[Illustration: You ought to have played for me!]
He stood before a woman new to him, one so different from the grateful and gracious enthusiast he had met all these months that he could not comprehend the change, could not at once adjust his confused senses. So miserable was he that suddenly, with one of her swift changes, she smiled at him, even through her sudden tears. "No! No!" she exclaimed. "See! Look here!"
She handed him a little sheet of crumpled note paper, inscribed in a cramped hand, showed him the inscription—"Jeanne Fournier."
"You don't know who that is?" she asked him.
"No, I don't know."
"Why, yes, you do. My maid—my French maid—don't you remember? She married Hector, the cooper, at St. Genevieve. Now, see, Jeanne is writing to me again. Don't you see, there's a baby, and it is named for me—who has none. Good-by, that money!"—she kissed hand to the air—"Good-by, that idea, that dream of mine! That's of no consequence. In fact, nothing is of consequence. See, this is the baby of Jeanne! She has asked me to come. Why, then, should I delay?"
Whether it were tears or smiles which he saw upon her face Carlisle never could determine. Whether it were physical unrest or mental emotion, he did not know, but certainly it was that the letter of the agent remained upon the table untouched between them while Josephine St. Auban pressed to her lips the letter from Jeanne, her maid.
"Why, I have not failed at all!" said she. "Have I not cared for and brought up this Jeanne, and is there not a baby of Jeanne, a baby whom she has named for me?"
Carlisle, mute and unnoticed, indeed, as he felt almost forgotten, was relieved when there came a knock at the door. A messenger bearing a card entered. She turned toward him gravely, and he could only read dismissal now. Mute and unhappy, he hurried from the room. He did not, however, pass from the stage of activity he had chosen. He later fought for his convictions, and saw accomplished, before, with so many other brave men, he fell upon the field of battle—accomplished at vast cost of blood and tears—that work which he had been inspired to undertake in a more futile form.
"You may say to this gentleman that I shall join him presently, in the parlor at the right of the stair," said Josephine St. Auban after a moment to the messenger.