And presently they were on the street—and somehow to Father Anton the crisp cold of the night was very grateful, preferable for once to the soft warmth of his far-away South, since the hot flushes now kept coming and burning in his cheeks, as he walked abstractedly along. And they were silent for a little while, until a pressure of her fingers on his arm aroused him, and he turned his head to look at her. Her cheeks, too, he could see even in the murky light from the street lamps, were flushed, and the dark eyes were very bright.
"Couldn't—couldn't we hurry a little, Monsieur le Curé?" she suggested timidly.
"Hurry? Ah—you are cold!" he said contritely, and quickened his step.
"No," she answered. "I—it is only that it might be over—that we might be too late."
The words brought an added twinge to the already sore and overburdened soul of Father Anton. It was the heart of Marie-Louise that spoke, the heart that had no room but only for Jean. Ah, yes; but did he not understand that already! Had she not come across all France for Jean? But that was not all! How ignorant of this great world-city, its life, its customs, its fineness, its sordidness her words proclaimed her to be—how dependent they proclaimed her to be! But did he not know that too? How great indeed had been his own bewilderment, and confusion, and dismay when he had first come to Paris a year ago—even he who was accustomed to journeying, for had he not gone almost once a year from Bernay-sur-Mer to Marseilles? How well he remembered it—but, tut, tut—of what avail was that? This was a vastly different matter, a very serious matter. Marie-Louise was a woman, so young, so beautiful, and in her ignorance, in her ingenuousness which was so marked a trait because she was so purely innocent, she—ah!—he found himself asking the bon Dieu to watch very carefully over Marie-Louise; and, very earnestly, with sad misgivings, as a corollary to that prayer, to forgive him if he were doing wrong in betraying the very innocence, the trust and simple confidence for which he asked protection for her from others.
"Father Anton, will—will we be late?" she ventured, evidently alarmed into the belief, since he had not replied, that so dire a misfortune was even more than a possibility.
And then he answered her very gravely.
"No, Marie-Louise. You need have no fear. It will only have begun; and even if it were midnight we should still be in time. Affairs like this are for all the evening, you see. Indeed, before going there, now that I come to think of it, perhaps we had better see about finding lodgings for you first. I know several very estimable families in this neighbourhood who would be glad to give you a room for a small sum, and you would be quite close to me, and—"
"But could we not do that afterwards?" she interposed quickly.
"Why, yes, of course, afterwards—if we do not stay too long at the reception," Father Anton acquiesced. "You would rather do that, Marie-Louise?"