The Moonlit Way: A Novel

“My name is Thessalie Dunois. You mistake me for another.”

“No,” he said, in a low voice, “I am not mistaken.”

Her brown eyes seemed to plunge their clear regard into the depths of his very soul – not in recognition, but in watchful, dangerous defiance.

He began again, still stammering a trifle:

“ – In the morning, we were to – to meet – at eleven – near the fountain of Marie de Médicis – unless you do not care to remember – ”

At that her gaze altered swiftly, melted into the exquisite relief of recognition. Suspended breath, released, parted her blanched lips; her little guardian heart, relieved of fear, beat more freely.

“Are you Garry?”

“Yes.”

“I know you now,” she murmured. “You are Garret Barres, of the rue d’Eryx… You are Garry!” A smile already haunted her dark young eyes; colour was returning to lip and cheek. She drew a deep, noiseless breath.

The table where she sat continued to slip past him; the distance between them was widening. She had to turn her head a little to face him.

“You do remember me then, Nihla?”

The girl inclined her head a trifle. A smile curved her lips – lips now vivid but still a little tremulous from the shock of the encounter.

“May I join you at your table?”

She smiled, drew a deeper breath, looked down at the strawberry on the cloth, looked over her shoulder at him.

“You owe me an explanation,” he insisted, leaning forward to span the increasing distance between them.

“Do I?”

“Ask yourself.”

After a moment, still studying him, she nodded as 45 though the nod answered some silent question of her own:

“Yes, I owe you one.”

“Then may I join you?”

“My table is more prudent than I. It is running away from an explanation.” She fixed her eyes on her tightly clasped hands, as though to concentrate thought. He could see only the back of her head, white neck and lovely dark hair.

Her table was quite a distance away when she turned, leisurely, and looked back at him.

“May I come?” he asked.

She lifted her delicate brows in demure surprise.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, amiably.

The one-eyed man had never taken his eyes off them.

IV

DUSK

She had offered him her hand; he had bent over it, seated himself, and they smilingly exchanged the formal banalities of a pleasantly renewed acquaintance.

A waiter laid a cover for him. She continued to concern herself, leisurely, with her strawberries.

“When did you leave Paris?” she enquired.

“Nearly two years ago.”

“Before war was declared?”

“Yes, in June of that year.”

She looked up at him very seriously; but they both smiled as she said:

“It was a momentous month for you then – the month of June, 1914?”

“Very. A charming young girl broke my heart in 1914; and so I came home, a wreck – to recuperate.”

At that she laughed outright, glancing at his youthful, sunburnt face and lean, vigorous figure.

“When did you come over?” he asked curiously.

“I have been here longer than you have. In fact, I left France the day I last saw you.”

“The same day?”

“I started that very same day – shortly after sunrise. I crossed the Belgian frontier that night, and I sailed for New York the morning after. I landed here a week later, and I’ve been here ever since. That, monsieur, is my history.”

“You’ve been here in New York for two years!” he repeated in astonishment. “Have you really left the stage then? I supposed you had just arrived to fill an engagement here.”

“They gave me a try-out this afternoon.”

“You? A try-out!” he exclaimed, amazed.

She carelessly transfixed a berry with her fork:

“If I secure an engagement I shall be very glad to fill it … and my stomach, also. If I don’t secure one – well – charity or starvation confronts me.”

He smiled at her with easy incredulity.

“I had not heard that you were here!” he repeated. “I’ve read nothing at all about you in the papers – ”

“No … I am here incognito… I have taken my sister’s name. After all, your American public does not know me.”