"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno before marriage...."
Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had spoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt it could have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal more eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind, the more detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this, too, was true.
"She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."
It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this garden, judging from their bearing each to the other.
"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? A queen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make little jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"
Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy who followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that she was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost anywhere else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face a little toward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he had seen in them before--once in the Champs-Elysées and again in his dreams.
Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance, the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of passing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary movement as if he would call them back, and for the first time his faithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him with a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart in his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damage was already done. He saw the two young people halt and turn to look, and after a moment he saw the boy come slowly forward, staring. He heard him say:
"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under the high wall.
Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the ultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch over the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he called down to the lad below in a loud whisper:
"Benham! Benham!"