CHAPTER XV
It was early in the morning, a few days later, when Paul Verdayne and his young friend reached New Orleans. Immediately after breakfast—he would have presented himself before had he dared—the Boy called at the home of the Ledouxs. Verdayne had important letters to write, as he informed the Boy with a significant smile, and begged to be allowed to remain behind.
And the impatient youth, blessing him mentally for his tact, set forth alone.
The residence that he sought was one of the most picturesque and beautiful of the many stately old mansions of the city. It was enclosed by a high wall that hid from the passers-by all but the most tantalizing glimpses of a fragrant, green tropical garden, and gave an air of exclusiveness to the habitation of this proud old family. As the Boy passed through the heavy iron gate, and his eye gazed in appreciation upon the tints of foliage no autumn chills had affected, and the glints of sun and shadow that only heightened the splendor of blossom, and shrub, and vine, which were pouring their incense upon the air, he felt that he was indeed entering the Garden of Eden—the Garden of Eden with no French serpents to tempt from him the woman that had been created his helpmeet.
He found Opal, and a tall, handsome young man in clerical vestments, sitting together upon the broad vine-shaded veranda. The girl greeted him cordially and introduced him to the priest, Father Whitman.
At first Paul dared not trust himself to look at Opal too closely, and he did not notice that her face grew ashen at his approach. She had recovered her usual self-possession when he finally looked at her, and now the only apparent sign of unusual agitation was a slight flush upon her cheek—an excited sparkle in her eye—which might have been the effect of many causes.
He watched the priest curiously. How noble-looking he was! He felt sure that he would have liked him in any other garb. What did his presence here portend?
Paul had supposed that Opal was a Catholic; indeed had been but little concerned what she professed. She had never appeared to him to be specially religious, but, if she was, that absurd idea of self-sacrifice for a dead mother she had never known might appeal to the love of penance which is inherent in all of Catholic faith, and she might not surrender to her great love for him.
The priest rose.
"Must you go, Father?" asked Opal.
"Yes!... I will call to-morrow, then?"
"Yes—tomorrow! And"—she suddenly threw herself upon her knees at his feet—"your blessing, Father" she begged.
The priest laid a hand upon her head, and raised his eyes to Heaven. Then, making the sign of the cross upon her forehead, he took her hands in his, and gently raised her to her feet. She clung to his hands imploringly.
"Absolution, Father," she pleaded.
He hesitated, his face quivering with emotions his eyes lustrous with tears, a world of feeling in every line of his countenance.
"Child," he said hoarsely, "child! Don't tempt me!"
"But you must say it, you know, or what will happen to me?"
The priest still hesitated, but her eyes would not release him till he whispered, "Absolvo te, my daughter, and—God bless you!"
And releasing her hands, he bowed formally to Paul and hurried down the broad stone steps and through the gate.
Opal watched him, a smile, half-remorseful and half-triumphant, upon her face.
"What does it all mean?" asked Paul as he laid his hand upon her arm.
She laughed nervously. "Oh—nothing! Only—when I see one of those long, clerical cassocks, I am immediately seized with an insane desire to find the man inside the priest!"
"Laudable, certainly! And you always succeed, I suppose?"
"Yes, usually!—why not?" And she laughed again. "Don't, Paul! I don't want to quarrel with you!"
"We won't quarrel, Opal," he said. But the thought of the priest annoyed him.
He seated himself beside her. "Have you no welcome for me?" he said.
She looked up at him, her eyes sweetly tender.
"Of course, Paul! I'm very glad to see you again—if you are a bad boy!"
He looked at her in amazement. "I, bad?—No," he said. And they laughed again. But it was not the care-free laughter they had known at sea. There was a strained note in the tones of the girl that grated strangely upon the Boy's sensitive ear. What had happened? he wondered. What was the new barrier between them? Was it the priest? Again the thought of the priest worried him.
"Where is my friend, the Count de Roannes?" he ventured at last.
"He sailed for Paris last week."
Paul's heart leaped. Surely then their legal betrothal had not taken place.
"What happened, Opal?"
"The inevitable!"
And again his heart bounded for joy! The inevitable! Surely that meant that the girl's better nature had triumphed, had shown her the ignominy of such a union in time to save her. He looked at her for further information, but seeing her evident embarrassment, forbore to pursue the question further.
They wandered out through the luxurious garden, and the spell of its enchantment settled upon them both.
He pulled a crimson rose from a bush and began listlessly to strip the thorns from the stalk. "Roses in September," he said, "are like love in the autumn of life."
And they both thought again of the Count and a chill passed over their spirits. The girl watched him curiously.
"Do you always cut the thorns from your roses?" she asked.
"Certainly-sooner or later. Don't you?"
"O no! I am a woman, you see, and I only hold my rose tightly in my fingers and smile in spite of the pricks as if to convince the world that my rose has no thorns."
"Is that honest?"
"Perhaps not—but—yes, I think it is! If one really loves a rose, you see, one forgets that it has thorns—really forgets!".
"Until too late!"
But there was some undercurrent of hidden meaning even in this subject, and Paul tried another.
He asked her about the books she had read since they parted and told her of his travels. He painted for her a picture of the little cabin on the western prairie, with its man and its woman and its baby, and she listened with a strange softness in her eyes. He felt that she understood.
There was a tiny lake in the garden, and they sat upon the shore and looked into the water, at an unaccountable loss for words. At last Paul, with a boyish laugh, relieved the situation by rolling up his sleeve and dabbling for pebbles in the sand at the bottom.
There was not much said—only a word now and then, but both, in spite of their consciousness of the barrier between them, were rejoicing in the fact that they were together, while Paul, happy in his new-born resolution, was singing in his heart.
Should he tell her now?
He looked up quickly.
"Opal," he said, "you knew I would come."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because—I love you!"
The girl tried to laugh away the serious import of his tone.
"I am not looking for men to love me, Paul," she said.
"No, that's the trouble. You never have to."
He turned away again and for a few moments had no other apparent aim in life than a careful scrutiny of the limpid water.
Somehow he felt a chill underlying her most casual words to-day. What had become of the freemasonry between them they had both so readily recognized on shipboard?
Just then Gilbert Ledoux and his wife strolled into the garden. They were genuinely pleased to see Paul and insisted on keeping him for luncheon. The conversation drifted to his western trip and other less personal things and not again did he have an opportunity to talk alone with Opal.
Paul took his departure soon after, promising to return for dinner, and to bring Verdayne with him. Then, he resolved to himself, he would tell Opal why he had come. Then he would claim her as his wife—his queen!
And Paul kept his word.
That evening they found themselves alone in a deep-recessed window facing the dimly-lighted street.
"Opal," said Paul, "do you know why I have come to New Orleans? Can't you imagine, dear?"
She instantly divined the tenor of his thoughts, and shook her head in a tremor of sudden fright.
"I have come to tell you that I have fought it all out and that I cannot live without you. Though I am breaking my plighted troth, I ask you to become my wife!"
Her eyes glistened with a strange lustre.
"Oh, Paul! Paul!" she murmured, faintly. "Why did you not say this before—or—why do you tell me now?"
"Because now I know I love you more than all the world—more than my duty—more than my life! Is that enough?"
And Paul was about to break into a torrent of passionate appeal, when Gilbert Ledoux joined them and, shortly after, Mrs. Ledoux called Opal to her side.
Opal looked miserably unhappy. Why was she not rejoicing? Paul knew that she loved him. Nothing could ever make him doubt that. As he stood wondering, idly exchanging platitudes with his genial host, Mrs. Ledoux spoke in a tone of ringing emphasis that lingered in Paul's ears all the rest of his life, "I think, Opal, it is time to share our secret!"
And then, as the girl's face paled, and her frail form trembled with the force of her emotion, her mother hastened to add, "Gentlemen, you will rejoice with us that our daughter was last week formally betrothed to the Count de Roannes!"
The inevitable had happened.