The young girl regarded him first in semi-recognition, then with blank astonishment,—as well she might. She shrank closer to her protector.
Henri Lerouge had at first looked at his former friend with a dark and scowling face; but Jean had seen only the girl, and therefore failed to note the expression of satisfaction that swiftly succeeded.
"Pardon! but, monsieur, even Mardi Gras does not excuse a boor." And Lerouge somewhat roughly elbowed him to one side.
The insult from Lerouge was nothing. Jean never thought of that. She had come, she had ignored him, she had gone,—the woman he loved!
He stood speechless for a moment, then staggered away, his self-love bleeding.
Unconsciously he had taken the direction they had gone, slowly groping his way rather than walking, next to the iron fence of the Luxembourg gardens, past the great School of Mines, along the Boulevard St. Michel towards the Observatory. Like a drunken man he stuck close to the walls, and thus crossed the obtuse angle into Rue Denfert-Rocherau. Hesitating at the tomb-like buildings that mark the entrance to the catacombs at the end of that street, he leaned against the great wrought-iron grille and tried to collect his thoughts.
He remembered now; this was where he had gone down one day to view the rows and stacks of boxes and vaults of mouldering bones. Yes, he even recalled the humorous idea of that day that there were more Parisians beneath the pavements of Paris than above them, and that they slept better o' nights.
The cold wind stirred the branches, and they grated against the fence with a dismal, sighing sound.
"Loves another!"