"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "what a brute I am. I must find you some kind of shelter."
There was a café near at hand, the café attached to the Théâtre du Parc, with rustic out-of-door constructions for the accommodation of its customers. Mr. Fairfax conducted Clarissa to one of these wooden arbours, where they might remain till the rain was over, or till he chose to bring her a carriage. He did not care to do that very soon. He had a great deal to say to her. This time he was resolved not to accept defeat.
A solitary waiter espied them promptly, having so little to do in this doleful weather, and came for orders. Mr. Fairfax asked for some coffee, and waited in silence while the man brought a little tray with cups and saucers and a great copper coffee-pot, out of which he poured the black infusion with infinite flourish.
"Bring some cognac," said Mr. Fairfax; and when the spirit had been brought, he poured half a wine-glassful into a cup of coffee, and entreated Clarissa to drink it as an antidote to cold.
"You were walking ever so long in the rain," he said.
She declined the nauseous dose.
"I am not afraid of catching cold," she said; "but I shall be very glad if you will let that man fetch me a fly. I ought to have been at home half an hour ago."
"At home! Is it permissible to ask where you live?"
"I would rather not tell you my address. I hope, if my being here had anything to do with your coming to Brussels, that you will go back to Paris at once."
"I shall never go back to Paris unless I enter its gates with you some day. I am going to the East, Clary; to Constantinople, and Athens, and all the world of fable and story, and you are going with me—you and young Lovel. Do you know there is one particular spot in the island of Corfu which I have pitched upon for the site of a villa, just such a fairy place as you can sketch for me—your own architecture—neither gothic nor composite, neither classic nor rustic, only le style Clarisse; not for our permanent dwelling—to my mind, nothing but poverty should ever chain a man to one habitation—but as a nest to which we might fly now and then, when we were weary of roaming."