marguerite would have been with her mother.
Now, if one could see Madame Beausoleil's daughter with Madame
Beausoleil at her side to identify her and distinguish her from this
flashing and vanishing apparition it would clear away a trying
perplexity. Why not be bold and call upon them where they were
dwelling? But where? Their names were not in the directory. Now,
inventive talent, do your best.
* * * * *
"Well!" said St. Pierre after a long silence. Claude and he were out
on the swollen Mississippi pulling with steady leisure for the
home-side shore, their skiff pointed half to and half from the boiling
current. The sun was gone; a purple dusk wrapped either low bank; a
steamboat that had passed up stream was now, at the turning of the
bend, only a cluster of soft red lights; Venus began to make a faint
silvery pathway across the waters. St. Pierre had the forward seat, at
Claude's back. The father looked with fond perplexity at the strong
young shoulders swinging silently with his own, forward and backward
in slow, monotonous strokes, and said again:
"Well? Whass matter? Look like cat got yo' tongue. Makin' new
mash-in?" Then in a low dissatisfied tone--"I reckon somet'in' mighty
curious." He repeated the last three words in the Acadian speech:
"Tcheuque-chose bien tchurieux."
"Yass," replied the son, "mighty strange. I tell you when we come at
home."
He told all. Recounted all his heart's longings, all his dreams,
every least pang of self-reproach, the idealization of Marguerite, and
the finding of that ideal incarnated in one who was and yet seemed not
to be, or rather seemed to be and yet was not, Marguerite. And then he
went on to re-assure his father that this could never mean marriage,
never mean the father's supplanting. A man could worship what he could
never hope to possess. He would rather worship this than win such kind
as he would dare woo.
He said all these things in a very quiet way, with now and then a
silent pause, and now and then a calm, self-contained tone in
resuming; yet his sentences were often disconnected, and often were
half soliloquy. Such were the only betrayals of emotion on either side
until Claude began to treat--in the words just given--his father's own
heart interests; then the father's eyes stood brimming full. But St.
Pierre did not speak. From the first he had listened in silence and he
offered no interruption until at length Claude came to that part about
the object of his regard being so far, so utterly, beyond his reach.
Then--
"Stop! Dass all foolishness! You want her? You kin have her!"
"Ah, papa! you dawn't awnstand! What I am?"
"Ah, bah! What anybody is? What she is? She invanted bigger mash-in
dan you? a mo' better corn-stubbl' destroyer and plant-corner?" He
meant corn-planter. "She invant a more handier doubl'-action pea-vine
rake? What she done mak' her so gran'? Naw, sir! She look fine in de
face, yass; and dass all you know. Well, dass all right; dass de
'Cajun way--pick 'em out by face. You begin 'Cajun way, for why you
dawn't finish 'Cajun way? All you got do, you git good saddle-hoss and
ride. Bom-bye you see her, you ride behind her till you find where her
daddy livin' at. Den you ride pas' yondah every day till fo', five
days, and den you see de ole man come scrape friend wid you. Den he
hass you drop round, and fus' t'ing you know--_adjieu la calége!_"
Claude did not dispute the point, though he hardly thought this case
could be worked that way. He returned in silent thought to the
question, how to find Madame Beausoleil. He tried the mail; no
response. He thought of advertising; but that would never do. Imagine,
"If Madame Beausoleil, late of Vermilionville, will leave her address
at this office, she will hear of something not in the least to her
advantage." He couldn't advertise.
It was midday following the eve of his confession to his father. For
the last eleven or twelve days, ever since he had seen that blessed
apparition turn with the two young friends into Canal Street out of
Bourbon--he had been venturing daily, for luncheon, just down into
Bourbon Street, to the Christian Women's Exchange. Now, by all the
laws of fortune he should in that time have seen in there at least
once or twice a day already, the face he was ever looking for. But he
had not; nor did he to-day. He only saw, or thought he saw, the
cashier--I should say the cashieress--glance crosswise at him with
eyes that seemed to him to say:
"Fool; sneak; whelp; 'Cajun; our private detectives are watching
you."
Both rooms and the veranda were full of ladies and gentlemen whose
faces he dared not lift his eyes to look into. And yet even in that
frame there suddenly came to him one of those happy thoughts that are
supposed to be the inspirations of inventive genius. A pleasant little
female voice near him said:
"And apartments up-stairs that they rent to ladies only!" And
instantly the thought came that Marguerite and her mother might be
living there. One more lump of bread, a final gulp of coffee, a short
search for the waiter's check, and he stands at the cashieress's desk.
She makes change without looking at him or ceasing to tell a small
hunchbacked spinster standing by about somebody's wedding. But
suddenly she starts.
"Oh! wasn't that right? You gave me four bits, didn't you? And I gave
you back two bits and a picayune, and--sir? Does Madame who? Oh! yes.
I didn't understand you; I'm a little deaf on this side; scarlet fever
when I was a little girl. I'm not the regular cashier, she's gone to
attend the wedding of a lady friend. Just wait a moment, please, while
I make change for these ladies. Oh, dear! ma'am, is that the smallest
you've got? I don't believe I can change that, ma'am. Yes--no--stop!
yes, I can! no, I can't! let's see! yes, yes, yes, I can; I've got it;
yes, there! I didn't think I had it." She turned again to Claude with
sisterly confidence. "Excuse me for keeping you waiting; haven't I met
you at the Y. M. C. A. sociable? Well, you must excuse me, but I was
sure I had. Of course I didn't if you was never there; but you know in
a big city like this you're always meeting somebody that's ne-e-early
somebody else that you know--oh! didn't you ask me--oh, yes! Madame
Beausoleil! Yes, she lives here, she and her daughter. But she's not
in. Oh! I'm sorry. Neither of them is here. She's not in the city;
hasn't been for two weeks. They're coming back; we're expecting them
every day. She heard of the death of a relative down in Terrebonne
somewhere. I wish they _would_ come back; we miss them here; I judge
they're relatives of yours, if I don't mistake the resemblance; you
seem to take after the daughter; wait a minute."
Some one coming up to pay looked at Claude to see what the daughter
was like, and the young man slipped away, outblushing the night sky
when the marshes are afire.
The question was settled; settled the wrong way. He hurried on across
Canal Street. Marguerite had not been, as he had construed the
inaccurate statement, in the city for two weeks. Resemblances need
delude him no longer. He went on into Carondelet Street and was
drawing near the door and stairway leading to his friend's studio and
his own little workroom above it, when suddenly from that very
stairway and door issued she whom, alas! he might now no longer
mistake for Marguerite, yet who, none the less for lessening hope,
held him captive.