第31章 TWO AMERICANS(6)

All this was as yet free from either sentiment or passion, and was only the frank pride of friendship.But, oddly enough, their mere presence and companionship seemed to excite in others that tenderness they had not yet felt themselves.Family groups watched the handsome pair in their innocent confidences, and, with French exuberant recognition of sentiment, thought them the incarnation of Love.Something in their manifest equality of condition kept even the vainest and most susceptible of spectators from attempted rivalry or cynical interruption.And when at last they dropped side by side on a sun-warmed stone bench on the terrace, and Helen, inclining her brown head towards her companion, informed him of the difficulty she had experienced in getting gumbo soup, rice and chicken, corn cakes, or any of her favorite home dishes in Paris, an exhausted but gallant boulevardier rose from a contiguous bench, and, politely lifting his hat to the handsome couple, turned slowly away from what he believed were tender confidences he would not permit himself to hear.

But the shadow of the trees began to lengthen, casting broad bars across the alle, and the sun sank lower to the level of their eyes.

They were quite surprised, on looking around a few moments later, to discover that the gardens were quite deserted, and Ostrander, on consulting his watch, found that they had just lost a train which the other pleasure-seekers had evidently availed themselves of.No matter; there was another train an hour later; they could still linger for a few moments in the brief sunset and then dine at the local restaurant before they left.They both laughed at their forgetfulness, and then, without knowing why, suddenly lapsed into silence.A faint wind blew in their faces and trilled the thin leaves above their heads.Nothing else moved.The long windows of the palace in that sunset light seemed to glisten again with the incendiary fires of the Revolution, and then went out blankly and abruptly.The two companions felt that they possessed the terrace and all its memories as completely as the shadows who had lived and died there.

"I am so glad we have had this day together," said the painter, with a very conscious breaking of the silence, "for I am leaving Paris to-morrow."Helen raised her eyes quickly to his.

"For a few days only," he continued."My Russian customers--perhaps I ought to say my patrons--have given me a commission to make a study of an old chateau which the princess lately bought."A swift recollection of her fellow pupil's raillery regarding the princess's possible attitude towards the painter came over her and gave a strange artificiality to her response.

"I suppose you will enjoy it very much," she said dryly.

"No," he returned with the frankness that she had lacked."I'd much rather stay in Paris, but," he added with a faint smile, "it's a question of money, and that is not to be despised.Yet I--I--somehow feel that I am deserting you,--leaving you here all alone in Paris.""I've been all alone for four years," she said, with a bitterness she had never felt before, "and I suppose I'm accustomed to it."Nevertheless she leaned a little forward, with her fawn-colored lashes dropped over her eyes, which were bent upon the ground and the point of the parasol she was holding with her little gloved hands between her knees.He wondered why she did not look up; he did not know that it was partly because there were tears in her eyes and partly for another reason.As she had leaned forward his arm had quite unconsciously moved along the back of the bench where her shoulders had rested, and she could not have resumed her position except in his half embrace.

He had not thought of it.He was lost in a greater abstraction.

That infinite tenderness,--far above a woman's,--the tenderness of strength and manliness towards weakness and delicacy, the tenderness that looks down and not up, was already possessing him.

An instinct of protection drew him nearer this bowed but charming figure, and if he then noticed that the shoulders were pretty, and the curves of the slim waist symmetrical, it was rather with a feeling of timidity and a half-consciousness of unchivalrous thought.Yet why should he not try to keep the brave and honest girl near him always? Why should he not claim the right to protect her? Why should they not--they who were alone in a strange land--join their two lonely lives for mutual help and happiness?

A sudden perception of delicacy, the thought that he should have spoken before her failure at the Conservatoire had made her feel her helplessness, brought a slight color to his cheek.Would it not seem to her that he was taking an unfair advantage of her misfortune? Yet it would be so easy now to slip a loving arm around her waist, while he could work for her and protect her with the other.THE OTHER! His eye fell on his empty sleeve.Ah, he had forgotten that! He had but ONE arm!

He rose up abruptly,--so abruptly that Helen, rising too, almost touched the arm that was hurriedly withdrawn.Yet in that accidental contact, which sent a vague tremor through the young girl's frame, there was still time for him to have spoken.But he only said:--"Perhaps we had better dine."

She assented quickly,--she knew not why,--with a feeling of relief.