“A misfortune!” exclaimed the young man.  “What misfortune?  Maria?”

“Yes!  Maria!”

“An accident?—­An illness?”

Louise made a rapid gesture with her arm and head which signified:  “If it were only that!” With her mouth distorted by a bitter smile and with lowered eyes, talking confusedly, she said: 

“Monsieur Maurice Roger—­yes—­your friend Maurice!  A miserable wretch!—­he has deceived and ruined the unhappy child!  Oh! what infamy!—­and now—­now—­”

Her deathly pale face flushed and became purple to the roots of her hair.

“Now Maria will become a mother!”

At these words the poet gave a cry like some enraged beast; he reeled, and would have fallen had the table not been near.  He sat down on the edge of it, supporting himself with his hands, completely frozen as if from a great chill.  Louise, overcome with shame, sat in the armchair, hiding her face in her hands while great tears rolled down between the fingers of her ragged gloves.

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A ROMANCE OF YOUTH

By FRANCOIS COPPEE

BOOK 4.

CHAPTER XIV

Too late!

It had been more than three months since Maria and Maurice had met again.  One day the young man went to the Louvre to see his favorite pictures of the painters of the Eighteenth Century.  His attention was attracted by the beautiful hair of a young artist dressed in black, who was copying one of Rosalba’s portraits.  It was our pretty pastel artist whose wonderful locks disturbed all the daubers in the museum, and which made colorists out of Signol’s pupils themselves.  Maurice approached the copyist, and then both exclaimed at once: 

“Mademoiselle Maria!”

“Monsieur Maurice!”

She had recognized him so quickly and with such a charming smile, she had not, then, forgotten him?  When he used to visit Pere Gerard he had noticed that she was not displeased with him; but after such a long time, at first sight, to obtain such a greeting, such a delighted exclamation—­it was flattering!

The young man standing by her easel, with his hat off, so graceful and elegant in his well-cut garments, began to talk with her.  He spoke first, in becoming and proper terms, of her father’s death; inquired for her mother and sister, congratulated himself upon having been recognized thus, and then yielding to his bold custom, he added: 

“As to myself, I hesitated at first.  You have grown still more beautiful in two years.”