She was living in the avenue Wagram—she had taken a small furnished flat there for a few months—and when he saw her on the Boulevard, about a week afterwards, Kent was puzzled to discover the reason that he had not availed himself of her invitation. He called a day or two later, and found her cynical but stimulating. In recalling the visit, it appeared to him that she was more entertaining in conversation than in print, which suggested that her good things were not so good as they sounded, but while she talked he was amused. He left the flat with the consciousness of having spent a very agreeable half-hour, and was sorry that her "day," which she had mentioned to him, was a fortnight ahead. She seemed to know many persons in Paris whom he would be glad to meet, and apart from the hostess, with whom he had drunk "English tea" and smoked Egyptian cigarettes, the entree to the little yellow drawing-room promised to be enjoyable. That she was a widow he had taken for granted from the first, and his assumption had proved to be correct. She was a woman who struck one as born to be a widow; it was difficult to conceive her either with a husband or living in her parents' home. As to her children, she spoke of them frequently, and saw them seldom. Kent decided that she was too fashionable and a trifle hard, but this did not detract from the pleasure that the visits afforded him; perhaps his perception of her character was indeed responsible for much of the pleasure, for it rendered it more complimentary still that she was nice to him.
She was surprised to learn that he was married, and declared that she looked forward to knowing his wife. She did not, however, take any steps to gratify the desire, and Kent was not regretful. He felt that few things more productive of boredom for two could be devised than a tête-à-tête between Mrs. Deane-Pitt and Cynthia; and, though he was reluctant to acknowledge it to himself, he had a feeling also that, if it occurred, the lady would be a little contemptuous of him afterwards. He knew her opinion of young men's marriages in the majority of cases, and was uncomfortably conscious that she would not pronounce his own to be one of the exceptions.
Mrs. Walford's letters to her daughter had hitherto been in her most enthusiastic vein. Mr. McCullough had given the disappointed bass a berth in Berlin, and in her letters this was alluded to as a "position," upon which she showered her favourite adjectives of "jolly" and "extraordinary" and "immense." Cæsar was "McCullough's right hand," the "best houses in Berlin" were open to him, and his prospects, social and financial, were dazzling. Of late, however, he had been dwelt on less, and one morning there came a letter that contained a confession of personal anxiety. The recent heavy drop in American stocks, and the failure of two or three brokers, had seriously affected the jobber. They thought of trying to let The Hawthorns, which was much too large for them now, and moving out of the neighbourhood. Cæsar remained McCullough's "right hand," but briefly; and it was evident that the writer was in great distress.
Cynthia was terribly grieved and startled. She dashed off eight pages of love and inquiries by the evening mail, and when the news was confirmed, with more particulars, she felt that she could do no less than run over to utter her sympathy in person.
Kent agreed that it was perhaps advisable, and raised the money that was necessary cheerfully enough by pawning his watch and chain.
Only when she sent him a rather lengthy telegram from Streatham, detailing her mother's frame of mind, did he feel that she was exaggerating his share in her solicitude.
The chilly salon, where the ladies played forfeits after dinner, or where the vivacious daughter thumped the piano, was not attractive during Cynthia's absence. Neither was it lively to smoke alone in his room, or to go to a theatre or a music-hall by himself; and when, in calling on Mrs. Deane-Pitt, he mentioned his loneliness and she proposed that he should take her to the Variétés, he accepted the suggestion with alacrity.
As he obtained the tickets for nothing, his only expense was cabs, and the liqueurs between the facts; and it was so enjoyable, laughing with her on the lounge of the café, that the recollection of their being paid for out of the balance of his loan from the mont-de-piété was banished. Mrs. Deane-Pitt made some more of her happy remarks while they sipped the chartreuse, and her teeth and eyes flashed superbly. The piece was a great success, but Kent thought the entr'actes were even gayer. And when the curtain had fallen and they reached the avenue Wagram, she would not hear of his leaving her before going in and having some supper.
His liqueurs looked very paltry to him contrasted with the table that exhibited mayonnaise and champagne, and his exhilaration was momentarily damped by envy. Fiction meant a good deal when one was lucky; how jolly to be able to live as this woman did! Her maid took away her cloak and hat, and he opened the bottle. She drew off her long gloves, and patted her hair before the mirror with fingers on which some rings shone.
"Let's sit down! Am I all right?"
He thought he had never seen her look so charming or so young.
"You have a colour," he said.
"A proof it's natural; when we went out I was as pale as a ghost! I work too hard, I do—what are you smiling at?—I work horribly hard. Life's so dear—yes, 'expensive'—don't say it, it would be unworthy of you. And I can't do a fifth part of what's offered me, with all my fag."
"Am I supposed to sympathise with you for that?"
"Certainly you should sympathise; what de you suppose I tell you for—to be felicitated? Do you think it's agreeable to have to refuse work when one needs the money it would bring in? The trials of Tantalus were a joke to it. I had to let a twenty-thousand-word story forThe Metropolisslide only the other day, and I could place half a dozen shorter stories every week if I'd the time to write them."
"You do write a great many," said Kent, "and you seem fairly comfortable."
"'Wise judges are we of each other!' You ought to see my bills; that music-stand over there is full of them! That's the place I always keep them in—I'm naturally tidy, it's one of my virtues. I had to turn out Chopin's Mazurkas yesterday to make room for some more. I only came to Paris because people don't write you so many abusive letters when they have to pay two-pence-halfpenny postage. Oh, I'm comfortable enough in a fashion, but I've my worries like my neighbours. I suppose I'm extravagant, but I can't help it. Besides, I'm not! Do you think I'm extravagant?"
He looked at her, and nodded, smiling.
"No," she said, "not really? Why?"
"Heavens! you haven't the illusion that you're economical? I believe you spend a small fortune on cabs alone."
"I don't spend a solitary franc on one when I'mnotalone."
"You never walk, so far as I can ascertain——"
"No; not so far as that, but I toddle a bit."
"Your champagne is above criticism, and you dress like—like an angel. The simile is bad——"
"And improper. Go on; what other faults have I? I like to know my friends' opinion of me."
"'If to her share some human errors fall——'" he murmured.
"Don't look, then! Shall I hide it behind my table-napkin? That's sheer cowardice. Fill your glass, and mine, please. Go on; tell me how I strike you frankly! I know; you think I don't approach literature reverently enough and ought to devote twelve months to a book, and let my poor little children go barefoot in the meanwhile? Well, I did give twelve months to a book once; but I had a husband when I wroteTwo and a Passion, and he provided the shoes. Now, if I didn't work as I do, I should have to live at Battersea, and buy my clothes at Brixton, and take my holidays at Southend. You wouldn't calmly condemn me to Southend? My income, apart from what I make, barely pays my rent."
"Your rent is somewhat heavy," suggested Kent, "with two flats going at once."
"Wretch! do you lecture me because I couldn't find a tenant for the Victoria Street place? He blames me for my misfortunes!"
She caught the long gloves up, and swirled them round on his cheek. Like the others, they were perfumed; but now their scent was in his face. They looked in each other's eyes an instant, smiling across the corner of the table. Then, as the smile died away, they remained looking in each other's eyes attentively. He drew the gloves from her hold, and played with them. Her hand lay upturned to take them back, and in restoring them his own rested on it. She averted her gaze, but her palm did not slip away so quickly as it might have done.
"You know you may smoke," she said, rising and going over to the fire. "I'll have one, too."
"Isn't it too late?" he asked, joining her.
His voice was not quite steady, and now he didn't look at her as he spoke.
"You can have one cigarette," she said, sinking into an armchair, and crossing her feet on the fender. "How's the paper going? EclipsingLe Petit Journal?"
"Of course," he said. "Did you ever know anybody's paper that wasn't?"
"You count Paris your home, I suppose? You mean to stop here permanently?Igo back in March; the people are returning here then. I loathe London after Paris, but I shall have escaped most of the winter there, that's one thing. Where did you live in town?"
"MyneighbourhoodwasBattersea, that is to say, it was suburban wilds. We had a villa at Streatham—have it now, in fact," he added, remembering with dismay that there was a quarter's rent due. "No, I'm afraid I can't condole with you, Mrs. Deane-Pitt."
"'Pride sleeps in a gilded crown, contentment in a cotton night-cap,'" she said. "An address is only skin-deep, after all; besides, Streatham is pretty."
"Prettywell. And it looks prettier out of a big house."
"Get money, my friend," she said languidly; "you are young enough, and I think you're clever enough. When all things were made, nothing was made better. And it's really very easy; as soon as you are popular, the editors will take anything."
"'First catch your hare,'" he observed. "I'm not popular."
The clock on the mantelshelf struck one, and he threw away his cigarette-end and got up.
"Good-night, Mrs. Deane-Pitt."
"Good-night," she said.
Her touch lingered again, and her personality dominated him as he walked back to the pension de famille through the silent streets. He was angry with himself to perceive that it was so. What the devil had he been about in that business with the gloves over the table? She had let him do it, too! Did she like him. He wouldn't go to see her any more! Well, that was absurd, but he would not go so frequently as he had. And he must keep a rein on himself. Nothing could come of it, he was convinced, even if he wished; and he did not wish. It would be too beastly to deceive a girl like Cynthia ... and their baby only a year old! He decided, as he mounted the stairs, to tell Cynthia when she came back that he had been to the Variétés with Mrs. Deane-Pitt. It would not disturb her to hear that, and, though it was juggling with his conscience, he would feel cleaner afterwards. There was a letter from her waiting for him on the bedroom table, and he washed his hands before he opened it.
Cynthia wrote to say that she should be home the next evening but one, and that her parents had been rejoiced to see her. On the whole, things did not seem to be so desperate as she had feared; but it was quite determined that The Hawthorns should be let, for, fortunately, there was a Peruvian family who were prepared to take it just as it stood, and mamma had already been to view a house at Strawberry Hill which was quite nice, and far cheaper. Whether Miss Wix would remove with them was doubtful.
"Mamma's temper is naturally not of the best just now, and I gather that the dissensions have been rather bad. Papa talks of allowing Aunt Emily a pound a week to live by herself, and really she seems to prefer it."
She added, underlined, that Cæsar was still "the right hand of McCullough." She had learnt to smile a little at Cæsar, and Kent winced as he came to that allusion to a mutual joke. And then there followed a dozen affectionate injunctions: he was not to be dull, "poor boy who had no watch and chain!" but to go somewhere every night; he was to hug baby for her, and to give and keep a score of kisses. She was "Always his loving wife." He read it under the paraffin lamp with his overcoat on, and wished that it hadn't arrived till the morning.
Mrs. Deane-Pitt's inquiry howThe World and his Wifewas going had had more significance than Kent's careless reply. The band of Paris Correspondents in the vicinity of the boulevard Magenta and elsewhere were already beginning to talk about Billy Beaufort, for, not only was he neglecting the first chance of a competence that had fallen his way for years—he was squandering the whole of a very handsome salary, and getting into difficulties, besides. The amount of energy which this man, when in his deepest waters, expended upon a search for opportunities was equalled only by the abysmal folly by which he ruined all that he obtained. He was one of the fools who devote their lives to disproving the adage that experience teaches them. The circulation of the paper was purely nominal, and the Baronet had constantly to be applied to for further funds; indeed, the only work in connection with the journal which Billy did now was to write euphemistic reports to the proprietor. The money did not supply the journal's deficiencies alone. Card debts had to be settled somehow; and an ephemeral attachment to a girl who tied herself in knots at the Nouveau Cirque was responsible for some embarrassment.
Hitherto, however, Beaufort had always spared the hundred and seventy-five francs at the end of the week to his assistant-editor. But on the Saturday after Cynthia's return he asked him casually if he would mind waiting for it a few days.
"Sorry if it puts you out at all," he said. "I can't help myself. You shall have it for certain Wednesday or Thursday. I suppose you can finance matters in the meanwhile, eh?"
Kent could do no less than answer that he would try. On Monday morning, though, madame Garin's bill would come up with the first breakfast, and he saw that he would be compelled either to make an excuse to her, or to pretend to forget it till he could pay.
Their bills had been paid with such exceeding regularity up to the present that he decided to take the bolder course, distasteful as it was. He had been obliged to ask landladies to wait longer in his time, but it was one thing to be "disappointed" as a bachelor, and quite another when one had a wife, and baby, and nurse in the house. Madame Garin's countenance, moreover, was of a rather forbidding type, and did not suggest a yielding disposition in money matters. He was agreeably surprised to hear her say, after a scarcely perceptible pause, that it was of no consequence when he spoke to her in passing her little office in the hall on Monday morning. Cynthia's relief was immense; it had been a serious crisis to her, her earliest experience of having to ask for credit; and, to be on the safe side, he had not promised to pay before Thursday. Both trusted that the salary would be forthcoming on Wednesday, though, for if the nurse wanted anything bought in the meanwhile they would be obliged to temporise with her, and that would have its awkwardness.
Beaufort did not refer to the subject on Wednesday, and Kent went home with sixty-five centimes in his pocket. He got in late, and Cynthia was already at dinner. She glanced at him inquiringly as he took his seat, and he shook his head.
"Not yet," he murmured.
She disguised her feelings and continued to talk chiffons with the woman opposite; but when they mounted to their room and the proprietress looked out of the bureau at them with a greeting, she felt a shade uncomfortable, and hastened her steps.
"I hate that bureau," she said as soon as they had reached the haven of the first landing. "The Garins seem to live in it, and you can't get by without their seeing you! Well, he didn't give it to you, eh?"
"No; it'll be all right to-morrow, though. It's lucky I said 'Thursday' instead of to-day. Has Nurse been to you for anything?"
"Thank goodness, she hasn't! But Baby is bound to be out of something directly. You do think we are sure of it to-morrow, Humphrey,don'tyou?"
He said there was no doubt about it, and they drew their chairs to the hearth. The night was cold, and presently he went out to a grocer's and spent sixty centimes on a bottle of the kind of red wine that the restaurants threw in with the cheapest meal, smuggling it upstairs under his overcoat. In madame Garin's wine-list it figured as "médoc" at two francs, and she would not have been pleased with him for getting it at a shop. They made it hot over their fire in one of the infant's saucepans; and, sweetened with sugar from the nursery cupboard, they found it comforting. Though their capital was now a son, they were not unhappy, in the prospect of a hundred and seventy-five francs in the course of twenty-four hours, and once Cynthia laughed so I gaily that the nurse came in and intimated that "the rooms opening into one another made the noise very disturbing to Baby."
Kent went to the office next day without a cigarette, for he had smoked his last, and he I awaited his chief's arrival with considerable impatience. The Editor had not been in when he returned to luncheon, but in reply to Cynthia's eager question he assured her that he was certain to have the money in his pocket when he saw her again in the evening. He wanted a cigarette by this time very badly indeed, and when the office clock struck three, he left his desk, and stood pulling his moustache at the window moodily. He began to fear that it was going to be one of the days when Billy Beaufort did not appear in the rue du Quatre Septembre at all.
His misgiving proved to be well founded, and dinner that night was agreeable neither to him nor the girl. She had been reluctant to go down to it, on hearing that madame Garin could not be paid, and, though he persuaded her to go down, she sped past the bureau with averted eyes. It was useless to go in search of Beaufort; the only thing of which one could be positive with regard to his movements at this hour was that he would not be at his hotel; but Kent promised; her to see him before commencing work in the morning, and said that the amount necessary should be sent round to her at once.
Beaufort was staying at the Grand, and he was; still in his room when Kent called there. He was found in bed, reading his letters. A suit of dress-clothes trailed disconsolately across a chair, and by the window a fur-coat and a hat-box had rolled on to the floor. He had not drunk his chocolate, but a tumbler of soda-water and something, and a syphon, stood on the table beside, him, surrounded by his watch and chain, some scattered cigarettes, and the bulk of his correspondence. He looked but half awake and cross.
"What's the matter?" he murmured. "Sit down. There's a seat there, if you move those things. Will you have anything to drink?"
"I won't have a drink, but I'll take one of those cigarettes, if I may," said Kent, sticking it in his mouth and inhaling gratefully. "I'm sorry to dun you, but you told me I could have the money 'Wednesday or Thursday,' and I'm pressed for it. I wish you would let me have it now; I want to send it up to my pension before going on to the shop."
Beaufort put out his tongue and drank some more of the contents of the tumbler thirstily.
"That'll be all right," he said, yawning; "don't you bother about that!"
"But the point is, that I want it now," said Kent. "I dare say it would be 'all right,' but I'm in need of it this morning. My bill came up on Monday, and I put the woman off till yesterday—I can't put her off any more."
"What? Is this the first week you owe her? My boy, a week! I haven't paid my bill here for eleven weeks. Let her wait."
"You haven't a wife," said Kent. "Ihave. It's damned unpleasant for a girl, I can tell you!"
"How much does the old harpy want?" inquired the Editor, with resentment.
"A hundred and sixty, more or less, with extras. I have the interesting document with me, if you'd like to see it."
Billy gaped again.
"Oh, well," he said, "we'll engineer it. You—you tell your wife not to worry herself; and don't trouble any more. I'll see you through." He settled his head on the pillow, and appeared to be under the impression that the difficulty was disposed of.
"It's very good of you," answered Kent, as his tone seemed to call for gratitude. "I'm glad to hear you say so. But how soon can I have it?"
"Eh? Oh, I shall be able to draw to-morrow. You shall have a hundred and sixty to-morrow. I give you my word of honour on it.I'll work it for you somehow. I won't see you in a hole."
Kent stared at him. On the morrow a second week's salary would be due—and on the next day but one, a second account from madame Garin. He pointed the fact out to Beaufort quietly, but with emphasis. He said that, if matters were financially complicated, it would be well for him to understand the position, in order that he might realise his outlook, and, if essential, make a temporary removal to a quarter where he could live more cheaply. He did not want to badger him, he explained, but Beaufort's programme was not capable of imitation in his own case, and, as a family man, he must cut his coat according to his cloth.
"If you want me to let part of my salary stand over for the next few weeks, and it's unavoidable, I suppose it is unavoidable," he said finally; "only, I can't be left in the dark about it. Am I to understand that you propose to pay me a hundred and sixty francs to-morrow, instead of three hundred and fifty? Or shall I have the lot?"
What he received was a peaceful snore, and he perceived that Billy Beaufort had fallen asleep. He contemplated him for a minute desperately, and lit another cigarette. The thought of Cynthia sitting at home in the bedroom, waiting in suspense for a messenger's knock at the door, nerved him to upset a chair, and Beaufort opened his eyes with a grunt.
"What can you do?" demanded Kent, briefly this time, lest slumber should overtake him again. "Can you give me any money before I go?"
"I've told you I'll do my utmost. You shall have a hundred and sixty francs to-morrow; I can't give it you now—I haven't got it. If I had, you may be sure you wouldn't have to ask twice for it. I'm not a chap of that sort, Kent. By George! I never desert a pal. I've my faults, but I never desert a pal.... If a louis on account is any good, I can let you have that."
"Well?" said Humphrey, seeing that there was no more to be done, "I rely on you. And—thanks—I'll take the louis to go on with."
He went down and out on to the Boulevard, and sent Cynthia a petit bleu, saying, "Got something. Balance to-morrow," and wondered gloomily whether madame Garin would continue complacent when she discovered that, after all, he suggested paying one week's bill instead of two. Perhaps it would be easier to arrange with the vivacious daughter?
He resolved to try, and the young lady was all smiles and "Mais parfaitement, monsieur," when he spoke to her. He congratulated himself on having had the idea; but, though Beaufort provided him with the sum agreed upon next day, and repeated that he "never deserted a pal" with an air of having achieved a triumph, he did not make up the deficit, and, instead of being able to square accounts with the Garins, the assistant-editor gradually found himself getting deeper into their debt. From its being a doubtful point whether he would receive his salary in full, it became a question whether he would get any of it at all; and when he obtained half, he learnt by degrees to esteem it a fortunate week. Beaufort overflowed with promises and protestations.
Everything was always "on the eve of being righted," but the day of righteousness never dawned. Mademoiselle Garin began to stop "monsieur Kent" in the hall and convey to him with firmness that her mother had very heavy obligations to meet, and Cynthia sat at the dinner-table in constant terror of the old woman coming in and publicly insulting them.
One morning, when the laundress brought back their linen, Humphrey had to feign to be asleep, while Cynthia explained that "monsieur had all the money and was so unwell that she did not like to wake him." The poor creature was sympathetic, and went away telling madame not to disquiet herself—it was doubtless only a passing indisposition. But after she had gone, the girl begged Humphrey to take a loan on her engagement-ring, and after some discussion he complied. Everything is more valuable in Paris than in London until one has occasion to pawn it, and then it is worth much less, especially jewellery. From the mont-de-piété Kent procured about forty per cent, of what a London pawn-broker would have lent him. However, the loan was useful. Though it did not clear them, it afforded temporary relief; and it paid the nurse's wages, which were due the same day. Cynthia said that she had become so "demoralised"—she used a happy term now with a frequency he would have found astonishing if he had recalled how she talked when they first met—that a substantial payment on account "made her feel quite meritorious"; and there was a week in which they went to the theatres again, and walked past the bureau with heads erect.
March had opened mildly, and people were once more beginning to sit outside the cafés; and Mrs. Deane-Pitt was returning to England. Kent had kept his resolution not to enter the yellow drawing-room in the avenue Wagram when it could be avoided—partly, no doubt, because of the anxieties he had had to occupy his mind, but partly also by force of will. When he heard that she was leaving, though, he could do no less—nor did he feel it necessary to do less—than call to bid her "au revoir," and he was conscious, as the servant replied that she was at home, that he would have been disappointed otherwise.
He gown betokened that visitors were expected; teacups demonstrated that visitors had been. She welcomed him languidly, and motioned him to a seat.
"I thought you must have gone to London, or to Paradise," she said. "What have you beer doing with yourself?"
"I've been so fearfully busy," he answered lamely.
"On the paper?"
"Of course."
"I don't hear good reports of the paper," she said. "I hope they aren't true?"
"The paper is as good as it always was," responded Kent—"neither better nor worse. May I ask what you hear?"
"I heard that Sir Charles Eames is getting tired of it. Says he is running a journal that nobody reads but himself, andhe'don't read it much.' He informed a man in his club, who told it privately to another man, who told it in confidence to a woman who told me—I wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone myself—that 'if the price didn't improve soon he should scratch it.' What will the robin do then, Mr. Kent?"
Humphrey looked grave. This was the first plain intimation he had had thatThe World and his Wifewas likely to collapse, and badly as the post was paying him now, it was more lucrative than any that awaited him. He thought that Mrs. Deane-Pitt might have communicated her news more considerately.
"The robin will manage to find crumbs, I suppose," he said; "I wasn't born onThe World and his Wife."
"May I offer you some tea and cake in the meantime?"
"No, thanks."
Her tone annoyed him this afternoon; it was hard and careless. He fancied at the moment that his only feeling for her was dislike, and sneered at the mental absurdities into which he had strayed. There was a lengthy pause—a thing that had seldom occurred between them—followed by platitudes.
"Well," he murmured, getting up, "I'm afraid I must go."
She did not press him to remain.
"Must you?" she said. "I dare say we shall meet again. It's a small world in every sense."
"I hope we shall. Au revoir, and bon voyage, Mrs. Deane-Pitt."
"If you should go back yourself, you'll come to see me? You know where I live."
"Thank you; I shall be very glad."
But as he went down the stairs Kent was surprised to perceive that he felt suddenly mournful. The noise of the door closing behind him was charged with ridiculous melancholy, and there appeared to him something sad in this conventional ending that had the semblance of estrangement. The sentiment and impression of the hour that he had spent in the room after the Variétés recurred to him, and contrasted with it their adieu became full of pathos. He questioned reproachfully if, in his determination not to be more than a friend, he might not have repaid her own friendship by ingratitude, and so have wounded her. He first decided that he would send her a letter, and then that he would not send her a letter. He made his way through the Champ Elysées reflectively, and once half obeyed a violent temptation to turn back. He would have obeyed it wholly but that he felt its indulgence would be laughable, or that Mrs. Deane-Pitt would be likely to look upon it in that light. So he restrained the impulse. But he could not laugh himself.
The respite afforded by the mont-de-piété was brief, and all that Kent received from Beaufort in the next three weeks was twenty francs. The Garins' faces in the hall were very glum, now, and the sum against "Notes remises" at the top of the bills that came up to the bedroom on Monday mornings had swelled to such disheartening dimensions that the debtor no longer gave himself the trouble to decipher the various items. In addition to this, the affairs ofThe World and his Wifehad reached a crisis, and he learnt from the Editor that it was doomed. An interval of restored hope ensued. The life of the paper hung in the balance—then they went to press no more.
Beaufort declared that Kent's claim would be discharged without delay, and, knowing the ex-proprietor's position, Humphrey could not believe that he would be allowed to suffer. That the Baronet was ignorant of his claim's existence and that it was Billy Beaufort who had to find, the money for him, he had no idea; no more had he suspected, when he took Cynthia to the Nouveau Cirque and applauded the contortions of "Mlle. Veronique," that the artiste who stood on her head, and kissed her toes to them, was in part responsible for their plight. Billy, realising that the matter must be squared somehow, if things weren't to become more unpleasant, spoke reassuringly of Sir Charles being momentarily in tight quarters; and Humphrey, in daily expectation of a cheque, made daily promises of a settlement to the Garins, while he discussed with Cynthia what should be their next move.
To remain in Paris would be useless, and they decided that they would go back to England as soon as the cheque was cashed. Perhaps it was fortunate, after all, that No. 64 had not been let! In London he must advertise again, and a post might be easier to find now that he could call himself an "assistant-editor" in the advertisement. The days went by, however, and Beaufort, whom he awoke, like an avenging angel, at early morning and tracked in desperation from bar to bar until he ran him to earth at night, still remained "in hourly expectation of the money." Both Cynthia and Kent feared that their inability to pay was known to everybody in the house; and they imagined disdain on the face of the Italian who waited on them at meals, and indifference in the bearing of Etienne when he laid the fire. The chambermaid's "Bonjour, m'sieur et madame," had a ring of irony to their ears, and on Mondays, in particular, they were convinced that she sneered when she put down their tray.
The thought made the girl so miserable that Kent took an opportunity of asking mademoiselle Garin if it was so, and she informed him that he was mistaken.
"Nobody 'as been told, monsieur," she said; "oh, not at all! But, monsieur, it is impossible that you remain, you know, if your affairs do not permit of a settlement. Your intentions are quite honourable—well understood; but my mother cannot wait. Her expense is terrible 'eavy 'ere; vraiment, c'est épouvantable, je vous assure, et—and—and my mother 'as an offer for your rooms, and she asks that you and madame locate yourselves elsewhere, monsieur, on Saturday."
After an instant of dismay, Humphrey was, on the whole, relieved at the idea of being allowed to depart in peace and to await his cheque where the situation wouldn't be strained. It was rather a nuisance, having to make a removal for so short a time, but when it was effected, he felt that they would be a great deal more comfortable. He replied that they would go, of course, and that madame Garin could depend upon his sending her the amount that he owed the moment that his arrears of salary were forthcoming. He said he thoroughly appreciated the consideration that she had shown them, and could not express how deeply he regretted to have inconvenienced her.
"Yes, monsieur," murmured mademoiselle Garin. She hesitated; she added, in a slightly embarrassed tone: "You know, monsieur, my mother must keep your luggage 'ere? Her lawyer 'as advised that."
"What?" said Kent. "Oh, my dear mademoiselle Garin! I will give your mother an acknowledgment—a promissory note—whatever she likes! She will only have to trust me for a few more days; I'm perfectly certain to have the money in the course of a week. She won't keep the luggage, surely? My—my dear young lady, think what it means with a wife and child!"
Mademoiselle Garin spread her arms with a shrug.
"It is always 'a few more days,' monsieur," she said. "My mother will permit you to take your necessaries for the few days, and the things belonging to the little one. No more."
"Can I see her?" inquired Kent, rather pale.
"Oh yes; she is in the bureau."
"The servants can hear everything that goes on in the bureau," he demurred. "Can't I talk to her in her room?"
Mademoiselle Garin preceded him there, and he tried his best to wring consent from the old woman, but she was as hard as nails, and would not listen for long. An "acknowledgment of the debt," certainly—the lawyer had advised that, too, and he would prepare it—but their luggage, jamais de la vie! The baby's box, and the bassinet; and for madame Kent and himself such articles as were indispensable for one week. She would agree to nothing else.
Cynthia was upstairs, playing with the baby, and Kent went in and shut the door that communicated with the nursery.
"What is it?" she asked, after a glance at his face.
He wondered if he could soften the news, but it did not lend itself to euphemisms. He told it to her in as light a tone as he could acquire.
"It won't be for any length of time, and we can easily make shift for a bit," he said. "It isn't as if the child's things had to be left behind, you see. A handbag will hold all we really need for ourselves. What do we want, after all, for a week? It isn't a serious matter, if one comes to look at it. It sounds worse than it is, I think."
She sat startled and still. Then she cuddled the baby close, and forced a smile.
"My brown frock will do," she assented; "I shall go in that! Oh, it isn't so dreadful, no. Of course, just for a moment it does give one a shock, doesn't it? But—but, as you say, it sounds worse than it is. Were they nasty to you?"
"The old lady wasn't very affectionate; the girl wasn't so bad. It's cussed awkward, darling, I know. Poor little woman! I was funking telling you like anything. It took me ten minutes coming up those stairs, and I nearly went out for a walk first."
She laughed; she was already quite brave again.
"We shall get through it all right," she said. "Where shall we go? We might go back to the hotel where we stayed first, mightn't we? We paid there."
"I thought of that," he replied; "but it was rather dear, wasn't it? We had better spend as little a possible; there are our passages, and we mustn't arrive in London with nothing. I'm afraid we shan't be able to get your ring out in any case."
"That can't be helped. I'm sorrier about your watch and chain. A man is so lost without a watch. Saturday? Saturday will be mi-carême, won't it? We shall celebrate it nicely.... Oh!" She sat upright, and stared at him with frightened eyes. "Humphrey—Nurse!"
His jaw dropped, and he looked back at her blankly.
"I'd forgotten her," he said.
"To see our luggage detained—it could only mean the one thing! Humphrey, what would she think? What can we do? She mustn't, mustn't know; I should die of shame."
"No," he said; "she mustn't know, that's certain. Good Lord! what an infernal complication at the last minute!Idon't know what's to be done, I'm sure. Take the child in to her, and let's think!"
He filled a pipe, and puffed furiously, until Cynthia came back.
"Couldn't we," he suggested—-"couldn't we say that as we're at the point of going home, we don't think it's worth while carting the heavy trunks to another place? Madame Garin has 'kindly allowed us to leave them here in the meantime.' Eh?"
Cynthia mused.
"Then, what are we going to another place ourselves for?" she said.
"Yes," said Kent; "that won't do. Hang the woman! she's a perfect bugbear to us; we're all the time struggling to live up to the teapot. I wish to heaven we could get rid of her altogether!"
"That," answered the girl, after a pause—"that is the only thing we can do. We must send her away, andI'lltake baby."
"You? A nice job for you! You could never go down to a meal; and travelling too—imagine it!"
"I can do it; I'd like it! Anything, anything rather than she should see us turned out and our luggage seized. That would be too awful! Yes, we must get her away, Humphrey. We must get her away before we leave here. Whatever happens afterwards is our own affair. She'll be gone and know nothing about it."
"That's very good," he said thoughtfully. "But there'll be her wages, and her passage back. Great Scott! and another month's wages because we don't give her proper notice! How much would it come to? I've got two francs fifty, and I've pawned my match-box. I'm afraid we must think of something else."
"We could send her second-class on the boat as well. Yes, certainly second-class. What does that cost? Have you got the paper you had? Look for it, do! it used to be in your bag."
Kent searched, and found it. He also felt that their lot would be comparatively a bed of roses if they were spared the astonished inquiries of the nurse.
"Second-class tickets are twenty-five and sevenpence," he announced, "and two months' wages are four pounds. Say five pounds ten. Well, dear, I might as well try to raise a million!"
He blew clouds, and waited for an inspiration, while she walked about the room with her hands behind her.
"Even if we could get it," she remarked, breaking a heavy silence, "I don't know what reason we could give for packing her off so suddenly. It would look rather a curious proceeding, wouldn't it?"
"We could say," said Kent, "that we have decided to live in Paris permanently. She'd want to go then—the charms of 'Olloway!"
"Yes," answered Cynthia, "we could say that. But why in such a gasping hurry?"
"Yes, it would be rather a rush, it's a fact. Well, I'll tell you! We are going on a visit to some friends in the country, and they haven't room for another nurse. Mrs. Harris's nurse will do all that's needed while we're there.... But five pounds ten! I can see Beaufort and make the attempt; but the man hasn't got it till the draft comes. You can't get blood out of a stone."
"Lethimgo and pawn his match-box, then, and his watch and chain, and his engagement-ring. He must find it for you. Humphrey, tell him you must have it. Say it's—it's a matter of life or death. Think of what we've gone through already, trembling in case she suspected what a state we were in. The blessed relief it will be to be alone and have no pretences to make! I shall feel new-born."
"I'll see him to-day," said Kent, catching her enthusiasm. "He's often in a place in the rue Saint-Honoré about four o'clock. What time is it now? Go in and ask her—she's the only one among us with a watch. Tell her mine has stopped—unless it has stopped too often."
"Yours is 'being cleaned.'" She disappeared for a second, and returned to say that it was half-past three. "Hurry, and you may catch him now!" she continued. "And—and, Humphrey, be very firm about it, won't you? If he hasn't got it, make him give you a definite promise when you shall have it. To-day's Tuesday—say youmusthave it by Thursday, at the latest. And come back and tell me the result as quickly as you can. Wait, here's a kiss for luck."
Kent kissed her warmly—she had never before seemed to him so companionable, such "a good fellow," as she did in this dilemma—and, picking up his hat and cane, he ran down the stairs, and made his way to the buffet in the rue Saint-Honoré at his best pace.
Beaufort was not to be seen in the bar, nor was he in the inner room; but on inquiring at the counter, Kent learnt that a gentleman there was now waiting for Billy, having an appointment with him for a quarter to four. This was very lucky. Kent took a seat on the divan and ordered a bock. Rolling a cigarette, he debated how he could put the matter strongly enough. He had expended so much eloquence of late without deriving any benefit from the interviews that he did not feel very hopeful of the upshot. However, he was resolved that he wouldn't fail for any lack of endeavour. After Beaufort came in, a little before five, he sat watching him warily until the other man took his leave.
Beaufort expressed pleasure at seeing him, and asked him to have a drink. Kent did not refuse the invitation, for it would be easier to talk there, in the corner, than dodging among the crowd in the streets, and he opened fire at once. He felt that his best card was absolute frankness, and explained the situation without reserve. Billy was entirely sympathetic. He romanced about Sir Charles, but was subsequently truthful. A draft from the Baronet might be delivered any morning or evening, but in the event of its not coming in time, he would straighten matters out himself! "He was damnably short, but he had arranged with a pal to jump for him. If he touched a bit to-morrow —of which there was, humanly speaking, no doubt—Kent should have a hundred and forty francs at night, and the balance of what was owing to him early in the week." Damon would repay himself when the draft arrived!
Such devotion demanded another drink, and though this left him with less than a franc in I his pocket, Kent went back to the pension de I famille in much better spirits, and feeling that he had good news to impart. Cynthia looked upon the tidings in the same light. As the nurse might learn from the servants that their rooms were to be vacated on Saturday, they decided to speak to her without delay. Kent informed her that they were going to friends in the country, preparatory to settling in Paris for two years, and that she must make her preparations to return to England on Saturday morning. This gave a margin for delay on Beaufort's part. The young woman was greatly taken aback, and though she did not wish to stay, there was real feeling in her voice as she said how sorry she would be to leave the baby. She hung over the bassinet, and tears came into her eyes. Then Cynthia choked, and began to cry too, and Humphrey found her five minutes later with her face buried in her pillow, sobbing that she felt "ashamed to have told lies to such a conscientious, nice-minded girl."
Kent's appointment with Beaufort next evening was for half-past eight, outside the Café de la Paix. The sous remaining after the conversation in the rue Saint-Honoré had gone for a nursery requirement, so he was unable to sit down while he waited. His man was very late, and he walked to and fro before the stretch of chairs and tables on the boulevard for nearly an hour, tacitly confessing himself penniless to every idler there. When Billy arrived at last, he began by saying that his news was "not altogether unsatisfactory," whereat Humphrey's heart sank, and when details were forthcoming, it appeared to him about as unsatisfactory as it could possibly have been. Stripped of the circumlocution by which the speaker sought to palliate its asperities, the news was, that the completion of his business had been deferred till Saturday, and that while he was confident of "touching" then, he feared that he could do nothing in the meantime. Kent took no pains to conceal his despondence. Seeing that he and Cynthia must leave the boarding-house by noon, and get the nurse out of the way and into the train by ten o'clock in the morning, "Saturday" sounded as hopeless as Doomsday. He explained the urgency of the situation afresh, over afine, and, after reflection, Billy thought that, assisted by the signature of somebody else, he could raise a hundred and fifty francs in another quarter. When he had had a secondfinehe was sure of it, and bade Humphrey meet him there again on the morrow at a quarter to two.
The following day was Thursday, and when Kent descended about eleven, madame Garin requested him to sign the document her lawyer had drawn up. After that had been done, and J duly witnessed—one may do anything one likes in France excepting not pay—Kent told her that his wife wished her to view the contents of the baby's trunk before it was closed. As a matter of fact, it was a rather large one, and they were anxious to avoid the possibility of its giving rise to remark in front of servants at the moment of departure. She replied that such an examination was not necessary; it would be sufficient if they instructed their nurse to pack nothing that didn't belong to the little one. This led to his informing her that the girl was quitting their service, and, to his horror, madame Garin said frigidly:
"You know what I have consented to, monsieur? The things of the child; and for madame Kent and yourself what is enough for one week. Nothing else."
"My God!" exclaimed Kent with a gasp; "you don't mean to say you won't let the girl take her box?"
"But certainly I mean it," she returned. "It was perfectly understood. I have already been too liberal."
"But—but—heavens above!" he stammered, "the girl doesn't owe you anything! My wife is dismissing her, so as to keep our humiliation from her knowledge, madame. If you refuse to let her box go, the exposure is complete!"
The proprietress shrugged her shoulders: "That does not concern me!"
This time Kent literally lacked the courage to tell Cynthia what had occurred. He went out, and dropped on to the first bench that he came to, sick in his soul. What was the use now if Beaufort did bring him the money when they met? The girl could not be sent home without her luggage, and they would have to make a clean breast of the whole affair to her, and beg her to be tolerant with them. Cynthia had been very plucky; she had taken the disappointment of last night like a brick, and was at the moment full of hope for the result of the appointment at a quarter to two; but he felt that this unexpected blow would surely crush her. It was the death-stroke to their scheme and entailed even more mortification than they had feared originally. He was at the foot of the Champs Elysées, and he sat staring with wide eyes at the passers-by—at the bonnes, big of bosom, with the broad, bright ribbons depending from their caps; at the children with their hoops, and the women in knicker-bockers, flashing through the sunshine on their bicycles. Paris looked so light-hearted that woe seemed incongruous in it.
Now, it happened, about half an hour subsequent to his leaving the house, that Cynthia decided to go with her baby and the nurse for a walk. Halfway down the stairs it was perceived that something had been forgotten, and she continued the descent alone. To her dismay, she saw the gaunt figure of madame Garin standing at the office door, and as she came timorously down the last flight, the proprietress stood with folded arms, watching her. Perhaps her nervousness was very evident; perhaps the other had been sorrier for her than she had shown; but as the girl reached the hall the grim old woman moved towards her, and, with a gesture that said as plainly as words, "Oh, you poor little soul!" took her face between her hands, and kissed her on the forehead.
"Listen," she said; "that's all right about the box of your servant—be easy!"
Cynthia murmured a response to her kindness without realising what was meant.
Presently Kent became aware that, among the stream of nurses and infants flowing up from the place de la Concorde, were his own nurse and infant, and that Cynthia accompanied them. She recognised him before they reached the bench, and coming over to him with surprise, sat down. And then each spoke of what the other did not know.
"What a half-hour you have had!" she cried when she understood.
And he exclaimed:
"But the relief! Heaven be praised you came this way!"
Their fate now hung once more on what Billy Beaufort would have to say, and Kent sped to the rendez-vous with restored energy. By the clock in the middle of the road it was twenty minutes to two when he reached the Café de la Paix, and, as before, it was impossible for him to take a chair. He rolled a thin cigarette with a morsel of tobacco that remained in his pouch, and paced his beat, smoking. At two o'clock Billy had not come. He had not come at half-past two. Kent doubted if this augured well for the tidings that were to be communicated, but he fortified himself by remembering that he awaited a man who was rarely punctual in any circumstances. Nevertheless, the later it became, the worse the chance looked, and when the clock pointed to three, he began to lose both hope and patience. At a quarter to four there was still no sign of Beaufort. The watcher's feet ached, and the pavement seemed to grow harder, and his boots to get tighter, with every turn. A little tobacco-dust lurked in the corners of his pouch—he thanked God to see it; and carefully, as if it had been dust of gold, he shook it on to a paper, and assuaged his weariness and rage with another cigarette. Beaufort meant the success or the failure of their plan, and while he had but scant expectation of his turning up now, he dared; not go away. He promised himself to go at four, but at four dreaded lest he might miss him just by five minutes and determined to stop until a quarter past. Despair had mastered him wholly when a cab rattled to a standstill and, forgetting! the pain of his feet, he saw Billy spring out. A glance, however, assured him that the waiting had been to no purpose; and after Billy had made many apologies, and recounted a series of misadventures, his statement was that he was unable to obtain any money until Saturday afternoon.
Kent dragged himself home, and Cynthia and he sat with bowed heads.
"We're done," said Humphrey, "and that's all about it! I must tell the girl we can't pay our bills and are turned out. Butshe'salways been paid up to the present; what's it to do with her, after all?"
"Wewon'tbe done!" declared Cynthia; "we won't! Humphrey, if—if I wrote——"
"No, by Jove!" he said; "I do bar that. We've kept our affairs from your people all along, and we won't give ourselves away now.... Do you mind very much?"
She did, but lied nobly.
"You're perfectly right," she answered; "I was a coward to think of it."
Kent squeezed her hand.
"You're a trump," he said. "Little woman, I've another idea—Turquand!"
She was breathless.
"Beautiful!"
"If Turquand has got it, Turquand will lend it; but—buthashe? Well, it's worth trying. Let's see: I can catch the post; he'll get the letter in the morning. If he answered on the instant, we could have the money to-morrow night. Good Lord! how tired I am! Where's the stationery?"
He dashed off a note begging his friend to send five pounds ten—or six pounds, if he could manage to spare so much—immediately, and then he remembered that he could not buy a stamp. There was a sick pause; defeat confronted them again.
"There's nothing for it," he said; "I must go and ask the Garins! I'd post it without one if we were in England, but here——"
He left her walking about the room in excitement and went down.
The bureau was shut; he learnt that the women were out.
"Do you think Nurse herself has got one?" he suggested, coming back, "or—or twenty-five centimes?"
"She is out, too. She took baby ten minutes ago.... Humphrey!"
"Another inspiration?"
"The bottles!" she cried triumphantly, pointing to the wardrobe. "There are three!"
On an empty bottle of the wine that they sometimes boiled in the evening, two sous were refunded if a customer chose to give himself the trouble to take it back. They had had occasion to acquire the knowledge. Kent pulled the bottles out, and, after an abortive effort to make a parcel of them, caught up his letter and ran to the shop. He got thirty centimes—bolted to the post-office, and saved the mail.
Nothing could be done now but pray that Turquand might be in a position to oblige him.
In the meantime the young woman—all unconscious of the jeopardy in which it had been—packed her box calmly in the room behind their door, and prepared for her departure on Saturday morning with the composure of one whose ticket and wages were as good as in her purse. By Friday evening the box was corded and labelled. When Kent and Cynthia entered and beheld it so, suspense tightened its grip about their hearts.
The mail would not be delivered until about nine o'clock, and when they judged that the hour was near, they sat with tense nerves, straining to hear Etienne's heavy footsteps on the landing. As yet they had not arranged where to remove to on the morrow, and they spoke disjointedly of the necessity for deciding something. Kent said that it would be desirable to have two rooms in the new place also; then they would be able to talk when the baby was asleep; in one room it would be awful. This assumption that the nurse would not be with them was followed by intensified misgivings, and in her imagination both saw her sitting on her tin box, with her hat on, while they faltered to her that after all, she couldn't go.
"If it comes in the morning, you know," he said, at the end of a long silence, "it will be in time. Her train doesn't start till ten."
"Y-e-s," said Cynthia; "sheexpectsit to-night.... Is that some one coming upstairs?"
"Nobody," answered Kent, listening intently.... "No, her train doesn't start till ten. I don't think, in point of fact, that we can look for it to-night. You see——"
"We needn'tgive upif it hasn't come when we go to bed."
"No; that's what I mean. One must allow for—hark!... no; it's nothing—one must allow for him having to——"
Cynthia uttered a cry.
"Itis! Come in—entrez—yes!"
Etienne appeared.
"A letter for monsieur!"
Kent snatched it from his hand; it was from Turquand. He tore it open. Postal orders for six pounds dazzled their eyes. In pencil was scribbled: "Here you are, sonny!—Yours ever, TURK."
Cynthia gave a hysterical laugh. They were say.
Ten minutes later, after she had blessed Turquand and her eyes were dried, she opened the door or the adjoining room with great dignity, and said:
"By the way, Nurse, I had better give you your money now. You can change enough postal orders for your ticket, you know, opposite the station."
Then she came back radiant. And Kent said salvation must be celebrated and, as their cab next day wouldn't cost ten shillings, they would go out on the Boulevard and drink Turquand's health—and buy some tobacco on the way.
Compared with what their state of mind had been, they were supremely contented now that the danger of their servant witnessing their disgrace was over; and in the morning, when they had bidden her good-bye, and watched her drive away, and their misfortunes were nobody's business but their own, they drew a breath of veritable thanksgiving.
Cynthia's trunks, and Humphrey's, and his hat-box, and the dressing-case that somebody had given to the girl as a wedding-present, were drawn together in a corner of the room to be left behind; and, with intermittent attentions to the baby, they stored their toilet articles, and all the linen that it would hold, in the hand-bag that was to be taken with them. The bassinet was already shut up and sewn in its canvas wrapper; and the blankets, and such of the child's clothing as would not go in its box, had been packed downstairs in the perambulator. There was nothing further to do but to put the oatmeal, and the saucepan, and a few other infantile necessaries, in a basket.
Leaving Cynthia to collect these, Kent hurried out to obtain accommodation at an hotel. He went first to the one where they had stayed on their arrival—it was close at hand. But all the communicating rooms were occupied, and he was forced to try somewhere else. Jordan, who had done "Turf Topics" forThe World and his Wife, had once mentioned to him a place in the rue de Constantinople as being cheap and comfortable, and he bent his steps there impatiently, regretting that they had not made their arrangements earlier. The mother had intended to see to the matter, in order to be sure that everything, was suitable, and that there wasn't a draught from the window, and the rest of it, but, being so much worried, she had put it off.
When he reached the address in the rue de Constantinople, he was not favourably impressed. The terms were low, but the proprietress seemed so, too; and, though her manner was jovial enough, and the place looked clean, he hesitated to settle with her. After he had tried at an hotel in the rue des Soeurs Filandières, at which he was obliged to own that the rate was higher than he was prepared to pay, he decided that he had been hypercritical and went back; but, as ill-luck would have it, the woman had let the apartments that she had shown him five minutes after he left. It was mi-carême, and the streets were beginning to be blocked by sight-seers. He remembered that Cynthia would be sitting anxiously in the chaotic bedroom, wandering why he was gone so long; and, hurrying through the crowd, he returned to the rue des Soeurs Filandières and said he had changed his mind.
He was glad when he had done so. It was for only a week, perhaps for less; and there was a chambermaid who would be willing to assist madame with the little one when she could, since madame found herself temporarily without a bonne. She had a cock eye, but she seemed to have a good heart, and Kent assured her that any extra services that she might render should be rewarded.
He made for the boarding-house at his best pace and told the waiter to send for a cab constructed to carry luggage on the roof. Cynthia was in a chair, with the baby on her lap, and she looked up eagerly. On the table was a tray with luncheon, for which she would have been unable to go down, even if she had had the audacity; and she explained that madame Garin, finding that she did not appear, had sent it up to her, unasked. Cynthia had not been hungry, but that was very nice of madame Garin! They were not entitled to déjeuner to-day.
The little basket was ready now, and Kent cast a gloomy glance at the impedimenta that were to be detained, questioning if he could manage to distribute more than three francs among the servants. Almost at the same moment there was a knock, and Etienne entered.
"I have called a cab," he announced surlily. "The patronne says there is no need for a voiture en galérie, because monsieur must not take his trunks."
The colour fell from their faces, and for a second they stood dumb and stock-still.
"Oh yes," stammered Kent at last, "we are leaving our heaviest trunks—we are going to send for them. But we need a voiture en galérie, all the same. I will speak to madame Garin."
He found her erect in the hall in her favourite attitude, her arms folded across her flat breast. Her face was as pale as his own, and her eyes were angry. He looked at her amazed.
"I don't understand your message, madame," he murmured. "I cannot have a voiture en galérie? But it is for the things you have allowed!"
"Not at all!" she exclaimed. "What do you suppose you will remove from my house? You will take 'what I have allowed'? But you need no voiture en galérie for that!"
"Pray speak quietly," he implored. "Look, there's the perambulator over there; and there are the box and bassinet! Of course they must go on the roof of a cab, we can't put them inside."
"Zut!" she answered; "I do not permit you to take such things. I will watch what you take. Fetch your things down!"
"Do you mean to say," muttered Kent with dry lips, "that at the last moment you refuse to let us take the child's bassinet?"
"I never consented to it. You lie!"
"Good God!" he said. "Isn't mademoiselle Garin at home? I want to see mademoiselle—where is she?"
"My daughter is out. No; you will not take the bassinet, and you will not take the perambulator. You will take what you can carry in the hand, and that is all."
"The perambulator wemusthave," he insisted. "If you keep the bassinet, you must let us have the perambulator—the child's bedding and half its clothes are in it."
"Never!" she repeated, and hugged herself determinedly.
"You have had my acknowledgment of the debt, and then you repudiate the agreement," said Kent, trembling with passion. "It is very honest, such behaviour!"
"'Honest'?" she echoed. "Ha! ha! it was perhaps 'honest' that you came here with your wife, and your little one, and your nurse, to live in my house, and eat at my table, and did not pay me for it? You are a thief—you are a rogue and a thief!"
His fingers twitched to smash some man in the face.
"And the box?" he gasped, fighting for the ground inch by inch. "Do you allowthat?"
"Never, never, never! Go and fetch your things down!"
He went up slowly with weak knees. Cynthia was standing in the middle of the room, pale and frightened. She had her hat on; the baby, dressed for the streets, was clasped in her arms.
"She won't let the luggage go," said Kent hoarsely. "God knows what's come to her—Idon't! Perhaps she thinks we were trying to get out more than was arranged; she swears now that she promised nothing. Come on; it's no good waiting. There's a cab at the door, let's go!"
"But—but what shall we do?" faltered the girl. "Humphrey, Babymusthave his things; it's impossible to do without them! Oh, this is awful!"
"Awful or not, we must put up with it. For Heaven's sake, let's get out of the damned place as fast as we can! Where were the most important things put?"
"I don't know—they are everywhere," she declared tremulously. "I want the basket when we get in; but afterwards I want the box, and the bedding—I want everything of Baby's. She must be a perfect wretch!"
He seized the basket and the hand-bag, and they descended the stairs, the baby crying loudly, and the tears dripping down the girl's cheeks. Fortunately, the boarders had all gone to see the procession; but madame Garin was still where Kent had left her, and Etienne, and the chambermaid, and the Italian waiter, suppressing a smile, stood watching about the hall. In an agony of shame that seemed as if it would suffocate her, Cynthia slunk past them to the cab, her head bent low over the child, and as the driver opened the door, she fell, rather than sank, on to the seat. Kent made to follow her immediately, but this was not to be. Madame Garin stopped him. She commanded him to display the contents of the bag; and then ensued a scene in which she became a mouthing, shrieking harridan. Remonstrance was futile. Collars, stockings, handkerchiefs, slippers, were wrested from him piece by piece, and flung on the office floor, while she loaded him with abuse, and the servants nudged one another, grinning. Kent clung to the basket like grim death, but the hand-bag, when she threw it back at his feet at last, had been emptied of so much that he dreaded to guess what was left in it. He picked it up without a word, and scurried through the hail, and plunged into the fiacre. Even then the ordeal was not over. As the man mounted to the box, a woman approached with whom they had grown rather friendly in the house, and, seeing Humphrey with the bag, she came to the cab-window and put amiable and maddening questions as to where they were going and when they were coming back. Kent was voiceless, but Cynthia leant forward and replied. In the midst of his misery and abasement, he admired his wife for the composure she contrived to simulate in such a moment.
On reaching the hotel it was necessary to invent some story to account for the absence of luggage, and he remarked as carelessly as possible that it would be delivered on the morrow. He had ordered luncheon to be ready for them; and in the room intended for Cynthia and the boy a fire had been lighted. She flew to the basket, and boiled some oatmeal while Kent endeavoured to soothe the mite, whose meal had been delayed by the disturbance, and who cried as if he would never be pacified any more. When the food was cooked, and something like order was restored, the luncheon was allowed to be brought up, the fillet overdone, and the potatoes hard and stiff. However, after what they had been through, it tasted to them delicious; and emboldened by the thought that there would be no bill for a week, Kent told the waiter to take away the wine that was included and to bring them a bottle of burgundy instead. The wine put heart into them both, and as their fatigue passed, they drew their chairs to one of the windows, and found courage to discuss the situation, while they gazed at the little ornamental garden at the corner of the street.
The baby slept, tucked in the quilt of the high; big bed, and Cynthia said that by-and-by he must be put inside the bed for the night, in the frock that he had on. Every minute revealed some further deficiency. They opened the bag, and they had neither brushes, nor sponges, and but a single comb. Yet she laughed again, for instinctively she realised that she was at the apex of her opportunity—that at such a crisis a wife must be either a solace or an affliction; she realised, that, whatever happened to them during the rest of their lives, there would be moments when he looked back on their experiences in Paris and remembered how she had behaved. As they sat there beside the open window, with the remainder of the bottle of burgundy between them, and a smile forced to her lips, the philistine might have been a bohemian born and bred. Again Kent marvelled silently at her pluck.
By the time the dinner was laid their nerves were almost as equable as their speech. But this renewed calmness received a sudden shock. It was the rule of the proprietress, they were told politely, to ask for a deposit from strangers, and she would be obliged if monsieur Kent would let her have twenty or thirty francs, purely as a matter of form.
Cynthia started painfully, and Kent refastened the paper of his cigarette before he answered.
"Certainly," he said. "Is thirty francs enough? I've only a cheque in my pocket, but tell madame I'll give her the money to-night."
When the waiter had withdrawn, he and Cynthia looked at each other aghast. Their breathing-space had been brief. They knew that their having no luggage had made the woman suspicious of them, and that, unless they were to be promptly turned out here as well, the thirty francs must be found. Dinner had to be eaten, lest they should appear discomfited by the message; but the coffee was no sooner swallowed than Kent prepared to go out. Swearing to obtain two or three louis before they slept, and reminding the girl that if Beaufort's expectations had been fulfilled he would now be in a position to let them have much more, he went to search for Billy among his various haunts. The streets were massed, and the slow pace permitted by the mob infuriated him. All Paris seemed to have surged on to the Boulevard, thronging the pavements and the roads, and playing the fool. He pushed forward as best he could, and tried the Grand, in the faint hope that the other might be dining there, or that something could be learnt of his movements, but he was able to learn nothing. After all, he thought, it would have been wiser to inquire at the bar in the rue Saint-Honoré; and retracing his steps, he now pressed through the crowd in the direction of the Madeleine, impeded and pelted with confetti at every yard. At the corner of the rue Caumartin a clown in scarlet satin thrust a pasteboard nose into his face. Kent; cursed him and shoved him aside, and the buffoon spun into the arms of a couple of shop-girls, who received him with shrill screams. The concourse appeared to grow noisier and more impenetrable every moment. It was the first mi-carême celebration that the young man had witnessed, and with fever in his veins, and wretchedness in every fibre of him, this carnival confusion, with its horseplay and hindrance, was maddening. The lamplight sparkled with the rain of coloured discs—they were pitched into his eyes and his ears as he struggled on—the asphalt was soft and heavy with them.
When he reached the Madeleine things were better. But at the buffet Beaufort had not been seen since five o'clock. Somebody there believed that he had an appointment at nine at the Café de la Paix. Kent edged into the throng again, and forged his way until the café was gained. The figure that he sought was in none of the rooms. He squeezed along to all the likeliest cafés on the Boulevard in turn, and in one of them he descried Jordan, whom he buttonholed eagerly. Yes, Jordan had met Beaufort this evening. Beaufort had said that later on he might go to the Moulin Rouge. This was a clue, at least, and Kent tramped wearily until the glittering sails of the windmill revolved in view. The price of admission had been raised to-night, but he could not hesitate. The dancing had already begun, and two-thirds of the assembly ran about in fancy dress. A quadrille was going on, and in different parts of the ballroom three sets were enclosed by vociferous, English spectators, while the band brayed a tuneless measure. His gaze roved among the company vainly, and he thought that he would be able to make his examination better when the sets broke up. The listless dancers, with stuff skirts and elaborate, be-ribboned petticoats lifted to their shoulders, looked like factory hands as they lumped perfunctorily over the floor. Momentarily a mechanical smile alleviated the gloom of their excessive plainness; at long intervals, spurred to energy by the cries of the audience, one of them gave a kick higher than usual, or threw a bit of slang to her vis-à-vis; but for the most part the performers were as spiritless as marionettes; the air of gaiety and interest was confined entirely to those who looked on.