Part 12 (1/2)

-- 5

He knew he should meet her again, and where he should meet her, and he did, on the Prado. He knew when. In the Midi dusk. A touch of mistral was out, and the wind blew seaward. She was sitting down, looking toward Africa.

”You oughtn't to come out here alone,” he said. ”Ma.r.s.eilles is a bad port.”

”I know,” she said. ”I know. But it draws me, this spot. You leave soon?” she asked.

”In a few days.”

”But you will be back.”

”Yes, I will be back,” he told her. ”I don't know why, but I think I'd rather die than not see Ma.r.s.eilles again. It is a second home, and yet I know so few people here.”

”If one has the temperament, and conditions are--as they should be--Ma.r.s.eilles is wonderful.”

”One could be happy here.”

”Yes,” and she sighed.

The spell of the archaic dusk came on him again; a dusk old as the world. About them brooded the welter of pa.s.sion and romance that Ma.r.s.eilles is. Once it was a Phocaean village, and hook-nosed Afric folk had stepped through on long, thin feet. And then had come the Greeks, with their broad, clear brows, their gray eyes. And further back the hairy Gauls had crept, snarling like dogs. And Greece died. And came the clash of the Roman legions, ruthless fighting hundreds, who saw, did ma.s.sive things. And Rome died. And over the sea came the Saracens, their high heads, their hard, bronzed bodies, their scarlet mouths. And they conquered and builded and lived.... And were hurled back.... Years hummed by, and pa.s.sion died not, or romance, and it was from Ma.r.s.eilles that a battalion had come to Paris gates singing the song that Rouget de Lisle had written in Strasburg:

_Allons, enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrive._

And pa.s.sed that day, and came another, when a handful of grizzled veterans left the gates to join their brothers and meet the exiled emperor.... Pa.s.sion and romance! Their colors were in Ma.r.s.eilles still.... Over in _Anse des Catalans_ weren't there the remains of the village of the sea-Gipsies, who had come none knew whence?... And along the gulf there were settlements of Saracen blood--_les Maures_, the Provencals called them ... and the shadow of Pontius Pilate wild-eyed in the dusk....

”It's strange”--her voice came gently to him,--”but I can hear you think.”

”And I can feel your silence,” he said. ”Just feel--you--being silent--”

The wind whipped up, grew shrill, grew cold. She s.h.i.+vered in her thin frock.

”You are becoming cold.”

”I am cold.”

”Then hadn't you better go home--to your house?”

She rose silently. It seemed to him somehow that she had put herself under his care. She was like some gentle little craft that had anch.o.r.ed humbly under the lee of a great s.h.i.+p. He felt somehow that she was a thing to be protected. He hailed a carriage, and she made no protest--all the time under his lee, so needful of protection. It was a shock when they came into the lights of Ma.r.s.eilles to find a proud, grave woman there and not a shrinking, wide-eyed child.... Her face, poised for flight, like a bird's wing; the beautiful, half-opened mouth, the hands, the little feet in their shoes. She was like some beautiful shy deer. And somewhere hovered disaster, like a familiar spirit.... And yet she was smiling....

At the door he made to bid her good-by.

”Would you--would you care to come in?”

”Why--why, yes.” He sent the carriage away.

He followed her up the path to the little villa and with her entered the house. There were no servants to answer the door; she let herself in with a latch-key, but so scrupulously clean was the place, so furnished in its way, that there must have been servants somewhere. The living-room into which she conducted him was s.p.a.cious and a little bare, though not bare for the Midi--a plain white room, high in the ceiling, with chairs of good line. Here was a big piano, here a fireplace, here a few paintings, colorful landscapes, on the wall. Together they lit candles.

”Back of here is a garden,” she said, ”where I spend most of the day.

And I have a cook”--she smiled--”and a maid who waits on me. And yet I go out to walk on the Prado....”