"Good-night, and thank you again, a thousand times over."
But he would not stay to hear me thank him, and was half way down the first flight before my sentence was finished. Just as I was going back into my room, and about to close the door, he called after me from the landing.
"Holà, amigo! When my picture is done, I mean to give a bachelor's supper-party--chiefly students and chicards. Will you come?"
"Gladly."
"Adieu, then. I will let you know in time."
And with this, he broke out into a fragment of Beranger, gave a cheerful good-night to Madame Bouïsse in the hall, and was gone.
And now to enjoy my picture. Now to lock the door, and trim the lamp, and place it up against a pile of books, and sit down before it in silent rapture, like a devotee before the portrait of his patron saint. Now I can gaze, unreproved, into those eyes, and fancy they are hers. Now press my lips, unforbidden, upon that exquisite mouth, and believe it warm. Ah, will her eyes ever so give back the look of love in mine? Will her lips ever suffer mine to come so near? Would she, if she knew the treasure I possessed, be displeased that I so worshipped it?
Hanging over it thus, and suffering my thoughts to stray on at their own will and pleasure, I am startled by the fall of some heavy object in the adjoining chamber. The fall is followed by a stifled cry, and then all is again silent.
To unlock my door and rush to hers--to try vainly to open it--to cry "Hortense! Hortense! what has happened? For Heaven's sake, what has happened?" is the work of but an instant.
The antechamber lay between, and I remembered that she could not hear me. I ran back, knocked against the wall, and repeated:--