Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/178

 time and when she came by, looking down at the lighted candle in the pretty little gilt candle-stick she did not even glance into the dark room where the child stood bewildered. For the instant she was framed in the square of the open door, she was brilliantly painted on the darkness, all the bright colors of her fair hair, her shining eyes, her red lips, softly gleaming in the warm, golden light of the little flame. The picture was printed indelibly on the child's wide eyes sensitized by the darkness; and long after the sound of the gay little song had died away, long years after the sound of the light footstep was silent, Marise could see, hung on the blackness around her bed at night, the shining picture, golden-bright in the quivering, living flame of the candle, the dense waxy petals of the camellia against the vaporous blonde hair, the smiling curved lips, the velvet white of the slender bare neck and arms, the rich sheen of the mauve satin flowing about the quick, light feet.

She got into bed warmed, comforted. Nothing could be the matter if Maman was smiling so cheerfully. She fell asleep at once, desperately tired, giving up as an unanswerable and no longer very interesting riddle, the question of what was the trouble with Mme. Garnier's son.

But in the night, without knowing how, she found herself once more by the open window—she had been dreaming, she had got up to see about something in her dream—something about … why, there he was still on the bench, all huddled and stooped together now, his face hidden in both arms crossed on his knees. Perhaps he had dropped asleep there. Br-r-r-r! he would be cold when he woke up. How chilly it still was at night! Well, yes, it was evident that she had dreamed it about his ringing at the door. She plunged back under the covers, she heard the long sonorous hoot of a steamer going out to sea, and was asleep before it died away.

She overslept in the morning, so that Jeanne, when she came with the tray, ran to shake her and said she must hurry to dress or she would be late to school. Marise sprang up, thinking of nothing but the reprimand she risked, and flung