Part 46 (1/2)

”d.a.m.n him!” said I, between my teeth.

”He was going to marry me, but then he said it did not matter in Paris.

At first he was so nice, but after a little--oh, Seer Marcous dear, he was so cruel.”

There was a short silence. Antoinette wept by the door, uttering little half-audible exclamations _”la pauvre pet.i.te, le cher ange!”_

Carlotta regarded me wistfully. I saw a new look of suffering in her eyes. For myself I felt numb with pain.

”What kind of a pension were you living in?” I asked, unutterable horrors coming into my head.

”It was a French family, an old lady and two old daughters, and one fat German professor. Pasquale put me there. It was very respectable,” she added, with a wan smile, ”and so dull. Madame Champet would scarcely let me go into the street by myself.”

”Thank heaven you did not fall into worse hands,” said I.

Carlotta unpinned her old straw hat, quite a different garment from the dainty head-wear she delighted in a year before, and threw it on the couch beside her. A tress of her glorious bronze hair fell loose across her forehead, adding to the woebegone expression of her face. She rose, and as she did so I seemed to notice a curious change in her. She came to me with extended hands.

”Seer Marcous--” she whispered.

I took her hands in mine.

”Oh, my dear,” said I, ”why did you leave me?”

”I was wicked. And I was a little fool,” said Carlotta.

I sighed, released her, walked a bit apart. There was a blubber from the egregious old woman in the threshold.

”Oh, Monsieur is not going to drive her away.”

I turned upon her.

”Instead of standing there weeping like a fountain and doing nothing, why aren't you getting Mademoiselle's room ready for her?”

”Because Monsieur has the key,” wailed Antoinette.

”That's true,” said I.

Then I reflected on the futility of converting bedchambers into mausoleums for the living. The room shut up for a year would not be habitable. It would be damp and inch-deep in dust.

”Mademoiselle shall sleep in my room to-night,” I said, ”and Stenson can make me up a bed and put what I want here. Go and arrange it with him.”

Antoinette departed. I turned to Carlotta.

”Are you very tired, my child?”

”Oh, yes--so tired.”

”Why didn't you write, so that things could have been got ready for you?”

”I don't know. I was too unhappy. Seer Marcous--” she said after a little pause and then stopped.