apologetically that he had none to give.
"It was simply that I feared something might happen to me unless I kepta sharp look-out. I felt afraid. It was instinctive," was all he couldsay. "I got the impression that the whole town was after me--wanted mefor something; and that if it got me I should lose myself, or at leastthe Self I knew, in some unfamiliar state of consciousness. But I am nota psychologist, you know," he added meekly, "and I cannot define itbetter than that."
It was while lounging in the courtyard half an hour before the eveningmeal that Vezin made this discovery, and he at once went upstairs to hisquiet room at the end of the winding passage to think it over alone. Inthe yard it was empty enough, true, but there was always the possibilitythat the big woman whom he dreaded would come out of some door, with herpretence of knitting, to sit and watch him. This had happened severaltimes, and he could not endure the sight of her. He still remembered hisoriginal fancy, bizarre though it was, that she would spring upon himthe moment his back was turned and land with one single crushing leapupon his neck. Of course it was nonsense, but then it haunted him, andonce an idea begins to do that it ceases to be nonsense. It has clotheditself in reality.
He went upstairs accordingly. It was dusk, and the oil lamps had notyet been lit in the passages. He stumbled over the uneven surface ofthe ancient flooring, passing the dim outlines of doors along thecorridor--doors that he had never once seen opened--rooms that seemednever occupied. He moved, as his habit now was, stealthily and ontiptoe.
Half-way down the last passage to his own chamber there was a sharpturn, and it was just here, while groping round the walls withoutstretched hands, that his fingers touched something that was notwall--something that moved. It was soft and warm in texture,indescribably fragrant, and about the height of his shoulder; and heimmediately thought of a furry, sweet-smelling kitten. The next minutehe knew it was something quite different.
Instead of investigating, however,--his nerves must have been toooverwrought for that, he said,--he shrank back as closely as possibleagainst the wall on the other side. The thing, whatever it was, slippedpast him with a sound of rustling and, retreating with light footstepsdown the passage behind him, was gone. A breath of warm, scented air waswafted to his nostrils.
Vezin caught his breath for an instant and paused, stockstill, halfleaning against the wall--and then almost ran down the remainingdistance and entered his room with a rush, locking the door hurriedlybehind him. Yet it was not fear that made him run: it was excitement,pleasurable excitement. His nerves were tingling, and a delicious glowmade itself felt all over his body. In a flash it came to him that thiswas just what he had felt twenty-five years ago as a boy when he was inlove for the first time. Warm currents of life ran all over him andmounted to his brain in a whirl of soft delight. His mood was suddenlybecome tender, melting, loving.
The room was quite dark, and he collapsed upon the sofa by the window,wondering what had happened to him and what it all meant. But the onlything he understood clearly in that instant was that something in himhad swiftly, magically changed: he no longer wished to leave, or toargue with himself about leaving. The encounter in the passage-way hadchanged all that. The strange perfume of it still hung about him,bemusing his heart and mind. For he knew that it was a girl who hadpassed him, a girl's face that his fingers had brushed in the darkness,and he felt in some extraordinary way as though he had been actuallykissed by her, kissed full upon the lips.
Trembling, he sat upon the sofa by the window and struggled to collecthis thoughts. He was utterly unable to understand how the mere passingof a girl in the darkness of a narrow passage-way could communicate soelectric a thrill to his whole being that he still shook with thesweetness of it. Yet, there it was! And he found it as useless to denyas to attempt analysis. Some ancient fire had entered his veins, andnow ran coursing through his blood; and that he was forty-five insteadof twenty did not matter one little jot. Out of all the inner turmoiland confusion emerged the one salient fact that the mere atmosphere, themerest casual touch, of this girl, unseen, unknown in the darkness, hadbeen sufficient to stir dormant fires in the centre of his heart, androuse his whole being from a state of feeble sluggishness to one oftearing and tumultuous excitement.
After a time, however, the number of Vezin's years began to assert theircumulative power; he grew calmer, and when a knock came at length uponhis door and he heard the waiter's voice suggesting that dinner wasnearly over, he pulled himself together and slowly made his waydownstairs into the dining-room.
Every one looked up as he entered, for he was very late, but he took hiscustomary seat in the far corner and began to eat. The trepidation wasstill in his nerves, but the fact that he had passed through thecourtyard and hall without catching sight of a petticoat served to calmhim a little. He ate so fast that he had almost caught up with thecurrent stage of the table d'hote, when a slight commotion in the roomdrew his attention.
His chair was so placed that the door and the greater portion of thelong _salle a manger_ were behind him, yet it was not necessary to turnround to know that the same person he had passed in the dark passage hadnow come into the room. He felt the presence long before he heard or sawany one. Then he became aware that the old men, the only other guests,were rising one by one in their places, and exchanging greetings withsome one who passed among them from table to table. And when at lengthhe turned with his heart beating furiously to ascertain for himself, hesaw the form of a young girl, lithe and slim, moving down the centre ofthe room and making straight for his own table in the corner. She movedwonderfully, with sinuous grace, like a young panther, and her approachfilled him with such delicious bewilderment that he was utterly unableto tell at first what her face was like, or discover what it was aboutthe whole presentment of the creature that filled him anew withtrepidation and delight.
"Ah, Ma'mselle est de retour!" he heard the old waiter murmur at hisside, and he was just able to take in that she was the daughter of theproprietress, when she was upon him, and he heard her voice. She wasaddressing him. Something of red lips he saw and laughing white teeth,and stray wisps of fine dark hair about the temples; but all the restwas a dream in which his own emotion rose like a thick cloud before hiseyes and prevented his seeing accurately, or knowing exactly what hedid. He was aware that she greeted him with a charming little bow; thather beautiful large eyes looked searchingly into his own; that theperfume he had noticed in the dark passage again assailed his nostrils,and that she was bending a little towards him and leaning with one handon the table at this side. She was quite close to him--that was thechief thing he knew--explaining that she had been asking after thecomfort of her mother's guests, and now was introducing herself to thelatest arrival--himself.
"M'sieur has already been here a few days," he heard the waiter say; andthen her own voice, sweet as singing, replied--
"Ah, but M'sieur is not going to leave us just yet, I hope. My mother istoo old to look after the comfort of our guests properly, but now I amhere I will remedy all that." She laughed deliciously. "M'sieur shall bewell looked after."
Vezin, struggling with his emotion and desire to be polite, half rose toacknowledge the pretty speech, and to stammer some sort of reply, but ashe did so his hand by chance touched her own that was resting upon thetable, and a shock that was for all the world like a shock ofelectricity, passed from her skin into his body. His soul wavered andshook deep within him. He caught her eyes fixed upon his own with a lookof most curious intentness, and the next moment he knew that he had satdown wordless again on his chair, that the girl was already half-wayacross the room, and that he was trying to eat his salad with adessert-spoon and a knife.
Longing for her return, and yet dreading it, he gulped down theremainder of his dinner, and then went at once to his bedroom to bealone with his thoughts. This time the passages were lighted, and hesuffered no exciting contretemps; yet the winding corridor was dim withshadows, and the last portion, from the bend of the walls onwards,seemed longer than he had ev
er known it. It ran downhill like thepathway on a mountain side, and as he tiptoed softly down it he feltthat by rights it ought to have led him clean out of the house into theheart of a great forest. The world was singing with him. Strange fanciesfilled his brain, and once in the room, with the door securely locked,he did not light the candles, but sat by the open window thinking long,long thoughts that came unbidden in troops to his mind.
IV
This part of the story he told to Dr. Silence, without special coaxing,it is true, yet with much stammering embarrassment. He could not in theleast understand, he said, how the girl had managed to affect him soprofoundly, and even before he had set eyes upon her. For her mereproximity in the darkness had been sufficient to set him on fire. Heknew nothing of enchantments, and for years had been a stranger toanything approaching tender relations with any member of the oppositesex, for he was encased in
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