Phil went on explaining his aërial paradise.
“This is Grévy, that is Carnot; here is M. Thiers—these are all official busts. When the government changes they pack them off to the attic, and the inspector has put them here to ornament his garden.”
“And this arm-chair on which I am sitting, with all its gilding rubbed off? Is that official also?” Helia asked, examining the wood, carved with palms, and the red velvet embroidered with the attributes of Law and Justice.
“It’s a relic of the Revolution of ’48,” answered Phil; “we found it only lately in the attic—it was King Louis-Philippe’s throne.”
“A king’s throne!” Helia said, jumping up. “How can you think of it for a poor girl like me? You would be better in it, Phil. Seat yourself; I wish you to—I command you!” she said, imitating what she considered the royal tone.
“Well, since you wish it—”
“Yes; it’s your place—and here is mine,” she added, as she seated herself at Phil’s feet. “Stay there, Phil—leave me at your feet. I am so happy!”
Happy! She could not have found words to express it all! For months and months and months she had thought of Phil every day and every hour—Phil, friend of her childhood and youth, who had loved her well, who would have protected her against Cemetery—Phil, her hero! And now she saw him again; he was there before her, her head was resting on his knees, in the calm of the beautiful day. How could she have told her happiness?
Phil, on his arrival in Paris, had thought less about Helia at first, overburdened as he was with all his new impressions; but the environment in which he lived was not pleasant to him. His illusions had been cast to earth; he was in an abyss of temptations from which he could not, like Suzanne, free himself by a smile or a shrug. But he soon regained possession of himself; he made of Helia an ideal. He knew no young girl of his own sphere, and he took refuge in the thought of Helia as in a place of safety. She personified his innocent youth. Phil still had in him the old Puritan austerity—he whose family Bible showed on its margin this proud device written in faded ink by some persecuted ancestor: “No judge but God, no woman but the wife!” He was grateful to Helia because her remembrance protected him; because she seemed to him always so pure.
Accordingly, when Helia came back, with the superb confidence of youth which believes in the everlastingness of things, Phil looked on her again with joy. In spite of the rude life she was leading, she was more modest and charming than ever; and she was so beautiful! Helia came into Phil’s life at a dangerous moment—an accomplice of the sun and the fragrance of roses.