第59章

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.