Chapter V

WHICH TELLS HOW CARTARET RETURNED TO THE RUE DU VAL-DE-GRACE, AND WHAT HE FOUND THERE

La timidite est un grand peche contre l'amour.--Anatole
France: _La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque_.

If that strange old woman in the rakish head-dress was in a hurry, Cartaret, you may be sure, was in no mood for tarrying by the way. He left the Cafe des Deux Colombes, picturing The Girl of the Rose desperately ill, and he was resolved not only to be the first to come to her aid, but to have none of the restaurant's suspicious company for a companion. Then, no sooner had he passed through the empty room on the ground-floor of Mme. Pasbeaucoup's establishment and gone a few steps toward the rue de Seine, than he began to fear that perhaps the house to which he was apparently being conducted--The Girl's house and his own--had taken fire; or that the cause of the duenna's mission was some like misfortune which would be better remedied, so far as The Girl's interests were concerned, if there were more rescuers than one.

"What is the matter?" he begged his guide to inform him, as they hurried through the darkened streets.

His guide lifted both hands to her face.

"Is mademoiselle ill?"

The duenna shook her head in an emphatic negative.

"The place isn't on fire?" His tone was one of petition, as if, should he pray hard enough, she might avert the catastrophe he now dreaded; or as if, by touching her sympathies, he could release some hidden spring of intelligible speech.

The old woman, however, only shook her head again and hurried on. Cartaret was glad to find that she possessed an agility impossible for a city-bred woman of her apparent age, and he was still more relieved when they reached their lodging-house and discovered it in apparently the same condition as that in which he had left it.

Their ascent of the stairs was like a race--a race ending in a dead-heat. At the landing, Cartaret turned, of course, toward his neighbor's door; to his amazement, the old woman pulled him to his own.

He opened it and struck a match: the room was empty. He held the match until it burnt his fingers.

The old woman pushed him toward his table, on which stood a battered lamp. She pointed to the lamp.

"But your mistress?" asked Cartaret.

The duenna pointed to the lamp.

"Shall I light it?"

She nodded.

He lit the lamp. The flame grew until it illuminated a small circle about the table.

"Now what?" Cartaret inquired.

Again that odd gesture toward the nose and mouth.

"I don't understand," said Cartaret.

She picked up the lamp and made as if to search the floor for something. Then she held out the lamp to him.

"Oh"--it began to dawn on Cartaret--"you've lost something?"

"_Oui, oui!_"

He took the lamp, and they both fell on their knees. Together they began a minute inspection of the dusty floor. Cartaret's mind was more easy now: at least his Lady suffered no physical distress.

"It's like a sort of religious ceremony," muttered the American, as, foot by foot, they crawled and groped over the grimy boards....

"Was it money you lost?" he inquired.

No, it was not money.

The search continued. Cartaret crawled under the divan, while the duenna held the cover high to admit the light. He blackened his hands in the fire-place and transferred a little of the soot to his few extra clothes that hung behind the corner curtain--but only a little; most of the soot preferred his hands.

"I never knew before that the room was so large," he gasped.

They had covered two-thirds of the floor-space when a new thought struck him. Still crouching on his knees, he once more tried his companion.

"I can't find it," he said; "but I'd give a good deal to know what I'm looking for. What were you doing in here when you lost it, anyway?"

She shook her head, with her hand on her breast. Then she pointed to the door and nodded.

"You mean your mistress lost it?"

"_Oui._"

"Well, then, let's get her. She can tell me what I'm after."

He half rose; but the woman seized his arm. She broke into loud sounds, patently protestations.

"Nonsense," said Cartaret. "Why not? Come on; I'll knock at her door."

The duenna would not have her mistress disturbed. The ancient voice rose to a shriek.

"But I say yes."

The shriek grew louder. With amazing strength, the old woman forced his unsuspecting body back to its former position; she came near to jolting the lamp from his hand.

It was then that Cartaret heard a lesser noise behind them: a voice, the low sweet voice of The Rose-Lady, asked, in the duenna's strange tongue, a question from the doorway. Cartaret turned his head.

She was standing there in the dim light, a sort of kimono gathered about her, her sandaled feet peeping from its lower folds, the lovely arm that held the curious dressing-gown in place bare to the elbow. She was smiling at the answer that her guardian had already given her; Cartaret thought her even more beautiful than when he had seen her before.

The duenna had scuttled forward on her knees and, amid a series of cries, was pressing the hem of the kimono to her lips. The Girl's free hand was raising the petitioner.

"I am sorry that you have been disturbed by Chitta," she was saying.

Cartaret understood then that he was addressed. Moreover, he became conscious that he was by no means at his best on his knees, with his clothes even more rumpled than usual, his hands black and, probably, his face no better. He scrambled to his feet.

"It's been no trouble," he said awkwardly.

"I should say that it had been a good deal," said the Girl. "Chitta is so very superstitious. Did you find it?"

"No," said Cartaret. "At least I don't think so."

The Girl puckered her pretty brow.

"I mean," explained Cartaret, coming nearer, but thankful that he had left the lamp on the floor behind him, whence its light would least reveal his soiled hands and face--"I mean that I haven't the least idea what I was looking for."

The Girl burst into rippling laughter.

"Not the least," pursued the emboldened American. "You see, I left word with Refrogne--that's the concierge--that I was dining with some friends at the Deux Colombes--that's a cafe--when I went out; and I suppose she--I mean your--your maid, isn't it?--made him understand that she--I mean your maid again--wanted me--you know, I don't generally leave word; but this time I thought that perhaps you--I mean she--or, anyhow, I had an idea----"

He knew that he was making a fool of himself, so he was glad when she came serenely to his assistance and gallantly shifted the difficulty to her own shoulders.

"It was too bad of Chitta to take you away from your dinner."

Chitta had slunk into the shadows, but Cartaret could descry her glaring at him.

"That was of no consequence," he said; he had forgotten what the dinner cost him.

"But, sir, for a reason of so great an absurdity!" She put one hand on the table and leaned on it. "I must tell you that there is in my country a superstition----"

She hesitated. Cartaret, his heart leaping, leaned forward.

"What is your country, mademoiselle?" he asked.

She did not seem to hear that. She went on:

"It is really a superstition so much absurd that I am slow to speak to you of it. They believe, our peasants, that it brings good luck when they take it with them across our borders; that only it can ensure their return, and that, if it is lost, they will never come back to their home-land." Her blue eyes met his gaze. "They, sir, love their home-land."

Cartaret was certain that the land which could produce this presence, at once so human and so spiritual, was well worth loving. He wanted to say so, but another glance at her serene face checked any impulse that might seem impertinent.

"I, too, love my country, although I am not superstitious," the Girl pursued, "so I had brought it with me from my country. I brought it with me to Paris, and I lost it. We go early to sleep, the people of my race; I had not missed it when I went to bed; but then Chitta missed it; and I told her that I thought that I had perhaps dropped it here. She ran before I could recall her--and I fell straightway asleep. She tells me that she had seen you go out, sir, and that she went to the concierge, as you supposed, to discover where you had gone, for she thought, she says, that your door was locked." The corners of the Girl's mouth quivered in a smile. "I trust that she would not have trespassed when you were gone, even if your door _was_ open. Until I heard her shriek but now, I had no idea that she would pursue you. I regret for your sake that she disturbed you, but I also regret for her sake that it was not found."

Cartaret had guessed the answer to his question before he asked it. His cheeks burned for the consequences, but he put the query:

"What was lost?" he inquired.

"Ah, I thought that I had said it: a flower."

"A--a rose?"

The hand that held her kimono pressed a little closer to her breast.

"Then you have found it?"

Mountain-peaks and glaciers in the sun: Cartaret, being a practical man, was distinctly aware of not wanting her to know the present whereabouts of that flower. He fenced for time.

"Was it a rose?" he repeated.

"Yes," she said, "the Azure Rose."

"What?" Perhaps, after all, he was wrong. "I've never heard of a blue rose."

"It is not blue," she said; "we call it the azure rose as you, sir, would say the rose of azure, or the rose of heaven. We call it the azure rose because it grows only in our own land, where the mountains are blue, and only high, high up on those mountains, near to the blue of the sky. It is a white rose."

"Yes. Of course," said Cartaret. "A white rose."

He stood uncertainly before her. For a reason that he would have hesitated long to define, he hated to part with that rose; for a reason concerning which he was quite clear, he did not want to produce it there and then.

"You have it?" asked The Girl.

"Er--do you want it?" countered Cartaret.

A shade of impatience crossed her face. She tried to master it.

"I gather from your speech that you, sir, are American, not English. You are the first American that ever I have met, and I do not seem well to understand the motives of all that you say, although I do understand perfectly the words. You ask do I want this rose. But of course I want it! Have I not asked for it? I want it because Chitta will be distressed if we lose it, but also I want it for myself, to whom it belongs, since it is a souvenir already dear to me."

Her face was alight. Cartaret looked at it; then his glance fell.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to offend you. I'm forever putting my foot in things."

"You have trodden on my rose?" Her voice discovered her dismay.

"No, no! I wouldn't--I couldn't. I meant that I was always making mistakes. This afternoon, for instance--And now----"

To the rescue of his embarrassment came the thought that indeed he obviously could not tread on the rose, unless he were a contortionist, because the rose was----

Among the smudges of black, his cheeks burned a hot red. He thrust a hand between his shirt and waistcoat and produced the coveted flower: a snow-rose in the center of his grimy palm.

Again the perfume, subtle, haunting. Again the pure mountain-peaks. Again the music of a poem in a tongue unknown....

At first he did not dare to look at her; he kept his gaze lowered. Had he looked, he would have seen her wide eyes startle, then change to amusement, and then to a doubting tenderness. He felt her delicate fingers touch his palm and he thrilled at the touch as she recaptured her rose. He did not see that, in welcome to the returned prodigal, she started to raise to her own lips those petals, gathered so tight against the flower's heart, which he had lately kissed. When at last he glanced up, she had recovered her poise and was again looking like some sculptured Artemis that had wandered into his lonely room from the gardens of the Luxembourg.

Then he saw a much more prosaic thing. He saw the hand that held the rose and saw it discolored.

"Will you ever forgive me?" he cried. "You've been leaning on my table, and I mix my paints on it!"

The speech was not precisely pellucid, but she followed his eyes to the hand and understood.

"The fault was mine," she said.

Cartaret was searching among the tubes and bottles on the table. He searched so nervously that he knocked some of them to the floor.

"If you'll just wait a minute." He found the bottle he wanted. "And if you don't mind the turpentine.... It smells terribly, but it will evaporate soon, and it cleans you up before you know it."

He lifted one of the rags that lay about, and then another. He discarded both as much too soiled, hesitated, ran to the curtained corner and returned with a clean towel.

She had hidden the flower. She extended her hand.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"Do I object? No. You are kind."

He took the smudged hand--took it with a hand that trembled--and bent his smudged face so close to it that she must have felt his breath beating on it, hot and quick. He made two dabs with the end of the towel.

Chitta, whom they had both sadly neglected, pounced upon them from her lair among the shadows. She seized the hand and, jabbering fifty words in the time for two, pushed Cartaret from his work.

"I'm not going to hurt anybody," said Cartaret. "Do, please, get away."

The Girl laughed.

"Chitta trusts no foreigners," she explained.

She spoke to Chitta, but Chitta, glowering at Cartaret, shook her head and grumbled.

"I do not any more desire to order her about," said The Girl to Cartaret. "Already this evening I have wounded her feelings, I fear. She says she will allow none but herself to minister to me. You, sir, will forgive her? After all, it is her duty."

Cartaret inwardly cursed Chitta's fidelity. What he said was: "Of course." He knew that just here he might say something gallant, and that he would think of that something an hour hence; but he could not think of it now.

The Girl touched the turpentine bottle.

"And may we take it to our room?"

"Eh? Oh, certainly," said Cartaret.

She held out her hand, the palm lowered.

"Good-night," she said.

Cartaret's heart bounded: this time she had not said "Good-by." He seized the hand. Chitta growled, and he released it with a conventional handshake.

The Girl smiled.

"Ah, yes," she said; "this afternoon it puzzled me, but now I recollect: you Americans, sir, shake one's hand, do you not?"

She was gone, and glowering Chitta with her, before he could answer.

Cartaret stood where she had left him, his brows knitted. He heard Chitta double-lock the door to their rooms. He was thinking thoughts that his brain was not accustomed to. It was some time before they became more familiar. Then he gasped:

"I wonder if my face is dirty!"

He took the lamp and sought the sole mirror that his room boasted. His face was dirty.

"Damn!" said Cartaret.

Down in the narrow street, an uncertain chorus was singing:

"There's nothing, friend, 'twixt you and me
Except the best of company.
(There's just one bock 'twixt you and me,
and I'll catch up full soon!)
What woman's lips compare to this:
This sturdy seidel's frothy kiss----"

His guests were coming to seek him. They had remembered him at last.

Cartaret's mind, however, was busy with other matters. He had not thought of the gallant thing that he might have said to The Girl, but he had thought of something equally surprising.

"Gee whiz!" he cried. "I understand now--it's probably the custom of her country: she expected me to kiss her hand. Kiss her hand--and I missed the chance!"