And then a girl pushed suddenly through the crowd, and stood in front of Maxime. It was Madame’s Félice, and she was laughing aloud. I had never heard her laugh before. “If you go, I will go with you,” she said.
Maxime’s face was suddenly strange and wild at the sight of her. “You—you—you?” he cried. “You—you, O heart of my life, star of my dreams?”
I think he forgot all about the angry crowd on an instant.
“Yes, I,” laughed Félice. “I have seen your heart in your eyes, Maxime, and now you may see my heart in mine. What is the need of words? If you go, I go with you.”
“There is a kind priest at Terminaison,” said Maxime, hot and fierce, his blue eyes on her gray ones that were no longer cold.
Félice laughed still. It seemed as if she could not stop laughing for very happiness, but her beautiful creamy cheeks showed no blush, “As you like,” she answered; “we will go to the curé if it pleases you. But if you go, I go also. I am faithful as La Tristesse.”
“Come then,” said Maxime. And that was all. They forgot the people who were watching them, awed and silent before this strange divine thing shown forth in their midst. Maxime never even looked back at his little cabin, and Félice never looked from his face. They moved away down the road together, hand in hand into the great golden sunset, and Sorrow following them, leaping and frisking. That was absolutely all, and it was over in five minutes. But think of the wonder of it,—a flower of Greece in her golden days, a vision of Italy, a dream of ancient France, there suddenly showing forth for all men to see.
They went unmolested down the lonely road. Once Félice shook her slim arms above her head as if in a very ecstacy of joy. Once Sorrow jumped up to lick her hand.
Yes, they went, and were hidden in the golden mist of sunset, and were gone. Nor did I ever hear of them or see them again,—Maxime, with his blue eyes, his gentle hands, his long lazy body, his rags and tatters; Sorrow, black and faithful as her namesake; Félice, beautiful as the ever-youthful Artemis. Nor can it be said that I saw them go. For I was down on my face, crying so that my tears made little gray runnels in the dust of the road,—crying for the loss of the most beautiful thing I had ever known.