"TEARS AND SUCH THINGS."
Marguerite and her friend had no sooner taken their seats to drive
home from the studio the day the sketch was made than Marguerite began
a perfect prattle. Her eyes still shone exaltedly, and leaped and fell
and darkened and brightened with more than the swift variety of a
fountain in the moonlight, while she kept trying in vain to meet her
companion's looks with a moment's steady regard.
Claude was found! and she trembled with delight. But, alas! he had
heard her passionate call and yet stood still; had looked down upon
her in silence, and drawn again the curtain between them. She had
thought until the last moment, "He will come; he will confront us as
we pass out the door--will overtake us at the foot of the stairs--on
the sidewalk--at the carriage window." But it had not been so; and
now they were gone from the place; and here sat this friend, this gay,
cynical knower of men's and women's ways, answering her chatter in
short, smiling responses, with a steady eye fixed on her, and reading,
Marguerite believed, as plainly as if it were any of the sign-boards
along the rattling street, the writing on her fluttering heart. And
so, even while she trembled with strange delight, pain, shame, and
alarm pleaded through her dancing glances, now by turns and now in
confusion together, for mercy and concealment. But in fact, as this
friend sat glancing upon the young face beside her with secret
sympathy and admiration, it was only this wild fear of betrayal that
at length betrayed.
Reaching the house, the street door was hardly shut behind them when
Marguerite would have darted up to her chamber; but her friend caught
her hands across the balustrade, and said, with roguery in her own
eyes:
"Marguerite, you sweet rowdy--"
"W'at?"
"Yes, _what_. There's something up; what is it?"
The girl tried to put on surprise; but her eyes failed her again. She
leaned on the rail and looked down, meanwhile trying softly to draw
away up-stairs; but her friend held on to one hand and murmured:
"Just one question, dearie, just one. I'll not ask another: I'll die
first. You'll probably find me _in articulo mortis_ when you come
down-stairs. Just one question, lovie."
"_W'at_ it is?"
"It's nothing but this; I ask for information." The voice dropped to
a whisper,--"Is he as handsome as his portrait?"
The victim rallied all her poor powers of face, and turned feebly upon
the questioner:
"Po'trait? Who?" Her voice was low, and she glanced furtively at the
nearest door. "I dawn't awnstan you." Her hand pulled softly for its
freedom, and she turned to go, repeating, with averted face, "I dawn't
awnstan you 't all."
"Well, never mind then, dear, if you don't understand," responded the
tease, with mock tenderness. "But, _ma belle Créole_--"
"_Je suis Acadienne._"
"You're an angel, faintly disguised. Only--look around here--only,
Angelica, don't try to practise woman's humbug on a woman. At least,
not on this old one. It doesn't work. I'll tell you whom I mean." She
pulled, but Marguerite held off. "I mean," she hoarsely whispered,--"I
mean the young inventor that engineer told us about. Remember?"
Marguerite, with her head bowed low, slowly dragged her hand free, and
moved with growing speed up the stairs, saying:
"I dawn't know what is dat. I dawn't awnstan you 't all." Her last
words trembled as if nigh to tears. At the top of the stairs the
searching murmur of her friend's voice came up, and she turned and
looked back.
"Forgive me!" said the figure below. The girl stood a moment, sending
down a re-assuring smile.
"You young rogue!" murmured the lady, looking up with ravished eyes.
Then she lifted herself on tiptoe, made a trumpet of both little
hands, and whispered:
"Don't--worry! We'll bring it out--all right!"
Whereat Marguerite blushed from temple to throat, and vanished.
The same day word came from her mother of her return from Terrebonne,
and she hastened to rejoin her in their snug rooms over the Women's
Exchange. When she snatched Zoséphine into her arms and shed tears,
the mother merely wiped and kissed them away, and asked no
explanation.
The two were soon apart. For Marguerite hungered unceasingly for
solitude. Only in solitude could she, or dared she, give herself up to
the constant recapitulation of every minutest incident of the morning.
And that was ample employment. They seemed the happenings of a month
ago. She felt as if it were imperative to fix them in her memory now,
or lose them in confusion and oblivion forever. Over them all again
and again she went, sometimes quickening memory with half-spoken
words, sometimes halting in long reverie at some intense juncture: now
with tingling pleasure at the unveiling of the portrait, the painter's
cautionary revelation of the personal presence above, or Claude's
appearance at the window; now with burnings of self-abasement at the
passionate but ineffectual beseechings of her violin; and always
ending with her face in her hands, as though to hide her face even
from herself for shame that with all her calling--her barefaced, as
it seemed to her, her abject calling--he had not come.
"Marguerite, my child, it is time for bed."
She obeyed. It was all one, the bed or the window. Her mother, weary
with travel, fell asleep; but she--she heard the clock down-stairs
strike, and a clock next door attest, twelve--one--two--three--four,
and another day began to shine in at the window. As it brightened, her
spirits rose. She had been lying long in reverie; now she began once
more the oft-repeated rehearsal. But the new day shone into it also.
When the silent recital again reached its end, the old distress was no
longer there, but in its place was a new, sweet shame near of kin to
joy. The face, unhidden, looked straight into the growing light.
Whatever else had happened, this remained,--that Claude was found. She
silently formed the name on her parted lips--"Claude! Claude! Claude!
Claude!" and could not stop though it gave her pain, the pain was so
sweet. She ceased only when there rose before her again the picture of
him drawing the curtain and disappearing; but even then she remembered
the words, "Don't worry; we'll bring it out all right," and smiled.
When Zoséphine, as the first sunbeam struck the window-pane, turned
upon her elbow and looked into the fair face beside her, the eyes were
closed in sleep. She arose, darkened the room, and left it.