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It was on one of the first days of
March that Aurore had the surprise of her life. André,
in the course of his visit, announced to her the early arrival
of her father at Nevers.
"He will be safer here," he explained, in response
to Aurore's little cry, half of joy and half of alarm. "The
people in the villages suffered terrible privations during the
protracted winter, and tempers over there are none too placid
in consequence. Some few hotheads might engineer a regrettable
coup."
"But-"
"But what?"
"This will not entail any unpleasantness?" she suggested
tentatively.
"Unpleasantness?"
"For you, I mean, or-"
"No, why should it?"
"Or danger?"
"Danger? For him? Certainly not. He will be much safer here."
"I didn't mean for him."
"For you, then?"
"Of course not!" she retorted, and then added with
a shrug, "As if I mattered."
"Then I don't understand what you do mean by danger. Danger
to whom?"
"To you."
He said nothing for a moment or two, but she felt that those
searching eyes of his were seeking to find some hidden thought,
some unexplainable motive in those two words which she had murmured
below her breath. After a few seconds' silence he gave a light
shrug and said drily:
"I can but echo your own words - as if I mattered!"
He turned to go out of the room. Involuntarily she called out:
"André!"
The first time, the very first time that she had called to him
by name. He paused at the door with his hand already on the knob
and half turned to her:
"At your service, citizeness."
His voice was quite harsh and his tone cold, so cold that the
impulse which had made her call to him seemed frozen suddenly
into a kind of miserable shyness. He was not the sort of man to
whom one could offer sympathy or comfort. Nevertheless, Aurore
was conscious of an intense pity for her husband. All of a sudden
he appeared to her so lonely! Introspective, too, probably through
being so very much alone. And young, scarcely older than herself,
and with all his hours spent amid the afflicted, the blind, the
deaf and dumb, the miserable poor! In constant contact with everything
that was most wretched and most squalid!
And with all his ideals of a regenerated world lying shattered
around him! Lonely and disappointed! And she, his wife, could
do nothing to comfort or cheer him. When she tried to find the
right words with which to touch his heart, she was stupid and
tongue-tied. Even now, when she felt so desperately sorry and
so deeply grateful, she could not find those words which perhaps
might have brought a faint gleam of pleasure to his eyes.
All she could do now was to murmur a few words that were quite
unintelligible and apparently failed to reach him. She made a
great effort to control herself and her voice and finally contrived
to say fairly steadily:
"I only wished to ask you about the arrangements for my
father. When does he come?"
"To-morrow," he replied equally steadily, "by
carriole. I have secured a nice apartment for him close by here
in the Rue de la Monnaie. Pierre will drive him over, and he and
Jeannette will look after him as they have done all along at Marigny."
"You are very kind," Aurore murmured. "I wish-"
she paused and then went on more glibly "-I wish I could
show you in some way that I - that I am not ungrateful."
"There is no question of gratitude," he said drily.
"I made you a promise that while you are my wife your father's
safety would be my care. I am trying to keep my promise, that
is all."
"You are ungracious," she rejoined. "Does not
the English poet say that 'Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove
unkind'?"
"I would not for the worlds have you think me unkind."
"Then tell me."
"What?"
"How I can best repay you for the trouble my father has
been to you."
"I assure you-"
"André," she insisted, "please!"
Again his name on her lips. Once upon a time she had hit at him
with a moral whip lash and she had also struck him in the face.
Neither morally nor physically had she hurt him then, and he had
not even winced at the time. Then why, at sound of his name on
her lips, did that frown appear upon his brow as if he were trying
to keep back something, to control some movement - or was it words?
- while an unmistakable look of pain crept into his eyes? Only
for an instant, though. Within the space of a second the look
of pain as well as the frown had vanished, and there was that
mocking smile - that hateful, hateful mocking smile which she
so dreaded, curling again around his lips.
"Since you desire it, citizeness," he said drily, "I
will tell you that you would earn my deep gratitude if you refrained
from listening too patiently to your father's diatribes on the
present political situation. Believe me, we all know it to be
terrible. But words won't mend it, not just yet. Your father very
naturally hates me, he will-"
"I shouldn't allow him-" she broke in hotly, and then
paused, her impulse once more check by that miserable, unexplainable
shyness. He put up his hand as if to deprecate anything else that
she might say.
"And now," he said, "I am more than repaid."
He went out of the room, and she was left standing there with
a big, big ache in her heart, an ache that she could not very
well account for, but it forced tears up to her eyes. Tears of
anxiety? Of pity? Of regret? She did not know. She only knew that
she was desperately miserable and that not even the prospect of
seeing her father again so soon had the power to console her.
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