Paris in June! Do you know it, with its bright days and its soft nights, murmurous with voices? Paris with its crowded pavements—and such a crowd, where every man and woman awakens interest, excites speculation! Paris, with its blue sky and its trees, and its color—and its fascination there is no describing!
Joy is a great restorer, and a week of happiness in this enchanted city had wrought wonders in our junior and his betrothed. It was good to look at them—to smile at them sometimes; as when they stood unseeing before some splendid canvas at the Louvre. The past was put aside, forgotten; they lived only for the future.
And a near future, too. There was no reason why it should be deferred; we had allagreed that they were better married at once; so, that decided, the women sent us about our own affairs, and spent the intervening fortnight in a riot of visits to the costumer: for, in Paris, even for a very quiet wedding, a bride must have her trousseau. But the great day came at last; the red tape of French administration was successfully unknotted; and at noon they were wedded, with only we three for witnesses, at the pretty chapel of St. Luke's, near the Boulevard Montparnasse.
There was a little breakfast afterward at Mrs. Kemball's apartment, and then our hostess bade them adieu, and her daughter and I drove with them across Paris to the Gare de Lyon, where they were to take train for a fortnight on the Riviera. We waved them off and turned back together.
"It is a desecration to use a carriage on such a day," said my companion: so we dismissed ours and sauntered afoot down the Boulevard Diderot toward the river.
"So that is the end of the story," she said musingly.
"Oftheirstory, yes," I interjected.
"But there are still certain things I do not quite understand," she continued, not heeding me.
"Yes?"
"For instance—why did they trouble to keep her prisoner?"
"Family affection?"
"Nonsense! There could be none. Besides the man dominated them; and I believe him to have been capable of any crime."
"Perhaps he meant the hundred thousand to be only the first payment. With her at hand, he might hope to get more indefinitely. Without her——"
"Well, without her?"
"Oh, the plot grows and grows, the more one thinks of it! I believe it grew under his hands in just the same way. I don't doubt that it would have come, at last, to MissHolladay's death by some subtle means; to the substitution of her sister for her—after a year or two abroad, who could have detected it? And then—oh, then, she would have married Fajolle again, and they would have settled down to the enjoyment of her fortune. And he would have been a great man—oh, a very great man. He would have climbed and climbed."
My companion nodded.
"Touché!" she cried.
I bowed my thanks; I was learning French as rapidly as circumstances permitted.
"But Frances did not see them again?"
"Oh, no; she preferred not."
"And the money?"
"Was left in the box. I sent back the key. She wished it so. After all, it was her mother——"
"Yes, of course; perhaps she was not really so bad."
"She wasn't," I said decidedly. "But the man——"
"Was a genius. I'm almost sorry he's dead."
"I'm more than sorry—it has taken an interest out of life."
We had come out upon the bridge of Austerlitz, and paused, involuntarily. Below us was the busy river, with its bridges, its boats, its crowds along the quays; far ahead, dominating the scene, the towers of the cathedral; and the warm sun of June was over it all. We leaned upon the balustrade and gazed at all this beauty.
"And now the mystery is cleared away," she said, "and the prince and the princess are wedded, just as they were in the fairy tales of our childhood. It's a good ending."
"For all stories," I added.
She turned and looked at me.
"There are other stories," I explained. "Theirs is not the only one."
"No?"
The spirit of Paris—or perhaps the Junesunshine—was in my veins, running riot, clamorous, not to be repressed.
"Certainly not. There might be another, for instance, with you and me as the principals."
I dared not look at her; I could only stare ahead of me down at the water.
She made no sign; the moments passed.
"Might be," I said desperately. "But there's a wide abyss between the possible and the actual."
Still no sign; I had offended her—I might have known!
But I mustered courage to steal a sidelong glance at her.
She was smiling down at the water, and her eyes were very bright.
"Not always," she whispered. "Not always."
Transcriber's notes:Variations in spelling have been left as in the original.The following changes have been made to the text:Page 33: "possibilty" corrected to "possibility" ("... precluding the possibility of anyone swinging down from above ...")Page 183: "Cafe" corrected to "Café" ("At the Café Jourdain")Page 268: "sat" corrected to "set" ("... and we set at once about the work of finding a vehicle.")Page 280: erroneous chapter numbering corrected, for the chapter title "The Veil is Lifted" ("Chapter XVII" corrected to "Chapter XVIII")