Part 11 (1/2)

”And may we take it to our room?”

”Eh? Oh, certainly,” said Cartaret.

She held out her hand, the palm lowered.

”Good-night,” she said.

Cartaret's heart bounded: this time she had not said ”Good-by.” He seized the hand. Chitta growled, and he released it with a conventional handshake.

The Girl smiled.

”Ah, yes,” she said; ”this afternoon it puzzled me, but now I recollect: you Americans, sir, shake one's hand, do you not?”

She was gone, and glowering Chitta with her, before he could answer.

Cartaret stood where she had left him, his brows knitted. He heard Chitta double-lock the door to their rooms. He was thinking thoughts that his brain was not accustomed to. It was some time before they became more familiar. Then he gasped:

”I wonder if my face is dirty!”

He took the lamp and sought the sole mirror that his room boasted. His face was dirty.

”d.a.m.n!” said Cartaret.

Down in the narrow street, an uncertain chorus was singing:

”There's nothing, friend, 'twixt you and me Except the best of company.

(There's just one bock 'twixt you and me, and I'll catch up full soon!) What woman's lips compare to this: This st.u.r.dy seidel's frothy kiss----”

His guests were coming to seek him. They had remembered him at last.

Cartaret's mind, however, was busy with other matters. He had not thought of the gallant thing that he might have said to The Girl, but he had thought of something equally surprising.

”Gee whiz!” he cried. ”I understand now--it's probably the custom of her country: she expected me to kiss her hand. Kiss her hand--and I missed the chance!”

CHAPTER VI

CARTARET SETS UP HOUSEKEEPING

Que de femmes il y a dans une femme! Et c'est bien heureux.--Dumas, Fils: _La Dame Aux Perles_.

Cartaret did not see the Lady of the Rose next day, though his work suffered sadly through the worker's jumping from before his easel at the slightest sound on the landing, running to his door, and sometimes himself going to the hall and standing there for many minutes, trying, and not succeeding, to look as if he had just come in, or were just going out, on business of the first importance. He concluded, for the hundredth time, that he was a fool; but he persevered in his folly. He asked himself why he should feel such an odd interest in an unknown girl practically alone in Paris; but he found no satisfactory answer.

He declared that it was madness in him to suppose that she could want ever to see him again, and madness to suppose that a penniless failure had anything to gain by seeing her; but he continued to try.

On the night following the first day of his watch, Cartaret went to bed disappointed and slept heavily. On the second night he went to bed worried, and dreamed of scaling a terrible mountain in quest of a flower, and of falling into a hideous chasm just as the flower turned into a beautiful woman and smiled at him. On the third night, he surrendered to acute alarm and believed that he did not sleep at all.

The morning of the fourth day found him knocking on the panel of that magic door opposite. Chitta opened the door a crack, growled, and shut it in his face.

”I wonder,” reflected Cartaret, ”what would be the best means of killing this old woman. I wonder if the hyena would eat candy sent her by mail.”