But my impatience was of little avail, for before we left Government House Dr. Saugrain invited me to dinner at Émigré's Retreat, and restless and impatient as I might be, I did not dare show myself there until the dinner-hour.
Five o'clock found me sitting in the dear old living-room, awaiting, with trembling the entrance of madame and Pelagie. It was the same dear old room I had pictured to myself so often, and all the grand salons of Paris that I had seen since last I saw it did not make it look any the less cozy and homelike to my eyes. It was a warm spring afternoon, and the western windows were open, and the white curtains were stirring in the breeze, only there was no maiden in white on the low seat by the window, and no guitar and no Leon.
I had but a moment to wait. The door opened and in came madame, both hands outstretched and running to meet me, and as I bent low before her, taking my face in both her hands and putting a kiss on my cheek and calling me "My son." And behind her came Pelagie, walking slowly but looking up at me, yes, looking at me at last, with starry eyes and a great pulse throbbing in her snowy throat, and little tongues of color coming and going in her cheeks. I was almost of a mind there, right before madame, to take her in my arms and call her mine, for mine I was determined she should be; and I looked at her with such a threatening glance I think she divined my half-purpose and shrank back a little.
So instead I merely bowed over her hand and said gaily:
"You condescend to look at me at last, mademoiselle; I feared to-day I was to be forever banished from your friendly glances."
And she, relieved from her first apprehension, answered saucily:
"If monsieur comes unannounced, how can he expect to be recognized after so many months of absence?"
And then in stalked, majestically Leon, limping very slightly, and when he caught sight of me coming up to me and sniffing at me a moment, and then springing upon me with such wild bounds of delight that I had to call hold, lest his great paws play havoc with my fine Paris clothes that I had donned in mademoiselle's honor. And to quiet him I said in a high, small voice, in palpable burlesque of mademoiselle:
"Taise-toi, mon ange!" and we both laughed merrily.
I was so happy that I was ready to do everything that was foolish, and I believe mademoiselle was happy, too, for nothing that I did was too foolish for her to laugh at.