“Ah, no. Poor Angel! She got tired of cooking and scouring the coppers in Madame Anger’s little kitchen, so she ran away with a soldier, and then with another soldier. Too bad! She still lives about the Quarter, and, though there is always a soldat, she has become a blanchisseuse de fin. She did my blouses beautifully the last time I was there, and was so delighted to see me again. I gave her all my old clothes, even my old hats, though she always wears her Breton headdress. Her hair is still like flax, and her blue eyes are just like a baby’s, and she has the same three freckles on her little nose, and talks about going back to her bains de mer.”
Bartley looked at Hilda across the yellow light of the candles and broke into a low, happy laugh. “How jolly it was being young, Hilda! Do you remember that first walk we took together in Paris? We walked down to the Place Saint-Michel to buy some lilacs. Do you remember how sweet they smelled?”
“Indeed I do. Come, we’ll have our coffee in the other room, and you can smoke.”
Hilda rose quickly, as if she wished to change the drift of their talk, but Bartley found it pleasant to continue it.
“What a warm, soft spring evening that was,” he went on, as they sat down in the study with the coffee on a little table between them; “and the sky, over the bridges, was just the color of the lilacs. We walked on down by the river, didn’t we?”
Hilda laughed and looked at him questioningly. He saw a gleam in her eyes that he remembered even better than the episode he was recalling.
“I think we did,” she answered demurely. “It was on the Quai we met that woman who was crying so bitterly. I gave her a spray of lilac, I remember, and you gave her a franc. I was frightened at your prodigality.”
“I expect it was the last franc I had. What a strong brown face she had, and very tragic. She looked at us with such despair and longing, out from under her black shawl. What she wanted from us was neither our flowers nor our francs, but just our youth. I remember it touched me so. I would have given her some of mine off my back, if I could. I had enough and to spare then,” Bartley mused, and looked thoughtfully at his cigar.
They were both remembering what the woman had said when she took the money: “God give you a happy love!” It was not in the ingratiating tone of the habitual beggar: it had come out of the depths of the poor creature’s sorrow, vibrating with pity for their youth and despair at the terribleness of human life; it had the anguish of a voice of prophecy. Until she spoke, Bartley had not realized that he was in love. The strange woman, and her passionate sentence that rang out so sharply, had frightened them both. They went home sadly with the lilacs, back to the Rue Saint-Jacques, walking very slowly, arm in arm. When they reached the house where Hilda lodged, Bartley went across the court with her, and up the dark old stairs to the third landing; and there he had kissed her for the first time. He had shut his eyes to give him the courage, he remembered, and she had trembled so—
Bartley started when Hilda rang the little bell beside her. “Dear me, why did you do that? I had quite forgotten—I was back there. It was very jolly,” he murmured lazily, as Marie came in to take away the coffee.