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Updated: June 21, 2025
Zilda looked at the wood pile, from which no one jumped now, with weary eyes. It had grown intolerable to her that now no one ever mentioned Gilby; she longed intensely to hear his name or to speak it. She dared not mention him gravely, soberly, because she was conscious of her secret which no one suspected. But it was open to her to revive the mimicry.
Gilby had taken his cigar from his mouth, and held it between two fingers of his right hand. Her countrymen commonly held their pipes between their thumb and finger. To Zilda, Gilby's method appeared astonishingly elegant, but she hardly seemed to observe it. 'You have a flat country here, said he, looking round at the dry summer fields; 'rather dull, isn't it? 'Oui, monsieur.
"The reading seems to overtax your strength," said the woman giggling. "Zilda has travelled a great deal, and maybe you have met her before." "I hardly think so," stammered Anselmo.
Zilda worked at the handles of the machine; she was very large and strong, all her attitudes were statuesque. The May day beamed on the flat spring landscape through which they were travelling; the beam found a perfect counterpart in the joy of Zilda's heart. So she brought Gilby safely to the hotel and installed him in the best room there. The sprain was a very bad one.
He gave the key to his sister afterwards, and they used the room as their own; but that day he locked himself in alone, and, hiding his face in the cushions of her chair, he wept as only a strong man can weep. Mam'selle Zilda Chaplot keeps the station hotel at St. Armand, in the French country. The hotel is like a wooden barn with doors and windows, not a very large barn either.
Zilda did not notice any of these things; she had only learned to observe two things in nature, both of which Gilby had pointed out to her the red or yellow rose of the winter sunset, the depth of colour in the petals of her flowers. Nature was to her like a language of which she had only been told the meaning of two words.
It was on the station platform that Zilda Chaplot came out in society, as the phrase might be. She was not a child, for when her father took the place she was twenty-four. There was red in her cheeks then, and the lashes of her eyes were long; her hair was not curled, for it was not the fashion, but brushed smoothly back from broad low brows. She was tall, and not at all thin.
"Come here, my little wild-cat," he said, drawing her to him and kissing her; "you are a good girl after all. I suppose you think this light is part yours, eh?" The girl nodded. "B'EN! You shall have your share, fun and all. You shall make the tea for us and bring us something to eat. Perhaps when Alma and 'Zilda fatigue themselves they will permit a few turns of the crank to you. Are you content?
Armand; he had been glad of the chance of doing that, of seeing Chaplot and his daughter and the others; but to be stopped at St. Armand a whole day he made exhibition of his anger, which Zilda took very meekly. Why had the affair not been telegraphed? Why were busy men like himself brought out of the city when they could not get on to do their work?
It did not distress Zilda that he should quarrel with her father's bill; she had no higher idea in character than that each should seek his own in all things; but when Gilby talked of giving her a present she shrank instinctively with an air of offence. This air of offence was the one betrayal of her affection which he could observe, and he did not gather very much of the truth from it.
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