Deroulede felt this magnetism, and therefore did not
resent the implied suggestion, anent the saint whom
he was still content to worship.
A dreamer and an idealist, his mind held spellbound
by the great social problems which were causing the
upheaval of a whole country, he had not yet had the
time to learn the sweet lesson which Nature teaches
to her elect—the lesson of a great, a true,
human and passionate love. To him, at present,
Juliette represented the perfect embodiment of his
most idealistic dreams. She stood in his mind
so far above him that if she proved unattainable,
he would scarce have suffered. It was such a
foregone conclusion.
Blakeney’s words were the first to stir in his
heart a desire for something beyond that quasi-mediaeval
worship, something weaker and yet infinitely stronger,
something more earthy and yet almost divine.
“And now, shall we join the ladies?” said
Blakeney after a long pause, during which the mental
workings of his alert brain were almost visible, in
the earnest look which he cast at his friend.
“You shall keep the papers in your desk, give
them into the keeping of your saint, trust her all
in all rather than not at all, and if the time should
come that your heaven-enthroned ideal fall somewhat
heavily to earth, then give me the privilege of being
a witness to your happiness.”
“You are still mistrustful, Blakeney,”
said Deroulede lightly. “If you say much
more I’ll give these papers into Mademoiselle
Marny’s keeping until to-morrow.”
Anne Mie.
That night, when Blakeney, wrapped in his cloak, was
walking down the Rue Ecole de Medecine towards his
own lodgings, he suddenly felt a timid hand upon his
sleeve.
Anne Mie stood beside him, her pale, melancholy face
peeping up at the tall Englishman, through the folds
of a dark hood closely tied under her chin.
“Monsieur,” she said timidly, “do
not think me very presumptuous. I—
I would wish to have five minutes’ talk with
you—may I?”
He looked down with great kindness at the quaint,
wizened little figure, and the strong face softened
at the sight of the poor, deformed shoulder, the hard,
pinched look of the young mouth, the general look
of pathetic helplessness which appeals so strongly
to the chivalrous.
“Indeed, mademoiselle,” he said gently,
“you make me very proud; and I can serve you
in any way, I pray you command me. But,”
he added, seeing Anne Mie’s somewhat scared
look, “this street is scarce fit for private
conversation. Shall we try and find a better spot?”
Paris had not yet gone to bed. In these times
it was really safest to be out in the open streets.
There, everybody was more busy, more on the move,
on the lookout for suspected houses, leaving the wanderer
alone.
