"And," Gabrielle St. Leger remarked, with a smile edged by engagingly gentle mockery, "then invariably ended, against your better judgment, by still carefully removing the razors!"
That same smile dwelt in the young man's memory as singularly rich with promise, justifying the belief that a lifetime spent in la belle Gabrielle's society would fail to exhaust her power of—to put it vulgarly—jumping the unexpected upon you, and bracing your interest by the firing off of all manner of fine little surprises. Monotony, he thanked Heaven, would very certainly not be among the dangers to be feared in marriage with Madame St. Leger!
But while his imagination played about these agreeable matters the music of the engines changed its tune, the brakes gripped under Martin the chauffeur's boot-sole, and the car slowed down to a crawl in passing a flock of sheep. Two large dogs, bobtailed and shaggy, their red mouths widely open as they raced barking to and fro, rounded up the scared and scattering flock into a compact, bleating, palpitating mass of bister color picked out with rusty black upon the dust-whitened strip of turf by the roadside. The shepherd, tall and lean, a long staff in his hand, his felt hat, hawk-nosed face, unkempt beard, ragged cloak and string-girt leggings, presenting a study in rich browns and umbers under the last glinting gold of the sunset, gesticulated and shouted, directing the evolutions of the racing dogs in a harsh and guttural patois. The scene, a somewhat violent pastoral, stamped itself as a picturesque inset upon the wide-margined page of Adrian's reflections.
The sheep once safely cleared and the pace again quickening, his thought centered complacently upon the moment of his farewells. For surely these showed handsomely on the credit side of his day's pleasure?
The friendly little company—not exclusive of the forgiving though cheapened Americans—had gathered at the hotel entrance to witness his start. Anastasia's voice and manner were rich with meaning and affectionate admonition as she invited him speedily to return. In the expression of Madame Vernois's refined face he seemed to read something approaching appeal as she gracefully seconded that invitation. While Gabrielle herself—she standing a little apart from the rest, nearer to the waiting automobile—answered, not lightly, but with a sweet and grave dignity, on his asking her:
"And you, chère Madame et amie, have I your invitation also? May I soon come back? Without your sanction it would, perhaps, be preferable, be wiser, more desirable for me to stay away."
"I, too, hope you may find it possible soon to return here. If your doing so depends in any degree upon my sanction I give that sanction readily."
And thus speaking she had looked him full in the eyes. Whereupon, though furiously unwilling to quit the dear sight and sound of her, this very modern young god mounted up into his very modern car in quite celestial serenity of spirit.
But as the dusk deepened and the lights of Rouen multiplied in the distance, happy retrospect gave place to happy on-looking, since, at nine and twenty, no sound and wholesome man seriously questions the existence of earthly bliss.
Yes, a week, possibly even a few days, would suffice to assure him all went well with René in his new quarters. Then he might reckon himself at liberty to return to Ste. Marie and the dear people there. And, once there, no overstrained delicacy should withhold him from putting it to the touch with Gabrielle St. Leger. Bowing to Anastasia's advice, he would risk saying the word too much, so as to avoid the greater danger of saying the word too little;—risk it the more gladly because he gratefully believed it mightn't prove the word too much, but the word acceptable, even the word actually, though silently and proudly, waited for. The immediate consequence of which belief was that, the car striking into the town through the Faubourg Beauvosine and traveling the Boulevard and the rue St. Hilaire successively, it appeared to Adrian in act of traversing an altogether heavenly city, whose now poetic ancient buildings, now stately new ones, were alike built of silver, and whose deep-resounding streets, in the growing brilliance of the lamp-light, were paved with gold. Such extravagant tricks, even in this machine-made, mammon-worshiping twentieth century, can love still contrive to play upon the happy lover!