High Noon | Page 9

lounge, carefully groomed as ever, his friend Barclay called to him.
"I say, Verdayne! Join us to-night, won't you, old chap? We will be dining early."
The cheery English voice was what Paul needed, and though he had all the week avoided the party--there were three men--now he gladly greeted them. Barclay, totally unable to account for Paul's sudden recension from his aloofness, nevertheless secretly rejoiced. He greatly admired Verdayne, and had felt rather hurt at his keeping quite so much to himself. With a wisdom beyond his usual capabilities, however, he refrained from making any comment and only showed the pleasant eagerness of a cordial host.
They were the first to enter the restaurant, and as they sat there with talk of familiar things in Paul's ears he began to feel himself again.
After dinner Paul played billiards, and then took a hand at bridge, and when at length the game broke up he was sure of himself; the amusement of the evening had been sane enough to convince Paul that there would be no visions for him that night. He took a few turns back and forth before the hotel, and then, rounding a corner of one of the wings, he came upon a little rustic tea-house hidden away among a wealth of shrubbery and young trees.
A fancy to explore it seized him, and he followed the path that led toward it. The heavy vines clustering completely over the structure made the interior of an inky blackness. Paul halted on the threshold and struck a match. At first, as the phosphorus flared, the darkness beyond seemed intensified. Then, as the flame subsided, Paul saw--the face again, looking straight into his--the same beautiful face, it seemed, that had gazed at him on that memorable night years before, the same red lips, the same wonderful eyes.
The blazing match fell from his fingers, and in another moment he clasped a warm and clinging figure in his arms. Without a word their lips met in one long kiss. To Paul it was as if he had been transported to some distant sphere, and in some mystic fashion transcending time and space, he held his lady in his arms again.
But it was no dream; that kiss was a reality.
* * * * *
A low cry suddenly broke the silence--a quick exclamation of alarm. It was a language Paul remembered well, for his Queen had often talked to him caressingly in her own strange tongue. He started and turned his head, to see a tongue of flame leaping shoulder-high behind him. The match had fallen on some inflammable drapery and set the place afire. He seized a rug and tried to smother the blaze, but the little house was a tinder box.
The lady had not moved meanwhile. But as the sound of running feet and a loud call of "Au feu! Au feu!" shattered the quiet, she sprang like a frightened fawn out into the darkness. An instant later, blinded by the glare of the conflagration, Paul followed. He was too late. The darkness had swallowed her completely, and with the blaze still dazzling his eyes Paul could scarcely see even the hurrying forms that came racing up the path.
In a few moments the tea-house was a ruin. Paul hurried to the hotel, where several startled guests had gathered in somewhat scanty attire, alarmed by the cry of fire ringing out into the still night. But the lady of the midnight kiss was not there.
CHAPTER VI
Too stirred within his heart to sleep, Paul paced the lawn, in the vain hope of seeing her again.
He was walking lightly over the wet grass with almost silent feet, so occupied with his thoughts that he came near to walking into a couple talking beneath a tree.
When, however, he beheld them, he came to a sudden standstill, all his senses alive, his quick intuition telling him he was in the presence of some matter of moment.
A little portly man with an evident air of authority was talking to a woman in a flowing cloak. Emphasizing his remarks with true Gallic gestures, but with all his excitement making an evident effort to be guarded in his tone, he was all oblivious to Paul's presence.
The girl Paul could not see plainly, but it was with some unaccountable notion of doing her a service, and not with the remotest idea of eavesdropping, that he stepped softly and silently to the further side of a tree trunk.
Then he heard the girl's voice saying in low, quiet, earnest accents:
"Why will you not let me rest? Why do you pursue me in this way? Surely it is inhuman to adopt these methods. Is it fair to follow me to a place like this and insult me in this way?"
The man mumbled something which Paul could not catch.
Then he