CHAPTER I
AN ENCOUNTER IN THE STREETS
It was as I turned the corner into the Rue de l’Evêque that a woman ran straight into my arms. I could hear her gasping for breath, and a glance told me that she was young and pretty. She clutched nervously at my sleeve, and, not unwillingly, I put my arm about her to prevent her falling.
“What is it, Mademoiselle?” I questioned.
She seemed too agitated and exhausted to reply, but pointed down the street, where, through the gloom, I saw a man running towards us.
“He is following you?” I asked.
She nodded.
“And you wish to be relieved of him?”
Again she nodded.
“Very well, Mademoiselle,” I said, “do you remain here, and I will say two words to this intruder.”
I placed her in the shadow of the wall, and drawing my sword, advanced to meet her pursuer. I had not far to go, for he was almost upon us. He attempted to pass me, but stopped when he saw my point at his breast.
“Not so fast, Monsieur,” I said. “It would be well to pause here for a moment. You are quite out of breath and further exertion might easily bring on an apoplexy.”
He stared at me in amazement, his face purple, his eyes starting from his head. I saw by his attire that he was a bourgeois of the better class. He was very fat, which accounted for the fact that the girl had outstripped him, and was perhaps sixty years of age. I looked him in the eyes with a smile, and the thought came to me that those were not the eyes of an honest man.
“And who the devil are you?” he cried, when he had recovered his breath sufficiently to speak.
“My name is of no moment, Monsieur,” I answered. “It is enough that I do not wish you to pass, but to return by the way you came.”
He stared at me for a moment, his amazement visibly increasing. I merely smiled the more, for the situation amused me greatly.
“If this is a jest,” he said, at last, holding in his anger, “it is a sorry one and one that will cost you dear.”
“It is no jest,” I declared. “On the contrary, I was never more in earnest. The way is barred for the present. Return, I beg of you, or I shall be obliged to enforce my request, though I am far from wishing to harm you,” and I made a significant gesture with my sword.
“So you are the lover!” he sneered. “I suspected there was a lover,” and he looked me up and down. “I shall not forget your appearance, Monsieur, though I do not know your name. I warn you again that you are playing a dangerous game.”
“Dangerous or not,” I retorted, losing patience, “I play it to suit myself. Be off!”
“She is my niece,” he protested. “I am her legal guardian. You are setting the law at defiance.”
“Be off!” I cried again, for I feared every moment that a section of the watch would chance into the street. He doubtless had the same thought, for he looked about him with expectant eyes, but saw the street deserted. He glanced at me again, and I prodded him gently with my sword. He started as he felt the point and walked slowly away, muttering horrible curses and shaking his fists in the air in an ecstasy of rage. I had never before seen a man so wholly lose grip of his temper, and more than half expected him to fall in a fit.
But he did not fall, only staggered from side to side of the street like a drunken man. I watched him until he faded from sight in the gathering darkness, and then turned back to the fugitive.
She had apparently recovered from her exhaustion, for she arose as I approached and looked at me shyly. She was prettier than I had thought.
“Well, Mademoiselle,” I said, “it seems I have rid you of your pursuer. Now whither shall I conduct you? Believe me, I am wholly at your service.”
She glanced up into my face and went red, then white, then red again, and lowered her eyes in helpless confusion. Standing so, I could see her long, sooty lashes outlined against her cheek, the droop of the lids, the little nose, the shell-like ear—’twas enough to make any man play the fool. I confess, I had done it for much less.
“I do not know, Monsieur,” she stammered, at last, “where you can take me.”
“What?” I cried, astonished in my turn. “But your home, Mademoiselle; your family?”
“It is from my home that I flee,” she answered, sadly, a little break in her voice. “It is my family whom I fear.”
“But your friends?” I persisted, my heart warming towards her. “At least you have friends.”
She shook her head, and I fancied I could see the tears shining beneath the lashes.
“None who would not conceive it their duty to deliver me to my family,” she said, and stood knitting her fingers together nervously.
I paused a moment in sheer bewilderment. Here was a problem!
“Perhaps it is my duty also to deliver you to your family,” I remarked at last, but my heart was not in the words.
“Ah, you would not say so, Monsieur, if you knew the story!” and she looked up at me beseechingly, her eyes bright with tears. There was no mistaking this time, and I, certainly, could not resist their appeal, which sent the blood bounding in my temples.
“Come,” I said, “we must get away from here, at any rate, or your amiable uncle will return with reënforcements and surprise us. Take my arm, Mademoiselle.”
She did so without hesitation, and I led her across the Rue St. Honoré and into the gardens of the Tuileries. The place was thronged with people, as it always is in the evening, summer or winter, and, deciding that no one could discover us among so many, I found an unoccupied seat under the trees near the river, where I installed her.
On the way, I had reflected on the situation in which I found myself, and its complete absurdity struck me for the first time. Here was I, a young man alone in Paris, knowing no one, with no fortune but youth’s hope for the future, assuming the protection of a pretty girl of sixteen or seventeen, whom I had never seen until ten minutes since and whose name I did not even know.
I could not help laughing as I seated myself beside her. She looked at me for a moment with a glance clear and unembarrassed, but in which there was nothing bold nor immodest, and then, comprehending my thought, she threw back her head and laughed with me. I was enchanted, and in my admiration forgot my mirth. I saw that her throat was full, round, and white, that her chin was adorable, that there were dimples in her cheeks, that her mouth was finely arched, and her teeth small and regular. I felt a sudden warmth about my heart. Plainly here was a girl innocent as well as beautiful, and who looked at the world with eyes in which there was no trace of jaundice or suspicion. Harm such a one? Not I!
“Come, Mademoiselle,” I said at last, “it is necessary for us to arrive at an understanding of the situation. You behold in me Pierre le Moyne, late of Mont-de-Marsan, but for a week past and I trust for the future, of Paris, and, I repeat, wholly at your service,” and as I said the word I arose and bowed before her.
She acknowledged my bow with a pretty little nod of the head.
“And I, M. le Moyne,” she answered, “am Mademoiselle Anne Ribaut; although I much prefer to be called Nanette, and, I fear, very greatly in need of your services.”
“Tell me the story,” I suggested, and reseated myself beside her.
“Well, M. le Moyne,” she began, “it is like this. My father and mother are both dead—have been dead for so long that I remember neither of them—and my father’s brother, Jacques Ribaut, a jeweller of the Rue des Moulins, is my guardian. Until a week ago he kept me at the convent of the Sacred Heart, and then, finally, just as I began to think I was to spend my whole life there, he sent for me. Oh, how pleased I was when the time came to leave those fearful gray walls, within which one never dared speak above a whisper! But I did not imagine what was about to befall me, or I should not have been so happy. I arrived at the Rue des Moulins; I was shown into the presence of my uncle, and I tried to make him love me. He looked me over much as he would have inspected an ox he was about to purchase, and he seemed well satisfied.”
“I do not doubt it,” I said, and I looked at her sparkling eyes and laughing mouth, and thought that a man must indeed be hard to please who would not be satisfied.
“Do not interrupt, I beg of you, Monsieur,” she cried, “or I shall lose my place, as we used to say at the convent. Well, as I said, he appeared pleased, and I had begun to hope that we should be very happy together, and that he would be good to me and permit me to see something of the world. But the next day he brought in another man to see me—oh, a horrible man, with a great nose which seemed to spread all over his face, and green eyes that would make you tremble. He also looked me over in a way that made my flesh tingle—that filled me with shame and anger, as though I had been insulted—and then they both went away and I tried to forget all about it. But the next day my uncle came to see me again and informed me that I was to marry this man, whose name, it seems, is Jean Briquet. I protested that I did not wish to marry, and especially not such a monster. I said that I had, as yet, seen nothing of the world, except that gray and dreary bit enclosed within the four walls of the convent—that I was still young and that there was plenty of time. But my uncle was inexorable. He said it was already a thing accomplished, since he had promised M. Briquet my hand, and that the wedding should take place in a week’s time.”
She paused for a moment, overcome by the horror of the recollection, and I found that in some manner her hand had made its way to mine. She did not attempt to remove it, and I held it closely, with a strange tenderness in my heart. It was so warm, so soft, so confiding—a child’s hand.
“Yes, yes,” I said, fearing that if she paused she would see her hand a captive, “and then?”
“I heard no more about it until to-night, when my uncle came to me and told me that the wedding was to take place at nine o’clock to-morrow morning. He paid no heed to my entreaties and reproaches, but warned me not to fail to be ready at the hour, and turned on his heel and left me. I could think of only one thing to do—that was to flee. Anything seemed preferable to marrying that hideous creature. So I put on my hat, placed in my purse the little money I possess, stole down the stairs, and through the front door into the street. Unfortunately, my uncle caught a glimpse of me as I ran past the house, and started in pursuit. You know the rest, Monsieur. You do not blame me?” and she looked at me with eyes soft with entreaty.
“No,” I said, “I do not blame you. You were right to flee, since there was no other way. No one could expect you to marry a monster.”
“Ah, how glad I am to hear you say that!” she cried. “And you will protect me, Monsieur, will you not? How I admired the manner in which you disposed of my uncle this evening,” and she smiled at me in a way there was no resisting.
Evidently even within the walls of a convent a woman may learn many things—or perhaps no woman needs to be taught the surest way to reach a man’s heart.