“Yes,” said Lady Deane, “we leave today week: Roger has to be back the first week in May, and I want to stop at one or two places en route.”
“Let’s see. To-day’s the 19th, no, the 20th; there’s nothing to remind one of time here. That’ll be the 27th. That’s about my date; we might go together if you and Deane have no objection.”
“Oh, I should be delighted, General; and shall you stay at all in Paris?”
“A few days—just to show Dolly the sights.”
“How charming! And you and I must have some expeditions together. Roger is so odd about not liking to take me.”
“We’ll do the whole thing, Lady Deane,” answered General Bellairs, heartily. “Notre Dame, the Versailles, the Invalides, Eiffel Tower.”
Lady Deane’s broad white brow showed a little pucker.
“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” said she. “Oh, but Roger could take Dora to those, couldn’t he, while you and I made a point of seeing some of the real life of the people? Of studying them in their ordinary resorts, their places of recreation and amusement.”
“Oh, the Francais, and the opera, and so on, of course.”
“No, no, no,” exclaimed Lady Deane, tapping her foot impatiently and fixing her gray eyes on the General’s now puzzled face. “Not the same old treadmill in Paris as in London! Not that, General!”
“What then, my dear lady?” asked he. “Your wish is law to me,” and it was true that he had become very fond of his earnest young friend. “What do you want to see? The Chamber of Deputies?”
Sir Roger’s voice struck in.
“I’m not a puritanical husband, Bellairs, but I must make a stand somewhere. Not the Chamber of Deputies.”
“Don’t be silly, Roger dear,” said Lady Deane, in her usual tone of dispassionate reproof.
“I can’t find out where she does want to go to,” remarked the General.
“I can tell you,” said Sir Roger, and he leant down and whispered a name; in the General’s ear. The General jumped.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t been there since the fifties. Is it still like what it used to be?”
“How should I know?” inquired Sir Roger. “I’m not a student of social phenomena. Maud is, so she wants to go.”
Lady Deane was looking on with a quiet smile.
“She never mentioned it,” protested the General.
“Oh, of course if there’s a worse place now!” conceded Sir Roger.
“I’ll make up my mind when we arrive,” observed Lady Deane. “Anyhow I shall rely on you, General.”
The General looked a little uncomfortable.
“If Deane doesn’t object——.”
“I shouldn’t think of taking my wife to such places.”
Suddenly Dora Bellairs rushed up to them.
“Have you seen Mr. Ellerton?” she cried. “Where is he?”
“In the smoking-room,” answered Sir Roger. “Do you want him?”
“Would you mind? I can’t go in there: it’s full of men.”
“After all we must be somewhere,” pleaded Sir Roger as he went on his errand.
“Dolly,” said the General, “I’ve just made a charming arrangement. Lady Deane and Sir Roger start for Paris to-day week, and we’re going with them. You said you’d like another week here.”
“It’s charming our being able to go together, isn’t it?” said Lady Deane. Dora’s face did not express rapture, yet she liked the Deanes very much.
“Oh, but——” she began.
“Well?” asked her father.
“I rather want to go a little sooner.”
“I’m afraid,” said Lady Deane, “we shan’t get Roger to move before then. He’s bent on seeing the tennis tournament through. When did you want to go, Dora?”
“Well, in fact—to—night.”
“My dear Dolly, what a weathercock you are! It’s impossible. I’m dining with the Grand Duke on Monday. You must make up your mind to stay, young woman.”
“Oh, please, papa——.”
“But why do you want to go?” asked the General, rather impatiently.
Dora had absolutely no producible reason for her eagerness to go. And yet—Oh, if they only knew what was at stake! “We’re to be married in a fortnight!” She could see the words dancing before her eyes. And she must waste a precious week here!
“Do you want me, Miss Bellairs?” asked Charlie Ellerton, coming up to them.
“Yes. I want—oh, I want to go to Rumpelmayer’s.”
“All right. Come along. I’m delighted to go with you.”
They walked off in silence. Dora was in distress. She saw that the General was immovable.
Suddenly Charlie turned to her and remarked,
“Well, it’s all over with me, Miss Bellairs.”
“What? How do you mean?”
“My chance is gone. They’re to be married in a fortnight. I had a letter to say so this morning.”
Dora turned suddenly to him.
“Oh, but it’s too extraordinary,” she cried. “So had I!”
“What?”
“Why, a letter to say they were to be married in a fortnight.”
“Nonsense!”
“Yes. Mr. Ellerton—who—who is your friend?”
“Her name’s Mary Travers.”
“And who is she going—to marry?”
“Ah! She hasn’t told me that.”
A suspicion of the truth struck them both. Charlie produced his letter.
“She writes,” he said, showing the postmark, “from Dittington.”
“It is! It is!” she cried. “It must be Mary Travers that Mr. Ashforth is going to marry!”
“Is that your friend?”
“Yes. Is she pretty, Mr. Ellerton?”
“Oh, awfully. What sort of a fellow is he?”
“Splendid!”
“Isn’t it a deuced queer thing?”
“Most extraordinary. And when we told one another we never thought——.”
“How could we?”
“Well, no, we couldn’t, of course.”
A pause followed. Then Charlie observed: “I suppose there’s nothing to be done.”
“Nothing to be done, Mr. Ellerton! Why if I were a man I’d leave for England tonight.”
“And why can’t you?”
“Papa won’t. But you might.”
“Ye—es, I suppose I might. It would look rather odd, wouldn’t it?”
“Why, you yourself suggested it!”
“Yes, but the marriage was a long way off then.”
“There’s the more reason now for haste.”
“Of course, that’s true, but——.”
“Oh, if papa would only take me!” A sudden idea seemed to strike Charlie; he assumed an air of chivalrous sympathy. “When shall you go?” he asked. “Not till to-day week,” she said. “We shan’t get to England till three or four days before it.” Dora knew nothing of the proposed stay in Paris.
“Look here, Miss Bellairs,” said Charlie, “we agreed to stand by one another. I shall wait and go when you do.”
“But think——.”
“I’ve thought.”
“You’re risking everything.”
“If she’ll break it off ten days before, she’ll do the same four days before.”
“If she really loves you she will.”
“Anyhow we’ll stand or fall together.”
“Oh, I oughtn’t to let you, but I can’t refuse. How kind you are!”
“Then that’s settled,” said Charlie, “And we must try to console one another till then.”
“The suspense is awful, isn’t it?”
“Of course. But we must appear cheerful. We mustn’t betray ourselves.”
“Not for the world! I can never thank you enough. You’ll come with us all the way?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you again.”
She gave him her hand, which he pressed gently.
“Hullo!” said he. “We seem to have got up by the church somewhere. Where were we going to?”
“Why, to Rumpelmayer’s.”
“Oh, ah! Well, let’s go back to the hotel.”
Wonderings on the extraordinary coincidence, with an occasional reference to the tender tie of a common sorrow which bound them together, beguiled the journey back, and when they reached the hotel Dora was quite calm. Charlie seemed distinctly cheerful, and when his companion left him he sat down by Deane and remarked in a careless way, just as if he neither knew nor cared what the rest of them were going to do, “Well, I shall light out of here in a few days. I suppose you’re staying some time longer?”
“Off in a week,” said Sir Roger.
“Oh, by Jove, that’s about my mark. Going back to England?”
“Yes, I suppose—so—ultimately. We shall stay a few days in Paris en route. The Bellairs’ go with us.”
“Oh, do they?”
Sir Roger smiled gently.
“Surprised?” he asked.
Charlie ignored the question.
“And you aren’t going to hurry?” he inquired.
“Why should we?”
Charlie sat silent. It was tolerably plain that, unless the few days en route were very few indeed, John Ashforth and Mary Travers were in a fair way to be prosperously and peacefully married before Dora Bellairs set foot in England. And if he stayed with the Bellairs’, before he did, either! Charlie lit a cigarette and sat puffing and thinking.
“Dashed nice girl, Dora Bellairs,” observed Sir Roger.
“Think so?”
“I do. She’s the only girl I ever saw that Laing was smitten with.”
“Laing!” said Charlie.
“Well, what’s the matter? He’s an uncommon good chap, Laing—one of the best chaps I know—and he’s got lots of coin. I don’t expect she’d sneeze at Laing.”
It is, no doubt, taking a very serious responsibility to upset an arrangement arrived at deliberately and carried almost to a conclusion. A man should be very sure that he can make a woman happy—happier than any other man could-before he asks her to face the turmoil and the scandal of breaking off her marriage only a week before its celebration. Sure as he may be of his own affection, he must be equally sure of hers, equally sure that their mutual love is deep and permanent. He must consider his claims to demand such a sacrifice. What remorse will be his if, afterwards, he discovers that what he did was not, in truth, for her real happiness! He must be on his guard against mere selfishness or mere vanity masquerading in the garb of a genuine passion.
As these thoughts occurred to Charlie Ellerton he felt that he was at a crisis of his life. He also felt glad that he had still a quiet week at Cannes in which to revolve these considerations in his mind. Above all, he must do nothing hastily.
Dora came out, a book in her hand. Her soft white frock fluttered in the breeze, and she pushed back a loose lock of dark hair that caressed her check.
“A dashed nice girl, upon my honor,” said Sir Roger Deane.
“Oh, very.”
“I say, old chap, I suppose you’re in no hurry. You’ll put in a few days in Paris? We might have a day out, mightn’t we?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Charlie, and, when Deane left him, he sat on in solitude.
Was it possible that in the space of a week—? No, it was impossible. And yet, with a girl like that——.
“I did the right thing in waiting to go with her, anyhow,” said Charlie, comforting himself.
“Don’t you think it’s an interesting sort of title?” inquired Lady Deane of Mr. Laing.
Laing was always a little uneasy in her presence. He felt not only that she was analyzing him, but that the results of the analysis seemed to her to be a very small residuum, of solid matter. Besides, he had been told that she had described him as a “commonplace young man,” a thing nobody could be expected to like.
“Capital!” he answered, nervously fingering his eye glass. “The Transformation of Giles Brockleton! Capital!”
“I think it will do,” said Lady Deane complacently.
“Er—what was he transformed into, Lady Deane?”
“A man,” replied the lady emphatically.
“Of course. I see,” murmured Laing apologetically, stifling a desire to ask what Giles had been before.
A moment later the author enlightened him.
“Yes,” said she, “into a man, from a useless, mischievous, contemptible idler, a parasite, Mr. Laing, a creature to whom——”
“What did it, Lady Deane?” interrupted Laing hastily. He felt somehow as if he were being catalogued.
“Just a woman’s influence.”
Laing’s face displayed relief; he felt that he was in his depth again.
“Oh, got married, you mean? Well, of course, he’d have to pull up a bit, wouldn’t he? Hang it, I think it’s a fellow’s duty.
“You don’t quite understand me,” observed Lady Deane coldly. “He did not marry the woman.”
“What, did she give him the—I mean, wouldn’t she have him, Lady Deane?”
“She would have married him; but beside her he saw himself in his true colors. Knowing what he was, how could he dare? That was his punishment, and punishment brought transformation.”
As Lady Deane sketched her idea, her eyes kindled and her tone became animated. Laing admired both her and her idea, and he expressed his feeling’s by saying:
“Remarkable sort of chap, Lady Deane. I shall read it all right, you know.”
“I think you ought,” said she, rising, and leaving him to wonder whether she had “meant anything.”
He gave himself a little shake, as though to escape from the atmosphere of seriousness which she had diffused about him, and looked round. A little way off he saw Dora Bellairs and Charlie Ellerton sitting side by side. His brow clouded. Before Charlie came it had been his privilege to be Miss Bellairs’s cavalier, and although he never hoped, nor, to tell the truth, desired more than a temporary favor in her eyes, he did not quite like being ousted.
“Pretty good for a fellow who’s just had the bag!” he remarked scornfully, referring to Roger Deane’s unauthorized revelation.
It was the day before the exodus to Paris. Dora’s period of weary waiting had worn itself away, and she was acknowledging to Charlie that the last two or three days had passed quicker than she had ever thought they could.
“The first two days I was wretched, the next two gloomy, but these last almost peaceful. In spite of—you know what—I think you’ve done me good on the whole.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Charlie, flinging his arm over the back of the seat and looking at his companion.
“And now—in the end,” pursued Dora, “I’m actually a little sorry to leave all this; it’s so beautiful,” and she waved her parasol vaguely at the hills and the islands, while with the other hand she took off her hat and allowed the breeze to blow through her hair.
“It is jolly, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I should rather think it was,” said Charlie. “The jolliest I’ve ever seen.” It was evident that he did not refer to the scenery.
“Oh, you promised you wouldn’t,” cried Dora reproachfully.
“Well, then, I’ll promise again,” he replied, smiling amiably.
“What must I think of you, when only a week or so ago——? Oh, and what must you think of me to suppose I could? Oh, Mr. Ellerton!”
“Like to know what I think of you?” inquired Charlie, quite unperturbed by this passionate rebuke.
“Certainly not,” said she, with dignity, and turned away. A moment later, however, she attacked him again.
“And you’ve done nothing,” she said indignantly, “but suggest to papa interesting places to stop at on the way, and things he ought to see in Paris. Yes, and you actually suggested going home by sea from Marseilles. And all the time you knew it was vital to me to get home as soon as possible. To me? Yes, and to youlast week. Shall I tell you something, Mr. Ellerton?”
“Please,” said Charlie. “Whisper it in my ear,” and he offered his head in fitting proximity.
“I shouldn’t mind who heard,” she declared. “I despise you, Mr. Ellerton.”
Charlie was roused to a protest.
“For downright unfairness give me a girl!” said he. “Here have I taken the manly course! After a short period of weakness—I admit that—I have conquered my feelings; I have determined not to distress Miss Travers by intruding upon her; I have overcome the promptings of a cowardly despair; I have turned my back resolutely on a past devoid of hope. I am, after a sore struggle, myself again. And my reward, Miss Bellairs, is to be told that you despise me. Upon my honor, you’ll be despising Simon Stylites next.”
“And you wrote and told Miss Travers you were coming!”
“All right. I shall write and toll her I’m not coming. I shall say, Miss Bellairs, that it seems to me to be an undignified thing——”
“To do what I’m going to do? Thank you, Mr. Ellerton.”
“Oh, I forgot.”
“The irony of it is that you persuaded me to do it yourself.”
“I was a fool; but I didn’t know you so well then.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Everything.”
“You didn’t know yourself, I’m afraid,” she remarked. “You thought you were a man of some—some depth of feeling, some constancy, a man whose—whose regard a girl would value, instead of being——”
“Just a poor devil who worships the ground you tread on.”
Dora laughed scornfully.
“Second edition!” said she. “The first dedicated to Miss Travers.”
And then Charlie (and it is thing’s like these which shake that faith in human nature that we try to cling to) said in a low but quite distinct voice:
“Oh, d——n Miss Travers!”
Dora shot—it almost looked as if something had shot her, as it used, in old days, Miss Zazel—up from her seat.
“I thought I was talking to agentleman,” said she, “I suppose you’ll use that—expression—about me in a week.”
“In a good deal less, if you treat me like this,” said Charlie, and his air was one of hopeless misery.
We all recollect that Anne ended by being tolerably kind to wicked King Richard. After all, Charlie had the same excuse.
“I don’t want to be unkind,” said Dora more gently.
“I’ll do anything in the world to please you.”
“Then make papa go straight to Paris, and straight on from Paris,” said Dora, using her power mercilessly.
“Oh, I say, I didn’t mean that, Miss Bellairs.”
“You said you’d do anything I liked.”
Charlie looked at her thoughtfully.
“I suppose you’ve no pity?” he inquired.
“For you? Not a bit,”
“You probably don’t know how beautiful you are?”
“Don’t be foolish, and—and impertinent.”
She was standing opposite to him. With a sudden motion, he sprang forward, fell on one knee, seized her ungloved hand, covered it with kisses, sprang up, and hastened away, crying as he went:
“All right. I’ll do it.”
Dora stood where he left her. First she looked at her hand, then at Charlie’s retreating back, then again at her hand. Her cheek was flushed and she trembled a little.
“John never did that,” she said, “at least, not without asking. And even then, not quite like that.”
She walked on slowly, then stopped and exclaimed:
“I wonder if he ever did that to Mary Travers.”
And her last reflection was:
“Poor boy. He must be—oh, dear me!”
When Charlie reached the tennis-courts, he was, considering the moving scene through which he had passed, wonderfully calm. In fact he was smiling and whistling. Espying Sir Roger Deane, he went and sat down by him.
“Roger,” said he, “I’m going with you and the Bellairs’ to-morrow.”
“I know that.”
“Miss Bellairs wants to go straight through to England without stopping anywhere.”
“She’ll have to want, I expect.”
“And I’ve promised to try and get the General to do what she wants.”
“Have you though?”
“I suppose, Roger, old fellow—you know you’ve great influence with him—I suppose it’s no use asking you to say a word to him?”
“Not a bit.”
“Why?”
“Because Maud particularly wants him to stay with us in Paris.”
“Oh, of course, if Lady Deane wishes it, I mustn’t say a word. She’s quite made up her mind about it, has she?”
“Well, I suppose so.”
“She’s strong on it, I mean? Not likely to change?”
“I think not, Charlie.”
“She’d ask him to stay, as a favor to her?”
“I shouldn’t at all wonder.”
“Oh, well then, my asking him won’t make much difference.”
“Frankly, I don’t see why it should.”
“Thanks. I only wanted to know. You’re not in a hurry, Roger? I mean, you won’t ask your wife to go straight on?”
“No, I shan’t, Charlie. I want to stop myself.”
“Thanks, old chap! See you at dinner,” and Charlie strolled off with a reassured air.
Sir Roger sat and thought.
“I see his game,” he said to himself at last, “but I’m hanged if I see hers. Why does she want to get back to England? Perhaps if I delay her as much as I can, she’ll tell me. Hanged if I don’t! Anyhow I’m glad to see old Charlie getting convalescent.”
The next morning the whole party left Cannes by the early train. The Bellairs, the Deanes, and Charlie Ellerton travelled together. Laing announced his intention of following by the afternoon train.
“Oh,” said Lady Deane, “you’ll get to Paris sooner than we do.” Dora looked gloomy; so did Charlie, after a momentary, hastily smothered smile.
The porter approached and asked for an address. They told him the Grand Hotel, Paris.
“If anything comes to-day, I’ll bring it on,” said Laing.
“Yes, do; we shall have no address before Paris,” answered General Bellairs.
They drove off, and Laing, feeling rather solitary, returned to his cigar. An hour later the waiter brought him two telegrams, one for Dora and one for Charlie, he looked at the addresses.
“Just too late, by Jove! All right, gargon, I’ll take ‘em,” and he thrust them into the pocket of his flannel jacket. And when, after lunch, he could not stand the dullness any longer and went to Monte Carlo, he left the telegrams in the discarded flannels, where they lay till—the time when they were discovered. For Mr. Laing clean forgot all about them!
Even Miss Bussey was inclined to think that all had happened for the best. John’s eloquence had shaken her first disapprobation; the visible happiness of the persons chiefly concerned pleaded yet more persuasively. What harm, after all, was done, except for a little trouble and a little gossip? To these Mary and John were utterly indifferent. At first they had been rather shy in referring, before one another, to their loves, but custom taught them to mention the names without confusion, and ere long they had exchanged confidences as to their future plans. John’s arrangement was obviously the more prudent and becoming. He discountenanced Mary’s suggestion of an unannounced descent on Cannes, and persuaded her to follow his example and inform her lover that she would await news from him in Paris. They were to put up at the European, and telegrams there from Cannes would rind them on and after April 28th. All this valuable information was contained in the dispatches, which lay, with their priceless messages, on the said April 28th, in Mr. Arthur Laing’s flannel jacket, inside his portmanteau, on the way to Paris.
Paris claims to be the centre of the world, and if it be, the world has a very good centre. Anyhow Paris becomes, from this moment, the centre of this drama. Not only was Arthur Laing being whirled there by the Nice express, and Miss Bussey’s party proceeding thither by the eleven o’clock train from Victoria—Mary laughed as she thought it might have been her honeymoon she was starting on—but the Bellairs and their friends were heading for the same point. Miss Bussey’s party had the pleasanter journey; they were all of one mind; Miss Bussey was eager to reach Paris because it was the end of the journey; John and Mary desired nothing but the moment when with trembling fingers they should tear open their telegrams in the hall of the hotel. The expedition from the south did not enjoy a like unanimity; but before following their steps we may, in the interest of simplicity, land the first detachment safely at its destination.
When Mary and John, followed by Miss Bussey—they outstripped her in their eagerness—entered the hotel, a young man with an eye-glass was just engaging a bedroom. John took his place beside the stranger, and asked in a voice, which he strove to render calm, if there were any letters for——.
“Beg pardon, sir. In one moment,” said the clerk, and he added to Laing, “Number 37, sir.” Laing—Oh, the irony of things!—turned on John and his companion just that one supercilious glance which we bestow on other tourists, and followed his baggage upstairs.
“Anything,” resumed John, “for Miss Travers or Mr. Ashforth?” And he succeeded in looking as if he did not care a straw whether there were or not.
After a search the porter answered, “Nothing, sir.”
“What?” exclaimed John, aghast? “Oh, nonsense, look again.”
Another search followed; it was without result.
John saw Mary’s appealing eyes fixed on him.
“Nothing,” he said tragically.
“Oh, John!”
“Have you taken the rooms, Mr. Ash forth?” inquired Miss Bussey.
“No. I’m sorry. I forgot all about them.”
Miss Bussey was tired; she had been seasick, and the train always made her feel queer.
“Has neither of you got an ounce of wits about you?” she demanded, and plunged forward to the desk. John and Mary received their numbers in gloomy silence, and mounted the stairs.
Now Arthur Laing in his hasty survey of the party had arrived at a not unnatural but wholly erroneous conclusion. He had seen a young man, rather nervous, a young woman, looking anxious and shy, and an elderly person, plainly dressed (Miss Bussey was no dandy) sitting (Miss Bussey always sat as soon as she could) on, a trunk. He took John and Mary for a newly married couple, and Miss Bussey for an old family servant detailed to look after her young mistress’s entry into independent housekeeping.
“More infernal honeymooners,” he said to himself, as he washed his hands. “The place is always full of ‘em. Girl wasn’t bad-looking, though.”
The next morning, unhappily, confirmed him in his mistake. For Miss Bussey, overcome by the various trials of the day before, kept her bed, and when Laing came down, the first sight which met his eyes was a breakfast-table, whereat Mary and John sat tjte-`-tjte. He eyed them with that mixture of scorn and envy which their supposed situation awakens in a bachelor’s heart, and took a place from which he could survey them at leisure. There is a bright side to everything; and that of Laing’s mistake was the pleasure he derived from his delusion. Sticking his glass firmly in his eye, he watched like a cat for those playful little endearments which his cynical mood—he was, like many of us, not at his best in the morning—led him to anticipate. He watched in vain. The young people were decorum itself; more than that, they showed signs of preoccupation; they spoke only occasionally, and then with a business-like brevity.
Suddenly the waiter entered, with a hand fid of letters which he proceeded to distribute. Laing expected none, and kept his gaze on his honeymooners. To his surprise they showed animation enough now; their eyes were first on the waiter’s approaching form; the bridegroom even rose an inch or two from his seat; both stretched out their hands.
Alas, with a little bow, a smile, and a shrug, the waiter passed by, and the disappointed couple sank back, with looks of blank despair.
Surely here was enough to set any open-minded man on the right track! Yes; but not enough to free one who was tied and bound to his own theory.
“She’s dashed anxious to hoar from home!” mused Laing. “Poor girl! It ain’t over and above flattering to him, though.”
He finished his breakfast and went out to smoke. Presently he saw his friends come out also; they went to the porter’s desk and he hoard one of them say “telegram.” A sudden idea struck him.
“I am an ass!” said he. “Tell you what it is they’ve wired for rooms somewhere—Monte, most likely—and can’t start till they get an answer.”
He was so pleased with his explanation that his last doubt vanished and he watched Mary and John start for a walk—the fraternal relations they had established would have allowed such a thing even in London, much more in Paris—with quite a benevolent smile.
“Aunt Sarah is really quite poorly,” remarked Mary as they crossed the road and entered the Tuileries Gardens. “She’ll have to stay in all to-day and perhaps tomorrow. Isn’t it hard upon her? Paris amuses her so much.”
John expressed his sympathy.
“Now if it had been you or I,” he ended, “we shouldn’t have minded. Paris doesn’t amuse us just now.”
“Oh, but, John, we must be ready to start at any moment.”
“You can’t start without Miss Bussey,”
“I think that in a wagon-lit——” began Mary.
“But what’s the good of talking?” cried John, bitterly. “Why is there no news from her?”
“Hemighthave wired—John, is it possible our telegrams went astray?”
“Well, we must wait a day or two; or, if you like, we can wire again.”
Mary hesitated.
“I—I can’t do that, John. Suppose he’d received the first, and—and—”
“Yes, I see. I don’t want to humiliate myself either.”
“We’ll wait a day, anyhow. And, now, John, let’s think no more about them! Oh, well, that’s nonsense; but let’s enjoys ourselves as well as we can.”
They managed to enjoy themselves very well. The town was new to Mary, and John found a pleasure in showing it off to her. After a morning of sight-seeing, they drove in the Bois, and ended the day at the theatre. Miss Bussey, unfortunately, was no better. She had sent for an English doctor and he talked vaguely about two or three days in bed. Mary ventured to ask whether her aunt could travel.
“Oh, if absolutely necessary, perhaps; but much better not,” was the answer.
Well, it was not absolutely necessary yet, for no letter and no telegram arrived. This was the awful fact that greeted them when they came in from the theatre.
“We’ll wire the first thing to-morrow,” declared John, in a resolute tone. “Write yours to-night, Mary, and I’ll give, them to the porter—”
“Oh, not mine, please,” cried Mary, in shrinking bashfulness. “I can’t let the porter see mine!”
“Well, then, we’ll take them out before breakfast to-morrow.”
To this Mary agreed, and they sat down and wrote their dispatches. While they were so engaged Laing jumped out of a cab and entered the room. He seized an English paper, and, flinging himself into a chair, began to study the sporting news. Presently he stole a glance at Mary. It so chanced that just at the same moment she was stealing a glance at him. Mary dropped her eyes with a blush; Laing withdrew behind his paper.
“Shy, of course. Anybody would be,” he thought, with a smile.
“Did you like the piece, Mary?” asked John.
“Oh, very much. I wish Aunt Sarah could have seen it. She missed so much fun.”
“Well, she could hardly have come with us, could she?” remarked John.
“Oh, no,” said Mary.
“Well, I should rather think not,” whispered Laing, who failed to identify ‘Aunt Sarah’ with the elderly person on the trunk.
“I shouldn’t have been happy if she had,” said Mary.
“I simply wouldn’t have let her,” said John, in that authoritative tone which so well became him.
“No more would I in your place, old chap,” murmured Mr. Laing.
Mary rose.
“Thanks for all your kindness, John. Good-night.”
“I’m so glad you’ve had a pleasant day. Good-night, Mary.”
So they parted—with a good-night as calm, as decorous, as frankly fraternal as one could wish (or wish otherwise). Yet its very virtues undid it in the prematurely suspicious eyes of Arthur Laing. For no sooner was he left alone than he threw down his paper and began to chuckle.
“All for my benefit, that, eh? ‘Goodnight, Mary!’ ‘Good-night, John!’ Lord! Lord!” and he rose, lit a cigarette, and ordered a brandy-and-soda. And ever and again he smiled. He felt very acute indeed.
So vain is it for either wisdom or simplicity, candor or diplomacy—nay, for facts themselves—to struggle against a Man with a Theory. Mr. Laing went to bed no more doubting that Mary and John were man and wife than he doubted that he had ‘spotted’ the winner of the Derby. Certitude could no farther go.
“It’s a curious thing,” observed Roger Deane, “but this fellow Baedeker always travels the opposite way to what I do. When I’m coming back, he’s always going out, and vice versa. It makes him precious difficult to understand, I can tell you, Miss Dora. However I think I’ve got him now. Listen to this! ‘Marseilles to Arles (Amphitheatre starred) one day. Arles to Avignon (Palace of the Popes starred) two days—slow going that—Avignon to——‘”
“Do you want tosquatin this wretched country, Sir Roger?” demanded Dora angrily.
A faint smile played round Sir Roger’s lips.
“You’re the only one who’s in a hurry.” he remarked.
“No, I’m not. Mr. Ellerton is in just as much of a hurry.”
“Then he bears disappointment better.”
“What in the world did papa and—well, and Lady Deane, you know—want to stop here for?”
“You don’t seem to understand how interesting Marseilles is. Let me read you a passage. ‘Marseilles was a colony founded about 600 B.C.’—What? Oh, all right! We’ll skip a bit. ‘In 1792 hordes of galley-slaves were sent hence to Paris, where they committed frightful excesses.’ That’s what Maud and your father are going to do. ‘It was for them that Rouget—’ I say, what’s the matter, Miss Dora?”
“I don’t know why you should enjoy teasing me, but youhavenearly made me cry, so perhaps you’ll be happy now.”
“You tried to take me in. I pretended to be taken in. That’s all.”
“Well, it was very unkind of you.”
“So, after all, it’s not a matter of indifference to you at what rate we travel, as you said in the train to-day?”
“Oh, I had to. I—I couldn’t let papa see.”
“And why are you in a hurry?”
“I can’t tell you; but I must—oh, I must!—be in England in four days.”
“You’ll hardly get your father to give up a day at Avignon.”
“Well, one day there; then we should just do it, if we only slept in Paris.”
“Yes, but my wife——”
“Oh, you can stay. Don’t say anything about Paris yet. Help me to get there. I’ll make papa go on. Please do, Sir Roger. I shall be so awfully obliged to you; so will Mr. Ellerton.”
“Charlie Ellerton? Not he! He’s in no hurry.”
“What do you mean? Didn’t you hear him to-day urging papa to travel straight through?”
“Oh, yes, I heard that.”
“Well?”
“You were there then.”
“What of that?”
“He’s not so pressing when you’re away.”
“I don’t understand. Why should he pretend to be in a hurry when he isn’t?”
“Ah, I don’t know. Don’t you?”
“Not in the least, Sir Roger. But never mind Mr. Ellerton. Will you help me?”
“As far as Paris. You must look out for yourself there.”
These terms Dora accepted. Surely at Paris she would hear some news of or from John Ashforth. She thought he must have written one line in response to her last letter, and that his answer must have been so far delayed as to arrive at Cannes after her departure; it would be waiting for her at Paris and would tell her whether she was in time or whether there was no more use in hurrying. The dread that oppressed her was lest, arriving too late in Paris, she should find that she had missed happiness by reason of this wretched dawdling in Southern France.
Seeing her meditative, Deane slipped away to his cigar, and she sat in the hotel hall, musing. Deane’s revelation of Charlie’s treachery hardly surprised her; she meant to upbraid him severely, but she was conscious that, if little surprised, she was hardly more than a little angry. His conduct was indeed contemptible; it revealed an utter instability and fickleness of mind which made her gravely uneasy as to Mary Travers’s chances of permanent happiness. Yes, scornful one might b; but who could be seriously angry with the poor boy? And perhaps, after all, she did him injustice. Some natures were more prone than others to sudden passions; it really did not follow that a feeling must be either shallow or short-lived because it was sudden; whether it survived or passed away would depend chiefly on the person who excited it. It was clear that Mary Travers was incapable of maintaining a permanent hold over Charlie’s affections, but another girl might—might have. If so, it would perhaps be a pity if Charlie and Mary Travers were to come together again. She doubted very much if they were suited to one another. She pictured Mary as a severe, rather stern young woman; and she hardly knew whether to laugh or groan at the thought of Charlie adapting himself to such a mate. Meanwhile her own position was certainly very difficult, and she acknowledged its thorniness with a little sigh. To begin with, the suspense was terrible; at times she would have been almost relieved to hear that John was married beyond recall. Then Charlie was a great and a growing difficulty. He had not actually repeated the passionate indiscretion, of which he had been guilty at Cannes, but more and more watchfulness and severity were needed to keep him within the bounds proper to their relative positions, and it was odious to be disagreeable to a fellow-traveller, especially when he was such a good and devoted friend as Charlie.
Sir Roger loyally carried out his bargain. Lady Deane was hurried on, leaving Marseilles, with its varied types of humanity and its profound social significance, practically unexplored; Aries and Amphitheatre, in spite of the beckoning “star,” were dropped out of the programme, and the next day found the party at Avignon. And now they were once more for a moment in harmony. Dora could spare twenty-four hours; Lady Deane and the General were mollified by conscious unselfishness; the prospect of a fresh struggle at Paris lay well in the background and was discreetly ignored; Charlie Ellerton, who had reached the most desperate stage of love, looked neither back nor forward. It was enough for him to have wrung four-and-twenty hours of Dora’s company from fate’s reluctant grasp. He meant to make the most of it.
She and he sat, on the afternoon of their arrival, in the gardens, hard by the Cathedral, where Lady Deane and the General wore doing their duty. Sir Roger had chartered a cab and gone for a drive on the boulevards.
“And we shall really be in Paris to-morrow night?” said Dora. “And in England, I hope, six-and-thirty hours afterwards. I want papa to cross the next evening. Mr. Ellerton, I believe we shall be in time.”
Charlie said nothing. He seemed to be engrossed by the magnificent view before him.
“Well? Have you nothing to say?” she asked.
“It’s a sin to rush through a place like this,” he observed. “We ought to stay a week. There’s no end to see. It’s an education!”
By way, probably, of making the most of his brief opportunity, he went on gazing, across the river which flowed below, now towards the heights of Mont Ventoux, now at the ramparts of Villeneuve. Dora, on the other hand, fixed pensive eyes on his curly hatless head, which leant forward as he rested his elbows on his knees. He had referred to the attractions of Avignon in tones of almost overpowering emotion.
Presently he turned his head towards her with a quick jerk.
“I don’t want to be in time,” he said, and, with equal rapidity, he returned to his survey of Villeneuve.
Dora made no answer, unless a perplexed wrinkle on her brow might serve for one. A long silence followed. It was broken at last by Charlie. He left the landscape with a sigh of satisfaction, as though he could not reproach himself with having neglected it, and directed his gaze into his companion’s eyes. Dora blushed and pulled the brim of her hat a little lower down over her brow.
“What’s more,” said Charlie, in deliberate tones, and as if no pause had occurred between this remark and his last, “I don’t believe you do.”
Dora started and straightened herself in her seat; it looked as if the rash remark were to be met with a burst of indignation, but, a second later, she leant back again and smiled scornfully.
“How can you be so silly, Mr. Ellerton?” she asked.
“We both of us,” pursued Charlie, “see now that we made up our minds to be very foolish; we both of us mistook our real feelings; we’re beginning—at least I began some time ago, and you’re beginning now—to understand the true state of affairs.”
“Oh, I know what you mean, and I ought to be very angry, I suppose; but it’s too absurd.”
“Not in the least. The absurd thing is your fancying that you care about this follow Ashforth.”
“No, you must really stop, you must indeed. I don’t——”
“I know the sort of fellow he is—a dull dry chap, who makes love as if he was dancing a minuet.”
“You’re quite wrong.”
“And kisses you as if it was part of the church service.”
This last description, applied to John Ashforth’s manner of wooing, had enough of aptness to stir Dora into genuine resentment.
“A Girl doesn’t like a man less because he respects her; nor more because he ridicules better men than himself.”
“Don’t be angry. I’m only saying what’s true. Why should I want to run him down?”
“I suppose—well, I suppose because——”
“Well?”
“You’re a little bit—but I don’t think I ought to talk about it.”
“Jealous, you were going to say.”
“Was I?”
“And that shows you know what I mean.”
“Well, by now I suppose I do. I can’t help your doing it or I would.”
Charlie moved closer, and leaning forward till his face was only a yard from hers, while his hand, sliding along the back of the seat, almost touched her, said in a low voice, “Are you sure you would?”
Dora’s answer was a laugh—a laugh with a hint of nervousness in it. Perhaps she knew what was in it, for she looked away towards the river.
“Dolly,” he whispered, “shall I go back to Cannes? Shall I?”
Perhaps the audacity of this per saltum advance from the distance of Miss ‘Bellairs’ to the ineffable assumption involved in ‘Dolly’ made the subject of it dumb.
“I will, if you ask me,” he said, us she, was silent for a space.
Then with profile towards him and eyes away, she murmured,
“What would Miss Travers say if you turned back now?”
The mention of Mary did not on this occasion evoke any unseemly words. On the contrary, Charlie smiled. He glanced at his companion. He glanced behind him and round him. Then, drilling his deep design into the semblance of an uncontrollable impulse, he seized Dora’s hand in his and, before she could stir, kissed her cheek.
She leapt to her feet.
“How dare you?” she cried.
“How could I help it?”
“I’ll never speak to you again. No gentleman would have—oh, I do hope you’re ashamed of yourself!”
Her words evidently struck home. With an air of contrition he sank on the seat.
“I’m a beast,” he said ruefully. “You’re quite right, Miss Bellairs. Don’t have anything more to say to me. I wish I was—I wish I had some—some self-control—and self-respect, you know. If I were a fellow like Ashforth now, I should never have done that! Of course you can’t forgive me,” and, in his extremity of remorse, he buried his face in his hands.
Dora stood beside him. She made one step as if to leave him; a glance at him brought her back, and she looked down at him for a minute. Presently a troubled doubtful little smile appeared on her face; when she realized it was there, she promptly banished it. Alas! It was too late. The rascal had been peeping through his fingers, and, with a ringing laugh, he sprang to his feet, caught both her hands, and cried, “Shocking, wasn’t it? Awful?”
“Let me go, Mr. Ellerton.”
“Must I?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Why? Why, when you——?”
“Sir Roger’s coming. Look behind you.”
“Oh, the deuce!”
An instant later they were sitting demurely at opposite ends of the seat, inspecting Villeneuve with interest.
In another moment Deane stood before them, puffing a cigarette, and wearing an expression of amiability tempered by boredom.
“Wonderful old place, isn’t it, Deane?” asked Charlie.
“Such a view, Sir Roger!” cried Dora, in almost breathless enthusiasm.
“You certainly,” assented Deane, “do see some wonderful sights on this Promenade. I’m glad I came up. The air’s given you quite a color, Miss Dora.”
“It’s tea-time,” declared Dora suddenly. “Take me down with you, Sir Roger. Mr. Ellerton, go and tell the others we’re going home to tea.”
Charlie started off, and Sir Roger strolled along by Miss Bellairs’s side. Presently he said:
“Still anxious to get to Paris?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” she asked quickly.
“I thought perhaps the charms of Avignon would have decided you to linger. Haven’t you been tempted?”
Dora glanced at him, but his face betrayed no secondary meaning.
“Tempted? Oh, perhaps,” she answered, with the same nervous little laugh, “but not quite led astray. I’m going on.”