“Yes; I am ready. Tell her that. Tell her, too, that if her mother will not receive her, she will find a home at my cousin’s until our marriage can take place.”
“Her mother will receive her,” said Damier. “As you have forgiven, so she will forgive.”
XVIII
The enforced pause at the height of his resolution made both the past and the future half illusory. The present, with not its usual flashing impermanence, had, for hours, been the same, had stopped, as it were, at an instant of vigilant alertness, and held him in it rigidly. Until the object of that vigilance, that alertness, were attained, he could not look forward or make projects. The chance for seeing Claire alone could not come, probably, until Dinard was reached. There, in the hurry of arrival, he might snatch a word with her. It would only be necessary to speak the word, to put the alternative before her. Entreaty would be useless; all the argument possible was the chink of gold in two hands; all the hope, that his chink might be the louder.
Shortly after ten o’clock the train drew up in the Rennes station. Damier had let no such opportunity escape him, and he again stepped from his compartment and stood looking toward the part of the train where he knew were Claire and her cavalier. As he looked he saw the tall figure of the Englishman stroll across the platform to the refreshment-buffet. The light fell full on his long, smooth, pink face,—a papier-mâché pink,—on his long, high nose and whity-brown mustache. Damier darted forward. In an instant he was at the door, still ajar, of the compartment that Lord Epsil had just left. He saw, under the yellow glare of the lamp, a confusion of traveling-bags, rugs, bandboxes (Claire had evidently shopped), newspapers and magazines; a large box of bonbons lay on a seat, its contents half rifled, its papers strewing the floor; and, settled back in a corner, her shoulders huddled together in a graceful sleepiness, was Claire. A long silk traveling-cloak fell over her white dress; the winged white hat of the morning was pushed a little to one side as her head leaned against the cushioned carriage; a drooping curve of loosened hair, shining in the light like molten brass, fell over her cheek and neck; her profile, half hidden, was at once petulant and relaxed with drowsiness.
Damier did not hesitate. He sprang into the carriage. Not touching the girl, he leaned over her. “Claire,” he said.
In an instant she had started into erectness, staring stupefied, too stupefied for shame or anger.
“I have only a moment,” said Damier, speaking with a clear-cut dryness of utterance. “If you will come back with me, and marry Monsieur Daunay,—he knows all and will marry you,—half of my income is yours for life.”
After the first stare she had blinked in opening her eyes to the light and to the sudden apparition; the eyes were now fixed widely on him; they looked like two deep, black holes.