Part 60 (1/2)
Agapit uttered a confused, smothered exclamation, and, stooping over, seized her firmly by the shoulders, and drew her out from the clinging embrace of Sleeping Water.
”I never saw such a river,” said Bidiane, shaking herself like a small wet dog, and avoiding her lover's shocked glance. ”It is just like jelly.”
”Come up to the house,” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
”No, no; it would only frighten Rose. She is getting to dislike this river, for people talk so much against it. I will go home.”
”Then let me put you on Turenne's back,” said Agapit, pointing to his horse as he stood curiously regarding them.
”No, I might fall off--I have had enough frights for to-night,” and she shuddered. ”I shall run home. I never take cold. _Ma foi!_ but it is good to be out of that slippery mud.”
Agapit hurried along beside her. ”How did it happen?”
”I was just going to cross the bridge. The river looked so sleepy and quiet, and so like a mirror, that I wondered if I could see my face, if I bent close to it. I stepped on the bank, and it gave way under me, and then I fell in; and to save myself from being sucked down I clung to the bridge, and waited for you to come, for I didn't seem to have strength to drag myself out.”
Agapit could not speak for a time. He was struggling with an intense emotion that would have been unintelligible to her if he had expressed it. At last he said, ”How did you know that I was here?”
”I saw you,” said Bidiane, and she slightly slackened her pace, and glanced at him from the corners of her eyes.
”Through the window?”
”Yes.”
”Why did you not come in?”
”I did not wish to do so.”
”You are jealous,” he exclaimed, and he endeavored to take her hand.
”Let my hand alone,--you flatter yourself.”
”You were frightened there in the river, little one,” he murmured.
Bidiane paused for an instant, and gazed over her shoulder. ”Your old horse is nearly on my heels, and his eyes are like carriage lamps.”
”Back!” exclaimed Agapit, to the curious and irrepressible Turenne.
”You say nothing of your election,” remarked Bidiane. ”Are you glad?”
He drew a rapid breath, and turned his red face towards her again. ”My mind is in a whirl, little cousin, and my pulses are going like hammers.
You do not know what it is to sway men by the tongue. When one stands up, and speaks, and the human faces spreading out like a flower-bed change and lighten, or grow gloomy, as one wishes, it is majestic,--it makes a man feel like a deity.”
”You will get on in the world,” said Bidiane, impulsively. ”You have it in you.”
”But must I go alone?” he said, pa.s.sionately. ”Bidiane, you, though so much younger, you understand me. I have been happy to-day, yes, happy, for amid all the excitement, the changing faces, the buzzing of talk in my ears, there has been one little countenance before me--”
”Yes,--Rose's.”
”You treat me as if I were a boy,” he said, vehemently, ”on this day when I was so important. Why are you so flippant?”
”Don't be angry with me,” she said, coaxingly.