So they drank to Russia, long and deeply; and Anatole, who had a pretty tenor voice, intoned the Russian Hymn, which the others listened to on their feet. And then to keep up the musical glow, and the golden moment of unconsciousness, he burst into the Marseillaise, knowing well that few can resist that most thrilling and spirited of national songs.
When he had finished the last verse, and the last chorus was sung, his companions sat silently gazing into their empty glasses. They had finished six bottles of Burgundy between them, and were now passably drunk, though not incapable of presenting themselves before the ladies to say good-bye. The Doctor went first, and waited for Anatole outside the salon door.
‘Remember, boy, it is “Good-night”—not “Good-bye,”’ he said sadly, as he pressed his friend’s shoulder.
Mademoiselle and her companion sat before a low wood fire, chatting quietly. They heard the songs from the dining-room, and smiled and shook their heads. Mademoiselle remarked that the young men were discourteous enough to carry the habits of the Latin Quarter into private houses, but since her brother-in-law tolerated such behaviour, it was not for her to object, since they were his guests.
When the door opened, both ladies looked blankly round at the invasion. The Doctor stood a moment on the threshold and arched his brows in smiling signification. The foreigner felt she would give a good deal to get behind that smile, and understand that queer lifting of the eyebrow. That the man wore his smile as a mask, she had no doubt, and she was not without suspicion that behind it lay concealed a different personage from the actor on view. He advanced, and came and stood in front of his sister-in-law, looking down on her with a new gravity on his reckless handsome face. The flush under his eyes gave a brilliance to his wistful gaze that justified the fascinated flutter of the poor lady’s heart. For she had never seen him look in the least like that, though she had seen his eyes melt to another.
‘Henriette, good-night,’ he said softly.
She gave him her hand, with a glance of sharp inquiry.
‘Is it good-bye, François?’
‘Good-bye? Why good-bye? It’s a lugubrious word. Au revoir, ma sœur.’
His lips touched her fingers an instant, and already he had turned to shake hands with her companion. Gaston and Julien came behind him, and bent their bodies in two in a dignified salute, but Anatole held out his hand, and clung feverishly to hers when she took it, while his eyes held hers in dismayed conjecture. Was it despair she read in them, or terror, or simply the pain of young love? But his speech was lagging and broken, not that, she decided, of a sober man, and she withdrew her hand abruptly, with a curt movement of dismissal of her head.