Part 11

The next day Christine came again, and although she was comforted by the fact that the baby still seemed better Noel thought he had never seen or imagined such absolute sadness as both her face and manner showed. The picture progressed in long spaces of absolute silence, while Christine sat as immovable as the sleeping child near by. It seemed to Noel, in spite of his inexperience, that the child lay more in a state of stupor than sleep, and that its prostration argued the very lowest degree of vitality, but Christine seemed satisfied when he was asleep and so Noel made no comment.

During the sitting that day he asked Christine if he would prove himself a nuisance to either her or her husband if he sometimes called in the evening. To the first part of the inquiry she replied that she would be glad to see him, and to the latter, with a sort of hopeless wonder, that Mr. Dallas would not mind.

Noel went once, and once only. The visit was too painful to himself, and he felt also to Christine, to be repeated. The hideous barrenness of the place seemed an outrage to her delicacy and made the refinement of her beauty seem cruelly out of place. But more than all, when Noel looked on the untidy negligence and brutal insensibility of the man who was at liberty to call her wife, and whom she acknowledged as husband, he felt it unbearable. He was even worse than he remembered him. Formerly he had, at least, dressed well and kept up the forms of civility. Noel could imagine that he was now glad to be rid of the trouble. He did not even care to be particular about his person since he was now in a position where that bother could be dispensed with.

As soon as Noel began to talk to Christine Dallas filled his pipe and went off to the table to play solitaire. Noel fancied that the smell of the rank tobacco, which was unimproved in quality, made the poor girl sick. It was a relief when Dallas got up after a while, and shoving the cards together in a heap left the room. Then Noel inquired for the baby. Somehow he always shrank from speaking of it before Dallas.

"He is asleep up-stairs. Eliza is with him: He is better," said Christine, "but the doctor says there is no certainty until the hot weather is over. Oh, it's selfish of me to want him to live," she added, with a sudden agitation in her voice, "but it isn't that; it isn't life I want for him--only to keep him with me--to be where he is. If I could--"

She broke off huskily, and Noel, out of pity for her, got up and walked to the other end of the little room. When he got back she had recovered, and said with a smile:

"I am out of patience with myself for being gloomy now. You will think me such a poor coward. The baby is better and I will try to be bright. I said in my prayers to God that if He would let my baby get better I would be happy, and ask for nothing else. But what do you think this is?" she added, with a change of tone, drawing something from her pocket and holding it hid in her closed hand.

"I can't imagine," said Noel, full of delight to see that look of interest and amusement on her face.

"A present for you from me! Isn't that funny? It isn't anything very valuable and perhaps you won't care for it, but I have a feeling that I want you to have it. It's the cross of the Legion of Honor, which belonged to my grandfather. My mother left it to me among some trinkets of hers, which have all been sold. Don't look sorry about it; you don't know how little it matters now! This I could never have sold, and besides it is worth very little really--but I felt I wanted you to have it. Will you let me give it to you?"

She opened her hand and held it out to him with the cross lying on the palm. Noel was deeply touched.

"I never really expected to be decorated," he said, "but there is no possible way in which a decoration could come to me that could give me such pride and pleasure as this. Take it? I should think so! When I used to dream of being a painter I thought perhaps I'd have a great picture in the Salon and get a decoration for it. But I assure you this is better."

"Oh, what pleasant things you say!" said Christine. "You make me feel quite happy," and she held out the cross for him to take.

"I want you to fasten it on," said Noel. "I mean always to wear it. Will you pin it here?"

He turned back his coat and Christine came close to him and complied with the utmost willingness. The pin was a little blunt or rusted and it took her several seconds to put it in and fasten it. Their faces were almost on a level, and Noel's eyes looked closer than they had ever done before at her youthful loveliness. Hers were bent in complete absorption upon her task.

When she had fastened the pin she drew backward, still holding open the coat that she might see the cross in its new position. All the time she never looked at Noel, but all the time he looked at her.

"Thank you," she said simply.

Noel seemed stricken with silence. His mind was confused, and he did not know what to say. And Christine, wondering that he did not speak, lifted her large eyes to his face and looked at him questioningly. Then Noel remembered himself, and in perfect recollectedness and self-possession he took her hands and kissed them, first one and then the other.

"You have made me your knight," he said. "Let me never forget it. I am a knight of the Legion of Honor. I shall carry this cross about me always to remind me of it. Thank you, and bless you, Christine."

Then he dropped her hands, and they sat down and fell to talking. For the first time in his recent intercourse with her she was able to speak of general subjects. There was a momentary lull in her anxiety about the baby, and in her release from that recent and heavy burden she felt a rebound from the more remote causes of unhappiness too. So they got into a talk that was easy and almost bright. They spoke together of foreign lands familiar to them both, of music and painting, and all the things from which her present life divided her so completely that, as Christine said presently, it was like recalling dreams. And then in the midst of it Dallas came in, with his slovenly dress and horrible pipe, and Christine, with an awful look of recollectedness, came back to reality. It was impossible to take this man into a talk like theirs, and Noel quickly said good-night.

IX.

The next day and the next Christine went to the studio, and the sittings passed in almost total silence. It had become more than ever impossible for them to speak to each other, and they both realized it. Then came a day on which Noel waited in vain for Christine. When morning and afternoon were passed and he got no tidings he could bear the suspense no longer, and went to the house to inquire. Old Eliza, the negro servant, opened the door for him and told him the baby was dying. His heart grew cold within him. What would Christine do? How could she bear it? He asked if the doctor had been, and was told he was now up-stairs. He inquired for Dallas. "Gone to walk," Eliza said with contempt, and then added that "He might as well be one place as another, as he didn't do no good nowhar."

Noel saw the doctor, an elderly, capable, decided man, who, as he soon found, took in the whole situation and sympathized with Christine as heartily as he excoriated her husband. Noel said he was an old friend of Christine's, who was anxious to do all that was possible for her, and had the satisfaction of seeing that he had inspired Dr. Belford with confidence in him. He soon saw that it was unnecessary to ask the good physician to see that her wants and those of the child were supplied, as his own sympathies were thoroughly enlisted, so he could only beg to be notified of anything he could possibly do, and go sadly away.

When Noel came, early next morning, a scant bit of black drapery, tied with a white ribbon, told him that the thing had happened which deprived Christine of all she loved on earth. The desire of her eyes was taken from her and her house was left unto her desolate.

Eliza opened the door, and he came inside the hall and asked her a few questions. The baby had died about midnight, the woman said. Dr. Belford had stayed until it was over. The child was now prepared for burial, the mother having done everything herself, seeming perfectly calm. She would not eat, however, and was lying on the bed by the baby. He did not need to inquire for the father, for at the end of the hall was the dining-room, where he could see Dallas, with his back turned, seated at the table, evidently making a hearty breakfast, the smell of which smote offensively the visitor's nostrils. Noel felt he must get away, and yet the thought of Christine, lying up-stairs alone by her little dead baby, seemed to pull him by his very heartstrings.

He put some money into Eliza's hand, telling her to use it as she thought necessary, and then went away. He next sought Dr. Belford and sent a message to Christine, which he felt would fall as coldly as upon the ear of a marble statue, and then he went to a florist's and sent her a great heap of pure white flowers, which he thought she might care to put about the baby. This done he felt helpless, impotent and miserable.

The next morning he went with Dr. Belford and helped to lower into the earth the treasure of Christine's heart. There were but four persons present, the mother, the clergyman, the physician and himself. Dallas had slipped from the house early in the morning, telling Eliza he would not be back, deliberately shirking the unpleasantness of the occasion. He had never shown any love for the child, but a funeral was, in itself, a painful thing, and he ran away from it. This, at least, was the explanation given by Dr. Belford. Noel felt that the kind old doctor was the being who could best help Christine now, since he had been with her through the worst of her trial. So it was he who sat beside Christine as they drove through the crowded city streets, with the little white coffin on the seat opposite. Noel went in another carriage with the clergyman, to whom he told something of Christine's history, begging him to go see her and try to give her comfort, which he promised to do. It seemed a bitter thing to him that both these men seemed to have some place and position beside Christine--and he none! He looked at her during the short service, which tortured his heart with pain for her, but behind her thick veil her face was quite invisible, and her figure was still and cold as marble. He longed unspeakably to try to comfort her, but he felt he could not take one step until she gave some sign that she wanted him. He knew that Dr. Belford had told her that he wished to speak with her as soon as she could bear it, and now he must wait--no matter how long--until she signified her wish to have him come. She had sent him a message of thanks by Dr. Belford, and said she would see him when she could. With that he had to be content. He felt it useless to deny the plain fact that grief had crowded every thought of him out of her heart now.

Every day he sent her flowers--although he felt assured that they all found their way to the cemetery--and every day he went to Dr. Belford to find out how she was. The report was always the same--calm, uncomplaining, hopeless!

He longed to feel that Christine thought of him with some degree of comfort, but there was absolutely no foundation for such a hope. He had always felt a certain impatient scorn of the unfortunate, and to him totally uninteresting baby, whom Christine had loved with such idolatry, but now he found himself formulating a passionate wish that he could get back the child's life for her at the sacrifice of his own. He almost felt that he could consent to it.