Part 45 (1/2)
CHAPTER IV.
AN UNKNOWN IRRITANT.
”Il est de ces longs jours d'indicible malaise Ou l'on voudrait dormir du lourd sommeil des morts, De ces heures d'angoisse ou l'existence pese Sur l'ame et sur le corps.”
Two or three weeks went by, and, although Bidiane's headquarters were nominally at the inn, she visited the horseshoe cottage morning, noon, and night.
Rose always smiled when she heard the rustling of her silk-lined skirts, and often murmured:
”Sa robe fait froufrou, froufrou, Ses pet.i.ts pieds font toc, toc, toc.”
”I wonder how long she is going to stay here?” said Agapit, one day, to his cousin.
”She does not know,--she obeys Mr. Nimmo blindly, although sometimes she chatters of earning her own living.”
”I do not think he would permit that,” said Agapit, hastily.
”Nor I, but he does not tell her so.”
”He is a kind of _Grand Monarque_ among you women. He speaks, and you listen; and now that Bidiane has broken the ice and we talk more freely of him, I may say that I do not approve of his keeping your boy any longer, although it is a foolish thing for me to mention, since you have never asked my advice on the subject.”
”My dear brother,” said Rose, softly, ”in this one thing I have not agreed with you, because you are not a mother, and cannot understand. I feared to bring back my boy when he was delicate, lest he should die of the separation from Mr. Nimmo. It was better for me to cry myself to sleep for many nights than for me to have him for a few weeks, and then, perhaps, lay his little body in the cold ground. Where would then be my satisfaction? And now that he is strong, I console myself with the thought of the fine schools that he attends, I follow him every hour of the day, through the letters that Mr. Nimmo sends to Bidiane. As I dust my room in the morning, I hold conversations with him.
”I say, 'How goes the Latin, little one, and the Greek? They are hard, but do not give up. Some day thou wilt be a clever man.' All the time I talk to him. I tell him of every happening on the Bay. Naturally I cannot put all this in my letters to him, that are few and short on account of--well you know why I do not write too much. Agapit, I do not dare to bring him back. He gives that dear young man an object in life; he also interests his mother, who now loves me, through my child. I speak of the schools, and yet it is not altogether for that, for have we not a good college for boys here on the Bay? It is something higher. It is for the good of souls that he stays away. Not yet, not yet, can I recall him. It would not seem right, and I cannot do what is wrong; also there is his father.”
Agapit, with a resigned gesture, drew on his gloves. He had been making a short call and was just about to return home.
”Are you going to the inn?” asked Rose.
”Why should I call there?” he said, a trifle irritably. ”I have not the time to dance attendance on young girls.”
Rose was lost in gentle amazement at Agapit's recent att.i.tude towards Bidiane. Her mind ran back to the long winter and summer evenings when he had come to her house, and had sat for hours reading the letters from Paris. He had taken a profound interest in the little renegade. Step by step he had followed her career. He had felt himself in a measure responsible for the successful issue of the venture in taking her abroad. And had he not often spoken delightedly of her return, and her probable dissemination among the young people of the stock of new ideas that she would be sure to bring with her?
This was just what she had done. She had enlarged the circle of her acquaintance, and every one liked her, every one admired her. Day after day she flashed up and down the Bay, on the bicycle that she had brought with her from Paris, and, as she flew by the houses, even the old women left their windows and hobbled to the door to catch a gay salutation from her.
Only Agapit was dissatisfied, only Agapit did not praise her, and Rose on this day, as she stood wistfully looking into his face, carried on an internal soliloquy. It must be because she represents Mr. Nimmo. She has been educated by him, she reveres him. He has only lent her to the Bay, and will some day take her away, and Agapit, who feels this, is jealous because he is rich, and because he will not forgive. It is strange that the best of men and women are so human; but our dear Lord will some day melt their hearts; and Rose, who had never disliked any one and had not an enemy in the world, checked a sigh and endeavored to turn her thoughts to some more agreeable subject.
Agapit, however, still stood before her, and while he was there it was difficult to think of anything else. Then he presently asked a distracting question, and one that completely upset her again, although it was put in a would-be careless tone of voice.
”Does the Poirier boy go much to the inn?”
Rose tried to conceal her emotion, but it was hard for her to do so, as she felt that she had just been afforded a painful lightning glance into Agapit's mind. He felt that he was growing old. Bidiane was a.s.sociating with the girls and young men who had been mere children five years before. The Poirier boy, in particular, had grown up with amazing rapidity and precociousness. He was handsomer, far handsomer than Agapit had ever been, he was also very clever, and very much made of on account of his being the most distinguished pupil in the college of Sainte-Anne, that was presided over by the Eudist fathers from France.
”Agapit,” she said, suddenly, and in sweet, patient alarm, ”are we getting old, you and I?”
”We shall soon be thirty,” he said, gruffly, and he turned away.