Part 67 (2/2)
The two friends, though startled apart, hasten with lifted hats to the side of the volante, profoundly convinced that one, at least, of its two occupants is heartily sorry that they were not rolled in the dust. Ah, ah! with what a wicked, ill-stifled merriment those two ethereal women bend forward in the faintly perfumed clouds of their ravis.h.i.+ng summer-evening garb, to express their equivocal mortification and regret.
”Oh! I'm so sawry, oh! Almoze runned o'--ah, ha, ha, ha!”
Aurora could keep the laugh back no longer.
”An' righd yeh befo' haivry _boddie_! Ah, ha, ha! 'Sieur Grandissime, 'tis _me-e-e_ w'ad know 'ow dad is bad, ha, ha, ha! Oh! I a.s.su' you, gen'lemen, id is hawful!”
And so on.
By and by Honore seemed urging them to do something, the thought of which made them laugh, yet was entertained as not entirely absurd. It may have been that to which they presently seemed to consent; they alighted from the volante, dismissed it, and walked each at a partner's side down the gra.s.sy avenue of the levee. It was as Clotilde with one hand swept her light robes into perfect adjustment for the walk, and turned to take the first step with Frowenfeld, that she raised her eyes for the merest instant to his, and there pa.s.sed between them an exchange of glance which made the heart of the little doctor suddenly burn like a ball of fire.
”Now we're all right,” he murmured bitterly to himself, as, without having seen him, she took the arm of the apothecary, and they moved away.
Yes, if his irony was meant for this pair, he divined correctly. Their hearts had found utterance across the lips, and the future stood waiting for them on the threshold of a new existence, to usher them into a perpetual copartners.h.i.+p in all its joys and sorrows, its disappointments, its imperishable hopes, its aims, its conflicts, its rewards; and the true--the great--the everlasting G.o.d of love was with them. Yes, it had been ”all right,” now, for nearly twenty-four hours--an age of bliss. And now, as they walked beneath the willows where so many lovers had walked before them, they had whole histories to tell of the tremors, the dismays, the misconstructions and longings through which their hearts had come to this bliss; how at such a time, thus and so; and after such and such a meeting, so and so; no part of which was heard by alien ears, except a fragment of Clotilde's speech caught by a small boy in unintentioned ambush.
”--Evva sinze de firze nighd w'en I big-in to nurze you wid de fivver.”
She was telling him, with that new, sweet boldness so wonderful to a lately accepted lover, how long she had loved him.
Later on they parted at the _porte-cochere_. Honore and Aurora had got there before them, and were pa.s.sing on up the stairs. Clotilde, catching, a moment before, a glimpse of her face, had seen that there was something wrong; weather-wise as to its indications she perceived an impending shower of tears. A faint shade of anxiety rested an instant on her own face. Frowenfeld could not go in. They paused a little within the obscurity of the corridor, and just to rea.s.sure themselves that everything _was_ ”all right,” they--
G.o.d be praised for love's young dream!
The slippered feet of the happy girl, as she slowly mounted the stair alone, overburdened with the weight of her blissful reverie, made no sound. As she turned its mid-angle she remembered Aurora. She could guess pretty well the source of her trouble; Honore was trying to treat that hand-clasping at the bedside of Agricola as a binding compact; ”which, of course, was not fair.” She supposed they would have gone into the front drawing-room; she would go into the back. But she miscalculated; as she silently entered the door she saw Aurora standing a little way beyond her, close before Honore, her eyes cast down, and the trembling fan hanging from her two hands like a broken pinion. He seemed to be reiterating, in a tender undertone, some question intended to bring her to a decision. She lifted up her eyes toward his with a mute, frightened glance.
The intruder, with an involuntary murmur of apology, drew back; but, as she turned, she was suddenly and unspeakably saddened to see Aurora drop her glance, and, with a solemn slowness whose momentous significance was not to be mistaken, silently shake her head.
”Alas!” cried the tender heart of Clotilde. ”Alas! M. Grandissime!”
CHAPTER LXI
”NO!”
If M. Grandissime had believed that he was prepared for the supreme bitterness of that moment, he had sadly erred. He could not speak. He extended his hand in a dumb farewell, when, all unsanctioned by his will, the voice of despair escaped him in a low groan. At the same moment, a tinkling sound drew near, and the room, which had grown dark with the fall of night, began to brighten with the softly widening light of an evening lamp, as a servant approached to place it in the front drawing-room.
Aurora gave her hand and withdrew it. In the act the two somewhat changed position, and the rays of the lamp, as the maid pa.s.sed the door, falling upon Aurora's face, betrayed the again upturned eyes.
”'Sieur Grandissime--”
They fell.
The lover paused.
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