"But, Mademoiselle," said "Bijou" as he leaned languidly over the gate that stood between them, "are you going to dismiss me like this, as soon as I have discovered the charm of your presence? If your father objects why could you not visit this spot unknown to him; I must see you again, at any cost."
He grasped the tiny, white hand that drooped over the gate, and looked her pleadingly in the eyes.
Fifine was dreaming. All the wild fanciful illusions with which she had brightened the dark days of her young life, seemed to be realizing themselves in a bright procession before her eyes. Here was that ideal lover with whom she had so often rambled through those solitary grounds in fancy—here he was in reality telling his tale of love into her ready ear. Here was the voice she had heard in her dreams, and there were the deep dark eyes that had haunted her out of the page of Eugène Sue's novel, through the long, long days of her loneliness. Compensation seemed within easy grasp. She looked up, into the face of the man before her, and the die was cast. She recognized there a power from which she could never fly. She shivered slightly as she realised that he was master of her will, in spite of herself almost. He saw his advantage, he knew before this how such an ascendancy profits the owner, and his eyes sparkled anew with a light which to other eyes than Fifine's would not have been wholly attractive.
The world is full of such people and their victims. We look upon a face under whose steady gaze we stagger; there are eyes we cannot encounter in a full unflinching look; there are hands whose touch thrills and weakens us, there are voices which sink into our souls, and mesmerize us at their will. Let the circumstances be what they may, we cannot forget the influence that thus haunts our lives.
Poor Fifine had not learned life's lesson wisely. She thought that after the first love came the "wedding ring," and then days, and weeks, and years of highest joy. What did this unsophisticated child know of clubs and bar-rooms and gambling houses, of city lamp-posts, and midnight serenades. What business has any woman knowing it for that matter? so long as she can render an account of every dollar and hour she spends in the day, what is it to her whether her "lawful wedded husband" chooses to watch the stars all night or not. But after all it is time woman learned better sense, it is her privilege to accept or reject this life of uncertainty, and yet, like Fifine, she looks lovingly, admiringly on the pictures bright side only, and fancies "Life's enchanted cup sparkling" all the way down.
The words of consent had passed the threshold of Josephine de Maistre's lips. She felt her hands pressed warmly as she uttered them, and the next instant she was limping alone up the garden walk, her sweet face beaming with unsuppressed smiles, and her hat hanging carelessly over her shapely shoulders.
There was no one in view when she reached the house, but perched on the little iron swing in his pretty cage was Poll, swaying himself complacently to and fro, and looking at his mistress first with one eye and then the other. Fifine spoke not a word, but gathering all the dainties out of the well-supplied cage, passed into the house, leaving the famished bird without a morsel wherewith to gratify himself.
CHAPTER XXII.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive."
Are you feeling well enough to entertain the old man to-night?" said the plaintive voice of Alphonse de Maistre, as father and daughter resumed their seats on the verandah, after the simple evening meal was over.