"Ithink you are," she breathed tenderly. "Will you not permit me to prove my belief?"
"I shall be honoured, if--in a few months--the time is scarcely ripe for me to move; and you will understand. In short, when things are different--your noble offer--we can discuss it later. Believe me"--he thrilled her with a light touch--"I comprehend the nobility of your nature. Ah, my friend, do not press me to take advantage of so glorious a sacrifice."
So stammered Demetrius, his confusion being worse confounded, and wrapping up refusal in evasive words, meaningless if sugared. Katinka sighed. Always she pressed her mediatory offer, and always she declined acceptance. Angry that the proffered gift should be flung back in her face, she suddenly felt a sense of outrage at his persistent quibbling. This man must see that she loved him; yet he trifled with her too obvious passion. There was Lady Jim, of course, in spite of Lady Jim's readjustment of the situation at Monte Carlo. Yet, could he, could any man, love this chilly, self-centered Englishwoman? No! As she knew, Demetrius demanded love for love, and he certainly would not give all to Lady Jim without receiving back in kind. Therefore he did not love the woman; therefore he was heart-whole; and being so, why should he not yield to one who was ready to suffer all for his sake? She could not understand; but this she knew--that her self-respect rebelled.
And at the moment, that feeling, swallowing up all others, impelled her to walk away, without even a backward glance. But she remained where she was, since her adoration for this unresponsive god amounted to monomania. She hated to cringe, to cast down her womanly dignity; but she was forced to do so. Passion proved stronger than self-respect, than natural shame, than maiden pride. Enthralled by Venus, as had been Helen of Troy, she was forced to grovel at the feet of this--as she suspected--ignoble Paris. Would he never smile? Would he never unbend? She could not say; she did not know. All she felt was pure unhappiness, and she could have cursed the power which trammelled her in these nets of undesired love. The gods were sporting, and Olympus shook with laughter at her mortal sorrow.
"Come--when you need me," said she, and rose.
Demetrius was self-seeking, yet possessed human feelings, and of these shame was uppermost. The vein of divinity which streaked his clay made him acknowledge that he was using hardly this flouted worshipper. Outwardly at least, and with an impetuosity alien to his calculating character, he wished to make amends.
"Let me come also."
"There is no need," she replied coldly, and crossed to the tea-table. "You will excuse my departure, Lady James. I have an engagement, Mr. Askew!" She bowed, and then went silently out of the room.
"Do you follow, doctor?" asked Lady Jim, stepping with him to the scarcely closed door.
He did not reply directly, but glanced across her shoulder towards the yawning lieutenant. "Remember," he breathed significantly, and in his turn departed.
Leah wondered that the feelings which had evoked the word should not have kept him watchful of her pretty play, and confessed herself puzzled by his abrupt following of Katinka's trail. But having, as she knew, aroused his jealousy, there was no need to consider meanings which would not affect her schemes. Aksakoff was due, and before he appeared it was necessary to teach Askew the rôle of cat's-paw. He was to decoy Demetrius to Paris, but of course, she did not mean him to be aware of his ignoble duties. She returned to rebuke him for yawning and to propose a remedy.
"What you need is change of scene, if not of society. Now there is Paris, which you probably know well."
"I do not know it at all," he confessed.
"What a neglected education! I must teach you Paris. Will you be ready for your first lesson early next week?"
"I do not quite understand."
Lady Jim nodded laughingly. "Which proves that 'our future' is now split into 'your future' and 'my future.'"
"I am more in the dark than ever," said the amazed listener.
Lady Jim curled her lip contemptuously. "You men need so much explanation," said she; then, meaningly, "I can still retain you as a friend, I hope."
"What do you--that is--on what grounds----? You do not comprehend!" He stuttered, grew red, and writhed over the fire on which she was grilling him, with much enjoyment to herself.
"Ah, but I do comprehend--very clearly, too. When did the change come?"
"The--change?"
"Of heart, if you wish me to enter into details."
"There is no change in me," he denied, still red and flurried.
"And no truth either, when you make such a statement!" With a light laugh she recalled his fierce wooing: "you would not attempt to break my wrists now."
"I am very, very sorry, that I was rough with yon."
"Quite so, and cannot you see that such sorrow explains everything?"
"Not to me," said Askew, desperately fervent.
Leah clapped her hands gaily. "How very badly you do it! Do not go on the stage, I beg of you. Well!" she kissed her hand to him, "adieu! I hope she will be happy."
"Who will be happy?"
"The other woman."
"There is no----" He caught her derisive eyes, and broke down with an uneasy laugh. "I suppose we have made a mistake."
"Youhave," she replied, promptly emphasising the pronoun.
"Ah!" His pride was wounded by the implied indifference. "Then you knew it would come to this?"
"Of course, because I did not choose that it should end otherwise. If I had chosen, you would still have been----" She glanced smilingly at her slim feet, then handled the teapot with ostentatious liveliness. "You can have some cold tea, if you like."
As Askew had intended to drop her, the idea that she was dropping him--and very readily, too--was wounding to his vanity. "You never loved me," he declared.
"Did I ever say that I did?"
"Well, no; all the same----"
She clasped her hands over her knee, and smiled indulgently at his mortified face. "All the same, you are unwise to explain, so we will change the subject, Mr. Askew."
"Ah! Not even Harry?"
"Not even Leah," she mocked. "Still, you can call me Lady Jim."
"Till you change the name."
"Certainly not for that of Askew. Señorita Fajardo may think differently, when you propose."
"How do you know I shall?" he asked sulkily, for every word she uttered fretted his uneasy vanity.
"Because you are a shuttle-cock between two battledores. She sent you flying to me; I shall speed you back to her."
The young man was almost too mortified to speak. "What a light, vain fool you make me out to be!"
"No. You are merely a man in the hands of two women--clay in the hands of accomplished potters. Now," she laid a caressing hand on his arm, "promise me to go back to Rosario at once."
"No!" snapped Askew, wincing at the touch, and so gave her the very answer she required.
Her motive in pelting him with hard sentences had been to arouse his vanity to assert itself in aggressive contradiction; and for three reasons. Firstly, she did not wish him to make an inconvenient third in Mr. Berring's wooing of the Spanish lady, lest he should learn much that it was undesirable for him to know. Secondly, she required him as her Parisian decoy-duck. And thirdly, it was out of the question that he should dare to end the flirtation without her leave. A reflection of these things led her to play skilfully on manly conceit, with the aforesaid result. She was satisfied when he replied in the negative. Askew also, since thereby, in his own estimation, he had vindicated virility, and lacked the insight to see himself her puppet. Having gained her end, Lady Jim apparently yielded to the lord-of-creation fiat.
"Well, then, come to Paris with me and Joan Tallentire. We go on Monday to the Hotel Henri Trois, Champs Élysées. You can come on Wednesday."
"But I don't think----"
"I am quite sure you don't. Perhaps Thursday will suit you better."
"If you insist."
"I do not, unless on common sense, of which you possess so little."
"How you bully me!" he cried, much vexed by this badgering.
"Of course; we always bully those we love--as friends, that is. Ah, here is M. Aksakoff. What a surprise!" She rose gracefully and sailed forward with outstretched hand, "So kind of you to come! You know Mr. Askew, I think."
The diplomatist bowed, and seated himself near the table, whereat Askew, devoured by a desire for further confidences, fumed, with depressed eyebrows and twisted mouth. Lady Jim rang for fresh tea, listening meanwhile to Aksakoff discussing the safe subject of the weather. Occasionally she glanced with amusement at her victim, who by this time did not know his own mind, and certainly was incapable of analysing his very complicated feelings. She bewildered him; he was not master of himself in her presence, and alternately quailed and rebelled under her spells. Flight from Circe was his wisest plan.
"Must you?" inquired Lady Jim, winningly, at the first movement.
"Must what, please," he asked sulkily, settling down again.
"Must you go? I see you must. So sorry. Good-bye."
"I do not want to----"
"To be bored. Naturally; a widow is but dull company. Please do not leave us in the dark. The button is on the right-hand side of the door. No; that is wrong!" She rose and switched on the light herself. "That is better! Don't you think it is? So good of you to come and cheer me!" Then, dropping her voice, "Paris?"
"I shall cross on Wednesday," he murmured; "then we can resume our conversation."
"What pleasure you promise me!" she retorted; and, closing the door, came back to the waiting diplomatist, yawning daintily. "Excuse me, M. Aksakoff: I have just ended a bad quarter of an hour."
"That young man, madame?"
"The same. He wants to marry me. Shocking, isn't it, seeing that I scarcely know how to pose as a widow?"
"But natural on his part, surely."
"How nicely you pay compliments! By the way," sliding away from the subject, "your daughter was here. She has gone off somewhere with your friend, M. Demetrius."
Aksakoff frowned. "It is kind of you to enlarge my circle of acquaintance, madame. I presume you desire to speak of this gentleman?"
Leah raised her eyebrows. "No; why should I?"
"Our conversation at Monte Carlo----"
"Did we converse? So we did! Something about a sunset, wasn't it?"
The diplomatist became unworthy of the name, through sheer irritation. "Can we not drop our masks, madame?"
"I never knew that we wore such things," said Lady Jim, lightly. "I am sure I do not. Why should I?"
"But you sent for me."
Leah placed her elbows on the table, and the tips of her fingers together. "I did, to ask you for some letters to nice people in Paris."
"Ah!" His face lighted up. "You go to Paris?"
"My good friend, have I not said so? And the letters?"
"I shall be delighted;" Aksakoff was now beginning to understand the necessity of reading between the remarks. "But are letters necessary? I hope to be in Paris myself next week."
"How delightful! You will be able to amuse me. Do not look shocked. I assure you I only wish to drown my grief."
"Of course," assented Aksakoff, dryly; then added, with a significance she ignored: "Do you go alone to Paris?"
"Oh, dear me, no. Miss Tallentire goes with me. A charming girl who is engaged to my cousin, the Rev. Lionel Kaimes. We stay for a week at the Hotel Henri Trois, Champs Élysées. Very quietly, you know, as I am still mourning."
"As you are still in mourning," corrected her visitor, politely.
"Certainly. You would not have me flaunting colours with poor dear Jim just dead. I want to be cheered up, and I ask you and Mr. Askew to cheer me."
"Oh! ah!" Aksakoff wrinkled his brow. "Mr. Askew goes to Paris, also?"
"He said something about it. Such a nuisance, seeing that he thinks--well, I told you."
"Madame, his thoughts are excusable. But M. Demetrius will be angered."
"What do you mean?" demanded Lady Jim, imperiously.
Aksakoff's patience was almost exhausted. "We spoke at Monte Carlo," he reminded her. "Surely we understand one another."
"Possibly you may. I am quite in the dark. Why should you couple my name with that of M. Demetrius?"
"Report says that he loves you."
"Oh--report!" She laughed, frankly amused. "If you believe reports----" Here a shrug and a contemptuous laugh. "Why, reports leave no one a shred of character. I quite expect that my enemies--Mrs. Penworthy, for one--will say that Mr. Askew followed me to Paris, for the purpose of marrying me at the British Embassy."
Aksakoff admired her profoundly. Without committing herself in any way or for a single instance, she was placing in his hands the thread of the intrigue. Tacitly acknowledging a diplomatic superior, he followed her lead. "I trust that Mrs. Penworthy, whom I have the honour to know, will not spread such a report," he said gravely.
"Oh, but she will. A horrid woman, and scarcely respectable. She has called in Dr. Demetrius as her medical attendant, and if--as you say--he admires me, she is sure to make mischief."
"Well," said Aksakoff, reflectively, "I am perfectly sure that if M. Demetrius heard such gossip, he would----"
"Forbid the banns," finished Leah, hastily and derisively. "Pah! Do you think, knowing his danger, he would trust himself in Paris? You are entirely wrong, M. Aksakoff. Our mutual friend left me this very afternoon to follow your daughter. Let him marry her--now do."
"No," said Aksakoff, setting down his cup. "Until he surrenders Katinka he is safer in England."
"In that case, please do not let Mrs. Penworthy gossip him into crossing the Channel."
"For your sake, I will not," said Aksakoff, dryly, and with every intention of aiding and abetting Mrs. Penworthy. "Will you give me another cup of tea?"
She supplied him, and their conversation embraced a variety of subjects. No further mention was made of Demetrius, or of Katinka, or of Askew, or even of Paris. They quite understood one another, did these two clever people. When the diplomatist departed he kissed Lady Jim's hand with courtly warmth.
"You are a charming woman, madame--a truly admirable woman; but"--he straightened himself, and looked into her eyes--"I should not like to have you for an enemy."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Lady Jim, artlessly.
"A compliment, madame--believe me, a very high compliment."
"Oh, it's lovely, lovely, lovely!" sang Joan Tallentire, clapping her hands, and whirling dervish-fashion around the room.
A radiant day or so in Paris had acted on her as sunshine acts on a flower, when the petals expand, the colour deepens, and the perfume exhales. What observer, casual or close, would have recognised in this eager-eyed and sparkling girl the timid companion of Lady Canvey? For weeks she had associated with the octogenarian; many months had she superintended the well-being of pauper hags in Lambeth slums; and in the nursing of an ailing mother many precious years had been expended. No wonder the fire of being burnt low; no marvel that for long the eyes had lacked lustre and the cheeks colour. It was truly a case of the old eating the young--stealing by contact, as it were, the vitality of youth to reanimate waning life.
Now Lady Jim, playing fairy-godmother, had transformed this Cinderella, and the grub of Lambeth soared a splendid dragon-fly. The spring, long delayed in its coming, sang in her veins. With stimulating company, amidst novel surroundings, and with tempting food for satisfying physical and moral appetites, came the renascent period. Joan felt the burden of artificial years slip from her shoulders; her quick blood, responding to its environments, rose to fever heat. One cloud alone necked the sunshine of pleasure's dawn.
"I wish Lionel was here," she sighed.
"A Pagan in the temple, a Jew in the church," said Lady Jim, shrugging. "My dear, Paris was invented for clergymen to rail at, not to enjoy."
"Lionel is not narrow-minded, Lady James. He approves of innocent amusements."
"Magic-lanterns and penny readings. I fear Paris cannot supply those dissipations. You can enjoy them under the honeymoon. Meanwhile Mr. Askew is less exacting and more amusing."
"There is no one like Lionel--no one."
"I grant that, else would the world be innocent and dull."
Joan pursed up her pretty lips and wrinkled a smooth brow. "I don't understand that," said she, meditatively.
"No," assented Leah, with a slow and somewhat envious look; "you never will."
"Why not?"
"I could give you fifty reasons, but three will do. You are good and kind and healthy-minded to excess--an angel, whose white wings flutter above the mire in which we bipeds grovel. Quite the wife for our unsophisticated padre. St. Sebastian and St. Cecilia--surely a marriage arranged in heaven."
Miss Tallentire could not quite follow Leah's flights--not an infrequent occurrence. Nevertheless, her intuition espied a compliment.
"Do you really mean that?"
"As I rarely mean anything. Let me be candid for once, since we converse in the nursery, and say that I respect Lionel and I respect you."
"I would rather have love," suggested the girl, timidly.
Leah touched her breast with eight finger-tips. "From----" Then in response to an answering blush: "My dear, I love no one but myself."
"I can't believe that, or you would not have bothered to bring me to Paris."
"Merely the desire for a new sensation. I assure you, as Lionel assured me, that all my virtues spring from the Ego."
"What is the Ego?"
"Leah Kaimes in this instance."
"I don't think you are selfish," persisted Joan; "if you really and truly were, you would not say so."
"Oh, but I should; that is my refined form of self-love. When I cry aloud my imperfections, I receive some such compliment as you have paid. Then little god Ego, sitting within my breast, sniffs up the incense."
"In that case I am selfish, too. I like to be told nice things."
"And to be given nice things, such as---- Well, I expect Lionel, in spite of clerical propriety, can explain better than I, and," added Lady Jim, mischievously, "in dumb show. My dear, your Ego is shaped like a good young padre; you are merged in Lionel--swallowed up, as some one's rod swallowed up some one else's. I suppose now"--Leah nursed her knees with clasped hands--"I suppose when you marry St. Sebastian, you will be wildly happy in a dull country rectory, wearing twice-turned gowns and last year's hats, and fussing after old women and grubby village urchins, with your husband's sermons for relaxation when penny readings pall."
"Quite happy," assented Joan, laughing at the over-coloured picture--"with Lionel, of course."
"As I say: your Ego is his Ego. Dear!" and Lady Jim dropped two impulsive kisses on her companion's cheeks. Joan wondered at this uninvited display of affection, and wondered still more when Leah turned away with a somewhat bitter laugh. Perhaps, had she guessed the truth, her sympathy would have extended to this woman, whom self-love isolated from humanity.
It pleased Leah to pose as this simple maid's providence, and on the whole she sustained her deity excellently. Many a time did she check her free-spoken and sharp tongue, lest Joan should feel hurt, or become precociously enlightened about those sins which are dubbed idiosyncrasies in society. The amusements provided were primitive and commonplace, as befitted the retirement of a newly made widow and uncultureddébutantetastes. Drives in the Bois; visits to the Louvre, to Versailles, to Notre Dame--on the tail of Hugo's romance--to Père Lachaise; many inspections of many delightful shops, one concert at least, and the exploration of places which had to do with the picturesque history of France filtered through Baedeker and Murray. Leah, unused to bread and milk, thought the majority of these outings insipid; but Joan enjoyed them immensely, and wondered at Continental dissipation. Her ignorance credited Leah with loving, and invariably leading, this Cook's-tourist life when abroad; and that lady laughed frequently, in the seclusion of her bedroom, at the idea of being limited to nursery geography. Nevertheless, she did not undeceive heringénue; the bloom, if she could prevent it, should not be brushed too early from this peach. Which reticence and determination showed that Lady Jim had in her some soul of that goodness which lives in things evil.
Askew duly arrived forty-eight hours later, so that his meeting with Leah might appear unexpected. He called daily at the Hotel Henri Trois, and on a hint from Lady Jim devoted attention to Joan the maid. Leah herself philandered in a business-like way with M. Aksakoff, who, strange to say, followed Askew's trail on important business. Lady Jim enjoyed many interesting conversations with him, dealing with a quiet obliteration of Demetrius, if he should by any chance walk into the trap. Joan and her cavalier, good surface readers, did not guess at the elements working below, and so danced unsuspectingly on a volcano. The fickle sailor was now lukewarm in his affections, and, as Leah purposed dropping him gradually as soon as Demetrius was on his way to Siberia, she was not ill pleased to watch red-hot passion cool to ashen-grey friendship. Certainly it still remained to withhold him from seeking a foreign wife over-seas, but she postponed schemes of prevention pending the disposal of immediate troubles. Sometimes it occurred to her that Askew, a man of tow like all sailors, might catch fire from contact with Joan; but, player as she was with the hearts and brains of men, she cherished sufficient friendship for Lionel to forgo a possible spoiling of his sober romance. There was little danger that Miss Tallentire would exchange Church for Navy, but that the juxtaposition of an artless maid and an inflammable bachelor might not breed fickleness, Lady Jim wrote a letter. "Why not come over and escort us back to town?" ran this epistle. "Also, in Paris you will assuredly find material for a sermon on the wickedness of that great city Nineveh,--I believe you parsons give Western towns Eastern names, when you wish to abuse them--to avoid libel actions, maybe." Then followed the mention of the rope to drag this clerical lover across Channel. "Do come, if only to see how Joan enjoys the society of Mr. Askew."
The expected happened on the fifth day of Lady Jim's sojourn in Paris, when, shortly after noon, Demetrius, obviously disordered in dress and mind, presented himself in the character of a bolt from the blue. Luckily, Askew was translating to Joan the Luxor hieroglyphics in the vicinity of the Place de la Concorde Obelisk, so that she had an hour to explain away the rumours which had undoubtedly brought him over. When the sitting-room door clicked behind him--he facing her with black looks--she drew a deep breath to brace for the fight, and heard, what he did not, the snick of prison bolts shot home. So far, lured by the will-o'-the-wisp, jealousy, he had followed recklessly the dangerous path; now it remained for her to conduct him to the precipice, over which she and Aksakoff intended he should be thrown. A trifle of acting was necessary to reassure the venturesome and perhaps suspicious traveller.