The Azure Rose Part 19

"Don't you admit it's worth coming to see?" he began in English. "When I was here, under the stars, the other night----"

"You must speak French," the Lady smilingly interrupted. "You must remember my promise to Chitta."

Cartaret ground his teeth. He spoke thereafter in French, but he lowered his voice so as to be sure that Chitta could not understand him.

"I was thinking then that you ought to see it." He took his courage in both hands. "I was wis.h.i.+ng very much that you were with me." His brown eyes sought hers steadily. "May I tell you all that I was wis.h.i.+ng?"

"Not now," she said.

Her tone was conventional enough, but in her face he read--and he was sure that she had meant him to read--a something deeper.

He put it to her flatly: "When?"

She was looking now at the fresh green leaves above them. When she looked down, she was still smiling, but her smile was wistful.

"When dreams come true, perhaps," she said. "Do dreams ever come true in the American United States, monsieur?"

The spell of the Spring was dangerously upon them both. Cartaret's breath came quickly.

"I wish--I wish that you were franker with me," he said.

"But am I ever anything except frank?"

"You're--I know I haven't any right to expect your confidence: you scarcely know me. But why won't you tell me even where you come from and who you are?"

"You know my name."

"I know a part of it."

"My little name is--it is Vitoria."

"V-i-t-t-o-r-i-a?" he spelled.

"Yes, but with one 't,'" the Lady said.

"Vitoria Urola," he repeated.

She raised her even brows.

"Oh, yes; of course," said she.

Somehow it struck him that its sound was scarcely familiar to her:

"Do I p.r.o.nounce it badly?"

"No, no: you are quite correct."

"But not quite to be trusted?"

She looked at him doubtfully. She looked at Chitta and gave her a quick order that sent the duenna reluctantly ahead of them. Then the Lady put her gloved hand on Cartaret's arm.

"I want you to be my friend," she said.

"I am your friend," he protested: "that is what I want you to believe.

That is why I ask you to be frank with me. I want you to tell me just enough to let me help--to let me protect you. If you are in danger, I want----"

"You might be my danger."

"I?"

She bowed a.s.sent.

"No, do not ask me why. I shall not tell you. I shall never tell you--no more," she smiled, "than I shall ever say for you 'it's me.'

It is very kind of you to want to be my friend. I am alone here in Paris, except for poor Chitta, and I shall be glad if you will be my friend; but it will not be very easy."

"It would be hard to be anything else."

"Not for you: you are too curious. My friend must let me be just what I am here. All that I was before I came to Paris, all that I may be after I leave it, he must ask nothing about."

Cartaret looked long into her eyes.

"All right," he said at last. "I am glad to have that much. And--thank you."

He stuck to his side of their agreement; not only during that afternoon in the Bois, but during the days that followed. He worked hard. He turned out one really good picture, and he turned out many successful pot-boilers. He would not impose these on Fourget, because old Fourget had already been too kind to him; but Lepoittevin wanted such stuff, and Cartaret let him have it.

Cartaret worked gladly now, because he was, however little she might guess it, working for Vitoria. He had left for himself precisely enough to keep him alive, but every third or fourth day he would have the happiness of slipping a little silver into Chitta's h.o.r.n.y palm: Chitta came readily to the habit of waiting for him on the stair. He grew happier day by day, and looked--as who does not?--the better for it. He sought out Seraphin and Varachon; he bought brandy for Houdon; went to hear Devignes sing, and once he had Armand Garnier to luncheon. He rewarded the hurdy-gurdy so splendidly that it was a nightly visitor to the rue du Val de Grace: the entire street was whistling "Annie Laurie."

Seraphin guessed the truth.

"Ah, my friend," he nodded, "that foolish one, Houdon, says that you have again decided to spend of your income: _I_ know that you are somehow making largess with your heart."

Cartaret took frequent walks with Vitoria, Chitta always two feet behind, never closer, but never farther away. Often he saw the Lady to her cla.s.ses, more frequently they walked to the Ile Saint Louis, or between the old houses of the rue des Francs Bourgeois; to the Jardin des Plantes, or into the Cours de Dragon or St. Germain des Pres: Chitta's unsophisticated mind should have been improved by a thorough knowledge of picturesque Paris.

He was guilty of trying to elude the guardian--guilty of some rather shabby tricks in that direction--and he suffered the more in conscience because they were almost uniformly unsuccessful. More than once, however, he reached a state of exaltation in which he forgot Chitta, cared nothing about Chitta, and then he felt nearer Heaven.

On one such occasion he was actually nearer than the site usually ascribed to the Celestial City. With Vitoria and her guardian he had climbed--it was at his own malign suggestion--to Montmartre and, since Chitta feared the funicular, had toiled up the last steep ascent into Notre Dame de Sacre Coeur. Chitta's piety--or her exhaustion--kept her long upon her knees in that Byzantine nave, and the Lady and Cartaret had a likely flying-start up the stairs to the tower.

Cartaret possessed the wit to say nothing, but he noticed that Vitoria's blue eyes shone with a light of adventure, which tacitly approved of the escapade, and that her step was as quick as his own when Chitta's slower step, heavy breathing and muttered imprecations became audible below them.

"I'm sure the old girl will have to rest on the way up, for all her spryness," thought Cartaret. "If we can only hold this pace, we ought to have five minutes alone on the ramparts."

They had quite five minutes and, no other sight-seers being about, they were quite alone. Below them, under a faintly blue haze, Paris lay like an outspread map, with here and there a church steeple rising above the level of the page. The roof of the Opera, the gilt dome of Napoleon's tomb and the pointing finger of the Tour Eiffel were immediately individualized, but all the rest of the city merged into a common maze about the curving Seine with the red sun setting beyond the Ile de Puteaux.

Vitoria leaned on the rampart. She was panting a little from her climb; her cheeks were flushed, and her whole face glowing.

"It is as if we were G.o.ds on some star," she said, "looking down upon a world that is strange to us."

She was speaking in English. Cartaret bent closer. Pledges of mere friends.h.i.+p ceased, for the moment, to appear of primary importance: he wanted, suddenly, to make the most of a little time.