The Beloved Traitor Part 21

She sprang away from him, with a quick exclamation of excitement.

"Oh, come then!" she cried impulsively, and caught his hand to pull him toward the door.

Father Anton turned away his head. Tears had sprung to his eyes. He was indeed a criminal--the criminal of the ages! But if it would save Marie-Louise! Ah, yes, he must keep that thought always before him.

He looked at her again, as he fumbled once more with his spectacles.

"Yes, yes; at once!" he said mechanically. "But"--he was staring at her now in sudden consternation--"but you cannot go like that! Have you no other clothes?"

She pointed at the little bundle on the floor.

He shook his head.

"No hat? No coat?"

"No-o," she said tremulously, as though she sensed an impending tragedy.

"But this is not Bernay-sur-Mer, Marie-Louise!" he said, in concern.

"You cannot go about dressed like that in Paris; and, besides, you would freeze, my child."

She looked at him in silence--a sort of pitiful despair, mingling bitter disappointment and helpless dependence, in her eyes, in the expression of her face.

"Tut, tut!" murmured Father Anton, pulling at his under lip. And then quickly: "But wait--wait! We shall see!" And he ran into the other room.

There were always clothes there--for his poor. The rich people, the friends of Monsieur and Mademoiselle Bliss were always sending him their old things for distribution amongst his poor. Mademoiselle Bliss had sent him a package that afternoon. He remembered that there was a long cloak and a hat amongst the other things. Ah, yes; here they were! He held them up to look at them in the light from the doorway of the connecting rooms. They had strange notions about "old things," the rich! These, for example--he turned them about in the light--were as good as new. They bought clothes one day, the rich, wore them the afternoon, and gave them to him the next morning--because overnight there had been created a new style! Father Anton smiled at his little conceit. But it was almost literally true. He had seen Myrna Bliss wearing these very things only a few days ago--the same black velvet cloak, and the same black velvet turban with the little white c.o.c.kade.

At least, he supposed it was a c.o.c.kade! Ah, well--he shrugged his shoulders--his poor were the gainers!

"Here, Marie-Louise!" he called out, returning into the front room.

"You may have these, child."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as she took them. Her eyes widened. "Oh--they are pretty! But--but, Father Anton, where did you get them? They are new."

"No, not quite," he smiled; "but new enough, I think, to last you all the winter. They were"--he stopped suddenly, in gentle tactfulness.

Marie-Louise knew Myrna Bliss--it might cause her diffidence if she were aware that the cloak and hat had been mademoiselle's. "They were sent to me by the rich people amongst many other things," he amended, "to be distributed where"--he smiled again--"where I think they will do most good. So now they are yours. Put them on, and we will go."

"Oh, Father Anton!" she cried again, in wonder at the sudden luxury that was hers--and slipped on the cloak; and ran to the cure's shaving gla.s.s, which was the only semblance of a mirror in evidence, to set the turban daintily upon her head. "Dear, dear Father Anton--how good you are!"

But Father Anton did not answer. He was brus.h.i.+ng his threadbare black overcoat--and making a very poor business of it. There was a great lump in his throat that refused to go either up or down--and he brushed continuously at one sleeve, because that was all he could see through the sudden mist that had come before his eyes. And then, as he caught her gazing at him, he put on the coat hurriedly.

"Yes, yes," he said hastily. "But we are all ready, are we not--eh?

Come then, Marie-Louise, we will go."

And presently they were on the street--and somehow to Father Anton the crisp cold of the night was very grateful, preferable for once to the soft warmth of his far-away South, since the hot flushes now kept coming and burning in his cheeks, as he walked abstractedly along. And they were silent for a little while, until a pressure of her fingers on his arm aroused him, and he turned his head to look at her. Her cheeks, too, he could see even in the murky light from the street lamps, were flushed, and the dark eyes were very bright.

"Couldn't--couldn't we hurry a little, Monsieur le Cure?" she suggested timidly.

"Hurry? Ah--you are cold!" he said contritely, and quickened his step.

"No," she answered. "I--it is only that it might be over--that we might be too late."

The words brought an added twinge to the already sore and overburdened soul of Father Anton. It was the heart of Marie-Louise that spoke, the heart that had no room but only for Jean. Ah, yes; but did he not understand that already! Had she not come across all France for Jean?

But that was not all! How ignorant of this great world-city, its life, its customs, its fineness, its sordidness her words proclaimed her to be--how dependent they proclaimed her to be! But did he not know that too? How great indeed had been his own bewilderment, and confusion, and dismay when he had first come to Paris a year ago--even he who was accustomed to journeying, for had he not gone almost once a year from Bernay-sur-Mer to Ma.r.s.eilles? How well he remembered it--but, tut, tut--of what avail was that? This was a vastly different matter, a very serious matter. Marie-Louise was a woman, so young, so beautiful, and in her ignorance, in her ingenuousness which was so marked a trait because she was so purely innocent, she--ah!--he found himself asking the _bon Dieu_ to watch very carefully over Marie-Louise; and, very earnestly, with sad misgivings, as a corollary to that prayer, to forgive him if he were doing wrong in betraying the very innocence, the trust and simple confidence for which he asked protection for her from others.

"Father Anton, will--will we be late?" she ventured, evidently alarmed into the belief, since he had not replied, that so dire a misfortune was even more than a possibility.

And then he answered her very gravely.

"No, Marie-Louise. You need have no fear. It will only have begun; and even if it were midnight we should still be in time. Affairs like this are for all the evening, you see. Indeed, before going there, now that I come to think of it, perhaps we had better see about finding lodgings for you first. I know several very estimable families in this neighbourhood who would be glad to give you a room for a small sum, and you would be quite close to me, and--"

"But could we not do that afterwards?" she interposed quickly.

"Why, yes, of course, afterwards--if we do not stay too long at the reception," Father Anton acquiesced. "You would rather do that, Marie-Louise?"

"Yes!" she said--and the word came tensely--and she pulled impulsively upon his arm.

And so then they hurried along, and after a little time the streets grew brighter, better lighted, and from streets became great boulevards, and from an occasional pa.s.ser-by they were in the midst of many people where one must needs elbow one's way to get along; but Marie-Louise, save in a subconscious way that brought no concrete sense of meaning, saw none of this--she saw only Jean again, the st.u.r.dy, rugged figure that seemed to stand so clearly outlined now before her, so real, so actual, so living, as he had been that night when he had borne Gaston up the path in his strong arms; and the roar of the traffic upon the streets was as the roar of that mighty storm and the thunder of the sea breaking so pitilessly, so unceasingly upon the rocks. And Father Anton spoke to her, pointing to this and that as they went along--but she did not hear the cure. She was listening only to another voice. "In just a little minute I shall see Jean ... I shall see Jean ... I shall see Jean," her soul said. "I shall see Jean."

And then she was standing before a great building, and the building was ablaze with lights, and carriage after carriage, automobile after automobile was drawing up before a strange sort of canopy where even the street itself was laid with crimson carpet, and out of the carriages and the cars poured a constant stream of wonderfully dressed, fur-clad women and their escorts. And suddenly she drew back with a start. What had she done? She had stepped upon the soft carpet and in under the canopy--and a man bewilderingly covered with gold lace, who could be no less than a Marshal of France, though he seemed so effusive and polite as he opened the carriage doors to welcome each new arrival, was fixing her sternly with his eyes.

"Come, Marie-Louise," prompted Father Anton.

She felt the blood leave her face, and she drew very close to Father Anton, clinging tightly to his arm. How fast her breath came! There was laughter, merriment around her; they pressed against her, they touched her, these wonderfully dressed people. How soft the carpet was! How one's feet sank into it! It was a sacrilege that she should walk upon it! How that constant murmur of voices rose and fell, rose and fell! What were they saying? It seemed that she should know!

What was it? Yes, yes! "Jean Laparde ... Jean Laparde ... Jean Laparde." From in front, from behind her, on either side, on every tongue was the name of Jean Laparde. And it thrilled her, and her soul in a clarion echo caught up the refrain. "Jean Laparde ... Jean Laparde ... Jean Laparde!" And it seemed as though a thousand emotions surging upon her were welded together and ma.s.sed and made into one, and that one was comparable to none she had ever known before because it was too great, and overpowering, and bewildering to understand. Only now she could lift up her head, and the blood was rus.h.i.+ng proudly to her cheeks again.

And now they were in a great marble vestibule, and Father Anton was handing a card to an attendant, and speaking to the man.

"But Monsieur le Cure has full _entree_--to the floor," the man replied.

She did not catch Father Anton's answer--but the attendant was bowing and speaking again.

"But certainly, monsieur--as Monsieur le Cure desires. To the right, monsieur."

And then there were stairs, beautiful wide marble stairs, and the press of people was left behind, for there seemed to be but few who climbed the stairs; and then--and then--she was in a balcony, and below her--ah, she could not see--it was all blurred before her--and there seemed a great fear upon her, for her heart pounded so hard and so fiercely. And then, strangely, as a mist rises from the sea, it began to clear away, that blur from before her eyes, and myriad lights from a ma.s.sive chandelier, that was suspended from a great dome overhead, played on the bare, flas.h.i.+ng shoulders of women on the floor below her, played on the jewels that adorned coiffures and necks, played on glittering uniforms, on a scene magnificent and splendid--and focused, as her eyes fixed and held, on that one outstanding figure, the figure that was like to the figure of a demi-G.o.d, the only figure, the only one that she saw now in all that vast a.s.semblage, who stood erect, strong and ma.s.sive-shouldered, the black hair, a little longer now, flung in careless abandon back from the broad, white forehead. It was Jean! It was Jean!

"Jean!" she whispered--and her hand stole into Father Anton's. "Jean!"

And he was not changed--only that short, pointed beard, that seemed to add a something, that made him more imposing. It was Jean, the same Jean--only there was a grace, an ease, a command, a kings.h.i.+p in his poise as he stood there, and--yes--yes--they came--one after the other--the men, the women--and bowed before him.

"Do you remember Monsieur and Mademoiselle Bliss?" Father Anton said gently. "See--they are there beside Jean. And that tall man to whom they are talking is a very famous statesman for one so young. His name is Paul Valmain."

They did not interest her. There was only Jean. And she could not look long enough at him. There was music playing somewhere, softly, very softly, scarcely audible above the sound of so many voices all talking at once, voices that ascended in a subdued roar like the sound of a sh.e.l.l that one held to one's ear. She tried to think, and she could not. Afterwards she would think. Now she could only look.

Father Anton touched her arm. Was it already time to go? No, no--not yet! Not yet--for a little while! She had come so far, so long a way just for this--to see Jean.

"It is the President of the Republic coming, Marie-Louise--see!

Listen!"

There was tumult about her. Those in the gallery around her were clapping their hands, waving their handkerchiefs; and the music she had heard playing so softly crashed suddenly into the strains of that song of glory, immortal, undying, that was cradled in the very soul of France itself--the Ma.r.s.eillaise. And as it fired the blood, that melody, martial, stirring, that men had died for, ay, and women, too, the outburst around her rose to hysterical heat, and thunders of applause rolled and reverberated through the room that was bigger than any room she had ever seen or dreamed of. And they were calling Jean's name again--and the President, the great President was there with Jean.