The Pomp of the Lavilettes | Page 9

unavailing, and it was her last effort. The Manor Casimbault was destined to be an example of ancient dignity and modern bad taste. Alterations were going on as Madame Lavilette, Ferrol and Christine entered.
For some time Ferrol watched the proceedings with a casual eye, but presently he begged his hostess that she would leave the tall, old oak clock where it was in the big hall, and that the new, platter-faced office clock, intended for its substitute, be hung up in the kitchen. He eyed the well-scraped over-mantel askance and saw, with scarcely concealed astonishment, a fine, old, carved wooden seat carried out of doors to make room for an American rocking-chair. He turned his head away almost in anger when he saw that the beautiful brown wainscoting was being painted an ultra-marine blue. His partly disguised astonishment and dissent were not lost upon the crude but clever Christine. A new sense was opened up in her, and she felt somehow that the ultra-marine blue was not right, that the over-mantel had been spoiled, that the new walnut table was too noticeable, and that the American rocking-chair looked very common. Also she felt that the plush, with which her mother and the dressmaker at St. Croix had decorated her bodice, was not the thing. Presently this made her angry.
"Won't you sit down?" she asked a little maliciously, pointing to the rocking-chair in the salon.
"I prefer standing--with you," he answered, eyeing the chair with a sly twinkle.
"No, that isn't it," she rejoined sharply. "You don't like the chair." Then suddenly breaking into English--"Ah! I know, I know. You can't fool me. I see de leetla look in your eye; and you not like the paint, and you'd pitch that painter, Alcide, out into the snow if it is your house."
"I wouldn't, really," he answered--he coughed a little--"Alcide is doing his work very well. Couldn't you give me a coat of blue paint, too?"
The piquant, intelligent, fiery peasant face interested him. It had warmth, natural life and passion.
She flushed and stamped her foot, while he laughed heartily; and she was about to say something dangerous, when the laugh suddenly stopped and he began coughing. The paroxysm increased until he strained and caught at his breast with his hand. It seemed as if his chest and throat must burst.
She instantly changed. The flush of anger passed from her face, and something else came into it. She caught his hand.
"Oh! what can I do, what can I do to help you?" she asked pitifully. "I did not know you were so ill. Tell me, what can I do?"
He made a gentle, protesting motion of his free arm--he could not speak yet--while she held and clasped his other hand.
"It's the worst I ever had," he said, after a moment "the very worst!"
He sat down, and again he had a fit of coughing, and the sweat started out violently upon his forehead and cheek. When his head at last lay back against the chair, the paroxysm over, a little spot of blood showed and spread upon his white lips. With a pained, shuddering little gasp she caught her handkerchief from her bosom, and, running one hand round his shoulder, quickly and gently caught away the spot of blood, and crumpled the handkerchief in her hand to hide it from him.
"Oh! poor fellow, poor fellow!" she said. "Oh! poor fellow!"
Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked at him with that look which is not the love of a woman for a man, or of a lover for a lover, but that latent spirit of care and motherhood which is in every woman who is more woman than man. For there are women who are more men than women.
For himself, a new fact struck home in him. For the first time since his illness he felt that he was doomed. That little spot of blood in the crumpled handkerchief which had flashed past his eye was the fatal message he had sought to elude for months past. A hopeless and ironical misery shot through him. But he had humour too, and, with the taste of the warm red drop in his mouth still, his tongue touched his lips swiftly, and one hand grasping the arm of the chair, and the fingers of the other dropping on the back of her hand lightly, he said in a quaint, ironical tone:
"'Dead for a ducat!'"
When he saw the look of horror in her face, his eyes lifted almost gaily to hers, as he continued:
"A little brandy, if you can get it, mademoiselle."
"Yes, yes. I'll get some for you--some whiskey!" she said, with frightened, terribly eager eyes.
"Alcide always has some. Don't stir. Sit just where you are." She ran out of the room swiftly--a light-footed, warm-spirited, dramatic little thing, set off