CHAPTER XIV

In her room that night, after he had left, Marie slipped off the white frock, shook out the folds almost tenderly and hung it carefully away. She stood for a moment in deep thought, then she went to the dressing-table and picking up the hand-mirror, began examining her delicate profile, the way her hair grew about the nape of her white neck. The blue ribbons in her dainty camisole outlined her slim shoulders and matched the blueness of her eyes. It was a very lovely face that looked back at her from the mirror. Marie had never thought of her personal appearance as a vital asset before; now, however, with the memory of a flashing smile, a frank boyish face before her, she examined herself closely. Was she really attractive, she wondered? She lacked the egotism, the self-knowledge which is able to catalogue its own charms. The desire to be appreciated, however, was strong in her. Her sensitive nature was instinctively conscious of approval or disapproval.

She rested her elbows on the dressing-table and propped her chin in her cupped hands. Could she dare hope for happiness such as came into the lives of other girls?

This was the sort of man that had filled her dreams at the convent, tall and straight, with the supple slimness of a man of action. But she had only dreamed. In actual life she had found men very different. Might not his pleasing manner and boyish friendliness be only another sort of mask, hiding perhaps as much calculation, as much designing selfishness, as had that other of paternal kindness?

Her experience had been too bitter. She dared not lower the barriers a second time. She was in that most unhappy state of mind which follows the loss of faith and trust in others.

What was the matter with her, she wondered? Was it because the sight of a uniform had brought back recollections, or was it something she had read in the wide dark eyes as they looked into hers when he had said good-night?

She undressed slowly, and shook out her long hair. The window was open to the soft June night, and the breeze lifted the golden strands and blew them against her flushed cheeks. She switched off the light and stood for awhile looking out over the sleeping city. She looked almost like the Saint Genevieve of Puvis de Chavannes, in her straight nightrobe, her hair parted and drawn down into a long yellow braid, her bare feet white against the polished floor. The flashing smile that lit up the dark face shone across her mental vision. Would she see this man again, she wondered? Did she want to? She pulled the curtains across the window and crept into bed. For a long while she lay staring up through the velvety darkness.

She did want to see him again. She lived over the moment when their eyes had met, the blue ones and the brown ones that seemed to strike fire. Could this face too, with its clean lines and flashing smile, grow distorted and evil as she had seen the other?

At the thought, she buried her face fiercely in the pillow.

"No," she whispered to herself in the darkness. "No, I'll never see him again! I never want to! Men are all alike, I hate them!" and she began to tremble with cold under the covers on this warm June night.

After awhile, she fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed that she was singing again at the "Two Eagles" and that Captain de la Motte came and took her by the hand and led her to an open window, through which she could see a broad, beautiful landscape. It seemed to her that a great storm had just passed, the last clouds disappearing in the distance, and across the arch of the heavens stretched a wonderful rainbow. Birds were singing, and the air was sweet with the perfume of flowers. Just as she was about to start out with him into the sunlight, Von Pfaffen came between them and she awoke, weeping bitterly.

But de la Motte called again and yet again, and soon it became a matter of course that Marie and the two girls should meet him on their walks in the _Bois_ and walk home together.

The young soldier's interest was perhaps accentuated by her very reticence, the difficulty he found in drawing her out, in making her believe in his friendship. Without letting him quite see her purpose, she set herself the task of making him prove himself in every way, and though her suspicious eyes were always seeking for a flaw, he withstood all her tests.

This was the beginning of many happy days. Madame, with the love of match-making, which lies in every Latin heart, smiled and dimpled at young de la Motte every time he came, and managed to see that he and Marie were thrown together as much as possible.

Gradually, her shyness wore off and she found herself talking of the years spent at the convent, of her days with her father. But she always stopped short with his death, and de la Motte attributed the silences that followed, to her bereavement. He would change the subject to some trivial matter and soon the smiles would come back again.

He was like a big, carefree boy with the three girls, and as the days wore on, Marie began to realize that her happiness lay where he was.

The thought frightened her. She tried to reason with herself, to bring her experience to her aid. How could he, the sort of man who could win any girl, the son of General de la Motte, ever think of her, the penniless little cousin in his friend's household?

But after awhile, she hushed the voice of reason, and let herself drift along in a dream that had as its awakening the days between his visits.

One afternoon de la Motte called early. He had not been expected, and Madame Le Grand and the two girls had gone for a shopping tour, leaving Marie at home alone.

When the maid showed him into the salon where she was, the girl rose hastily from beside the little work-table where she had been stringing beads for the purse Madame was knitting. Her cheeks flushed prettily as she held out her hand to him.

"Cousin Françine and the girls will be disappointed," she said, "but they will be home shortly. You will sit down awhile?"

He laughed as he drew a chair up beside her.

"Do you know, Mademoiselle, I suppose it's rude to say, but I can't feel badly that they are not here. I'm glad I find you alone!"

There was something in his manner that startled, almost frightened her. The smile faded from her lips. She dropped her eyes over her work and sat silent.

He watched her uneasily. What a difficult little person she was. The smile that had greeted him was so encouraging that he had almost uttered the words that were now nearly always at his tongue's end, yet here she was, frozen stiff again, safely ensconced behind the bars she so seldom let down. Her very diffidence spurred him to discover what lay back of those clear, wide eyes, those eyes that were so like a child's, and yet a child that had been badly frightened at something.

He leaned forward and covered her hand with his.

"Please put down your work, Mademoiselle."

She drew her hand away and hastily rose to her feet. Her fears had been well grounded. He was like the rest.

"I'm sorry, Monsieur," she said breathlessly. "I'm sorry--I--I thought we were such good friends. I'm sorry to have it spoiled!"

He rose too, puzzled.

"Mademoiselle, what have I done to make you think I want to spoil something for which I have been striving?"

She raised her eyes that wanted so to believe in some one. The look she saw in his, made her flush with a new, ecstatic wonder. If she could only believe it.

He seemed to read her doubts, to understand the fear that tore at her heart.

"Marie," he said softly, "love to me is a very wonderful thing, so wonderful and precious that I am old-fashioned enough to think it must only be offered where one wishes to give one's life. Some day, perhaps, you will let me speak to you again of this," and stooping, he touched his lips for a moment to her fingers and left the room.

Marie sat for a long while after he had gone, with her hands idle in her lap, her eyes filled with a vision of what might be. Confidence, faith, where she so longed to bestow it! If it only could be true! She began to realize that here was a different love than had been offered her before, a love that had respect for its foundation.

When her cousins returned, they found her sitting in the gloaming, dreaming, with so little of her work done, that they laughed and called her "lazy one," and said she must come with them and see all their purchases, and with her mind singing over the hope of that "some day" that he had spoken of, she went with Fleurette and Sidonie.