When Offdean learned that Euphrasie was coming to New Orleans, he was
delighted to think he would have an opportunity to make some return for
the hospitality which he had received from her father. He decided at
once that she must see everything: day processions and night parades,
balls and tableaux, operas and plays. He would arrange for it all, and
he went to the length of begging to be relieved of certain duties that
had been assigned him at the club, in order that he might feel himself
perfectly free to do so.
The evening following Euphrasie's arrival, Offdean hastened to call
upon her, away down on Esplanade Street. She and the Duplans were
staying there with old Mme. Carantelle, Mrs. Duplan's mother, a
delightfully conservative old lady who had not "crossed Canal Street"
for many years.
He found a number of people gathered in the long high-ceiled
drawing-room,--young people and old people, all talking French, and
some talking louder than they would have done if Madame Carantelle had
not been so very deaf.
When Offdean entered, the old lady was greeting some one who had come
in just before him. It was Placide, and she was calling him Grégoire,
and wanting to know how the crops were up on Red River. She met every
one from the country with this stereotyped inquiry, which placed her at
once on the agreeable and easy footing she liked.
Somehow Offdean had not counted on finding Euphrasie so well provided
with entertainment, and he spent much of the evening in trying to
persuade himself that the fact was a pleasing one in itself. But he
wondered why Placide was with her, and sat so persistently beside her,
and danced so repeatedly with her when Mrs. Duplan played upon the
piano. Then he could not see by what right these young creoles had
already arranged for the Proteus ball, and every other entertainment
that he had meant to provide for her.
He went away without having had a word alone with the girl whom he
had gone to see. The evening had proved a failure. He did not go to
the club as usual, but went to his rooms in a mood which inclined
him to read a few pages from a stoic philosopher whom he sometimes
affected. But the words of wisdom that had often before helped him over
disagreeable places left no impress to-night. They were powerless to
banish from his thoughts the look of a pair of brown eyes, or to drown
the tones of a girl's voice that kept singing in his soul.
Placide was not very well acquainted with the city; but that made no
difference to him so long as he was at Euphrasie's side. His brother
Hector, who lived in some obscure corner of the town, would willingly
have made his knowledge a more intimate one; but Placide did not choose
to learn the lessons that Hector was ready to teach. He asked nothing
better than to walk with Euphrasie along the streets, holding her
parasol at an agreeable angle over her pretty head, or to sit beside
her in the evening at the play, sharing her frank delight.
When the night of the Mardi Gras ball came, he felt like a lost spirit
during the hours he was forced to remain away from her. He stood in
the dense crowd on the street gazing up at her, where she sat on the
club-house balcony amid a bevy of gayly dressed women. It was not easy
to distinguish her, but he could think of no more agreeable occupation
than to stand down there on the street trying to do so.
She seemed during all this pleasant time to be entirely his own,
too. It made him very fierce to think of the possibility of her not
being entirely his own. But he had no cause whatever to think this.
She had grown conscious and thoughtful of late about him and their
relationship. She often communed with herself, and as a result tried
to act toward him as an engaged girl would toward her fiancé. Yet a
wistful look came sometimes into the brown eyes when she walked the
streets with Placide, and eagerly scanned the faces of passers-by.
Offdean had written her a note, very studied, very formal, asking
to see her a certain day and hour, to consult about matters on the
plantation, saying he had found it so difficult to obtain a word with
her, that he was forced to adopt this means, which he trusted would not
be offensive.
This seemed perfectly right to Euphrasie. She agreed to see him
one afternoon--the day before leaving town--in the long, stately
drawing-room, quite alone.
It was a sleepy day, too warm for the season. Gusts of moist air
were sweeping lazily through the long corridors, rattling the slats
of the half-closed green shutters, and bringing a delicious perfume
from the courtyard where old Chariot was watering the spreading palms
and brilliant parterres. A group of little children had stood awhile
quarreling noisily under the windows, but had moved on down the street
and left quietness reigning.
Offdean had not long to wait before Euphrasie came to him. She had
lost some of that ease which had marked her manner during their first
acquaintance. Now, when she seated herself before him, she showed a
disposition to plunge at once into the subject that had brought him
there. He was willing enough that it should play some rôle, since it
had been his pretext for coming; but he soon dismissed it, and with it
much restraint that had held him till now. He simply looked into her
eyes, with a gaze that made her shiver a little, and began to complain
because she was going away next day and he had seen nothing of her;
because he had wanted to do so many things when she came--why had she
not let him?
"You fo'get I'm no stranger here," she told him. "I know many people.
I've been coming so often with Mme. Duplan. I wanted to see mo' of you,
Mr. Offdean"--
"Then you ought to have managed it; you could have done so. It's--it's
aggravating," he said, far more bitterly than the subject warranted,
"when a man has so set his heart upon something."
"But it was n' anything ver' important," she interposed; and they both
laughed, and got safely over a situation that would soon have been
strained, if not critical.
Waves of happiness were sweeping through the soul and body of the
girl as she sat there in the drowsy afternoon near the man whom she
loved. It mattered not what they talked about, or whether they talked
at all. They were both scintillant with feeling. If Offdean had taken
Euphrasie's hands in his and leaned forward and kissed her lips, it
would have seemed to both only the rational outcome of things that
stirred them. But he did not do this. He knew now that overwhelming
passion was taking possession of him. He had not to heap more coals
upon the fire; on the contrary, it was a moment to put on the brakes,
and he was a young gentleman able to do this when circumstances
required.
However, he held her hand longer than he needed to when he bade her
good-by. For he got entangled in explaining why he should have to go
back to the plantation to see how matters stood there, and he dropped
her hand only when the rambling speech was ended.
He left her sitting by the window in a big brocaded armchair. She drew
the lace curtain aside to watch him pass in the street. He lifted his
hat and smiled when he saw her. Any other man she knew would have done
the same thing, but this simple act caused the blood to surge to her
cheeks. She let the curtain drop, and sat there like one dreaming. Her
eyes, intense with the unnatural light that glowed in them, looked
steadily into vacancy, and her lips stayed parted in the half-smile
that did not want to leave them.
Placide found her thus, a good while afterward, when he came in, full
of bustle, with theatre tickets in his pocket for the last night. She
started up, and went eagerly to meet him.
"W'ere have you been, Placide?" she asked with unsteady voice, placing
her hands on his shoulders with a freedom that was new and strange to
him.
He appeared to her suddenly as a refuge from something, she did not
know what, and she rested her hot cheek against his breast. This made
him mad, and he lifted her face and kissed her passionately upon the
lips.
She crept from his arms after that, and went away to her room, and
locked herself in. Her poor little inexperienced soul was torn and
sore. She knelt down beside her bed, and sobbed a little and prayed a
little. She felt that she had sinned, she did not know exactly in what;
but a fine nature warned her that it was in Placide's kiss.