“Yes, I,” laughed Félice. “I have seen your heart in your eyes, Maxime,
and now you may see my heart in mine. What is the need of words? If you
go, I go with you.”
“There is a kind priest at Terminaison,” said Maxime, hot and fierce,
his blue eyes on her gray ones that were no longer cold.
Félice laughed still. It seemed as if she could not stop laughing for
very happiness, but her beautiful creamy cheeks showed no blush, “As you
like,” she answered; “we will go to the curé if it pleases you. But if
you go, I go also. I am faithful as La Tristesse.”
“Come then,” said Maxime. And that was all. They forgot the people who
were watching them, awed and silent before this strange divine thing
shown forth in their midst. Maxime never even looked back at his little
cabin, and Félice never looked from his face. They moved away down the
road together, hand in hand into the great golden sunset, and Sorrow
following them, leaping and frisking. That was absolutely all, and it
was over in five minutes. But think of the wonder of it,—a flower of
Greece in her golden days, a vision of Italy, a dream of ancient France,
there suddenly showing forth for all men to see.
They went unmolested down the lonely road. Once Félice shook her slim
arms above her head as if in a very ecstacy of joy. Once Sorrow jumped
up to lick her hand.
Yes, they went, and were hidden in the golden mist of sunset, and were
gone. Nor did I ever hear of them or see them again,—Maxime, with his
blue eyes, his gentle hands, his long lazy body, his rags and tatters;
Sorrow, black and faithful as her namesake; Félice, beautiful as the
ever-youthful Artemis. Nor can it be said that I saw them go. For I was
down on my face, crying so that my tears made little gray runnels in the
dust of the road,—crying for the loss of the most beautiful thing I had
ever known.