She turned away. “I think you’re cruel.”
“By no means,” I declared; “because, for my own taste, I prefer you
as—as—”
On my hesitating she turned back. “As what?”
“As you are!”
She looked at me a while again, and then she said in a little reasoning
tone that reminded me of her mother’s, only that it was conscious and
studied, “I wasn’t aware that I’m under any particular obligation to
please you!” But she also gave a clear laugh, quite at variance with
this stiffness. Suddenly I thought her adorable.
“Oh there’s no obligation,” I said, “but people sometimes have
preferences. I’m very sorry you’re going away.”
“What does it matter to you? You are going yourself.”
“As I’m going in a different direction, that makes all the greater
separation.”
She answered nothing; she stood looking through the bars of the tall gate
at the empty dusky street. “This grille is like a cage,” she said at
last.
“Fortunately it’s a cage that will open.” And I laid my hand on the
lock.
“Don’t open it”; and she pressed the gate close. “If you should open it
I’d go out. There you’d be, monsieur—for I should never return.”
I treated it as wholly thrilling, and indeed I quite found it so. “Where
should you go?”
“To America.”
“Straight away?”
“Somehow or other. I’d go to the American consul. I’d beg him to give
me money—to help me.”
I received this assertion without a smile; I was not in a smiling humour.
On the contrary I felt singularly excited and kept my hand on the lock of
the gate. I believed, or I thought I believed, what my companion said,
and I had—absurd as it may appear—an irritated vision of her throwing
herself on consular tenderness. It struck me for a moment that to pass
out of that gate with this yearning straining young creature would be to
pass to some mysterious felicity. If I were only a hero of romance I
would myself offer to take her to America.
In a moment more perhaps I should have persuaded myself that I was one,
but at this juncture I heard a sound hostile to the romantic note. It
was nothing less than the substantial tread of Célestine, the cook, who
stood grinning at us as we turned about from our colloquy.
“I ask bien pardon,” said Célestine. “The mother of mademoiselle desires
that mademoiselle should come in immediately. M. le Pasteur Galopin has
come to make his adieux to ces dames.”
Aurora gave me but one glance, the memory of which I treasure. Then she
surrendered to Célestine, with whom she returned to the house.
The next morning, on coming into the garden, I learned that Mrs. Church
and her daughter had effectively quitted us. I was informed of this fact
by old M. Pigeonneau, who sat there under a tree drinking his
café-au-lait at a little green table.
“I’ve nothing to envy you,” he said; “I had the last glimpse of that
charming Mees Aurore.”
“I had a very late glimpse,” I answered, “and it was all I could possibly
desire.”
“I’ve always noticed,” rejoined M. Pigeonneau, “that your desires are
more under control than mine. Que voulez-vous? I’m of the old school.
Je crois que cette race se perd. I regret the departure of that
attractive young person; she has an enchanting smile. Ce sera une femme
d’esprit. For the mother, I can console myself. I’m not sure _she_ was
a femme d’esprit, though she wished so prodigiously to pass for one.
Round, rosy, potelée, she yet had not the temperament of her appearance;
she was a femme austère—I made up my mind to that. I’ve often noticed
that contradiction in American ladies. You see a plump little woman with
a speaking eye and the contour and complexion of a ripe peach, and if you
venture to conduct yourself in the smallest degree in accordance with
these _indices_, you discover a species of Methodist—of what do you call
it?—of Quakeress. On the other hand, you encounter a tall lean angular
form without colour, without grace, all elbows and knees, and you find
it’s a nature of the tropics! The women of duty look like coquettes, and
the others look like alpenstocks! However, we’ve still la belle Madame
Roque—a real femme de Rubens, celle-là. It’s very true that to talk to
her one must know the Flemish tongue!”
I had determined in accordance with my brother’s telegram to go away in
the afternoon; so that, having various duties to perform, I left M.
Pigeonneau to his ethnic studies. Among other things I went in the
course of the morning to the banker’s, to draw money for my journey, and
there I found Mr. Ruck with a pile of crumpled letters in his lap, his
chair tipped back and his eyes gloomily fixed on the fringe of the green
plush table-cloth. I timidly expressed the hope that he had got better
news from home; whereupon he gave me a look in which, considering his
provocation, the habit of forlorn patience was conspicuous.
He took up his letters in his large hand and, crushing them together,
held it out to me. “That stack of postal matter,” he said, “is worth
about five cents. But I guess,” he added, rising, “that I know where I
am by this time.” When I had drawn my money I asked him to come and
breakfast with me at the little brasserie, much favoured by students, to
which I used to resort in the old town. “I couldn’t eat, sir,” he
frankly pleaded, “I couldn’t eat. Bad disappointments strike at the seat
of the appetite. But I guess I’ll go with you, so as not to be on show
down there at the pension. The old woman down there accuses me of
turning up my nose at her food. Well, I guess I shan’t turn up my nose
at anything now.”
We went to the little brasserie, where poor Mr. Ruck made the lightest
possible dejeuner. But if he ate very little he still moved his lean
jaws—he mumbled over his spoilt repast of apprehended facts; strange
tough financial fare into which I was unable to bite. I was very sorry
for him, I wanted to ease him off; but the only thing I could do when we
had breakfasted was to see him safely back to the Pension Beaurepas. We
went across the Treille and down the Corraterie, out of which we turned
into the Rue du Rhône. In this latter street, as all the world knows,
prevail those shining shop-fronts of the watchmakers and jewellers for
its long list of whom Geneva is famous. I had always admired these
elegant exhibitions and never passed them without a lingering look. Even
on this occasion, preoccupied as I was with my impending departure and
with my companion’s troubles, I attached my eyes to the precious tiers
that flashed and twinkled behind the huge clear plates of glass. Thanks
to this inveterate habit I recorded a fresh observation. In the largest
and most irresistible of these repositories I distinguished two ladies,
seated before the counter with an air of absorption which sufficiently
proclaimed their identity. I hoped my companion wouldn’t see them, but
as we came abreast of the door, a little beyond, we found it open to the
warm summer air. Mr. Ruck happened to glance in, and he immediately
recognised his wife and daughter. He slowly stopped, his eyes fixed on
them; I wondered what he would do. A salesman was in the act of holding
up a bracelet before them on its velvet cushion and flashing it about in
a winsome manner.
Mr. Ruck said nothing, but he presently went in; whereupon, feeling that
I mustn’t lose him, I did the same. “It will be an opportunity,” I
remarked as cheerfully as possible, “for me to bid good-bye to the
ladies.”
They turned round on the approach of their relative, opposing an
indomitable front. “Well, you’d better get home to breakfast—that’s what
_you’d_ better do,” his wife at once remarked. Miss Sophy resisted in
silence; she only took the bracelet from the attendant and gazed at it
all fixedly. My friend seated himself on an empty stool and looked round
the shop. “Well, we’ve been here before, and you ought to know it,” Mrs.
Ruck a trifle guiltily contended. “We were here the first day we came.”
The younger lady held out to me the precious object in her hand. “Don’t
you think that’s sweet?”