In the Days of My Youth Part 83

Once in the cab, Dalrymple began hastily pulling off his coat and waistcoat. I was startled to see his s.h.i.+rt-front stained with blood.

"Heavens!" I exclaimed, "you are not wounded?"

"Very slightly. De Caylus was too good a shot to miss me altogether.

Pshaw! 'tis nothing--a mere graze--not even the bullet left in it!"

"If it had been a little more to the left...." I faltered.

"If he had fired one second sooner, or lived one second longer, he would have had me through the heart, as sure as there's a heaven above us!"

said Dalrymple.

Then, suddenly changing his tone, he added, laughingly--

"Nonsense, Damon! cheer up, and help me to tear this handkerchief into bandages. Now's the time to show off your surgery, my little aesculapius.

By Jupiter, life's a capital thing, after all!"

CHAPTER LI

THE PORTRAIT.

Having seen Dalrymple to his lodgings and dressed his wound, which was, in truth, but a very slight one, I left him and went home, promising to return in a few hours, and help him with his packing; for we both agreed that he must leave Paris that evening, come what might.

It was now close upon two o'clock, and I had been out since between three and four the previous afternoon--not quite twenty-four hours, in point of actual time; but a week, a month, a year, in point of sensation! Had I not seen a man die since that hour yesterday?

Walking homewards through the garish streets in the hot afternoon, all the strange scenes in which I had just been an actor thronged fantastically upon my memory. The joyous dinner with Franz Muller; the busy Temple; the noisy theatre; the long chase through the wet streets at midnight; the crowded gaming-house; the sweet country drive at early morning; the quiet wood, and the dead man lying on his back, with the shadows of the leaves upon his face,--all this, in strange distinctness, came between me and the living tide of the Boulevards.

And now, over-tired and over-excited as I was, I remembered for the first time that I had eaten nothing since half-past five that morning.

And then I also remembered that I had left Muller waiting for me under the archway, without a word of explanation. I promised myself that I would write to him as soon as I got home, and in the meantime turned in at the first Cafe to which I came and called for breakfast. But when the breakfast was brought, I could not eat it. The coffee tasted bitter to me. The meat stuck in my throat. I wanted rest more than food--rest of body and mind, and the forgetfulness of sleep! So I paid my bill, and, leaving the untasted meal, went home like a man in a dream.

Madame Bousse was not in her little lodge as I pa.s.sed it--neither was my key on its accustomed hook. I concluded that she was cleaning my rooms, and so, going upstairs, found my door open. Hearing my own name, however, I paused involuntarily upon the threshold.

"And so, as I was saying," pursued a husky voice, which I knew at once to be the property of Madame Bousse, "M'sieur Basil's friend painted it on purpose for him; and I am sure if he was as good a Catholic as the Holy Father himself, and that picture was a true portrait of our Blessed Lady, he could not wors.h.i.+p it more devoutly. I believe he says his prayers to it, mam'selle! I often find it in the morning stuck up by the foot of his bed; and when he comes home of an evening to study his books and papers, it always stands on a chair just in front of his table, so that he can see it without turning his head, every time he lifts his eyes from the writing!"

In the murmured reply that followed, almost inaudible though it was, my ear distinguished a tone that set my heart beating.

"Well, I can't tell, of course," said Madame Bousse, in answer, evidently, to the remark just made; "but if mam'selle will only take the trouble to look in the gla.s.s, and then look at the picture, she will see how like it is. For my part, I believe it to be that, and nothing else.

Do you suppose I don't know the symptoms? _Dame!_ I have eyes, as well as my neighbors; and you may take my word for it, mam'selle, that poor young gentleman is just as much in love as ever a man was in this world!"

"No more of this, if you please, Madame Bousse," said Hortense, so distinctly that I could no longer be in doubt as to the speaker.

I stayed to hear no more; but retreating softly down the first flight of stairs, came noisily up again, and went straight into my rooms, saying:--

"Madame Bousse, are you here?"

"Not only Madame Bousse, but an intruder who implores forgiveness,"

said Hortense, with a frank smile, but a heightened color.

I bowed profoundly. No need to tell her she was welcome--my face spoke for me.

"It was Madame Bousse who lured me in," continued she, "to look at that painting."

"_Mais, oui!_ I told mam'selle you had her portrait in your sitting-room," laughed the fat _concierge,_ leaning on her broom. "I'm sure it's quite like enough to be hers, bless her sweet face!"

I felt myself turn scarlet. To hide my confusion I took the picture down, and carried it to the window.

"You will see it better by this light," I said, pretending to dust it with my handkerchief. "It is worth a close examination."

Hortense knelt down, and studied it for some moments in silence.

"It must be a copy," she said, presently, more to herself than me--"it must be a copy."

"It _is_ a copy," I replied. "The original is at the Chateau de Sainte Aulaire, near Montlhery."

"May I ask how you came by it?"

"A friend of mine, who is an artist, copied it."

"Then it was done especially for you?"

"Just so."

"And, no doubt, you value it?"

"More than anything I possess!"

Then, fearing I had said too much, I added:--

"If I had not admired the original very much, I should not have wished for a copy."

She s.h.i.+fted the position of the picture in such a manner that, standing where I did, I could no longer see her face.

"Then you have seen the original," she said, in a low tone.

"Undoubtedly--and you?"

"Yes, I have seen it; but not lately."

There was a brief pause.

"Madame Bousse thinks it so like yourself, mademoiselle," I said, timidly, "that it might almost be your portrait."

"I can believe it," she answered. "It is very like my mother."

Her voice faltered; and, still kneeling, she dropped her face in her hands, and wept silently.