Part 20 (1/2)

Leighton stared at her from the water. ”What do you do?” he cried in rapid French. ”You cannot bathe. I won't allow it.”

Cellette paused in sheer amazement that any one should think there was anything she could not do. Then deliberately she continued undoing hooks.

”Why can't I bathe?” she asked out of courtesy or merely because she knew the value of keeping up a conversation.

”You can't bathe,” said Leighton, desperately, ”because you are too tender, too delicate. These waters are--miasmic. They are full of snakes, too. It was just now that I stepped on one.”

”Snakes, eh?” said Cellette, pausing again. ”I don't believe you.

But--snakes!” She shuddered, and then looked as though she were going to cry with disappointment.

”Don't you mind just this once, Cellette,” cried Lewis, blowing like a walrus as he held his place against the current. ”We'll come alone some time.”

Cellette dried the perspiration from her short upper lip with a little cotton handkerchief.

”_Mon dieu_, but men are selfis.h.!.+” she remarked.

Once they were in the boat again, drifting slowly down the shadowy river, she forgot her pet, turned suddenly gay, and began to sing songs that were as foreign to that still sunset scene as was Cellette herself to a dairy. Lewis had heard them before. He looked upon them merely as one of Cellette's moods, but they brought a twisted smile to Leighton's lips. He glanced at the pompous, indignant setting sun and winked. The sun did not wink back; he was surly.

In the train, Cellette, tired and happy, went to sleep. Her head fell on Leighton's shoulder. With dexterous fingers he took off her hat and laid it aside, then he looked at Lewis shrewdly. But Lewis showed no signs, of jealousy. He merely laughed silently and whispered, ”Isn't she a _funny?_”

They began to talk. Leighton told Lewis he was glad that he had worked steadily all these months, that Le Brux spoke well of his work, but thought a rest would help it and him.

”What do you say,” he went on, ”to a little trip all by ourselves again?”

”It would be splendid,” said Lewis, eagerly. Then, after a pause: ”It would be fun if we could take Cellette along, too. She'd like it a lot, I know.”

”Yes,” said Leighton, dryly, ”I don't doubt she would.” He seemed to ponder over the point. ”No,” he said finally, ”it wouldn't do. What I propose is a man's trip--good stiff walking. We could strike off through Metz and Kaiserslautern, hit the Rhine valley somewhere about Durkheim, pa.s.s through Mannheim with our eyes shut, and get to Heidelberg and the Neckar. Then we could float down the Rhine into Holland. That's the toy-country of the world. Great place to make you smile.”

Lewis's eyes watered.

”When--when shall we start?”

”We'll start to start to-morrow,” said Leighton. ”We've got to outfit, you know.”

Two days later they were ready. Cellette kissed them both good-by.

Leighton gave her a pretty trinket, a heavy gold locket on a chain. She glanced up sidewise at him through half-closed eyes.

”What's this?” she asked in the tone of the woman who knows she must always pay.

”Just a little nothing from Lewis,” said Leighton. ”Something to remember him by.”

”So,” said Cellette, gravely. ”I understand. He will not come back. It is well.”

Leighton patted her shoulder.

”You are shrewd,” he said. Then he added, with a smile: ”Too shrewd. He will be back in two months.”

A fiacre carried them beyond the fortifications. The cabman smiled at the generous drink-money Leighton gave him, spit on it, and then sat and watched father and son as they stepped lightly off up the broad highway.