"Let us say 'Au revoir' rather," and once again she pressed his hand, which was more than he had dared hope for.
But what had "Charlie" to do with Miss Brooke? he asked himself a thousand times that evening.
CHAPTER IV.
A month later—about the beginning of June—Paul had entered the École des Beaux Arts as a student of architecture. Not to have succeeded in tearing himself away would have been to lose all self-respect. He had determined to justify himself to himself, to prove he had a will he need not be ashamed of. Thus it was that his astonished mother and a favourite uncle—Celia's guardian—who both had a good deal to say about Paris and its temptations, expended their speech to no purpose.
Paul entered into his student life with zest, working hard and conscientiously in a very methodical fashion. He allowed himself, however, plenty of time for enjoying the city; going to the theatres, and peeping into all the show places, and hunting up curios at old shops, and lounging and playing billiards at the cafés, and drinking beer al fresco on the boulevards. Occasionally he rode in the Bois, or made excursions up and down the Seine, and into the neighbouring country—mostly, of course, in company, for he soon struck acquaintance with some of the men, many of whom he found had to manage on very little money. So he said nothing about his own easy circumstances, rather enjoying the two-franc seat at the theatre and the fifteen-centime ride on the tops of tramcars. When he wanted expensive amusement he went alone.
No one he knew had so far mentioned Miss Brooke's name, and though he was often on the point of asking one or other of his new friends about her, some instinct invariably restrained him. He had nurtured his love for her, all his solitary thought turning to her, and it seemed a sort of sacrilege to make even the most innocent inquiry about her in her absence. This waiting for her in silence was part of the romance.
He understood the American girl a little better now, fellow-students having introduced him to girl friends—that is to say, he was better acquainted with her and her ways. And he was satisfied that whatever appeared right to Miss Brooke, no matter how much it violated his own notions, must be right absolutely. With her the fact of riches or poverty was reduced to a mere indifferent background, against which her personality stood out in all its charm and dignity. A girl like her could make her home in one room, and yet make you welcome in it with as much ease and grace as any lady in a fine drawing-room.
Time passed, and still nobody, by any chance, referred to Miss Brooke. This was not surprising, for Paris was large, and American girl students were plentiful and scattered all over it. Moreover, a girl who had gone home months before was likely to be soon forgotten. Pemberton he had never met, but he had seen him just once from the top of a tramcar. The hot weather came on and Paul passed a delicious month at Montmorency in company with one of the men. After his return he settled to work again, and the months went by almost without his keeping count of them—for, Miss Brooke having mentioned a year as the time she was likely to remain in America, he would not look for her till the spring came on again. In the meanwhile he inflicted much misery on himself by speculating as to whether home and home ties might not have absorbed for good so ideal and affectionate a girl as he conceived her to be, especially after so long a residence abroad. But deep down was implanted in him an unswerving faith in her coming, and, though the manner of their meeting had been left so undefined, he was certain there would be no difficulty when the time came, and that his life after that would be one long fairy tale.