第22章

"That will matter little," I presently replied."Telling you will do no good.""Ah, why do you say that?" murmured Aurora Church.

I said it partly because it was true; but I said it for other reasons as well, which it was hard to define.Standing there bare-headed, in the night air, in the vague light, this young lady looked extremely interesting; and the interest of her appearance was not diminished by a suspicion on my own part that she had come into the garden knowing me to be there.I thought her a charming girl, and I felt very sorry for her; but, as I looked at her, the terms in which Madame Beaurepas had ventured to characterise her recurred to me with a certain force.

I had professed a contempt for them at the time, but it now came into my head that perhaps this unfortunately situated, this insidiously mutinous young creature, was looking out for a preserver.She was certainly not a girl to throw herself at a man's head, but it was possible that in her intense--her almost morbid-desire to put into effect an ideal which was perhaps after all charged with as many fallacies as her mother affirmed, she might do something reckless and irregular--something in which a sympathetic compatriot, as yet unknown, would find his profit.The image, unshaped though it was, of this sympathetic compatriot, filled me with a sort of envy.For some moments I was silent, conscious of these things, and then Ianswered her question."Because some things--some differences are felt, not learned.To you liberty is not natural; you are like a person who has bought a repeater, and, in his satisfaction, is constantly making it sound.To a real American girl her liberty is a very vulgarly-ticking old clock.""Ah, you mean, then," said the poor girl, "that my mother has ruined me?""Ruined you?"

"She has so perverted my mind, that when I try to be natural I am necessarily immodest.""That again is a false note," I said, laughing.

She turned away."I think you are cruel.""By no means," I declared; "because, for my own taste, I prefer you as--as--"I hesitated, and she turned back."As what?""As you are."

She looked at me a while again, and then she said, in a little reasoning voice that reminded me of her mother's, only that it was conscious and studied, "I was not aware that I am under any particular obligation to please you!" And then she gave a clear laugh, quite at variance with her voice.

"Oh, there is no obligation," I said, "but one has preferences.I am very sorry you are going away.""What does it matter to you? You are going yourself.""As I am going in a different direction that makes all the greater separation."She answered nothing; she stood looking through the bars of the tall gate at the empty, dusky street."This grille is like a cage," she said, at last.

"Fortunately, it is a cage that will open." And I laid my hand on the lock.

"Don't open it," and she pressed the gate back."If you should open it I would go out--and never return.""Where should you go?"

"To America."

"Straight away?"

"Somehow or other.I would go to the American consul.I would beg him to give me money--to help me."I received this assertion without a smile; I was not in a smiling humour.On the contrary, I felt singularly excited, and I kept my hand on the lock of the gate.I believed (or I thought I believed)what my companion said, and I had--absurd as it may appear--an irritated vision of her throwing herself upon consular sympathy.It seemed to me, for a moment, that to pass out of that gate with this yearning, straining, young creature, would be to pass into some mysterious felicity.If I were only a hero of romance, I would offer, myself, to take her to America.

In a moment more, perhaps, I should have persuaded myself that I was one, but at this juncture I heard a sound that was not romantic.It proved to be the very realistic tread of Celestine, the cook, who stood grinning at us as we turned about from our colloquy.

"I ask bien pardon," said Celestine."The mother of Mademoiselle desires that Mademoiselle should come in immediately.M.le Pasteur Galopin has come to make his adieux to ces dames."Aurora gave me only one glance, but it was a touching one.Then she slowly departed with Celestine.

The next morning, on coming into the garden, I found that Mrs.Church and her daughter had departed.I was informed of this fact by old M.

Pigeonneau, who sat there under a tree, having his coffee at a little green table.