At Fault by Kate Chopin Page A

withstand," delivering the time worn aphorism with the air and tone
of a pretty sage, giving utterance to an inspired truth.
    Melicent felt that she did not fully know Grégoire; that he had always
been more or less under restraint with her, and she was troubled by
something other than curiosity to get at the truth concerning him. One
day when she was arranging a vase of flowers at a table on the back
porch, Aunt Belindy, who was scouring knives at the same table, had
followed Grégoire with her glance, when he walked away after
exchanging a few words with Melicent.
    "God! but dats a diffunt man sence you come heah."
    "Different?" questioned the girl eagerly, and casting a quick sideward
look at Aunt Belindy.
    "Lord yas honey, 'f you warn't heah dat same Mista Grégor 'd be in
Centaville ev'y Sunday, a raisin' Cain. Humph—I knows 'im."
    Melicent would not permit herself to ask more, but picked up her vase
of flowers and walked with it into the house; her comprehension of
Grégoire in no wise advanced by the newly acquired knowledge that he
was liable to "raise Cain" during her absence—a proceeding which she
could not too hastily condemn, considering her imperfect apprehension
of what it might imply.
    Meanwhile she would not allow her doubts to interfere with the
kindness which she lavished on him, seeing that he loved her to
desperation. Was he not at this very moment looking up into her eyes,
and talking of his misery and her cruelty? turning his face downward
in her lap—as she knew to cry—for had she not already seen him lie
on the ground in an agony of tears, when she had told him he should
never kiss her again?
    And so they lingered in the woods, these two curious lovers, till the
shadows grew so deep about old McFarlane's grave that they passed it
by with hurried step and averted glance.

IX - Face to Face
*
    After a day of close and intense September heat, it had rained during
the night. And now the morning had followed chill and crisp, yet with
possibilities of a genial sunshine breaking through the mist that had
risen at dawn from the great sluggish river and spread itself through
the mazes of the city.
    The change was one to send invigorating thrills through the blood, and
to quicken the step; to make one like the push and jostle of the
multitude that thronged the streets; to make one in love with
intoxicating life, and impatient with the grudging dispensation that
had given to mankind no wings wherewith to fly.
    But with no reacting warmth in his heart, the change had only made
Hosmer shiver and draw his coat closer about his chest, as he pushed
his way through the hurrying crowd.
    The St. Louis Exposition was in progress with all its many allurements
that had been heralded for months through the journals of the State.
    Hence, the unusual press of people on the streets this bright
September morning. Home people, whose air of ownership to the
surroundings classified them at once, moving unobservantly about their
affairs. Women and children from the near and rich country towns, in
for the Exposition and their fall shopping; wearing gowns of ultra
fashionable tendencies; leaving in their toilets nothing to
expediency; taking no chances of so much as a ribbon or a loop set in
disaccordance with the book.
    There were whole families from across the bridge, hurrying towards the
Exposition. Fathers and mothers, babies and grandmothers, with baskets
of lunch and bundles of provisional necessities, in for the day.
    Nothing would escape their observation nor elude their criticism, from
the creations in color lining the walls of the art gallery, to the
most intricate mechanism of inventive genius in the basement. All
would pass inspection, with drawing of comparison between the present,
the past year and the "year before," likely in a nasal drawl with the
R's brought sharply out, leaving no doubt as to their utterance.
    The newly married couple walking serenely through the crowd, young,
smiling, up-country, hand-in-hand;