Page:A No-Account Creole by Kate Chopin.djvu/4

Rh time, and the tangled sunbeams had enmeshed her in a golden fretwork. When he saw her standing there in the sun’s glamour, which was like a glory upon her, he trembled. He seemed to see her for the first time. He could only look at her, and wonder why her hair gleamed so, as it fell in those thick chestnut waves about her ears and neck. He had looked a thousand times into her eyes before; was it only to-day they held that sleepy, wistful light in them that invites love? How had he not seen it before? Why had he not known before that her lips were red, and cut in fine, strong curves, that her flesh was like cream? How had he not seen that she was beautiful? “Euphrasie,” he said, taking her hands–“Euphrasie, I love you!”

She looked at him with a little astonishment. “Yes; I know, Placide.” She spoke with the soft intonation of the Creole.

“No; you don’t, Euphrasie. I did n’ know myse’f how much tell jus’ now.”

Perhaps he did only what was natural when he asked her next if she loved him. He still held her hands. She looked thoughtfully away, unready to answer.

“Do you love anybody better?” he asked jealously. “Any one jus’ as well as me?”

“You know I love papa better, Placide, an’ Maman Duplan jus’ as well.”

Yet she saw no reason why she should not be his wife when he asked her to.

Only a few months before this, Euphrasie had returned to live with her father. The step had cut her off from everything that girls of eighteen call pleasure. If it cost her one regret, no one could have guessed it. She went often to visit the Duplans, however; and Placide had gone to bring her home from Les ChèniersChéniers [sic] the very day of Offdean’s arrival at the plantation.

They had traveled by rail to Natchitoches, where they found Pierre’s no-top buggy waiting for them, for there was a drive of five miles to be made through the pine woods before the plantation was reached. When they were at their journey’s end, and had driven some distance up the long plantation road that led to the house in the rear, Euphrasie exclaimed: “W’y, there’s some one on the gall’ry with papa, Placide!”

“Yes; I see.”

“It looks like some one f’om town. It mus’ be Mr. Gus Adams; but I don’ see his horse.”

“’T ain’t no one f’om town that I know. It’s boun’ to be some one f’om the city.”

“O Placide, I should n’ wonder if Harding & Offdean have sent some one to look after the place at las’,” she exclaimed a little excitedly.

They were near enough to see that the stranger was a young man of very pleasing appearance. Without apparent reason, a chilly depression took hold of Placide.

“I tole you it was n’ yo’ lookout f’om the firs’, Euphrasie,” he said to her.

remembered Euphrasie at once as a young person whom he had assisted to a very high perch on his club-house balcony the previous Mardi Gras night. He had thought her pretty and attractive then, and for the space of a day or two wondered who she might be. But he had not made even so fleeting an impression upon her; seeing which, he did not refer to any former meeting when Pierre introduced them.

She took the chair which he offered her, and asked him very simply when he had come, if his journey had been pleasant, and if he had not found the road from Natchitoches in very good condition.

“Mr. Offde’n only come sence yistiday, Euphrasie,” interposed Pierre. “We been talk’ ’bout de place, him an’ me. I been tole ’im all ’bout it–va! An’ if Mr. Offde’n want to escuse me now, I b’lieve I go he’p Placide wid dat hoss an’ buggy”; and he descended the steps slowly, and walked lazily with his bent figure in the direction of the shed beneath which Placide had driven, after depositing Euphrasie at the door.

“I dare say you find it strange,” began Offdean, “that the owners of this place have neglected it so long and shamefully. But you see,” he added, smiling, “the management of a plantation does n’t enter into the routine of a commission merchant’s business. The place has already cost them more than they hope to get from it, and naturally they have n’t the wish to sink further money in it.” He did not know why he was saying these things to a mere girl, but he went on: “I’m authorized to sell the plantation if I can get anything like a reasonable price for it.” Euphrasie laughed in a way that made him uncomfortable, and he thought he would say no more at present–not till he knew her better, anyhow.

“Well,” she said in a very decided fashion, “I know you’ll fine one or two persons in town who’ll begin by running down the lan’ till you would n’ want it as a gif’, Mr. Offdean; and who will en’ by offering to take it off yo’ han’s for the promise of a song, with the lan’ as security again.”

They both laughed, and Placide, who was approaching, scowled. But before he reached the steps his instinctive sense of the courtesy due to a stranger had banished the look of ill humor. His bearing was so frank and graceful, and his face such a marvel of beauty, with its dark,