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Page 6
And at last a voice--rather a deep voice for a woman's, with just a
crisp edge to it, that might have been called slightly nasal, but was
agreeable and individual--a voice said: 'En voil� assez. Come and sit
down.'
She had finished her luncheon, and was taking coffee; and if the whole
truth must be told, I'm afraid she was taking it with a _petit-verre_
and a cigarette. She wore an exceedingly simple black frock, with a
bunch of violets in her breast, and a hat with a sweeping black
feather and a daring brim. Her dark luxurious hair broke into a riot
of fluffy little curls about her forehead, and thence waved richly
away to where it was massed behind; her cheeks glowed with a lovely
colour (thanks, doubtless, to Yorkshire breezes; sweet are the uses of
adversity); her eyes sparkled; her lips curved in a perpetual play of
smiles, letting her delicate little teeth show themselves furtively;
and suddenly I realised that this girl, whom I had never thought of
save as one might think of one's younger sister, suddenly I realised
that she was a woman, and a radiantly, perhaps even a dangerously
handsome woman. I saw suddenly that she was not merely an attribute,
an aspect, of another, not merely Alfred Childe's daughter; she was a
personage in herself, a personage to be reckoned with.
This sufficiently obvious perception came upon me with such force, and
brought me such emotion, that I dare say for a little while I sat
vacantly staring at her, with an air of preoccupation. Anyhow, all at
once she laughed, and cried out, 'Well, when you get back...?' and,
'Perhaps,' she questioned, 'perhaps you think it polite to go off
wool-gathering like that?' Whereupon I recovered myself with a start,
and laughed too.
'But say that you are surprised, say that you are glad, at least,' she
went on.
Surprised! glad! But what did it mean? What was it all about?
'I couldn't stand it any longer, that's all. I have come home. Oh,
que c'est bon, que c'est bon, que c'est bon!'
'And--England?--Yorkshire?--your people?'
'Don't speak of it. It was a bad dream. It is over. It brings bad luck
to speak of bad dreams. I have forgotten it. I am here--in Paris--at
home. Oh, que c'est bon!' And she smiled blissfully through eyes
filled with tears.
Don't tell me that happiness is an illusion. It is her habit, if you
will, to flee before us and elude us; but sometimes, sometimes we
catch up with her, and can hold her for long moments warm against our
hearts.
'Oh, mon p�re! It is enough--to be here, where he lived, where he
worked, where he was happy,' Nina murmured afterwards.
She had arrived the night before; she had taken a room in the H�tel
d'Espagne, in the Rue de M�dicis, opposite the Luxembourg Garden. I
was as yet the only member of the old set she had looked up. Of course
I knew where she had gone first--but not to cry--to kiss it--to place
flowers on it. She could not cry--not now. She was too happy, happy,
happy. Oh, to be back in Paris, her home, where she had lived with
him, where every stick and stone was dear to her because of him!
Then, glancing up at the clock, with an abrupt change of key, 'Mais
allons donc, paresseux! You must take me to see the camarades. You
must take me to see Chalks.'
And in the street she put her arm through mine, laughing and saying,
'On nous croira fianc�s.' She did not walk, she tripped, she all but
danced beside me, chattering joyously in alternate French and English.
'I could stop and kiss them all--the men, the women, the very
pavement. Oh, Paris! Oh, these good, gay, kind Parisians! Look at the
sky! Look at the view--down that impasse--the sunlight and shadows on
the houses, the doorways, the people. Oh, the air! Oh, the smells! Que
c'est bon--que je suis contente! Et dire que j'ai pass� cinq mois,
mais cinq grands mois, en Angleterre. Ah, veinard, you--you don't know
how you're blessed.' Presently we found ourselves labouring knee-deep
in a wave of black pinafores, and Nina had plucked her bunch of
violets from her breast, and was dropping them amongst eager fingers
and rosy cherubic smiles. And it was constantly, 'Tiens, there's
Madame Chose in her kiosque. Bonjour, madame. Vous allez toujours
bien?' and 'Oh, look! old Perronet standing before his shop in his
shirt-sleeves, exactly as he has stood at this hour every day, winter
or summer, these ten years. Bonjour, M'sieu Perronet.' And you may be
sure that the kindly French Choses and Perronets returned her
greetings with beaming faces. 'Ah, mademoiselle, que c'est bon de vous
revoir ainsi. Que vous avez bonne mine!' 'It is so strange,' she said,
'to find nothing changed. To think that everything has gone on quietly
in the usual way. As if I hadn't spent an eternity in exile!' And at
the corner of one street, before a vast flaunting 'bazaar,' with a
prodigality of tawdry Oriental wares exhibited on the pavement, and
little black shopmen trailing like beetles in and out amongst them,
'Oh,' she cried, 'the "Mecque du Quartier"! To think that I could weep
for joy at seeing the "Mecque du Quartier"!'
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