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Page 57
He bent his brows for an instant, then looked up smiling. 'If it puts
you to sleep, you'll know whom to blame.'
'Yes, yes, go on,' she said impatiently.
'Dear me, there's nothing worth telling. It was a few weeks after my
grandmother's death. We were going to Paris the next day. Her father
drove over, with her, to say good-bye. Whilst he was with my people in
the drawing-room, she and I walked in the garden.--I say, this is
going to become frightfully sentimental, you know. Sure you want it?'
'Go on. Go on.'
'Well, we walked in the garden; and she was crying, and I was
beseeching her not to cry. She wore one of her white frocks, with a
red sash, and her hair fell down her back below her waist. I was
holding her hand. "Don't cry, don't cry. I'll come back as soon as I'm
a man, and marry you in real earnest!" I promised her.' He paused and
laughed.
'Go on. And she?'
'"Oh, aren't we married in real earnest now?" she asked. I explained
that we weren't. "You have to have the Notary over from Bayonne, and
go to Church. I know, because that's how it was when my cousin Elodie
was married. We're only married in play?" Then she asked if that
wasn't just as good. "Things one does in play are always so much nicer
than real things," she said.'
'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings! She had a prophetic soul.'
'Hadn't she? I admitted that that was true. But I added that perhaps
when people were grown up and could do exactly as they pleased, it was
different,--perhaps real things would come to be pleasant too.'
'Have you found them so?'
'I suppose I can't be quite grown-up, for I've never yet had a chance
to do exactly as I pleased.'
'Poor young man. Go on.'
'And, besides, I reminded her, all the married people we knew were
really married, my father and mother, Andr�'s father and mother, my
cousin Elodie. H�l�ne's mother was dead, so her parents didn't count.
And I argued that we might be sure they found it fun to be really
married, or else they wouldn't keep it up. "Oh, well, then, I suppose
we'll have to be really married too," she consented. "But it seems as
though it never could be as nice as this. If only you weren't going
away!" Whereupon I promised again to come back, if she'd promise to
wait for me, and never love anybody else, and never, never, never
allow another boy to kiss her. "Oh, never, never, never," she assured
me. Then her father called her, and they drove away.'
'And you went to Paris and forgot her. Why were you false to your
engagement?'
'Oh, she had allowed another boy to kiss her. She had married a German
prince. Besides, I received a good deal of discouragement from my
family. The next day, in the train, I confided our understanding to my
mother. My mother seemed to doubt whether her father would like me as
a son-in-law. I was certain he would; he was awfully good-natured; he
had given me two louis as a parting tip. "But do you think he'll care
to let his daughter marry a bourgeois?" my mother asked. "A what?"
cried I. "A bourgeois," said my mother. "I ain't a bourgeois," I
retorted indignantly. "What are you then?" pursued my mother. I
explained that my grandmother had been a countess, and my uncle was a
count; so how could I be a bourgeois? "But what is your father?" my
mother asked. Oh, my father was "only an Englishman." But that didn't
make me a bourgeois? "Yes, it does," my mother said. "Just because my
father's English?" "Because he's a commoner, because he isn't noble."
"But then--then what did you go and marry him for?" I stammered.
"Where would you have been if I hadn't?" my mother enquired. That
puzzled me for a moment, but then I answered, "Well, if you'd married
a Frenchman, a Count or a Duke or something, I shouldn't have been a
bourgeois;" and my mother confessed that that was true enough. "I
don't care if I _am_ a bourgeois," I said at last. "When I'm big I'm
going back to Saint-Graal; and if her father won't let me really marry
her, because I'm a bourgeois, then we'll just go on making believe
we're married."'
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