Four Meetings | Page 5

morning."
"It was hardly worth his while to meet you if he was to desert you so soon."
"Oh, he has only left me for half an hour," said Miss Spencer. "He has gone to get my money."
"Where is your money?"
She gave a little laugh. "It makes me feel very fine to tell you! It is in some circular notes."
"And where are your circular notes?"
"In my cousin's pocket."
This statement was very serenely uttered, but--I can hardly say why--it gave me a sensible chill At the moment I should have been utterly unable to give the reason of this sensation, for I knew nothing of Miss Spencer's cousin. Since he was her cousin, the presumption was in his favor. But I felt suddenly uncomfortable at the thought that, half an hour after her landing, her scanty funds should have passed into his hands.
"Is he to travel with you?" I asked.
"Only as far as Paris. He is an art-student, in Paris. I wrote to him that I was coming, but I never expected him to come off to the ship. I supposed he would only just meet me at the train in Paris. It is very kind of him. But he is very kind, and very bright."
I instantly became conscious of an extreme curiosity to see this bright cousin who was an art-student.
"He is gone to the banker's?" I asked.
"Yes, to the banker's. He took me to a hotel, such a queer, quaint, delicious little place, with a court in the middle, and a gallery all round, and a lovely landlady, in such a beautifully fluted cap, and such a perfectly fitting dress! After a while we came out to walk to the banker's, for I haven't got any French money. But I was very dizzy from the motion of the vessel, and I thought I had better sit down. He found this place for me here, and he went off to the banker's himself. I am to wait here till he comes back."
It may seem very fantastic, but it passed through my mind that he would never come back. I settled myself in my chair beside Miss Spencer and determined to await the event. She was extremely observant; there was something touching in it. She noticed everything that the movement of the street brought before us,--peculiarities of costume, the shapes of vehicles, the big Norman horses, the fat priests, the shaven poodles. We talked of these things, and there was something charming in her freshness of perception and the way her book-nourished fancy recognized and welcomed everything.
"And when your cousin comes back, what are you going to do?" I asked.
She hesitated a moment. "We don't quite know."
"When do you go to Paris? If you go by the four o'clock train, I may have the pleasure of making the journey with you."
"I don't think we shall do that. My cousin thinks I had better stay here a few days."
"Oh!" said I; and for five minutes said nothing more. I was wondering what her cousin was, in vulgar parlance, "up to." I looked up and down the street, but saw nothing that looked like a bright American art-student. At last I took the liberty of observing that Havre was hardly a place to choose as one of the ?sthetic stations of a European tour. It was a place of convenience, nothing more; a place of transit, through which transit should be rapid. I recommended her to go to Paris by the afternoon train, and meanwhile to amuse herself by driving to the ancient fortress at the mouth of the harbor,--that picturesque circular structure which bore the name of Francis the First, and looked like a small castle of St. Angelo. (It has lately been demolished.)
She listened with much interest; then for a moment she looked grave.
"My cousin told me that when he returned he should have something particular to say to me, and that we could do nothing or decide nothing until I should have heard it. But I will make him tell me quickly, and then we will go to the ancient fortress. There is no hurry to get to Paris; there is plenty of time."
She smiled with her softly severe little lips as she spoke those last words. But I, looking at her with a purpose, saw just a tiny gleam of apprehension in her eye.
"Don't tell me," I said, "that this wretched man is going to give you bad news!"
"I suspect it is a little bad, but I don't believe it is very bad. At any rate, I must listen to it."
I looked at her again an instant. "You did n't come to Europe to listen," I said. "You came to see!" But now I was sure her cousin would come back; since he had something disagreeable to say to her, he