The White Shadow | Page 7

a child. She was eighteen then.
The next time I awoke we lay in a long gaslit station. Some soldiers were disembarking from the forward carriages, and a gendarme stalked up and down the platform.
I looked sleepily about for the name of the station. It was painted in blue over the buffet-- "Petit St. Yves." "Is it possible we are in Brittany?" I thought. Then the voices of the station hands, who were hoisting a small boat upon the forward carriage, settled my doubts. "Allons! tire hardiment, Jean Louis! mets le cannotte deboutte."
Arreì?te toi Yves! doucement! doucement! Sacreì garce!"
Somewhere in the darkness a mellow bell tolled. I settled back to slumber, my eyes on Sweetheart.
She slept.
VIII.
I awoke in a flood of brightest sunshine. From our window I could look into the centre of a most enchanting little town, all built of white limestone and granite. The June sunshine slanted on thatched roof and painted gable, and fairly blazed on the little river slipping by under the stone bridge in the square.
The streets and the square were alive with rosy-faced women in white head-dresses. Everywhere the constant motion of blue skirts and spotless coiffes, the twinkle of varnished socks, the clump! clump! of sabots.
Like a black shadow a priest stole across the square. Above him the cross on the church glowed like a live cinder, flashing its reflection along the purple-slated roof from the eaves of which a cloud of ash-gray pigeons drifted into the gutter below. I turned from the window to encounter Sweetheart's eyes. Her lips moved a little, her long lashes heavy with slumber drooped lower, then with a little sigh she sat bolt upright. When I laughed, as I always did, she smiled, a little confused, a little ashamed, murmuring: "Bonjour, mon cheìri! Quelle heure est-il?" That was always the way Sweetheart awoke.
"O dear, I am so rumpled!" she said. "Jack, get me the satchel this minute, and don't look at me until I ask you to."
I unlocked the satchel, and then turning to the window again threw it wide open. Oh, how sweet came the morning air from the meadows! Some young fellows below on the bank of the stream were poking long cane fishing-rods under the arches of the bridge.
"Sweetheart," I said over my shoulder, "I believe there are trout in this stream."
"Mr. Elliott says that whenever you see a puddle you always say that," she replied.
"What does he know about it?" I answered, "for I am touchy on the subject; "he doesn't know a catfish from a--a dogfish."
"Neither do I, Jack dear, but I'm going to learn. Don't be cross."
She had finished her toilet and came over to the window, leaning out over my shoulder.
"Where are we?" she cried in startled wonder at the little white town and the acres of swaying clover. "Oh, Jack, is--is this the country?"
A man in uniform passing under our window looked up surprised.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded; then, seeing Sweetheart, he took off his gold-laced cap, and added, with a bow: "This carriage goes no farther, monsieur--madame---------"
"Merci!" exclaimed Sweetheart, "we wish to go to Quimperleì!"
"And we have tickets for Quimperleì," I insisted.
"But," smiled the official, "this is Quimperleì."
It was true. There was the name written over the end of the station; and, looking ahead, I saw that our car had been detached and was standing in stately seclusion under the freight shed. How long it had been standing so Heaven alone knows; but they evidently had neglected to call us, and there we were inhabiting a detached carriage in the heart of Quimperleì. I managed to get a couple of porters, and presently we found all our traps piled up on the platform, and a lumbering vehicle with a Breton driver waiting to convey us to the hotel.
"Which," said I to the docile Breton, "is the best hotel in Quimperleì?"
"The Hotel Lion d'Or," he replied.
"How do you know?" I demanded.
"Because," said he mildly, "it is the only hotel in Quimperleì."
Sweetheart observed that this ought to be convincing, even to me, and she tormented me all the way to the square, where I got even by pretending to be horrified at her dishevelled condition incident to a night's railway ride in a stuffy compartment.
"Don't, Jack! people will look at us."
"Let 'em."
"Oh, this is cruel! Oh, I'll pay you for this!"
And they did look at us--or rather at her; for from the time Sweetheart and I had cast our lots together, I noticed that I seemed to escape the observation of passers-by. When I lived alone in Paris I attracted a fair share of observation from the world as it wagged on its Parisian way. It was pleasant to meet a pretty girl's eyes now and then in the throng which flowed through the park and boulevard. I really