The whole night listened to the flute of Nectaire. Already the evening star was rising above the paling horizon.
There they sat; Zita with hands clasped about her knees, Arcade, his head leaning on his hand, his lips apart. Motionless they listened. A lark, which had awakened hard by in a sandy field, lured by these novel sounds, rose swiftly in the air, hovered a few seconds, then dropped at one swoop into the musician’s orchard. The neighbouring sparrows, forsaking the crannies of the mouldering walls, came and sat in a row on the window-ledge whence notes came welling forth that gave them more delight than oats or grains of barley. A jay, coming for the first time out of his wood, folded his sapphire wings on a leafless cherry tree. Beside the drain-head, a large black rat, glistening with the greasy water of the sewers, sitting on his hind legs, raised his short arms and slender fingers in amazement. A field-mouse, that dwelt in the orchard, was seated near him. Down from the tiles came the old tomcat, who retained the grey fur, the ringed tail, the powerful loins, the courage, and the pride of his ancestors. He pushed against the half-open door with his nose and approaching the flute-player with silent tread, sat gravely down, pricking his ears that had been torn in many a nocturnal combat; the grocer’s white cat followed him, sniffing the vibrant air and then, arching her back and closing her blue eyes, listened in ravishment. Mice, swarming in crowds from under the boards, surrounded them, and fearing neither tooth nor claw, sat motionless, their pink hands folded voluptuously on their bosoms. Spiders that had strayed far from their webs, with waving legs, gathered in a charmed circle on the ceiling. A small grey lizard, that had glided on to the doorstep, stayed there, fascinated, and, in the loft, the bat might have been seen hanging by her nails, head down, now half-awakened from her winter sleep, swaying to the rhythm of the marvellous flute.
XV
Wherein we see young Maurice bewailing the loss of his guardian angel, even in his mistress’s arms, and wherein we hear the Abbé Patouille reject as vain and illusory all notions of a new rebellion of the angels.
A fortnight had elapsed since the angel’s apparition in the flat. For the first time Gilberte arrived before Maurice at the rendezvous. Maurice was gloomy, Gilberte sulky. So far as they were concerned Nature had resumed her drab monotony. They eyed each other languidly, and kept glancing towards the angle between the wardrobe with the mirror and the window, where recently the pale shade of Arcade had taken shape, and where now the blue cretonne of the hangings was the only thing visible. Without giving him a name (it was unnecessary) Madame des Aubels asked:
“You have not seen him since?”
Slowly, sadly, Maurice turned his head from right to left, and from left to right.
“You look as if you missed him,” continued Madame des Aubels. “But come, confess that he gave you a terrible fright, and that you were shocked at his unconventionally.”
“Certainly he was unconventional,” said Maurice without any resentment.
“Tell me, Maurice, is it nothing to you now to be with me alone? … You need an angel to inspire you. That is sad, for a young man like you!”
Maurice appeared not to hear, and asked gravely:
“Gilberte, do you feel that your guardian angel is watching over you?”
“I, not at all. I have never thought of him, and yet I am not without religion. In the first place, people who have none are like animals. And then one cannot go straight without religion. It is impossible.”
“Exactly, that’s just it,” said Maurice, his eyes on the violet stripes of his flowerless pyjamas; “when one has one’s guardian angel one does not even think about him, and when one has lost him one feels very lonely.”
“So you miss this. …”
“Well, the fact is. …”
“Oh, yes, yes, you miss him. Well, my dear, the loss of such a guardian angel as that is no great matter. No, no! he is not worth much, that Arcade of yours. On that famous day, while you were out getting him some clothes, he was ever so long fastening my dress, and I certainly felt his hand. … Well, at any rate, don’t trust him.”
Maurice dreamily lit a cigarette. They spoke of the six days’ bicycle race at the winter velodrome, and of the aviation show at the motor exhibition at Brussels, without experiencing the slightest amusement. Then they tried lovemaking as a sort of convenient pastime, and succeeded in becoming moderately absorbed in it; but at the very moment when she might have been expected to play a part more in accordance with a mutual sentiment, she exclaimed with a sudden start:
“Good Heavens! Maurice, how stupid of you to tell me that my guardian angel can see me. You cannot imagine how uncomfortable the idea makes me.”
Maurice, somewhat taken aback, recalled, a little roughly, his mistress’s wandering thoughts.
She declared that her principles forbade her to think of playing a round game with angels.
Maurice was longing to see Arcade again and had no other thought. He reproached himself for suffering him to depart without discovering
