PAGE 7
Two Americans
by
“I am so glad we have had this day together,” said the painter, with a very conscious breaking of the silence, “for I am leaving Paris to-morrow.”
Helen raised her eyes quickly to his.
“For a few days only,” he continued. “My Russian customers–perhaps I ought to say my patrons–have given me a commission to make a study of an old chateau which the princess lately bought.”
A swift recollection of her fellow pupil’s raillery regarding the princess’s possible attitude towards the painter came over her and gave a strange artificiality to her response.
“I suppose you will enjoy it very much,” she said dryly.
“No,” he returned with the frankness that she had lacked. “I’d much rather stay in Paris, but,” he added with a faint smile, “it’s a question of money, and that is not to be despised. Yet I–I–somehow feel that I am deserting you,–leaving you here all alone in Paris.”
“I’ve been all alone for four years,” she said, with a bitterness she had never felt before, “and I suppose I’m accustomed to it.”
Nevertheless she leaned a little forward, with her fawn-colored lashes dropped over her eyes, which were bent upon the ground and the point of the parasol she was holding with her little gloved hands between her knees. He wondered why she did not look up; he did not know that it was partly because there were tears in her eyes and partly for another reason. As she had leaned forward his arm had quite unconsciously moved along the back of the bench where her shoulders had rested, and she could not have resumed her position except in his half embrace.
He had not thought of it. He was lost in a greater abstraction. That infinite tenderness,–far above a woman’s,–the tenderness of strength and manliness towards weakness and delicacy, the tenderness that looks down and not up, was already possessing him. An instinct of protection drew him nearer this bowed but charming figure, and if he then noticed that the shoulders were pretty, and the curves of the slim waist symmetrical, it was rather with a feeling of timidity and a half-consciousness of unchivalrous thought. Yet why should he not try to keep the brave and honest girl near him always? Why should he not claim the right to protect her? Why should they not–they who were alone in a strange land–join their two lonely lives for mutual help and happiness?
A sudden perception of delicacy, the thought that he should have spoken before her failure at the Conservatoire had made her feel her helplessness, brought a slight color to his cheek. Would it not seem to her that he was taking an unfair advantage of her misfortune? Yet it would be so easy now to slip a loving arm around her waist, while he could work for her and protect her with the other. THE OTHER! His eye fell on his empty sleeve. Ah, he had forgotten that! He had but ONE arm!
He rose up abruptly,–so abruptly that Helen, rising too, almost touched the arm that was hurriedly withdrawn. Yet in that accidental contact, which sent a vague tremor through the young girl’s frame, there was still time for him to have spoken. But he only said:–
“Perhaps we had better dine.”
She assented quickly,–she knew not why,–with a feeling of relief. They walked very quietly and slowly towards the restaurant. Not a word of love had been spoken; not even a glance of understanding had passed between them. Yet they both knew by some mysterious instinct that a crisis of their lives had come and gone, and that they never again could be to each other as they were but a brief moment ago. They talked very sensibly and gravely during their frugal meal; the previous spectator of their confidences would have now thought them only simple friends and have been as mistaken as before. They talked freely of their hopes and prospects,–all save one! They even spoke pleasantly of repeating their little expedition after his return from the country, while in their secret hearts they had both resolved never to see each other again. Yet by that sign each knew that this was love, and were proud of each other’s pride, which kept it a secret.