VII THE FEAR OF HAPPINESS

When Nicole reached her room, she found Geneviève up and waiting.

"What are you doing, child?" she cried sharply, to cover her confusion. "Why are you here?"

"I—I am waiting," Geneviève stammered, "to see if I could do anything for you."

"There is nothing. I am going out now myself."

"What!" cried the child, opening her eyes wide. "You are not going to stay with the poor fellow?"

"There is no need. He is well."

"But I thought—" She stopped, in confusion, and then clumsily beat a retreat to the door. "I'll go now. I—I only wanted to be of service."

Nicole waited only long enough to be sure of Geneviève's departure before descending in turn. Her little room was too narrow; it choked her. She had need of the open span of the sky to think over the new emotions.

After an hour of unprofitable solitude, feeling the need of a confidence which would lessen the tension of her thoughts, she sought Goursac, beginning timidly with the question:

"And the Citoyen Barabant, how is he?"

"Why, he is still alive, clamoring for you like a lost child for his mother."

"Goursac, my old friend," she said, taking his arm, "be serious and gentle for once. I am unhappy, and I want to talk with you."

"Ah, you love him," he said bitterly.

"Yes," she said slowly, as though the revelation had just come, "I love him."

"Then why do you avoid him?"

"I am afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of loving him too much."

"I don't understand."

She tried to tell him a little of her emotions at the bedside—the wonder and the swift, acute joy of ministering, the longing to tend and own. Goursac, with a few questions, led her on. They were now in the Tuileries, a little apart from the quick throng, the swish of skirts, the laughter and the hum. At last he said:

"My little Nicole, listen. Love is not something that comes to us from the outside: it is a need within ourselves. We each have our functions in this world and our needs. At the bottom, what is strongest and best in woman is the maternal instinct. Listen to me! You fall in love when the need within you becomes too insistent. Any one of a hundred men can appeal to you. It is the moment and not the man. You knew the maternal instinct for the first time when you had in your keeping the Citoyen Barabant. You think that it is he that has awakened you. Not at all; all these emotions have been in you, dormant; it is they, not he, which enchant you. Voyons—you do not listen—Nicole!"

"That's true," she said, rousing herself from her reverie. Her eyes had been deep in the bright to and fro of the promenaders, but she saw only the room under the attic, and felt only the hot head on her aching shoulder.

"After all, you are thinking only of him, and I am a fool," he said. "Nothing that I can say will make any difference. You will learn, as others have learned, on the steps of experience. Out of some curious twist within you, in some strange way of reasoning you will decide for yourself."

"I suppose so," she said drearily. "But I wanted to talk it out; you are kind to me."

"I," he said calmly—"I adore you."

"Be serious."

"That is serious."

"Truly?"

"You know it."

"Why?" she said meditatively, but half believing him.

"You are young," he answered, looking steadfastly at the charming profile. "And to see you is good for the eyes. You are youth, and I have not been old long enough to be reconciled to age. But you don't believe me."

"Yes."

"No; at least, you do not understand."

She did not return home until nightfall, and then did not cross Barabant's window-sill, but contented herself with an inquiry as to his condition; nor could artifice and entreaty retain her longer. The next day she did not appear at all.

Barabant, who saw in her absence nothing but coquetry, was furious with her, with himself, with all that kept him to his bed. The lagging, still hours seemed doubly lagging and still with the memory of the charm which the presence of the girl had brought to the bare walls. Time and time his eyes sought the empty floor where he had surprised her asleep; and, conjuring up that delightful picture, he accused himself in his unreasoning irritation for not having simulated insensibility throughout the day.

Why did she thus avoid him? He remembered their first encounter with Louison. Was she jealous of her comrade, or was it simply calculation? That Nicole should think of playing the coquette annoyed him exceedingly. He had yielded to the fascination of this gipsy from the moment she had taken his arm in the gardens of the Palais Royal with the mischievous "Barabant, you are a lucky fellow," with which she had opened their comradeship. But this easy, pleasurable interest had been fanned into a passionate flame at the storming of the Tuileries, where, by her fire, her tempestuous beauty, and her careless laughter, she had impressed herself imperishably on his imagination; and later the thought of her bearing him home, of her nursing, and of her tenderness had invaded his heart.

With the rapture of the first unfolding romance he abandoned himself utterly to the thought of her, while retaining in his deeper consciousness, as undebatable, that limit of common sense which must separate the man of education and promise from a daughter of the people.

The thought was a part of his intuitions rather than his consciousness; for in his simplicity he believed himself utterly unselfish in seeking her, and was at a loss to understand why she should have changed.

Neither the afternoon nor the evening brought any sign of Nicole, nor during the next day could he obtain more than one glimpse of her, as she departed toward the flower-market. Recovered from his exhaustion, he set forth on the following morning, piqued and angry, resolved to find her and force an explanation.

He searched the Palais Royal and the Tuileries without success, and it was only after luncheon that, passing down the left bank of the Seine, he found her near the Conciergerie.

She was a little apart from the throng, strolling meditatively by the river, into whose swift flood her look was plunged. The half-depleted basket, overrun with flowers, dangled from her arm, while in her fingers she was turning a cockade without purpose. Against the hot August foliage and the buildings weltering under the sun there was something about her inexpressibly cool and refreshing to the eye.

The meditative abandon of her pose suggested all at once to Barabant a reason for her absence, and with this pleasing thought his anger yielded to the zest of the eager and confident lover.

So serious was her reverie that she was unaware of his approach until his greeting startled her.

"Am I so terrible, Nicole," Barabant asked, smiling at her confusion, "that you find it necessary to avoid me?"

She rallied quickly, and simulating indecision, exclaimed:

"Why, it is the Citoyen Barabant!"

Barabant brought his brows together and said, with a return of his exasperation: "Nicole, why do you avoid me?"

She shook her head.

"I don't avoid you; I do not seek you out."

"Nicole, you are playing with me."

She again shook her head.

Barabant, taking her wrist, repeated the assertion.

"Barabant, I do not play with you," Nicole answered earnestly.

"Then why have you avoided me?"

He waited for her answer, but she said firmly: "I cannot tell you."

"Assuredly she is beginning to love me," thought Barabant, and, well content, did not press the question. They strayed a little from the Conciergerie, and leaning over the bank, contemplated the river scenes below, following the fortunes of the languid fishermen, the antics of a kitten that romped over the flat decks herded together, and the glistening backs of boys splashing near the shore.

"Of whom were you thinking so seriously before I came?" Barabant asked, secure in his new confidence. He sought her face, hoping to surprise some trace of confusion.

"I was wondering how it would seem to have a mother," Nicole answered. She crumbled a flower and scattered the petals on the wafting stir of the air before she turned. "But then we might not agree. Perhaps I am lucky. What do you think?"

"Such reverie for a mother?"

"Oh, there are moments when one has such moods."

"I had hoped you were thinking of me."

"Really?" She lifted her eyebrows slightly. "And why?"

Her composure routed his agreeable theories and plunged him into perplexities. So, abandoning his confident attitude, he exclaimed vehemently:

"Nicole, what has happened? What is there—a misunderstanding, or what? Surely you will not tell me that it is natural for you to shun me so persistently. I will be answered!"

"I don't; I don't. I will not have you saying that!" She seized the opportunity of a passing party of muscadins—the dandies of the day—to offer her cockades. On her return, Barabant said more quietly:

"Listen to me, Nicole. You misunderstand me; I do not upbraid you. I want to thank you. I owe you much, and you give me no opportunity to tell you of my gratitude. That is what vexes me. Voyons, Nicole, we had begun so well!" He leaned closer and said mischievously: "Oh, if I had known you would leave, I would have remained unconscious all the day. I've cursed myself ever since."

He laughed, and growing bolder as he perceived she listened without displeasure, he poured into her ear, in one breath daring, in another shy, a thousand and one of those vague, delightful half-confidences which in the imagination of the lover awaken as naturally as the flowers open to the sun.

Nicole could not but listen. She assembled a bouquet and pressed her face against it to screen her pleasure from his avid scrutiny. From time to time she turned, and looking him full in the face, sought to read there the true value of his words. But almost immediately she would turn with a wistful smile of unbelief. At length she checked him, saying, with reluctant gentleness:

"Enough, Barabant. Your imagination runs away with you. You do not know your own feelings."

Barabant, borne on by the ardor of his emotions, retorted point-blank:

"And you, do you know yours?"

At this sudden challenge, Nicole had a moment of confusion, during which she answered at random:

"I?" But immediately regaining her composure, she added, "Perfectly."

"You evade my question."

"If you begin like that, I warn you I will not listen. Besides, I am neglecting my cockades."

She unslung her basket and again accosted the crowd. Barabant, after the first outburst of expostulation, waited moodily, leaning against a tree, his gaze lost in the current. The moment Nicole was assured of his abstraction, she hesitated no longer, but slipping through the throng, quickly gained her liberty among distant streets.

She knew that the evasion was unwise, exposing her to his judgment either as a coquette or as fearing to betray her true feelings—opinions which she did not wish him to entertain. She had fled, but not by calculation. She had again avoided him, and yet she scarcely understood why. New emotions had awakened in her a commotion that disturbed her whole theory of life.

Before, with happy tolerance, she had passed along the weary road of poverty, shrugging her shoulders at hunger, meeting adversity with a smile, expecting two or three attachments, not deep; delightful while lasting, sharp and saddening when broken; but, sad or sweet, not to be regarded too seriously,—the lot of life.

She had, therefore, welcomed the coming of Barabant with the pleasurable anticipation of a delightful comradeship. That she could retain him, or, in all probability, would care to retain him, beyond a certain term never occurred to her. As to the question of marriage, it did not for a moment enter her head. For her it did not exist.

A sigh drawn from her soul as she stood by his bed had dissipated all that, and discovered to her immense longings, womanly, motherly necessities which she had never realized before and which she imperfectly comprehended now. She perceived him no longer as a comrade, but as the new need of her awakened nature.

She had imagined love as impassioned, headlong, and impetuous, and, in the place of this ideal, she felt only the confident, weak appeal of Barabant to her ministering tenderness. The sensation was acute, poignant, disturbing; the happiness that had possessed her then was too big, too strange; it frightened her. She feared such a transforming, all-consuming love. To give herself utterly thus she felt, in her intuitions, would mean only disaster. So she fled from herself, trying to stifle that immense emotion to which she had no right,—so fraught with peril. So when, through all the rumble of sound and the ceaseless rabble of the boulevards, there returned the silent room under the eaves, and the feverish smile that answered to her soothing touch, she incessantly cried to herself:

"No, no. I would love him too much. The end would crush me."

Little vagrant of the people, she knew well what that end inevitably must be.