This slaughterer of Turks was now content to be regarded as an amiable slaughterer of women. Twirling his fierce moustache, with a casual eye upon the young couple in front, he was looking round eagerly in search of his latest victim, Miss Mary Perpignani, while his mother breathed shortly on his arm, and kept muttering, “Poh! Poh! Poh! what a crush!” while she vigorously fanned and rubbed her sallow face with her handkerchief.
Above the foolish pair in front, Love’s star shone with a very gentle fulgence. Just a sense of delicious trouble, unmarred by any passionate impulses, stirred Rudolph. There was a delicate fragrance of homage in his shy and boyish fancy. It was a happiness, exquisite in its completeness and unexactingness, to be with Andromache, to listen to her voice and look quickly, with the tell-tale blood of fervour in his face, into her pretty eyes, his own shining and candid and content. Was there ever a sweeter, more innocent idyll? and the pity was that these two should not be allowed to run smoothly and trustingly into the shade of forest depths and live the life of nature, with no knowledge of the shabby compromises of civilisation and the more turbulent emotions of the heart.
He called her Mademoiselle Andromache, and with a look of shyest prayer had prevailed on her to call him sometimes Monsieur Rudolph. But the _Monsieur_ and _Mademoiselle_ tripped by with alarming facility; the tongue dwelt and faltered and whipped scarlet colour into each susceptible cheek upon the _Andromache_ and _Rudolph_. Flattering, foolish, happy creatures! If pulses never beat less innocently, and senses never stirred more rapturously, the period of loverhood would indeed be a spot of Arcadia upon the rough road of life.
“Does all this not make your head and eyes ache, Mademoiselle Andromache?” he asked.
“No,” said the Greek maid, untroubled by nerves, and smiled in healthy admiration. “Are not the bouquets pretty?”
“If you think them pretty, they must be pretty,” said Rudolph, striving loyally to see their beauty. “I am glad you like flowers.”
“Why?” asked Andromache, meeting his eyes consciously.
“Because there are such quantities of flowers about my home in Austria. It is a lovely place, Mademoiselle Andromache. Imagine a great forest, so silent and shadowy. Oh, if you could see it in the moonlight! The trees drop silver, and fairies seem to play among the branches. I wish I could show it to you, take you to see the haunted well, and show you my mother’s favourite walk. You would have loved my mother, dear Mademoiselle Andromache. She was so good, so sweet, so gracious. Oh, it was a bitter loss to me. I cannot accustom myself to it. Sometimes I wake up at night and fancy I hear her enter my room, and feel her soft kiss on my forehead--and it is dreary to know that it is only fancy.”