And now I have something else to confess about Claude; something mortifying in the extreme. For you see the poverty of all these explanations. Their very mult.i.tude makes them weak. "Many fires cannot quench love;" what was the real matter? I will tell.
Claude"s love was a deep sentiment. He had never allowed it to a.s.sert itself as a pa.s.sion. The most he would allow it to be was a yearning.
It was scarcely personal. While he was with Marguerite, in the inn, his diffidence alone was enough to hide from him the impression she was making on his heart. In all their intercourse he had scarcely twice looked her full in the face. Afterward she had simply become in memory the exponent of an ideal. He found himself often, now, asking himself, why are my eyes always looking for her? Should I actually know her, were I to see her on this sidewalk, or in this street-car?
And while still asking himself these silent questions, what does he do one day but fall--to all intents and purposes, at least--fall in love--pell-mell--up to the eyebrows--with another girl!
Do you remember Uncle Remus"s story of Brer Rabbit with the bucket of honey inverted on him? It was the same way with Claude. "He wa"n"t des only bedobble wid it, he wuz des kiver"d." It happened thus: An artist friend, whose studio was in Carondelet Street just off of Ca.n.a.l, had rented to him for a workroom a little loft above the studio. It had one window looking out over roofs and chimney-pots upon the western sky, and another down into the studio itself. It is right to say friend, although there was no acquaintanceship until it grew out of this arrangement. The artist, a single man, was much Claude"s senior; but Claude"s taste for design, and love of work, and the artist"s grave sincerity, simplicity, and cordiality of character--he was a Spaniard, with a Spaniard"s perfect courtesy--made a mutual regard, which only a common diffidence prevented from running into comradeship.
One Sat.u.r.day afternoon Claude, thirsting for outdoor air, left his eyrie for a short turn in Ca.n.a.l Street. The matinee audiences were just out, and the wide balcony-shaded sidewalks were crowded with young faces and bright attires. Claude was crossing the "neutral ground" toward Bourbon Street, when he saw coming out of Bourbon Street a young man, who might be a Creole, and two young girls in light, and what seemed to him extremely beautiful dresses; especially that of the farther one, who, as the three turned with buoyant step into Ca.n.a.l Street to their left, showed for an instant the profile of her face, and then only her back. Claude"s heart beat consciously, and he hurried to lessen the distance between them. He had seen no more than the profile, but for the moment in which he saw it, it seemed to be none other than the face of Marguerite!
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHASE.
Claude came on close behind. No; now he could see his mistake, it was not she. But he could not regret it. This was Marguerite repeated, yet transcended. The stature was just perceptibly superior. The breadth and grace of these shoulders were better than Marguerite"s. The hair, arranged differently and far more effectively than he had ever seen it on Marguerite"s head, seemed even more luxurious than hers. There was altogether a finer dignity in this one"s carriage than in that of the little maid of the inn. And see, now,--now!--as she turns her head to glance into this shop window! It is, and it isn"t, it isn"t, and it is, and--no, no, it is not Marguerite! It is like her in profile, singularly like, yet far beyond her; the nose a little too fine, and a certain sad firmness about the mouth and eyes, as well as he could see in the profile, but profiles are so deceptive--that he had never seen in Marguerite.
"But how do I know? What do I know?" he asked himself, still following on. "The Marguerite I know is but a thing of my dreams, and this is not that Marguerite of my actual sight, to whom I never gave a word or smile or glance that calls for redemption. This is the Marguerite of my dreams."
Claude was still following, when without any cause that one could see, the young man of the group looked back. He had an unpleasant face; it showed a small offensive energy that seemed to a.s.sert simply him and all his against you and all yours. His eyes were black, piercing, and hostile. They darted their glances straight into Claude"s. Guilty Claude! d.o.g.g.i.ng the steps of ladies on the street! He blushed for shame, turned a corner into Exchange Alley, walked a little way down it, came back, saw the great crowd coming and going, vehicles of all sorts hurrying here and there; ranks of street-cars waiting their turns to start to all points of the compa.s.s; sellers of peanuts and walking-sticks, buyers of bouquets, acquaintances meeting or overtaking one another, nodding bonnets, lifted hats, faces, faces, faces; but the one face was gone.
Caught, Claude? And by a mere face? The charge is too unkind. Young folly, yes, or old folly, may read goodness rashly into all beauty, or not care to read it in any. But it need not be so. Upon the face of youth the soul within writes its confessions and promises; and when the warm pulses of young nature are sanctified by upward yearnings, and a pure conscience, the soul that seeks its mate will seek that face which, behind and through all excellencies of mere tint and feature, mirrors back the seeker"s own faiths and hopes; and when that is found, that to such a one is beauty. Judge not; you never saw this face, fairer than Marguerite"s, to say whether its beauty was mere face, or the transparent shrine of an equal n.o.bility within.
Besides, Claude would have fired up and denied the first word of the charge with unpleasant flatness. To be caught means to be in love, to be in love implies a wish and hope to marry, and these were just what Claude could not allow. May not a man, nevertheless, have an ideal of truth and beauty and look worshipfully upon its embodiment? Humph!
His eyes sought her in vain not only on that afternoon, but on many following. The sun was setting every day later and later through the black lace-work of pecan-trees and behind low dark curtains of orange groves, yet he began to be more and more tardy each succeeding day in meeting his father under the riverside oaks of the Exposition grounds.
And then, on the seventh day, he saw her again.
Now he was more confident than ever that this vision and he, except in dreams, had never spoken to each other. Yet the likeness was wonderful. But so, too, was the unlikeness. True, this time, she only flashed across his sight--out of a bank, into a carriage where a very "American"-looking lady sat waiting for her and was gone. But the bank; the carriage; that lady; those earlier companions,--no, this could not be Marguerite. Marguerite would have been with her mother.
Now, if one could see Madame Beausoleil"s daughter with Madame Beausoleil at her side to identify her and distinguish her from this flashing and vanishing apparition it would clear away a trying perplexity. Why not be bold and call upon them where they were dwelling? But where? Their names were not in the directory. Now, inventive talent, do your best.
"Well!" said St. Pierre after a long silence. Claude and he were out on the swollen Mississippi pulling with steady leisure for the home-side sh.o.r.e, their skiff pointed half to and half from the boiling current. The sun was gone; a purple dusk wrapped either low bank; a steamboat that had pa.s.sed up stream was now, at the turning of the bend, only a cl.u.s.ter of soft red lights; Venus began to make a faint silvery pathway across the waters. St. Pierre had the forward seat, at Claude"s back. The father looked with fond perplexity at the strong young shoulders swinging silently with his own, forward and backward in slow, monotonous strokes, and said again:
"Well? Wha.s.s matter? Look like cat got yo" tongue. Makin" new mash-in?" Then in a low dissatisfied tone--"I reckon somet"in" mighty curious." He repeated the last three words in the Acadian speech: "Tcheuque-chose bien tchurieux."
"Ya.s.s," replied the son, "mighty strange. I tell you when we come at home."
He told all. Recounted all his heart"s longings, all his dreams, every least pang of self-reproach, the idealization of Marguerite, and the finding of that ideal incarnated in one who was and yet seemed not to be, or rather seemed to be and yet was not, Marguerite. And then he went on to re-a.s.sure his father that this could never mean marriage, never mean the father"s supplanting. A man could worship what he could never hope to possess. He would rather worship this than win such kind as he would dare woo.
He said all these things in a very quiet way, with now and then a silent pause, and now and then a calm, self-contained tone in resuming; yet his sentences were often disconnected, and often were half soliloquy. Such were the only betrayals of emotion on either side until Claude began to treat--in the words just given--his father"s own heart interests; then the father"s eyes stood br.i.m.m.i.n.g full. But St.
Pierre did not speak. From the first he had listened in silence and he offered no interruption until at length Claude came to that part about the object of his regard being so far, so utterly, beyond his reach.
Then--
"Stop! Da.s.s all foolishness! You want her? You kin have her!"
"Ah, papa! you dawn"t awnstand! What I am?"
"Ah, bah! What anybody is? What she is? She invanted bigger mash-in dan you? a mo" better corn-stubbl" destroyer and plant-corner?" He meant corn-planter. "She invant a more handier doubl"-action pea-vine rake? What she done mak" her so gran"? Naw, sir! She look fine in de face, ya.s.s; and da.s.s all you know. Well, da.s.s all right; da.s.s de "Cajun way--pick "em out by face. You begin "Cajun way, for why you dawn"t finish "Cajun way? All you got do, you git good saddle-hoss and ride. Bom-bye you see her, you ride behind her till you find where her daddy livin" at. Den you ride pas" yondah every day till fo", five days, and den you see de ole man come sc.r.a.pe friend wid you. Den he ha.s.s you drop round, and fus" t"ing you know--_adjieu la calege!_"
Claude did not dispute the point, though he hardly thought this case could be worked that way. He returned in silent thought to the question, how to find Madame Beausoleil. He tried the mail; no response. He thought of advertising; but that would never do. Imagine, "If Madame Beausoleil, late of Vermilionville, will leave her address at this office, she will hear of something not in the least to her advantage." He couldn"t advertise.
It was midday following the eve of his confession to his father. For the last eleven or twelve days, ever since he had seen that blessed apparition turn with the two young friends into Ca.n.a.l Street out of Bourbon--he had been venturing daily, for luncheon, just down into Bourbon Street, to the Christian Women"s Exchange. Now, by all the laws of fortune he should in that time have seen in there at least once or twice a day already, the face he was ever looking for. But he had not; nor did he to-day. He only saw, or thought he saw, the cashier--I should say the cashieress--glance crosswise at him with eyes that seemed to him to say:
"Fool; sneak; whelp; "Cajun; our private detectives are watching you."
Both rooms and the veranda were full of ladies and gentlemen whose faces he dared not lift his eyes to look into. And yet even in that frame there suddenly came to him one of those happy thoughts that are supposed to be the inspirations of inventive genius. A pleasant little female voice near him said:
"And apartments up-stairs that they rent to ladies only!" And instantly the thought came that Marguerite and her mother might be living there. One more lump of bread, a final gulp of coffee, a short search for the waiter"s check, and he stands at the cashieress"s desk.
She makes change without looking at him or ceasing to tell a small hunchbacked spinster standing by about somebody"s wedding. But suddenly she starts.
"Oh! wasn"t that right? You gave me four bits, didn"t you? And I gave you back two bits and a picayune, and--sir? Does Madame who? Oh! yes.
I didn"t understand you; I"m a little deaf on this side; scarlet fever when I was a little girl. I"m not the regular cashier, she"s gone to attend the wedding of a lady friend. Just wait a moment, please, while I make change for these ladies. Oh, dear! ma"am, is that the smallest you"ve got? I don"t believe I can change that, ma"am. Yes--no--stop!
yes, I can! no, I can"t! let"s see! yes, yes, yes, I can; I"ve got it; yes, there! I didn"t think I had it." She turned again to Claude with sisterly confidence. "Excuse me for keeping you waiting; haven"t I met you at the Y. M. C. A. sociable? Well, you must excuse me, but I was sure I had. Of course I didn"t if you was never there; but you know in a big city like this you"re always meeting somebody that"s ne-e-early somebody else that you know--oh! didn"t you ask me--oh, yes! Madame Beausoleil! Yes, she lives here, she and her daughter. But she"s not in. Oh! I"m sorry. Neither of them is here. She"s not in the city; hasn"t been for two weeks. They"re coming back; we"re expecting them every day. She heard of the death of a relative down in Terrebonne somewhere. I wish they _would_ come back; we miss them here; I judge they"re relatives of yours, if I don"t mistake the resemblance; you seem to take after the daughter; wait a minute."
Some one coming up to pay looked at Claude to see what the daughter was like, and the young man slipped away, outblushing the night sky when the marshes are afire.
The question was settled; settled the wrong way. He hurried on across Ca.n.a.l Street. Marguerite had not been, as he had construed the inaccurate statement, in the city for two weeks. Resemblances need delude him no longer. He went on into Carondelet Street and was drawing near the door and stairway leading to his friend"s studio and his own little workroom above it, when suddenly from that very stairway and door issued she whom, alas! he might now no longer mistake for Marguerite, yet who, none the less for lessening hope, held him captive.
CHAPTER XIV.
WHO SHE WAS.
For a moment somewhat more than her profile shone upon Claude"s bewildered gaze.
"I shall see her eye to eye at last!" shouted his heart within: but the next moment she turned away, and with two companions who came across the same threshold, moved up the street, and, at the nearest corner, vanished. Her companions were the American lady and the artist. Claude wheeled, and hurried to pa.s.s around the square in the opposite direction, and, as he reached the middle of its third side, saw the artist hand them into the street-car, lift his hat, and return towards the studio. The two men met at the foot of the stairs. The Spaniard"s countenance betrayed a restrained elation.
"You goin" see a picture now," he said, in a modestly triumphant tone.
"Come in," he added, as Claude would have pa.s.sed the studio door.
They went in together. The Spaniard talked; Claude scarcely spoke. I cannot repeat the conversation literally, but the facts are these: A few evenings before, the artist had been one of the guests at a musical party given by a lady whose name he did not mention. He happened--he modestly believed it accidental--to be seated beside the hostess, when a young lady--"jung Creole la-thy," he called her--who was spending a few days with her, played the violin. The Spaniard"s delicate propriety left her also nameless; but he explained that, as he understood, she was from the Teche. She played charmingly--"for an amateur," he qualified: but what had struck him more than the music was her beauty, her figure, her picturesque grace. And when he confessed his delight in these, his hostess, seemingly on the inspiration of the moment, said:
"Paint her picture! Paint her just so! I"ll give you the order. Not a mere portrait--a picture." And he had agreed, and the "jung" lady had consented. The two had but just now left the studio. To-morrow a servant would bring violin, music-rack, etc.; the ladies would follow, and then--
"You hear music, anyhow," said the artist. That was his gentle way of intimating that Claude was not invited to be a looker-on.
On the next day, Claude, in his nook above, with the studio below shut from view by the curtain of his inner window, heard the ladies come.
He knows they are these two, for one voice, the elder, blooms out at once in a gay abundance of words, and the other speaks in soft, low tones that, before they reach his ear, run indistinguishably together.
Soon there comes the sound of tuning the violin, while the older voice is still heard praising one thing and another, and asking careless questions.