Part 16 (2/2)
She returned her hand to Frowenfeld's arm and they moved on.
”The one who spoke to you, or--you know the one who got near enough to apologize is not the one whose horse struck you!”
”I din know. But oo dad odder one? I saw h-only 'is back, bud I thing it is de sem--”
She identified it with the back that was turned to her during her last visit to Frowenfeld's shop; but finding herself about to mention a matter so nearly connected with the purse of gold, she checked herself; but Frowenfeld, eager to say a good word for his acquaintance, ventured to extol his character while he concealed his name.
”While I have never been introduced to him, I have some acquaintance with him, and esteem him a n.o.ble gentleman.”
”W'ere you meet him?”
”I met him first,” he said, ”at the graves of my parents and sisters.”
There was a kind of hush after the mention, and the lady made no reply.
”It was some weeks after my loss,” resumed Frowenfeld.
”In wad _cimetiere_ dad was?”
”In no cemetery--being Protestants, you know--”
”Ah, yes, sir?” with a gentle sigh.
”The physician who attended me procured permission to bury them on some private land below the city.”
”Not in de groun'[2]?”
[Footnote 2: Only Jews and paupers are buried in the ground in New Orleans.]
”Yes; that was my father's expressed wish when he died.”
”You 'ad de fivver? Oo nurse you w'en you was sick?”
”An old hired negress.”
”Dad was all?”
”Yes.”
”Hm-m-m!” she said piteously, and laughed in her sleeve.
Who could hope to catch and reproduce the continuous lively thrill which traversed the frame of the escaped book-worm as every moment there was repeated to his consciousness the knowledge that he was walking across the vault of heaven with the evening star on his arm--at least, that he was, at her instigation, killing time along the dim, ill-lighted _trottoirs_ of the rue Chartres, with Aurora listening sympathetically at his side. But let it go; also the sweet broken English with which she now and then interrupted him; also the inward, hidden sparkle of her dancing Gallic blood; her low, merry laugh; the roguish mental reservation that lurked behind her graver speeches; the droll bravados she uttered against the powers that be, as with timid fingers he brushed from her shoulder a little remaining dust of the late encounter--these things, we say, we let go,--as we let b.u.t.terflies go rather than pin them to paper.
They had turned into the rue Bienville, and were walking toward the river, Frowenfeld in the midst of a long sentence, when a low cry of tearful delight sounded in front of them, some one in long robes glided forward, and he found his arm relieved of its burden and that burden transferred to the bosom and pa.s.sionate embrace of another--we had almost said a fairer--Creole, amid a bewildering interchange of kisses and a pelting shower of Creole French.
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