“It is true that my journey has tired me; and my story has kept you up late.”
“Come, monsieur; I’ll take you to the little summer-house that I have had built in the garden; it makes the prettiest room in the house. I wish I could give you even better quarters——”
“You forget, Denise, that I am no longer the dandy of the Chaussée-d’Antin! Just cast your eye at my costume.”
“Oh, to me you are always the same, monsieur!”
She took Auguste to the summer-house and left him there with a loving: “Until to-morrow;” then she returned to the house and her own room, saying to herself:
“He thinks that my only feeling for him is friendship; he is very much mistaken; what I feel for him is love! Mon Dieu! why did I believe Monsieur Bertrand at that time? Why did I tell him that I didn’t love him? This is what comes of lying! But I’ll tell him the truth now, because I don’t want him to try to look on me as a sister.”
XXVII
AVOWALS.—THE PROPOSAL
After travelling about for three years in quest of riches, and finding in all lands the same vices, the same passions, the same folly,—when one returns home even poorer than one went away, how delicious it is to wake beneath a hospitable roof, with faithful friends whom one’s evil fortune has not changed, and who are made happy by one’s return! It is the harbor after a gale; it is the clear sky after a storm; it is the gleam of dawn after a long night.
Such was Auguste’s waking; in his eyes the cottage was a palace, aye, better than a palace, since it held Denise and Coco. He rose, and after revelling for a few moments in the pure air of the garden, he turned his attention to his costume. Not with impunity does one live under the same roof with a lovely girl whom one has once loved, and still loves, although resolved to be nothing more than her friend. Moreover, it is quite natural to try to recover some of one’s former attractions, after making one’s appearance in the costume of an impoverished wayfarer.
In a short time, the razor had disposed of the beard. But Auguste’s modest portmanteau contained only a coat, a waistcoat and almost no linen. He was inspecting it with a dejected air when there came a soft tap at his door and he heard Coco’s voice: