Chapter 22
It was opened by the little waiting-maid whom he had seen at Blanquais,
and who looked at him very hard before she answered his inquiry.
You see I have found Mrs. Vivian's dwelling, though you
would n't give me the address,
Bernard said to her, smiling.
Monsieur has put some time to it!
the young woman
answered dryly. And she informed him that Madame was at home, though
Mademoiselle, for whom he had not asked, was not.
Mrs. Vivian occupied a diminutive apartment at the summit of one
of the tall white houses which ornament the neighborhood of the Arc de
Triomphe. The early days of September had arrived, but Paris was still a
city of absentees. The weather was warm and charming, and a certain
savour of early autumn in the air was in accord with the somewhat
melancholy aspect of the empty streets and closed shutters of this
honorable quarter, where the end of the monumental vistas seemed to be
curtained with a hazy emanation from the Seine. It was late in the
afternoon when Bernard was ushered into Mrs. Vivian's little high-nestling
drawing-room, and a patch of sunset tints, faintly red, rested softly upon
the gilded wall. Bernard had seen these ladies only in borrowed and
provisional abodes; but here was a place where they were really living and
which was stamped with their tastes, their habits, their charm. The little
salon was very elegant; it contained a multitude of pretty things, and it
appeared to Bernard to be arranged in perfection. The long windows — the
ceiling being low, they were really very short — opened upon one of those
solid balconies, occupying the width of the apartment, which are often in
Paris a compensation for living up five flights of stairs, and this balcony
was filled with flowers and cushions. Bernard stepped out upon it to await
the coming of Mrs. Vivian, and, as she was not quick to appear, he had
time to see that his friends enjoyed a magnificent view. They looked up at
the triumphal Arch, which presented itself at a picturesque angle, and near
the green tree-tops of the Champs Elysées, beyond
which they
caught a broad gleam of the Seine and a glimpse, blue in the distance, of
the great towers of Notre Dame. The whole vast city lay before them and
beneath them, with its ordered brilliancy and its mingled aspect of
compression and expansion; and yet the huge Parisian murmur died away
before it reached Mrs. Vivian's sky-parlor, which seemed to Bernard the
brightest and quietest little habitation he had ever known.
His hostess came rustling in at last; she seemed agitated; she
knocked over with the skirt of her dress a little gilded chair which was
reflected in the polished parquet as in a sheet of looking-glass. Mrs.
Vivian had a fixed smile — she hardly knew what to say.
I found your address at the banker's,
said Bernard.
Your maid, at Blanquais, refused to give it to me.
Mrs. Vivian gave him a little look — there was always more or less of
it in her face — which seemed equivalent to an entreaty that her interlocutor
should spare her.
Maids are so strange,
she murmured;
especially
the French!
It pleased Bernard for the moment not to spare her, though he felt a
sort of delight of kindness for her.
Your going off from Blanquais so suddenly, without leaving
me any explanation, any clue, any message of any sort — made me feel at
first as if you did n't wish that I should look you up. It reminded me of
the way you left Baden — do you remember? — three years ago.
Baden was so charming — but one could n't stay forever,
said Mrs. Vivian.
I had a sort of theory one could. Our life was so pleasant that
it seemed a shame to break the spell, and if no one had moved I am sure
we might be sitting there now.
Mrs. Vivian stared, still with her little fixed smile.
I think we should have had bad weather.
Very likely,
said Bernard, laughing.
Nature
would have grown jealous of our good-humor — of our tranquil happiness.
And after all, here we are together again — that is, some of us. But I have
only my own audacity to thank for it. I was quite free to believe that you
were not at all pleased to see me re-appear — and it is only because I am
not easy to discourage
— am indeed probably a rather impudent fellow — that
I have ventured to come here to-day.
I am very glad to see you re-appear, Mr. Longueville,
Mrs. Vivian declared with the accent of veracity.
It was your daughter's idea, then, running away from
Blanquais?
Mrs. Vivian lowered her eyes.
We were obliged to go to Fontainebleau. We have but just
come back. I thought of writing to you,
she softly added.
Ah, what pleasure that would have given me!
I mean, to tell you where we were, and that we should have
been so happy to see you.
I thank you for the intention. I suppose your daughter would n't
let you carry it out.
Angela is so peculiar,
Mrs. Vivian said, simply.
You told me that the first time I saw you.
Yes, at Siena,
said Mrs. Vivian.
I am glad to hear you speak frankly of that place!
Perhaps it 's better,
Mrs. Vivian murmured. She got up
and went to the window; then stepping upon the balcony, she looked down
a moment into the street.
She will come back in a moment,
she said, coming into the room again.
She has gone to see a friend
who lives just beside us. We don't mind about Siena now,
she
added, softly.
Bernard understood her — understood this to be a retraction of the
request she had made of him at Baden.
Dear little woman,
he said to himself,
she wants
to marry her daughter still — only now she wants to marry her to
me!
He wished to show her that he understood her, and he was on the
point of seizing her hand, to do he did n't know what — to hold it, to press
it, to kiss it — when he heard the sharp twang of the bell at the door of the
little apartment.
Mrs. Vivian fluttered away.
It 's Angela,
she cried, and she stood there waiting and
listening, smiling at Bernard, with her handkerchief pressed to her lips.
In a moment the girl came into the drawing-room, but on
seeing
Bernard she stopped, with her hand on the door-knob. Her mother went to
her and kissed her.
It 's Mr. Longueville, dearest — he has found us out.
Found us out?
repeated Angela, with a little laugh.
What a singular expression!
She was blushing as she had blushed when she first saw him at
Blanquais. She seemed to Bernard now to have a great and peculiar
brightness — something she had never had before.
I certainly have been looking for you,
he said.
I
was greatly disappointed when I found you had taken flight from
Blanquais.
Taken flight?
She repeated his words as she had
repeated her mother's.
That is also a strange way of
speaking!
I don't care what I say,
said Bernard,
so long as I
make you understand that I have wanted very much to see you again, and
that I have wondered every day whether I might venture —
I don't know why you should n't venture!
she
interrupted, giving her little laugh again.
We are not so terrible, are
we, mamma? — that is, when once you have climbed our five flights of
stairs.
I came up very fast,
said Bernard,
and I find
your apartment magnificent.
Mr. Longueville must come again, must he not, dear?
asked mamma.
I shall come very often, with your leave,
Bernard
declared.
It will be immensely kind,
said Angela, looking away.
I am not sure that you will think it that.
I don't know what you are trying to prove,
said
Angela;
first that we ran away from you, and then that we are not
nice to our visitors.
Oh no, not that!
Bernard exclaimed;
for I assure
you I shall not care how cold you are with me.
She walked away toward another door, which was masked with a
curtain that she lifted.
I am glad to hear that, for it gives me courage to say that I am
very tired, and that I beg you will excuse me.
She glanced at him a moment over her shoulder; then she passed
out, dropping the curtain.
Bernard stood there face to face with Mrs. Vivian, whose eyes
seemed to plead with him more than ever. In his own there was an excited
smile.
Please don't mind that,
she murmured.
I know it 's
true that she is tired.
Mind it, dear lady?
cried the young man.
I
delight in it. It 's just what I like.
Ah, she 's very peculiar!
sighed Mrs. Vivian.
She is strange — yes. But I think I understand her a little.
You must come back to-morrow, then.
I hope to have many to-morrows!
cried Bernard as he
took his departure.