Three years later Destiny still wore a rosy face for Nihla Quellen.
And, for a young American of whom Nihla had never even heard, Destiny
still remained the laughing jade he had always known, beckoning him
ever nearer, with the coquettish promise of her curved forefinger, to
fame and wealth immeasurable.
* * * * *
Seated now on a moonlit lawn, before his sketching easel, this
optimistic young man, whose name was Barres, continued to observe the
movements of a dim white figure which had emerged from the villa
opposite, and was now stealing toward him across the dew-drenched
grass.
When the white figure was quite near it halted, holding up filmy
skirts and peering intently at him.
"May one look?" she inquired, in that now celebrated voice of hers,
through which ever seemed to sound a hint of hidden laughter.
"Certainly," he replied, rising from his folding camp stool.
She tiptoed over the wet grass, came up beside him, gazed down at the
canvas on his easel.
"Can you really see to paint? Is the moon bright enough?" she asked.
"Yes. But one has to be familiar with one's palette."
"Oh. You seem to know yours quite perfectly, monsieur."
"Enough to mix colours properly."
"I didn't realise that painters ever actually painted pictures by
moonlight."
"It's a sort of hit or miss business, but the notes made are
interesting," he explained.
"What do you do with these moonlight studies?"
"Use them as notes in the studio when a moonlight picture is to be
painted."
"Are you then a realist, monsieur?"
"As much of a realist as anybody with imagination can be," he replied,
smiling at her charming, moonlit face.
"I understand. Realism is merely honesty plus the imagination of the
individual."
"A delightful _mot_, madam----"
"Mademoiselle," she corrected him demurely. "Are you English?"
"American."
"Oh. Then may I venture to converse with you in English?" She said it
in exquisite English, entirely without accent.
"You _are_ English!" he exclaimed under his breath.
"No ... I don't know what I am.... Isn't it charming out here? What
particular view are you painting?"
"The Seine, yonder."
She bent daintily over his sketch, holding up the skirts of her
ball-gown.
"Your sketch isn't very far advanced, is it?" she inquired seriously.
"Not very," he smiled.
They stood there together in silence for a while, looking out over
the moonlit river to the misty, tree-covered heights.
Through lighted rows of open windows in the elaborate little villa
across the lawn came lively music and the distant noise of animated
voices.
"Do you know," he ventured smilingly, "that your skirts and slippers
are soaking wet?"
"I don't care. Isn't this June night heavenly?"
She glanced across at the lighted house. "It's so hot and noisy in
there; one dances only with discomfort. A distaste for it all sent me
out on the terrace. Then I walked on the lawn. Then I beheld you!...
Am I interrupting your work, monsieur? I suppose I am." She looked up
at him naively.
He said something polite. An odd sense of having seen her somewhere
possessed him now. From the distant house came the noisy American
music of a two-step. With charming grace, still inspecting him out of
her dark eyes, the girl began to move her pretty feet in rhythm with
the music.
"Shall we?" she inquired mischievously.... "Unless you are too
busy----"
The next moment they were dancing together there on the wet lawn,
under the high lustre of the moon, her fresh young face and fragrant
figure close to his.
During their second dance she said serenely:
"They'll raise the dickens if I stay here any longer. Do you know the
Comte d'Eblis?"
"The Senator? The numismatist?"
"Yes."
"No, I don't know him. I am only a Latin Quarter student."
"Well, he is giving that party. He is giving it for me--in my honour.
That is his villa. And I"--she laughed--"am going to marry
him--_perhaps_! Isn't this a delightful escapade of mine?"
"Isn't it rather an indiscreet one?" he asked smilingly.
"Frightfully. But I like it. How did you happen to pitch your easel on
his lawn?"
"The river and the hills--their composition appealed to me from here.
It is the best view of the Seine."
"Are you glad you came?"
They both laughed at the mischievous question.
* * * * *
During their third dance she became a little apprehensive and kept
looking over her shoulder toward the house.
"There's a man expected there," she whispered, "Ferez Bey. He's as
soft-footed as a cat and he always prowls in my vicinity. At times it
almost seems to me as though he were slyly watching me--as though he
were employed to keep an eye on me."
"A Turk?"
"Eurasian.... I wonder what they think of my absence? Alexandre--the
Comte d'Eblis--won't like it."
"Had you better go?"
"Yes; I ought to, but I won't.... Wait a moment!" She disengaged
herself from his arms. "Hide your easel and colour-box in the
shrubbery, in case anybody comes to look for me."
She helped him strap up and fasten the telescope-easel; they placed
the paraphernalia behind the blossoming screen of syringa. Then,
coming together, she gave herself to him again, nestling between his
arms with a little laugh; and they fell into step once more with the
distant dance-music. Over the grass their united shadows glided,
swaying, gracefully interlocked--moon-born phantoms which dogged
their light young feet....
* * * * *
A man came out on the stone terrace under the Chinese lanterns. When
they saw him they hastily backed into the obscurity of the shrubbery.
"Nihla!" he called, and his heavy voice was vibrant with irritation
and impatience.
He was a big man. He walked with a bulky, awkward gait--a few paces
only, out across the terrace.
"Nihla!" he bawled hoarsely.
Then two other men and a woman appeared on the terrace where the
lanterns were strung. The woman called aloud in the darkness:
"Nihla! Nihla! Where are you, little devil?" Then she and the two men
with her went indoors, laughing and skylarking, leaving the bulky man
there alone.
The young fellow in the shrubbery felt the girl's hand tighten on his
coat sleeve, felt her slender body quiver with stifled laughter. The
desire to laugh seized him, too; and they clung there together,
choking back their mirth while the big man who had first appeared
waddled out across the lawn toward the shrubbery, shouting:
"Nihla! Where are you then?" He came quite close to where they stood,
then turned, shouted once or twice and presently disappeared across
the lawn toward a walled garden. Later, several other people came out
on the terrace, calling, "Nihla, Nihla," and then went indoors,
laughing boisterously.
The young fellow and the girl beside him were now quite weak and
trembling with suppressed mirth.
* * * * *
They had not dared venture out on the lawn, although dance music had
begun again.
"Is it your name they called?" he asked, his eyes very intent upon her
face.
"Yes, Nihla."
"I recognise you now," he said, with a little thrill of wonder.
"I suppose so," she replied with amiable indifference. "Everybody
knows me."
She did not ask his name; he did not offer to enlighten her. What
difference, after all, could the name of an American student make to
the idol of Europe, Nihla Quellen?
"I'm in a mess," she remarked presently. "He will be quite furious
with me. It is going to be most disagreeable for me to go back into
that house. He has really an atrocious temper when made ridiculous."
"I'm awfully sorry," he said, sobered by her seriousness.
She laughed:
"Oh, pouf! I really don't care. But perhaps you had better leave me
now. I've spoiled your moonlight picture, haven't I?"
"But think what you have given me to make amends!" he replied.
She turned and caught his hands in hers with adorable impulsiveness:
"You're a sweet boy--do you know it! We've had a heavenly time,
haven't we? Do you really think you ought to go--so soon?"
"Don't you think so, Nihla?"
"I don't want you to go. Anyway, there's a train every two hours----"
"I've a canoe down by the landing. I shall paddle back as I came----"
"A canoe!" she exclaimed, enchanted. "Will you take me with you?"
"To Paris?"
"Of course! Will you?"
"In your ball-gown?"
"I'd adore it! Will you?"
"That is an absolutely crazy suggestion," he said.
"I know it. The world is only a big asylum. There's a path to the
river behind these bushes. Quick--pick up your painting traps----"
"But, Nihla, dear----"
"Oh, please! I'm dying to run away with you!"
"To Paris?" he demanded, still incredulous that the girl really meant
it.
"Of course! You can get a taxi at the Pont-au-Change and take me home.
Will you?"
"It would be wonderful, of course----"
"It will be paradise!" she exclaimed, slipping her hand into his.
"Now, let us run like the dickens!"
In the uncertain moonlight, filtering through the shrubbery, they
found a hidden path to the river; and they took it together, lightly,
swiftly, speeding down the slope, all breathless with laughter, along
the moonlit way.
* * * * *
In the suburban villa of the Comte d'Eblis a wine-flushed and very
noisy company danced on, supped at midnight, continued the revel into
the starlit morning hours. The place was a jungle of confetti.
Their host, restless, mortified, angry, perplexed by turns, was
becoming obsessed at length with dull premonitions and vaguer alarms.
He waddled out to the lawn several times, still wearing his fancy gilt
and tissue cap, and called:
"Nihla! Damnation! Answer me, you little fool!"
He went down to the river, where the gaily painted row-boats and punts
lay, and scanned the silvered flood, tortured by indefinite
apprehensions. About dawn he started toward the weed-grown, slippery
river-stairs for the last time, still crowned with his tinsel cap; and
there in the darkness he found his aged boat-man, fishing for gudgeon
with a four-cornered net suspended to the end of a bamboo pole.
"Have you see anything of Mademoiselle Nihla?" he demanded, in a
heavy, unsteady voice, tremulous with indefinable fears.
"Monsieur le Comte, Mademoiselle Quellen went out in a canoe with a
young gentleman."
"W-what is that you tell me!" faltered the Comte d'Eblis, turning grey
in the face.
"Last night, about ten o'clock, M'sieu le Comte. I was out in the
moonlight fishing for eels. She came down to the shore--took a canoe
yonder by the willows. The young man had a double-bladed paddle. They
were singing."
"They--they have not returned?"
"No, M'sieu le Comte----"
"Who was the--man?"
"I could not see----"
"Very well." He turned and looked down the dusky river out of
light-coloured, murderous eyes. Then, always awkward in his gait, he
retraced his steps to the house. There a servant accosted him on the
terrace:
"The telephone, if Monsieur le Comte pleases----"
"Who is calling?" he demanded with a flare of fury.
"Paris, if it pleases Monsieur le Comte."
The Count d'Eblis went to his own quarters, seated himself, and picked
up the receiver:
"Who is it?" he asked thickly.
"Max Freund."
"What has h-happened?" he stammered in sudden terror.
Over the wire came the distant reply, perfectly clear and distinct:
"Ferez Bey was arrested in his own house at dinner last evening, and
was immediately conducted to the frontier, escorted by Government
detectives.... Is Nihla with you?"
The Count's teeth were chattering now. He managed to say:
"No, I don't know where she is. She was dancing. Then, all at once,
she was gone. Of what was Colonel Ferez suspected?"
"I don't know. But perhaps we might guess."
"Are _you_ followed?"
"Yes."
"By--by whom?"
"By Souchez.... Good-bye, if I don't see you. I join Ferez. And look
out for Nihla. She'll trick you yet!"
The Count d'Eblis called:
"Wait, for God's sake, Max!"--listened; called again in vain. "The
one-eyed rabbit!" he panted, breathing hard and irregularly. His large
hand shook as he replaced the instrument. He sat there as though
paralysed, for a moment or two. Mechanically he removed his tinsel cap
and thrust it into the pocket of his evening coat. Suddenly the dull
hue of anger dyed neck, ears and temple:
"By God!" he gasped. "What is that she-devil trying to do to me? What
has she _done_!"
After another moment of staring fixedly at nothing, he opened the
table drawer, picked up a pistol and poked it into his breast pocket.
Then he rose, heavily, and stood looking out of the window at the
paling east, his pendulous under lip aquiver.