Part 39 (2/2)

And for that fat old dowd!”

Marise looked down at her astonished. ”I'm not working for _her_!” she exclaimed. But this was, evidently, from the look of Eugenia's face a fourth dimensional remark for her, for she made no answer, turning instead to look at the gray-black old ma.s.s of Cluny.

”What is it?” Eugenia asked.

Marise had not yet wholly emerged from a struggle with an exercise which she had not been able to execute with the inhuman, neat-fingered velocity demanded by Mme. de la Cueva. The hour in that other world to which music always transported her had broken the continuity of her impressions of her new friend. She stared rather blankly at Eugenia's question, and looked from her to the well-known medieval pile below them. It did not for the instant occur to her, that the other girl did not recognize what the building was. The turn of her phrase suggested an inquiry about the architecture, and though she had never thought about Cluny before, the look of it stirred recollections of a certain fierce history teacher, whose specialty had been the transitions of the reign of Louis XII. She looked down on the stone lacework opposite, and said doubtfully, ”What is it? Domestic Gothic, shouldn't you think? But some of it pretty late. Those square dormer-windows are Louis Douze, aren't they?”

She looked away from the Cluny and down at Eugenia as she finished, and had once more a shock of astonishment. The other's eyes were flaming.

”Theah, that's it,” she said fiercely, showing her white teeth as she spoke, but not in a smile. ”That's it. That's _just_ it! _Wheah did you learn that?_”

She dashed the question in Marise's face as though it had been her fist.

Marise positively drew back from her. Too startled to be anything but literal, she answered, ”Why, why, I don't know where I did. Oh, yes, in my French history cla.s.s, I suppose. They make you learn everything so hard, you know. You yourself were saying what a grind it is.”

Eugenia breathed hard and said, ”History again, darn it! But I didn't dream you'd learn _that_ sort of thing in it.” She added defiantly, and for Marise quite cryptically, ”Well, _I'm_ going to learn it without!”

Mme. de la Cueva came back with the music in her hand. ”Voila, mon enfant,” she said, shaking Marise's hand heartily. She reached for Eugenia's hand too, which was hanging at her side, till Eugenia, seeing the meaning of the other's gesture, brought it up with an awkward haste, a painful red burning in her cheeks.

Some one came in as they went out, another student evidently, for he had a roll of music in his hand. He stopped and stood aside with a deep bow to let the two girls pa.s.s.

”Good-day, Mlle. Allen,” he said, looking at her intently.

”Good-day, M. Boudoin,” she answered. Neither girl spoke as they went down the endless, winding stairs and pa.s.sed out to the street.

As they turned into the Boulevard, and jogged past the Jardin de Cluny, Eugenia asked tensely, ”What are those queer-looking broken-down walls?”

Marise answered circ.u.mspectly, fearing another out-burst, ”I think they're Roman ruins ... what's left of the baths the Romans had here.”

Eugenia made no answer, but looked at them hard.

Marise went on, ”Awfully interesting, isn't it, to see Roman ruins right in Paris, across the street from a cafe. But I suppose they'd look like small potatoes to anybody who's seen Rome. Mme. Vallery says they look comically small, after Rome.”

Eugenia put her arm around her neck, and kissed her once more, fervently, disturbingly, on the lips, ”Would you like to go to Rome?

I'll _take_ you to Rome. I'll hire a private car for the two of us.”

And before Marise could answer, before she could even bring out the laugh which rose to her lips, Eugenia said with another of her abrupt leaps, ”That young man is in love with you. The one who came in afterwards. He's awfully good-looking, too.” She looked into Marise's face with her avid, penetrating gaze, and said, ”But you don't like him!”

”I never thought about him in my life,” cried Marise, exasperated. She was beginning to feel desperately tired of the mental gymnastics of such talk.

”But there was something you didn't like as I spoke about him. Don't you _like_ men? Don't you like men to be in love with you? I do, I love it.”

She made another flying leap, and asked, ”Are many French women like your music-teacher--so fat--no style?”

”She's not French, Madame de la Cueva.”

”What, then?”

”A Levantine.”

<script>