Title: To Tell You the Truth
Author: Merrick, Leonard, 1864-1939
Language: English
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- Cornell University Library



TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH

BY

LEONARD MERRICK


HODDER & STOUGHTON LIMITED

LONDON



CONTENTS

       I    MADEMOISELLE MA MÈRE
      II    ARIBAUD'S TWO WIVES
     III    THAT VILLAIN HER FATHER
      IV    THE STATUE
       V    THE CELEBRITY AT HOME
      VI    PICQ PLAYS THE HERO
     VII    A FLAT TO SPARE
    VIII    A PORTRAIT OF A COWARD
      IX    THE BOOM
       X    PILAR NARANJO
      XI    THE GIRL WHO WAS TIRED OF LOVE
     XII    IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1918
    XIII    A POT OF PANSIES
     XIV    FLOROMOND AND FRISONNETTE



I

MADEMOISELLE MA MÈRE


She was born in Chauville-le-Vieux. Her mother gave piano lessons at
the local Lycée de Jeunes Filles, and her father had been "professeur
de violon" at the little Conservatoire. Music was her destiny. As
a hollow-eyed, stunted child, who should have been romping in the
unfrequented park, she had been doomed to hours of piano practice in
the stuffy salon, where during eight months of the year a window was
never opened for longer than it took to shake out the rug. Her name was
Marie Lamande.

She had accepted her fate passively. If it had not been scales and
exercises that made a prisoner of her, she recognised that it would
have been fractions, or zoology. In France, schools actually educate,
but few children have a childhood. On the first day of a term, when the
wan girls reassemble, they sometimes ask one another--curious to hear
what novelty the "holidays" may have yielded, amid the home work--"Did
you have a little promenade during the _vacances_?"

Because its Lycée was widely known, English and American families came
to stay in Chauville--the English pupils discovering what it was to
be taught with enthusiasm--and Marie knew French girls who had been
initiated into the pleasures of tea-parties. Open-mouthed, she heard
that the extravagant anglaise or américaine must have spent at least
five or six francs on the cakes. But all the foreigners successively
grew tired of inviting French children whose astonished mothers sent
them trooping as often as they were asked, and, in no case, gave an
invitation in return, and Marie herself never had the good luck to be
asked.

Like her parents, she had been intended for the groove of tuition, and
in due course tuition became her lot. But she was a gifted pianist, and
ambitious; she dreamed of glory. Some years after she had been left
alone, when her age was twenty-seven, she dared to escape from the
melancholy town that she had grown to execrate. A slight little woman,
without influence or knowledge of life, she aspired to conquer Paris.
She attacked it with a sum sufficient to keep her for twelve months.

Her arrival at once frightened and enraptured her. In Chauville, at
eight o'clock in the evening, a few of the shopkeepers had sat before
their doorways, in the dark, a while; at nine, their crude streets
were as vacant as the boulevards of the professional and independent
classes, whose covert homes signified, even in the daytime, VISITORS
WILL BE PROSECUTED. Behind the shutters of long avenues were over sixty
thousand persons--most of them heroically hard-working--of a race
that the pleasure-seeking English called "frivolous," content with
no semblance of entertainment but the ill-patronised performances
provided by a gloomy theatre, which was unbarred on only two days in
the week. Paris, spirited and sparkling, in the tourist regions, took
her breath away. Music called to her imperiously. She sat, squeezed
among crowds, at the recitals of celebrities; and came out prayerful,
to wonder: "Will crowds ever applaud _me_?" But after the first few
days she reduced her expenses, and her allowance for concert-going was
strict.

She found a lodging now in the rue Honoré-Chevalier, and sought
engagements for Soirées d'Art and Matinées Artistiques, writing to many
people who made no reply, and crossing the bridge to appeal in person
to many others, who were inaccessible, or rude.

Among the few letters of introduction that she had brought from
Chauville, one served its purpose. Madame Herbelin, the Directrice of
the Lycée, always kindly disposed towards her, had recommended her to
an acquaintance as a teacher. Thanks to this, she earned five francs
each Thursday by a lesson.

When nine alarming weeks had slipped away she gained an interview with
a fat man who had much knowledge, and who was interested in hearing
himself talk. He said to her:

"Mademoiselle, it is a question of finances. To rise in the musical
world you must give concerts, and to give concerts you must have money.
Also, you must have the goodwill of pupils in a position to collect
an audience for you, otherwise your concerts will be a heavier loss
still. Further, you must have the usual paragraphs and critiques:
'Triumph! Triumph! What genius is possessed by this divine artist,
whose enchanting gifts revolutionise Paris! Mademoiselle Lamande
is, without question, the virtuosa the most _spirituelle_, the most
_troublante_ of our epoch.' These things do not cost a great deal in
the Paris newspapers, but, naturally, they have to be paid for."

She told him: "I am a poor woman, and the only pupil that I have here
is a child in Montparnasse."

The fat man, groaning comically, volunteered to "see what he could do."

He forgot her after five minutes.

Practising, in the feeble lamplight of the attic, she used to wait,
through the long evenings, for the postman and news that never came.
"For me?" she would call over the banisters. "Nothing, mademoiselle!"
Then, back to the hired Pleyel, that barely left space for her to wash.
Inexorable technique, cascades of brilliance, while her heart was
breaking.

After she shut the piano, the dim light looked dimmer. The narrow
street was silent. Only, in the distance sometimes, was the jog-trot of
a cab-horse and the minor jangle of its bell.

Her siege of Paris made no progress.

Companionship came to her when ten months had gone. A young widow
drifted to the house, and now and then, on the stairs, they met. One
day they found themselves seated at the same table, in a little
crémerie close by, and over their oeufs-sur-le-plat they talked. As
they walked home together, the widow said:

"I always leave my door open to hear you play."

The answer was, "Won't you come into my room instead?"

Madame Branthonne was a gentlewoman, employed in the Bernstein School
of Languages. She was so free-handed with her sous, so generous in
the matter of brioche and chocolate, that Marie thought she must be
comparatively rich. But madame Branthonne was not rich; and when Marie
knew her well it transpired that she remitted every month, out of her
slender salary, for the maintenance of a baby son in Amiens.

"How you must miss him! How old is he?"

"Only eleven weeks. Miss him? Mon Dieu! But I had to leave him, or we
should both have starved; if I had brought him with me, who would have
looked after him all day while I was out? Besides, in this work, there
is no telling how long one may remain in any city--I might be packed
off to some other branch of the concern to-morrow."

"Really?"

"Oh yes; one never knows. Last week one of oar professors was sent at
a day's notice to Russia. What a life! Of course, one need not consent
to go, but it is never prudent to refuse. You used to make me cry in
there for my baby, when you played the piano. The poor little soul is
called 'Paul,' after his father; he is with a person who used to be
my servant; she is married now, and has a little business, a dairy. I
know she is good to him, but imagine how I suffer--in less than a year
I have lost my husband and my child. Alors, vrai! what an egotist I am!
How go your own affairs? Still no luck?"

In the Garden of the Luxembourg on Sundays, the two lonely women
sauntered under the chestnut-trees and talked of their sorrows and
their hopes. The hopes of the widow were centred upon the lotteries _de
Bienfaisance_, which had lured a louis from her time and again. She was
emerging from a period of enforced discretion, and she asked: "What do
you say to our buying a ticket between us?"

The present lottery had neared its end; only one drawing remained, and
the price of tickets was accordingly much reduced. The friends bought
their microscopic chance for five francs each.

The prizes that were dangled varied between a mite and a fortune; and
now, in the murky lamplight of the garret, the pianist saw visions.
Rebuffed, intimidated, she had suddenly a prospect; chimerical as the
prospect was, she might gain the means to buy a hearing for her art!

For the woman seeking recognition, opportunity. For the woman divided
from her child, a home. Every night they spoke of it. Often while the
lamp burnt low, and a horse-bell jangled sadly, they laughed together
in a castle-in-the-air.

But those brats from the _Assistance publique_, who blindly dispensed
destinies at the drawing, dipped their red hands upon the wrong numbers.

"As usual! I am sorry I proposed it to you. It is an imbecility to
waste one's earnings in such a fashion--one might as well toss money in
the Seine. Well, I have had enough! I have finished. I am determined
never to gamble any more," cried madame Branthonne, who had made the
same resolve a dozen times.

Marie said less. But her disappointment was black; it was only now that
she knew how vivid had been her hope. And in the meanwhile her little
hoard had dwindled terribly, and she was seeking other pupils.

"What if you get them--you will be no nearer to renown? In Chauville
you have a living waiting for you--why wear out shoe-leather to find
bread in Paris? Poverty in Paris is no sweeter than poverty elsewhere."

"If I go back to Chauville, it means the end," she answered. "I shall
never have anything to look forward to there--never, to the day of my
death. Year after year I shall sit teaching exercises and little pieces
to schoolgirls who will never play. The girls will escape, and marry,
but _I_ shall sit teaching the same exercises and little pieces to
their children. Here, if I can hold out, if only I can hold out long
enough, I may batter my way up. I want to get on--I've a right to get
on. You don't suppose that no one has ever made a career who couldn't
pay for it?"

"No," sighed her confidante; "I don't suppose it's so bad as that--men
do help one sometimes." But in her heart she felt, "You aren't the kind
of woman that men do things for."

And, to a stranger, even pupils at five francs an hour proved hard to
find. A pianist of talent--and she couldn't earn a living in Paris,
even by elementary lessons. It was one of those cases which the
uninitiated call "improbable," and which are happening all the time.

Yet it fell to madame Branthonne to quit Paris first. When Marie
Lamande could no longer sleep at night, or slept only to see the
desolation of Chauville in her dreams, the teacher of French was
required to go to one of the London branches of the school. It occurred
abruptly; the news and the good-bye were almost simultaneous.

A new proclamation of millions to be won, aggrandised "_par arrêté
ministériel_," was blazoned across the pages of the newspapers; and, on
impulse, the woman who was "determined never to gamble any more" left a
louis with the other, to buy a ticket for her.

"You know you can't spare it," urged Marie. "I wouldn't, if I were you!"

Momentarily the widow hesitated; and then she gave a shrug.

"Oh, of course, I'm an idiot," she exclaimed. "But what else have I got
to hope for? Yes, get it and send it to me!"

Early in the journey she vacillated again. But her instructions were
not revoked, because soon afterwards no more than a third of the train
remained on the rails, and madame Branthonne was among the victims
killed.

Her aghast friend heard of the catastrophe twelve hours later than
multitudes for whom it had no personal interest. Dazed, she wondered
whether the ex-servant in Amiens would see the name of "Branthonne" in
the list of the dead, and what would become of the baby now. She had a
confused notion that she ought to communicate with the woman, but she
was ignorant of the address. She went hysterically to the head office
of the school, where the manager undertook to make inquiries at the
Amiens branch.

When the sickness of horror passed, her thoughts reverted to the ticket
that she had been enjoined to buy; and on the way to fulfil the duty,
it was as if the dead woman, as she had seen her last, with her hat and
coat on, were close to her again. "What name?" inquired the clerk in
the big bank. "Lamande," she answered--and asked herself afterwards if
it would have been more businesslike to say "Branthonne." But it didn't
seem to matter. The point that perplexed her was, in whose charge ought
the ticket to be? It belonged to the baby now, and its possibilities
extended through the year. "Série No. 78, Billet No. 19,333." Ought she
to post it confidingly to the dairy-keeper when she learnt where she
lived?

The question persisted, as she tramped the streets despondently--as
daily she drew nearer to defeat. She had discontinued to hire a piano.
Everywhere she was humbled with the same reply, banished with the same
gestures, maddened by the same callous unconcern. Paris was brutal! She
dropped in her purse the last louis that protracted hope. When this
was gone, there would be left nothing but the price of her journey to
Chauville and despair.

In the first drawing of the lottery, a few days later, the ticket won a
prize of twelve thousand francs.

In a crumpled copy of _Le Petit Journal_, in the crémerie, she read
of the drawing, by chance--not having remembered for what date it was
announced. And she took a copy of the paper home with her--having
forgotten the number of the ticket that she had bought. And when the
revelation came to her, there was, blent with her thanksgiving for the
child's sake, the human, bitter consciousness that, had she rashly
suggested it, half the chance might have been hers. She might have
stood here to-night on the threshold of success. So simple it would
have been! The knowledge was a taunt. She felt that Fate had robbed and
derided her; she felt poor, as she had never felt poor before....

The thought floated across her mind impersonally. It brought no
shock, because it did not present itself as a temptation, even the
faintest; it was just as if she had been recognising what somebody in
a tale might do. Without purpose, without questioning why the thought
fascinated her, she sat seeing how easily she could steal the money.

The ticket was on the table; there was nothing to show that she hadn't
any right to it--she had merely to claim the prize. There would be a
fort-night's delay, at least, before she got it. Well, she could eke
out the sum that was put by for her fare. She imagined her sensations
on the morning that she walked from the bank with notes for twelve
thousand francs in her pocket. If her pocket were picked! Yielding even
more intently to the thought, she perceived that the proper course
would be to open an account before she left.... It wouldn't be twelve
thousand francs--a substantial sum would be deducted for _les droits
des pauvres._ But it would be enough--the price of power! The thought
leapt further. She saw herself, gorgeously gowned, on a platform--heard
the very piece that she was playing, the plaudits that came thundering;
she trembled in the emotion of a visionary fame.

Recalling her, there sounded, in the dark emptiness again, the minor
jangle of a cab-horse bell.

Then she understood. It had been no idle supposition, the thought that
mastered her. "_O divine Vierge Marie_!" she wailed on her knees, and
knew that she wanted to be a thief.

Through the night, through the morrow, through every waking moment,
a voice was saying to her: "You _won't_ be robbing a child; you can
do for it all that She did--every month, just the same thing. Long
before the child is old enough to need so large a sum you will be in a
position to give it to him. What will he have lost? Nothing. You are
terrified by the semblance of a sin; it is not a sin really. Dare it,
dare it, be bold!"

Nothing could quell the voice. It was whispering while she prayed. And
the crashing of orchestras could not drown it, when she fled to music
for relief.

She learnt that the woman in Amiens was called Gaillard, and had a
shop in the rue Puteaux. But now she shrank from writing to her--she
didn't know how she meant to act. Once, in desperation, she did begin a
letter, an avowal of the prize that had been drawn; but she hesitated
again.

There was an evening when, with steps that wavered, like a woman
enfeebled by illness, she packed her things to return to Chauville....
She sat wide-eyed, staring at the trunk.

When she had dragged the things frantically out, she wrote to Amiens,
making herself responsible for the monthly payments. "All that his
mother did _I_ will do!" she wrote, feeling less criminal for the
phrase. And then one morning, tortured, she caught the express to the
town to see that all was well. The place was small and poor; and though
the baby looked well cared for, and the young woman and her husband
seemed kind, the visit was horrible to her. Next day she spent some of
the stolen money on a baby's bonnet and pelisse. And as the quality of
the gift suggested means, she received, before the date for her second
remittance, a scrawl declaring that the cost of provisions had risen
dreadfully, and asking for twenty francs a month more.

"RÉCITAL DONNÉ PAR MADEMOISELLE MARIE LAMANDE." A blue-and-white
poster, with her name staring Paris in the face. The time came when
she saw one on a wall, and stopped, thrilling at it in the rain. A week
afterwards she saw one on a wall again, and passed it with a sigh,
remembering the half-empty salle, and the cheques that she had drawn.

"Patience, mademoiselle, patience. An artist does not arrive in a
day; one must persevere." There were plenty of persons to give her
encouragement now that it might be advantageous to them.

But the expense of her début was a warning, and she proceeded slowly.
Though they made her feel very shy and cowardly, she did not succumb to
the arguments of vehement people who offered "opportunities the most
exceptional" at a big price, and whose attitudes of amazement implied
that she must be brainless to decline. She did not waste money in
bettering her abode. She did not, when she had given a recital again,
continue to imagine that the prize had provided a sum abundant for her
purpose.

The knowledge obsessed her that she owed this money, that one day she
was to repay it. For a year she told herself, "The road is harder than
I thought, but I shall reach the end of it in time!" During the second
year she struggled in a panic, while the money was melting, melting
without result.

To adventure a concert meant such wearisome, such overwhelming
preparation. And within a week it was as if it had never been--she
was again forgotten. But she saw a little chorus-girl, who had done
something more than ordinarily immodest, launch herself into celebrity
in a night.

At last, when she realised that she had wrecked her peace of mind for
nothing, when to cross the bridge was to eye the river longingly, she
knew that she wasn't free to find oblivion like that. Restitution to
the child would be impossible, but it was her destiny to support him.
She wrote to madame Herbelin, in Chauville, appealing for influence
to regain the footing that she had kicked away. Her bent face was wet
and ugly as she detailed the story of her failure; she foresaw the
greetings, tactful, but galling, of acquaintances, the half-veiled
satisfaction of other music-mistresses in the town.

The reply that reached her made it evident that to recover the position
would be a slow process. And her means to wait were limited.

Hitherto the acknowledgments from Amiens had varied but slightly:
"The remittance had come; the baby was well," or "the baby had had
some infantile ailment, and was better." Now, a partially illegible
letter informed her suddenly that the little business was to be given
up. Circumstances compelled the woman to take a situation again, and
she could not keep the orphan in her care. It was explained that
"Mademoiselle should arrange to remove him in a month's time."

Already stricken, she was stupefied by this news. It seemed to her the
last blow that could be dealt. What was to be done? She marvelled that
she had not contemplated the contingency. She had not contemplated
it--at most, she had given it a passing glance. She had questioned,
agonised, whether she could manage to maintain the payments regularly;
she had asked herself what lay before her when the child was older and
his needs increased; she had wondered, conscience-racked, how she was
to bear her life; but for this new responsibility, hurled on her when
she was broken, she had been unprepared.

"Remove him?" To what? She wasn't remaining in Paris; was she blindly
to answer some advertisement before she left and leave a baby behind
her here, helpless in hands that might misuse him? She shuddered. No;
now that he would be at the mercy of a stranger, the place must be near
enough for her to visit it--often and unexpectedly. She must find a
place near Chauville.

But could she do it? However secretly she arranged, wasn't it sure to
be known? What was she to say? It was a misfortune that she had written
to madame Herbelin too fully to be able to assert now that she had
married. What was she to say? And who would credit what she said?

Hourly, the craven in her faltered that there were hundreds of honest
homes in Paris where he would be gently treated, where he would be as
safe as he had been in Amiens. And always her better self cried out:
"But you'd desert him without knowing that the home you had found was
one of them!"

For three weeks she cowered at the crossways. She did not love the
little child that she had wronged, as she bore him back with her to
Chauville. The journey was long, and he clung to her, whimpering, and
she caressed him, white-faced and abject; but there was no love for him
in her heart. The dusk, when they arrived, was welcome. She led him
down the station steps, her head sunk low. In the street he cried to
be carried, and she picked him up--submissive to her burden. She had
had to sacrifice her reputation, or the child--and mademoiselle Lamande
returned to her native town with a baby in her arms.

She had booked to the Gare du Marché, the station in the poorest
quarter. A porter followed, trundling the luggage over the cobbles.
In a narrow bed, under a skylight, the child and anxiety allowed her
little sleep.

Before she could begin her search for work, it was imperative that
she should find someone to shelter him, if only during the day; and
in the morning she questioned a servant who was sweeping the stairs.
The girl looked as if she had been picked from a dust-bin, and clothed
from a rag-bag, but, compared with English girls of her class, she had
brilliant intelligence. She thought it probable that the woman at the
épicerie across the road might be accommodating.

The woman at the épicerie was unable to arrange, but she suggested a
concierge of her acquaintance "là bas." "Là bas" proved to be remote.
Chauville had not changed. As of old, the door of the Église Ste.
Clothilde was lost in its vast frame of funeral black; as of old,
the insistent bell was dinning for the dead. The population was
still concealed, except where a cortege of priests, and acolytes, and
mourners wound their slow way with another coffin to the cemetery,
Chauville's most animated spot.

As a makeshift, the concierge sufficed.

To gain an interview with madame Herbelin strained patience. But after
the applicant had sat for a long while, with her feet on the sawdust
of the salle d'attente, where an officer, and a marquise drooped
resignedly, madame la Directrice told her: "It is a sad pity that you
left the town." Marie could not remember that the busy woman said
anything more valuable.

There was, however, another occasion. This time the lady said:
"Mademoiselle, I knew you when you were a little girl, and I knew your
parents, and I have regretted, more than you may suppose, that it was
not in my power to offer you an appointment at the Lycée, in your
emergency. But I have recently heard something about you that is very
grave--something that I trust is not true."

"Madame," said Marie, trembling, "I can guess what you have heard,
and it is _not_ true. Only this is true--I have placed a child with a
concierge in the rue Lecomte and go to see it there. It is the orphan
of a woman who was my friend in Paris, a widow--we lived together."

Madame Herbelin did not speak.

"Madame Branthonne was killed in a railway accident, going to England,"
Marie went on; "she was a teacher in the Bernstein School. Her baby
had been left in Amiens, with a woman called Gaillard. A few weeks
ago the woman wrote to me that she was going away, and was unable to
keep the child any longer. I couldn't abandon it to the _Assistance
publique_."

"Where is she now, this madame Gaillard?" inquired the Directrice
coldly.

"I do not know," said Marie. And then, recognising the lameness of the
reply, she burst forth into a torrent of details to corroborate the
story.

Her voice, more than the details, carried conviction to the listener.
After a long pause she said:

"Mademoiselle, I believe you have done a generous thing." The thief
winced. "But it was an imprudent thing, a thing that you could not
afford to do. I do not speak of your intention to maintain the
child--may le bon Dieu aid you in the endeavour! But you did wrong to
bring it to Chauville. You should not expose yourself to calumny. I
counsel you most earnestly to place the child somewhere else without
delay."

"Madame, it is my duty to have him under my own eyes," she urged.
"Apart from me, he might be starved, beaten, corrupted--my friend's boy
might be reared as an apache. How could I know? I should risk it all.
It would be inhuman of me."

"I think you over-estimate the dangers," sighed madame Herbelin. "In
fine, if you put the boy away from you, it is possible he may suffer.
But if you keep him near you, it is certain _you_ will suffer. I cannot
say more."

"_I_ must suffer," answered Marie.

A permanent home for him, not far from the rue Lecomte, was found at a
bonneterie, whose humble little window contained Communion caps, and
the announcement "Piqures à la Machine."

To have had him in her lodging would have cost her less. But this child
that dishonoured her must be covert from the jeunes filles that she
hoped would come there; and if she had to give lessons out, she could
not leave him there alone.

She did have to give lessons out. It was a descent for her here to go
to the pupils' houses, but she was compelled to do it. And something
bitterer--she was compelled to accept a lowered fee, and affect to be
unconscious why a reduction was proposed. To obtain the services of a
"belle musicienne" for a trifle, there were a few mothers who engaged
her, and replied to questioning relatives that she was a "slandered
woman." But to her they did not say that she was slandered, and their
hard eyes were an insult.

She gave a lesson twice a week for twenty francs a month now,
mademoiselle Marie Lamande, who had advertised recitals in Paris, and
she went short of food, to meet the charges at the bonneterie. The boy
seemed to be amply nourished, and the remembrance sustained her on the
days when she was dinnerless.

God! for a chance to get away, to be free of this place, where it was
an ordeal to tread the streets. When she could afford to buy a postage
stamp she applied for salaried work in some distant school. Once
it looked as if the child were not to live; and as she sat, obeying
orders, through one endless night, she knew, before she fainted from
exhaustion, that if he died, her own escape from Chauville would be
made by the same road.

But he recovered--thanks partially to her--and her duty still had to be
done.

He recovered, and, as time passed, began to talk like other children
on the doorsteps. She recalled the refinement of his mother, and the
little child in a black blouse, shrilling kitchen French, avenged
himself unknowingly. "As often as we ever meet, when the boy I robbed
is a poor, big, common man," she thought, "every note of his voice will
be a chastisement!"

Before she accomplished her release, she bore in Chauville-le-Vieux a
three-years' martyrdom.

Madame Herbelin had consented to testify to her abilities, and she went
far away, to a school at Ivry-St.-Hilaire. She had pleaded that, in the
letter of recommendation, she might be referred to as "madame" Lamande,
but this entreaty the Directrice would not grant.

"Mademoiselle," she said, "I cannot do it for you; and if you are wise,
there is no need. Remember what I told you when you returned, and be
guided by me this time. Do not repeat there the blunder that you made
here. Leave the child where he is; you have tested the person and you
know she is honest. Occasionally, once a year, you can afford to come
and see him. If you take him with you, you will not gain much by your
removal. Of course, at Ivry-St.-Hilaire your parentage is unknown and
there is nothing to hinder you from inventing a relationship; but it
isn't worth the trouble--believe me, you would be suspected just the
same. Make the most of this opportunity; go unencumbered--do not live
your whole life in shadow for the sake of an ideal."

But her conscience would not allow her to see him only once a year, nor
to leave him to play on the doorstep, and attend the École Communale.
In view of a constant salary, she already foresaw herself alleviating
his plight. She was resigned to live her life in shadow, that she might
yield a little sunshine to him.

So, when she had sacrificed herself again, madame la Directrice
thought: "She is strangely devoted to the child. I wonder if I was
wrong to befriend her--perhaps she is a bad woman, after all!"

She did not venture to take the boy with her, however. She was more
than three months at Ivry before her furtive arrangements for him were
concluded. Then she placed him with priests twenty miles distant from
her, in the Etablissement des Frères Eudoxie at Maison-Verte. Small as
the annual charges were, they were vast in relation to her salary. Till
she succeeded, by slow degrees, in obtaining a few private pupils, her
self-denial was severe.

But the little chap was in better hands now. And the woman had procured
a respite from disdain. A tinge of colour crept back into her cheeks,
and she faced the world less fearfully. By and by, when she could
afford the fare, she went to the institution sometimes, on a Sunday,
and walked with him in the cour, and noted that gradually his speech
improved. As she could afford the fare but seldom, the intervals were
long.

Paul looked forward to her rare visits. Some of the boys had visitors
more frequently than he, pale women who came to walk beside them in
the cour; and the boastful shout of "Ma mère!" was often humiliating
to Paul. He had been taught to call her "mademoiselle," but one
Sunday, the child, in a triumphant cry, found his own name for her:
"_Mademoiselle ma mère est venue!_"

After that, he called her always "Mademoiselle ma mère"; and, divining
something of the little wistful heart, mademoiselle did not reprove him.

At Ivry-St.-Hilaire a thing strange and bewildering happened. For
the first time in her life a man sought her society; for the first
time in her life she was happier for talking to a man. Two moments
were prodigious to her--a moment after she had heard herself laughing
merrily; a moment when she realised why she had just plucked out a grey
hair.

When they were alone together one day the man said to her:

"Now that I have made a practice in the town at last, I am rooted
here--and Ivry isn't amusing. If a woman were to marry me she would
have to live here always. I tell you this because I love you."

It was as if God had wrought another miracle. "I can't understand it,"
she whispered truly.

Then the man laughed and took her in his arms, and it seemed to her
that she had never known what it was to be tired.

When he let her go and she came back to the world, her sin was staring
at her. And now the voice that decoyed her before was clamouring: "If
you degrade yourself in his sight you'll lose him."

Her lover appeared to her no less a hero because, under his imposing
presence, he was a cur, and the thing that she feared would revolt him
was her dishonesty.

Not on that day, nor on the next, but after many resolutions to do
right had melted into terrors, she forced him to listen; and it seemed
to her that she was dying while she spoke.

"I stole," she moaned, her face covered.

"Pauvrette!" he exclaimed tenderly.

When she dared to look, he was smiling. The relief and gratitude in her
soul were so infinite that she wanted to kneel at his feet.

But when she sobbed out the story of her later struggles and told him
how she was devoting her life to the child, his brow grew dark.

"That, of course, would have to be changed," he said.

"Changed?" she stammered.

"Obviously, best beloved. One must consider public opinion. These
journeys to Maison-Verte are mad; they must cease. You have not
been fair to yourself; and now, more than ever, you need to reflect
that----"

"But," she broke in, frightened, "you don't understand. It is
not a mere question of my going to Maison-Verte; he will not be
there always--he will grow up, and his future will be my care. My
responsibility goes on. Oh, I know--you need not tell me--that you have
thoroughly the right to refuse, but--but I have no right to alter.
Since I have seen that I could never hope to give back what I took, I
have seen that he was my charge for life."

"Mon Dieu!" he said, "you exaggerate quixotically. To give back what
you took? Remember what you have already done!"

"Counted in francs," she pleaded, "I have done very little. It has been
difficult to do, that's all."

Presently, when he perceived that, on this one point, the little weak
woman was inflexible, the man made a beautiful speech, declaring that
she was worth more than the opinion of Ivry-St.-Hilaire, and of all
France. He said that nothing mattered to him but their "divine love."
He looked more heroic still, and his eyes were moist with the nobility
of the sentiments that he was delivering.

But as he sat in the principal café of the town by and by, among the
stacks of swords in the corners, and the elite of the military and
civil circles, clearing their throats vociferously on to the floor, he
knew that a few days hence he meant to deliver a second lie about the
"supplications of his family and his duty as a son." Had her debt been
paid, he would have held her absolved from yielding so much as another
thought to the boy, and he could have afforded to pay the debt, but
it did not even enter his mind to commit such a madness. Yet, in his
fashion, he loved her. The "chivalry" of offering marriage to a woman
without a _dot_ had proved it.

It would have been kinder to her not to leave her in a fool's paradise;
she was to suffer more intensely because of that.

"Some of the facts, sufficient to explain the position, I have confided
to my mother," he told her. "She is very old, and the honour of the
family is very dear to her. I entreat you, in her name. The boy shall
remain in this institution, or be placed in some other. They will teach
him a trade. When the time comes for him to earn his living he will be
no worse off than the other _gosses_ there. Be guided by me. I assure
you, you are morbidly sensitive. There is no reason why you should ever
meet him again. My adored one, our happiness is in your hands. Give the
child up!"

"I cannot," she repeated hopelessly.

And then, all of a sudden, the imposing presence vanished and she saw
the puny man--more clearly than he had ever seen himself.

"It begins to be plain why you 'cannot,'" he hissed. "Zut, tell your
yarn about your 'theft' to somebody greener. For _me_ it's too thin!...
But why should we part, ducky? The matter could be arranged."

When he had demonstrated his intelligence in this way, without
advantage, the man went down the garden path, out of her life--and for
an hour she sat sightless, and ageing years. The birds in the garden
were making a cruel noise. She felt that she had grown too old during
the afternoon to bear the shrillness of the birds. When was it that she
had had the arrogance to pull out a grey hair?

       *       *       *       *       *

Her love-story was over; but the drear routine continued--the thrift,
the drudgery, the clandestine journeys to the boy. If, when she saw him
next, he felt that she was colder to him, she did not mean to be so.
Never had she striven quite so wearily to be tender.

It was insensibly that she ceased to recall him as a burden. Had Time's
touches been more swift she would have marvelled at the mystery of the
thing. But the weight of life was lifted very slowly, and the burden
bid fair to be consoling before she realised that the load was less.

As the months wore by, and term succeeded term, the boy evoked an
interest in the loneliness. Duty no longer took her to him--it was
affection; to amuse him now was not a task--their playtime had
become her single pleasure. From this child, the woman who had had
no childhood, captured gleams of youth--the virgin who was for ever
celibate, caught glimpses of maternity. "In the _vacances_, Paul,
I'll come and stay at Maison-Verte," she used to say, "and we'll have
picnics in the park!" When the _trimestre_ was over and she studied his
report, her smile was proud. Once when she went, he rushed to meet her
with a prize. "Mademoiselle ma mère, look, look!" he halloed. And the
virgin's arms were flung about him and she hugged him like a mother.

As a mother she marked his progress, year by year; as a mother,
mourning his barren prospects and craving to advance them, she beat her
breast that she had made him penniless. It was as a mother that, by
parsimonies, protracted and implacable, she garnered the means at last
to better his condition. By this time her hair was all grey, and the
schoolboy's voice was breaking.

On the day that she was strong enough, she meant to confess to him and
see his love turn to contempt. But the day when she was strong enough
wouldn't come. When he was sixteen she had said: "I shall tell him in a
year from now!" When he was seventeen she had wept: "God couldn't mind
his loving me for a year more!"

"Mademoiselle," he would say--for he was a young man and had dropped
the other name--"I don't know why you have been so good to me." And she
would answer: "Your mother and I were friends, dearest." Only that.

"You work too hard," he would declare, "ever so much too hard; you're
always tired. You know, you weren't ambitious enough--that was your
great mistake. You shouldn't have gone in for teaching; you ought to
have played at concerts--you might have been no end of a swell. Play
something to me now, will you? What used my mother to say about your
playing?"

"She said once that it made her cry for her baby, Paul. What do _you_
think of when I play?"

But he was shy of admitting what he thought of, because he thought of
noble deeds, and his ideal woman, and of the ecstasy it would be to see
his name on the cover of a book--and he was doomed to be a clerk.

Yet when the clerk chafed in his bonds, and the conceit of authorship
was too mighty to be bridled, it was to her that he first revealed a
manuscript. It was she, trembling, who was his first critic. "Your
good women are all perfect," she told him, "and your bad women have
never a good impulse. We aren't like that." But she was never too weary
to talk about the tales; and when they began to wander among august
journals that refused them, she used to pray, before the crucifix in
her bedroom, that the hearts of editors might be moved.

Now she meant to confess to him before he entered on his military
service.

The parting was so bitter that she failed at the last moment. He went
far from her. The years of his service were a much greater hardship
to her than to him. During the first week she stinted her own diet to
send a _bon de poste_ to ameliorate his food; but he wouldn't keep the
money. In the avenues of Ivry, never did she see the pitifully garbed
conscripts being drilled without picturing the conscript who was dear
to her, garbed like that--and closing her eyes with the pain.

And when he was free to return, the meeting was so sweet that she was a
coward once more.

He was a clerk for a long time, but his dissatisfaction would have
been longer still without her. She it was who took to the _Echo
d'Ivry-St.-Hilaire_ the article that paved his way to journalism. There
was a day of sovereignty when he was offered an ill-paid post on that
undistinguished paper. How victoriously he twirled his moustache! How
proudly, through her spectacles, she watched him do it!

Oh, of course he wouldn't be content to stick for ever on the Ivry
_Echo_, not he! He was going to write great novels just the same.
Incipiently the women of his stories lived now, but he was still
very young. She said to him at this stage: "You put your girls in a
drawing-room, but they come from a tavern." And, abashed and wondering,
he saw that poor mademoiselle knew more of girlhood than a literary man
had learnt. He was an artist, or he would not have seen.

Because he was an artist he probed his questions deep. Because she
loved him she did not flinch. To him she voiced truths that she had
shrunk from owning to herself. Thoughts that had frightened her, and
thoughts that she had deemed too sacred to be uttered, she brought
forth for his guidance. Her innocence and her knowledge she yielded to
him, her vanities and her regrets. She bared the holiest secrets of her
sterile life and stripped her soul, that he might make his books of it.

But always there remained the one secret that she could not tell.

After he had begun to get on--when he was a journalist in Paris--she
had a terrible grief. She had travelled to Paris to see him, and he
declined to admit her. He declined to admit her because he knew what
she had come to say, and, under Heaven, there was nothing to him so
precious as an idol that he had made out of a spiritual profile and
some vices. The Ivry editor had told her it was rumoured that the woman
talked of marrying Paul, and mademoiselle had written imploring letters
to him without avail. "He must be the best judge of his own mind," he
had answered, "and of the true nature of the woman he loved."

Then, distraught, she had made the journey, and been turned from the
door with a servant's transparent he. The tumult of the modern traffic
confused her--the failing little figure was jostled by the crowd. She
went, deafened, through remembered gates, to a bench, and sat there,
feeling stunned. The bench was in the Garden of the Luxembourg, where
it seemed to her that in another life she had walked beside his mother.

She had to save him. When her mind cleared, she thought only of that.
Since it was impossible to plead to Paul, she must plead to the woman.
She would find out where she lived; she would say In imagining herself
in the presence of such a woman, she was as timorous as a child. She
would say--what? The wildness of the notion overwhelmed her. Suddenly
she felt that she could say nothing, that she would be tongue-tied, a
sight for ridicule.

But she must save Paul!

She was two days in Paris before she obtained the address; and she was
no less amazing to the wanton than was the wanton to the spinster. From
different worlds they marvelled at each other across a hearthrug. She
said:

"He is not my son, but he is as dear to me as if he were; indeed, the
sons of many women are far less to them, I think, than he to me. I
worked for him when he was a baby. Since he has been a man, he has
meant the only interest in my life; it has been a wretched failure of
a life--the one hope left in it is to see him succeed. Madame, his
career is in your hands. I entreat you to be merciful--I beg it of
you on my knees. I don't pretend to judge your feelings for him, but
if you care for him really and deeply, do what you know is right for
the man you love--make a memory for yourself that you'll be proud of.
You're beautiful now, and young, and you don't take some things very
earnestly, but one day, when you're older and memories are all you've
got, a noble remembrance will be sweet. You'll say to yourself: '_I_
saved a man from ruining his future, _I_ saved a woman from breaking
her heart.'"

After her curiosity in the alien was exhausted, the beauty rang the
bell, and said:

"What kind of a fool are you to have imagined I should give up a man I
liked, because a stranger asked me to? It's about the silliest idea I
ever heard of."

And then she herself did something sillier. She told Paul what had
happened, mimicking the suppliant's sorrow, and jeering at her prayer.
The man read into the scene the pathos that the jeerer missed, and he
saw that the woman he had idealised lacked the grace of pity.

Later, when success came to him, there was no domestic tragedy
darkening the home behind it, and he had owed to mademoiselle a timely
rent in the veil of his illusion.

She was teaching at Ivry still when his success came. For weeks she
had known by his letters, and the papers, that his new book had made
a reputation for him, but one morning she heard that it was "making
him rich." The hard times were over for them both, he wrote. There
was to be no more labour for her, no more loneliness; they were to
live together in a little appartement in Passy. She was to rest, "with
flowers in the window, and her hands in her lap--he was coming to carry
her away."

The letter quivered as she read it, and she put it down, in fright. The
secret that had smouldered while she toiled for him, while she worked
to keep herself, flared menace now that he proposed to keep her. She
dared not accept her comfort of his ignorance. She saw herself as a
cheat who had hidden her sin, a hypocrite who had taken gratitude to
which she had no claim. Now he must be told. The confession that had
terrorised her all her life could be escaped no longer; the day of her
Calvary was here.

At every step in the street she shuddered, though it was not till
evening that he was due. She clasped him, crying with pride and fear,
when he strode in. He rattled gaily of things triumphant, things too
difficult to-day for her to understand. She thanked God that it was
twilight and he couldn't clearly see her face. She crept away from him
and bowed her head. The young man looked forward. The old woman looked
back.

In the twilight her confession came at last--in the twilight, his
reverent knowledge of his boundless debt.

"But I have loved you," she sobbed. "At the beginning you were my
punishment, but then I loved you!"

"You have borne want for me, and contempt. I have taken your youth
from you, and your happiness and your strength." He went to her, and
knelt, and kissed the trembling hands. "How _I_ love _you_," he cried,
"mademoiselle ma mère!"



II

ARIBAUD'S TWO WIVES


In the Bois, one day, I met madame Aribaud. By madame "Aribaud" I mean
the wife of a very popular dramatist, and I call them Aribaud because
it wouldn't do to mention their real name. I like meeting madame
Aribaud when I am in Paris. It refreshes me, not only because she isn't
preceded by a gust of scent, and doesn't daub her mouth clown red,
like so many Parisiennes, but because she is so cheerful. She diffuses
cheerfulness. She sat beaming at her little son, while he scattered
crumbs for the birds, and she informed me--it was in 1912--that he was
in the latest fashion, having a nurse from England to give him the real
English pronunciation, though as yet he was hardly a linguist. And the
nurse said, "I tell madam we must be pietient with 'im; we can't expect
'im to talk like I do hall at once."

Also the lady informed me that they had finished arranging their
new house, and that on the morrow I must go there to déjeuner. Very
readily I went, and they showed me the "English nursery," and an
American contrivance that she had presented to her husband for his
dressing-room--"_Comme ils sont pratiques, les américains_!"--and an
antique or two that she had picked up for his study; and, not least,
she showed us both some croquettes de pommes that looked ethereal
and--I have never tasted croquettes de pommes like madame Aribaud's!
I always say she is the most domesticated of pretty women, and her
husband the most pampered of good fellows. Playgoers who know him
merely by his comedies, in which married people get on together so
badly up to the fourth act, might be surprised to see inside his villa.

Only when he and I were lounging in the study afterwards--my hostess
was in the little garden, pretending to be a horse--I said to him, as
the boy's shouts came up to us through the open window, "Doesn't the
child disturb you out there when you're busy?"

My friend nodded. "Sometimes," he acknowledged, "he disturbs me. What
would you have? He must play, and the 'garden' is too diminutive for
him to go far away in it. It makes me think of what Dumas père said
when he paid a visit to his son's chalet in the suburbs--'Open your
dining-room window and give your garden some air!' Once or twice I have
wondered whether I should work in a front room, instead, but to tell
you the truth, I always come to the conclusion that I like the noise.
Believe me, a dramatist may suffer from worse drawbacks than a child's
laughter." He blew smoke thoughtfully, and added, "I had a wife who was
childless."

Now, though I knew Maurice Aribaud very well indeed, I had never heard
that this was his second marriage, and I suppose I stared.

"Yes," he said again, "I had a wife who was childless." And then, with
many pauses, he told me a lot that I had not suspected about his life,
and though I can't pretend to remember his precise words, or the exact
order in which details were forthcoming, I am going to quote him as
well as I can.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I had not two louis to knock together when I met her--and I wasn't
so very young. I had been writing for the theatre for years, and had
begun to despair of ever seeing anything produced. To complete my
misery, I had no companionship, if one excepts books--no friend who
wrote, or aspired to write, no acquaintance who did not draw his screw
from a billet as humdrum as my own. I was a clerk in the Magasins du
Louvre, and though of course the other men in the office talked about
plays--in France everybody is interested in plays; in England, I hear,
you are interested only in the players--none of them was so congenial
that I was tempted to announce my ambitions to him. I used to think how
exciting it must be to know authors and artists, even though they were
obscure and out-at-elbows. Every night, as I walked home and passed the
windows of a bohemian café I used to look at it wistfully. I envied the
fiercest disappointments of the habitues inside, for they were at least
professionals of sorts; they moved on a different planet from myself.
Once in a blue moon I found the resolution to enter, pushing the door
open timidly, like a provincial venturing into Paillard's. I suppose
I had a vague hope that something might happen, something that would
yield confidences, perhaps a comrade for life. But I sat in the place
embarrassed, with the air of an intruder, and came out feeling even
lonelier than when I went in.

"One windy, wet day I was at the mont-de-piété to redeem my watch.
I had pawned it two or three weeks before, because I had seen a
second-hand copy of a book that I wanted very much and couldn't
afford at the moment. I will not inquire whether you have ever pawned
anything in Paris, yourself, but if you haven't, you may not know the
formalities of the _dégagement_. Ah, you have pawned things only in
London.

"Well, after you have paid the principal and the interest, you are
given a numbered ticket, and then you go into a large room and take
your choice among uncomfortable benches, and wait your turn. It is
something like cashing a cheque at the head office of the Crédit
Lyonnais, only at the mont-de-piété the people on the benches sit
waiting for the most disparate articles. On one side of you, there may
be a fashionably dressed woman who rises to receive a jewel-case--and
on the other, some piteous creature who clutches at a bundle. The goods
and chattels descend in consignments, and when one consignment has been
distributed, the interval before the next comes down threatens to be
endless. The officials behind the counter converse in undertones, and
you meanwhile have nothing livelier to do than listen to the rain and
wonder how hard-up your neighbour may be.

"That day, however, I did not chafe at the delay. There was a young
girl there whose face caught and held my attention almost immediately.
Not only was her prettiness remarkable--her expression was astonishing.
She looked happy. Yes, in the gaunt room, among the damp, dismal
crowd, relieving the tedium by a heavy sigh or an occasional shuffling
of their shoes, this fair-haired, neat, innocent little girl looked
happy. Smiles hovered about her lips, and her eyes sparkled with
contentment. I tried to conjecture the reason for her delight, what
treasured possession she was about to regain. A trinket? No, something
indefinable in her bearing forbade me to think it was a trinket. My
imagination ranged over a dozen possible pledges, without finding one
to harmonise with her. Ridiculous as it sounds, I could picture nothing
so appropriate for her to recover as a canary, which should fly,
singing, to her finger. Every time a number was called, curiosity made
me hope that her turn had come. The latest load that had been delivered
was almost exhausted. Only three packages remained. Another call, and
she got up at last! The package was a bulky one. I craned my neck. It
was a typewriter.

"Quite five minutes more lagged by before I got my watch, and when I
crossed the courtyard I had no expectation of seeing her again; but no
sooner had I passed through the gate than I discovered her in trouble.
She had been trying to carry the typewriter and an open umbrella, and
now the umbrella had blown inside out, and she had put the typewriter
on the pavement.

"In such a situation it was not difficult for me to speak.

"I picked the thing up for her. She thanked me, and made another
ineffectual attempt to depart. I offered my help. She demurred. I
insisted. We made for her tram together--and tram after tram was full.
It had been raining for several hours and Paris was a lake of mud. In
the end I trudged beside her through the swimming streets, carrying
her typewriter all the way to the step of her lodging. So began my
courtship.

"She was as solitary as I; her father's death had left her quite alone.
He had been old, and very poor. Blind, too. But his work had been done
up to the last, my little sweetheart guiding him to the houses--he
had earned a living as a piano-tuner. In Sèvres she had an aunt, his
sister-in-law; but though the woman boasted a respectable business
and was fairly well-to-do, she had come foward with nothing more
substantial than advice, and the orphan had had only her typewriter to
keep the wolf from the door. Her struggles in Paris with a typewriter!
She had been forced to pawn it every time she lost a situation. But
every time she saved enough to recapture it she felt prosperous again.
Her own machine meant 'luxuries.' With her own machine she could afford
a plant to put in her attic window, and a rosebud for her breast.

"She loved flowers, and she often wore them, tucked in her bodice,
after the Magasins du Louvre closed--the lonely clerk used to hurry
to meet the little typist on her way home. Yet she told me once
that her love for them had come very late; for years the sight of
all flowers had saddened her. She had been born on that melancholy
boulevard that leads to the cemetery of Père La Chaise, that quarter
of it where one sees, exposed for sale, nothing but floral tokens for
the mourners--nothing to right and left but mountains of artificial
wreaths, and drear chrysanthemums in stiff white paper cones. As a
child she had thought that flowers were grown only for graves.

"I recall the courtship in all seasons, and always in the streets--when
the trees were brown and the light faded while we walked; and when the
trees had whitened and the lamps were gleaming; and when the trees grew
green and we walked in sunshine. It was in the streets that we fell in
love--in the streets that I asked her if she would marry me.

"We were on the quai des Orfèvres one Sunday afternoon in summer. I
had meant to wait till we were in the Garden of the Tuileries, but
we had stopped to look at the river, and I can see it all now, the
barge folk's washing hanging out to bleach, and a woman knitting among
the geraniums on a deck. There was a little fishing-tackle shop, I
remember, called 'Au Bon Pêcheur,' and a poodle and a Persian cat were
basking together on the doorstep. Our hands just touched, because
of the people passing; and then we went on to the Tuileries, and
talked. And before we seemed to have talked much, it was moonlight; a
concert had begun, and away in the distance a violinist was playing
_La Précieuse_. 'Why,' I exclaimed,' I've given you no dinner!' She
laughed; she hadn't been hungry, either. No millionaires have ever
dined at Armenonville more merrily than we, for a hundred sous, at a
little table on a sidewalk.

"She said, 'When I am your wife, I shall type-write all your plays for
you, Maurice--perhaps that will bring you luck.' And by and by, when we
came to the Magasins du Louvre, she pointed to the Comédie-Française:
'You haven't far to travel to reach it, dearest!' she smiled--'we'll
cross the road together.'

"How sweet she looked in the wedding frock that she had stitched! How
proud I was of her! Our ménage was two rooms on the left bank; and in
the evening, in our tiny salon on the sixth floor, her devoted hands
clattered away on her machine, transcribing my manuscript, till I
kissed and held them prisoners. Didn't she work hard enough all day for
strangers, poor child?--my salary was too small to liberate her. 'You
are jealous,' she would say gaily, 'because I write your dialogue so
much faster than you.' And often I wished that I could create a scene
as rapidly as she typewrote it. But we had our unpractical evenings,
also, when we built castles-in-the-air, and chose the furniture for
them. I had brought home, from the Magasins, one of the diaries that
they issue annually. It contained plans of the theatres--it always
does--and, perched on my knee, she pictured a play of mine at each
of them in turn, and the house rocking with applause. And then we
pencilled the private box we'd have; and drove, in fancy and our
auto-mobile, to sit there grandly on the three-hundredth night.

"We spent many hours in selecting presents that I would have made to
her if I could. One of the things she wanted was, of course, a theatre
bag: 'the prettiest that you can pretend!' and I pretended a beauty
for her in rose brocade--and inside I put the daintiest enamelled
opera-glasses that the rue de la Paix could show, and a fan of Brussels
point, and a Brussels-point handkerchief, and a quaint gold bonbonniere
with sugared violets in it. I remember she threw her arms round my neck
as ecstatically as if the things were really there. We were, at the
time, supping on stale bread, with a stick of chocolate apiece."

       *       *       *       *       *

The dramatist sat silent, his eyes grown wide. I think that for a
moment he had forgotten his new, desirable home and the antiques on the
mantelpiece--that he was back in a girl's arms in a room on a sixth
floor. Under the window, his wife had ceased to play at horses, and was
swinging their son, instead. The child's delight was boisterous.

She called up to us now: "Are we a nuisance, messieurs? Shall we go to
the nursery?"

"No, no," cried Aribaud, starting, "not at all; we are doing nothing.
Continue, mon ange, continue!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"What a heaven opened," he went on, turning to me, "when I had a piece
taken at last! As long as I live I shall think of the morning that
letter came, of our reading it together, half dressed, and crying with
joy. She was making the coffee for breakfast. And yet, even when the
contract was signed, it sometimes seemed incredible. I used to dream
that it had happened, and dream that I was dreaming--that I was to wake
and find it wasn't true. And the eternity of delay, the postponements,
one after another! And then, when we felt worn out with waiting, the
night that we jolted to the show in an omnibus, and sat breathless in
the fauteuils de balcon! I remember the first laugh of approval that
the audience gave, her clutching my hand; and how she clung to me,
sobbing and comforting, when we got home and knew that the piece had
failed.

"I had a short run the next autumn with _Successeur de Son Père_, but
my first hit, of course, was _Les Huit Jours de Léonie_. When that was
produced, the fees came tumbling in.

"Weren't we dazed at the beginning! And how important we felt to be
taking a flat and going to a bureau de placement to engage a servant!
We were like children playing with a doll's-house. The change was
marvellous. And when I received an invitation from somebody or other
who had been unapproachable only a year before--her exultance to
see me go! The invitations to the author, you understand, did not
always include his wife; and, unfortunately, those that ignored her
were often those that it would have been unwise for me to decline. I
found that rather pathetic; we had hoped together for so long, and now
that success had come she wasn't getting her fair half of the fun. An
elaborate evening gown that we had hurried expectantly to order for her
was not needed, after all--it was out of fashion before she wore it.
Still, as I say, she exulted to see me go--at first. And later Well,
when I insisted on a refusal because she had not been asked, it grieved
her that I neglected opportunities for her sake; and when I consented
to go without her she was, not unnaturally, dull.

"It was not very lively for her in the daytime, either. When my duties
as a clerk had taken me from her, she, too, had had employment, but
now, of course, her berth had been resigned, and while I wrote all
day upstairs, she was alone. She was not used to leisure--all her
life she had worked. We had no child to claim her time, to occupy her
thoughts and yield the interests of maternity. Though she endeavoured
to create distractions for herself, the flat that we had been so proud
of was rather dreary for her, after its novelty faded. She sighed in it
oftener than she laughed.

"The very few women that she met were actresses, who talked of nothing
but their careers--their genius, their wrongs, and their Press notices.
What companion could she find among them, even had I wished her to
seek their companionship? And the men who came to us also talked shop
continuously, and directed themselves chiefly to _me_. No doubt they
would have had enough, and too much, to say to her had I been absent,
but, as it was, they often appeared to forget that she was there. As
time went on, too, the theatre made more and more demands upon me--a
comedy in rehearsal while another was being written; the telephone
bell always ringing to call me away just when I had arranged to take a
half-holiday with her. And when I left the theatre I could not dismiss
the anxieties of a production from my mind as I had dismissed the
affairs of the Magasins when I left my office stool--they were mine,
and I brought them home with me. She grew bored, restless. She was
nervy with solitude, and chagrined at feeling herself insignificant.
She told me one day that she wanted me to put her on the stage.

"Mon Dieu! To begin with, she had no gift for the stage--and if she had
been ever so clever, did I want to see her there? I was aghast.

"'But, mignonne,' I said, 'what makes you think, all of a sudden, you
could act? Leaving everything else aside, what reason is there to
suppose you would succeed? You have had no experience, you have never
even shown the slightest tendency towards it.'

"'I want something to do,' she said.

"'But,' I said,' that isn't enough. And besides, you would not like
it at all--you would find it odious. You sit in a box and you see
a celebrated woman bringing the house down, and to be an actress
looks to you very fine. But she has been half a lifetime arriving at
celebrity--there is nothing fine about the journey to it. You would
feel that you had given up a good deal, I assure you--a dramatist's
wife in the box is a much more dignified figure than a dramatist's wife
rehearsing a trivial part and being corrected by the stage-manager.'

"'I did not mean trivial parts,' she said disconsolately--and I
realised for the first time that she had been dreaming of a début in
the principal rôle. But she let the discussion drop, and I half thought
I had convinced her.

"I was very much mistaken. A few weeks later she referred to it again,
and more urgently. She seemed to imagine that her project was a
perfectly simple matter for me to arrange, that the only obstacle in
the way was my personal objection to it. 'What you say about trivial
parts is quite true,' she acknowledged, with an air of being extremely
reasonable, 'but in one of your own pieces you could easily get me
lead. Everybody wants plays from you now; you would only have to say
that you wished me to be engaged. Of course, I should study; I should
go to a professor of diction and take lessons.'

"Well, I tried to explain the commercial aspect of the case to her.
I told her that, for one thing, the managers would see my plays in
Jericho before they agreed to entrust the leading part to a novice.
And I told her that, supposing for an instant I did find a manager
reckless enough to consent, I should be ruining my own property.

"'Ah,' she said, 'you make up your mind in advance that I have no
dramatic instinct?'

"I said: 'It is not even a question whether you have any dramatic
instinct; it is enough that you haven't any renown. You have heard too
much of the business by this time not to know that everybody tries to
secure the most popular artists that he can. For me to put up a play
with an absolutely unknown name, instead of a star's, would be asking
for a failure.'

"'If I were billed as "madame Aribaud" the name would not be unknown,'"
she argued.

"'Whether you were billed as "madame Aribaud," or as anybody else,' I
said, 'the point would be how good you were in the part. The public
would not pay to see an indifferent performance because you were madame
Aribaud.'

"'Ah, then you admit it--that is it, after all!' she cried; 'you
declare beforehand that I have no ability. Why should you say such a
thing? It isn't right of you.'

"I said: 'I declare beforehand that you have had no training! I declare
beforehand that you could not master, in a few weeks or months, a
technique that other women acquire only after years. And on top of all
that, I declare that I don't want to see you in the profession. Why
do you become dissatisfied after we have got on? Why can't you be as
content as you used to be when we had nothing?'

"'The days are longer than they used to be; I want something to do,'
she insisted.

"Oh, I understood! But I need hardly tell you that this fever of hers
didn't make for bliss. The theatre became a bone of contention between
us--the position that I had dreamed of and yearned for was dividing me
from my wife. It got worse every year. I no longer dared to mention
business in my home. We were on affectionate terms only in the hours
when the theatre was forgotten. One day I would hold her in my arms,
and on the next some chance allusion would estrange us. If I happened
to come across a little actress who was suitable to a more conspicuous
part than those that she had had hitherto, my casting her for it
was a domestic tragedy--I 'made opportunities for every woman but
one!' I have been told that strangers who pestered me for theatrical
engagements complained that I was unsympathetic--they little guessed
how I was pestered for engagements on my own hearth!

"The aunt at Sèvres also had something to say. She had managed to get
on a semi-friendly footing with us when _Les Huit Jours_ was running,
and now she had the effrontery to take the tone of a mother-in-law with
me. She 'knew I was devoted to her niece, but I was not being fair to
her--I ought to realise that she had a right to a career, too.' What
audacity!--a woman who had given nothing but phrases when her niece was
penniless! I did not wrap up my answer in silver paper--and I fancy the
aunt's influence was responsible for a good deal; I think she revenged
herself by offering all the encouragement possible behind my back.

"Anyhow, my wife announced to me at last that she had determined to go
her own road without my help. It was as if she had struck me.

"She meant to seek an opening in some minor company in the
provinces--in the obscurest of the theatres ambulants, if she could do
no better. It sounded so mad that at first I could hardly believe she
was in earnest. The doggedness of her air soon convinced me; I would
have welcomed the wildest hysteria in preference. Since I refused to
further her ambition, she must resign herself to beginning in the
humblest way, she told me quietly; she 'regretted to defy my wishes,
but she was a woman, and I had been wrong to expect from her the blind
obedience of a child--she could not consent to remain a nonentity any
longer!' She dumfounded me. It meant actual separation, it meant the
end of our life together--and she was telling me this composedly,
coolly, as if our life together were the merest trifle, compared with
the fascination of the footlights. I cursed the footlights and the day
I first wrote for them. I swear I wished myself back in the Magasins
du Louvre. My excitement was so violent that I could not articulate; I
stuttered and stood mute. I went from her overwhelmed, asking myself
what I was to do.

"There is one course that never fails to remedy marital unhappiness
and bring husband and wife together again--on the stage. It is when
he leads her to an ottoman, and, standing a pace or two behind her,
proceeds with tender gravity to recite a catalogue of her defects. He
contrasts them pathetically with the virtues that endeared her to him
in the springtime of their union--and the wife, moved to tears, becomes
immediately and for ever afterwards the girl that she used to be. The
situation is pretty, it is popular, and it is quite untrue, for in real
life one cannot recreate a character by making a speech. However, I was
a dramatist, and more credulous than I am now, and I tried.

"For days I pondered what I should say. Arguments were plentiful, but
the problem was how to present them forcefully enough to show her the
wildness of her plan, and yet gently enough to avoid incensing her.
Our future hung upon the scene, and I prayed to Heaven that not a
tactless word should escape me. I knew that we had reached the crisis,
that a mistaken adjective, even an impatient gesture, might be fatal.
I considered and reconsidered that appeal with more tireless fervour
than any lines that I have ever put into the mouth of a leading man.
I thought about it so much that sometimes I was enraged to find the
things I meant to say falling mentally into sentences too rhythmic and
rounded, as if I had indeed been writing for the stage, and I damned
my metier anew. You are an author yourself, my friend--you should
understand: I longed to open my heart to her with all simplicity--never
had any one sought to pour his heart out more earnestly, more freely,
more unaffectedly than I--and it seemed to me in these moments that the
artifices of the theatre were fighting against me to the very end. It
was as if its influence were unconquerable--it had surmounted her love
for me, and now it threatened even to mock my plea!

"Enfin, the opportunity came. She sat down on the couch--the ottoman
of the stage situation--and I began to speak, with all the tenderness
and gravity of the stage husband. Struggle as I would to banish the
thought, I could not help being conscious of our resemblance to the
hero and heroine of a thousand comedies in the last act. I say that I
'began' to speak, and that I felt constrained by a shoal of theatrical
reminiscences, but our likeness to the hero and heroine was brief. She
interrupted me, she defied the dramatic convention. In lieu of being
moved to tears, she replied, with a world of dignity, that the faults
were mine. She advised me, for my own sake, to try to attain a more
unselfish view. With a flow of impromptu eloquence that I envied, she
warned me that, though I was not intentionally unjust, I was allowing
'prejudice and egotism to warp my better nature.' Before I knew what
had happened, I stood listening to a homily. The situation that meant
my last hope had come out upside down!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Aribaud paused again. On the little lawn the child had left the swing;
the most devoted of wives and mothers was playing _chat perché_ with
him now. They made a pretty picture, but my thoughts were with her
predecessor; I was mourning the love-story that had begun like an
idyll, and that seemed to have had so bad an end.

The man's voice brought me back. "Yes, the infallible situation had
failed," he repeated. "What do you suppose was the sequel?"

"I suppose," I sighed, "she had her way?"

"No," said Aribaud; "she had her baby." He waved a triumphant hand
towards the garden. "And from the first promise of that God-sent gift,
the glamour of the theatre faded from her mind and me talked only of
her home. From that day to this we have been as happy together as you
see us now."

My exclamation was cut short by the hostess whose history I had been
hearing.

"Messieurs, are you really sure we aren't laughing too much for you?"
she pealed up to us again.

"Sure, sure! It is well--it is as it should be--we come to join you,"
shouted Aribaud. "Laugh loud, my love--laugh on!"



III

THAT VILLAIN HER FATHER


Henri Vauquelin was a widower with one daughter, to whom he had denied
nothing from the time she used to whimper for his watch and drop it on
the floor. So, after she left the convent where she had been educated,
and told him how much she was missing her friend Georgette, he said
gaily, "Mais, ma petite, invite mademoiselle--whatever her name may be,
to come to Paris and stay with us for a month."

His gaiety was a trifle forced, however. Though he was happy to
give his daughter a companion, he was pained to learn that his own
companionship hadn't been enough. "For I have done all I could," he
mused. "The fact is, that though I feel fairly young, I am elderly.
That's the trouble. To a girl of twenty-one, a father of forty-five
is an ancient for the chimney corner. I must see about finding her a
husband--I shall have to talk to madame Daudenarde about her son the
first time I am in the neighbourhood." And after Blanche had flung her
arms round his neck, and darted forth to send the invitation to her
friend, he surveyed his reflection in a glass pensively, and noted that
his moustache was much greyer than he had thought.

When the indispensable Georgette arrived, in a costume that became her
admirably, and sat at dinner, in a dress that became her more admirably
still, replying to him with composure and point, he was surprised at
the girls' attraction for each other--and his surprise did not diminish
as the days passed. Though not actually more than two or three years
older than Blanche, mademoiselle Paumelle was in tone much older.
Blanche was an ingenue; Georgette was a woman. Excepting in moments,
when she romped like a schoolgirl, all spontaneity and high spirits.

"She is a queer compound, your chum," he remarked when she had been
with them for a fortnight. "Alternately thirty, and thirteen!"

"You don't like her, papa?"

"Oh, yes, she is well enough, and not bad-looking. I am relieved she
did not turn out to be ugly--that would have depressed me. But it is a
trifle confusing to be uncertain whether I am about to be addressed by
a woman of the world or a madcap from a nursery."

"She used always to be a madcap till she lost her mother--you see,
there are only her stepfather and his two sisters now. It is that that
has changed her so dreadfully."

"I find nothing 'dreadful' about her," said Vauquelin a shade sharply.
"On the contrary, it--I suppose some people might find it rather
fascinating. I merely observe that she is different from any other girl
that I have met. What's the matter with her stepfather?"

"She tells me he never stops talking."

"His topics must be pretty catholic. This jeune fille from the country
appears to know more of politics, finance, society, and sport than I,
who have lived in Paris forty-five years."

"How you do exaggerate, papa!" rippled Blanche reprovingly.

"At any rate, I do not exaggerate the years," sighed Vauquelin. "Well,
if she is not happy at home, why not ask her to stay with us for _two_
months? She is not in my way, you know."

But mademoiselle Paumelle declared that it would be impossible for her
to prolong her visit. Blanche reported this to him with wistful lips,
and he said, "I'll see if _I_ can persuade her--I will speak to her
about it in the morning when you go to take your music-lesson."

On the morrow, "Blanche tells me that she is greatly disappointed," he
began. "She will miss you terribly when you leave us, mademoiselle. I
wish you would think over your objection."

"It is infinitely kind of you, monsieur Vauquelin. I fear that a month
is the very most I can manage."

"Even to do us a service?"

"Ah, a 'service'!" She smiled. "You will find plenty of people ready to
do you such services."

"Not plenty of mesdemoiselles Paumelle. I am in earnest. It is dull
here for Blanche, alone with me. I have done my best for her, I am
not consciously selfish--I have sat at home when I wanted to go out,
and gone out when I wanted to stop at home. I have taken her to the
Français and pretended to enjoy myself, though I could have yawned my
head off, and the question of her clothes has absorbed me more than the
affairs of France. But I am old. All my tenderness for her cannot alter
that."

"You do not seem to me old," said mademoiselle Paumelle.

"Don't I?" said Vauquelin, regarding her gratefully. "Look how grey my
moustache is getting. And yet, do you know, when we're all laughing
together I feel as young as ever I was."

"Your manner _is_ young. The face alters ever so long before the
manner."

"I am forty-f--er--over forty, and Blanche is twenty-one. What will
you? I must get her married soon. It is my paramount desire. I rather
fancy that Daudenarde and she may not dislike each other--the gentleman
you saw the other evening."

"She was doing her hair from seven o'clock till eight, and he sighed
when he handed her the lemonade."

"Your observation is invaluable. I must have a chat with his mother
soon. It would be an excellent match. In the meantime she stands in
need of the companionship and counsel of a young lady like you; she
needs it most urgently. If your stepfather can spare you----"

"Ah, my stepfather could spare me for ever," she put in; "there are
others to listen to him."

"And if you are not bored here----"

"Bored? I am having the time of my life."

"Eh bien? Remain for two months, I beg. Be merciful to us. I need
your advice, myself. There is a matter that is harassing me: I cannot
determine whether her new jumper should be beaded, silk-broidered, or
fringed."

"If it is telling on your health----" Her eyes laughed into his.

"You yield?"

"I weakly wobble."

"There is, further, the consuming question of a simple evening
dress--what it should be made of."

"I succumb. Tulle would be all right, or Georgette."

"It shall be Georgette--we shall not lose you so utterly when you go."

"Oh, you _are_--priceless!" she pealed.

Vauquelin reflected, "She has three sterling qualities, this girl--she
is pretty, she is nice, and she looks at me as if I were a young man."

During the next six weeks Vauquelin developed a zest for the Français
that was astonishing. And not for the Français only, or for the Opéra
Comique, and concerts, and kinemas. Blanche had never applauded
her papa so ardently. He would be seized with captivating whims
for expeditions, and picnics, and moonlight runs in the car. His
frolicsomeness passed belief.

Not till the six weeks were over and mademoiselle Paumelle had
departed, bearing Blanche with her, did his spirits fall. And then
there would have been no buyers. The middle-aged gentleman was plunged
into melancholy, the worse to bear from the fact that he was conscious
of being comic. Trying to throw dust in his own eyes, "It is frightful
how I miss Blanche," he would soliloquise at the elegiac dinner-table.
But the eyes were fixed sentimentally on the place that had been
Georgette's. And as the date approached for Blanche to return, and his
heart sank before the necessity for resuming his capers, "It is clear,"
he told himself, "that the affection I entertained for that Georgette
Paumelle was almost parental!"

The fatherliness of his feelings for her, however, did not avert
increased regrets at the greying moustache; and he abandoned his
shaving mirror, because it magnified the lines about his nose and mouth.

Blanche, on his knee again, had plenty to tell. She described the
stepfather as a "trial," and his maiden sisters as "cats." She had
enjoyed herself, because Georgette and she had been together all day,
but it must be hideous there for Georgette alone. "She isn't going to
stick it much longer. She is miserable with them."

"How distressing that is!" said Vauquelin. "To whom does she go?"

"Well, she has money of her own, you know--she can live where she
likes."

"_Mais--Comment donc_? She cannot live by herself--une jeune fille,
bien élevée! What an idea! Her people would never sanction it."

"I think they would be rather glad to get rid of her," said Blanche,
choosing a chocolate with deliberation.

"But--but it is monstrous! To live like a bohemian, _she_! It is
unheard of, terrible. Is she out of her mind? Listen, ma chérie, if her
plight upsets you so violently, she can make her home with us."

"Ah, papa!" cried Blanche in ecstasy. "It is the very thing I thought
of, but I was afraid it was too much to ask you."

"Now, when did I ever refuse you anything?"

"But such an enormous favour!"

"Not at all, not at all. I shall adapt myself to the arrangement well
enough."

"But, papa, it might get on your nerves in time."

"Not at all, not at all. There is my study for me to retire to--I shall
not see more of her than I want to."

"You promise that?"

"I can swear it."

"Oh, it will be adorable! I only wonder if I am being selfish to let
you do it."

"I insist," said Vauquelin, with a noble gesture. "Say we entreat her
to agree, that we shall be wounded if she declines. Say our flat is her
home for as long as she will honour us--the longer, the better. _I_
will write a few lines to her, too. Be tranquil, my sweet child--I do
not sacrifice myself. Is it not my highest joy to indulge you?"

After many letters had been indited to her, mademoiselle Paumelle was
prevailed upon to come; and after many remonstrances had been made to
her, she ceased to speak of going. But for the fact that her gifts
to the girl were expensive, it was as if she were a member of the
family. Blanche was relieved to note that her papa was not driven to
the seclusion of his study often; and never did he withdraw to it when
Blanche was absent, to take her music-lesson. As he had predicted,
Vauquelin adapted himself to the arrangement plastically. He approved
it so much, especially the tête-à-tête during the music-lessons, that
when six months had flashed by, he resented an incident which reminded
him that it couldn't be permanent. A monsieur Brigard, an old comrade,
arrived to advocate nothing less than that Blanche should espouse
Brigard's boy.

"My friend, I have other views for my daughter," replied Vauquelin
firmly.

But the arrival dejected him, in the knowledge that when Blanche
should marry, Georgette would have to go. And in their next hour alone
together, Georgette asked him what his worry was.

"Nothing. I am a little--we must all think of the future, our
children's future. A father has responsibilities."

"À propos de--what? Am I inquisitive?"

"Do I not confide everything to you? Some pest has made matrimonial
overtures about his son. Preposterous."

"The young man's position is not good enough?"

"Ah, his position is first rate. I say nothing against his position."

"It is his character that displeases you?"

"No. As for that, he is steady, and not unamiable."

"But what do you complain of?"

Vauquelin waved his hand vaguely. "The proposal does not accord with my
ideas. I have different intentions for her."

"Ah, yes, that monsieur Daudenarde! I thought perhaps that affair had
faded out."

"By no means," affirmed Vauquelin, clutching at the excuse. "Precisely.
I wish her to marry monsieur Daudenarde. And that is a sound and
laudable reason why I should resent being badgered by Brigard. I find
such intrusions on my routine very offensive. Daudenarde's mother and I
are going to have a little talk together some time or other."

"But----"

"What?"

"You decided to have a little talk with her nine or ten months ago."

"I must avoid precipitance. In such matters a father cannot act with
too much caution."

"Blanche is a darling. But there are other girls in Paris. If you
desire the match, be careful you don't let him slip."

"Have no misgiving," said Vauquelin irritably. "I am quite content.
Madame Daudenarde will receive a visit from me--when Blanche is older.
And we shall see what we shall see."

The captivating Georgette looked thoughtful. The more so after a chat
with Blanche had drawn forth the nervous confession that she "thought
monsieur Daudenarde very nice."

And then, when the volatile father had banished the menace of the
future from his mind, and was again basking in the sunshine of the
present, what should happen but that madame Daudenarde inconsiderately
broached the matter to him, instead of waiting for him to approach her.

"Dear lady, my daughter is too young," replied Vauquelin promptly.

"How, too young?" demurred madame Daudenarde. "She is one-and-twenty. I
was but nineteen when I married."

"Yes," said Vauquelin, "but my sainted mother did not marry till she
was thirty-two, and she always impressed upon me that it was the best
age."

"Thirty-two?" cried madame Daudenarde shrilly. "Do you ask me to
adjourn our conference for eleven years?"

"My honoured friend, I do not make it a hard-and-fast condition,"
stammered the unhappy man, struggling for coherence. "It is possible
there may be something to be said against it. But your gratifying
proposal is so sudden--I had not contemplated the alliance--I need time
to balance my parental duties against my reverence for my mother's
views."

Now, Georgette, who could put two and two together as accurately as
the Minister of Finance, had not failed to remark that the interview
took place privately in the study, and noted that her host was evasive
when Blanche inquired why madame Daudenarde had "called at such a funny
time." Feelers during the next music-lesson found him evasive also.
In the days that followed, when Blanche developed a tendency to sigh
plaintively, and turned against chocolates, it grew clear to Georgette
that this father must be shown the error of his ways.

"May I say that I hope that conversation with madame Daudenarde
contented you?" she ventured.

"Hein?" said Vauquelin, starting.

"That the engagement will soon be announced?"

"Mon Dieu, is it not extraordinary how people seek to rob me of my
child?" he moaned.

"Does that mean that nothing is arranged yet?"

"Why not leave well alone? Are we not all comfortable as we are? I have
made no definite reply to madame Daudenarde--I cannot be bustled. Have
you ever thought that when I part from Blanche, I shall be left here by
myself?"

"Yes. It has even occurred to me that you have thought of it, too."

"Naturally. It is not strange that I should tremble at such a prospect.
To be solitary is a sad thing."

"It is for your own sake, then, not hers, that you delay?"

"For the first time I find you lacking!" he broke out. "You do not seem
to comprehend the workings of a father's heart."

"I have never had one."

"Don't split straws! When I lose her I shall be alone. You do not
require to be a father to know that."

"You could always go to see her."

"Flûte!"

"And your grandchildren. Respectful grandchildren that clustered at
your knee."

"I will not anticipate grandchildren--I am not a hundred!" exclaimed
Vauquelin angrily. "I repeat that the present conditions are entirely
to my taste, and I desire to prolong them."

"It is also possible you might re-marry."

"At my age? Who would have me? Some ripe and ruddled widow."

"Girls, quite young, marry men much older than you."

"But not for love. Tell me, what would you put me down at? Without
flattery."

"I should call you in the prime of life."

"The friendly phrase for 'senile.' Depend upon it, people said that
to Methuselah. Supposing--a man is never too old to make a fool
of himself, you know--supposing, for the sake of argument, I felt
a tenderness, a devotion for a girl scarcely older than Blanche: a
devotion which I strove to think platonic, even while I sighed under
her window, and which revived in me unsought, the emotions--all the
sentiment, the throes, the absurdities--of the youth that had gone
from me before I knew how divine it was. Would it--could it--is it
imaginable that she might not laugh?"

"She would not laugh if she were worth it all."

"To marry me for love--a girl? To see me romantic without thinking me
ridiculous--to melt to my tears, not shrink from the crows'-feet round
my eyes? I wonder!"

"If you choose wisely, you will not wonder."

"In love, who _chooses_? Fate decides. What would you call 'wisely'?
She should be--how old?"

"Old enough to know her mind. Young enough to attract you."

"For the rest?"

"She should have means, that you might never fear it had been yours
that won her. She should have affection for your child, that she might
know no jealousy of yours. She should take interest in your child's
future, that, if you were wilful, she might guide you.... To revert to
madame Daudenarde, I counsel you to write to-day that you consent."

Vauquelin stood gazing at her incredulously.

"Georgette! Georgette!" he panted. "Do you know you have given me your
own portrait?"

"With my love," she told him, smiling.



IV

THE STATUE


In the Square d'Iéna, which teems with little Parisians in charge of
English nurses, Vera Simpson wheeled the baby-carriage to a bench on
fine mornings, and exchanged patriotic sentiments with her compeers.
When disparagement of France flagged, Vera Simpson occasionally
observed. So as she always entered the square at the same end and
nearly always chose the same bench, she observed the eccentric
proceedings of a young man who took to coming every morning to stare at
the statue on the opposite grass plot. After standing before it as if
he were glued there, the young man would reverse one of the chairs that
faced the path in an orderly line, and then sit mooning at the statue,
with his back to everybody, for nearly an hour. It was, Miss Simpson
surmised, a statue to a departed Frenchy. She had never approached it
to ascertain what name it bore, and could see nothing about the thing
to account for the fellow's taking such stock of it. Some time before
he had appeared for nine days in succession, she and her circle had
nicknamed him the "rum 'un."

On the tenth day, instead of the young man, a woman went to the statue,
and stood before it just as stupidly and as long as the man had done.
The most comical bit was that, when she turned away at last, it was
seen that the statue had been making the woman cry. After that, neither
of the funny pair came back to the Square d'Iéna; but as Vera Simpson
chooses the same bench still, she sometimes recalls their queerness
and, before her mind wanders, tries again to guess their game. This was
the game that Vera Simpson tries to guess.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gaby Dupuy was wishing that the summer were over; she was a model. Not
one of the wretched models that wait at the corner of the boulevards
Raspail and Montparnasse on Mondays, to crave the vote of students in
academies; she went by appointment to the ateliers of the successful.
But now the painters and the sculptors were all at the seaside, and her
appointment book had shown no sitting for ever so long.

Gaby's qualities had never placed her among the stars of her
profession. Nobody had ever said of her, as a great man said of one
of the most celebrated of models, that he had only to reproduce her
faithfully; still less could it be asserted that she had the genius to
penetrate an artist's purport and present the pose that was eluding
him. But if she had neither the beauty of a Sarah Brown, nor the
intuition of a Dubosc, her face possessed a certain attractiveness,
and she could achieve the expression demanded of her when it was
laboriously explained.

Once upon a time her face had been more attractive still; Gaby wasn't
so young as she used to be.

While the woman was regretting that her scanty provision for the
dreaded summer would not allow her a more adequate menu, she received
a letter. A stranger, who signed himself Jacques Launay, earnestly
desired an interview. He wrote that, being unfamiliar with Paris, he
had had great difficulty in ascertaining her address, and added that,
as his stay in the capital was drawing to a close, he would deeply
appreciate the favour of an early reply. Her eyebrows climbed as she
saw that, in lieu of requiring her to betake herself to his studio,
he "begged for the privilege of calling upon her at any hour that she
might find convenient." Probably, though, as a provincial, he hadn't
got a studio here. Still, what deference! he had written to her as if
she were of the ancienne noblesse.

But if he hadn't a studio, where did he expect her to pose? Did he want
her to go to him in the country? Yes, that must be it. Flûte! Gaby
didn't think it would be good enough--the end of the dead season was in
sight at last, and in Paris she would often be booked for two studios a
day. Nevertheless she was eager to hear what he had to say for himself.
She answered that he could see her at seven o'clock the following
evening at the Paradis des Artistes, round the corner. To meet him at a
restaurant, she reflected, would at least ensure his asking her to have
something to drink; and as the tables would be laid, by seven o'clock,
he might even spring to a meal.

The Paradis des Artistes was a small establishment where, for three
francs, one found a homely dinner, inclusive of wine, and a cripple
who wore a red jacket, to look like a Tzigane, and chanted to a
mandoline. The "artistes" were chiefly models, and the lesser lights
of a café-concert. As most of the company knew one another, and the
proprietress called many of the ladies by their Christian names, and
played piquet with them between midnight and 2 a.m., the tone of the
restaurant was as informal as a family party. When Gaby arrived,
the only person present whom she had never seen there before was a
young man, who sat at a table near the door, solitary and seemingly
expectant. Their gaze met, but although he looked undecided, he did not
salute her. Then, as she was greeted by acquaintances, somebody cried,
"Gaby, comment va?" and the young man's head was turned again. If he
was her correspondent, it was rather odd that he didn't know her when
he saw her. But she gave him another opportunity.... He approached with
marked hesitation.

"Mademoiselle Gabrielle Dupuy?"

"Mais oui, monsieur," she said, smiling graciously. "It is monsieur
Launay?"

"Oh, mademoiselle, it is most kind of you!" faltered the stranger. His
confusion was extraordinary, considering his age, for he could not have
been less than eight- or nine-and-twenty. They stood mute for some
seconds. As he remained too much embarrassed to suggest her taking a
seat at his table, "I hope I have not kept you waiting?" she asked,
carelessly moving towards it.

They sat down now, and the waitress, whose tone was informal too,
whisked over with, "And for mademoiselle Dupuy?"

"Give me a glass of madère, Louise," she said.

Still the young man seemed unable to find his tongue, and she went on:

"I am afraid this place was rather out of the way for you? But I have
got into the habit of dropping in here about this time; and it is cosy
and one can talk."

"Yes," he assented. He stole a timid glance at her, and looked quickly
away. "Oh yes."

"Who was it who gave you my address at last, monsieur?"

"I do not know," he said awkwardly. "It was a man who heard me
inquiring. I had immense trouble to find it out."

"It is not a dead secret, however."

"I suppose not--no--but I have no friends in Paris; I have never been
in Paris before. And at the start I did not even know who you were."

"You did not know who I was? Oh, you had seen something I had posed
for?"

"Yes, it was like that. I was anxious to find you, but I did not
know your name. And I had no one to help me," he stammered; "it was
enormously difficult."

"You are a painter, monsieur Launay?"

"No, mademoiselle."

"Ah, a sculptor! That interests me still more."

"I am not a sculptor either, mademoiselle," he admitted. "I am a
composer."

"A composer?" she echoed. "But--but a composer does not employ models."

"No, mademoiselle, but I beg you not to think my motive impudent,"
exclaimed the young man, with the first touch of spontaneity that he
had shown yet.

"Mysterious merely," she smiled. Her expression offered him
encouragement to elucidate the mystery, but nervousness seemed to
overcome him again. He was boring her. She exchanged remarks across the
room with a lady who wore one of the figured veils then in vogue, under
which the victim of fashion appeared to have lost portions of her face.

"Going to feed, Gaby?"

"Yes, my dear, in a minute," she answered.

She saw her correspondent regard the announcement "DINER 3 Fr." His
invitation was constrained, and her acceptance listless.

It no doubt surprised the young man to discover that the veiled lady
was his guest as well; he must have wondered how it had happened. Also
it may have startled him, when he made to fill Gaby's glass from one of
the little decanters that stood before them, to learn that she "did not
take it" and to see a bottle labelled "Pouilly Fuissé" display itself
before he could say "Why?" for he had not heard it ordered. He heard no
order given for the second bottle that he beheld, nor for the tarte aux
cérises that graced their repast--a delicacy that was not a feature
of the other people's. But though these incidents may have caused
him disquietude, since he was far from having an air of wealth, he
manifested no objection to them. Gaby allowed that that was _gentil_.
A singularly taciturn host, but an amenable one. And, briefly as he
spoke, he yielded continuous attention to her prattle to the lady with
the veil. It was queer that the more she prattled, the more despondent
he grew. She found him piquing her curiosity.

When a bill for twenty-nine francs fifty was presented to him, after
the café filtré and Egyptian cigarettes, Gaby put out her hand for it
and knocked off four francs without discussion. "I don't let them make
their little mistakes with friends of mine," she told him languidly,
rising. "I am going home to get my coat--you can come with me." He
accepted her invitation with as scant enthusiasm as she had shown for
his own; and by way of a hint, forgetful of her earlier statement, she
added, "This place is rotten--it's so noisy and one can't talk."

But he proved no more talkative in the street. One might almost have
imagined that the task of explaining his petition for the interview was
a duty that he sought to escape.

Her lodging was so close that the doorway took him aback. He followed
her up the stairs submissively. She was not impatient for the coat.
After lighting the lamp, she lit another of the cigarettes, and sat.
The young man stood staring from the window.

"Well, chatterbox?" she said.

He swung round with unexpected vehemence. "I know I look a hopeless
idiot," he cried.

"But ... what an idea!" Her gesture was all surprised denial.

"I prayed to see you--I said nothing all the evening, I stand like a
dummy here. I must tell you why I wrote. But--but it is not so easy as
I thought it would be."

"You make me curious."

"Listen," he exclaimed. "I had had two passions in my life--music, and
the poetry of Richardière! No other poet has meant half--a tithe--so
much to me as he. His work inspired me when I was a boy; if I had had
the means, I would have taken the journey to Paris just to wait on the
pavement and see his face when he went out. When he died----Of course
all France mourned his loss, but none but his dearest friends, I think,
could have felt as I did. Well, since I have been a man I have made an
opera of his _Arizath_, and I came to Paris last week because there was
a prospect of its being produced. Five minutes after I had found a room
at an hotel, I was asking my way to the Square d'Iéna to see the statue
to him. I knew nothing about it excepting that it had been erected
there--and as I approached it my heart sank: I had always pictured a
statue of the man, and I saw merely a bust of him--the statue was of a
woman, recalling a verse."

She nodded. "I know. Beauvais kept me posing for three hours and a half
without budging, and I had a chilblain that itched like mad on the
finger inside the book."

"The disappointment was keen. I almost wished I had not come, for it
had been a long walk, and I was very tired. And then, after I had stood
looking at the bust, noting how handsome he had been, and thinking
of his genius, I looked down at the statue of the woman, and I felt
that it would have been worth coming simply to see that. It was so
wonderful, so real! The naturalness of the attitude, the perfection of
the toilette--I had never realised that the sculptor's art could do
such things; I think I looked for minutes at the slippers. I admired
the sleeves, the sweep of the gown, that seemed as if it must be soft
to touch; I was amazed by a thousand trifles before my glance lingered
on the face. And after my glance lingered on the face I saw nothing
else; I could not even move to look at it in profile--it held me fixed."

"It is Beauvais' masterpiece," said Gaby; "they all say it is the
finest thing he has done."

"It is a masterpiece, yes. But I was not thinking of the sculptor and
his art any more--I was thinking of the face, without remembering how
it had come about. It was as if a beautiful mind were really pondering
behind that brow. The character of the mouth and chin impressed me as
if the marble had been flesh and blood; the abstracted eyes couldn't
have stirred me to more reverence if they had had sight. And while
I looked at them, they seemed, by an optical illusion, to meet my
own. Not with interest; with an unconsciousness that mortified
me--they seemed to gaze through my insignificance into the greatness
of Richardière. I blinked, I suppose, for the next instant they had
been averted. I wanted them to come back, to realise my presence. I
concentrated all my will upon the effort to trick myself once more--and
I could have sworn they turned. Now, too, they seemed to notice me;
there was a smile in them, an ironical smile--they smiled at the
presumption of my linking an immortal poet's work with mine! Insane?
But I felt it, I shrank from the derision. Again I raised my head to
Richardière, and for the first time I remarked that his expression was
a poor acknowledgment of the figure's homage. It was consequential
and impertinent. A tinge of cruelty in it, even. He had an air of
sensualism, of one who held women very light. I could imagine his
having said horrible things to women. He was not worthy of the look in
the statue's eyes....

"I went there the next day, after vowing that I would not go. The eyes
discerned me sooner this time, and I contrived to fancy that their gaze
was gentler. I was happy in the fancy that their gaze was gentler. When
the eyes wandered from me I was humbled, and when they looked in mine
I held my breath. I persuaded myself--no, I did not 'persuade myself,'
the thought was born--that there was comprehension in the gaze, that
my worship, though undesired, was understood. In the afternoon I had
a business appointment that I had been thinking about for weeks, but
instead of being excited by its nearness, I regretted that it obliged
me to leave the Square d'Iéna. When I kept the appointment, the bad
news that there had been a delay in the arrangements hardly troubled
me--I was impatient only to be outside. Originally my plan had been to
see the Louvre as soon as the business was over--now my one desire was
to return to the statue. It was a delight to hasten to it; people must
have thought me bound for a rendezvous, as I strode smiling through
the streets. Not once did I regard the arrogance of Richardière on the
pedestal, but it was only in moments that the musing figure ceased
to remind me that her god was there. Though I never looked at it,
an intense repugnance to the face of Richardière was in my blood--a
jealousy, if you will! It possessed me while I was away--while I was
reiterating that I had made my last visit to the square, knowing
nevertheless that on the morrow I should yield again. The jealousy
persisted when I turned the pages of my opera now, and the magic of
the master's poetry was gone. I could not forget his domination of the
figure--I wanted to think of the beautiful statue freed, aloof from
him!"

He had left the window, and was moving restlessly about the room.
Intent, her face propped by her hands, the model for the statue sat and
watched him. The cigarette between her lips was out.

"The fact that there must have been a model for it was borne upon me
quite suddenly. It had the thrill of a revelation, and nearly dazed
me. This woman lived! Somewhere in the world she was walking, speaking!
It was as if a miracle had happened, as if the statue had come to life.
I repeated breathlessly that it was true, but it appeared fabulous. I
had attributed emotions to the marble figure with ease--to grasp the
simple truth of the woman's existence was inconceivably difficult. I
trembled with the marvel of it; Pygmalion was not more stupefied than
I. When my heart left off pounding so hard, I began to question how
long it would take me to discover who she was. I did not even know the
way to set about it. But I knew that if she was in France I meant to
find her.... I need not talk about the rest."

After a silence Gaby stirred and spoke:

"It was a triumph to pose for the statue--your story makes me very
proud."

"I could not avoid telling it to you," answered the young man drearily.

"But how you say it--as if you had done wrong! Shall I tell you what
would have been wrong? Not to let me know. That would have been
pathetic. Mon Dieu! it would be atrocious for a woman to have done all
that and never to hear. And to think that at the beginning I fancied
you were----You were so quiet while we dined."

"I was listening to you," he sighed.

"That's true. You were entitled to it by then--you had done much to get
the chance!"

"Yes, I had done much to get the chance."

"It was beautiful of you. I mean it. Because you have spoken earnestly,
from your heart, and I could see--I could see very well that what you
were saying was true, that you were not exaggerating to please me. Oh,
I am moved, believe me, I am really moved!" She put out her hand to him
impulsively, and he took it, as in duty bound. But he did not raise it
to his lips. Her body stiffened a little as the hand drooped slowly to
her lap. A shade of apprehension aged her face. Again there was silence.

"Well?" she murmured.

"Well?"

"Enfin, when you sought the chance, when you wrote to me at last, you
foresaw--what?"

"Infinitely less than you have granted, mademoiselle," he returned,
with an obvious effort. "A briefer meeting, a more formal one. I thank
you most gratefully for your patience, your kindness, the honour you
have done me."

She gave a harsh laugh. "And now you 'regret that you must say good
night'?"

"It is a fact that I have to see my man again this evening," he
acknowledged hurriedly, glancing at his watch. "I had forgotten the
time."

"Yes," said the woman, "you had forgotten the time--you had forgotten
that the statue was modelled eleven years ago.... So you did not find
her, after all! You began your search too late."

"It is not that!" he cried, distressed.

"Ah!" She had sprung to her feet, and stood panting. "Why lie to me? I
am sorry for you, in a way--you haven't been a brute consciously."

"A brute?"

"What do you imagine you have been? A fool, you think, to yourself: I
have changed, and you should have known I must have changed; it would
have spared you the bother of seeking me, the disillusion when we
met--there are no wrinkles creeping on the statue. Oh, it has been a
fraud for you, I realise the sell! But you are not the only sufferer by
your folly. A man can't talk to a woman as you have talked to me and
leave her cold. He can't say, 'I felt all this for you before I saw
you--now, good-bye,' and leave her proud; he can't adore her in the
marble and disdain her in the flesh without her being ashamed. You have
degraded me, jeered at me--you have taunted me with every blemish on my
skin!"

"It isn't that!" he cried again. "I was a fool, I own it--a brute, if
you choose to call me one--but it isn't that."

"What then? Is it my frock that alters me? I am poor, I can't afford
such gowns as Beauvais put on me for the statue. Is it the way my hair
is dressed? I can dress it like the statue again. The brow? You liked
the brow. Well, look! time hasn't been so rough on me there--the brow
is young. And you need not be jealous of my thoughts of Richardière,
for I have never read a single word he wrote. What is there lacking in
me? Tell me what you miss."

"I can't tell you," he groaned. But he had started.

"You _have_ told me," she said, shrinking. "I know now. My face is
ignorant--the statue has more _mind_ than I!"

He no longer said, "It isn't that." He drooped before her, dumb,
contrite.

After a long pause she quavered, dabbing at her eyes:

"Well, I'm not an idiot--I should improve."

"Is it an imbecile like me who could teach you?"

"I should be content."

"Never in a single hour! I fell in love with an ideal and went to look
for it--failure was ordained. It is I who lack sense, not you."

A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. "It was all the fault of that
Beauvais; he stuck an expression on me, with the clothes. I did look
like that in his studio, though the chilblain was itching. But even
if I made myself look like it now, it wouldn't take you in, would it?
Don't look so frightened of me, I shan't go on at you again. Poor boy,
you have had a deuce of an evening!... Well, I suppose you are right,
failure was ordained--and it is wise to cut one's failures short. You
may go. And don't flatter yourself that you have hurt me so much as I
said--my vanity was stung for a minute, that's all; to-morrow I shall
have forgotten all about you.... You can find your way downstairs?"

He hesitated--and took an irresolute step towards her, with half-opened
arms.

"Good night," she said, not moving. "Good-bye."

       *       *       *       *       *

On the tenth day, instead of the young man, a woman went to the statue,
and stood before it just as stupidly and as long as he had done. The
most comical bit was that, when she turned away at last, it was seen
that the statue had been making the woman cry. After that, neither of
the funny pair came back to the Square d'Iéna; but as Vera Simpson
chooses the same bench still, she sometimes recalls their queerness
and, before her mind wanders, tries again to guess their game. This was
the game that an English nursemaid tries to guess.



V

THE CELEBRITY AT HOME


Before boarding-houses in London were all called Hotels and while
snobbery had advanced no further than to call them Establishments,
there was one in a London square where two of the "visitors"--which is
boarding-house English for "boarders"--were a girl and a young man.
Irene Barton was a humble journalist, who wrote stories when she would
have been wiser to go to bed, and yearned to be an admired author. Jack
Humphreys was an athletic clerk, who was renouncing clerkships for
Canada and foresaw himself prospering in a world of wheat. The young
man and the girl used to confide their plans to each other--when they
weren't saying how detestable all the other boarders were--and before
the time came for him to sail they had complicated matters by falling
in love.

When he had begged her to wait for him and she had explained that
matrimony did not enter into her scheme of things, Miss Barton was
miserable. But she did not let him guess that she was miserable, and
she didn't change her mind. She had dreamed of being a celebrated
novelist from the days when she wrote stories, in penny exercise
books, at the nursery table, and his appeal amounted to asking her
to sacrifice her aspirations and remain a nobody. She had scoffed too
often at women who "ruined their careers for sickly sentiment" to
be guilty of the same blunder. Still, she had had no suspicion that
sentiment could lure so hard, and she viewed the women more leniently
now.

She reflected that the experience of sickly sentiment at first hand
should be of benefit to her fiction, but the thought failed to
encourage her so much as she would have expected of it. "They learn
in suffering what they teach in song," she reminded herself--and an
old-fashioned instinct, which she rebuked, whispered, "But isn't it
better to be happy than to teach?"

Because Jack Humphreys persisted they discussed the subject more than
once. Sauntering round the garden of the square in the twilight, she
expounded her philosophy to him.

"I am not," she insisted, "the least bit the kind of girl you ought to
care for. It'll be five years at the very least before you can marry,
and in five years' time I shall have written books, and--well, I hope
I shall have done something worth while. Do you suppose I could be
satisfied to give it all up? I know myself, I couldn't do it. Or, if I
did do it, I should be wretched--and make you wretched too."

"But why should you give it all up?" he said miserably. "Don't
you think I should be interested in it? Haven't I been interested
here--have you found me so wooden? I don't know much about it, but Oh,
my dear, I'm so fond of you! Whatever interested _you_ would be bound
to interest _me_. You could write novels as my wife--I'd never put any
difficulties in your way, heaven knows I wouldn't!"

She shook her head.

"You think all that now, but you'd know better then. You won't want
a wife to write novels--you'll want one to bake the bread and feed
the chickens and make herself useful. You'll want the domesticated
article--and I'm an artist. I should be an encumbrance, not a wife.
Besides, I should hate it all. Oh, I know I'm hurting you, but it's
true! I should bore myself to death. To write, I need to live among men
and women, to live in London, Paris, among other writers. I want to
see pictures, and hear music--real music, not Verdi and that kind of
treacle--and be in the movement. Perhaps by the time you wanted me to
come to you I _should_ be in the movement--five years is a long while,
and I'm going to work hard. And you fancy I could turn my back on it
all! Oh, Mr. Humphreys, don't let us talk about it any more!"

Trying to steady his voice, the young man asked:

"May I write to you sometimes, as a friend?"

"I think you had better not," she said, though her heart had jumped at
the suggestion.

"I haven't any people who'd care much about hearing from me," he
pleaded; "I shall be pretty humped over there at the start. I'd
promise faithfully not to--er--I'd write to you just as I might write
to any other chum, if I had one."

"Very well," she assented. "Write to me like that and I'll answer."

       *       *       *       *       *

He did not write quite like that, but he suppressed two-thirds of
what he wanted to say, and signed himself "Yours sincerely." Nobody
could have found any definite endearment to object to in the pages.
Though she checked the impulse to reply by the next mail, she replied
at considerable length. She told him the latest details of the
boarding-house---that Mrs. Usher was looking seriously ill because
she couldn't find out why Mrs. Dunphy received so many telegrams; and
that because Mrs. Kenyon's husband wasn't able to come to England yet,
Mrs. Wykes was suggesting that she hadn't a husband at all. She told
him that she had "had enough of these awful people" and that he was
to direct his next letter elsewhere. And always his next letter was
awaited more eagerly than was consistent of a young woman who was quite
sure that she preferred celebrity to love.

So, although they did not write to each other more than twice or
thrice a year, they were still corresponding after both had made some
progress. The homestead was the man's own property at last, and the
woman had had a novel published. She sent a copy of it to him, with
two or three of the best reviews. It had been reviewed very highly,
and if the ex-clerk had sometimes questioned whether she mightn't be
exaggerating her prospects, his doubt was banished when he read the
compliments that the critics paid her.

He grinned a little wryly in the solitude of the homestead. Yes, it
would have been a queer kind of life here for a woman of her talent!
"I should bore myself to death." Like a knife through him when she
said it. Of course, he had not grasped then what the life would be.
If he had thoroughly divined----Looking back, he wondered whether he
would have found the pluck to tackle it himself. That first awful year,
when he had ploughed a bit of wilderness, craving in every hour for
the sight of a girl in England!... Well, time worked wonders, and his
labours interested him now. He pulled, and viewed proudly, a few heads
of the wheat he had sown with his own hands. Jolly colour they were!
Better than a clerkship; no more London for _him_. Irene Barton was
finding it a Tom Tiddler's ground, he supposed. Good luck to her! Oh,
of course, she had done the sensible thing in refusing him--and, heaven
be praised, he wasn't broken up about it any longer. One could get over
any blow.

By way of thanks for the book, he scribbled a friendly letter, in which
there was no endearment, definite or indefinite, to object to. It
implied that her choice had been a wise one, and he congratulated her
very cordially. The letter was sincere; he felt that it would give her
pleasure. And when it reached her and she read between the lines, the
woman's heart sank, and tears crept down her face.

He wondered mildly why he didn't hear from her any more.

       *       *       *       *       *

The novel that the papers praised so warmly had enriched her by the sum
of ten pounds; and when she was five years older than she had been on
the day she said good-bye to him, she was writing in a boarding-house
much like the one where he had met her. She remembered wistfully that
within five years she had foreseen herself rejoicing in Upper Bohemia.

She wrote well. She did not think as well as she wrote, of course--her
horizon was clouded by myths, like those that have it that Scots are
all skinflints, and Jews are all rogues--but her work had beauty; and
critics saw it, and she made a reputation. But the general public
did not see it, or, seeing the beauty, were a Channel's width from
perceiving that it was beautiful, so she did not make money. And
without money she found a literary reputation was less ecstatic than
she had presumed. It did not mean congenial society, because she could
not afford to join the clubs where congenial society might be supposed
to exist. It did not mean concerts, or picture-galleries, or less
physical discomfort, or a breath of sea air when she was sick for it;
it did not mean a single amelioration of her life's asperities, because
Press notices were not to be tendered in lieu of cash. Even those who
lauded her fiction remained strangers to her. Only for a few weeks
after each book was issued, she read, in her boarding-house attic,
that she was a "distinguished novelist," and then she was again ignored.

And meanwhile her youth was fading, and her eyes were dimming, and she
looked in the glass and mourned. In the emptiness of her "distinction"
she longed for laughter and a home. Desperate at last, she did join a
club of professional women; but nominal as the fees were, considering
the splendour of the place, it was an annual effort for her to pay
the subscription. And she did not go there often enough to make any
intimate friends, because she was generally too tired.

And every year she grew more tired still.

       *       *       *       *       *

When she had been growing tired for sixteen years she was in a dreary
lodging, in a dingy street, toiling at a novel, between the fashion
articles by which she earned her daily bread. Mr. Humphreys, in easy
circumstances by this time, was in London too, though when memories
awoke in her she pictured him in Manitoba. He was indulging in a trip,
and had been in England three weeks. One afternoon, in the hall of the
new and expensive hotel, he picked up a book and came upon her name
among the publisher's advertisements. It was an advertisement of one of
her shattered hopes, but Mr. Humphreys didn't know that--he merely saw
her referred to as a "distinguished novelist." She was, at the moment,
trudging from a modiste's to a milliner's, to gather something to say
in her inevitable article. It was raining, and she had a headache, and
she would have to hammer out a sprightly column about Paris models
before she could lie down. His holiday was proving rather dull, and he
wondered idly whether it would be a foolish impulse to recall himself
to such a prominent woman.

His formal note, re-directed by the publisher's clerk, and re-directed
again, reached her some days later. "If you have not quite forgotten
our old friendship, I should be glad of an opportunity to call and
congratulate you on your triumphs." She read that line many times. Her
face was white, and her eyes were wide. She looked again at the name
of the expensive hotel, and stared at the sordid parlour in which she
sat--the pitiable parlour with its atrocious oleographs on drab walls,
and two mottled vases, from the tea-grocer's, on the dirty mantelpiece.
He would be "glad to congratulate her"!

She remembered the unaffected cheeriness of the previous
congratulations, the letter that had shown her his love was dead. She
had fancied that nothing could hurt more deeply than that letter, but
she had been wrong--to expose her mistake to him would be bitterer
still. The humiliation of it, the punishment! All the arrogance of
her rejection, all the boasts of her girlhood thronged back upon her
tauntingly. God! if she could have seen ahead--if only she could have
her life again.

She debated her reply. To say that she was leaving town would sound
ungracious. The alternative was to receive him at the club. Almost for
the first time she was devoutly thankful to be a member--the club would
spare her the ignominy of revealing her parlour; the stationery would
avert the need for betraying her address.

On the imposing stationery she wrote that she would be "pleased to
see him here on either Wednesday or Thursday next." Her clothes, she
supposed, wouldn't give her away, as he was a man.

Was he married? There was no hint of a wife in his letter. How much
changed would she find him? Would the change in herself shock him
greatly? There were women as old as she who were still spoken of as
"young," but their lives had run on smoother lines than hers--and when
he saw her last she had been twenty-two and sanguine. It seemed to her
that he would meet a stranger. She trembled in the club on Wednesday
afternoon, and began to hope that his choice would fall on "Thursday."

She was told that he had come. She rose with an effort. A big man, with
greying hair, approached her uncertainly. She smiled with stiff lips.
"Mr. Humphreys," she faltered. And a voice that she didn't remember, a
new deep voice that wasn't like Jack's at all, was saying, "Why, Miss
Barton! This is very kind of you."

"How d'ye do? So glad to see you again," she murmured. "Let--let us go
and sit down." Her heart was thumping, and she felt a little deaf.

"So--er Well, how does London look to you after such a long time? Are
you home for good?"

"No, about a couple of months. My home is on the other side now. Well,
this is a real pleasure! I never expected--I was rather nervous about
writing, but----"

"It would have been too bad if you hadn't," she said.

"Well, I thought I'd take my chance. Er--yes, London looks rather
different. I managed to get lost in it the other day; I had to find a
taxi to take me back. No taxis when I was here before!"

"You take tea?"

The alcove was very comfortable, and the long room was exquisite in all
its tones. The beauty of the carpet, she felt, more than repaid her for
that annual effort. And how deferential was the service!

"A fine place," said Mr. Humphreys admiringly.

"Yes, it's rather decent," she drawled; "they do one very well here. A
club is one of the necessaries of life."

"I suppose so." He was remembering the way her tea had been served in
the boarding-house. "Wealth buys more in the old country than over
there--you get more for your money than I do."

"Do you have to rough it very badly?" Her tone was gentler. "Are you
still in the same place?"

"Well, I haven't known I was roughing it of recent years, but I don't
see luxury like this in Manitoba. Not bad. And I've got a gramophone.
Pretty rotten records, I'm afraid. Verdi is about the most classical of
them."

"Isn't it lovely, how Verdi reminds one?" she said. "If I hear Verdi,
I'm about ten years old again, and--it's funny--I'm always in the same
bow window, and it's always a summer's afternoon, though I suppose
the organs used to come in the winter, too. Just as, if I hear that
hymn with 'pilgrims of the night' in it, it's always the nursery, and
the gas over the mantelpiece is lighted. Verdi gives me my childhood
back. I hope to hear Verdi in heaven. You've nothing very dreadful to
complain of, then? You aren't sorry you went?"

"Well, no--I'm glad I went. It has panned out all right. It has been a
funny thing to walk down the Strand again and remember that the last
time I was in it I was short of sixpences. The other day I looked in
at the office where I used to clerk. Two of the boys I had known were
there still--grown round-shouldered and pigeon-chested. I suppose
they've had a rise of about fifty pounds a year in the meantime. They
came round to dinner at the hotel last night, and it made me melancholy
to hear them talk. I used to want them to chuck the office and go out
to Canada with me--they'd got the stamina once--but they hadn't got
the grit. Now it's too late.... You know, it's capital to see you
flourishing like this! You're about the only survivor of the old days
that it hasn't given me the hump to meet. You always _were_ sure you'd
get on, weren't you?"

"I was," she said. "Yes, I used to say so."

"Do you remember the people in that house? And how we used to groan
about the extras in the bills?"

"It was a bad time for us both," she stammered.

"But it's good to look back on now it's over. Helps one to appreciate.
When you're feeling dull now, you can drive round here and have a chat
with a friend, and say, 'Well, it used to be much worse--I used to be
poor.' Isn't that so?"

She nodded helplessly. Her mind was strained to find another subject.

"I wish _you'd_ come round to dinner with me one evening, if you've
nothing better to do?"

"I'm not going out very much just now," she demurred. "I---"

"It'd be a charity, I'm all alone, and--by the way, I don't know if
'Miss Barton' is just your literary name now? If there is a lucky man,
I hope he will give me the pleasure, too?"

"No, I'm not married," she said.

"Like me, you've been too busy. You know, I really think our victories
should be fêted. It'd be friendly of you to come. You can find one
evening free before I go back?"

"I suppose," she said, trying to laugh, "I'm not so full of engagements
that I can't do that!"

And, though neither of them had foreseen the invitation, she was
pledged to dine with him. Heavily she reflected that, when the dinner
finished, she would be obliged to ask him to send for a taxi and that
it would probably cost her a half-crown.

       *       *       *       *       *

She went by train. That her solitary evening gown was wrong, having
been bought three years since, did not worry her, though as "Lady
Veronica," in her _The Autocrat at the Toilet-Table_ column, she
wrote of things being "hopelessly last season's" when their vogue had
been declining for a week; but she was embarrassed by her lack of
evening shoes. At the table she bore herself bravely, supported by the
knowledge that the epoch of her sleeves was unsuspected by him, but
when she rose she found it difficult to conceal her feet.

Yet, if it had not been that the shame of failure poisoned each
mouthful that she took, the evening would have had its fascination.
When she led him to speak of his early blunders on the homestead, while
he told her how he had shrunk dismayed from the first bleak sight of
that patch of prairie, she forgot she was pretending, and forgot to
feel abased. In moments she even forgot to feel old. The story of his
struggles bore her back. As she heard these things, the greying man
became to her again the boy that had loved her--and as the woman leant
listening, the man caught glimpses of the girl that she had been.

His trip was proving queerly unlike his forecast of it on the farm.
When he packed his bags he had had no idea of seeing her, but he
had looked for emotions that he hadn't obtained. The strangeness of
sauntering on the London pavements as a prosperous man had been less
exhilarating than his anticipation of it. To drive to a fashionable
tailor's and order clothes had failed to induce a burst of high
spirits, though on the way he had laudably reminded himself that once
it would have been the day of his life. He was, in fact, feeling
solitary, and to loll in stalls at the theatres, instead of being
jammed in the pit, would have seemed livelier to him if he had had
a companion. In the circumstances, it was not astonishing that he
proposed to take Irene Barton to the theatre a night or two later--and
as he insisted a good deal, she compromised with a matinée.

Somehow or other he was having tea with her, at the club again, the day
afterwards. And on the day after that, there was something else.

They had always found much to say to each other in the old days--they
found much to say now, when the constraint wore off. The man told
himself that he felt a calm friendship for the woman whom he had once
wanted for his wife. And the woman told herself that, since he would
soon be gone, she'd snatch happy hours with the man she loved while
he was here. Her philosophy had changed since she expounded it in the
garden of the square.

And then--the claims of _The Autocrat at the Toilet-Table_ had
compelled her to break an appointment--it manifested itself to Mr.
Humphreys that his feelings were not so calm as he had thought.
Irritable in the hotel hall, he perceived that this "friendship"
threatened his holiday with a disastrous end. He wanted no second
experience of fevering in Canada for a face in England. Grimly he
decided that the acquaintance must be dropped. If it came to that, why
remain in England any longer? It was time for him to go.

On the morrow, in another charming corner of the familiar club, he
told her his intention, and she tried to disguise how much it startled
her. When she had "hoped that he hadn't received bad news" and he had
said briefly that he hadn't, there was a pause. In his endeavour to be
casual he had been curt, and both were conscious of it. He wondered
if he had hurt her. Perhaps he should have offered an excuse for his
sudden leave-taking? He began to invent one--and she politely dismissed
it. He was certain now that he had hurt her. After all, why not be
candid?

He leant forward, and spoke in a lowered tone:

"Do you know why I'm going? I'm going because, if I stopped, I should
make a fool of myself again."

The cup in her hand jerked. She felt suffocating, voiceless. Not a word
came from her.

"I'm remembering that discretion is the better part of valour, Miss
Barton."

"How do you mean?" she faltered.

"I'm running away in time. You see, I--I made a mistake: I reckoned you
wouldn't be dangerous to me any more, and I was wrong.... So you won't
think me ungrateful for going, will you? You've given me some very
happy hours; I don't want you to think I didn't appreciate them. But I
appreciate, too, the fact that you're a successful woman and that I've
even less to hope for now than I had before. I went through hell about
you once, dear--I couldn't stick it twice."

Her hand was passed across her eyes, and she trailed it on her skirt.

"Are you running away from--from my success? If I cared for you, do you
think my success would matter?"

"Do you care for me?" His voice shook, like hers. He hated the
chattering groups about them, as he bent conventionally over the
tea-table. "Do you mean you could give your position up to be my wife?"

She rose. Her lips twitched before her answer came. It came in a
whisper:

"You've never seen my rooms. Will you drive me there?"

And on the way she was very quiet.

The taxi stopped. In a dingy street she took a latchkey from her
pocket, and opened a door, from which a milk-can hung. Perplexed, he
followed. She led him to a parlour--a pitiable parlour, with atrocious
oleographs on drab walls, and two mottled vases on a dirty mantelpiece.

"This," she said dryly, "is where I live. You see the celebrity at
home."

He tried to take her to him, and she drew swiftly back.

"I have failed," she cried; "no one has read my books; I'm as poor
as when you knew me first. I've spent years in holes like this! I've
shammed to you because I was ashamed. My talk of people I know, of
places I go to has been lies--I know no one, I go nowhere. I refused
to marry you, when I was a girl, because I didn't think it good
enough for me; before you stoop to ask me again, go away and think
whether it's good enough for _you_. I've lost my hopes, my youth, my
looks--you'd be giving me everything, and I should bring you nothing in
return!"

His arms were quick now, and they held her fast.

"Nothing?" he demanded. His eyes challenged her. "Nothing, Irene?"

"Oh, my dearest," she wept, smiling, "if my love's enough----?"



VI

PICQ PLAYS THE HERO


When he had made his choice of a career, when in spite of remonstrances
he had become an actor, his father had felt disgraced. His father was
the hatter in the rue de la Paroisse. The shop was not prosperous--in
Ville-Nogent people made their hats last a long while--but it was at
least a shop, and the old man wished his son to be respectable. This,
you see, was France. The little French hatter had not heard that,
across the Channel, the scions of noble houses turned actors, and he
would not have believed it if he had been told.

Once, the son of a little French tradesman humiliated his father by
going on the stage and became the admiration of the world; but this
tradesman's son did not distinguish himself like that. Indeed, he did
not distinguish himself at all. Many years later the hatter patted the
artist's hand, and said feebly: "After I am gone, take a hat, my poor
Olivier. Heaven knows thou needest one!" A hat, and his blessing were
well-nigh all he had to give by this time.

In his youthful dreams--day-dreams behind the counter--Olivier Picq had
seen himself a leading man in Paris, making impassioned love in the
limelight to famous actresses. His engagements had proved so different
from his dreams that not once had he attained to the hero's part,
even in the least significant of provincial holes. No manager could
be induced to regard him as a hero. By slow degrees he had ceased to
expect it. By still slower degrees he ceased to expect even parts of
prominence. He was the fatuous valet, who came on, with the laughing
chambermaid, to explain what the characters that mattered had been
doing between the acts; he was the gaby that made inane remarks, in
order that the low comedian might reply with something funny; he was
the moody defaulter that committed suicide early in the piece--and
he changed his wig (alas! not his voice) to become the uninteresting
figure that broke the tragic tidings to the widow.

"Ah," says the reader, "he wasn't clever. That's why he didn't get on."

Well, it is not pretended that Picq had genius; for such parts as fell
to him he had not even marked ability. But the truth is, that in the
rôle of romantic hero, which he had not had a chance to play, he would
have been good. The laughing chambermaid used to say he would have been
splendid. Often they grieved over the bad luck that had attended him,
as they reviewed the years of struggle, hand in hand. He had married
the chambermaid.

"Oh, I can guess the end of this story already!" says the reader. "He
became a leading man in Paris, after all."

So he did, madam. But not quite so felicitously as you may think. Picq,
dizzied by the sudden transformation, was promoted to be the hero--a
gallant, dashing boy--in a revival on a Paris stage, one winter when
he was subject to lumbago, and fifty-eight years old. You see, most of
the actors of military age that still lived were either in the line
or the hospitals, while many of the popular actresses were nursing. A
manager who had the temerity to cast a play now was in no position to
be fastidious, and playgoers were indulgent. They accepted the elderly
man as the gallant boy. He was applauded. And while he declaimed
bombast across the footlights--those turgid love appeals to which he
had aspired, behind the counter, forty years ago--it was with a heart
torn with anxiety for his own boy, who was in the trenches.

When Jean had slept as a baby, the utility actor and the chambermaid
had sat by the cradle and talked in low tones of the fine things he was
to do when he grew up. Not on the stage--both had outlived its glamour;
he was to be an advocate. "It is so refined, dearest," said the
chambermaid. "And there is money in it, my love," agreed the father.
And for half a lifetime unflinchingly they had scraped and hoarded, to
realise that ambition for him. Their salaries were not vast, and there
were numerous vacations in which there was no salary at all; often the
sum that they had garnered during one tour would melt before the next;
but every hundred francs that they could stick to looked a milestone
on the journey. Only one annual extravagance did they allow themselves.
On Jean's birthday it was Picq's custom to take home a bottle of cheap
champagne. The dinner might be meagre, the vacation might be long, but
on Jean's birthday they must be joyous. And in a shabby lodging-house
bedroom--a parlour was beyond the means of poor players who pinched to
make their son an advocate--the pair would festively clink glasses to
his future.

"We have not been unhappy together all these years, Nanette, my little
wife, though you did throw yourself away in marrying me, hein?" Picq
would say tenderly, embracing her. And Nanette, who still looked almost
as young sometimes as she had looked at the wedding breakfast--at
any rate, Picq thought so--would answer, with a catch in her voice:
"Sweetheart, I have thanked the good God on my knees every night for
that 'throwing myself away.'"

"All the same, it is possible that, without me, you would have got on
far better--even have made a name."

"Silly! It is more likely _I_ who have held _you_ back; perhaps alone
you would have gone to the top. Ah, no, I cannot bear to think it; I
cannot bear to think I have been a hindrance to you!"

Then Picq, denying it vigorously, would cry: "But a fig for the stage!
Ma foi, have we not each other, and our Jean? It is wealth enough. I
tell you he is going to be a famous man one day, our Jean--he has the
brow."

By rare good fortune, when he was old enough to have ideas of his
own on the subject of a career, Jean had not opposed their plan; he
did not, as night easily have been the case, inherit a craving to be
the hero. He had long been a student in Paris, and they were playing
in a rural district remote from him on the day of the mobilisation.
Never while life lasted would they forget that day--that beating on a
tocsin, and the glare of a blue sky that turned suddenly black to them;
the deathly silence that spread; and then the shrill voice of a child,
the first to speak--"_C'est la guerre_!" The shaking of their limbs
held the father and mother apart; only their gaze rushed to each other.
"Jean!" she had moaned.

And Jean fought for France still, and already it seemed to them that
the war was eternal. Twice--on two anniversaries since that terrible
Saturday--they had raised trembling glasses to a photograph on the
wall and pretended to be gay, and a third anniversary was approaching.
"Be confident, be brave," he wrote to them; "we are going to win." But
the thoughts that crowded on his little mother, in the dark, after she
went to bed kept her awake for hours; and marking the change that the
war had wrought in her, Picq's misgivings for his wife were sometimes
hardly less acute than his anxieties for his boy. The laughing
chambermaid, who had retained girlishness of disposition for two
decades after girlhood was past, seemed to him all at once middle-aged.
Ever the first formerly to propose trudging a long distance to save a
tram fare, she was now fatigued after an hour's stroll. By the time
they came to Paris, too, she was subject to spells of some internal
trouble, which the doctor had failed to banish permanently. There could
be no question of her seeking an engagement.

"It _is_ a shame, when the double salary would have been so nice," she
repined, one evening. The trouble had recurred, and a new doctor had
been no more definite than his predecessor. "We might have lived on my
money, and put the whole of yours aside every week. It _is_ a shame
that you should have an invalid for a wife."

"An invalid!" laughed Picq, affecting great amusement. "Now, is not
that absurd? To hear you talk, one would imagine it was some terrible
malady, instead of a little derangement of the system that will pass
and be forgotten. Very likely you will be in a show again before Jean's
birthday. And it shall be a good part, also, parbleu! There are not so
many stars available to-day that they can afford to put on an artist
like you to flick the furniture with a feather-brush. Listen, Nanette,
my best beloved, if it were anything serious that you had the matter
with you, it would not right itself as it does from time to time--it
would be always the same. The fact that you are sometimes as well as
ever shows that it is nothing organic. Have not both doctors said so?
Did not the other man tell us so again and again?"

She nodded, forcing a smile. Her smile was girlish still, and somehow
it looked to him strangely poignant on her altered face. His gaze was
blurred, as he muffled himself in his shabby cloak, and set forth
through the sleet, to be the dashing hero. A child came towards him,
calling papers, and he thought, "If only the news were that Germany
sued for peace! That would be the best medicine for her."

And on the morning before the birthday she was _not_ "in a show again;"
she was feeling so much worse that she clung to Picq, alarmed. Picq was
alarmed, too, though he tried to hide it.

"Look here, I tell you what!" he exclaimed, in the most confident
tone that he could summon. "We are going to call in a big man and get
you cured without any more delay! That's what we're going to do. This
chap is too slow for me. I dare say his medicines might do the trick
eventually, but it does not suit me to wait so long. No, it does not
suit me. I am not going to see you worried like this while he potters
about as if time were no object. We shall call in a big man and put an
end to the nuisance at once. I wish to heaven I had done it before. I
am going now. I am going to the chap's house to tell him plainly I am
not content."

"Mais non, mais non!" demurred Nanette piteously. "It would cost such a
lot, chéri--what are you thinking about? I shall get all right without
that. You mustn't take any notice of me; I am a coward--I have never
been used to feeling ill, you see--but I shall get all right without
that."

"I care nothing what it costs. That is my intention," declared Picq.
"And it will not cost such a great sum either. Anyhow, whether it is
forty francs or five hundred, my mind is made up. I am going to him
this moment to tell him I want the highest authority in Paris. Now, be
tranquil, mignonne. Try to sleep. We have chosen the shortest course at
last--we were bien bêtes not to take it at the start--and in a week at
the outside you will be yourself again."

Never in her life had Nanette contemplated spending forty francs all
at once on a physician. She knew she would be unable to sleep for the
awfulness of such expense. But, if his prescription cured her promptly
and she could earn a salary again soon----

"What a weight I have become to thee, my little husband!" she faltered,
stroking his hand.

"Hush! Thou _wilt_ sleep while I am away, pauvrette?" asked Picq
tenderly.

She closed her eyes, smiling--to lie and grieve over the "weight
she had become to him" when he had gone; and Picq went apace to the
doctor's.

When the motive for the inopportune call was explained, the doctor
evidently resented the suggestion that his own treatment of the patient
could be bettered.

"Another opinion, monsieur? Parfaitement--if you desire it." His shrug
was eloquent. "But your wife has only to continue with the medicine I
have prescribed----"

"She has continued," stammered Picq; "she has continued. There it
is--she has continued for a long time. I grow anxious. No doubt it is
unreasonable of me, but----" Truth to tell, the veteran of the boards,
who faced a crowded auditorium without a tremor, found himself nervous
in the room of the dignified practitioner.

"One must not expect miracles. I am not a magician. In such cases----"

"Mais enfin, another opinion would ease my mind. If you would do me the
great kindness to indicate a specialist, monsieur--the best? Such a one
as you would recommend if it were--I do not know what it _could_ be, I;
but such a one as you would recommend if you feared something grave? I
should be thankful. I know nothing of these things. If you would be so
very kind as to communicate with someone for me----" He with-drew, after
five minutes, clumsily, relieved to be able to tell Nanette that, with
luck, they might receive a visit from a specialist on the morrow.

"And his charge--how much?" panted Nanette, who feared that such
celerity might cost more still.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the specialist had been, on the morrow--when Picq had closed the
street door after him, and stumbled up the stairs, in his hurry to
rejoin Nanette, and sat down on the bed, with his cheek resting against
hers--they did not speak for some seconds.

"Well, well," he brought forth at last, "after all, it is not so bad,
what? It is a shock, of course--I own it is a shock; but really, when
one comes to think it over----"

She moaned--a child afraid.

"Don't--_don't_! An operation!"

"Yes, yes, it is a shock; we were hoping for an easy cure. But when
all is said, we have learnt there _is_ a cure. If he had told us there
was nothing to be done? There _is_ a cure! And you will feel nothing,
mignonne--you will feel no pain at all. And afterwards, when you lie
there at peace--so comfortable in the knowledge that all the misery is
over--I shall come every day and bring you flowers. And every day I
shall find you brighter and stronger. Upon my word, I would not mind
making a bet that, in looking back at it, you remember it as a happy
time."

Big tears were on her frightened face.

"And it is Jean's birthday," she wailed.

"Yes, it is unfortunate. It cannot be helped. Well, we shall have our
fête when you come home instead, and--listen, listen! We will drink
his health at a restaurant--we will make up for the delay. To the
devil with the cost! When you come home cured, we will have a swagger
supper out, to celebrate the double event. Nanette--it is useless to
expostulate--I register a vow that this time we will squander a couple
of louis on a supper on the Boulevard. And you shall put on your pink
silk dress!"

"Petit bonhomme, wilt thou do me a favour?" she whimpered.

"Now thou art going to say something foolish."

"No; we will have that supper on the Boulevard. After the awful expense
I shall have been, two louis more or less----But let us fête Jean the
same as usual to-night. We must. We've never missed doing it once since
he was a baby; I couldn't bear to let the day go by without our doing
that. Think of the danger he is in. Get champagne as you always do.
If it would be bad for me, I won't take any; but get it! My illness
mustn't spoil the birthday altogether. Get it, and we'll forget about
me for an hour. Chéri, I shall go into the hospital braver in the
morning for having had our fête."

"Agreed, agreed," said Picq chokingly. "But it will be a poor treat to
me, if I am to drink it alone. I shall ask if you may take a sip."

He rang up the specialist, to inquire, on the way to the theatre in the
evening. "It is our boy's birthday, monsieur," he pleaded--"our boy who
is in the war. You see, it is his birthday!"

"One glass of champagne? Yes. It will do no harm," said the
authoritative voice. "But no excitement, you understand. And no solid
food. To-morrow and the next day they will see to her diet--and the day
after that, we shall operate."

That word "operate," booming from the receiver, struck horror to Picq
afresh. He marvelled that anyone could be capable of uttering it so
cheerfully, as he went out into the streets again. A child came towards
him, calling papers, and he sighed, "If they but announced that Germany
sued for peace! She would not be thinking so much about the operation
then."

During the performance, the bottle of paltry wine stood among the
articles of make-up on the table of his dressing-room; and in his wait
in the last act, he sat staring at it, and thinking of the days when
his boy in the 120ième Régiment Territorial had been a tiny child, and
the wife who was so ill had been all sunshine and laughter. It had
not been withheld from him, on the doorstep, in the morning, that the
operation would be a serious one, and he felt sick in contemplating
the next three days' suspense. How would Nanette contrive to bear
it, he wondered, away from him, among strangers in a hospital? When
the fearful moment came for her to be carried from the ward to the
operating table! Cold sweat burst out on him. As he sat huddled there,
in the garish dressing-room, Picq prayed to Heaven to give her courage.
His chin was sunk on his chest; he rocked to and fro.

There was a sudden rap at the door.

"Entrez!" said Picq, and somebody brought him a telegram.

He read: "I have the pain of informing you of the death on the field of
honour of your son Jean Picq." It was from the War Office.

"Better hurry up, Picq--you haven't too long!" called a colleague,
carelessly, looking in. "Good God!" And he sprang towards him.

Picq staggered, from his colleague's arms, up the crazy staircase
to the wings--and straightened his back to be dashing. He entered
upon the scene in time. And he delivered his lines, and struck his
attitudes, and paused, by force of habit, when a round of applause
was due. At the climax of a tirade, when he took a step back and
mechanically raised his gaze to the first circle, nobody would have
supposed that, with his mind's eye he looked, through the tier of
faces, on the mangled body of his son.

The curtain fell again. The play was over, and he tottered back to the
room. The bottle of champagne on the dressing-table, among the litter
of make-up, was the first thing he noticed. "My wife!" gasped Picq, and
broke down. He was shaken by sobs.

Some of the players had followed. Sympathy surrounded him.

"I see her face when I tell her--I see her face! How to keep it from
her? To-night she mustn't know--it would kill her; but to keep it from
her for weeks till she has recovered--is it possible?"

"Poor chap! Be brave. Time----" They mumbled useless words.

"To have to pretend to her every time I go, for weeks, perhaps months!
And then, when she is so happy at being well again, to have to strike
her down with the blow! Ah, I know I am not the only father to lose his
son--she is not the only mother, but----"

"You don't think it might be best to break it to her now?" someone
suggested.

He shook his head impatiently, the throbbing head from which the jeune
premier's curls were not removed yet.

"It would be murder. I am warned she is to avoid excitement. And this
evening, when she tries to be bright, to go in and say, 'He is killed'!
I mustn't tell her till she is well--quite, quite well. I must keep her
cheerful; I must be in good spirits, but--I haven't the courage to go
home."

It was the truth: he had not the courage to go home.

"She is waiting for me--I must make haste to change," he faltered more
than once; but even when he had "changed" at last, his soul cowered
before the thought of the ordeal, and he lingered nerveless in the
chair.

"She is waiting for me--I must go," he kept repeating while the lights
in the theatre went out. "I must go," he said again, and rose. They
had called a cab for him, and his legs felt so unreliable that he
offered no protest, though a cab seemed a terrible extravagance. Yes,
he would take one; it was certain he could not walk fast enough to make
up for the delay, and Nanette mustn't be allowed to grow anxious. He
lay back in the cab dizzily, a hand round the neck of the bottle on
his knees. "In good spirits--in good spirits!" he cautioned himself.
"But her instinct is so strong. If she suspects?" On the rattling
course, imagination wrung him with the moment of her suspicion--the
horror in her dilating eyes, the impuissance of his agony.... "Dead!"
He perceived with a shock that he had not understood that Jean was
dead--that he still did not understand. "Dead." Jean, who seemed so
vividly alive, was only a memory. His eagerness, his laughter, his
allusions, all the intimate realities that represented Jean had been
blown out. It was inconceivable; his mind would not grasp it. Where,
then, did comprehension he, that he was stricken?... The cab startled
him by stopping.

As he had said, she was trying to be bright. She had not cast her fears
aside, but she meant to hide them. She welcomed him with a smile.
"Champagne _and_ a cab? What next?"

"Yes, what do you think of it? I was in a hurry to get back. How has it
been with you, chérie--has the evening seemed very long? Well, there is
good news--you may have a glass."

"He was sure?"

"He said 'Yes' at once. Oh, I wouldn't have tried to persuade him--that
would have been folly. I told him the reason, but I did not try to
persuade him."

"How tired you look! How did it go?"

"It was a good audience--what there was of it. Three calls after the
third act. What an appetite I've got--and what a thirst! I can't wait
to take my boots off. The spread attracts me. What? I declare I see my
favourite sausage!"

"I couldn't go out for any flowers this year, and I forgot to remind
you," she said. "But you'll find enough to eat."

"And you--what is there for _you_? Let me put the pillow behind you,
mignonne. And now to open the bottle! I am not an expert at the game,
but--ah! it is coming. Prepare yourself for the bang.... Tiens, it
is of a gentle disposition. But no doubt it will taste just as good.
Sapristi, how it sparkles!"

He bore a glassful to her side, and their gaze turned together to the
likeness on the wall.

"Well, little wife, the usual toast. To our boy, our darling Jean! May
God bless him."

"May God bless him," breathed the mother. They looked at the photograph
silently for a moment. "I wonder if he is thinking of us?" she
murmured. "Perhaps he is fancying us like this?"

"I venture to say so," replied Picq. "He knows we should never forget
his birthday; he knows that."

"If--he is alive," she said in a whisper.

"Ah, why should we doubt it?" His arm encouraged her. "How often we
have alarmed ourselves! And always he _was_ alive. Take another sip,
mignonne. It is a sound wine, hein? I should not be surprised if on the
Boulevard they charge fifteen francs for such a wine."

"You must go and sit down now and have your supper."

"Not for a minute or two. The bouquet is so excellent I can't take my
nose out of the glass. And I think I am more thirsty than hungry, after
all."

"Petit bonhomme, petit bonhomme," she faltered pitifully.

"And why 'petit bonhomme' like that--what are you making so much of me
about?"

"Do you think I am blind? Do you suppose you can hide it from me? Your
hands tremble and your eyes are red. As soon as you came in I saw. You
have been tormenting yourself about the operation all the evening."

"Mais non, mais non! If I worry, it is not about the operation,
because it is a simple thing, though it sounds so big to _us_. They
tell me it is an everyday affair, like having out a tooth; that was
his very expression: 'Monsieur, it is no more dangerous than having
out a tooth.' I worry, if I worry at all, in thinking that you are
frightened. If I could only make you believe that there is nothing to
be frightened of!"

"I know I am a coward. I told you so. It is from _you_ that he gets his
courage."

"What an illusion! A fine fire-eater _I_ am! Old stick-in-the-mud!"

"Ah, yes. I'm ashamed. When I think of what he is going through--how
splendidly he bears it! And here am I, afraid of everything. He has no
heroine for a mother."

"I forbid thee to say it. He knows it is not true."

"He loves me just the same. Don't you, Jean--you don't love your
little mother any less?" The photograph hung too high for her. "Take
it down," she pleaded. "If I could change places with thee, my son! I
would find the courage for that, though I died of terror in the first
hour. Ah, my little baby, my little baby! And I was so glad he was a
boy!"

"You are not to upset yourself," quavered Picq. "I cannot stand it.
Will you be sorry he was a boy when he gets the Croix de Guerre? I make
you a bet they give him that at the very least. I see you polishing
it all day. Pick up your glass. To tell the truth, I have a strong
presentiment, and I am not given to foolish fancies, that he comes home
'Captain.' What triumph for us--hale and hearty and a captain. Imagine
it. At his age! Nanette, pick up your glass. We will paint the town red
that night, and you will say you were 'always sure of it.' When I chaff
you about your tremors you will declare you never had any. Mind you, I
am putting it down very low; it is quite on the cards that he becomes
'Colonel.' Nanette, I entreat thee, pick up thy glass! Again a toast.
Good luck, my son! We drink to your future. A bumper to our next merry
meeting!"

That toast reverberated to Picq when she lay sleeping and Picq was
sleepless. But, at any rate, she had no suspicion so far.

She remained without suspicion when he visited her at the hospital,
during the following week, but always she remained a prey to fear. Not
for herself now--they said the operation had been successful; it was
the thought of Jean's peril that haunted her. As she was wakened in the
early morning, the burden of dread rolled upon her. Through the long
monotonous day her mind was in the blood-soaked line more often than
in the ward. They hinted to Picq that her anxiety was detrimental, and
he tried to reason with her once; but it seemed to do more harm than
good, for she burst out, "If he should be killed!" and wrung her hands
on the quilt. "He has everything before him, he's so fond of life. If
he should be killed!"

"He will not be killed. Is not my love for him as great as yours? And
you see I am confident. I swear to you I am confident! I implore you,
don't dwell on these thoughts. Make haste and get well." And again he
asked himself, "How am I to break it to her when she _is_ well?"

Then there was a morning when they sent him away for a while, stupefied
by the announcement that never would she be well. "The conditions had
changed;" he must be "prepared for the worst." She, too, had been
prepared, before he was admitted. He had foreseen her speechless with
fright; but, strange to say, the "coward" who had been so timorous of
an operation, had spoken of her approaching death quite calmly. Her
terror for Jean it was, increasingly her terror for Jean, that tortured
her last hours. "Petit bonhomme, it is like being on the rack," she had
gasped. "If only I were sure he would be spared!"

"God of heaven, it is 'like being on the rack' for her," shuddered
Picq, sobbing in the street; "it is for her 'like being on the rack'!
And there is nothing I can do."

And a child came towards him, calling papers.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was with the connivance of the nurses that he brought joy and
thanksgiving to her heart during the hours that remained to her. He
pretended to her that Germany sued for peace. If he was condemned to
affect the tones of hysterical rejoicing, he had no need to counterfeit
the tears. Tears were rolling down his cheeks, as he feigned to fight
for mastery of a whirlwind of exultance, and panted to her that the war
was won.

"I return with good news--the greatest; but I implore thee, keep
still--they forbid thee to sit up. Nanette, my loved one, our boy is
safe. The danger is all over--he will soon be home. The Boches are
beaten. I rush back to tell thee. They cave in. Paris has gone mad. The
boulevards are impassable for crowds. I am deaf with the cheers. They
cave in! They have been on the verge of it for months. Bluff, it has
all been bluff for a long time, and now America has called their hand.
They collapse, the Boches. An armistice is arranged. It is certain
they restore Alsace-Lorraine. I have cried like a child. Glory to God.
France has conquered. Vive la France!"

"Jean safe!" she breathed, smiling.

She seemed to grow younger during the afternoon, before she died.

"And though she knows now it was a he," said Picq, when they had
crossed her hands on her breast, "it is no disappointment to her, since
she has him with her now."



VII

A FLAT TO SPARE


At the corner of the rue Baba stands the Maison Séverin, with its board
announcing furnished flats to let. One December evening a journalist
went to call upon a colleague there. As he climbed the last flight
of stairs, a door was opened violently and a gesticulating female
appeared. She shrieked defiance over her shoulder, pulled down her
sleeves, and descended with such precipitance that she nearly butted
Jobic over the banisters.

Dodging her by a miracle, Jobic entered unannounced.

"Your domestic seems to be perturbed, my dear Pariset," he remarked.

"Tiens, you?" said the young widower, panting. "Yes, she has 'returned
her apron,' she has resigned the situation, that devil--a situation
that offered unsurpassed opportunities for pillage. I am left with the
dinner unprepared, and the twins to put to bed--and I ought to be at
Batignolles by eight o'clock!"

"You should marry again," said Jobic.

"I cannot do it in the time. Mon Dieu, just because I mentioned that it
was unintelligent of her always to keep the empty wine bottles among
the full ones! It took me a quarter of an hour to get hold of anything
to drink. You may tell a bonne that she is an inveterate liar without
disturbing her in the least; you may say that she is an habitual thief,
and she will accept the truism placidly; but insinuate that she is a
fool, and her vanity is in arms at once! What has brought you here?"

"I come to borrow a louis."

"Visionary!"

"Spendthrift! What do you do with your salary, then? The fact is, your
rent is an extravagance, and you spend far too much in dressing up your
babies; for some time I have had the intention of remonstrating with
you on the subject. If you exercised reasonable economy you would be in
a position to lend me a louis on your head."

"I am. But the monotonous fatigues me. To attain the charm of variety
I propose to lend you nothing at all. I tell you what, however--I can
provide you with a job."

"For putting twins to bed my lowest figure is five francs. I will cook
the dinner for forty sous, and an invitation to share it."

"The tenders are declined. Listen; you may go to Batignolles and write
a column around a communist meeting for me. The kiddies are too young
for me to leave them by themselves, and I have been counting on this
affair to supply material for my causerie in to-morrow's _Echo_."

"Communist meeting?" exclaimed Jobic, with distaste; "I do not believe
I could borrow any more money under communism than I can now."

"Are we discussing your beliefs? Has your welfare the remotest interest
for me? All I ask of you is to fill a column. Bring the stuff for me to
sign before you sleep, and I will pay you your own price for it."

"Cash?"

"Cash."

"It's a deal," said Jobic. "Some sprightly copy is as good as on your
desk. Your editor will not fail to note a vast improvement in your
literary style."

It was in these circumstances that _L'Echo du Quartier_ contained a
column, over Pariset's pen name of "Valentin Vance," that drove the
prettiest communist in Paris to tears of fury. For not only did the
writer burlesque her impassioned speech, not only did he poke fun at
her theories, and deride her elocution--he actually made unflattering
comments upon her personal appearance.

Not since she embraced the Cause six months ago had Suzanne Duvivier
read anything to compare with it.

"If I were a married woman," she raged, "my husband should call the
monster out for such insults!" And then, since she was an accomplished
pupil at one of the best-known salles for instructing the fair
Parisienne to fence, it occurred to her that the lack of a husband was
no drawback.

Though there were pressing domestic matters to claim her this morning,
she betook herself to kindred spirits, and burst in upon them to demand
their services.

"Mais, ma chère," gasped mademoiselle Tisserand and mademoiselle
Lagarde, "we have never acted as seconds in a duel, never! We implore
you to dismiss the notion; we counsel you to treat the abuse with the
silent scorn that it deserves. The man might run you through your
valiant heart."

"Do we shirk danger, we communists?" cried Suzanne.

"Dear comrade, the Cause cannot spare you. Moreover, every novel with
a duel in it that we have ever read makes it clear that it is the
privilege of the party challenged to choose the weapons. This monsieur
Vance might choose pistols. The novels, again, indicate that it
devolves upon the seconds to load the pistols, and we have never done
such a thing in our lives. It may also be that you have never handled
one yourself?"

For a moment Suzanne Duvivier quailed--she was only twenty-five, and
normally no swash-buckler. If monsieur Vance did choose pistols, she
knew very well she would have to shut her eyes as she fired. Then the
obloquy of the column overwhelmed her anew, and she flung timidity to
the winds.

"We must hope for the best, girls," she said, resolutely. "If you are
my pals you will not desert me in this hour. I fight for the Cause
far more than for myself. I do not know precisely what phrases you
should employ--consult the novels!--but the first thing to be done is
for you to present yourselves to the man and desire him to name the
day. You had better not say 'name the day,' because that has another
association, but he must fix the date. If you can contrive to suggest
that I hanker after pistols, perhaps he will say 'swords.' Au revoir,
my friends. Bear yourselves firmly--look as if you were used to it.
Wear serious hats."

She departed to put in half an hour's practice at the fencing school,
and mademoiselle Lagarde moaned to mademoiselle Tisserand, "It is
terrible, is it not? However, we need not make frumps of ourselves, I
suppose. I wonder if my toque would be inappropriate?"

"Not the least in the world," said mademoiselle Tisserand. "What do
you think of my hat with the bird of paradise? She is right as regards
our demeanour, though--we must be deadly calm. Let us remember that
the dignity of communism is at stake. The brute must not be allowed to
guess that we are afraid."

A couple of hours later, Pariset, after struggling with a fire that
refused to be lit, and breakfasting without any coffee, and dressing
his twins with some of their underlinen back in front, gave the
concierge a tip to let him leave them in her loge, and went forth to
the _Echo_ building, anathematising his ex-domestic with continuous
fervour on the way. Arrived there, he found two young women strenuously
inquiring for the address of "monsieur Valentin Vance."

"You behold him, mesdemoiselles," said Pariset. "What can I have the
honour of doing for you?"

The young women looked embarrassed.

"It is you who are the author of this article, monsieur--this infamous
calumny?" queried the plumper of the two.

"Oh!" exclaimed Pariset, taken aback. "Oh ... I am speaking to
mademoiselle Suzanne Duvivier?"

"No, monsieur, I am not mademoiselle Duvivier. Neither of us is
mademoiselle Duvivier. But we inquire if you are the monsieur Vance who
is the author of this article?"

"Well--er--yes, certainly, I am the author of it."

The pair conferred a moment in undertones. The one in the toque gave
the one with the bird of paradise a slight push.

"Then, monsieur, I have the honour to inform you that we are the
bearers of a challenge from the lady you have slandered."

"A challenge?" stammered Pariset. "What do you say? Is this a joke?"

"You will find it very far from a joke," put in mademoiselle Lagarde,
strategically; "our principal is a crack shot."

"In that case you may be sure I shall not choose pistols," said Pariset
with a smile.

"Ah!" breathed the girl, dissembling her elation. "You choose swords.
No matter."

"No," demurred Pariset. "I do not choose swords, either."

"But--not swords, either? What, then?"

"I choose roses. I am a champion with roses, and I have the right to
avail myself of my skill."

"Monsieur," cried her companion, peremptorily, "we shall not be patient
with pleasantries!"

"Nor I with hysteria, mademoiselle. _Comment?_ Do you figure yourself I
am going to fight a woman? You must be demented."

"You refuse to meet her?"

"Point-blank."

"On the pretext of convention?"

"On the score of manhood."

"Your manhood did not restrain you from attacking her."

"Was it so bad, the attack?" faltered Pariset, who had not done much
more than glance at Jobic's masterpiece.

"Pshaw!" sneered both the girls, as nearly as their ejaculation can be
spelt. "Shame! How perfectly disgusting! You insult a lady, and then
refuse her satisfaction. It is the act of a coward. Ah! Oh!"

"Listen!" volleyed Pariset. "I will not meet her if you go on saying
'Ah! 'and 'Oh!' till you are black in the face. But, to cut it short,
she shall have her satisfaction. I will cross swords with any man
that she appoints as her deputy. All is said. I await the gentleman's
representatives. Mesdemoiselles, bonjour."

"And now I have got a duel on my hands, as well as two babies in my
arms!" he reflected. "Jobic is an imbecile. Why did I trust him? That
sacrée bonne! her desertion is giving me a fine time. I should like to
wring her neck." He spent a feverish afternoon at registry offices.
Suzanne was exasperated too. The news of the demand for a deputy was
a heavy blow, for she couldn't think of anybody likely to oblige her.
Vainly she reviewed the list of her male acquaintances; none seemed to
possess all the necessary qualities. Ineligible herself, and unable to
find a substitute--what a dilemma! The more provoking because scattered
throughout France must breathe several heroic spirits who would have
been willing to fight for a nice girl and the guerdon of her gratitude.
But she was reluctant to advertise "Duellist wanted," with a portrait
of her attractions.

She was removing on the morrow to a furnished flat, and it had been her
intention to supervise the removal of some of its dust this morning.
Late in the afternoon she ran round to see how matters had progressed
without her. A damsel from a registry office in the quarter had
undertaken to commence the work punctually at 8 a.m. The flat was in
the Maison Séverin. All unconscious that she was to dwell beneath the
same roof as the villain she had challenged, Suzanne ascended, sanguine
of seeing the clean curtains up.

The damsel hadn't put in an appearance. Either she had received an
offer more to her taste, or she had decided to prolong her vacation;
there had been no message to explain her caprice.

Suzanne sped to the registry office tumultuously.

The _Bureau de Placement des Deux Sexes_ was presided over by a very
large woman at a very small table. Three of the four employers present
were excited ladies, complaining of bonnes who had arranged to take
service with them, but who had neither arrived nor written. The fourth
was a personable gentleman, awaiting his turn in an attitude of the
deepest despondence. Suzanne sat on the bench, by the gentleman's side,
while the fat woman strove to appease the three ladies.

"Next, please," she said, eventually. "Monsieur desires?"

Suzanne heard that monsieur desired a capable bonne a tout faire at
once, and that by "at once" he did not mean a fortnight hence, or even
the following day--he meant "now."

The proprietress said mechanically that she would see what could be
done, and asked for five francs.

"Don't you believe it!" said the gentleman, "am a widower and know
the ropes--I might part with five francs and remain servantless for a
month. Produce a servant. Trot one of your treasures out. Let me get a
grip of it and take it away with me, and I will pay you ten--fifteen
francs."

"But it happens that there is no servant on the premises this
afternoon. Monsieur is not reasonable. He should comprehend that I
cannot show him what I have not got."

"It is equally comprehensible, madame, that I cannot pay for what I do
not see."

"Next, please," said the fat woman, shrugging her shoulders.

"Madame," began Suzanne, vehemently, "I must ask you to find another
femme-de-ménage for me immediately, if you please--your Angélique that
I settled with here has never turned up!"

"There you are!" cried Pariset. "Everybody says the same thing."

"Mais, monsieur!" snorted the proprietress. "Your affair is
finished--the business of mademoiselle does not concern you."

"Pardon, madame, my affair is not finished; on the contrary, my need is
dire. I have offspring who clamour for female ministrations, voyons.
Mademoiselle will accept my apologies?"

"They are superfluous, monsieur," said Suzanne, acknowledging his bow.
"But, madame, my case is urgent! I go into my new appartement in the
morning, and there is nobody there yet to shake a mat or light a fire."

"And what a job it is to light a fire!" put in Pariset, with fellow
feeling.

"The life they lead us, these bonnes!" responded Suzanne.

"Above all, mademoiselle, when one has two little children and is
without experience. Figure yourself my confusion!"

"Dreadful, monsieur! I can imagine it."

"What do you expect me to say to you, you two?" shouted the fat woman,
banging the table. "I tell you that there is no bonne waiting just
now. Am I le bon Dieu to create model domestics out of the dust on the
office floor?"

And at this instant the door opened, and there entered briskly a comely
wench, wearing an apron, and no hat.

"Ah!" gasped Pariset and Suzanne together.

"Ah!" exclaimed the fat woman, jubilant. "Everything arranges itself!
Now I know this one. I recommend her. You can take a place to-day,
Marceline? Good! It is forty francs a month, as usual, and you sleep
in, hein?"

"Fifty. And I sleep out--with my aunt," said Marceline, promptly,
seizing the circumstances.

"I agree," announced the eager clients, in a duet.

"Mais, monsieur----" remonstrated Suzanne, dismayed.

"Mais, mademoiselle----" expostulated Pariset.

"Enfin, take her! I yield her to you. My children pine for her care,
but we will suffer!"

"I am averse from appearing selfish, monsieur----"

"Ah, chivalry forbids that I wrench this unique boon from your arms,
mademoiselle."

"No! She is for monsieur," said Suzanne, in a burst of magnanimity.

The proprietress picked up her pen. "Monsieur resides----?"

"No matter. I renounce my claim in favour of mademoiselle."

The proprietress dipped the pen in the inkpot: "Mademoiselle goes to
the Maison Séverin, n'est ce pas?"

"What?" cried Pariset. "The Maison Séverin? It is at the Maison Séverin
you have taken a flat, mademoiselle? Why, that is my address, too! What
storey are you on?"

"The fourth."

"And I! Listen, an idea, a compromise. If you would be so generous,
might you not lend her to me now and then?"

"But everything arranges itself," repeated the fat woman, joyously.
"Mademoiselle and monsieur can share her to perfection. Marceline, you
would render service in two little appartements on the same floor?"

"That is worth more money," said Marceline; and proceeded to estimate
the suggestion at a monstrous figure.

However, her views were modified at last. The fat woman made entries in
a tattered book. Suzanne heard the gentleman give his name as "monsieur
Henri Pariset." Pariset did not hear the lady give her name, because
the proprietress, of course, knew it already. Far from suspecting each
other's identity, the Challenger and the Challenged exchanged cheerful
smiles. Then Marceline was prevailed upon to fetch her box forthwith,
and the elated journalist and the charming girl who thirsted for his
blood bore their domestic gaily to the rue Baba together.

"How things happen!" said Pariset, as they went along.

"N'est ce pas?" said she. "All the same, my flat cannot be got ready by
the morning now."

"I don't see why not; my own share of her this evening will be slight.
Let her put my babies to bed at once, and then you can have all you
want of her. As to my dinner, I will eat at a restaurant."

"Ah, mais non, if it is not your custom!" said Suzanne. "She can manage
your dinner all right--she will have no cooking to do for me. I am at
a pension de famille till to-morrow."

And as they reached the house, the concierge remarked, by way of
welcome: "It is not unfortunate that you have returned, monsieur. Your
twins have been disturbing the whole district."

"But they are adorable, your twins!" exclaimed Suzanne, with genuine
admiration, for now they were tranquil and beamed. "I cannot pretend
to know whether they are big or small for four years old, but they are
darlings."

"Not bad," said Pariset, who thought the world of them himself.
"Well, then, when Marceline has tucked them up she shall come to you
straightway, and it is agreed that you are to monopolise her as long as
you like."

Half an hour passed.

"Monsieur!" cried Marceline, reappearing.

"Eh, bien--you cannot find the children's night-gowns?"

"Si, si. The little ones sleep. But the compliments of mademoiselle,
and would monsieur be so amiable as to lend her the feather-brush from
his broom-cupboard?"

"Take all she wants. How goes it opposite?"

"There is enough for two persons to do!"

"I don't doubt it," said Pariset. "Inquire of mademoiselle whether I
can be of any assistance."

But on second thoughts he was prompted to put the question himself.

In a long blue apron, with her sleeves rolled up, she told him that he
couldn't. And he took off his coat and got to work. What a sweeping and
a polishing there was! Nine o'clock had struck when he began to hang
the curtains, and the dinner at the pension de famille was a thing of
the past.

"Evidently, mademoiselle," he said, from the top of a step-ladder, "you
also will have to dine out this evening. What do you say to leaving
Marceline to put the finishing touches now, and taking nourishment in
my company?"

"Monsieur," returned Suzanne, "you dizzy me with your neighbourly
kindness. If you can turn round without risking your neck, however, you
will note that Marceline is absent. She is engaged in improvising a
meal for us, and I beg you to accept my invitation."

"Enchanted. Only, as you are still somewhat at sixes and sevens here,
may I propose that you invite me to my own flat, instead of yours?"

So it befell that the bouillon, brought hot in a can from the little
greengrocer's across the road, was served at Pariset's table. And
Marceline's omelette, created while the cutlets were frizzling on the
grille, proved to be delicious.

"Our bonne," remarked the widower, complacently, "might be worse, hein?"

"I was thinking the same thing," assented Suzanne. "It seems to me that
we have done very well for ourselves."

"You smoke a cigarette?"

"It is one of my consolations."

"I hope that I may be privileged to see you console yourself here
often."

"And if you ever have leisure to call upon me cor _le feeve o'clock_,
monsieur, I shall be charmed. You can hardly excuse yourself on the
plea that my address is too remote."

"Believe me," said Pariset, "I warmly felicitate myself on the address;
if I may say so, I am daring to foresee a friendship. And it would be
very welcome, for I lead a lonely life."

"I, too," she sighed. "I am a painter, I am a communist, but all the
same, I am alone."

"Ah, you are a painter, and communist, hein? We shall have subjects to
talk about."

"You are surprised?"

"I am, above all, surprised to hear that you are alone. It is difficult
to realise how that can be."

"It is true, I assure you. Only to-day I had the strongest need of a
man's arm to render me a service, and I could think of no one to ask."

"There are a couple of arms here," announced Pariset, displaying them
in an heroic gesture.

"And doughty deeds they have just accomplished for me!" she laughed.

"No, but seriously----" he urged.

"Oh, seriously, the service that I speak of is far too big for even the
best of new friends."

"You are wrong. Without having heard it, I venture to pronounce it just
the right size."

"How sincere you are! And how I appreciate your earnestness!" she
exclaimed. "But it is out of the question."

"I have not yet proved myself worthy of your confidence," he regretted
sentimentally. "I understand."

"If you imagine it is _that_"--deep reproach was in her gaze--"I must
explain. Have you heard of a journalist called 'Valentin Vance'?"

"Yes."

"Well, I sent him a challenge to-day, and he answered that I must find
a deputy."

Pariset sat dumfounded. Twice he essayed to articulate, without
producing so much as a mono-syllable.

At last he stuttered:

"You are mademoiselle Suzanne Duvivier? I had no idea."

"How stupid of me. You have read his article?"

"Well--er--I have still not had time to read it very attentively. But I
have heard a good deal about it."

"Ah! Then you do not wonder at my resentment?" she cried. And, though
the twins forbade her to jeopardise his life, she hoped to hear him
gallantly offer to fight monsieur Vance.

This was just what Pariset could not do. After his boasted avidity
to execute the service, he must wear an air of funking it. His
embarrassment was intense; constraint fell upon them both. Disillusion
clouded her eyes. She had begun to like him so much, it grieved her to
see him turn tail.

After some very painful seconds he faltered:

"You are disappointed in me?"

"Disappointed?"

"Oh, yes. I seem to you a braggart who has backed out of his boast. Yet
I assure you I am not to blame. You seek the one service in the world
that I am utterly unable to perform."

"Monsieur," replied the girl coldly, "your parental duties are so
obviously paramount that it is unnecessary to remind me of them."

"Oh, as to that, one does not expect more than a scratch in a duel,
so it is not from parental reasons that I say it can't be done. The
reasons are physical. I cannot meet monsieur Vance because ... I shall
sink lower in your esteem with every word ... I cannot meet him because
... enfin, Valentin Vance is I!"

"You?" She had started to her feet.

"My pen name."

The silence was awful. She leant on the back of the chair for support.
Then, with a dignity that he felt to be superb, she said:

"Monsieur, as a tenant I thank you for your co-operation; as a
communist, I ask permission to retire."

"Ah, I implore you to listen!" raved Pariset.

"It is strange," she added, more spontaneously, "that, since you found
me so hideous on the lecture platform, you put yourself out to be so
agreeable to me at the registry office."

"I? I find you hideous?" vociferated Pariset. "It was not I who wrote
it; not a single word was mine, believe me! My bonne flounced off
last night, and the twins kept me at home. I entrusted the job to a
dunderheaded confrère. Ah, mon Dieu, 'since I found you hideous'! The
spirituality of your face is an inspiration. I admire you with all
my heart. Yes, I shall confess it, with all my heart! I love you! Do
not condemn me for a column that I did not perpetrate--be merciful,
be tender! I will write others that you shall approve. You shall
instruct me--I will gather wisdom from your lips. Yes, at your feet,
on our hearth, I will learn from you. I will become a disciple of
communism--the mouthpiece of your Cause; I will consecrate my pen to
your service. My pen shall annihilate your opponents, though my sword
could not chasten monsieur Vance." His arms entreated her. "Suzanne----"

"The appartement of mademoiselle is completely ready!" proclaimed
Marceline. She rushed in, and out again, triumphant.

"It appears to me I shall not need it long," smiled Suzanne,
surrendering to his embrace.



VIII

A PORTRAIT OF A COWARD


Every Sunday Mrs. Findon went with her two stepdaughters to the
cemetery and put flowers on the grave. Every Sunday since her husband's
death she had done so--every Sunday for four years, excepting during
the month of August, which was passed in the unattractive village where
his widowed sister lived. When the melancholy walk was over and they
had returned to the house, the Misses Findon used to sit on either
side of the fireplace, moist-eyed, and slightly pink about the noses,
speaking at long intervals in subdued tones; and their young stepmother
would gaze from the window, wondering whether the pretence of mourning
a husband she had not loved was to be her lot for life.

When she was twenty her father had said to her, "Belle, Mr. Findon
wants to marry you. Don't look like that. He is much older than you
are, of course, and it isn't the ideal, but what have you got to look
forward to? I'm a pauper, and we both know I can't last much longer,
and when I've gone you'll be all alone. How are you to live? You'll be
left with about fifty pounds, and waste some of that on crape. It's a
ghastly thing for me to lie here and know you'll soon be destitute.
He's decent enough in a dull way, and if you were to marry him I should
feel I had a right to die."

So she had married him; and Mr. Findon had endeavoured to mould her
disposition to his requirements. He moulded so much that it seemed to
her he must lament that she wasn't an entirely different person, and
she wondered why he had asked her to be his wife. The provincial town
to which he took her was depressing, and the furniture and ornaments of
his house made her want to shriek, and the people who paid her visits
never mentioned any subject that had any interest for her.

More dejecting than the visitors were her step-children. To the two
colourless schoolgirls--Amy, fourteen years of age, Mildred nearly
sixteen--she had turned eagerly; turned achingly, because no child
of her own came to lighten the gloom; and for long she had striven to
believe that the slowness of their minds was due to their environment.
"They need waking up," she would think, and exhausted herself in
efforts to make them fluent. But she found that nothing that was done
could make them fluent. And as they grew older, she found that nothing
that was said could make them laugh. They laughed only when the wind
blew somebody's hat off.

They were sandy, undemonstrative girls, and they had manifested no
great affection for their father till he died suddenly five years
after the marriage. Then, however, the words "dear father" were for
ever on their lips, and a strain of unsuspected sentiment in their
nature had opposed itself morbidly to the slightest departure from any
domestic arrangement that he had desired. She still remembered Amy's
pained stare, and Mildred's startled "I don't think dear father would
have liked that!" when she had diffidently proposed to transfer a
huge photograph of his mother from the drawing-room wall to the spare
bedroom. She still reproached herself for her compliant "Oh, I won't,
then, of course." It was among the first of the concessions that had
made the house seem to her a sepulchre. By her stepdaughters' wish,
nothing had been altered in his study--not the position of an armchair,
or of the footstool. Even to the pipes on the table, and a gum-bottle
on the mantelpiece, the room, which was never used now, remained as he
had left it last. And every morning for four years she had accompanied
Mildred and Amy solemnly to the threshold, and regarded the armchair
and the pipes with an air of reverence; and afterwards sat down to
breakfast, thinking that the girls looked as if they had been to the
funeral over again. At the beginning, if she had not shrunk from
wounding them, she might have hinted that that piece of hypocrisy was
horrible to her. Now she could do so no more than she could hint that
she did not want to feign bereavement in the cemetery every Sunday,
or to take an annual change that was made doleful by the triteness
of Aunt Harriet, and the presence of her invalid son. At the age of
five-and-twenty, the gentleness and weakness of the woman had committed
her to act a lie. At the age of twenty-nine, the woman reflected
miserably that, unless her stepdaughters married, she would have to act
the lie for life.

The oppressive thought was no new one--and she had asked stupid people
to dinner, and accepted invitations to wearisome households. She
had urged Mildred and Amy to join the golf and tennis clubs, though
they were apathetic about golf and tennis, and she usually took them
to London to buy their frocks, instead of to the local High Street.
But girls less becomingly dressed had got married, and no young man
had paid any attentions to Mildred or Amy. Though Mildred was but
twenty-five, and Amy only twenty-three, both had already the air of
girls destined for spinsterhood. Sometimes, as she regarded their
premature primness, she found it impossible to suppose that proposals
would ever come to them, impossible to picture either of the staid,
angular figures in a man's arms. Timidly, once, when her dread of a
lifetime spent in Beckenhampton had grown unbearable, she had nerved
herself to suggesting a removal. "Don't you think we should find it
brighter to live somewhere else?" she had pleaded. "In London we should
have concerts, and pictures and things."

"London?" Amy had faltered, with dismay. "Oh, no, I shouldn't like that
at all."

"Well, it needn't be London, then; but there are nicer towns than
this. What do _you_ think, Mildred?"

"I'm sure we could, none of us, be as happy as we are at home," said
Mildred in a shocked voice. "It would seem dreadful to leave the home
where dear father used to be with us."

And the little stepmother, her hope extinguished, had found herself
murmuring, "Yes, of course, there _is_ that, I know." The terms of
their father's will had made the house more theirs than hers; it seemed
to her that she lacked the right to persist, even if she could have
felt sanguine of persistence prevailing. But what she lacked most of
all, of course, was courage. She was good-natured, she was charming,
she had some beautiful qualities, but she was without the force of mind
to oppose anybody. She was a tender, lovable, and exasperating coward.
That is to say, she would have been exasperating if there had been
anyone to regret her cowardice, anyone to care much whether she was
miserable or not.

And then, one summer, after Mildred had influenza, the doctor
recommended Harrogate, instead of the dismal village--and the
possibility of Harrogate yielding husbands to the girls quickened the
woman's heart. In the season there, among so many men--mightn't there
be two to find Mildred and Amy congenial?

It was she, not they, who pondered so carefully and paid so much for
the morning, afternoon, and evening dresses in which they lagged about
a fashionable hydro a fortnight later. It was she, not they, who knew
a throb of hope when either of them danced twice, monosyllabically,
with the same partner, and who welcomed their opportunity to play in an
amateur performance, with its attraction of daily rehearsals.

"I don't think we care much for acting," Amy demurred. "I think we
would rather look on, like you."

"Dr. Roberts said that Mildred needed to be taken out of herself; if
_you_ don't go in for it, _she_ won't. Oh, I should say yes. It is sure
to be a lot of fun, you know."

"I don't think that Mildred and I care much for fun," demurred Amy.

However, the Misses Findon attended the rehearsals--with the dramatic
instinct possessed by pasteboard figures on a toy stage. And blankly
their stepmother noted that, though young men were ambitious of
"polishing their scenes" in alcoves, at various hours, with other
girls, no young man's histrionic fervour urged him to any spontaneous
polishing with Mildred or Amy.

The thing that did happen at Harrogate was unlooked-for: a man
displayed considerable interest in Mrs. Findon herself.

They had spoken first in the hall, where he was sitting when she came
out of the breakfast-room with the girls one morning; and on subsequent
mornings they had all loitered for ten minutes in the hall; and then,
when the rehearsals prevented Mildred and Amy from loitering, she had
paused awhile without them. One day, when the rehearsal took place
after luncheon, she was surprised to find that she had sat talking to
him the whole afternoon. But though their tone had long since grown
informal and they talked spontaneously, though he had told her he
was in the last fortnight of his leave from India and spoken of his
prospects of a judgeship there, she did not realise how far their
acquaintance had progressed until he said to her, "You don't look like
a happy woman, and yet it doesn't sound to me as if your husband had
been all the world to you. If it isn't the loss of your husband that's
weighing on you, what's the matter?"

She gazed at him, startled. And still stranger to her than the boldness
of his question, was the intimacy of her reply, after she had made it.
"Mr. Murray, I'm _not_ a happy woman."

From that moment they were not acquaintances--they were friends.
Piecemeal he learnt her story, and perceived the weakness of her
character. And their confidences were more frequent and prolonged
after a hurried letter from Aunt Harriet, saying that "her dear boy
had passed away, and that it would help her to bear her cross if dear
Mildred and Amy would go to her for two or three days." A week slid by,
and they were with her still. And meanwhile Mr. Murray and Mrs. Findon
fell in love with each other.

It was her first breath of romance. A father's ailments, encompassing
her girlhood, had excluded sentimental episodes. To marriage she had
been moved by nothing but docility. She would soon be thirty--and for
the first time she found a strange pulsating promise in the birds'
twittering when she woke; lingered at a looking-glass, and turned back
to it, that a man might approve. She eyed intently time's touches on
her face, noting with new sensitiveness that it showed her age. She
knew, for the first time, restlessness if one man was absent; and if he
was present, knew impatience of all others who were present too. And
she sparkled at her own blitheness; and but for the recurring thought
that it would all be over soon, she lived in Eden for a week.

       *       *       *       *       *

They had been speaking of her stepdaughters, and he had said, "The
first time I saw you with them I wondered what the relationship was.
You can't have much in common with them? You must have hoped to see
them marry, haven't you?"

"Do you think they will?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know. It doesn't follow, because one finds no charm in
a girl oneself, that nobody else will find any. I've known men crazy
about women that I wouldn't have turned my head to look at--and men
that were by no means fools. Isn't there anybody in Beckenhampton?"

"There aren't many chances for a girl in Beckenhampton. Besides, they
don't care for young men's society--that's one of the reasons why men
don't find much to say to them, I think. I hoped something might come
of their staying here, but----"

"But a man has wanted to talk to _you_, instead."

Could she control her voice? "Oh, that's a different thing."

"Why is it a different thing?"

"I meant that I hoped it might lead to something for them--I wasn't
thinking of friendship."

"_I'm_ not thinking of friendship; your friendship wouldn't be much use
to me out there. I want you to be my wife. Will you?"

They were in the garden, after dinner. From the ladies' orchestra in
the hall came the barcarolle from _The Tales of Hoffmann_. In sentiment
she was in her teens.

"I can't," she said, in a whisper.

"I'm so fond of you. Do you know I've never heard your name?"

She told him her name.

"Belle, I'd be so good to you. Don't you like me?"

She turned to him. No one could see them. The first kiss of her first
love--moonlight, and the barcarolle. Though she did not recognise it,
there was a single instant in which she was capable of any weakness.
But she was not capable of strength.

"I can't," she repeated. "How can I? To marry again! I couldn't say
such a thing to them. What would they--I couldn't do it."

"I don't understand. You 'can't marry me' because they wouldn't like
it? You don't mean that? Or is it because you don't think you ought to
leave them?"

"Both."

"But--good heavens!... Besides, there's this aunt they've gone to--they
could live with her. You aren't telling me--you can't mean you won't
marry me because you imagine it's your duty to sacrifice our happiness
for the sake of two young women you don't care about? You know you
don't care about them! It's mad! I need you more than they do; I can
make you happier than they do. I shall never be a millionaire, but I
shall come into a bit by and by, and I can make things bright for you
at home, one day. You'd have rather a good time out there, for that
matter. I _want_ to make things bright for you--I want to see you what
you were meant to be. You've never had your youth yet, you've been done
out of it; I want to give it to you, I want you to forget what it means
to feel depressed. That'd be just my loveliest joy, to see you in high
spirits, laughing, waking up younger instead of older, growing more
like a girl every day.... People'd begin to take me for your father!
That'd be rough on me, wouldn't it?"

She looked, misty-eyed and smiling, at this man who had transfigured
life for her.

"I know it sounds silly of me."

"That's meek," he laughed. "Very well, then. As soon as they come back
we'll tell them. Perhaps they won't mind as much as you think--they
aren't so devoted to you, are they?"

"It isn't that. Their father's memory means so much to them--they'll
think it so awful of me. And----"

"And what?"

"You don't know everything--I haven't told you all about it. It sounds
hideous, I know, but I couldn't help it--I drifted into it. I--I've
had to pretend so much. Pretend to miss him, I mean. All the time.
Every day. I----To tell them that it wasn't true----How can I?"

"You wouldn't be the only woman who had loved twice; other women have
cared for their husbands, and married again."

"It has been all the time," she muttered, shame-faced. "Even since we
have been here I've had to----Just before they went, we sent flowers
to the cemetery and I was supposed to--I mean, I had to pretend to be
sorry we couldn't take them ourselves. What a hypocrite I shall seem!
What'll they say?"

He grasped her hands, and held her tight, and told her what _he_ would
be willing to do for _her_--and though he was older than she, and
looked it, he talked like a boy. "Do you disbelieve me?" he asked. "And
if you don't disbelieve me, won't _you_ face a little awkwardness for
_me_? If it comes to that, _I_ can speak to them first. Once the news
is broken, the worst'll be over for you. What a baby you are, darling!
May I call you a baby the moment I'm engaged to you, Mrs. Findon,
madam? Oh, you little timid, foolish, sweetest soul, fancy talking
about missing all our happiness for life, to avoid a bad half-hour!
It'd be a funny choice, wouldn't it, Belle my Belle?"

She nodded, radiant; and aglow with the courage he had communicated,
she thought she could have proclaimed her intention straightway, if the
young women had returned then.

They did not, however, return at all. Next morning the post brought
from them the news that they felt too sad to find Harrogate congenial
now, and that they would rather be at home. They were going back to
Beckenhampton the "day after to-morrow."

It meant that her precious hours here were numbered. She showed the
letter disconsolately to Murray.

"I shall have to go this afternoon," she said.

"I don't see what for--I don't see why you should be dragged away at a
minute's notice. You're not a child to be 'sent for.'"

"Oh, I must go," she sighed; "I _must_ get there before them, to see to
things."

They stood together in the hall--the hall that he knew would look so
pathetically blank to him this afternoon.

"We haven't had long, have we?" he said. "How I'm going to hate
everybody in this hydro when you've gone!--the people that mention
you, and the people that don't mention you; every single one of them;
because I shall be missing you in every second and they'll all be
chattering and scandalmongering just the same. When shall I hear from
you? You'll tell them as soon as you see them--you won't put it off,
even for an hour? Oh, my darling, don't think I'm not alive to all
that's beautiful in you, but"--he tried to smile--"you _are_ a little
bit of a coward where they're concerned, aren't you? Keep remembering
you're free to do as you like. If they aren't pleased, they can be
displeased. You haven't got to ask their permission. It's a perfectly
simple statement-you're' going to marry me.' They haven't a shadow
of right to complain. If you'll remind yourself of that, it'll make
it smoother for you.... I wish we could have had a day together
first--away from all this crew, I mean. Couldn't you make it to-morrow
instead? We'd have a car and go somewhere. Couldn't you, Belle?"

"I can't," she said wistfully. "It'd be heavenly. But I can't. I ought
to go upstairs and pack now."

"All right, little woman," said he; "I don't want to make it worse for
you. Go along, then. I may see you off, mayn't I? And I'll 'phone at
once about your passage on the boat. And I'll come to Beckenhampton the
instant you send for me. And we're to be married by special licence
next week. Oh, isn't it great! And then your new life begins--the
laughter life, the girl life. I'm going to wipe out that troubled look
they've put in your eyes--I'm going to make you self-willed, make you
tyrannise over me."

"Tyrannise over the Judge! Wouldn't it be a shame?" she laughed. "What
a reward for you!"

"I don't know," he said; "I believe I'd like it--it's time you did
a little tyrannising. I can't kiss you, darling, because somebody's
coming down the stairs, but look at me and let's pretend!"

Downcast as she felt, as the train bore her from him, she felt firm.
She could not view the ordeal before her as lightly as he--he did not
understand, she told herself; it was natural that he shouldn't--but
she was resolved to meet it without delay, and to be bold in the face
of the consternation she foresaw. How easy it would have been but for
the insincerities she had been guilty of, the craven insincerities! It
was her own horrible hypocrisy, not her stepdaughters' disapproval,
chat made the task so difficult. As she dwelt upon the difficulties,
as she realised the almost incredible shock she was about to deal, the
fortitude within her faded, and during the latter half of the journey
it was with thankfulness she reflected that she would not have to
confront the situation that day.

It should be directly they arrived, though! She vowed it.

       *       *       *       *       *

She had watched tremulously till nearly three o'clock, when a cab
rumbled to the house at last; and her heart turned sicker still as she
saw that her stepdaughters were accompanied by their aunt.

"We persuaded her to come."

"I'm afraid I shall be a sad visitor for you, my dear."

"They were quite right. The change will do you good."

They explained that they had lunched early, and they sat awhile in
the drawing-room, with their hats and coats on--her sister-in-law
oppressive with much crape; the young women also wearing black dresses,
very badly made.

"A glass of wine, Harriet? You must be tired after the journey." She
rang the bell.

Sipping the port, and alternately nibbling a biscuit, and flicking
crumbs from her lap, Aunt Harriet was taciturn and tearful. And she had
little to say between tea and dinner, excepting when she spoke huskily
of her son's last hours. But in the evening her thoughts reverted to
the "happy days she had spent in the house when her dear brother was
alive," and she discoursed on them, remarking how "sadly different it
seemed now."

"It was a terrible loss for you, Belle," she moaned. "But the parting
is only for this life. That's all, my dear, only for this life. You'll
meet again where there are no partings. You must keep thinking of that.
It's only faith that helps us all to bear up."

And the hypocrite, loathing her hypocrisy, heard herself answer, "Oh, I
know! Oh yes!"

At Harrogate the orchestra would be playing now, and he was wondering
if she had told them yet! She gazed before her helplessly. She would
have to put it off till to-morrow.

Said Mildred, "I daresay Aunt would like to go to bed early."

"If you'll all excuse me, dear, I think I should."

"I think we're all of us ready, aren't we?" murmured Mrs. Findon.

And as they got up and filed from the room, Amy said in sacerdotal
tones, "There's one thing we want to do, isn't there, before we go
upstairs to-night?" And, like one who performs a rite, she opened the
study door; and on the threshold they drooped devoutly.

"O God, forgive me, and help me to be truthful!" prayed the hypocrite
when she was alone.

The morrow was Sunday, and in the morning they went to church; and
after service they walked dismally to the cemetery. At dinner she
could scarcely swallow. She felt faint, and her hands trembled when
the return to the drawing-room was made. It had to be now! Her
sister-in-law was settling herself for a nap. Amy turned listlessly
the pages of a book. Mildred, her shallow eyes upturned, and her head
slightly sideways, wore an air of pious resignation to some unexpressed
calamity. Turning from the window, with a gulp, the coward stammered:

"Oh ... after you had gone from Harrogate, Mr. Murray asked me to marry
him."

The silence seemed to her to last for minutes.

"To do _what_?" gasped Amy.

"_Well_!" exclaimed Mildred. "It didn't take long to put _him_ in his
place, I hope. What impudence!"

"He had an impudent look," said Amy.

"Some man who was staying at the hydro where you were?" inquired
Aunt Harriet. "Fancy! That's the worst of those large places. But I
shouldn't let it worry you, my dear. It isn't worth worrying about.
Very likely he didn't mean any harm by it. He didn't understand,
that's all--didn't know your heart was buried with him who's gone."

"Disgusting, _I_ call it," said Mildred. "But Aunt's quite right--we
needn't talk about it.... I thought this morning--I don't know if you
noticed it--that the saxifrage on the grave had gone rather thin; there
was a gap here and there. I think we'd better see the superintendent.
It isn't what it ought to be, by any means."

She stood struggling to say the rest--she struggled with all the puny
will that was within her. And so unfit was she to struggle, that on
surrendering, her paramount emotion was relief. She said, "Yes, we'll
see him about it, and have some more."

She had intended to write to Murray in time for the evening collection.
But she could not write that she had kept her word, and she shrank from
writing that she had paltered with it. She lay sleepless, crying with
mortification. Once a desperate impulse to be done with her compliance
then and there, pulled her up, and she thrust on her dressing-gown;
but her mind quailed even as she reached the door, and she sank on to
the edge of the bed, procrastinating--and then crept back between the
sheets.

She could not write that she had kept her word on the next day either,
nor during the two days that followed. The just thing to them both
would have been to write him exactly what had happened, but as she was
a woman, the thing natural to her when she was to blame was to behave
worse still by not writing at all. A feeble attempt she made, but ...
what was there to say, excepting that she had failed? In every moment
she was conscious of his waiting; she realised the glances that he cast
at that letter-rack over the console table, and saw his mouth tighten
at every disappointment that it dealt. And she was fond of him. Yet it
was beyond her to sustain the effort to confess herself demeaned.

       *       *       *       *       *

He telegraphed: "Coming to you by the seven o'clock train to-morrow
Friday morning."

From her bedroom window, before breakfast, she saw the boy crossing
the road with the message, and she darted downstairs and took it from
him before the double knock could crash. No one was aware, when the
family group made their matins to the study, that in her pocket she
had a telegram from a lover. No one surmised, when she served the eggs
and bacon, that she was questioning, terrified, how to keep his coming
secret. If any of them were in, when the maid said that he was asking
for her? She would be tongue-tied. And they--how insulting they'd be
to him! It would be awful ... awful, unless she were to prepare them,
unless she were to say now that she had heard from him and that they
must receive him properly. She knew she wasn't going to say it, but
she imagined the sensation if she said it: "Mr. Murray's calling this
morning. You've made a mistake--I accepted him." She shivered at the
mere notion, at fancying how horror would distort their faces. Just
after she had been shamming in that room!... She would make an excuse
to go out--she'd meet him at the station.

It was going to be very painful--she wished he weren't coming. In love
with him though she was, she knew that she wished he weren't coming.
And in that moment it was borne upon her that her expectation of
marrying him had died days ago. She could never go through with it! She
would have to tell him so--and he wouldn't understand, wouldn't make
allowances for her. He had not understood at Harrogate. He'd reproach
her, tell her she had treated him badly. And she'd have to sit there,
in the waiting-room, trying not to cry, with people looking on....

If she could have been picked up in his arms and carried off this
morning, without coming back to the house at all! That would be nice.
The girls and Harriet might say what they chose, if she hadn't got to
listen to it. But he wouldn't ask her to go like that; she would have
to propose it herself. How could she? Besides, when she went out to
meet him she couldn't even take a suit-case.... Oh, what good would it
do to meet him? Pain for nothing. He thought he would be able to argue
her into it, make her promise over again. Wretched. And very likely
she _would_ promise--and then what was she going to do? She would feel
worse then than she felt now. It would have been far better for them
not to see each other. If she told the servant----She couldn't say "Not
at home," that would sound dreadful.

He might be here soon, she supposed, unless he had to wait long for the
change of trains. If she did mean to go to the station, she ought to go
directly she had given orders to the cook. Walking into misery with her
eyes open! And walking back with her heart in her shoes. It wouldn't
be any easier to say it to them later than it was at this minute--and
she would know it even while he was wringing the promise from her. Oh,
what was he coming for, to make things worse still? He might have known
by her not having written to him----She pushed back her chair with
vexation.

After breakfast, when the beds were being made, Mrs. Findon said:

"Doreen, if anybody calls this morning--a gentleman--say we're away
from home for a few days. You understand? For a few days--all of us.
Oh, and, Doreen, if he asks where we are, you don't know."

       *       *       *       *       *

More than six years have gone by since Mrs. Findon peeped, breathless,
as Mr. Murray got into a cab again and was driven out of her life. And
now when she reads in her newspaper, every day, on one page or another,
how sublimely mankind has progressed by relapsing into barbarism, and
that the new human nature is purged of frailties that were inherent
in men and women until the 4th August 1914, she vaguely wonders how
it is that her household, and her social circle, and Beckenhampton at
large, and she herself have not had their characters regenerated,
like the rest of the world. For each morning she goes with the Misses
Findon to gaze upon the study, and each Sunday she goes with them to
gaze upon the grave; and on their return, while the Misses Findon
sit by the fireplace, speaking at long intervals, in subdued tones,
their stepmother stares from the window, knowing that her pretence
of mourning a husband she did not love will continue as long as she
lives. And when she looks back on her romance, she marvels--not at the
recreancy of her submission, but that once she briefly dared to dream
she would rebel.



IX

THE BOOM


At this time of day I do not mind publishing the facts. It happened
a few weeks after those pillars of the State--Thibaudin and
Hazard--disappeared from Paris with a couple of million francs. They
were leading the police a pretty dance, and people said, "Ah, they are
probably at the world's end by this time!" I used to think to myself
how securely a man who had a mind to do so might lie hidden within an
hour's journey of the Grand Boulevard. It was really the disappearance
of Thibaudin and Hazard that originated my Idea.

I was manager at that period of the Théâtre Suprême, where we were
very soon to produce Beauregard's play, _Omphale_. I descried a way to
attract additional attention to our project. I went to see Beauregard
one October morning, and gave him a shock. He was breakfasting in bed.

"Bonjour, maître," I said. "Are you too much occupied to talk business?"

"Panage," exclaimed the dramatist, "if you have come to demand any more
mutilations of the manuscript, I tell you without parleying that no
consideration on earth will induce me to yield. There is a limit; mon
Dieu, there is a limit! Rather than cut another line, or substitute
another syllable I will put the contract in the fire."

"Dear friend, you have evidently slept ill and are testy this morning,"
I said. "Compose yourself. I come to exhilarate you with a great
scheme."

He still eyed me apprehensively, and to pacify him I made haste to
explain, "It has nothing to do with any alterations in the play."

"Ah!" He breathed relief, and dipped his croissant in his cup.

"It is a scheme for booming it."

My host was forthwith genial. A smile suffused his munching face, and
he offered me a cigarette.

"I ask your pardon if I was abrupt," he said. "As you surmise, I passed
a bad night. A boom? Well, you know my views on the subject of booming.
The ordinary puff preliminary is played out. One needs something novel,
Panage, something scholarly. 'Scholarly' is the word. For _Omphale,_ a
play of pre-Hellenic times, one needs the boom scholarly, classical,
and grandiose."

"You voice my own sentiments," said I. "One needs nothing less than
a production of 'unrivalled accuracy'--costumes 'copied from designs
discovered in Crete and dating back to the dim days of the Minotaur.'
That would look tasteful in print, would it not? Alors, what do you say
to our going to Crete and discovering them?"

"Crete?" stammered Beauregard. Have I mentioned that he was fat and
indolent and had never travelled further than Trouville?

"What think you of exploring the Minotaur's lair?" I questioned. "Of
penetrating to the apartments of Phædra? Of examining with your own
eyes the labyrinth of Ariadne?"

"I?" he ejaculated.

"You and I together, my old one! Our adventures would make pretty
reading, hein? Would not all Paris be chattering about your _Omphale?_
What a fever of impatience for the first night! Think of the effect
such paragraphs would have on the advance booking."

The corpulent Beauregard lay back on the pillows, pale and mute. I had
spoken too earnestly for him to suspect that I was pulling his leg, and
I could see that he was very seriously perturbed. His mind was torn in
halves between his longing for the advertisement and his horror of the
exertion and expense. After a moment he sat up, perspiring, and wrung
my hand.

"Panage," he cried, "you are a man of genius! Your idea is most
brilliant; I have never heard its equal. With all my heart I
congratulate you. I, alas! cannot accompany you on account of my wife's
ill-health, but _you_ are free. Go, mon ami! Your inspiration will
crowd your theatre."

His wife's health was offensively robust. I shook with laughter so
unrestrained that the cigarette fell out of my mouth.

"Let me be a trifle more explicit," I said. "It is not essential to my
scheme that either you or I should actually go to Crete. It is only
essential that we should be reported to have gone there. I propose that
we should blazon our departure in all the journals--we might give them
interviews in the midst of our packing--and that we should then retire
for two or three months to some secluded spot near at hand where there
will be nobody to recognise us. I shall confide only in Verdeille, my
secretary; I can rely on him, and he will keep the Press well supplied
with anecdotes of our vicissitudes during our absence. Mon Dieu! We
will make Paris bubble and boil with anticipation."

He was admiring, but timid. "Don't you think it would be very risky?"
he demurred. "If our imposture were found out? It would be ruin. For
example, what spot?"

"Well, I am not prepared with spots at the instant; I came to you on
the effervescence of the notion. But somewhere off the beaten track.
One can hide very effectually without going far--I would not mind
wagering that Thibaudin and Hazard are lying low in some hamlet. While
the police are watching Marseilles and Havre, or picturing them already
in South America, they are probably concealed within an easy run of the
gare St. Lazare, waiting till the search is relaxed. What about one of
the little seaside places in Normandy--have you ever stumbled on one
of them a day after the season finished? There is nobody left but the
garde-champêtre."

He shivered. "Three months of it?" he queried piteously.

"Our investigations, which we undertake 'to complete the previous
labours of the archæologists,' ought to be thorough," I pointed out.

"Is it not worth our while to suffer a little tedium for such an end?
Lift your gaze to the cash that will accrue, Beauregard. Dwell upon the
box-office besieged. Positively we shall double the value of your play.
Also you can take plenty of exercise and improve your figure."

"I abhor exercise," he murmured.

"And you could keep early hours and prolong your life."

"My life is a series of vexations--to prolong it would be fatuous."

"Further, everybody will say what a conscientious artist you are; I
don't mind asserting that your passion for accuracy is sweeping me to
the Minotaur's lair against my will."

"Well, I will think about it," he said heavily.

He promised to write to me on the morrow.

There was no difficulty about finding a summer resort forsaken enough
in October--the difficulty was to find one sufficiently animated to
boast an hotel that remained open; and at last I authorised Verdeille
to provide us with a furnished chalet. Of these he had reported an
unlimited choice everywhere. The resort finally approved for our
purpose contained thirty furnished chalets, and they were all to
be let with alacrity until the following July. We took ours until
February. I had extracted Beauregard's consent, and a fortnight later
I hustled him into a cab. He looked as if he were being removed for
a kill-or-cure operation, and I am sure he had half a mind to break
his word even when we were in the train. On the journey I perused with
pleasure _Le Matin_, and the current issue of _L'Illustration_, in
which the programme of our imaginary trip was set forth with a wealth
of invention that did me credit. The deception, in fact, had been
engineered so eloquently that at moments I had almost begun to fancy we
were really bound for Crete.

We travelled to Dieppe, and then a cab crawled into a void with us--the
motor service, we learnt, was discontinued for the next nine months.
The chalet was a high, gaunt house called "Les Myosotis." A peasant,
who represented the agence de location, stood at her door to wonder at
our arrival. A primitive bonne, whom Verdeille had engaged to attend
upon us, appeared to entertain doubts of our sanity. We entered the
scene as messieurs "Poupard," and "Bachelet." It was _my_ precaution to
choose names beginning with a P and a B; I thought of the initials on
our luggage, and our washing--the dramatist had overlooked that point.

Well, I shall not pretend that I was in for a rollicking time. I have
a high esteem for Beauregard in the theatre, but Beauregard in a
village was unspeakable. His lamentations linger with me yet. We had
nothing to do, except to walk in the mud and regard the shutters of
the twenty-nine other chalets. At seven o'clock in the evening, the
distant lighthouse, and the lamp in our own salon afforded the only
lights discoverable for miles round. That fat Parisian's melancholy,
his reproaches, his attitudes of despair, defy description. Even when
the weather improved, he would perceive no virtue in it. I exclaimed
once, "What a beautiful sky to-night!" He replied, "It _would_ be
beautiful from the Place de la Concorde!" He had brought a cartload of
novels--and before we had been in the place a week he was complaining
that he had nothing to read.

"I shall die if I remain any longer," he declared. "I shall be buried
here, I foresee it. The climate doesn't agree with me. Honestly, I feel
very unwell. I ought to return to Paris, it is my duty--I have my wife
to consider."

"You were never so well in your life," I remonstrated sharply.
"Rubbish! there's no escape now, you've got to see it through.
Foretaste the triumph of _Omphale_ and be blithe."

"How much will a triumph be worth to me if I am dead?" he wailed. "Mon
Dieu! what an existence, what demoniac desolation! I shudder when I
wake in the morning; the thought of the terrible day before me weighs
me down. I have scarcely the energy to put on my socks. To wash my
neck exhausts me. Is there nothing, nothing to be done for an hour's
respite--is there no entertainment within reasonable distance?"

"My beloved 'Bachelet,'" I said, "you forget; at a place of
entertainment we might be recognised. Besides, there isn't any."

He threw up his arms. "It is like being in gaol, word of honour! Who
directed you to this fatal hole, where a postman collects letters only
when he pleases--this desert, where Monday's _Matin_ drifts by Tuesday
night? By what perverse ingenuity did you contrive to find it? How long
have we endured it now?"

"Ten days," I told him cheerfully. "Why, we have only got about eighty
more!"

He groaned. "It seems like centuries. My misgiving, of course, is
that it will drive me to intemperance: such ordeals as this develop
the vice. The natives themselves are staggered by our presence;
they whisper about me as I pass. Children follow me up the roads,
marvelling; if the population sufficed, I should be followed by crowds.
I tell you, we are objects of suspicion; we are a local mystery;
they conclude we must have 'done something.' Also the laundress here
is a violent savage--she is not a laundress at all. I had six new
collars when we came, six collars absolutely new from the box--and
this devil has frayed them already. I would never have believed it
could be accomplished in the time, but she has managed it. Six collars
absolutely new from the box!"

Don't imagine that he had finished! don't suppose that it was merely
a bad mood. It was the kind of thing I had to bear from him daily,
hourly--from the early coffee to the latest cigarette.

One afternoon, when I had gone for a stroll without him, a contretemps
occurred. I had entered the outfitter's, and stationer's, and
tobacconist's and provision merchant's--the miniature shop was
the only one in the place that had not closed until the following
summer--to obtain a pair of shoelaces. That the clod-hoppers cackled
about our sojourn was a small matter to me, and I paid no more heed to
the woman's curious stare to-day than usual. But I was to meet another
stare!

As I waited for my change, a shabby young man came in to ask for a copy
of _Le Petit Journal_, and a toy for five sous. _Le Petit Journal_,
which I had just read, contained the latest details of my explorations
in Crete, and instinctively I looked round. His eyes widened. I did not
know him from Adam; but it was evident that _he_ knew _me_, at least by
sight! I turned hot and cold with confusion.

Grabbing at my coppers, I hurried out, wondering what I had better do
if he addressed me. Before I had time to solve the question I heard
him striding at my heels. With a deprecating bow that told me he had
favours to solicit, he exclaimed, "Monsieur Panage!"

"You are mistaken," I said promptly.

"Oh, monsieur, I beg you to hear me," he cried, "I entreat you! In the
theatre you are for ever inaccessible--will you not spare an instant to
me here?"

He was so sure of my identity that I realised it would be indiscreet of
me to deny it any longer. Since I could not deceive, my only course was
to ingratiate him.

"What do you want?" I asked, fuming.

"Monsieur," he broke out, "I am an actor. I have been acting in the
provinces since I was a boy. I have played every kind of part from
farce to tragedy. I have talent, but I have no influence, and the stage
doors of Paris are shut and barred against me! No manager will listen
to me, because I am too obscure to obtain an introduction to him; no
one will believe that I have ability, because I cannot get a chance to
prove it. Oh, I know very well what a liberty I have taken in speaking
to you, but I want to get on, I want to get on--I implore you to give
me a trial!"

He had me in a nice fix. Apparently he was unaware that I was believed
to be in Crete, but he would soon learn it by the newspaper in his
pocket, and if I snubbed him he would certainly give me away. He could
hold me up to ridicule--I should be the laughing-stock of Paris. It was
a fine situation for me. I, the director of the Théâtre Suprême, was
compelled to temporise with this provincial mummer!

I scrutinised him in encouraging silence, as if mentally casting him
for a part. I saw hope bounding in him.

"Ah!" I said thoughtfully. "Y-e-s.... What is your favourite line?"

"Character, monsieur," he panted. "And, of course, I would accept a
very small salary, a very small salary indeed."

I did not doubt it. I could picture him strutting and ranting on the
boards of a booth for a louis a week, and holding himself lucky when he
earned that.

"Walk on a little way with me," I said graciously; "we can talk as we
go along. I should have to see you do something before I could consider
you, you know; I must be sure that you are capable. Even the gentleman
who plays the servant at the Suprême and hasn't a single word to utter
is an experienced comedian. You are not playing any-where in the
neighbourhood? you are not in a travelling theatre about here?"

"No, monsieur," he sighed, "I am out of an engagement; I am here
because this is where I live."

"Rather remote from the dramatic world?" I suggested, smiling;
"something of a drawback, is it not?" His simplicity in crediting me
with the notion of recruiting the Suprême from a travelling theatre
tickled me nearly to death.

"A grave drawback, monsieur," he agreed. "But I am not alone--I have a
child, and she is too delicate to thrive in a city."

"A good many delicate children have thriven in Paris," I remarked.

"In thriving households, monsieur--in healthy quarters. Paris is dear,
and I am poor--_my_ child would be condemned to a slum. I should see
her lade away. Better to be a barnstormer all my life than lose my
child. She is all I have left to love."

"There is your art," I said, humbugging him.

"My art?" He gave an hysterical laugh. A nervous, jumpy fellow, without
a particle of repose. "Listen, monsieur, listen. I am an actor, and if
I could demolish the barrier that keeps me out, I might be a great
one; but I confess to you that I would abandon art and cast figures
on an office stool, or break flints on a road, and thank God for
the exchange, if it would buy my child a home! I want money. I want
to give my child the comforts that other children have. That's _my_
ambition. I have no loftier pose than fatherhood. My prayer is, not
applause, and compliments, and notoriety, not the petty pleasure of
hearing I have equalled one favourite or eclipsed another; my prayer
is--to give things to my child! I want to buy her nourishing food, and
a physician's advice, and the education of a gentlewoman. I want the
money to send her to the South when it snows, and to the mountains
when it's hot. I want to see her laughing in a garden, like the rich
men's children in Paris that you spoke of. I stand and watch them
sometimes--when I go there to beg at stage doors till an understrapper
kicks me out."

"Well, well, the sort of things you desire are not so expensive," I
said suavely. "Some day your salary may provide them all."

"You think it possible, monsieur? Really?" His haggard eyes devoured me.

"You have only to make one success. After that, you will be grossly
overpaid, like every other star."

"If I could but do it!" he gasped. "If I could only convince a
Paris manager that I have it in me! Year after year I've hoped, and
tried, and failed to get a hearing. You may judge my desperation by
my audacity in stopping you in the streets. What course is open to
me--what steps can I take? Even now, when I am pouring out my heart to
monsieur Panage himself, how much does it advance me?"

He was not so simple as I had thought.

"Enfin--by the way, what is your name?"

"My name is Paul Manesse, monsieur."

"Well, monsieur, you must surely understand that until I have seen you
act I cannot be of any service to you?"

"I could rehearse on approval," he pleaded.

"Moreover," I added hastily, "all my arrangements are made for some
time to come. Later on, when an opportunity arises, we shall see what
we shall see." I halted. "Write to me during the run of _Omphale_. I
shall not forget our little chat. A propos, I am starting to-morrow for
Crete; I see the papers are reporting that I am already there, so you
need not mention that you have met me--it is never policy to contradict
the Press. Yes, I shall bear your name in mind, I assure you."

He did not look assured, however; he stood silent, and his lips were
trembling. Heaven knows what solid help my amiability had led him to
expect, but it was plain that honeyed phrases were a meagre substitute.

"You have been most courteous to me," he stammered, "you have done me
a great honour--as long as I live I shall remember that I have talked
with monsieur Panage; but you are leaving what you found, monsieur--a
desperate man!"

"Bah! who knows when an opening may occur?" I said, a shade
embarrassed. "I may see a chance for you sooner than you think. When I
want you I shall send for you."

I little dreamt in what strange circumstances I was to send for him.

Beauregard was snoring on the sofa when I burst into the room.

"Well, you can bestir yourself and pack!" I volleyed. "The place is too
hot to hold us; we have to get out!"

"Hein?"

"There is a pro here who knows me, confound him! I had to tell him we
were leaving for Crete in the morning--he mustn't see me here again."

The playwright shifted his slippered feet to the floor and sat up. "We
go back to Paris?" he inquired, beaming.

"How can that be? Of course not! We must discover another retreat."

"Fugitives!" moaned Beauregard. "Nomads! Do you not think, Panage, that
_I_ might go back to Paris--I could remain cautiously in the house? The
truth is, my wife is of a very high-minded character, and it distresses
her to have to address tender letters to a monsieur 'Bachelet': she
feels that it is not correct."

I was in no mood to be tolerant of his subterfuges. He wept.

I determined to effect our departure the same evening while he was
still intimidated--and if only I had been able to accelerate his
movements, my change of intentions would have spared us much. His
dilatoriness exposed us to a thunderbolt. We had pealed the bell in his
bedroom for the lamp, and when the door was opened at last, I turned
to utter a sharp complaint of the delay. To my surprise, I saw that a
stranger was walking in. There was a fraction of a second in which I
stared indignantly, waiting for an apology for his blunder. Then it was
as if my heart slipped slowly to my stomach, and I felt catastrophe in
the air, even before I heard his rustic, official tones. He arrested us
as Thibaudin and Hazard!

Behind me I heard Beauregard's dressing-case drop with a thud.

Our eyes met, and we stood petrified, realising the impossibility of
concealing our names. In my terror of the public scandal that was
imminent, my clothes stuck to my skin. Curs, as well as criminals, we
looked. I rather fancied that our provincial captor was relieved to see
what knock-kneed miscreants he had to deal with.

"You bungling idiot!" I gasped. "I am monsieur Panage, of the Théâtre
Suprême; this gentleman is monsieur Beauregard, of the Académie
Francaise. You shall suffer for this outrage!"

He shifted his feet slightly. It was the least bit in the world, but
that motiveless movement betrayed misgiving; I deduced from it that, in
his eagerness to distinguish himself, he had taken more responsibility
upon his bucolic shoulders than sat quite comfortably on them. I flung
my card to him. "Look!"

"What of it?" he said surlily. "What evidence is this? I see you were
preparing for flight. No violence!"--Beauregard had impotently wrung
his hands--"I have men in the passage. You will offer your explanations
in the proper quarter. Come!" He advanced upon me.

"Now, listen to me," I cried, backing in a panic. "Put so much as a
finger on us and you are ruined. Not only will I have you discharged
from the Force, I will have you hounded out of any employment that you
find to the end of your days. It is I who say it! You have no excuse:
we bear no resemblance whatever to Thibaudin and Hazard. If you were of
Paris you would know as much!"

Again he faltered. Again he saw distinction within his grasp. The
workings of a dull intelligence, a fool's passion for promotion,
supplied a fascinating study, even in my fear. "Hollow cheeks, small
grey moustache, slight stoop?" he recited, eyeing me. His sheep's gaze
travelled to Beauregard. "Age forty, bald at crown. Fat."

"Is he the only fat man in France, fool? We can call all Paris to prove
who we are!"

"Monsieur will have his opportunity to prove it elsewhere," he returned
stubbornly. But the "monsieur" hinted that I was impressing him against
his will.

Beauregard began to collect his wits. "If we are compelled to prove it
elsewhere, it will be the end of _you_!" he raged. "Better be convinced
in time, I warn you. Hazard _is_ fat, yes; _I_ am, perhaps, a little
plump."

"What do you show me?" mumbled the fellow. "I see the card of monsieur
Panage. That does not demonstrate that monsieur Panage is present."
Complacence was in his gesture, he seemed vain of the brilliance of his
reasoning. "All is said. I have no time for discussions."

"Stop!" I cried, inspired. "What if we produce a resident of this very
village, to say who I am?"

"Mon Dieu! the man you met," roared Beauregard. "Saved!"

"There is no such person--we have made our inquiries."

"There is a gentleman well known, who has lived here with his daughter
since--I don't know how long!"

"Give me his name."

"His name?" I said. "His name is----" I could not recall the name!--it
had had no interest for me. I could remember saying, hypocritically, "I
shall bear your name in mind "; but what it was I had no idea. I stood
dazed. "His name----It escapes me for the moment."

"Enough. The pretence is idle."

"Morbleu!" thundered Beauregard. "Think, Panage, think!"

"I am trying; but I paid no heed to it."

Heavens! what a revenge for the mummer--the name that had fallen on
careless ears was now my only chance of rescue. I thrashed my brains
for it, sweating with funk.

"The name----It evades me because I have met him only once in my life."

"Or not so often! I am not to be duped."

"Let me think; don't speak for a minute."

"Farceur!"

"His name----I--I nearly had it. Wait."

"I have waited too long. Come! the pair of you."

"His name--his name----" I sought it frantically. "His name is--_Paul
Manesse!_"

I mopped my neck. Our persecutor made a note.

"Where is he to be found?"

"How should I know that? It is not difficult for you to ascertain;
doubtless any villager could direct you to him. Now, mark you, I have
supplied the name of a resident in a position to correct your monstrous
blunder! I advise you to bring him to identify me before the matter
becomes more serious for you still. If you put us to public ignominy,
apologies will not satisfy me when you discover your mistake. Here is
your last chance to extricate yourself."

He ruminated. "Enfin, I will send one of my men to inquire for him,"
he said grudgingly. "If it turns out that this 'monsieur Manesse' is
unknown, I warn you that you will suffer for your game."

The room was about forty feet from the ground--I saw him attentively
considering whether, in his absence, we were likely to walk out of the
window. He marched into the corridor and gave a whistle. I heard two
voices before he came in again.

Uninvited, he sat, clasping his knees. None of us spoke any more.
The lamp having still made no appearance, I lit the candles. I do not
forget that long half-hour in Les Myosotis. The yokel himself grew
restless at last--he rose and went into the corridor again.

"Hark," exclaimed Beauregard suddenly, "the man has come back. Can you
hear Manesse? Listen."

"I cannot distinguish," I murmured, straining my ears to the door.

Some minutes passed. To our dismay, our oppressor re-entered alone.
Perplexity darkened his brow. He hesitated before he broke the
suspensive hush.

"Monsieur Manesse agrees that this afternoon he met monsieur Panage,"
he announced. "_But_"--he raised a forensic forefinger--"that does not
establish that either of _you_ is monsieur Panage. Monsieur Manesse
is occupied in telling a fairy tale to his little daughter and cannot
spare the time to come here to identify you. Enfin, you will accompany
me to the commissaire de police, and you will obtain the evidence in
due course."

"Sacré tonnerre!" I screamed. It was the last straw. That strolling
player declined to "spare the time," that mountebank neglected Me!

I saw crimson. I paced the room, raving. "What did he say?" I
spluttered. "What were the ruffian's words?"

"My man reports that the gentleman replied, 'Monsieur Panage must have
had immense difficulty in recollecting my name. He would not stir an
inch to save my life--why should _I_ take a walk for _him_?'"

I sat down. I felt dizzy. I feared I was going to be extremely ill. The
man himself seemed moved by my collapse--or increasingly uncertain of
his position. He said, "Perhaps a note might be effectual? Alors, if
monsieur wishes to write, I will wait."

"Give me your fountain-pen, Beauregard."

"But"--again the forefinger was uplifted--"there must be no secret
instructions. I must be satisfied there is no private meaning in the
note."

"Good heavens! What am I permitted to say?"

He pondered. "'To monsieur Paul Manesse: Monsieur----' Has monsieur
written 'Monsieur'?"

"Yes, yes; go on!"

"'I am now convinced that you can act. I hereby engage you, at the
trifling salary of two hundred and fifty francs a week, for prominent
parts in my next three productions at the Théâtre Suprême.'"

The silence was sensational.

"Who the devil are you?" I stuttered, when I found my voice.

"Paul Manesse, monsieur," he told me--"your new comedian, if you sign."

I signed. You have heard how we boomed _Omphale_ and I found a star!
That jolly little Manesse girl has a rich papa to-day.



X

PILAR NARANJO


In one of the dullest towns of France, I sat with a Parisian at a
variety show.

A Frenchman, with a very grubby shirt-front, presented to the audience
"Señorita Pilar Naranjo, the famous dancer of Madrid." My companion
started dramatically, and whispered, "I pray you to pardon me--I shall
adjourn to the bar till she has done."

Of course, I followed him. "What's the matter?"

"Do not ask me to watch her!"

"Why?"

"I could not support it."

"She is so bad as all that?"

"Bad? She is entrancing."

"Oh! Did you see her when you were in Spain?"

"In Paris, when I had come back. Have you read my _Sobs After
Midnight_?"

"No."

"Buy it. It contains perhaps the most poignant poems that I have
written--they are moans in metres for my loss of Pilar Naranjo."

"You don't say so?"

"She was the passion of my life." He struck an attitude. "Return to
your seat alone, mon ami. For company I shall have my bitter thoughts."

Civility forbade me to let him do all the acting, himself, and I said
in solemn tones, "I shall remain by your side."

He brooded heavily, with one eye on the past, and the other on the
effect he was making. "In my nature," he informed me, "there is,
mysteriously, some Castilian quality--no sooner had I arrived in Spain
than I bore myself like a Spaniard. I spent fascinating months there,
and when I came home, Paris appeared to me a foreign city. Absently I
replied to people in Spanish; my fondest possession was a guitar that
I had brought back. Though I could not play it, I derived exquisite
pleasure from slinging it over my shoulder when I promenaded in the
Garden of the Luxembourg. It may be that instinct warned my compatriots
that now they were alien to me, for they seemed to avoid me, and I was
alone."

"I can understand it," I said.

"One melancholy evening, as I wandered through the barren streets,
pining for the magic of Granada, I noticed the name of 'Pilar Naranjo'
on the bills of a minor musique 'all. Though it was a name unknown to
me, its nationality was an appeal. I entered the musique 'all. I paid
for a fauteuil, and received a pink ticket. What a crisis! Even to-day
I cannot behold pink tickets without a shudder."

To the strains of an exiguous orchestra, the provocation of the lady's
castanets reached our ears gaily. Her victim writhed.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Very soon I gathered that she was popular there; but on the stage,
to be a foreigner is to be a favourite, and I prepared myself to be
disappointed when she appeared. Sapristi! I was spellbound. She danced,
that night, the _habenera_ that she is dancing now. Ah, those cajoling
arms, so irresistible! How imperial was her form, how Southern were her
feet! And her face! the bewildering beauty of her face that haunts me
still."

I got up.

"Sit down--I could not endure your looking at her without me!" he
gasped. "When her turn finished, I had no thought but her; I was
scarcely conscious of the monkeys that came next. In some fifteen
minutes a girl had danced herself into my destiny--and I was swept to
the stage door, like a leaf, on the gale of my emotions.

"I could see nobody inside, to take a message. Ten minutes--a quarter
of an hour passed. I waited in the gloomy little cul-de-sac, dreading,
in every second, to hear the approaching footstep of a rival with an
appointment. So tremendous was my agitation that Spanish tenses with
which I was normally familiar evaded me, and my brain buzzed with the
effort to compose a preliminary phrase.

"The door opened. Before her features were visible in the darkness, the
majesty of her deportment proclaimed that it was she. I advanced. I
bowed, with all my grace.

"'Señorita,' I said, 'I am a poet, and I adore you. Will you honour me
by supping with me?'

"It was not the overwhelming eloquence that I should have had in
French, but I felt that the fervour of my voice should make amends;
and I prayed that she would not be flippant in return. My sentiment
demanded sweet, grave, contralto tones; a giggle would have been
torture to me. Once more, a crisis--a spiritual crisis, in which my
heart ceased to beat. Would she respond gravely, or would she giggle?

"_She did neither one nor the other. As if I had not spoken, she went
by._

"_Comment done_? I had referred clearly to supper; I was well-dressed,
young, handsome--and a dancer at a fifth-rate musique 'all, which was
not precisely a college for decorum, refused to dispense with the
ceremony of an introduction!

"It was prodigious. And by degrees my anger at the affront subsided.
So far from dismissing her from my mind, I paid homage to her virtue.
Yes, my bosom was thrilled by deep esteem. On that sad walk home,
the romantic passion for a danseuse was transmuted into a devout
reverence for a noble woman. I condemned myself for approaching her
so informally. There is, in my complex nature, a vein of humility,
extremely winning. I resolved to write to her, confessing my fault,
before I slept.

"It was a long job, because I had to look up so many words in a
dictionary, but I foresaw that she would be touched by the letter.
In conclusion I said, 'The impulse that you scorned was born, not
of disrespect, but of an admiration, that brooked no curb. If your
vestal pride is not adamant to my remorse, grant me, I supplicate,
an opportunity to express my penitence at the stage door to-morrow
(Wednesday).'

"Wednesday's sunshine already tinged the street when I dropped the
missive in the boite-aux-lettres, but I was not conscious of fatigue.
On the contrary, I regretted that I must kill eighteen hours in sleep,
or some other banality, before the paradise of her presence was
attained. How much had happened in a night! All that was frivolous
in my disposition had passed away, and I realised that this girl had
inspired in me a devotion profound, epoch-making, and supreme."

       *       *       *       *       *

He paused. From the footlights, the Frenchman of the dirty shirt-front
was to be heard in the capacity of interpreter: "Ladies and gentlemen,
Señorita Pilar Naranjo desires me to translate to you her heartfelt
gratitude for the enthusiasm of your applause. If you will graciously
allow her a few moments for a change of costume, Señorita Naranjo will
have the honour of presenting to you her sensational Toreador Dance."

       *       *       *       *       *

The poet groaned. "When I woke I hoped to find that I had slept well
into the afternoon. With impatience I saw that it was only mid-day.
However, in dressing, I recognised that I might profitably employ some
of the time with the dictionary, and I prepared a score of burning
declarations for the interview.

"The remaining hours were intolerable. No sooner had the musique 'all
opened than I took my seat, but the exasperating entertainment appeared
to me to endure for æons before her turn. The torments, inflicted on my
suspense by a pair of cross-talk comedians, cannot be surpassed in hell.

"At last I trembled in the cul-de-sac again. At last she came!

"With an obeisance that consigned my career to her feet, I murmured, 'I
am here to learn whether I am pardoned.'

"_Not a syllable! As before, she passed me by._

"Ah, mon Dieu! I cannot tell you how I reached my couch.

"But my zeal survived even this. I was stricken, but indomitable. I
said, 'Behold a saint worth winning!' I said 'Brace up, and demonstrate
that you are worthy of her!'

"My friend, every day for a month I thumbed that exhausting dictionary,
and a Spanish Grammar, that I might send to her a sonnet every night.
For thirty days on end I wrestled with synonyms and inversions in a
foreign tongue, to create for her a nightly proof of my genius and my
love.

"And I waited for an answer vainly.

"Long after despair had mastered me, I was with a good-for-nothing
painter of my acquaintance. He said, 'I have a new flame--delicious.
Have you heard of the Spanish dancer up at the Little Casino?'

"By a superhuman effort I controlled myself. 'Your suit prospers?'

"'It is going strong. And only a week since I first dropped in there
and saw her!'

"'You are a man of action! But since when have you talked Spanish?'

"'Oh, that isn't necessary,' he laughed; 'she is Spanish only on the
stage. Between ourselves, her name is really Marie Durand--she has
never been out of France in her life.'

"_She had not understood a single word that I had said, or written--and
by the time I discovered it, she was another's_! He holds her
still--you hear him now."

The "interpreter" was speaking again: "Señorita Naranjo desires me to
translate----"



XI

THE GIRL WHO WAS TIRED OF LOVE


At the Opéra Ball, a boy had danced half the night with a partner whose
youthful tones were so delicious, whose tenderness was so attractive,
that he implored her a hundred times to unmask. "If I do, you'll get up
and go away," she gasped at last, fondling his hand. He vowed that it
was her temperament that fascinated him, and she took the mask off--and
he saw the sunken face of an old, old woman.

Horrified, he left her.

In the same season, another man supplicated to a girl for her love--a
girl with a face so beautiful that it made him forget the strangeness
of her voice, which was flat and feeble. And the girl, who looked no
more than nineteen, replied with exhaustion: "I outlived such emotions
long ago. To tell you the truth, the subject sounds to me ridiculous.
All I want to-day is peace and quiet."

Wearily she left him.

These two incidents, peculiar as they are, were the outcome of an
occurrence queerer still--an occurrence at the tragic epoch of a
woman's life when her glass says: "Stop fooling yourself. You've
crumpled to _that_!"

Madame de Val Fleury had begun to combat the advance of age the day
after she detected the first shadowy threat of crowsfeet, as she
turned her perfect neck before the mirror. Her triumph was a fleeting
one, and the later conquests were briefer yet. Scarcely had the enemy
been driven from the glorious eyes when it crept about the chiselled
nose and mouth; no sooner was its attack upon her face withheld than
it showed greyly in her hair. But she never abandoned the contest,
she fought with Time continuously. And although there were moods of
depression, as measures more and more drastic were required, custom
and vanity enabled her, year by year, decade by decade, to view her
reflection with complacence. She beheld it through a haze of illusion,
in applying the colour to her shrivelled cheeks. She did not note that
the chestnut transformation that had looked so natural on a counter
looked spurious on her head; did not see how piteously the perfect neck
had sagged.

But one May morning the mirror said: "Stop tooling yourself. You've
crumpled to _that!"_ and madame de Val Fleury sat and saw her face
withered as it was--and madame de Val Fleury wailed for her lost
loveliness as she had never wailed for her dead husband and son.

A dress that she was to wear for the first time, and that had cost five
thousand francs, lay on the bed. She did not glance towards it. She
leant her elbows on the toilet table and stared at the brutal glass.
And beyond the glass she viewed the ghost of her empire, scenes where
famous beauties had turned involuntarily at her entrance. It was
the women's homage, the reluctant admiration of her own sex that she
mourned for, as she brooded there. In her backward gaze she saw why, as
the years sped, she had squandered more and more on her modistes--saw
bitterly that she had struggled to prolong, by her clothes, the
fast-waning jealousy of her face.

And at Longchamp that day she knew herself to be only an old,
unattractive woman, magnificently attired.

Not more than a month after this, madame de Val Fleury had the
annoyance to lose a pendant sapphire that she was wearing. A reward,
not illiberal, was offered, and when she woke from her nap one
afternoon she was relieved to learn that the stone had been picked up
by a poor girl, who was waiting in the hall to see her.

"If she is clean, I will see her here," said madame de Val Fleury.

The young girl who entered, in a threadbare frock, had been dowered
with beauty so extraordinary that all the lady's pleasure at recovering
her jewel was swamped in envy. The eyes, the complexion, the exquisite
modelling of the features held her mute for an instant.

Subduing a sigh, she said: "I hear you have found my sapphire?"

"Yes, madame."

"Let me look. Where did you find it?

"It was in the road, madame, just against the kerb, in the rue de
Berri."

"Ah, yes. I am glad you saw it. It was a piece of luck for you, too,
hein?" She rose and opened her desk.

"Yes, indeed, madame," said the girl, clasping her hands.

"What are you--I mean, what do you do for a living?"

"I work at madame Wilhelmine's, madame."

"The milliner's? Why don't you go as mannequin somewhere?--you
are--er--pretty."

"They tell me my figure is not good enough, madame."

"That's true. Your figure is bad," said the lady, more amiably. "Well,
you could sit to artists for the face. You could earn more money that
way than Wilhelmine pays you, I should think."

"I know only one honest way to make as much money as I want, madame,"
said the girl, in a low voice. "I want a good deal."

"Tiens! The State lotteries, of course."

"No, madame; a likelier way than that."

"Oh! And what do you call a good deal?"

"Madame understands that I am very poor. A trifle to madame would be a
good deal to _me._ Say, a hundred thousand francs."

"A hundred thousand francs! Such a sum is not a trifle to anybody. You
know a way to make it?"

"Thanks to this reward, I have a chance to make it," assented the girl,
folding the bank notes that had been given to her.

"And _not_ the lotteries?"

"No, madame; a journey for which I lacked the fare. But I bore madame?"

"No, no; go on."

"Eh bien, I am sick of poverty; I would far rather part with my face
and gain wealth than remain beautiful and a beggar."

"You would far rather----What do you say?"

"I am going to the Face Exchange, madame," said the girl resolutely.

The old woman looked at her stupefied. "The what?" she asked in a
whisper.

"Madame has not heard of it? It is held once a year. Of course one may
fail; one may not be able to strike a bargain--and even if one does,
the miracle may not occur. But something tells me I shall be fortunate."

Madame de Val Fleury shrank back on the couch, frightened--she could
not doubt that the girl was insane. After a moment, nerving herself to
approach the bell, she stammered, "Yes, yes, I remember now. I daresay
it is the best thing you can do. Good afternoon to you. I wish you
every success." And as she sniffed at the smelling salts brought by her
maid, she murmured, trembling, "Mad. How terrible! Quite, quite mad."

The incident did not fade from her mind. She thought of it in the
night, and on the morrow, and when she took the sapphire and the
snapped chain to her jeweller's. If the nonsense the poor creature
talked had only been true! What ecstasy! And her tone had been
perfectly sane. ... Oh, of course she was demented. Still--still,
miracles did happen. Look at Lourdes! Every day madame de Val Fleury
recalled the matter with a curiosity more intense, and regretted the
alarm that had prevented her obtaining details.

Before a week had gone by, the curiosity drove her to make a purchase
at the milliner's the girl had mentioned.

"You have a young person employed here who found a jewel that I lost,"
she remarked. "I don't see her in the shop."

"Yes, madame. No, madame--she is in the workroom. How fortunate that
madame's sapphire was restored to her!"

"Ah, the workroom. Have you had her long? Is she satisfactory?"

"Ah yes, madame. About two years. I have no fault to find with her."

"I fancied she was a little odd in her manner. You have not noticed
anything of the kind?"

"Mais non, madame. No doubt she was shy in madame's presence. No, she
is quick to take a hint, that girl; she has all her wits about her."

"You might tell her I should like to have a word with her," faltered
madame de Val Fleury. And when the girl appeared, still more beautiful
without a hat, she said, "Come to my flat again this evening about nine
o'clock if you can. I will make it worth your while. I want to talk to
you."

As she passed out she felt breathless and dizzy.

"Then, if she is not mad--" panted madame de Val Fleury, "then, if she
is not mad----My God, can there be something in it?"

She had been going to a neighbour's for a game of écarté after
dinner, and écarté was a passion with her, but she knew no regrets
in cancelling the engagement. A book by her favourite novelist, just
published, lay to hand, and reading was another of her pet pleasures,
but she did not open it, as she sat waiting for the hour to strike.
Punctually at nine o'clock the bell rang. The girl was shown in.

"Good evening," said madame de Val Fleury. "Sit down. No, no, not so
far off. Come closer. Tell me. I have been wondering.... What you were
speaking about the other afternoon. Is it really a fact?"

"Madame means my intention?"

"I mean the place itself. It actually exists?"

"Ah, certainly it exists, madame!"

"Where is it?"

"In Brittany, madame. Near Pont Chouay."

"But--it sounds incredible! I am sure you are sincere, but--how long
have you known of it?"

"I have known of it ever since the first miracle that happened there,
madame, four years ago. I lived in the village then. The face of a
little girl, the miller's child, was burnt--ah, it was frightful to
see!--and her mother knelt and prayed, the whole night through, that
she herself might bear the scars instead. And at dawn it _was_ so, and
the child's face was as fair as ever."

"It takes one's breath away! What is the village called?"

"St. Pierre des Champs, madame. If madame goes there and inquires,
everyone will confirm what I tell her."

"And such miracles have happened again?"

"At dawn on each seventh of September, madame. I assure madame I speak
the truth."

"Listen," said madame de Val Fleury. "I shall go and hear what they
say. If I am satisfied, are you willing to--to exchange your face for
mine? I will not haggle with you, I will pay what you want. It is a
large amount, but you shall have it--a hundred thousand francs."

"One would have to think over the price, madame," said the girl
hesitatingly.

"What? It is the figure you named."

"Yes--for an exchange. But it is possible I might change with someone
of my own years. Naturally I should prefer that."

"You do not suppose a young girl would pay a hundred thousand francs?"
cried madame de Val Fleury, wincing. "If she has youth already, what
for?"

"For beauty. There are many young girls who would be content to do so."

"There will not be many living in a little village."

"Ah, madame, people who know arrive from all parts. Besides, it might
be better for me to take even fifty thousand francs with a young face
than a hundred thousand with--with one more mature. Madame understands
that I am human--I am not indifferent to the other sex. If I
sacrifice all my prospects of admiration, sweethearts, husband, it is
worth a great sum."

"I shall go and hear what they say," repeated madame de Val Fleury,
deeply mortified. "What is your name?"

"Berthe Cheron, madame."

"Put it down for me, and your private address. If what I hear convinces
me perhaps we may come to terms."

All night the old woman dreamt she was again of surpassing loveliness,
the envy of all the women of her world.

She went to Brittany the same week, and returned palpitating with the
tales that had been told her. She agreed with mademoiselle Cheron to
pay 120,000 francs if the metamorphosis occurred, and it was arranged
that, when the time came, they should travel to St. Pierre des Champs
together.

In the meanwhile her rapturous reflections were not free from anxiety.
If the dawning of the longed-for date should indeed yield her Berthe
Cheron's face, she would be no longer recognised as madame de Val
Fleury. Her social circle would not know her; monsieur Septfous,
her banker--she banked at a private bank, and monsieur Septfous was
practically her man of business--would not know her; her servants
themselves would not know her when she came back to Paris. To explain
would be to meet with perpetual embarrassments. On the whole, the best
plan would be to change her name as well. It would mean relinquishing
a few friendships that she valued, but----Again, she foresaw herself
dazzlingly fair, and caught her breath. Her loveliness would compensate
a million-fold.

Her income was derived chiefly from Municipal Bonds and Métro shares.
At the bank she had also a substantial sum on deposit. She told
monsieur Septfous that she had decided to spend the rest of her life
in the country, and she took a draft, payable to bearer, for the full
amount of cash, and removed her box of securities.

She determined to call herself madame de Beaulieu.

Late on the evening of the 6th of September the old woman and the girl
arrived at St. Pierre des Champs.

They had expected to arrive earlier, but the train crept into Pont
Chouay at 7.30 instead of 5.15, and thence they were dependent on the
local fiacres, which were hard to find and slow to move. Madame de Val
Fleury reached the village, impatient and fatigued.

In the little moonlit market-place, with its vacant stalls, when they
entered it at last, many figures circulated, scrutinising one another's
features eagerly. Most of the men and women bore lanterns, and one
of the stalls had evidently been sub-let for the evening; under the
sign "Christophe: Cheese, Eggs, and Butter," a humpback had electric
torches for sale. As the pair made their way, across the cobbles, to
the shrine that had been erected beside the water-mill, no face of
much beauty met their view. The sellers appeared to be chiefly buxom
peasant girls, wholesome looking, but no more. Those who had come to
buy were of types more various. Here, an old roue, fraudulently dyed
and painted, peered avidly at the features of a youth, who raised his
lantern and rebuffed him with a jeer. There, an individual with crafty
lips and predatory eyes, obviously a sharper, was to be seen bargaining
for the physiognomy of a simpleton. A man with a round humorous face
darted each moment from one melancholy countenance to another, and a
passer-by said, loud enough to be overheard: "Look at Jibily, the low
comedian--he is crazy to play tragic parts!" Irritating and incessant
was the shrill outcry of a female broker, hobbling with a file of
maids-of-all-work at her heels. "Fine faces cheap!" clamoured the
crone. "Fine faces cheap!"

It became very cold beside the water-mill. As the laggard night wore
by, madame de Val Fleury shivered distressfully. Alternately she prayed
and despaired. More than once she glanced, tense with hope, at her
companion, striving to detect some promise of the sought-for change,
but the girl's face remained unaltered. In the serene radiance of the
moon its fairness was exquisite beyond words, and the woman wrung her
hands with the intensity of her desire.

Slowly, slowly the moonlight faded. The pallor of dawn streaked
the sky; and a hundred faces were upturned beseechingly, a hundred
suppliants trembled. Wan and white grew the scene. A tremor and a
rustling stirred the huddled figures. Suddenly, somewhere a woman
wailed, "No use!" and burst into sobs. Berthe Cheron, fearful now the
moment had come, of beholding herself gaunt-cheeked and wrinkled,
bowed her head, shuddering, in her hands. Madame de Val Fleury, half
dazed with exhaustion and suspense, bent to the shining surface of the
pool. The pool receded. It became suddenly unreal. Next, her pounding
heart was squeezed with terror--she didn't know if the reflection she
beheld was her own, or Berthe Cheron's, from behind her. She nodded
wildly at her reflection; she grimaced and gesticulated at it, like
a madwoman.... It had happened! She thought she gave an ear-piercing
shriek of joy, but she fainted, without a sound.

       *       *       *       *       *

After the money was paid she neither saw nor heard anything of Berthe
Cheron. Aided by a lady whose birth gave her the passport to society,
and whose income made her amenable to a financial offer, madame de Val
Fleury, or, as she now called herself, Victorine de Beaulieu, was the
sensation of Paris that autumn. The consummate toilettes permitted
by her wealth lent to her face a beauty even more transcendent than
Berthe Cheron's had been. When she drove, people pressed forward on
the sidewalks to regard her. When she entered her box at the Opéra,
everybody in the house to whom the box was visible looked at her as
much as at the stage. In salons, faces the most admired before her
advent paled in her presence, like candle flames in sunshine. She was
paramount and she revelled in the knowledge. Yet the transformation had
its lack. She missed her game of écarté with her erstwhile neighbour.
She missed the garrulity of familiar friends whom she no longer met.
There were hours when, despite the transports afforded by the mirror
now, she found time hang heavy on her hands. And the hands, of course,
had not recovered girlishness and beauty. Nor her body, nor her mind.

That was the drawback. Only her face was young. Physically and mentally
she was old. Her corsetiere could not provide her with a figure to
match the face. Her physician could not give back to her the energies
that had gone. Her mirror itself was impotent to revive the enthusiasm
and illusions of her youth.

Men made love to the bewildering "young widow." After the first thrill
of amazed exultance she was bored. Their fervour kindled no responsive
spark. Her aged heart beat no faster. The sentiment, the rhapsodies
poured into her ear seemed drearily stupid to the old woman, as she
posed on balconies, wishing she were in her bedroom with a cup of
tisane and her slippers. During the third passionate proposal addressed
to her, it was with extreme difficulty that she restrained her jaws
from yawning.

"Why are you so cold--why won't you hear me?" men cried to her. And she
answered dully: "I am not impressionable. It doesn't interest me to be
made love to. I am tired of all that."

And she was spoken of in Paris as the "girl who was tired of love."

Many evenings during the winter there were when the knowledge that she
would be wearied by some man's appeal, if she went out, determined her
to remain at home. The opportunity to out-shine other women failed to
lure her from the fireside, and she sat in her dressing-gown, playing
écarté with her new maid. "It is marvellous what a head for the game
madame has, seeing she is so young!" exclaimed the maid, awestruck.
"I cannot say as much for _you_," snapped her mistress, mourning that
quondam neighbour.

When the summer came and she went to the coast, with a score of
wonderful dresses, she sighed for companionship more drearily yet.
Hitherto, at such places, she had sat among her compeers, amiably
chatting. Now she appeared too young to be congruous to the circle of
the old--was too old to participate in the pastimes of the young. Scant
of breath and stiff in the joints, she viewed morosely the laughing
women trooping to the tennis courts. Shrunken beneath her youthful
frocks, she dared not don a bathing costume and reveal her wasted form
among the sirens lolling by the tents. Queer as the fact seemed, her
years irked her more this summer than they had done while she looked
her age.

The anniversary of the miracle found her in low spirits, and suffering
from lumbago.

There was a lad, attractive, promising, on the threshold of a
career--such a lad as, thirty-eight years earlier, she had pictured
her baby growing up to be. She had made his acquaintance at a "feeve
o'clock," where, being so young, he felt shy, and where to find himself
speaking to this enchantress confused him more still. But her tone had
promptly relieved him of his dread that he ought to play the courtier.
When she invited him to call on her, she asked him as she might have
asked a schoolboy. Her interest in Guy Verne's ambitions yielded to her
gradually a healthier outlook. Stranger still, as the months passed,
a real and deep affection stole into the old egoist's nature. She was
less purposeless, less futile for it. Almost, as she entered into his
boyish forecasts, and made fight of his little setbacks, it seemed to
her as if her son had lived.

One day the boy flung his arms round her and begged her to be his wife.

It was horrible. She repulsed him, shuddering.

"Don't, Guy, don't!"

Entreaties poured from him.

"If you understood!" she moaned. "I shall have gone to my grave while
you're a young man."

He thought she meant that she was very ill.

"I'll nurse you back to health. Victorine, I love you with all my soul."

"You don't love me a bit," she said. "There is nothing in me for you to
love--I am as utterly different from you as if there were fifty years
between us; you only imagine you love me because you admire my face.
Good heavens, have I ever said a single word to lead you to think I
cared for you in such a way?"

An English boy might have suffered as much, but would have taken it
more quietly. This boy was French, and he did not hide what he felt.
He answered vehemently that she had led him to think so every time
they talked of his future. "If you didn't care for me, why should
it interest you?" He raved of his broken heart. He loaded her with
reproaches. "You've shammed to me, mocked me, just to amuse yourself!"

"No." She was crying. "I _am_ fond of you--fonder of you than of
anybody in the world. But not like that. I shall never care like that
again for anyone."

"I wish I had never seen you. I wish I were dead."

"You mustn't come here any more," she found the strength to tell
him--and not till then had she realised how very dear he had become to
her.

"I'm so sorry, Guy--so dreadfully sorry."

He fell at her feet, imploring her anew. He broke down, and besought
one kiss before he left her. Her misery was deeper than his as she bent
to him, but the boy didn't know it.

"My God," he sobbed, "I adore you--and you kiss me as if you were my
mother!"

The mirror provided no comfort in her loss. She stared, lonely, at the
alien face reflected--stared at it, by slow degrees, with aversion.
It was not she. The unlovely form and jaded mind were she--the spent
passion, and the infirmities. What benefit was the face of youth
without youth's pulses? The mirror mocked her weary thoughts each day.

Upon her grief a woman, white-lipped and shaken, intruded to upbraid
her.

"You have ruined my son's career," she said. "He neglects his work, he
thinks of nothing but you. I hope and pray you may be punished as you
deserve!"

"At Guy's age a career is not ruined by a foolish attachment," pleaded
madame de Val Fleury piteously.

"And at yours such an answer is abominable," cried the other. "You do
not lessen your guilt by cynicism. If ever a girl encouraged a young
man, you encouraged my son. Foolish as his devotion to you may be,
he _is_ devoted to you. By what right did you tempt him to come here
constantly if you had no tenderness for him? Your treatment of him has
been infamous."

"As a mother, do you know only one kind of tenderness, madame? My
affection for your son was true and great. My interest in his future
was no less deep than yours. I swear to you that what has happened
distresses me so much that I have been able to think of nothing else."

Madame Verne advanced upon her with clenched hands.

"Your hypocrisy is even more revolting than your cynicism. If I know
more than one kind of tenderness? Yes. But not in a girl for a young
man! You swear to me you are distressed. _I_ swear to _you_ something
else. My boy is all I have--and I am frightened for him; I do not know
what he may do in his despair. If I lose him he shall be revenged. Take
care, madame de Beaulieu. If you hear of his death, take care! The very
next day, if possible, or the next month, or the next year--whenever I
can reach you--as Heaven is my witness, I will mark that face of yours
with vitriol."

She rang the bell, and went--and the maid that entered found her
mistress in a swoon upon the floor.

For a week her shattered nerves kept madame de Val Fleury abed. And
for several weeks terror prevented her from setting foot outside the
flat. She had a grille constructed in the door, and a hundred times she
repeated to the servants that it was not to be opened for the merest
instant to madame Verne, or any stranger. Such precautions could not
yield composure, however. The day was rendered ghastly with false
alarms; and when she glanced at the mirror, dread flared upon her now a
face seared and repulsive, a mutilated, sightless thing of horror. The
night brought dreams so fearful that she was, more than once, wakened
by a scream that had burst from her. Thrice the awfulness of the
tension impelled her to falter, through the telephone, sympathetic and
ingratiating inquiries to madame Verne; and when the mother rang off
without vouchsafing a reply, the poor old creature tottered with panic.

At last, towards the close of February, she had the unspeakable relief
of learning that madame Verne and her son had gone to Monaco, and
once again she was able to step into her car with a sense of safety.
Nevertheless, the thought of the unhappiness that she had brought upon
the boy was black in her mind. She tried to thrust the thought aside
by reading, but fiction had lost its power to charm her. Gradually, as
her health improved, she turned, for respite from her sad reflections,
to the theatre. When there remained no more fashionable programmes for
her to see, she would adventure the second-rate. One night, as she was
coming out of a little theatre in the Montmartre quarter, she started
and stopped short, trembling in every limb at a sight that met her
gaze. She could not withdraw her gaze--she was magnetised by the sight;
it thrilled her as if the dead had risen to her view. She was looking
at the face that had been hers--she was looking at Berthe Cheron.

Berthe Cheron, handsomely dressed, had also jerked to a standstill, and
for a few seconds the two fronted each other dumbly--the young girl's
puckered eyes, her furrowed cheeks rancorous with regret. It was she
who was the first to speak.

"Blast you!" she said.

"What do you mean--I treated you fairly, didn't I?" stammered madame de
Val Fleury.

"I wish--I wish----" Resentment choked her.

"I paid all you wanted."

"Paid? It wouldn't have been good enough if you'd paid a million. _You_
knew--_you_ knew who was getting the best of it. Paid? What's the use
of the money without any fun? Do you think fine clothes make up for
that? I want to be danced with, I want to be kissed. To hell with your
money--I want love!"

"Don't talk so loudly, don't! That man's looking at us."

"He's not looking at _me_. No man ever looks at me. Paid? If we were
both as we were, you could pay some other fool--it wouldn't be me you'd
get!"

"If we were both as we were, I'd pay no one," groaned madame de Val
Fleury.

"What?"

"It's true. Quite, quite true."

For a moment they were silent again, studying each other. Then madame
de Val Fleury said breathlessly:

"I want to ask you something. Come home with me--get into my car. Don't
abuse me any more, don't rail at me--I'm an old woman and I can't bear
it."

As the car bore them away, she explained herself, weeping.

"I know it seems strange to you, my not being satisfied--I know I've
got the things you want so much. But _you_ retain the capacity to enjoy
those things, and _I don't_. If I could have had your youth as well, it
would have been different. The old are happiest in their old ways, with
their old friends. We both made an error. If--do you think, if we were
to go there again----?" Berthe Cheron turned to her wildly. "If we were
to go there again?" she gasped.

"If we were to go there again--in humbleness of spirit this time, in
contrition, beseeching pardon for our error--do you think it might be
undone?"

"Oh, let us try, let us try!" cried the girl, seizing her hand. And
she, too, wept. "But I could not refund more than about half the
money," she faltered, dismayed.

"I would not ask you to refund a son of it," said madame de Val Fleury.
"You should keep it as a marriage portion."

In the flat they talked till late, mingling their tears and comforting
each other.

Nearly four months had to pass before the coming of the date they
craved, but on the evening of the 6th of September the two victims of
their own folly reached St. Pierre des Champs once more. And in the
eerie market-place, the lanterns swayed amid the flitting figures, and
again they heard the shrill clamour of the crone, shuffling among the
naked stalls. "Fine faces cheap!" And the long, long night grew cold,
and the penitents' teeth chattered; and as the elder knelt and prayed,
as never had she prayed before, the pebbles bit into her knees.

       *       *       *       *       *

A few days afterwards, monsieur Septfous, in the private office of the
bank, saw the door open to admit a caller that surprised him.

"My dear madame de Val Fleury," he exclaimed, "how delighted I am to
greet you! Dare I hope you have returned to Paris for good?"

"For good, my friend--the country got on my nerves. At my time of life
not every change is desirable," replied the old lady, beaming.

And subsequently one man said to another:

"Funny thing; at Bullier last night I saw a girl just like madame de
Beaulieu, who vanished to New York or somewhere--excepting that she had
her arms round a chap's neck and looked so happy."

"Lucky chap, by Jove! Know him?"

"A fellow called Guy Verne."



XII

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1918


DEAR NELLY,

I was in the theatre last night, just to have a look at you again, and
I saw you when you came out of the stage door. Saw the toff and the
taxi waiting to take you to supper. Wonder if you can call my name to
mind any more? Alf. Alf that was your sweetheart when you were in the
fancy department at Skinner and Mopham's. Loved you true, I did.

Remember the early closing days when we used to go to the theatre
together, Nelly? Remember _me_ taking you to supper at the ham and beef
shop four years ago? Wouldn't set foot in the ham and beef shop now,
would you? No class. But I've been fair sick with longing for the sight
of it, myself, since the day I joined up, and you cried in the City
Road, with your arms round my neck. Bright as heaven it looked, the
gas shining on all the sausages, when I was all over lice in the line,
with my jaws chattering. Thought of it just as I was going over the top
once. Saw the chap in his white jacket, cutting a sandwich and smearing
the mustard on. Saw him plain.

Bit I read in a London paper over there said the "pre-war time, now it
had passed away, seemed like an evil dream." It didn't seem like that
to _me_. The "bad old days of peace," the paper called it. Said all us
boys would "find it painful to go back to business, after the great
romance and glory of war." I _don't_ think. I know one of them that
would have given something to be back, calling "Sign," in the bad old
days of peace, while he was sticking that great romance. Made me feel
funny all over to see London again at last, and look at the "civilian
population that was bearing their trials with such heroic fortitude."
Too good to be true it felt, till I got a mouthful of what they call
beer in this better world I hear we've made, and found the lord duke
behind the bar treating me as if I was dirt. Made me wonder if paying
sixpence for half a pint was asking for charity. Seem to have forgotten
how to be civil, all the publicans, now it's the law for them to loaf
the best part of the day, and make you pay so that they do as well in
one week as they used to do in three. That's what I'm told by a chap,
whose uncle has got a pub--the profit on one week's loafing is about
the same as it was on three weeks' work. Done too well in the shops
to be civil, too, I notice, while I've been freezing and bleeding in
that there great romance. It's "Hope the war lasts for ever," isn't
it? Mother couldn't bear to go out, because of what the neighbours are
saying. People with sons of their own, too. It makes me wonder who I've
been doing it for. There's mother--and there used to be you. Makes me
wonder about lots of things, religion and that. At church, on Sunday,
the collection was for teaching our Christianity to the heathen, the
peaceful heathen that aren't busy bombing one another. And nobody
laughed.

Don't make any mistake. I'm not saying England hadn't got to fight.
England had got to fight, right enough, because it ain't a civilised
world. But the parsons, and the priests, and the rabbis, and the papers
could have said how horrible it was, our not having learnt any way
to settle things, ever since we took to wearing clothes, except new
ways of slaughtering one another. They hadn't got to pretend war was
something fine, and splendid, and improving. They hadn't got to pretend
war had changed every woman in England to a holy angel, and Englishmen
were "finding their souls" by driving bayonets through other men's
bellies. England couldn't help going to war, but England could have
helped praising war. We were told, at the start, as how Armageddon had
been led up to by those German writers that had "preached the devilish
doctrine" that war did good. They must have had a rare job, if they
preached it more than our own newspapers were preaching it before a
month was up. Those of them that _I_ saw, anyhow. If the war has been
such an "ennobling influence," if it has "purified" us all half, or a
quarter as much as they keep on saying, the Kaiser must be the best
benefactor England ever had. Then why don't they put up a monument to
him in Trafalgar Square?

And what did they want to put the "Great War" for on the shrines I
see? I should have thought they might have found a better word for it
than "great." Ain't "great" bringing up the kids to hold with the lie
that war is an ennobling influence, like the savages do? If I had _my_
way, I'd put the "Crudest War," or the "Worst War" on all the shrines.

Remember how I used to hate Gus Hooper for his conscientious objector
lay? Well, I'm not keen on him now--Hooper may have been a swine--but
I've come to see that, if war is ever done away with, it will be just
because the real conscientious objectors are top dog. I expect by
then they won't be called conscientious objectors, and it will sound
strange to read how, in our time, there weren't more than a few men
or women that didn't think it a virtue to commit murder if you put on
khaki. Even ladies you can't say too much for--I mean, real ladies, not
our disgraceful sort, them that _have_ been heroines, a lot of them,
and worked themselves to shadows--I've heard more than one of _them_
put in a good word for war, with "They say war brings out men's best
qualities." You could hear that, under their pity for us, they approved
of war. It did come on me as a shock. I used to think we were all so
up-to-date, all the finished article, if you know what I mean. I don't
think anybody will look the same to me again, quite, no matter how
smart they are dressed. When you look at people in the streets now, you
can often fancy them as Ancient Britons, coming along naked. There's
nothing that looks quite the same. Not sunshine in the parks. You
cheer up wonderful, for a minute, and then you feel as if the sunshine
was _camouflage_, too. War won't ever be done away with because kaisers
and governments leave off wishing they could grab something that
somebody else has grabbed first--it isn't in human nature--but only
because they can't get men willing to kill, and be mangled for it.
"Civilised warfare?" Might as well talk about Peaceful massacre. Why,
if this bloody world of ours was civilised, there'd have been no need
for England to go to war, or Belgium to go to war, or anybody else to
go to war. No need for Fritz to go to war. We shouldn't have had the
Worst War at all. Bill, and his war gang would have been seized by
the Germans themselves, and clapped into gaol, or a lunatic asylum,
according to what the doctors said about them.

Went over to Skinner and Mopham's, hoping to find you. They haven't
done so bad, neither, with their heroic fortitude. I'm told the girls
that used to run in for six-three-farthing quills for their hats have
been buying separation allowance coats at thirty guineas as fast as
hands could pick them off the hooks. Still, Mopham passed the time of
day with me quite familiar, considering. "Proud thought for a young
fellow that he's done his duty to his country," he says. "Only wish I'd
been of military age, myself," he says. "See our Roll of Honour in the
window? Framed very stylish, I think. Spared no expense to make it a
handsome article. What for you, miss? Furs, forward!"

It was there that I heard you had gone wrong. "The women are splendid!"
What price the rest? Made me feel queer last night, being so close to
you again, Nelly, though you didn't recognise the bit of my face that
the bandages let you see. I was the cripple by the door of the taxi,
when you and the toff got in.

ALF.



XIII

A POT OF PANSIES


This afternoon it chanced that three men, who used to be firm friends,
were all sitting in the Café de la Paix at the same time. They
pretended not to notice one another. And to-night my thoughts keep
reverting to a pot of pansies, the pot of pansies that was so great a
power.

I exaggerate nothing. It is I, Pierre Camus, pressman, who affirm it.

Jacques Rouelle still struggled as a writer of short stories, and Henri
Dufour was already succeeding as a playwright, but they remained as
cordial as ever. No jealousy on the one side, nor pomposity on the
other. Their wives, too, were on affectionate terms; in fact, the women
were cousins. As for me, I was the comrade of them all. In their modest
flat--a great name for two rooms--Jacques and Blanche Rouelle would
read to me manuscripts, and bewail the terms Jacques got for them; and
in their little villa, off the rue Pergolese, Henri and Elise Dufour
would talk to me of some comedy that Henri was perpending, and even
confide to me their discomfiture when he had one declined. Two devoted
couples; five ardent friends. And then, by a stroke of fate, Jacques
discovered the pot of pansies!

I had gone to see him one day, and found that he was out. Blanche,
however, was at home, and Elise had just dropped in, bringing a toy
or something for the child. Very charming and fashionable she looked,
though I knew her well enough to be sure she had put on one of her
shabbiest costumes for the visit. She told us that Henri had begun the
penultimate act of the play on which he had been at work ever since the
spring, and that he had talked of it recently to Martime, who was much
attracted by the thesis. She was in high feather, and her elation was
natural. Martime had produced an earlier piece of Henri's, but that had
been no guarantee that he would like this one, and I knew that Henri's
heart was set on his playing the leading part.

"Mind you don't forget to send Jacques and me tickets for the dress
rehearsal," said Blanche blithely.

"As if we were likely to forget you! Or Pierre either," said the other,
smiling to me. "Of course we don't know yet that Martime will do the
piece, but he was so enthusiastic about the theme, and his part is so
good, that we're pretty confident. I daresay he will want some silly
alterations made, but I don't think there's much doubt about his taking
it, when it's ready."

"How lovely to be able to write for the theatre!" Blanche exclaimed.
"Think, all the money Jacques has had from editors, with his royalties
from _Contes du Quartier_ as well, is not anything like as much as
Henri can make with a single play!" And, as if fearing that her cousin
might misconstrue her plaint, she added emotionally, "Not that I grudge
him his good fortune, Heaven knows!"

"I know it, too, chérie," responded Elise, squeezing her hand.
"Jacques' innings will come. I am very sure it will come. It is
atrocious that Henri and I should have all the luck in the meantime."

The vivacity seemed to be taking a solemn turn, so I put in, "And what
about _me_? For me both your households are too wealthy--I blunder in
knowing either of you. A pauper should never have rich friends."

"Tiens! That is a novel philosophy," said Elise inquiringly.

"It is sound. What do they yield him? At best, an invitation to dinner.
Which does not compensate for the despondence he suffers in contrasting
their grandeur with his garret. The poor devil of discretion associates
with people even worse off than himself--and by comparison feels
prosperous."

"You old humbug!" they laughed at me. And addressing Blanche again,
Elise Dufour said, "Wait till those dividends come rolling in! He will
gnash his teeth more than ever, won't he?"

"Dividends?" said I. "What dividends? Who dares to mention dividends in
front of me?"

"Ah! he hasn't heard," cried Blanche, recovering her buoyancy. "Henri
is going to get a hundred shares for Jacques in a company that is
coming out. We should not be able to get them ourselves, but the
man is a friend of Henri's. What do you think of it, our making
investments? Isn't it great?"

"It is true," said Elise, nodding. "It will be a very good thing. Henri
means to apply for quite a lot."

I could guess what it was, though, not being a capitalist, I paid no
heed to the Bourse and was absolutely ignorant whether Amalgamated
Pancakes were heavy, or Funded Fireworks had gone up. Henri had chanced
to speak of it to me. I had no doubt that Jacques might do much worse
than hold a hundred shares in that concern.

"What do you think of it?" repeated Blanche. "We have been working
eight years to save three thousand francs--won't it seem wonderful to
have a few francs that we haven't worked for at all coming in every
year?"

She went on talking about it after Elise had gone. "It will be like
something in a fairy tale, to have a little money falling regularly to
us from the skies, as it were. What it will mean! Even Henri and Elise
do not know. We shall be in a position to indulge in pleasures that
sound fantastic now. For instance, if Jacques is out of sorts, I shall
be able to pack him off to the country to get well. To-day he would not
hear of such a thing--he would not touch our nest-egg if he were on his
last legs. And the little one! What joy to buy Baby's clothes without
dipping into that! To buy him perhaps a little fur coat out of money
that poor Jacques has not had to whip his brains for. Won't he look
sweet, the pet, dressed in dividends? I wish that _you_ could take some
shares, Pierre. But I know."

Then Jacques returned, seemingly deep in thought, and I said: "Come in
and make yourself at home. Congratulations, my financial magnate!"

"Hein?" he queried. "What? Oh, that! Yes. It had slipped my mind for
the moment." He went over to his wife and kissed her tenderly. It
appeared that he had been out for two or three hours, and he demanded,
with deep anxiety, if the child still thrived.

"Mais oui, goose. He sleeps in there," said Blanche. "The shares
had slipped thy mind? Ah, but listen, thou dwellest overmuch on thy
work--in the end thou wilt have a breakdown."

"But no, but no, little woman. On the contrary, never have I felt
more fit. I have just seen something that is positively inspiring,"
he announced. "I have seen a suggestion for a short story that is
exquisite."

"So?" We were all attention.

"Quite by accident. I had been walking aimlessly, wandering without
noting where I turned, when in the twilight I found myself in a long
street of decay that struck a chill to my heart. The slatternly,
forbidding houses had an air of hopelessness, of evil that made me
shudder. I tried to classify the denizens, but well as I know Paris, I
was baffled. I had the impression of entering a street of mysteries.
It was as if, behind each of those morose, darkling windows, lowering
upon me in their hundreds, there lurked gruesome things. Suddenly,
on the foul ledge of a ground-floor window, dim with dirt, behind
which some nameless stuff was looped, further to hide the secrets
of the room, I saw blooming?--a pot of pansies! I cannot tell you
how infinitely fresh its fairness looked in these surroundings, how
divinely incongruous! I stood gazing at it a full minute, lost in
conjecture. Who, in that sinister house, retained the sensibility to
tend a pot of pansies? What message did it yield her? How did she
come to be there? 'Mon Dieu,' I said, 'a story! A great story!' I was
enraptured. When I reached a decent quarter, I sat down on a bench,
and lit a cigarette, and prepared to welcome the delicious plot that I
foresaw emerging from my reverie."

"Tell it to us," we begged him.

The fervour of Jacques' tones abated. They were flat when he replied.

"Strange to say, it did not emerge," he said. "I have not been able to
find it yet."

"It will arrive," we cried, with conviction. "There should be an
excellent story in that."

"Ah, certainly it will arrive. My only misgiving is that I am not
worthy to treat it. It should be a gem, that story, a masterpiece. It
should be a story that will live.... All the same, it piques me that,
with such a stimulus to write, I should have to wait, even for an hour.
I am athirst to begin."

"You will strike the idea before you go to bed," I assured him. "Even
I, though fiction is not my line, can see a story there."

"You can see it?" he inquired eagerly.

"I do not mean that I see the plot. But I see the prospects."

"Ah, yes, that is how it is with _me_," he said. "The prospects are
magnificent, aren't they? What delight I shall take in this! I may not
be capable of handling it as well as it deserves, but you are going to
see the best short story I have ever done, mon vieux."

Well, changes in the staff transferred me abruptly to London soon after
that, and I had no further conversation on the subject with Jacques
till nearly five months had passed. The interval had threatened to be
longer still, but one must eat. Why can't you cut an English cook's
throat? If you don't know the answer you are unaware that in England
they placidly consume anything that is put on their plates. Because
there are no English cooks. I should like frequently to sojourn in the
beautiful countryside of England, if it were not so painful to see
vegetables growing there. When I looked at those verdant young things,
so full of flavour and nutriment, and thought of the fate before
them--reflected that they were destined to be drowned in hogsheads
of water, and served as an unpalatable pulp, the sight of them used
to wring my heart. I overtook Jacques in the Champs Élysées one day,
as I was on my way to call on Henri and Elise, and we strolled along
together. I said: "I rather thought you would send me a copy of that
story you were speaking of before I went. What paper was it published
in?"

To my amazement, he replied gloomily: "It is not written. I am seeking
the plot for it."

"What?" I exclaimed. "Not written? After five months? If you could turn
out other stories in the meantime, why not that one?"

"I have not turned out other stories in the meantime," he told me. "I
am concentrating my imagination on the pot of pansies."

I stopped and stared at him. "Ah, ça! Are you in earnest? Mon Dieu! It
looked very promising, but if you mean to spend the rest of your life
trying to write it, the promise will cost you dear."

"I know it is unpractical of me," he owned distressfully. "I have
eaten up a pretty penny. I reproach myself. But the fascination is
overwhelming. I cannot withstand it. The thing has become an obsession.
I have been back a dozen times, in all weathers, to look at the house
again. But the course has not advanced me. In desperation, I even rang
the bell and asked to see the occupant of that room, but the crone who
opened the street-door was either so deaf, or so artful, that it was
impossible to make her understand what I said. Let us talk about it!
There are only three points to resolve. Who, in a house like that, has
still the sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? What does it say to
her? By what circumstances is she there?"

"I remember, I remember," I said. "I am not provided with answers to
such conundrums at any moment of the day. But I could have answered
them in less than five months, I'll swear." I added, "If you like, I
will find the plot for you, in a quarter of an hour, some time, when
I have nothing else to do." I did not mean it very seriously, and, of
course, I am a busy man.

At this juncture, we saw Henri approaching--a deuce of a swell in
his frock-overcoat and chamois gloves, though his figure was more
protruberant than it had been in the period when he was among the Great
Unacted. He hailed us with: "You rascals, you negligent knaves! If you
greet me once in a century, it is by chance. How are you, darlings?"

"We meant to honour you with a visit now," I said. "As it is, we will
go on and see Elise. Come back and see her too."

"Elise has gone to a matinée," said Henri. "You shall take a little
ta-ta with me, instead. I am on topping terms with myself, and need
someone to listen to my boasts. I read my play to Martime this week.
All is well. When I finished, tears were in his eyes."

"Good business!" We exulted hardly less than he.

"When will it be seen?" asked Jacques. "Will he make it his next
production?"

"Ah, that is not settled. For that matter, he has not actually agreed
to take it. But he has got the script, and he is to write to me in a
few days. I know well enough what is going to happen; I shall have to
agree that the leading woman's part ought to be less strong. And then
he will tell me the play is flawless."

"You do not mind sacrificing her?"

"If I mind? Well, naturally I mind. Mais que voulez-vous? My primary
desire is Martime. His vanity is colossal, but it is a man's play,
and no other actor on the stage could do what _he_ will do with it.
I constructed it for him from the start. You may be sure I will make
concessions rather than lose Martime. Ah, we are rejoicing! This piece
means a great deal to us, you know--it is ambitious work. With this, if
it succeeds, I--en effet, I am promoted to the front rank."

"You are not at the foot of the class now," I said.

"Ah! But I have written for fees rather than for fame. It was not
good enough to clothe my wife and children in rags because I aspired
to wear laurels. The day I entreated Elise to marry a boy who had not
five hundred francs, I was guilty of a crime. I have never forgotten
the confidence she showed in me that day--nor her unwavering belief in
me while times were bad. In truth, my wife has but one failing--she
admires me to excess. According to her, every word I write, or speak,
is inspired. But it is not odious to be worshipped. She is adorable.
I ask myself what I should do without her. They may say some of the
pieces I have done so far are of no account; I assure you I have had
far more joy from scribbling a farce that bought smart costumes or a
bracelet for Elise than I could have had from evolving classics that
left her worried about the washing bill. Enfin, everything comes at
last to him who waits--even a fine day in London, hein?--and now I
have felt entitled to devote twelve months to a grand attempt. And, if
it is well received--I do not romance when I say that, if it is well
received, the thing that will make me proudest will be the admiration
of my dear wife."

While he talked on, opening his heart to us, we strode towards
the Boulevard; and as we proceeded to the Boulevard, with never a
premonition of disaster, it is not hyperbolic to affirm that all Paris
would have failed to display a trio more united.

Presently he inquired of Jacques: "Anything wrong with you? You are
very quiet."

"I search for a plot," sighed our friend; and was long-winded.

"He has been able to think of nothing but the enchanting story that
ought to blossom from that flower-pot, and doesn't," I explained. "By
this time he might have----"

"The points I ponder are three," Jacques broke in strenuously. "Who,
in such environment, has the fingering sensibility to tend a pot of
pansies? What does it express to her? How does it happen that she is
there?"

"I do not see anything in it," said Henri. "It has no action."

"How the devil can it have action before there is a plot?" screamed
Jacques. "I tell you, the atmosphere is superb."

"It is a picture, not a story. There is no material in it," complained
Henri. "You have everything to create, except the scene. The scene is
good, but----"

We were still discussing the question, sipping vermouth at a café, when
someone exclaimed: "Ah, you! How goes it?" And, looking up, I saw that
the cordial hand upon the dramatist's shoulder pertained to no less
eminent a person than Martime himself.

"Numa!" Henri was delighted; the more so when Martime consented to sit
down at our table and sip an apéritif, too.

"Permettez. Two of my oldest friends--monsieur Camus, of _L'Elan_;
monsieur Rouelle, romancier."

The actor-manager did not allow us to imagine we met upon terms of
equality, but his greetings were gracious. To be candid, I had been
somewhat impressed to hear our chum call him by his Christian name.
I knew, of course, that Henri was agog to learn whether a decision
had been reached about his play, and I mentally applauded his air of
absorption while Martime expatiated upon his performance in the present
piece. After some minutes I glanced at Jacques, with a view to our
leaving the pair together, but before we could move, Henri, desirous no
doubt of cloaking his eagerness, said lightly:

"As you arrived, we were in the midst of a literary controversy.
Monsieur Rouelle detects promise of a great story where I see none. The
point is not uninteresting." Whereupon he launched into a description
of the street, and did justice to the pansies, though Jacques did not
look as if he thought so.

"C'est très bien, ça," said Martime, with weighty nods. "It is very
fine, that. Let me tell you that you have there a poem." In no more
authoritative a tone could the Academy have spoken.

"Ah!" cried Jacques. "You feel it, monsieur? There, in that vile spot,
the fairness and fragrance of those pansies----"

"Not 'fragrance,'" said Henri; "pansies have no smell."

"----struck a note sensationally virginal," continued Jacques, with
defiance.

"Oui, oui," concurred Martime. I suppose it was no trouble to him to
do these things, but the ideality he threw into his eyes was worth
money to see. We all regarded him intently, and I think he liked the
situation. Even more ideality flooded his gaze, and he propped a temple
with two fingers. "I am not of your opinion, mon cher," he told Henri
profoundly. "I find it admirable."

"The three questions that besiege one, monsieur," burst forth
Jacques--and I shuddered--"are, who, biding amid decay, has the
imperishable sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? Of what does it
speak to her? How comes it that she is there?"

And now it was that the famous man was tempted to a fall.

"Tout à fait admirable," he repeated. "But"--he displayed a cautionary
palm--"above all, no melodrama! The keynote is simplicity. Simplicity
and tenderness. For example, in the squalid room sits a young girl,
refined though poor--a sempstress. She dreams always of the sylvan
vales that she has left, and the lover who is seeking for her. And--it
would be very charming--one day the lover passes the window while she
waters the pansies."

"Oh, my dear Numa, bosh!" exclaimed Henri genially.

No sooner had he said it than he recognised his error, I am sure.
Martime's eyes flashed poniards, and his face turned turnip colour with
offence. Perceiving his indignation, Jacques began to stammer hasty
insincerities, and Henri also did his utmost to palliate the affront,
but I could not persuade myself that their efforts were successful. For
a minute or two Martime remained stiff and monosyllabic, and then, with
a few formal words, got up and went.

"I fear he was annoyed," murmured Jacques.

"You 'fear'!" said Henri irascibly. I was dismayed to hear resentment
in his tone.

Though Martime had gone the constraint continued; and it was not long
before we rose.

As Henri and I walked on, after Jacques had parted from us, I said:
"Very stupid of Martime. You spoke in quite a friendly way."

"And still more stupid of Jacques to talk about the story to him,"
he flung back, at white heat. "What possible interest could Jacques'
difficulties have for Martime? Childish!"

"But--pardon me, it was you who first mentioned the matter," I said.

"Ah, don't split straws," he growled. Clearly, the incident disturbed
him more than a little.

It was probably a week or ten days afterwards that Jacques came to me
in great perturbation and volleyed, "What do you think? Henri has got
his knife into me! It appears that Martime has returned the play, and
Henri says it is my fault."

"Oh, nonsense!" I said. "How can he say that? Returned the play? I am
dreadfully sorry."

"I too. But what have _I_ got to do with it? Did you ever hear anything
more preposterous? To begin with, it is not likely that Martime would
refuse the piece solely on account of what was said that day; and,
even if he did so, it was not I who said it. It wasn't till yesterday
I knew there was anything wrong. Blanche met Elise. Elise's manner was
rather strange, and Blanche wondered. But she had no idea there was any
ill-feeling. Naturally! She inquired if Henri had heard from Martime
yet. Then it came out."

"That Henri held you responsible?"

"Blanche was condoling. She said, 'What a cruel disappointment for
you both, dear!' And Elise said coldly, 'Yes, indeed; it is very
unfortunate that Jacques discussed his affairs in front of Martime.'
Blanche, poor girl, was thunder-struck. Of course, she explained to
Elise exactly what had happened. But Elise replied with something very
vague, and when I telephoned to Henri he was not himself with me at
all--he was very brusque. He said,' I have no wish to talk about the
matter.' There is not the least doubt that he is angry."

"I will have a chat with him," said I.

I went the following day. But he had gone to have a Turkish bath, and
Elise, who received me, begged me not to mention the play when I saw
him. "His finest work, that took him a year to do, practically wasted!"
she said, in a stunned fashion. "It is frightful. He is stricken. It
would be kinder of you not to say anything about it to him yet awhile.
I'll tell him that you came."

"But 'practically wasted'?" I demurred. "He will be able to place it
with some other management, will he not?"

"He may. But it is not the kind of play for every management. And,
anyhow, we shall not get Martime in the part. It will never now be the
immense success that it _would_ have been. What an idiot to reject a
great part because his vanity was wounded!"

"You are certain that is the explanation?"

"There is no question about it. The script was returned in the most
formal way--a line to say it was 'unsuitable.' Henri was prostrate.
Prostrate. My poor Henri! You may realise what a blow it was. I am
feeling very anxious about him. I have persuaded him to go away for a
few months--I am taking him to Biarritz. What a calamity his meeting
Jacques that afternoon!"

"Ah, but listen," I urged. "Jacques is terribly cut up that Henri
is bitter against him. And, between ourselves, it is a shade unjust.
It was not Jacques who affronted Martime, nor even Jacques who first
referred to the subject. It was Henri himself."

"Henri made a passing allusion," she protested; "Jacques made an
eternal discussion of it. He would never let it drop. Henri is never
unjust, he is fairness itself; I have never known anyone who was as
fair as Henri always is. Also, he is not 'bitter' against Jacques--we
are not so small-minded that we forget old friendships because of an
indiscretion. When we come back I shall, of course, go and see Jacques
and Blanche as usual. I have nothing against Blanche--it was not _her_
fault that Jacques was so tactless."

Oh, well. Useless to try to convince people of what they don't want
to believe! I told Jacques that she and Henri were going away, and
predicted that he would find the unpleasantness over when they
returned. And, as a matter of fact, I did not attach deep importance to
it until a certain morning. The sight of a prospectus led me to inquire
of Jacques if the shares he had been counting on were allotted to him.
He answered passionately, "No."

At that I was startled. I asked if he had made an application for them.

"I did not see anything about it soon enough!" he raged. "Henri had
told me to leave it all to him. And not a word have I had from him.
Even if I _had_ applied, I should not have got them. What malice!
Blanche is broken-hearted. I will never forgive him for her grief.
It is not as if I had been seeking a gift at his hands--he could
have made money for us without its costing him more than a postage
stamp. An opportunity to do such a service for a friend comes to a
man once in a lifetime. No; his spite against me for nothing is so
intense that deliberately he turns his back on the chance! It is
disgusting. We could not believe, we could not think it possible he
had been such a swine, after all his promises. So I got his address
from the bonne and telegraphed to him. You should see his answer--the
letter of a stranger: 'On consideration, he had not cared to take the
responsibility of recommending an investment to me.' Liar! Blanche
cried the whole night through. I will never speak another word to him
as long as I live. And I do not want to see Elise either. Blanche's own
cousin, to show such animosity! What a despicable pair!"

"Words will not express my regret," I said. "And I am amazed at Henri's
attitude. But you cannot be sure that Elise knows anything about it."

"Why should she not know?" he scoffed.

"I do not suppose that Henri can feel very proud of himself--he may not
have confided in her. Besides, Elise said she meant to go on seeing
you, the same as ever. That being so, she would hardly? encourage him
to break his word to you in the meanwhile. I think you are being unfair
to Elise."

"Henri has been more unfair to my poor Blanche," he bellowed. "I do
not hear so much of your sympathy for _her_."

It was an infamous reply to make, but he was in the mood to quarrel
with anyone that was handy, and I had the magnanimity to let it pass.
I was sympathising sincerely with Blanche, and I sympathised even more
when I saw her. She spoke with less vehemence than Jacques, but it was
evident he had not exaggerated her dejection. "It seems incredible,"
she said. "It shows that you never really know anyone; nothing could
have persuaded me that Henri had it in him to behave so badly. If you
had heard him talking to us about the shares--what a benefit they would
be to us! And now, to avenge himself for an imaginary wrong----" She
gave a gulp. "You don't think Elise knows? Ah, yes; he and she are one
in everything, I assure you! What it would have meant to us, to get
dividends! However small the sums might have been, what a godsend to
poor Jacques, driving his pen all day! He is working harder than ever
to make up for lost time--he has had to put the thought of the pot of
pansies aside for the present--and I could cry as I watch him. By the
way, you were going to try to find a plot for that. Did you?"

"Nothing occurred to me," I said.

I could say nothing to cheer her, either then, or later, though I often
looked in at the flat and did my best. And, to inflame the indignation,
the shares rose. They rose, and went on rising. And Jacques, who had
hitherto never so much as glanced at closing prices, developed a
morbid interest in following their advance. I shall not forget the day,
about three months after the issue, when I learnt that they were quoted
at forty francs, and that, if Henri had kept his word, my host and
hostess would have doubled their capital. I shall not forget it for two
reasons. 1. The lamentations they gave way to were exceedingly trying
to me. 2. On that very afternoon Elise walked in.

I had not known that she was back, else I should have prepared her for
the situation. Blanche, ignoring the proffered embrace, tendered the
tips of her fingers, and Jacques bowed, as to a woman he had never seen
before. Elise turned very pale. Her scared eyes sought mine, and I
tried by the warmth of my greeting to mitigate the moment for her.

"What is the matter?" she faltered of us all.

"It is only surprise at your visit," said Blanche sarcastically.

Impossible to avert it. The storm broke.

Just as I surmised, Elise had been unaware of Henri's misdeed. But
though her consternation was only too apparent, Jacques and Blanche
were in no mood to let it influence them. The tirade against Henri to
which Jacques condemned her was bad to bear. She quivered under it.
She could do nothing but stammer painfully, "I forbid you to insult my
husband; I forbid you to insult my husband!" Blanche knew how to stab,
too, in her pathetic voice.

"Ah, it is useless to talk, Elise," she sobbed. "As a rich woman, you
do not understand what three thousand francs would have done for us!
Three thousand francs! We have been scraping for eight years to put
by as much as that, and if Henri had been fair to us we should have
doubled our means already. Three thousand francs! To Jacques, who in
all his life has never had a son that wasn't wrung out of his poor
tired head! It is the wickedness towards _him_ that I resent--towards
him, and our child. And what is the cause? That Henri is unmanly
enough to hate another for his own mistake. Ah, it is too petty and
contemptible of him for words!"

"But remember it is not Elise's fault," I begged. I saw that she
could endure no more. "Say these things to Henri, both of you, if you
must--not to her!"

"Blanche is in no need of your corrections," shouted Jacques
hysterically. "Attend to your own affairs. My wife talks to her cousin
as she thinks fit. It is always Elise you champion. If you feel so
deeply for our enemies, I wonder that you come here."

I could scarcely credit my ears. But I said very quietly, with dignity,
"Indeed? I shall not put you to the trouble of wondering twice."

And, as Blanche remained silent--for which she was very culpable,
for I looked towards her as I moved--I offered my arm to Elise, who
was so much deranged that she could hardly get down the interminable
staircase, and took her home in a cab.

As will be readily understood, I had no ambition to assist at her
next conversation with Henri, and I did not intend to enter the house.
Unluckily, when the cab stopped, he was on the veranda, and he came to
the gate.

"_Comment_? What is it?" he demanded, seeing her agitation.

"She is rather upset," I said. "I won't come in."

"Yes, yes, come in! Tell him what has happened," gasped Elise
peremptorily. Whereby she, in her turn, committed a grave fault, for
she made me witness matrimonial dissension of which I need otherwise
have had no knowledge.

"She has been to see Jacques and Blanche," I said; following them into
the salon.

"Ah?" said Henri, with reserve.

"Yes, I have been to see Jacques and Blanche," she panted, "and a nice
time I have had there!"

He decided on hauteur. "I am quite at a loss. If one of you will
explain?"

As she looked at me, I said: "They told her you had not done as they
expected about the shares. I rather gathered that there was some
tendency towards feeling hurt."

"Hurt? On reflection, I saw that I had not the right to advise Jacques
to speculate. What of it?"

"They do not view it as a speculation," I said.

"They! Much they know of business!"

"Did you take shares yourself?" queried Elise.

"The cases are not parallel," he contended, his voice rising excitedly.
"Jacques is a poor man; I did not feel justified in letting him risk
money."

"Oh, Henri," she wailed, "you know very well that was not the reason.
It was not loyal of you; it was very, very wrong. Already it would have
been a little fortune for them. No wonder they are aggrieved. I cannot
be surprised--much as I have suffered this afternoon, I cannot be
surprised at what I have had to hear."

"What you have had to hear? You have heard that I did not choose to
assume the responsibility of conducting another man's affairs. And
then? Ah, je m'en fiche! I am fed up with Jacques."

"I have had to hear you broke a promise because you were mean-spirited
enough to blame him for your own _gaffe_ to Martime," she cried. "Of my
husband I have had to hear that! No, I cannot be surprised at what they
said. They said it was petty and contemptible of you--_and so it was!_"

For an instant it was as if she had hurled a thunderbolt. Henri stood
inarticulate, his eyes bulging from his head. Then, bringing his fist
on to the table with a blow that made every ornament in the room jump,
he roared:

"You dare to say it? To me, your husband, you dare to say such a
thing? You shall ask pardon at once, in the presence of the friend who
has heard the insult!" And, as it was obvious she would do nothing
of the kind, he went on, without loss of time, "No! I forbid you to
apologise--it is vain. There are insults that apologies cannot abate. A
husband who is 'contemptible' to his wife is best apart from her--I can
find comprehension elsewhere."

I was having a pleasant day--what with one ménage and the other, I was
having a pleasant day. There ensued a quarrel the more harrowing from
the fact that the recriminations poured from a pair whom I knew to be,
at heart, lovers. And as often as I endeavoured to steal out, either
Henri or Elise would pounce upon me to confirm some point that did not
matter. When I got away at last my need of stimulant was insupportable.

I had, naturally, expected to receive a penitent missive from Jacques
that night, and when there was a knocking at my door I did not doubt
that he had come to beg forgiveness in person. But it was Henri who
flung in, and dropped into a chair.

"Enfin, I go back no more," he groaned.

He took my breath away.

"You are mad," I stuttered. "What? You part from a wife you adore, and
who adores you, because of a hasty word? Are you a boy, to behave so
wildly? _C'est inoui!_"

"There are words, and words!" His face twitched and crumpled. "It is
because I am not a boy that I see clearly we could never again be happy
together. The madness would be to try! To sit, every day, opposite a
woman who is thinking me contemptible? Merci! I could not endure it.
Every meal, every moment would become a hell."

"Ah, if she were thinking it, really! But she spoke impetuously--she
had had much to try her. She had only just left Jacques and----"

"Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what I owe to that man!" he vociferated.
"What everlasting afflictions, his telling me of his accursed pansies!
First, it annihilated my prospects, and now it rends me from my wife
and children. I shall stipulate that they live with me for half the
year; but what of the other half, while they are being taught that the
father who loves them so dearly is a contemptible man, disgusting to
their mother?" He rocked to and fro. "Also, how am I to make a home
for them when they come? I leave the villa to Elise; I cannot afford
two establishments--above all, now that I have lost the production by
Martime, and may never see a son from work that has occupied me for a
year. Malediction on that pot of pansies!"

"Now listen!" He had been to the last degree unreasonable, but he was
suffering, and I have a good heart. "I guarantee that this separation
will not last a week. I shall have a talk with Elise."

"With Elise? It is I who make the separation," he objected, with a
piteous attempt at dignity. "And further, I have no hostility against
you, but it is partly through your own talks with Elise that she is
lost to me. Ah, yes!" I had stared at him, stupefied. "I understand
that you said to her, at the time, that I was guilty of 'injustice'
towards Jacques. I do not say you traduced me with any vicious motive,
but, unquestionably, your irresponsible chatter paved the way to the
catastrophe that wrecks my life."

My turpitude notwithstanding, he wept in my room till 3 a.m., keeping
me up. And he, and Elise, too, proved very distressing to me during the
days that followed. She was equally headstrong. I was surprised at her.

"You mean well, but pray say no more; it is inevitable," she answered
me tremulously. "As for that stupid affair of Jacques and Blanche,
I daresay I may have misjudged Henri. They don't understand. As a
business man, no doubt he did what was really best in their own
interests." I perceived that her commiseration for them had much
decreased since it involved her in domestic strife. "But his conduct
towards _me_--! I have done with him. I am not a fool, to imagine
an honourable man would desert his wife for a reason like that. A
performance. He did not even forget his razor strop. Let him go to her!
He was not an angel--no writing man is--but I thought he loved me, and
I never complained. Because I admired him, because he was the one man
in the world to me. Behind the curtain it hung, not even in sight, and
he did not forget it when he packed! Brute! You heard him say he could
'find comprehension elsewhere.' She will not keep his linen in such
order as _I_ have done, that I'll swear. To pretend it was just because
I believed what Jacques and Blanche had said! I believe nothing that
they say. I detest them. Oh, they have made a pretty mess of my life,
those two!"

She was illogical, but I was much displeased with Jacques and Blanche
myself. The previous day I had seen them in the street. It is true
that they cast ingratiating glances, but in the circumstances they
should have done a good deal more. And I, very properly, looked away.

Yes, for fully three weeks the estrangement of Henri and Elise made
demands on my time. And since each of them viewed the other as the
aggressor, their criticisms of each other were not unduly diffident.
Nevertheless I continued to do all in my power for them. I implored
Henri to return, and I besought Elise to write to him, though it was no
recreation to me to keep pressing counsel upon people who told me they
did not want to hear it. When there were two consecutive days without
Henri despairing in my chair, the lull was welcome.

I cannot depict my joyful surprise, the next evening, on seeing them
issue radiantly from the Restaurant Noel Peters, arm in arm. I had had
no news of the reconciliation. I rushed to them and clasped their hands.

"Hurrah!" I exclaimed. "Thank goodness! How delighted I am the trouble
is over!"

Their greeting appeared to me a shade constrained.

"Oh, that didn't amount to much," Henri mumbled, brushing my reference
aside.

"No one supposed it did," laughed Elise lightly. And as I found myself
at a loss what to say next, there was a pause.

"We are going to a theatre," said Henri; "we are rather late." After a
glance at his wife, he added, in flat tones, "You will dine with us
one night, hein?"

"Ah, yes," said Elise perfunctorily. "Of course."

When I went, we did not allude to what had happened. Nor was the
conversation on general topics as animated as when I had dined there
hitherto. For the first time at their table I was depressed.

And it was the last invitation from them I received. Probably I was
embarrassing to them, by reason of their having railed against each
other to me while they thought they would never make it up. Also,
though Henri could forgive his admiring wife for once calling him petty
and contemptible, one may be sure it was bitter to him to remember
I had been present when she humiliated him. That both he and Elise
resented my sharing the secret of their separation was as clear as
daylight. For some months afterwards, if I chanced to meet them,
they would stop and exchange a few words with me, but by and by they
contented themselves with smiling; and, finally, they preferred to
pass without perceiving that I was there. When that play of Henri's
was produced, two or three years later, he had become so alien to me
that I should never have dreamed of going to see it, if I had not got
in for nothing. The leading man was not capable of the part, and the
run was short--by which Henri's enmity against Jacques was doubtless
intensified.

The two couples that used to be so intimate remain at daggers drawn.
And both couples are strangers to _me_. I do not think there is
anything to add, excepting that the story of the pot of pansies has not
been accomplished to this day. The tragic history that I have related
is the story of the story that was never found.



XIV

FLOROMOND AND FRISONNETTE


Floromond and Frisonnette, who were giddy with a sense of wealth
when they acquired three rooms, and had flowers growing on their own
balcony, and sat upon chairs that they had actually bought and paid
for, held a reception one fine day. The occasion was a christening.
Floromond and Frisonnette were, of course, monsieur and madame
Jolicoeur, and they dwelt in the part of Paris that was nearest to
Arcadia. Among those present were monsieur Tricotrin, the unadmired
poet, monsieur Pitou, the composer of no repute, monsieur Lajeunie,
whose stirring romances so rarely reached a printing office, and
monsieur Sanquereau, the equally distinguished sculptor.

Though the company were poor in pocket, they were rich in benevolence,
and since the dearth of coppers forbade silver mugs, they modelled
their gifts upon the example of the good fairies. Advancing graciously
to the cradle, the bard bestowed upon the female infant the genius of
poesy: "Epics, and odes," he declared, "shall fall from her lips like
the gentle dew from Heaven." "And, symphonies," said the musician, "she
shall drop as nimbly as the newly rich drop needy friends." That she
might be equipped more fully yet for the stress of modern life, the
novelist endowed her with the power of surpassing narrative, while the
sculptor, in his turn, contributed to her quiver the pre-eminence of
Praxiteles.

Then Frisonnette hung over her baby, saying, "And one boon, besides:
let her marry her sweetheart and always remember that a husband's love
is better than an ermine cloak!"--an allusion which moved Floromond to
such tenderness that he forthwith took his wife in his arms, regardless
of us all; and which reminded your obedient servant of their story.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Floromond beheld her first, she was in a shop window--the most
tempting exhibit that a shop window had displayed to him, in all
his five-and-twenty years. If he had stayed in the quarter where he
belonged, it would not have happened. It was early on a spring morning,
and she was posing a hat, for the enticement of ladies who would tread
the rue La Fayette later in the day. Floromond, sunning himself like
a lord, though he was nothing better than a painter, went on to the
Garden of the Tuileries, noting how nicely the birds sang, and thinking
foolish thoughts. "Had I a thousand-franc note in my pocket, instead of
an importunate note from a washer-woman," ran his reverie, "I would go
back and buy that hat; and when she asked me where it was to be sent, I
would say, 'I do not know your name and address, mademoiselle.' Then,
having departed, without another word, leaving her speechless with
amazement and delight, I should never see her any more--until, not too
long afterwards, we found ourselves, by accident, in the same omnibus.
Ciel! how blue her eyes were."

And, though he did not omit to reprove himself, in the most
conscientious manner, and the weather changed for the worse, his
admiration drew him to the rue La Fayette, at the same hour, every day.

Frisonnette's demeanour, behind the plate glass, was propriety itself.
But she could not be unconscious that the young man's pace always
slackened in the downpour, as he approached madame Aureole's--she could
not be insensible of the homage of his gaze. That Tuesday morning,
when, dripping, he bowed, his salutation was so respectful that she
felt she would be inhuman to ignore it.

So the time came when they trod the rue La Fayette together, making
confessions to each other, after the shop shut.

"I used to wonder at first whether you noticed me as I went by," he
told her wistfully.

"I noticed you from the beginning," she owned, "you have such a funny
walk. The day that you were late----"

"My watch was in pawn. Sapristi, how I raced! It makes me perspire to
think of it."

"I took five minutes longer than usual to dress the window, waiting for
you."

"If I had guessed! And you didn't divine that I came on purpose?"

She shook her head. "I used to think you must be employed somewhere
about."

"What! you took me for a clerk?" asked the artist, horrified.

"Only at the start. I soon saw you couldn't be that--your clothes were
too shabby, and your hair was so long."

"I could have wished you to correct the impression by reason of my air
of intellect. However, to talk sensibly, could the prettiest girl in
France ever care for a man who had shabby clothes, and a funny walk?"

"Well, when she was beside him, she would not remark them much," said
Frisonnette shyly. "But I do not think you should ask me conundrums
until you have talked politics with my aunt; I feel sure she would
consider it premature."

"Mademoiselle," said Floromond, "I am rejoiced to hear that your aunt
has such excellent judgment. Few things would give me greater pleasure
than to agree with her politics as soon as you can procure me the
invitation."

And one day Floromond and Frisonnette descended the steps of a certain
mairie arm in arm--Frisonnette in a white frock and a nutter--and the
elderly gentleman in the salle des mariages, to whom brides were more
commonplace than black-berries, looked after this bride with something
like sentiment behind his pince-nez. A policeman at the gate was
distinctly heard to murmur, "What eyes!" And so rapidly had the rumour
of her fairness flown, that there were nearly as many spectators on
the sidewalk as if it had been a marriage of money, with vehicles from
the livery stables.

The bride's aunt wore her moire antique, with coral bracelets, and at
breakfast in the restaurant she wept. But, as was announced on the
menu, wedding couples and their parties were offered free admission
to the Zoological Gardens; pianos were at the disposal of the ladies;
and an admirable photographer executed GRATUITOUSLY portraits of
the couples, or a group of their guests. At the promise of being
photographed in the moire antique, a thing that had not occurred to her
for thirty years, the old lady recovered her spirits; and if Tricotrin,
in proposing the health of the happy pair, had not digressed into
tearful reminiscences of a blighted love-story of his own, there would
have been no further pathetic incident.

Floromond and Frisonnette, like foreigners more fashionable, "spent
their honeymoon in Paris," for, of course, Frisonnette had to keep
on selling Auréole's hats. Home was reached by a narrow staircase,
which threatened never to leave off, and after business hours the
sweethearts--as ridiculously enchanted with each other as if they had
never been married--would exchange confidences and kisses at a little
window that was like the upper half of a Punch and Judy show, popped
among the chimney-pots of the slanting tiles as an afterthought.

"It is good to have so exalted a position," said Frisonnette; "there is
no one nearer than the angels to overlook us. But I pray you not to
mention it to the concierge, or our rent will soon be as high as our
lodging. The faint object that you may discern below, my Floromond, is
Paris, and the specks passing by are people."

"They must not pass us by too long, however, Beloved," said Floromond;
"I am a married man and awake to my responsibilities. It would not suit
me, by any manner of means, to share you with millinery all your dear
little life. More than ever I have resolved to be eminent, and when the
plate glass can never separate us again, you shall have dessert twice a
day, and a bonne to wash the dishes."

"My child," murmured Frisonnette, "come and perch on my lap, while I
talk wisdom to you, for you are very young, and you have been such
a little while in Paradise that you have not learnt the ways of its
habitants. It chagrins you that you cannot give me dessert, and
domestics, and a cinema every Saturday night. But because I worship
you, my little sugar husband, because every moment that I pass away
from you, among the millinery, seems to me as long as the rue de
Vaugirard, I do not think of such things when we are together. To be in
your arms is enough. Life looks to me divine--and if I find anything at
all lacking in our heavens it is merely a second cupboard. Now, since
you are too heavy for me, you may jump down, and we will reverse the
situation."

"I have strange tidings to reveal to you," said Floromond, squeezing
the breath out of her--"I adore you, Frisonnette!"

They remained so blissful that many people were of the opinion that
Providence was neglecting its plain duty. Here was a thriftless
painter daring to marry a girl without a franc, and finding the course
of wedlock run as smooth as if he had been a prosperous grocer with
branches in the suburbs! The example set to the Youth of the quarter
was shocking. And a year passed, and two years passed, and still the
angels might see Floromond and Frisonnette kissing at the attic window.

Then one afternoon it happened that a French beauty, hastening along
the rue La Fayette with tiny, toppling steps, as if her bust were
too heavy for her feet, found herself arrested by a toque on view at
Auréole's--and entering with condescension, was still more charmed
by the assistant who attended to her. The chance customer was no one
less important than the wife of Finot--Finot the dressmaker, Finot the
Famous--and at dinner that night, when they had reached the cheese, she
said to the great man:

"My little cabbage, at a milliner's of no distinction I have come
across a blonde who could wipe the floor with every mannequin we boast.
She is as chic as a model, and as bright as a sequin; she is just the
height to do justice to a _manteau;_ her neck would go beautifully with
an evening gown; and she has hips that were created for next season's
skirt."

"Let her call!" said the great man, adding a few drops of kirsch to his
_petit suisse_.

"She would be good business, I assure you," declared the lady; "she
talked me into taking a toque more than twice the price of the one I
went in for--_me_! Well, I shall have to find a pretext for speaking to
her--I must go back and see if there is another hat that I care to buy."

"It is not necessary," replied her husband; "go back and complain of
the one you bought."

So the lady talked to Frisonnette in undertones, and Frisonnette
listened to her in bewilderment, not quite certain whether she was
twirling to the top of her ladder, or being victimised by a diabolical
hoax. And the following forenoon she passed by appointment through
imposing portals that often she had eyed with awe. And Finot, having
satisfied himself that she had brains as well as grace--for they are
very wide of the mark who think of his pampered mannequins as elegant
mechanical toys--signified his august approval.

Frisonnette went home and described the splendours of the place to
Floromond, who congratulated her, with a misgiving that he tried to
stifle. And later on she told him of the dazzling déjeuners that were
provided, repasts which she vowed stuck in her throat, because he was
not there to share them. And, not least, she sought to picture to him
the gowns that she wore and sold. O visions of another world! There
are things for which the vocabulary of the Académie Francaise would be
inadequate. Such clothes looked too celestial to be touched. But she
was a woman. Though her head was spinning, as Finot's mirrors reflected
her magnificence, though she was admiring herself inimitably, she
accomplished so casual an air that one might have thought she had never
put on anything cheaper in her life.

And, being a woman, she did not suffer from a spinning head very long;
she soon became acclimatised.

In the daytime, Frisonnette ate delicate food, and sauntered through
stately show-rooms, robed like a queen--and in the evening she turned
slowly to her little old frock, and supped on scraps in the garret. And
now her laughter sounded seldom there. Gradually the contentment that
had found a heaven under the tiles changed to a petulance that found
beneath them nothing to commend. Her gaze was sombre, and often she
sighed. And the misgiving that Floromond had tried to stifle knocked
louder at his heart.

By and by the little old frock was discarded and thrust out of view,
and she wore costumes that made the garret look gaunter still, for with
her increased salary, and commissions, she could afford such things.
Floromond knew no regret when she ceased to speak of bettering their
abode instead--his pride had revolted at the thought of astonishing
their neighbours on his wife's money--but the smart costumes made her
seem somebody different in his eyes, and moodily he felt that it was
presumption for a fellow in such a threadbare coat to try to kiss her.

"What a swell you are nowadays!" the poor boy would say, forcing a
smile.

And Frisonnette would scoff. "A swell? This rag!" as she recalled with
longing the gorgeous toilettes that graced her in the show-room.

One treasure there she coveted with all her soul. It was an ermine
cloak, so beautiful that simply to stroke it thrilled her with ecstasy.
Only once had she had an opportunity of luxuriating in its folds; under
its seductive caress she had promenaded, on the Aubusson carpet, for
the allurement of an américaine, who, after all, had chosen something
else. The mannequin used to think that she who possessed it should be
the proudest woman in the world, and twice the painter had been wakened
to hear her murmuring rhapsodies of it in her sleep.

"If I could sell my 'Ariadne' and carry her away to some romantic
cottage among the meadows!" he would say to himself disconsolately.
"Then she would see no more of the fangles and folderols that have
divided us--she would be my sweetheart, just as she used to be."

But the best that he could do was to sell his pot-boilers; and a
romantic cottage among the meadows looked no nearer to his purse than a
corner mansion in the avenue Van-Dyck.

That the fangles and folderols had indeed divided them was more
apparent still as time went on--so much so that frequently he passed
the evening at a café, to avoid the heartache of watching her repine.
But it was really waste of coppers, for he thought of the change in her
all the while; and when he lagged up the high staircase, on his return,
he was remembering, at every step, the Frisonnette who formerly had
run to greet him at the top.

"You are a devoted companion," she would remark bitterly, as he
entered. "What do you imagine I do with myself, in this hole, all the
evening, while you stay carousing outside?"

"I imagine you sit turning up your nose at everything, as you do when I
am with you," he would answer, hiding his pain.

Then Frisonnette would cry that he was a bear; and Floromond would
retort that her own temper had not improved, which was certainly true.
And after she had exclaimed that it was false, and stamped her foot
furiously to prove it, she would burst into tears, and wonder why she
remained with a man who, not content with forsaking her for cafes, came
home and calumniated her nose, and her temper besides.

Meanwhile Finot had been contemplating her performances on the Aubusson
carpet with rising respect. His versatile mind was now projecting the
winter advertisements, and he determined to entrust to his best blonde
one of those duties which, from time to time, rendered the luckiest of
his mannequins objects of unspeakable envy to all the rest. Finot's
advertisements were conducted on a scale becoming to a firm whose
annual profits ran into millions of francs.

"Mon enfant," he said to her, "you have been a very good girl. And
though you may think you are rewarded royally already, as indeed you
are"--and here followed an irritating dissertation upon the softness
of her job, to which she listened with impatience--"I am preparing a
treat for you of the first order. How would it please you to travel,
for a couple of months or so, a little later on?"

"To travel, I?" she stammered.

"You and one of the other young ladies. Monte Carlo, Vienna, Rome?"

"Rome?" ejaculated Frisonnette, who had never dreamed of reaching any
other "Rome" than the one on the Métropolitain Railway.

"Mademoiselle Piganne would contrast most effectively with your tints,
I think?" He screwed up his eyes. "Y-e-s, we could hardly evolve
a colour scheme more delicious than you and mademoiselle Piganne!
Whatever capitals we may decide on, you will stay at the hotels of the
highest standing; all matters like that you will do best to leave to
the judgment of the chaperon in attendance on you both, otherwise you
might have the unfortunate experience to find yourself in an hotel
not exclusively patronised by the cream of Society. Your personal
wardrobe, for which you will be supplied with from twelve to fourteen
trunks, will consist of those creations of my art which best express
my soul, and your affair will be to attract sensational attention
to them, while preserving an attitude of the severest propriety.
That is imperative, remember! No English or American mother, with
her daughters beside her, must for a single instant doubt that you
are morally deserving of her closest stare. An open carriage in the
park, where the climate permits--a stage box at the opera, when the
audience is most brilliant, will, of course, suggest themselves to
your mind. But, again, the duenna and the man-servant will organise
the programme as skilfully as they will look the parts. All that will
be required of you is a display, brilliant and untiring; the rest will
be done by others. Every woman everywhere will instruct her maid to
find out all about you, and your own maid--an employee of the firm in a
humble capacity--will have orders to whisper that you are a princess,
travelling incognito, and that your dresses come from Me."

Frisonnette could do no more than pant, "I will speak about it at
home, monsieur, at once!" And because she foresaw with resentment that
Floromond's approval would be far from warm, she broached the subject
to him very diffidently.

At the back of the little head that Finot's finery had turned, she
knew well that if her "bear" betook himself too often to cafes, it was
mortified love that drove him to them; so she made haste to tell him:
"It might be the best thing for you, to get rid of me for a couple of
months--I should return in a much better humour and you would find me
quite nice again."

"You think so, Frisonnette?" said Floromond, with a sad smile.

"What do you mean?" she asked, paling.

"I mean," he sighed, "that after the 'brilliant display,' it is not our
ménage under the tiles that would seem to you idyllic repose. Heaven
knows it goes against the grain to beg a sacrifice, but if you accept
such luxury, I feel that you would never bear our straits together
again. Do not deceive yourself, little one; you would be leaving me,
not for two months, but for ever!"

Deep in her consciousness had lurked this thought too, and she turned
from him in guilty silence. "You are fond of me, then," she muttered at
last, "in spite of all?"

"If I am fond of you!" groaned Floromond. "Ah, Frisonnette,
Frisonnette, there is no moment, even when you are coldest, that I
would not give my life for you. I curse the poverty that prevents me
tearing you from these temptations and making you entirely mine once
more. If I were rich! It is I who would give you boxes at the opera,
and carriages in the park; I would wrap you in that ermine cloak, and
pour all the jewels of Boucheron's window in your lap."

"I will not go!" she cried, weeping. "Forgive me, forgive the way I
have behaved. I have been wicked, yes! But I repent, it is ended--I
will not go!"

And that night she was proud and joyful to think she would not go. It
was only in the grey morning that her heart sank to remember it.

"I must decline," she said to Finot hesitatingly. "I have a husband.
I--I could not take my husband?"

"Mon enfant, your husband would not grudge you the little holiday
without him, one may be sure."

It was like being barred from Eden. "And the ermine cloak," she
faltered, "could I take the ermine cloak?"

The tempter smiled. "One cannot doubt that, among fourteen trunks,
there would be room for the ermine cloak," he told her suavely.

One November evening when Floromond came in, his wife was not there. He
supposed she had been detained in the show-room--until he groped for a
match; and then, in the dark, his hand touched an envelope, stuck in
the box. He trembled so heavily that, before he could light the lamp,
he seemed to be falling through an eternity of fear.

He read: "I am leaving you because I am frivolous and contemptible. I
dare not entreat your pardon. But I shall never make you wretched any
more...."

When he noticed things again, from the chair in which he crouched, he
found that the night had passed and daylight filled the room. He was
shuddering with cold. And he got feebly up, and wavered towards the bed.

       *       *       *       *       *

"She did not ponder her words," babbled the aunt, who came to him
aghast--"she will return to you. When the two months are over and she
is back in Paris, you will see!"

"She pondered longer than you surmise, and she will never return to
me," he said. "And what is more, a man with nothing to offer can never
presume to seek her. No, I have done with illusions--she will be no
nearer to me in Paris than in Monte Carlo; Frisonnette's Paris and
mine henceforth will be different worlds."

Floromond lived, without Frisonnette, among the clothes that she had
left behind; the dainty things that she had prized had been abandoned
now that she was to be decked in masterpieces. They hung ownerless, the
_peignoir_, and _tricot_, and dresses--the pink, and the mauve, and the
plaid--gathering the dust, and speaking of her to him always.

"She has soared above you, dish-clouts!" he would cry sometimes, half
mad with misery. "It was you who first estranged us--now it is your
turn to be spurned." And, as he tossed sleepless, his fancy followed
her; or pacing the room, he projected some passionate indictment,
which, on reflection, he never sent.

"You should try to work," his reason told him. "If you worked, you
might manage to forget in minutes." And, setting his teeth, he took
palette and brush and worked doggedly for hours. But he did not forget,
and the result of his effort was so execrable that he knew that he was
simply wasting good paint.

Then, because work was beyond him, and his purse was always slimmer,
he began to make déjeuner do for dinner, too. And not long after that,
he was reducing his rations more every day. It was a haggard Floromond
who threaded his way among the crowds that massed the pavements when
some weeks had passed. The boulevards were gay with booths of toys
and trifles now; great branches of holly glowed on the _baroques_ of
the flower-vendors at the street corners; and the restaurants, where
throngs would fête the _Réveillon,_ and New Year's Eve, displayed
advice to merry-makers to book their tables well ahead.

"My own rejoicings will be held at home!" said Floromond.

And, during the afternoon of New Year's Eve, it was by a stroke
of irony that the first comrade who had rapped at the door since
Frisonnette's flight came to propose expenditure. "Two places go
begging for the supper at the Café des Beaux Esprits," he explained
blithely, "and it struck me that you and your wife might join our
party? Quite select, mon vieux. They promise to do one very well, and
five francs a cover is to include everything but the wine."

"My wife has an engagement that she found it impossible to refuse,"
said the painter, huddled over the fading fire. "And as for me, I am
not hungry."

The other stared. "There is time enough for you to be hungry by
midnight."

"That is a fact," assented Floromond; "I may be most inconveniently
hungry by midnight. But I am less likely to be scattering five francs.
In plain French, my dear Bonvoisin, if you could lend me a few sous, I
should feel comparatively prosperous. I am like the two places at the
Beaux Esprits--I go begging."

Bonvoisin looked down his nose. "I should have been overjoyed to
accommodate you, of course," he mumbled, "but at this season, you know
how it is. What with the pestilential tips to the concierge, and the
postman, and one thing and another, I am confoundedly hard up myself."

"All my sympathy!" said Floromond. "Amuse yourself well at the
banquet." And he sprinkled a little more dust over the dying _boulets_
in the grate, to prolong their warmth.

Outside, big snowflakes fell.

"The man who has never known poverty has never known his fellow-man,"
he mused; "I would have sworn for Bonvoisin. He has inspired me with
an apophthegm, however--let us give Bonvoisin his due! And, to take a
rosy view of things, turkeys are very indigestible birds, and, since
I lack the fuel to cook it, I am spared the fatigue of going out to
buy one for my mahogany to-morrow. Really there is much to be thankful
for--the only embarrassment is to know where it is to be found. If I
knew where enough tobacco for a cigarette was to be found, I would be
thankful for that also. How the Mediterranean sparkles, and how hot the
sun is, to be sure! We shall get freckles, she and I. Won't you spare
me half of your beautiful sunshade, Frisonnette? Upon my word, I could
grow light-headed, with a little encouragement; I could imagine that
the steps I hear on the staircase now are hers! Fortunately, I have too
much self-control to let fancy fool me."

Nevertheless, as he leant listening, his face was blanched.

The steps drew nearer.

"I know, of course, they go to the room on the other side; a moment
more, and they will pass," he told himself, holding his breath.

But the steps halted, and a timid tap came.

"It is a child with a bill--the laundress's child. I know thoroughly
it is the laundress's child--I do not hope!" he lied, tearing the door
open.

And Frisonnette stood there, asking to come in.

"I have run away," she quavered. Her teeth were chattering, and
her fashionable coat was caked with snow. "I should have come long
ago--only, I was ashamed."

"You are real?" said Floromond, touching her. "You are not a dream?"

"Every day I have longed to be back with you, and at last I could bear
no more. Do you think you might forgive me if you tried?"

"There is a tear on your cheek, and your dear little nose is pink
with the cold, and the snow has taken your feathers out of curl," he
answered, laughing and crying. "Let us pretend there are logs blazing
up the chimney, and we will draw one chair to the hearth and tell each
other how miserable we have been--or better than that, how happy we
are!"

But still she clung to him, shivering and condemning herself.

"And so," she repeated, "I ran away. It is a habit I am acquiring.
Finot is furious; he has dismissed me; I have no job and no money. I
have come back with nothing, my Floromond, but the clothes I stand up
in. And--and why do I find you with an empty coal-scuttle?"

"Ma foi!" he stammered, loath to deepen her distress, "as usual, that
imbecile of a charbonnier has neglected to fulfil the order."

"He becomes intolerable," she faltered. "Is that why I notice that your
tobacco-pouch is empty, too?"

"Oh, as for the tobacco-pouch," said the young man, "in this ferocious
weather I have been reluctant to put on my hat."

"It is natural," murmured Frisonnette. But her eyes were frightened,
and she investigated the cupboard. And when the cupboard was discovered
to be as empty as the pouch and the coal-scuttle, she rushed to him in
a panic.

"You are starving!" she moaned. "You have starved here, while I----Mon
Dieu, I have not come home too soon!"

"Tut, tut," said Floromond; "are you trying to pose me for a hero of
romance? I have been an idle vagabond, that is all. The cat is out of
the bag, though--you have come home, ma Frisonnette adorée, and I have
nothing for your welcome but my embrace!" And thinking of the want that
lay before her, he broke down.

"I love you, I love you, Floromond," she wept.

"I love you," he sobbed, "I love you, Frisonnette."

Then, in the fading daylight, arose a plaintive cry--the wail of the
itinerant wardrobe dealer: "_Chand d'habits!_"

"_Chand d'habits_!" she gasped, and darted to the window. "_Chand
d'habits_!" she screamed--and stripped the smart costume from her
and stood triumphant in her petticoat. Before the dealer's aged legs
had toiled up half the stairs, she was back in the little old frock
that had been cast aside. "Hook me, my Floromond!" And her eager arms
were laden, and her frozen hands showered raiment on the floor: the
_peignoir_, and _tricot_, and dresses--the pink, and the mauve, and the
plaid. "We dine to-night!" she laughed. "Enter, _Chand d'habits!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

"And, word of honour," observed Floromond, when the clocks of Paris
had sounded twelve, and the pair sat digesting their beef-steak, and
toasting their toes, and she rolled another cigarette for him, "word of
honour, you have never looked more captivating than you do now--that
frock becomes you marvellously. At the same time, the fine clothes I
have been gobbling lie somewhat heavy on my sensibilities, particularly
the fascinating ribbons of the _peignoir_. If only I had kept my nose
to the grindstone! Ah, if only we had something better to expect than
this hand-to-mouth existence! Alas, on New Year's Day, I cannot give
you even a bunch of flowers."

And, at that moment, hurrying feet approached the house--young and
excited voices were heard below. And what should it prove to be Well,
what it _should_ have proved to be was, that his "Ariadne" had, in some
ingenious way, been purchased, for a large sum, without his knowledge,
and that a contingent of the quarter had arrived to proclaim his
affluence; but, as a matter of semi-sober fact, it was only a posse of
exhilarated students, wishing everybody the compliments of the season,
and playing _Le Chemin de l'Amour_ on a trombone.

Still, there was a beautiful morning, as we know, when Floromond and
Frisonnette had flowers on their own balcony, and three rooms, and
chairs that they had actually bought and paid for--to say nothing of
the baby. The Moral of which is, that there are more New Year's Days
than one and it's never too late to hope. So let us all hope now!


THE END





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