Part 35 (2/2)

Jean Marot had plunged into the throng to try and shake off the unpleasant suggestions of Mlle. Fouchette. While he felt instinctively the feminine malice, it was none the less bitter to his taste. It was opening a wound afresh and salting it. He felt that the idea suggested by ”La Savatiere” was intolerable,--impossible. He paced up and down alone in the Luxembourg gardens until retreat was sounded. Then he re-entered the boulevard by the Place de Medicis, dodged a bevy of singing grisettes in male attire, to suddenly find himself face to face with the object of his thoughts.

How beautiful, and sweet and pure and innocent she looked! The laughing eyes, the profusion of hair with its tint of gold, now sparkling with confetti, the two rows of pearls between their rich rims of red,--it surely was an angel from the skies and not a woman who stood before him! And his knees trembled with the desire to let him to the earth at her feet.

The young girl regarded him first in semi-recognition, then with blank astonishment,--as well she might. She shrank closer to her protector.

Henri Lerouge had at first looked at his former friend with a dark and scowling face; but Jean had seen only the girl, and therefore failed to note the expression of satisfaction that swiftly succeeded.

”Pardon! but, monsieur, even Mardi Gras does not excuse a boor.” And Lerouge somewhat roughly elbowed him to one side.

The insult from Lerouge was nothing. Jean never thought of that. She had come, she had ignored him, she had gone,--the woman he loved!

He stood speechless for a moment, then staggered away, his self-love bleeding.

Unconsciously he had taken the direction they had gone, slowly groping his way rather than walking, next to the iron fence of the Luxembourg gardens, past the great School of Mines, along the Boulevard St. Michel towards the Observatory. Like a drunken man he stuck close to the walls, and thus crossed the obtuse angle into Rue Denfert-Rocherau. Hesitating at the tomb-like buildings that mark the entrance to the catacombs at the end of that street, he leaned against the great wrought-iron grille and tried to collect his thoughts.

He remembered now; this was where he had gone down one day to view the rows and stacks of boxes and vaults of mouldering bones. Yes, he even recalled the humorous idea of that day that there were more Parisians beneath the pavements of Paris than above them, and that they slept better o' nights.

The cold wind stirred the branches, and they grated against the fence with a dismal, sighing sound.

”Loves another!”

Was it not that which it said?

”Loves another!” in plain and well-measured cadence.

And the word ”l-o-v-e-s” was long and sorrowfully drawn out, and ”another” came sharply decisive.

He wandered on, aimlessly, yet in the general direction of Montrouge.

Fouchette,--yes, she had told the truth. He--where was he?

The streets up here were practically deserted, the entire population, apparently, having gone to the boulevards. Here and there some rez-de-chaussee aglow showed the usual gossippers of the concierges.

Now and then isolated merrymakers were returning, covered with confetti, having exhausted themselves and the pleasures of the day together.

Rue Halle,--he remembered now, though he scarcely noted it.

All at once his heart gave a bound. His mind came down to vulgar earth. It was at the sight of a solitary woman who sped swiftly round the corner from the Avenue d'Orleans and came towards him. Her stout figure between him and the electric light cast a long shadow down the street,--the shadow of a woman in bloomer costume, with a hat perched forward at an angle of forty-five degrees.

It was Mlle. Madeleine.

What could she be doing here at this hour,--she, who lived in Rue Monge?

Before he could answer this question she was almost upon him. But she was so absorbed in her own purposes that she saw him not, merely turning to the right up the Rue Halle with the quick and certain step of one who knows. Her black brows were set fiercely, and beneath them the big dark eyes glittered dangerously. Her full lips were tightly compressed; in the firmness of her tread was a world of determination.

Jean had obtained a good view of her face as she crossed the street, and he shuddered. For in it he saw reflected the state of his own tempestuous soul. He had read therein his own mind distempered by love and doubt and torn by jealousy, disappointment, and despair.

He recalled the warning of Mlle. Fouchette, and he trembled for the woman he loved. Well he comprehended the French character where love and hatred are concerned.

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