"Eloise!" I cried, and she turned.
My hat flew off to salute her, as she stood there in the full afternoon sunshine like a little bit of the vanished May morning trapped and held in some wizard's filmy net.
"Toto!" cried Eloise, in a voice of glad surprise. And, as our hands met, I heard from one of the lower windows of the house a metallic laugh.
Glancing at the window, I saw the face of the grenadier of the night before, the one who had worn a cock's feather in his hat—Changarnier the student—who, according to the bonbon girl, was so jealous of my new-found friend.
He had a cap with a tassel on his head, a long pipe between his lips, his linen was not over-clean. A typical student of the Latin Quarter, confrère of Schaunard and Gustave Colline, he laughed again, showing his yellow teeth. I looked at him, and he did not laugh thrice.
"Come," I said, taking the hand of Eloise, whose brightness had suddenly dimmed, as though the sound from the house had cast a spell upon it. "Come." And I led her towards the Rue du Petit Thouars.
She came hesitatingly, downcast, as if fearful of being followed; and I felt like a knight leading some lady of old-time from the den of the wizard who had held her long years in bondage.
In the Rue du Petit Thouars she seemed to breathe more freely.
"I had forgotten Changarnier," said she, in a broken voice. "How horrible of him to laugh at us!"
"Beast!" said I, fury rising up in my heart at the fate that had compelled her to such a life and such surroundings.