Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/25

 kissed when he came home, naturally and unaffectedly as an affectionate child. Now the rite was performed three times daily: when he left for his bureau, when he returned at night, just before she bade him "bonne nuit," and he saw the flicker of her little feet upon the stairs as she went up to bed.

Tonight she was in high spirits, for it was their "anniversary"; she had been '"Madame Voestone" a whole month. In honor of the occasion she had put on "her best—her very finest," and the result was ravishing.

Her bright fair hair was waved up from the neck and temples with curls massed high on top and filleted with violet ribbon in the Grecian mode which had swept Paris and all France with the revival of classicism. In her little ears were hung two beautifully matched cameos outlined in gold and seed-pearls and almost large as Spanish "pillar dollars." A necklace of antique matte gold hung round her throat and its pendant was a duplicate of her ear-ornaments. A bracelet of gold set with a fourth matched cameo was clasped about her left arm just above the elbow. Her gown of sheer white muslin would have been revelatory as a wisp of veiling if it had not been gathered in close knife-pleats running vertically from bosom to hem. It was cut with a round neck-line, low in front and back, with tiny puff-sleeves at the shoulders, fitted tightly at the bust, but flaring sharply from the high-set waist which was defined by a long, sweeping sash of violet ribbon tied at the back in a coquettish bow whose ends draped nearly to the floor. Her sandals were gilt leather, heelless as a ballet dancer's shoes, and laced with violet ribbons, and through the meshes of their silken lattice her white feet gleamed seductively.

The firelight played about them as they sat upon the sofa after dinner. Streaming out across the hearth it reddened walls and floor; shadows advanced and retreated as the ever-restless flames rose, wavered, and then flickered down again. Like sportive wavelets of a serene sea the glowing tide advanced across the blue tiles of the hearth, highlighting the satin house-pumps Mordecai was wearing, flashing on the golden soles and violet ribbons of Susette's little sandals.

"It has been pretty, this month, has it not, my Mardochée?" she asked in a small, almost voiceless whisper as she tucked one foot up under her and swung the other to and fro as if to tease the flickering firelight with the little white and gold and violet thing. Instinctively as a bird finds its nest her small hand stole into his big one. "It has been a garden filled with fragrant flowers; the memory of it will perfume all life hereafter. But yes, my Mardochée, although the blood-drinkers are raging through the land and the chopper takes the heads of all the good and brave and just who still remain, it is not hard to trust the future. There is no doubt of God's great goodness when I think of this time we have had together" She broke off with a little sigh, half of contentment, half of melancholy.

"Why do you sigh, Susette?"

"I did but think."

"Of what?"

"Of how sweet it must be to be truly wed to one like thee, my Mardochée."

Mordecai's breath came so fast that it nearly stifled him. A quick throbbing, half pain, half ecstasy, seemed beating with insistent hammer-rhythm in his breast.

"Susette," he whispered, and the effort it cost him to speak was almost