The Azure Rose Part 10

She did not seem to hear that. She went on:

"It is really a superst.i.tion so much absurd that I am slow to speak to you of it. They believe, our peasants, that it brings good luck when they take it with them across our borders; that only it can ensure their return, and that, if it is lost, they will never come back to their home-land." Her blue eyes met his gaze. "They, sir, love their home-land."

Cartaret was certain that the land which could produce this presence, at once so human and so spiritual, was well worth loving. He wanted to say so, but another glance at her serene face checked any impulse that might seem impertinent.

"I, too, love my country, although I am not superst.i.tious," the Girl pursued, "so I had brought it with me from my country. I brought it with me to Paris, and I lost it. We go early to sleep, the people of my race; I had not missed it when I went to bed; but then Chitta missed it; and I told her that I thought that I had perhaps dropped it here. She ran before I could recall her--and I fell straightway asleep. She tells me that she had seen you go out, sir, and that she went to the concierge, as you supposed, to discover where you had gone, for she thought, she says, that your door was locked." The corners of the Girl's mouth quivered in a smile. "I trust that she would not have trespa.s.sed when you were gone, even if your door _was_ open. Until I heard her shriek but now, I had no idea that she would pursue you. I regret for your sake that she disturbed you, but I also regret for her sake that it was not found."

Cartaret had guessed the answer to his question before he asked it.

His cheeks burned for the consequences, but he put the query:

"What was lost?" he inquired.

"Ah, I thought that I had said it: a flower."

"A--a rose?"

The hand that held her kimono pressed a little closer to her breast.

"Then you have found it?"

Mountain-peaks and glaciers in the sun: Cartaret, being a practical man, was distinctly aware of not wanting her to know the present whereabouts of that flower. He fenced for time.

"Was it a rose?" he repeated.

"Yes," she said, "the Azure Rose."

"What?" Perhaps, after all, he was wrong. "I've never heard of a blue rose."

"It is not blue," she said; "we call it the azure rose as you, sir, would say the rose of azure, or the rose of heaven. We call it the azure rose because it grows only in our own land, where the mountains are blue, and only high, high up on those mountains, near to the blue of the sky. It is a white rose."

"Yes. Of course," said Cartaret. "A white rose."

He stood uncertainly before her. For a reason that he would have hesitated long to define, he hated to part with that rose; for a reason concerning which he was quite clear, he did not want to produce it there and then.

"You have it?" asked The Girl.

"Er--do you want it?" countered Cartaret.

A shade of impatience crossed her face. She tried to master it.

"I gather from your speech that you, sir, are American, not English.

You are the first American that ever I have met, and I do not seem well to understand the motives of all that you say, although I do understand perfectly the words. You ask do I want this rose. But of course I want it! Have I not asked for it? I want it because Chitta will be distressed if we lose it, but also I want it for myself, to whom it belongs, since it is a souvenir already dear to me."

Her face was alight. Cartaret looked at it; then his glance fell.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to offend you. I'm forever putting my foot in things."

"You have trodden on my rose?" Her voice discovered her dismay.

"No, no! I wouldn't--I couldn't. I meant that I was always making mistakes. This afternoon, for instance--And now----"

To the rescue of his embarra.s.sment came the thought that indeed he obviously could not tread on the rose, unless he were a contortionist, because the rose was----

Among the smudges of black, his cheeks burned a hot red. He thrust a hand between his s.h.i.+rt and waistcoat and produced the coveted flower: a snow-rose in the center of his grimy palm.

Again the perfume, subtle, haunting. Again the pure mountain-peaks.

Again the music of a poem in a tongue unknown....

At first he did not dare to look at her; he kept his gaze lowered. Had he looked, he would have seen her wide eyes startle, then change to amus.e.m.e.nt, and then to a doubting tenderness. He felt her delicate fingers touch his palm and he thrilled at the touch as she recaptured her rose. He did not see that, in welcome to the returned prodigal, she started to raise to her own lips those petals, gathered so tight against the flower's heart, which he had lately kissed. When at last he glanced up, she had recovered her poise and was again looking like some sculptured Artemis that had wandered into his lonely room from the gardens of the Luxembourg.

Then he saw a much more prosaic thing. He saw the hand that held the rose and saw it discolored.

"Will you ever forgive me?" he cried. "You've been leaning on my table, and I mix my paints on it!"

The speech was not precisely pellucid, but she followed his eyes to the hand and understood.

"The fault was mine," she said.

Cartaret was searching among the tubes and bottles on the table. He searched so nervously that he knocked some of them to the floor.

"If you'll just wait a minute." He found the bottle he wanted. "And if you don't mind the turpentine.... It smells terribly, but it will evaporate soon, and it cleans you up before you know it."

He lifted one of the rags that lay about, and then another. He discarded both as much too soiled, hesitated, ran to the curtained corner and returned with a clean towel.

She had hidden the flower. She extended her hand.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"Do I object? No. You are kind."

He took the smudged hand--took it with a hand that trembled--and bent his smudged face so close to it that she must have felt his breath beating on it, hot and quick. He made two dabs with the end of the towel.

Chitta, whom they had both sadly neglected, pounced upon them from her lair among the shadows. She seized the hand and, jabbering fifty words in the time for two, pushed Cartaret from his work.

"I'm not going to hurt anybody," said Cartaret. "Do, please, get away."

The Girl laughed.

"Chitta trusts no foreigners," she explained.

She spoke to Chitta, but Chitta, glowering at Cartaret, shook her head and grumbled.

"I do not any more desire to order her about," said The Girl to Cartaret. "Already this evening I have wounded her feelings, I fear.

She says she will allow none but herself to minister to me. You, sir, will forgive her? After all, it is her duty."

Cartaret inwardly cursed Chitta's fidelity. What he said was: "Of course." He knew that just here he might say something gallant, and that he would think of that something an hour hence; but he could not think of it now.

The Girl touched the turpentine bottle.