The White Shadow | Page 8

Heaven alone knows; but they evidently had neglected to
call us, and there we were inhabiting a detached carriage in the heart of
QuimperleÌ. I managed to get a couple of porters, and presently we
found all our traps piled up on the platform, and a lumbering vehicle
with a Breton driver waiting to convey us to the hotel.
"Which," said I to the docile Breton, "is the best hotel in QuimperleÌ?"
"The Hotel Lion d'Or," he replied.
"How do you know?" I demanded.
"Because," said he mildly, "it is the only hotel in QuimperleÌ."
Sweetheart observed that this ought to be convincing, even to me, and
she tormented me all the way to the square, where I got even by
pretending to be horrified at her dishevelled condition incident to a
night's railway ride in a stuffy compartment.
"Don't, Jack! people will look at us."
"Let 'em."
"Oh, this is cruel! Oh, I'll pay you for this!"

And they did look at us--or rather at her; for from the time Sweetheart
and I had cast our lots together, I noticed that I seemed to escape the
observation of passers-by. When I lived alone in Paris I attracted a fair
share of observation from the world as it wagged on its Parisian way. It
was pleasant to meet a pretty girl's eyes now and then in the throng
which flowed through the park and boulevard. I really never flattered
myself that it was because of my personal beauty; but in Paris, any
young fellow who is dressed in the manner of Albion, hatted and
gloved in the same style, is not entirely a cipher. But now it was not the
same, by a long shot.
Sweetheart's beauty simply put me in my place as an unnoticed but
perhaps correct supplement to her.
She knew she was a beauty, and was delighted when she looked into
her mirror. Nothing escaped her. The soft hair threaded with sunshine,
which, when loosened, curled to her knees; the clear white forehead
and straight brows; the nose delicate and a trifle upturned; the scarlet
lips and fine cut chin--she knew the value of each of these. She was
pleased with the soft, full curve of her throat, the little ears, and the
colour which came and went in her cheeks.
But her eyes were the first thing one noticed. They were the most
beautiful gray eyes that ever opened under silken lashes. She approved
of my telling her this, which duty I fulfilled daily. Perhaps it may be
superfluous to say that we were very much in love. Did I say were?
I think that, as I am chanting the graces of Sweetheart, it might not be
amiss to say that she is just an inch shorter than I am, and that no
Parisienne carried a pretty gown with more perfection than she did. I
have seen gowns that looked like the devil on the manikin, but when
Sweetheart wore them they were the astonishment and admiration of
myself. And I do know when a woman is well dressed, though I am an
art critic.
Sweetheart regarded her beauty as an intimate affair between ourselves,
a precious gift for our mutual benefit, to be carefully treasured and
petted. Her attitude toward the world was unmistakable. The world

might look-- she was indifferent. With our intimate friends she was
above being flattered. Clifford said to me once: "She carries her beauty
as a princess would carry the Koh-i-noor--she knows she is worthy of it,
and hopes it is worthy of her.
"We ought to be so happy that I am beautiful!" she would say to me.
"Just think, supposing I were not!"
I used to try to make her believe that it would have made no difference.
"Oh, not now," she would say gravely. "I know that if I lost it it would
be the same to us both, now; but you can't make me believe that, at first,
when you used to lean over the terrace of the Luxembourg and wait
patiently for hours just to see me walk out of the Odeon."
"I didn't," I would always explain; "I was there by accident."
"Oh, what a funny accident to happen every day for two months!"
"Stop teasing! Of course, after the first week--"
"And what a funny accident that I should pass the same way every day
for two months, when before I always went by the Rue de Seine!"
There was once such an accident, and such a girl. I never knew her; she
is dead. I wondered sometimes that Sweetheart knew, and believed it
was she herself. Yet the other woman's shadow was black.
Sweetheart had a most peculiar and unworldly habit of not
embellishing facts. She presently displayed it when we arrived at