Alike in the perfumed shadows beneath the trees and under the yellow lamps of the Boulevard de Mont Parnasse, he walked upon the clouds of resolution. The city that has in her tender keeping the dust of many lovers, cradled him and drew him forward. Her soft breath fanned his cheek, her sweet voice whispered in his ears:
“Trust me and obey me! Did I not know and shelter Gabrielle d’Estrées and her royal suitor? Have I not had a care for De Musset and for Heine? In that walled garden over there, Balzac dreamed of Mme. Hanska. Along this street Chopin wandered with George Sand.”
That whisper followed him to his room, still thrilling with Vitoria’s visit. It charmed him into a wonderful sense of her nearness, into a belief that he was keeping ward over her as long as he sat by his windows and watched the stars go down and the pink dawn climb the eastern sky. It lulled him at last to sleep with his head upon his arms and his arms upon the mottled table.
He overslept. It must have been nearly noon when he woke, and then he was wakened only by a pounding at the door of his room. Fat Mme. Refrogné had brought him a cable-message. When she had gone, he opened it, surprised at once by its extravagant length. It was from Cora; a modern miracle had happened: there was oil in the black keeping of the plot of ground that only sentiment had so long bade them retain in the little Ohio town. Cartaret was rich....
When the first force of the shock was over, when he could realize, in some small measure, what that message meant to him, Cartaret’s earliest thought was of the Lady of the Rose. Holding the bit of paper as tightly as if it were itself his riches and wanted to fly away on the wings that had brought it, he staggered, like a drunken man, to the door of the Room Opposite.
He knocked, but received no answer. A clock struck mid-day. Vitoria had probably gone to her class, and Chitta to her marketing.
A mad impulse to spread the good news possessed him. It was as if telling the news were recording a deed that there was only a brief time to record: he must do it at once in order to secure title. He knew that his friends, if they were in funds, would soon be gathered at the Café Des Deux Colombes.
When he passed the rue St. André Des Arts, he remembered Fourget. Cartaret was ashamed that his memory had been so tardy. Fourget had helped him in his heavy need; Fourget should be the first to know of his affluence....
The old dealer, his bushy brows drawn tight together, his spectacles gleaming, was trying to say “No” to a lad with a picture under his arm—a crestfallen lad that was a stranger to Cartaret.
“Let me see the picture,” said Cartaret, without further preface. He put out a ready hand.