第32章 TWO AMERICANS(7)

They walked very quietly and slowly towards the restaurant.Not a word of love had been spoken; not even a glance of understanding had passed between them.Yet they both knew by some mysterious instinct that a crisis of their lives had come and gone, and that they never again could be to each other as they were but a brief moment ago.They talked very sensibly and gravely during their frugal meal; the previous spectator of their confidences would have now thought them only simple friends and have been as mistaken as before.They talked freely of their hopes and prospects,--all save one! They even spoke pleasantly of repeating their little expedition after his return from the country, while in their secret hearts they had both resolved never to see each other again.Yet by that sign each knew that this was love, and were proud of each other's pride, which kept it a secret.

The train was late, and it was past ten o'clock when they at last appeared before the concierge of Helen's home.During their journey, and while passing though the crowds at the station and in the streets, Ostrander had exhibited a new and grave guardianship over the young girl, and, on the first landing, after a scrutinizing and an almost fierce glance at one or two of Helen's odd fellow lodgers, he had extended his protection so far as to accompany her up the four flights to the landing of her apartment.

Here he took leave of her with a grave courtesy that half pained, half pleased her.She watched his broad shoulders and dangling sleeve as he went down the stairs, and then quickly turned, entered her room, and locked the door.The smile had faded from her lips.

Going to the window, she pressed her hot forehead against the cool glass and looked out upon the stars nearly level with the black roofs around her.She stood there some moments until another star appeared higher up against the roof ridge, the star she was looking for.But here the glass pane before her eyes became presently dim with moisture; she was obliged to rub it out with her handkerchief;yet, somehow, it soon became clouded, at which she turned sharply away and went to bed.

But Miss Helen did not know that when she had looked after the retreating figure of her protector as he descended the stairs that night that he was really carrying away on those broad shoulders the character she had so laboriously gained during her four years'

solitude.For when she came down the next morning the concierge bowed to her with an air of easy, cynical abstraction, the result of a long conversation with his wife the night before.He had taken Helen's part with a kindly cynicism."Ah! what would you--it was bound to come.The affair of the Conservatoire had settled that.The poor child could not starve; penniless, she could not marry.Only why consort with other swallows under the eaves when she could have had a gilded cage on the first etage?" But girls were so foolish--in their first affair; then it was always LOVE!

The second time they were wiser.And this maimed warrior and painter was as poor as she.A compatriot, too; well, perhaps that saved some scandal; one could never know what the Americans were accustomed to do.The first floor, which had been inclined to be civil to the young teacher, was more so, but less respectful; one or two young men were tentatively familiar until they looked in her gray eyes and remembered the broad shoulders of the painter.Oddly enough, only Mademoiselle Fifine, of her own landing, exhibited any sympathy with her, and for the first time Helen was frightened.

She did not show it, however, only she changed her lodgings the next day.But before she left she had a few moments' conversation with the concierge and an exchange of a word or two with some of her fellow lodgers.I have already hinted that the young lady had great precision of statement; she had a pretty turn for handling colloquial French and an incisive knowledge of French character.

She left No.34, Rue de Frivole, working itself into a white rage, but utterly undecided as to her real character.

But all this and much more was presently blown away in the hot breath that swept the boulevards at the outburst of the Franco-German War, and Miss Helen Maynard disappeared from Paris with many of her fellow countrymen.The excitement reached even a quaint old chateau in Brittany where Major Ostrander was painting.The woman who was standing by his side as he sat before his easel on the broad terrace observed that he looked disturbed.

"What matters?" she said gently."You have progressed so well in your work that you can finish it elsewhere.I have no great desire to stay in France with a frontier garrisoned by troops while I have a villa in Switzerland where you could still be my guest.Paris can teach you nothing more, my friend; you have only to create now--and be famous."

"I must go to Paris," he said quietly."I have friends--countrymen--there, who may want me now."

"If you mean the young singer of the Rue de Frivole, you have compromised her already.You can do her no good.""Madame!"

The pretty face which he had been familiar with for the past six weeks somehow seemed to change its character.Under the mask of dazzling skin he fancied he saw the high cheek-bones and square Tartar angle; the brilliant eyes were even brighter than before, but they showed more of the white than he had ever seen in them.

Nevertheless she smiled, with an equally stony revelation of her white teeth, yet said, still gently, "Forgive me if I thought our friendship justified me in being frank,--perhaps too frank for my own good."She stopped as if half expecting an interruption; but as he remained looking wonderingly at her, she bit her lip, and went on: