The waiter who brought Felicia's telegram into the smoking-room found Raine walking up and down, pipe in mouth, in a state of caged irritation. A fine, penetrating rain was falling outside, the wet dribbled down the windows, the air was impregnated with mist, and great rolls of fog hid the mountains. The guides had prophesied a clearing up of the weather at midday, but it was half-past eleven, and the prospect was growing drearier every minute. Hockmaster was yawning over a cigar and a battered copy of theLouisville Guardianwhich some compatriot had bequeathed to the hotel.
Raine seized the telegram eagerly, read it, crumpled it into his pocket in some excitement, and turned to the waiter.
“There is a diligence to Cluses—when does it start?”
“At 12.15, Monsieur.”
“And the train to Geneva?”
“At 5.50.”
“Good. Secure me a seat in the diligence, and have my bill made out.”
The waiter bowed and departed.
“I am sorry to break our engagement to-day, Hockmaster,” said Raine to the American, who had been watching the effect of the telegram with some curiosity, “but I must start for Geneva at once.”
“I like that,” replied Hockmaster; “it's slick. Nothing like making up your mind in a minute. It's the way to do business. I guess I'll come too.”
“You'll have a disgusting drive,” said Raine, viewing the proposal with less than his usual cordiality.
“That's so,” retorted the other imperturbably, “I wasn't expecting the sun to shine just because I choose to travel. I am a modest man.”
“Well, hurry up,” said Raine, seeing that the American was decided. “Perhaps you're wise in getting out of this.”
“I should have done so a couple of days ago, if it had not been for you. You seem to have a sort of way of pushing the lonesomeness off people's shoulders.”
There was an ingenuous frankness, an artless simplicity in the man's tone, that touched a soft spot in Raine's nature.
“That's devilish good of you,” he replied, with an Englishman's awkwardness of acknowledgment. “You have done me a good turn too. Come along.”
In spite of Hockmaster's special efforts towards entertainment, the drive to Cluses was particularly dreary. The rain never ceased falling, the damp hung thick upon leaves and branches, and clustered like wool among the pine stems. The mountains loomed vague and indistinct, fading away into mist in the middle-distance. The Arve, as the road approached it, seethed below, a muddy torrent. The desolate district beyond St. Martin heaved like an Aceldama of mud and detritus oozing through the fog.
Besides external depression, certain anxieties lay on Raine's mind. His father's health was never very strong. A dangerous illness was to be dreaded. His deep affection for his father magnified his fears. There was Katherine, too. His heart yearned towards her. He closed his eyes to the hopeless landscape, and evoked her picture as she stood in pale saffron and sapphire and a dash of pale gold, the morning's colours, in the morning sunlight. But why had she left him so long without news of her? A lover's question, which he sought to answer lover-wise.
Cluses at last, the little watchmakers' town; an hour's wait for the train. They went into acaféand sat down. After a while Hockmaster rose, went up to an old plate-glass mirror on one side of the room, smoothed his thin sandy hair with his fingers, arranged his cravat, and then returned. With the exception of two elderly townsmen playing at dominoes in the corner, while the host sat looking on in his shirtsleeves, they were the only customers. They conversed in desultory fashion on the rain, the journey, the forlorn aspect of the place.
“If we had a town with an industry like this one in America,” said Hockmaster, after his secondpetit verrefrom the carafe in front of him, “we should hitch it on to Wall Street and make a go-ahead city of it in a fortnight, and manufacture timepieces for half the universe.”
“That would be rather rough on the universe,” said Raine idly. “American watches—”
“The very tip-topest articles in the world!” interrupted Hockmaster warmly. “Just look at this!”
He drew from his pocket a magnificent gold watch, opened all its cases rapidly, and displayed the works before Raine's eyes.
“There! See whether that can be beaten in Europe. Made, every bit of it, in Chicago. That watch cost me 450 dollars. It did that.”
Raine admired the watch, mollified the owner, who drank another glass offine champagneon the strength of his country's reputation. Then with an inconsequence that was one of the quaint features of his conversation:
“Mr. Chetwynd,” he said, lighting a fresh cigar, “I am about tired to death of these gilded saloons in continental hotels. Imitation palaces are not in my line. I should like something homier. I was thinking, if you could recommend me a snug sort of boarding-house in Geneva, it would be very good of you.”
“Why not come to the one I am staying at?” said Raine good-naturedly. “There is a very companionable set of people there.”
“Right,” replied Hockmaster. “That's real kind of you. When you come to Chicago, you track straight for Joseph K. Hockmaster. You'll find gratitude.”
“My dear fellow!” laughed Raine deprecatingly.
“No,” said the other in his serious way. “I repeat, it's real kind. Most of your countrymen would have shunted me off to another establishment. I think I tire folks by talking. I am always afraid. That's why I tell you to mention when you grow weary of conversation. It won't offend me. It's as natural for me to talk as it is for a slug to leave his slime behind him. I think I'm chock full of small ideas and they overflow in a liquid kind of way. Now big ideas are solider and roll out more slowly—like yours.”
And he poured himself out the last glass offine champagnethat remained in the decanter.
They reached the pension at half-past seven. Mme. Boccard appeared at Raine's summons, wreathed in smiles, welcomed Hockmaster graciously and assigned him a room. Dinner had just begun, she had put it back half an hour, in compliment to Mr. Chetwynd. It was charming of him to have sent her a private telegram. Everyone was well; the professor had taken a turn for the better during the day.
Raine went straight up to his father, and, to his intense relief, found his fears of a dangerous illness to be almost groundless.
“And Felicia?” he asked, after the first affectionate questionings.
“Well,” replied the old man—“very bonny. Do you know, Raine, I think we may have made a mistake. It has been all my fault. It would be the greatest kindness to forget—and to forgive your meddling old father.”
Raine laughed in his kind way, reassuring the old man.
“It was not I that sent for you,” continued the latter. “It was Felicia. There was no longer any reason for you to stop away—and she insisted. Girls' hearts are mysterious books. Don't search into hers, Raine. Forget it—seek your happiness where it is truest, my son—and then it will be mine.”
Raine did not press the subject. He was somewhat puzzled, but he gathered that she had spoken and that silence would be the more delicate part. He postponed further consideration of the matter; for which he may be forgiven, as the longing for Katherine was tugging at his heart-strings. Besides, he was honestly very hungry, and dinner was in progress.
After a hurried toilet he went down to the dining-room. The first sound that struck his ear, as he entered, was the pop of a champagne cork and the voice of Hockmaster, who was sitting at the lower end, with his back to the door, next to Mme. Boccard. The waiter was in the act of filling his glass from a large bottle of champagne. The blaze of light after the darkness of the corridors dazzled Raine, and he paused for a second on the threshold, glancing up the table. He was greeted by two rows of welcoming faces turned towards him and a chorus of kind salutations. The old commandant stretched up his hand behind his chair and gave a vigorous handshake. Mme. Popea looked up at him, with a smile over her good-natured face, as he passed along. But he had eyes only for Katherine. A curious little spasm passed through him, as he met her glance. It seemed to contain a world of fears. She was looking pale and ill.
Mme. Boccard, in her high-pitched voice, directed him to take the professor's place at the head of the table. He found himself thus between Felicia and Katherine. Felicia greeted him naturally. Katherine gave him a cold, trembling hand, and an almost furtive look. Evidently something had happened during his absence, of whose nature he was ignorant. She was no longer the same woman. Mere feminine shyness would not account for this suppressed agitation. The food on her plate had remained untouched. For a moment he lost sense of the scene round him. The universe consisted in this woman with the ashen face and quickly heaving bosom. He bent towards her,—“Are you ill?” he whispered, his emotion expressing itself by the first chance commonplace.
“No,” she returned hurriedly, in the same tone. “A sudden faintness—my heart, perhaps. Don't notice me—for heaven's sake! I shall be better soon.”
Question and answer passed too quickly to attract attention. Raine recovered his balance, and turned to Felicia.
“My father seems to be getting on nicely, thanks to you,” he said kindly.
“Ca, not to me. To you. Since your reply came to-day.”
“I am always so nervous when he gets seedy. He is not strong, I have been full of direful imaginations all the afternoon.”
Felicia sketched the history of the case, touched on the abandoned trip to Lucerne, condoled with Raine on the disappointment at not meeting his friends at Chamonix. She talked bravely, all the pride of her young-womanhood up in arms to help her. Perhaps she could convince him that he had made a mistake. She devoted to the task all her energies. Her modesty and intuitive tact saved her from over-acting. Her concentration, however, prevented her from realizing the silent agitation of Katherine. She attributed it to embarrassment at meeting Raine after his absence, and felt a little thrill of gratified vanity at the inversion of parts. It used to be Katherine who was outwardly at perfect ease and self-contained, and herself who was embarrassed and tongue-tied.
It seemed a little victory in the handling of life.
Raine spoke brightly enough of his adventures at Chamonix, including Miss Bunter, who was sitting very subdued and wan next to Felicia, in the conversation, and drew from her an account of a far-off visit to the Mer de Glace. But he was feeling low at heart. If he addressed a chance remark to Katherine, she greeted it with a forced smile, which he felt like a stab. He could see from the very fear in her eyes that it was not merely sudden faintness. He noticed that on trying to lift her wine-glass, which he had accidentally refilled too full, her hand shook so much that she abandoned the attempt. He silently poured some wine into one that he had not used and exchanged glasses with her. She acknowledged the act with a bow of her head and drank the wine somewhat feverishly.
“My American friend seems to be enjoying himself,” said Raine to Felicia, as Hockmaster's somewhat sharply pitched voice was heard expounding his artlessly paradoxical philosophy of life to those around him.
Felicia leant forward, so as to catch a glimpse of him down the long table.
“You must introduce him,” she said.
“With pleasure. He will amuse you. I think if Bret Harte had known him, he would not have asked whether the Caucasian was played out. He is as childlike and bland as Ah Sin himself. But he is a capital fellow.”
They paused for a moment to catch what he was saying. Raine saw him leaning across the table and addressing a new arrival, evidently a compatriot.
“No. I am not a married man. But I am fond of ladies' society. To get along without ladies is like washing your hands without soap.”
There was laughter at the remark, which was increased by his attempts to convey his meaning in French to Mme. Boccard.
Felicia looked at Raine and laughed too. Then out of kindly impulse, by chance catching Katherine's eye,—
“Mr. Chetwynd has brought us quite an acquisition, don't you think so?”
Katherine forced a smile and uttered a semi-articulate “yes.” Then her eyelids closed for a few seconds and quivered, as in a nervous attack. This sign of agitation could not escape Felicia's notice. She became aware that something was happening. A suspicion of a tragic element in the relations between the man she loved and the woman she hated, flitted in the twilight of her mind. The laugh died from her lips, as she looked more keenly at Katherine. She turned her glance towards Raine, saw his eyes fix themselves for a moment on Katherine with an indescribable expression of pain and longing. It was the first time she had seen for herself that he loved her. The pang of it gripped her heart. But she disregarded it. Again she remembered Frau Schultz's innuendoes and tittle-tattle, and involuntarily brought them to bear on the present situation. The impression left on her mind by the tragedy in the life of the poor little lady by her side had not yet been effaced. It aided in the suggestion of another tragedy in the lives of these two others. The strain upon herself had also somewhat exalted her system and produced a certain nervous sensitiveness. Something was happening—something fateful or tragic. A feeling akin to awe came over her young mind, and suppressed her own simpler girlish fancies. A silence fell upon her, as it had fallen upon Raine and Katherine. The constraint began to grow painful, the meal seemed endless. Hockmaster's voice in the distance began to irritate her nerves.
At last the dinner was over. There was the usual scuffling of chairs andfrou-frouof skirts, as the guests rose. With a common impulse Raine and Katherine moved a step aside.
“Katherine!”
She put one hand up to her bosom, and steadied herself with the other on the back of her chair.
“I am feeling very ill,” she said, thickly. “Don't think me cruel—I can't see you tonight. To-morrow. I shall be better then. You have seen I am not myself—this last hour has been martyrdom—forgive me—good-night.”
“Don't forget that I love you, dear—let that give you strength,” said Raine, in a low voice.
A cry came involuntarly to her lips, wrung from her suffering.
“Ah, don't!”
She turned quickly, and followed the departing guests. Raine stood bewildered, looking with contracted brow at her receding form. Hockmaster was standing at the door, his dinner napkin over his arm, a few yards away from the group of men who had remained to smoke. He opened the door a little wider for her. But she passed out like an automaton, looking neither to right nor left.
The American closed the door, and came up to Raine.
“Say, Chetwynd, can one get a liqueur brandy here?”
“The waiter will be here in a minute for orders,” replied Raine. “How are you getting on?”
“First class. Liveliest meal I've had since I dined on a burning ship sailing from New York to Cuba. Did I ever tell you the story?—My hell! It was a hot time! Have a cigar.”
“No, thanks,” replied Raine. “I must go and fetch my pipe. When I come back you can tell me.”
Deeply troubled about Katherine, he was not in the humour for Hockmaster's stories, and he seized eagerly at the excuse for being free from him for a time. He went out on to the balcony, with the intention of passing through to the drawing-room, where he expected to find Felicia. An idea had occurred to him which he was anxious to put into execution. But after passing two or three ladies, he discovered Felicia alone in the dimness of the furthest end of the balcony.
“Felicia,'” he said, calling her for the first time by her Christian name, “you are a dear good girl—you will help me if you can. Has Katherine been ill during my absence?”
The direct, frank appeal touched the girl to the heart. It seemed to raise her with one great leap in her own esteem, above all the burning shame she had suffered. Raine's vigorous, sympathetic instinct had pierced through externals to the innermost of her maidenhood. She answered his question gently.
“No. She has been quite as usual all the time. But I think she has looked sadder these last few days.”
“She has not been looking ill—as at dinner to-night?”
“No. That was sudden.”
And then with a strange, absolutely new, almost delicious sense of the strong man weakly depending upon her for comfort, she said timidly,—
“You mustn't be unhappy. She may have been longing for you to come back—for she loves you—and this evening—she is very delicate, you know. Sometimes when I am with her, she seems so fragile—she will be better to-morrow—and you will be happy.”
“Ah! Thank you, Felicia,” said Raine, greatly moved. “I wish—I wish you would let me kiss you for it.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He stooped, and touched her cheek with his lips, and then strode away feeling somehow stronger and serener.
And Felicia remained on the balcony deep in thought, her girlish love purified by the brotherly kiss.
It was the large room in the Kursaal assigned to theCercle de Genève. Of the two long green tables, one was deserted and in darkness, and the other, brilliantly lighted from overhanging green shades, was surrounded by a fair number of men. Except at short intervals between the hands, a decorous silence prevailed, broken only by the stereotyped phrases,une carte, sept, neuf, baccara, marking the progress of the game. But when the hand was over, voices rose, and above them was heard the sharp click of the mother-of-pearl counters and the chink of gold and silver, as the croupier, in the middle of the table, opposite the banker, settled losses and gains. Then the croupier,—“Quarante louis dans la banque, vingt à chaque tableau. Faites vos jeux, messieurs. A cheval? Bien, monsieur. Rien ne va plus!”
And then silence again while the hand was being played.
The company was cosmopolitan; two or three elderly Genevese citizens, a sprinkling of Germans and Russians, two or three of nondescript nationality, speaking English, French, and German with equal fluency, of the swarthy, Israelitish type familiar at Monte Carlo and Aix-les-Bains, and a few English and Americans. Among the latter were Raine and Hockmaster. The American was winning heavily. When the hand had come to him, he had “passed” seven, nine, and twelve times respectively, and a little mountain of notes,fichesand gold lay before him. On a small table by his side was a tumbler of brandy and water which he replenished at intervals from the customary graduated decanter and a carafe of iced water. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes unnaturally bright, and his speech, when the croupier's spoon deposited his winnings in front of him, was somewhat exuberant and excited.
Raine, who had played very little, was neither winning nor losing. He had accompanied Hockmaster, purely for the sake of distraction, intending to while away an hour or two before bedtime. The pleasant walk along the quays to and from the Kursaal had also been an inducement. But he had sat there next to Hockmaster for several hours, interested in the game and in his companion's astonishing luck. For the wholesome-minded person, with a keen sense of life and a broad sympathy with its interests, there is ever a fascination in watching the chances of a gaming table. Fortune seems to come down and give a private exhibition of her wheel. The great universe seems to stand still for a while, and only this microcosm to be subjected to its chances.
At last he grew tired, however, and suggested to Hockmaster the reasonableness of retiring. Besides, the increasing excitement of the American led him to reflect, for the first time, upon the quantity of drink that he had consumed.
“I guess I'm going to clear out all these boys,” replied Hockmaster.
“In that case,” said Raine, rising, “I'm going home.”
The other caught him by his coat.
“Half an hour more.”
“No. I have had enough. So have you.”
“Just the end of this new bank, then.”
The croupier was crying a new bank—putting it up to auction.
“La banque est aux enchères. Combien la banque?”
“I'll wait till you have had just one stake,” said Raine, by way of compromise.
Bids were made for the bank. Ten louis, twenty louis, thirty.
“Fifty,” cried Hockmaster, suddenly, with his elbows on the table. Raine clapped him on the shoulder.
“That's not in the bargain.”
“A hundred,” cried a fat German at the end of the othertableau, who had been losing persistently.
“You wait if you want to see fun,” said Hockmaster. “Two hundred.”
Murmurs began to arise. Play seldom ran so high in thecercle. It was too much.
“Assez, assez,” growled the Genevese citizens.
But the rest of the table was athrill with excitement.
“Two hundred and fifty,” cried the German.
“Four hundred,” said Hockmaster.
“Five!” screamed the German.
“The gentleman can have that bank,” drawled Hockmaster. “And I'll gobanco.”
Which means that he would play one hand against the new banker for the whole amount of the bank—£400.
There was a death-like silence. The German, looking pallid and flabby, took his seat. The stakes were deposited on the table. The croupier placed the fresh packs on the rest before the new banker. With trembling fingers the German slipped the two cards apiece to Hockmaster and himself. The American allowed his cards to remain in front of him for a moment as he looked up at Raine, who was standing behind him, also under the spell of the general excitement.
“If I lose this, I take the next tramcar back to Chicago.”
“Take up your cards,” grumbled an impatient voice.
Hockmaster picked them up. They were a 6 and a 4, which making 10, according to the principles of the game where tens and multiples of ten count as nothing, were valueless.
“Une carte?” asked the German.
“Yes.”
“The card was an ace. The beads of perspiration formed on the American's forehead. Only a miracle could save him—that of the banker drawing tens. For if the banker's pips totted up, subtracting multiples of ten, to any number between 2 and 9, Hockmaster lost. The banker displayed his cards. Two queens. The chances were now 9 to 4 in the banker's favour. He drew a card slowly from the top. It was the ten of diamonds.
“Baccara!” he gasped.
“One!” cried Hockmaster, throwing down his cards.
A hubbub of eager voices arose at the sensational victory. The German retired from the table and left the room without saying a word. Hockmaster wiped his forehead and stowed away the bank-notes and gold in his pockets.
“I reckon I've had enough too,” he exclaimed in a thick, unsteady voice. “Good-night, gentlemen.”
He rose, stretched himself, laid hold of Raine's arm, and the two went out together. As they reached the front steps of the Kursaal, they heard the German driving away in a cab that had been waiting.
“I wish there was another one,” said Hockmaster, reeling.
The fresh night air struck him like an electric shock. He lurched heavily against Raine, and laughed stupidly.
“I guess I'm as drunk as a boiled owl.” Raine was surprised, angry and disgusted. The modern Englishman sees nothing funny in drunkenness. If he had suspected that Hockmaster was drinking to the degree of intoxication, he would have left the Kursaal long before. But the motionlessness of his position and the intense excitement of the game had combined to check temporarily the effects of the alcohol. There was no help for it, however; he must give the drunken man his arm and convey him home.
They soon emerged on to the quay. It was a superb moonlit night. The lake slumbered peacefully below, the bright expanse sweeping away from the shadows of the town, scarcely broken by a ripple. At that hour not a soul was stirring. Hockmaster's excited talk struck with sharp resonance on the lonely air. As soon as he had realized his condition of leg-helplessness, he trusted to his companion's support, and, thinking no more about it, talked volubly of the game, his winnings, his late adversary's piteous grimace, when the only losing card he could draw turned up. Then he broke out into loud laughter.
“Stop that!” cried Raine, somewhat savagely, jerking his arm.
Hockmaster ceased, looked up at him with lack-lustre eye.
“I guess I'm drunk. Let's sit down a minute. It's my legs that don't realize their responsibility.”
He pitched sideways in the direction of a seat on the quay, dragging Raine a step with him. Raine, not sorry to be free of his weight for a few moments, agreed to sit down. Perhaps the rest in the fresh air would sober him a little; at least enough to enable him to accomplish unaided the remainder of his walk home. Having lit his meerschaum, Raine gave himself up philosophically to the situation. It was just as pleasant and as profitable to be sitting there under the stars, in front of the magic of the lake, as to be fretting through anxious hours in his bedroom, longing for the morrow. For a time he forgot Hockmaster, who sprawled silently by him, his incapable legs stretched out compass-wise, and his hands in his pockets. His mind hovered around Katherine, lost itself in mingling memories of doubts and hopes; wandered back to Oxford and his uncertainties, returned to Geneva, to their first talk in the Jardin Anglais, to stray moments when they had drifted into close contact, to the glow of the first kiss, and finally settled in the gloom that her agitation that evening had spread about him. Then, with a start, he remembered the American, whose silence was alarming.
“Look here. You are not going to sleep!”
“All right, sonny. Don't you be alarmed,” replied Hockmaster with drunken gravity. “I am all right sitting, anyway. I've been fixing up something in my mind, and it's like shaving on board ship in a hurricane. Say, you're my friend, aren't you? If you thought I was a darned skunk, you'd tell me.
“You have soaked too much brandy, my friend,” replied Raine. “That doesn't require much 'fixing up.' Anyhow, the next time you want to go on the drink, please do it when I am not there.”
“Quite right,” said Hockmaster, rolling his head towards him with a portentous air. “You're disgusted at my being drunk—so'm I—But thatsh not the question. I felt sort of mean, like the chewed end of a cigar, and I tried to gargle the feeling away. But it wasn't my fault.”
“Well, never mind,” said Raine, with a smile. “Don't do it again.”
“You bet your bottom dollar I don't. The man who puts his head twice into the Divorce Court deserves to be shot sitting.”
Raine was startled. What was the man driving at?
“You see, I guess I ought to have married her afterwards,” continued Hockmaster. “But those mines I told you of carried me down to Mexico. Now when a man's got a blaze at a million of dollars he can't afford to be fooling around after a woman. She can wait, but the dollars won't. That's what I was trying to fix up to tell you—as a real friend.”
“Tell me to-morrow,” said Raine, preparing to rise. “Let us get home now.”
He had no desire to hear the tipsy details of Hockmaster's past life. But the American put detaining hands on his arm and shoulders, in familiar confidence.
“I want your opinion—I seduced her from her husband, and didn't marry her after the divorce, and when I saw her this evening for the first time after eight years—”
Raine leaped to his feet with a horrible surmise.
“What the devil are you talking about? Whom do you mean?”
“Yes,” said Hockmaster, nodding in a melancholy way. “I thought I was a mean skunk. You are disgusted.”
Raine seized him by the collar and shook him.
“Answer my question—which lady do you mean?”
“Oh!” said Hockmaster, “of course. You don't know. Why, the sweetest, prettiest woman there, sitting next to you. I guess she was upset at seeing me.”
He went on talking. But Raine heard no more. His brain was in a whirl, a nausea was at his heart. His prized meerschaum fell from his hand, and, knocking against the seat, dropped broken on to the ground; but he was unconscious of it. Everything blazed before him in a livid light. A horrible repulsion from the inert, ignoble figure sprawling beneath him grew into a loathing anger. His fingers thrilled to seize the American again by the collar and shake the life out of him like a rat.
“You damned little cad—betraying her to a stranger—you infernal, drunken little cad!”
Controlling his rage with a great effort, he turned, and strode away with set teeth. He heard the American's voice calling him, but he went on.
“Hallo! Chetwynd!” cried Hockmaster, rising with difficulty to his feet. “Chetwy—ynd!”
He staggered forward a couple of paces and then fell prone. After a few ineffectual efforts to get up, he abandoned the attempt, and lay quiescent.
Raine walked about fifty yards. He had heard the fall. At first it was a grim satisfaction to let him lie there—all night if need were. But then it struck him with unpleasant suddenness that Hockmaster was carrying about his person an immense sum of money in notes and gold. To leave him to the risk of being robbed and perhaps knocked on the head was impossible. He conquered his repugnance and turned, back.
“Get up.”
“Eh? All right. I think I'll go to shleep.”
Raine lifted him to his feet, shook him to a degree of soberness, and with one arm around him, marched again homewards.
He loathed the man. To be condemned to hug him close to his person set jarring every nerve of physical repulsion. Raine did not handle him tenderly in that moonlight walk. Whilst sitting on the bench, the American had been coherent in his speech, but his fall and resignation to slumber on the pavement had relaxed the tension of his mind, and he grew maudlin and inarticulate. Now and then he remonstrated with his protector for hurrying him along so fast. In fact, Raine, in his passionate desire to shake himself free of the incubus, was unconsciously exerting his great strength almost to carry him bodily.
In the middle of the bridge, Hockmaster laughed softly to himself.
“To think I should see her again. Dear little Kitty.”
A horrible wave of disgust swept through Raine. He gripped the man viciously.
“Damn you! If you mention her name again, I'll pitch you into the lake.”
“That would be a pity,” murmured the American in a panting murmur. “I can't swim.”
Raine increased his pace, so that speech became for the American a physical impossibility. In the midst of his disgust came the memory of the last time he had come homewards across that bridge. Then, too, he had hurried blindly, anxious to reach the pension. The cynical irony of the parallel smote him. A clock struck two as they reached the corner of the street. Hockmaster was limply happy, comfortably breathless. Raine propped him against the wall as he waited for theconciergeto open to his ring. The door was soon swung open, and Raine dragged the American up the dark staircase. When they reached the latter's bedroom, he flung him in unceremoniously and left him to himself.
Then, when he was alone, rid of the man's body, Raine pieced the story together more calmly. It was sickening. His fair pure Katherine to have given herself to that little drunken cad, to have wrecked her life for him—it was sickening.
There are times in a man's career when the poetry of life seems to be blotted out, and its whole story nothing but ignoble prose.
Raine had judged her very gently. He had rightly guessed that she had fallen upon the thorns wherewith society strews the land outside its own beaten paths. His insight into the depths of her nature had awakened within him a strong man's yearning pity. In his eyes she was the frail tender thing that had been torn and wounded, and he had taken to his heart the joy of the knowledge that his arms would give her rest and peace at the last.
Although Hockmaster's revelation had jarred through his whole being, he judged her gently now. He was honest-souled enough to disintegrate æsthetic disgust from abiding emotion. He was keenly sensible of the agony she had endured at dinner, and he suffered with her truly and loyally. But the ignobleness attendant on all the conditions of Hockmaster's drunken confidence spread itself for the time like a foul curtain over finer feelings. He could not help wishing that she had told him her story. That the consciousness of her position as a divorced woman had been the cause of the constraint of her letters, he could no longer doubt. That she intended to make all clear to him before she definitely pledged herself to him as his wife, he was absolutely certain. His nature was too loyal for him to suspect otherwise. There he read her truly. But why had she waited? It would have made his present course of action so much more simple, had the spoken confidence between them enabled him to take the initiative. Now his hands were tied. He could do nothing but wait until she made the sign. Thus the thought, in calmer, nobler moments. But then the common story of seduction, with its vulgar stigma of the divorce court, and the personality of the reeling, hiccoughing man, sent a shiver through his flesh.
In the morning he spent an hour with his father, forgetting for the while his own troubles in endeavours to cheer and amuse. On his way out, he met Mme. Boccard, who greeted him with plaintive volubility. His American friend had paid his bill and left orders for his bag to be given to the porter from the Hôtel National. She was sorry her establishment had not been to his liking. What did Monsieur Chetwynd think of the dinner? What had been lacking? And the bed? It was a beautiful bed—as it happened, the best in all the pension. Raine consoled her, as best he could, for the American's defection, but in his heart he was grimly pleased at this sign of grace in his late friend. He had some idea, at least, when sober, of common decency. Mme. Boccard enquired concernedly after the professor, was delighted to hear that he was mending.
“Ah, that is good,” she said, “it would not be suitable if too many people were ill. The pension would get a bad name. That poor Mme. Stapleton is still suffering this morning. It is Mr. Chetwynd who will be sorry.”
“Nothing serious?” asked Raine, in some alarm.
“Oh no—une crise des nerfs. Que voulez-vous? Les dames sont comme cela.”
In spite of this information, however, he looked into his room, on his way out, in the vague hope of finding a note from Katherine. But there was none. He felt himself in a cruelly false position. Yet he could do nothing. Like a wise man he resolved to await events and in the meantime to proceed with his usual habits. In accordance therefore with the latter, he walked up the Grand Quai and sat down at one of the tables outside the Café du Nord, where he had been accustomed, before his absence at Chamonix, to read theJournal de Geneveand the previous day'sFigaro. It was pleasant to get back to a part of the former way of life, when Hockmaster was undreamed of. The retirement of his late friend from the pension was a relief to him. He felt he could breathe more freely. If he could be assured that Hockmaster would retire from Geneva as well, and vanish into the Unknown whence he came, he would have been almost happy. He wanted never to set eyes on his face again.
But the particularly undesired invariably happens. He was trying to concentrate his mind upon the literary supplement of theFigaro, when the ingenuous but now detested voice fell upon his ear.
“I was just on my way to ransack the town of Geneva for you.”
Raine looked up frowningly. Hockmaster was standing by his side, sprucely attired, clean-shaven, the pink of freshness. His shirt cuffs were immaculately conspicuous, he wore patent-leather boots and carried a new pair of gloves in his hand. His pale-blue eyes looked as innocent as if they had never gazed upon liquid stronger than a pellucid lake. Immediately after he had spoken he sat down and airily waved away the waiter, who was hovering near for orders.
“Did you particularly desire to see me?” asked Raine, stiffly.
“I do. Particularly. I guess I riled you considerably last night, and my mind would not be easy until I apologized. For anything I did last night and anything I said, I apologize most humbly. I know,” he added with one of his child-like smiles, “that I fell by a long chalk from the image of my Maker, and I can't expect you to forgive me all at once—but if you were to do it by degrees, beginning from now, you would make me feel that I am gradually approximating to it again.”
There was a quaint charm in the manner of this astonishing man, to which Raine could not help being susceptible, in spite of his dislike. Besides, the ordinary conventions of life bound him to accept an apology so amply tendered.
“You did put me to some trouble,” he said gravely, “and for that I most cordially accept your excuses. For the rest—” he completed the sense with a gesture..
But Hockmaster looked pained.
“I see, Mr. Chetwynd. What you can't do is to pal on to a man who has betrayed a woman's honour.”
Raine felt embarrassed. He was aware that he had been disingenuous in shifting the whole weight of his disgust and anger on to that one particular point. The direct appeal did not lack manliness, was evidently sincere. It stirred within him the sense of justice. He tried to realize his attitude towards Hockmaster in the case of Katherine being merely a chance acquaintance. Obviously all the complex feelings centering round his love for her ought to go for nothing in his judgment of Hockmaster. Raine was an honourable man, who hated hypocrisy and prejudice and unfair dealing, and the detection of them in himself brought with it an irritating sense of shame.
“I have the privilege of the friendship of the lady in question,” he replied to the American, “and therefore felt a personal resentment of your confidence last night.”
“Mr. Chetwynd,” returned Hockmaster, leaning forward earnestly with his elbows on the table, “there is only one way in which I can make things square, and that is to take you into my confidence still further.”
“Oh, for God's sake, man, let us drop the subject!”
“No. For I think you'll be pleased. You are a straight, honourable man, and I want to act in a straight, honourable way. Do you see that?”
“Perfectly,” said Raine. “But don't you also see that this is a matter that cannot be discussed? A woman's name cannot be bandied about by two men. Come, we will let bygones be bygones.”
He rose, grasping his stick, as if to depart, and held out his hand. But the American, somewhat to Raine's astonishment, made a deprecating gesture and also rose to his feet.
“No. Not yet,” he said blandly. “Not before you feel sure I am doing the straight thing. You called me a cad, last night, didn't you?”
“Yes. But perhaps I was hasty.”
“Oh no. I own up. Honest Injun, as we say in America. I was a cad. Only, having called your friend a cad, you owe it to him to allow him to retrieve his character in your eyes.”
“Why should you be so anxious to do so?” asked Raine, struck with the man's earnestness.
“Because I've got sort of fond of you,” replied the American. “Will you listen to me for two minutes?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I'll tell you that I'm going direct, this very minute, to ask that lady to marry me.
“To marry you?” cried Raine, with the blood in his cheeks. “It would be an insult!”
“It's a pity you think so,” returned Hockmaster reflectively. “I wish I could unmake my mind, but you see it's all fixed up already.”
“What's fixed up?”
“That I should ask her. Mr. Chetwynd, this is the first chance I have had. For eight years I have lost every trace of her. If you know a more honourable way of repairing the wrong, you just tell me.”
“Man alive! leave Geneva and never let her hear of you again.”
“I will, if she refuses me. That's fixed up too. I must be going.”
“Mrs. Stapleton is ill, and can't see you this morning,” said Raine desperately.
“I have an appointment with her in five minutes' time,” replied the other imperturbably. “Now, Mr. Chetwynd, I shall be proud to shake hands with you.”
He extended his hand, which Raine, thrown off his balance for the moment, took mechanically; and then he gave him a parting nod, jerked forward his shirt-cuffs, squared his shoulders and marched away, evidently pleased with himself.
Raine sat down again by the marble table, took a mouthful of the vermouth in front of him, and tried to recover his equilibrium. Katherine was going to see this man, to listen to a proposal of marriage. A spasm of pain shot through him. Perhaps the older love had smouldered through the years and had burst forth again. His hand shook as he put the glass to his lips again.
People came and went in thecafé, sat down to their bock or absinthe and departed. The busy life of Geneva passed by on the sunny pavement; brown-cheeked, pale-eyed Swiss peasants, blue-bloused workmen, tourists with veils and puggarees and Baedekers. Barefooted children, spying the waiter's inattention, whined forward with decrepit bunches of edelweiss. Smart flower-sellers, in starched white sleeves, displayed their great baskets to the idlers. Cabs, hired by family parties of Germans or Americans, drove off with raucous shouts and cracking of whips, from the rank in the shade opposite, by the garden railings. The manager of thecafé, in correct frock-coat, stood under the awning in the gangway, and smiled benignly on his customers. The time passed. But Raine sat there chin in hand, staring at the blue veins of the marble, his thoughts and emotions as inchoate as they.
At last he became aware that someone looked at him and bowed. Rousing himself from his daze he recognized Felicia, who was advancing along the pavement by the outer row of chairs. With a sudden impulse, he rose, and leaving some money for the waiter, went out and greeted her.
“Isn't it a lovely day?” she said brightly. “I couldn't stay in the pension after déjeuner, so I came out to do some shopping.”
“Déjeuner!” cried Raine, “Do you mean to say it is over?”
“Why, of course. Haven't you had any?”
“No—the time has passed. However, I am not very hungry. Do you mind if I go shopping with you?”
“I should feel flattered, Mr. Chetwynd.” She laughed up at him from under her red parasol. The sight of her, fresh in her youthful colouring and dainty white dress, seemed to soothe the man's somewhat weary senses. A feeling of restfulness in her company stole over his heart, as he walked by her side.
“What are you going to buy?” he asked as they passed by the shops.
“I really don't know. I must consider. Perhaps some needles and tape. But you must stay outside.”
“Oh no. I will come with you and see how it is done,” said Raine with a smile.
“Then I'll have to buy something important that I don't want,” said Felicia.
A laughing argument, which lasted until the needles and tape were purchased. Then they continued their walk down the Rue de la Corraterie and came to the Bastion gardens, where they sat down under the trees. Felicia was happy. The brotherly kiss of the previous evening had restored to her the self-respect that her maidenhood seemed to have lost. He was still the prince of her girl's heart, she could serve him now, she felt, without shame or shrinking. The growing woman in her divined his mood and strove to cheer him with her most lightsome self.
Womanhood divined the mood, but inexperience was blind to its dangerousness. Unconsciously her sweet charm of youth drew Raine nearer to her. When they parted, he felt that he had gone within an ace of making love to her, and committing a base action. The thought stung him. He had not reckoned upon such weakness in himself. Spurred by an impatient scorn of his cowardice, his heart turned all the more passionately to Katherine.