The tram that passes the hotel gates took me into the town and dropped me at the Place du Gouvernement. With its strange fusion of East and West, its great white-domed mosque flanked by the tall minaret contrasting with its formal French colonnaded facades, its groupings of majestic white-robed forms and commonplace figures in caps and hard felt hats; the mystery of its palm trees, and the crudity of its flaring electric lights, it gave an impression of unreality, of a modern contractor's idea of Fairyland, where anything grotesque might assume an air of normality. The moon shone full in the heavens, and as I crossed the Place I saw the equestrian statue of the Duke of Orleans silhouetted against the mosque. The port, to the east, was quiet at this hour, and the shipping lay dreamily in the moonlight. Far away one could see the dim outlines of the Kabyle Mountains, and the vague melting of sea and sky into a near horizon. The undefinable smell of the East was in the air.
The Cafe de Bordeaux, which forms an angle of the Place, blazed in front of me. A few hardy souls, a Zouave or two, an Arab, a bored Englishman and his wife, and some French inhabitants were sitting outside in the chilliness. I entered. The cafe was filled with a nondescript crowd, and the rattle of dominoes rose above the hum of talk. In a corner near the door I discovered the top of a silk hat projecting above a widely opened newspaper grasped by two pudgy hands, and I recognised the Professor.
“Monsieur,” said he, when I had taken a seat at his table, “if the unknown terrors which you are going to confront dismay you, I beg that you will not consider yourself bound to me.”
“My dear Professor,” I replied, “a brave man tastes of death but once.”
He was much delighted at the sentiment, which he took to be original.
“I shall quote it,” said he, “whenever my honour or my courage is called into question. It is not often that a man has the temerity to do so. Can I have the honour of offering you a whisky and soda?”
“Have we time?” I asked.
“We have time,” he said, solemnly consulting his watch. “Things will ripen.”
“Then,” said I, “I shall have much pleasure in drinking to their maturity.”
While we were drinking our whisky and soda he talked volubly of many things—his travels, his cats, his own incredible importance in the cosmos. And as he sat there vapouring about the pathetically insignificant he looked more like Napoleon III than ever. His eyes had the same mournful depths, his features the same stamp of fatality. Each man has his gigantic combinations—perhaps equally important in the eyes of the High Gods. I was filled with an immense pity for Napoleon III.
Of the object of the adventure he said nothing. As secrecy seemed to be a vital element in his fifteen-cent scheme, I showed no embarrassing curiosity. Indeed, I felt but little, though I was certain that the adventure was connected with the world-cracking revelations of Monsieur Saupiquet, and was undertaken in the interest of his beloved lady, Lola Brandt. But it was like playing at pirates with a child, and my pity for Napoleon gave place to my pity for my valiant but childish little friend.
At last he looked again at his watch.
“The hour his struck. Let us proceed.”
Instinctively I summoned the waiter, and drew a coin from my pocket; and when the grown-up person and the small boy hobnob together the former pays. But Anastasius, with a swift look of protest, anticipated my intention. I was his guest for the evening. I yielded apologetically, the score was paid, and we went forth into the moonlight.
He led me across the Place du Gouvernement and struck straight up the hill past the Cathedral, and, turning, plunged into a network of narrow streets, where the poor of all races lived together in amity and evil odours. Shops chiefly occupied the ground floors; some were the ordinary humble shops of Europeans; others were caves lit by a smoky lamp, where Arabs lounged and smoked around the tailors or cobblers squatting at their work; others were Jewish, with Hebrew inscriptions. There were dark Arab cafes, noisy Italian wine-shops, butchers' stalls; children of all ages played and screamed about the precipitous cobble-paved streets; and the shrill cries of Jewish women, sitting at their doors, rose in rebuke of husband or offspring. Not many lights appeared through the shuttered windows of the dark, high houses. Overhead, between two facades, one saw a strip of paleness which one knew was the moonlit sky. Conversation with my companion being difficult—the top of his silk hat just reached my elbow—I strode along in silence, Anastasius trotting by my side. Many jeers and jests were flung at us as we passed, whereat he scowled terribly; but no one molested us. I am inclined to think that Anastasius attributed this to fear of his fierce demeanour. If so, he was happy, as were the simple souls who flouted; and this reflection kept my mind serene.
Presently we turned into a wide and less poverty-stricken street, which I felt sure we could have reached by a less tortuous and malodorous path. A few yards down we came to a darkporte cochere. The dwarf halted, crossed, so as to read the number by the gas lamp, and joining me, said:
“It is here. Have you your visiting-cards ready?”
I nodded. We proceeded down the dark entry till we came to a slovenly, ill-kept glass box lit by a small gas jet, whence emerged a slovenly, ill-kept man. This was the concierge. Anastasius addressed a remark to him which I did not catch.
“Au fond de la cour, troisieme a gauche,” said the concierge.
As yet there seemed to be nothing peculiarly perilous about the adventure. We crossed the cobble-paved courtyard and mounted an evil-smelling stone staircase, blackened here and there by the occasional gas jets. On the third landing we halted. Anastasius put up his hand and gripped mine.
“Two strong men together,” said he, “need fear nothing.”
I confess my only fear was lest the confounded revolver which swung insecurely in my hip-pocket might go off of its own accord. I did not mention this to my companion. He raised his hat, wiped his brow, and rang the bell.
The door opened about six inches, and a man's dark-moustachioed face appeared.
“Vous desirez, Messieurs?”
As I had not the remotest idea what we desired, I let Anastasius be spokesman.
“Here is an English milord,” said Anastasius boldly, “who would like to be admitted for the evening to the privileges of the Club.”
“Enter, gentlemen,” said the man, who appeared to be the porter.
We found ourselves in a small vestibule. In front of us was a large door, on the right a small one, both closed. At a table by the large door sat a dirty, out-of-elbows raven of a man reading a newspaper. The latter looked up and addressed me.
“You wish to enter the Club, Monsieur?”
I had no particular longing to do so, but I politely answered that such was my desire.
“If you will give your visiting-card, I will submit it to the Secretariat.”
I produced my card; Anastasius thrust a pencil into my hand.
“Write my name on it, too.”
I obeyed. The raven sent the porter with the card into the room on the right, and resumed the perusal of his soiled newspaper. I looked at Anastasius. The little man was quivering with excitement. The porter returned after a few minutes with a couple of pink oval cards which he handed to each of us. I glanced at mine. On it was inscribed:Cercle Africain d'Alger. Carte de Member Honoraire. Une soiree. And then there was a line for the honorary member's signature. The raven man dipped a pen in the ink-pot in front of him and handed it to me.
“Will you sign, Messieurs?”
We executed this formality; he retained the cards, and opening the great door, said:
“Entrez, Messieurs!”
The door closed behind us. It was simply atripot, or gambling-den. And all this solemn farce of Secretariats andcartes d'entreeto obtain admission! It is curious how the bureaucratic instinct is ingrained in the French character.
It was a large, ill-ventilated room, blue with cigarette and cigar smoke. Some thirty men were sitting or standing around a baccarat table in the centre, and two or three groups hung aroundecartetables in the corners. A personage who looked like a slightly more prosperous brother of the raven outside and wore a dinner-jacket, promenaded the room with the air of one in authority. He scrutinised us carefully from a distance; then advanced and greeted us politely.
“You have chosen an excellent evening,” said he. “There are a great many people, and the banks are large.”
He bowed and passed on. A dingy waiter took our hats and coats and hung them up. Anastasius plucked me by the sleeve.
“If you don't mind staking a little for the sake of appearances, I shall be grateful.”
I whispered: “Can you tell me now, my dear Professor, for what reason you have brought me to this gaming-hell?”
He looked up at me out of his mournful eyes and murmured, “Patienza, lieber Herr.” Then spying a vacant place behind the chairs at the baccarat table, he darted thither, and I followed in his wake. There must have been about a couple of hundred louis in the bank, which was held by a dissipated, middle-aged man who, having once been handsome in a fleshy way, had run to fat. His black hair, cropped short, stood up like a shoebrush, and when he leaned back in his chair a roll of flesh rose above his collar. I disliked the fellow for his unhealthiness, and for the hard mockery in his puffy eyes. The company seemed fairly homogeneous in its raffishness, though here and there appeared a thin, aristocratic face, with grey moustache and pointed beard, and the homely anxious visage of a small tradesman. But in bulk it looked an ugly, seedy crowd, with unwashed bodies and unclean souls. I noticed an Italian or two, and a villainous Englishman with a face like that of a dilapidated horse. A glance at the table plastered with silver and gold showed me that they were playing with a five-franc minimum.
Anastasius drew a handful of louis from his pocket and staked one. I staked a five-franc piece. The cards were dealt, the banker exposed a nine, the highest number, and the croupier's flat spoon swept the table. A murmur arose. The banker was having the luck of Satan.
“He always protects me, the good fellow,” laughed the banker, who had overheard the remark.
Again we staked, again the hands were dealt. Our tableau or end of the table won, the other lost. The croupier threw the coins in payment. I let my double stake lie, and so did Anastasius. At the next coup we lost again. The banker stuffed his winnings into his pocket and declared asuite. The bank was put up at auction, and was eventually knocked down to the same personage for fifty louis. The horse-headed Englishman cried “banco,” which means that he would play the banker for the whole amount. The hands were dealt, the Englishman lost, and the game started afresh with a hundred louis in the bank. The proceedings began to bore me. Even if my experience of life had not suggested that scrupulous fairness and honour were not the guiding principles of such an assemblage, I should have taken little interest in the game. I am a great believer in the wholesomeness of compounding for sins you are inclined to by damning those you have no mind to. It aids the nice balance of life. And gambling is one of the sins I delight to damn. The rapid getting of money has never appealed to me, who have always had sufficient for my moderately epicurean needs, and least of all did it appeal to me now when I was on the brink of my journey to the land where French gold and bank notes were not in currency. I repeat, therefore, that I was bored.
“If the perils of the adventure don't begin soon, my dear Professor,” I whispered, “I shall go to sleep standing.”
Again he asked for patience and staked a hundred-franc note. At that moment the man sitting at the table in front of him rose, and the dwarf slipped swiftly into his seat. He won his hundred francs and made the same stake again. It was obvious that the little man did not damn gambling. It was a sin to which he appeared peculiarly inclined. The true inwardness of the perilous adventure began to dawn on me. He had come here to make the money wherewith he could further his gigantic combinations. All this mystery was part of his childish cunning. I hardly knew whether to box the little creature's ears, to box my own, or to laugh. I compromised with a smile on the last alternative, and baccarat being a dreary game to watch, I strolled off to the nearestecartetable, and, to justify my presence in the room, backed one of the players.
Presently my attention was called to the baccarat table by a noise as of some dispute, and turning, I saw the gentleman in the dinner-jacket hurrying to what appeared to be the storm centre, the place where Anastasius was sitting. Suspecting some minor peril, I left theecarteplayers, and joined the gentleman in the dinner-jacket. It seemed that the hand, which is played in rotation by those seated at each tableau or half-table, had come round for the first time to Anastasius, and objection had been taken to his playing it, on the score of his physical appearance. The dwarf was protesting vehemently. He had played baccarat in all the clubs of Europe, and had never received such treatment. It was infamous, it was insulting. The malcontents of the punt paid little heed to his remonstrances. They resented the entrusting of their fortunes to one whose chin barely rose above the level of the table. The banker lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair with a smile of mockery. His attitude brought up the superfluous flesh about his chin and the roll of fat at the back of his neck. With his moustacheen croc, and his shoebrush hair, I have rarely beheld a more sensual-looking desperado.
“But gentlemen,” said he, “I see no objection whatever to Monsieur playing the hand.”
“Naturally,” retorted a voice, “since it would be to your advantage.”
The raven in the dinner-jacket commanded silence.
“Gentlemen, I decide that, according to the rules of the game, Monsieur is entitled to play the hand.”
“Bravo!” exclaimed one or two of my friend's supporters.
“C'est idiot!” growled the malcontents.
“Messieurs, faites vos jeux!” cried the croupier.
The stakes were laid, the banker looked around, estimating the comparative values of the two tableaux. Anastasius had backed his hand with a pile of louis. To encourage him, and to conciliate the hostile punt, I threw down a hundred-franc note.
“Les jeux sont faits? Rien ne va plus.”
The banker dealt, two cards to each tableau, two to himself. Anastasius, trembling with nervous excitement, stretched out a palsied little fist towards the cards. He drew them towards him, face downwards, peeped at them in the most approved manner, and in a husky voice called for an extra card.
The card dealt face upwards was a five. The banker turned up his own cards, a two and a four, making a point of six. Naturally he stood, Anastasius did nothing.
“Show your cards—show your cards!” cried several voices.
He turned over the two cards originally dealt to him. They were a king and a nine, making the natural nine, the highest point, and he had actually asked for another card. It was the unforgivable sin. The five that had been dealt to him brought his point to four. There was a roar of indignation. Men with violent faces rose and cursed him, and shook their fists at him. Others clamoured that the coup was ineffective. They were not going to be at the mercy of an idiot who knew nothing of the game. The hand must be dealt over again.
“Jamais de la vie!” shouted the banker.
“Le coup est bon!” cried the raven in authority, and the croupier's spoon hovered over the tableau. But the horse-headed Englishman clutched the two louis he had staked. He was damned, and a great many other things, if he would lose his money that way. The raven in the dinner-jacket darted round, and bending over him, caught him by the wrist. Two or three others grabbed their stakes, and swore they would not pay. The banker rose and went to the rescue of his gains. There was screaming and shouting and struggling and riot indescribable. Those round about us went on cursing Anastasius, who sat quite still, with quivering lips, as helpless as a rabbit. The raven tore his way through the throng around the Englishman and came up to me excited and dishevelled.
“It is all your fault, Monsieur,” he shrieked, “for introducing into the club a half-witted creature like that.”
“Yes, it's your fault,” cried a low-browed, ugly fellow looking like a butcher in uneasy circumstances who stood next to me. Suddenly the avalanche of indignation fell upon my head. Angry, ugly men crowded round me and began to curse me instead of the dwarf. Cries arose. The adventure began, indeed, to grow idiotically perilous. I had never been thrown out of doors in my life. I objected strongly to the idea. It might possibly hurt my body, and would certainly offend my dignity. I felt that I could not make my exit through the portals of life with the urbanity on which I had counted, if, as a preparatory step, I had been thrown out of a gambling-hell. There were only two things to be done. Either I must whip out my ridiculous revolver and do some free shooting, or I must make an appeal to the lower feelings of the assembly. I chose the latter alternative. With a sudden movement I slipped through the angry and gesticulating crowd, and leaped on a chair by one of the desertedecartetables. Then I raised a commanding arm, and, in my best election-meeting voice, I cried:
“Messieurs!”
The unexpectedness of the manoeuvre caused instant silence.
“As my friend and myself,” I said, “are the cause of this unpleasant confusion, I shall be most happy to pay the banker the losses of the tableau.”
And I drew out and brandished my pocket-book, in which, by a special grace of Providence, there happened to be a considerable sum of money.
Murmurs of approbation arose. Then the Englishman sang out:
“But what about the money we would have won, if that little fool had played the game properly?”
The remark was received with cheers.
“That amount, too,” said I, “I shall be happy to disburse.”
There was nothing more to be said, as everybody, banker and punt, were satisfied. The raven in the dinner-jacket came up and informed me that my proposal solved the difficulty. I besought him to make out the bill for my little entertainment as quickly as possible. Then I dismounted from my chair and beckoned to the dwarf, still sitting white and piteous, to join me. He obeyed like a frightened child who had been naughty. All his swagger and braggadocio were gone. His bosom heaved with suppressed sobs. He sat down on the chair I had vacated and buried his face on theecartetable. We remained thus aloof from the crowd who were intent on the calculation at the baccarat table. At last the raven in the dinner-jacket arrived with a note of the amount. It was two thousand three hundred francs. I gave him the notes, and, taking Anastasius by the arm, led him to the door, where the waiter stood with our hats and coats. Before we could reach it, however, the banker, who had risen from his seat, crossed the room and addressed me.
“Monsieur,” said he, with an air of high-bred courtesy, “I infinitely regret this unpleasant affair and I thank you for your perfect magnanimity.”
I did not suggest that with equal magnanimity he might refund the forty-six pounds that had found its way from my pocket to his, but I bowed with stiff politeness, and made my exit with as much dignity as the attachment to my heels of the crestfallen Anastasius would permit.
Outside I constituted myself the guide, and took the first turning downhill, knowing that it would lead to the civilised centre of the town. The dwarf's roundabout route was characteristic of his tortuous mind. We walked along for some time without saying anything. I could not find it in my heart to reproach the little man for the expensiveness (nearly a hundred pounds) of his perilous adventure, and he seemed too dazed with shame and humiliation to speak. At last, when we reached, as I anticipated, the Square de la Republique, I patted him on the shoulder.
“Cheer up, my dear Professor,” said I. “We both are acquainted with nobler things than the ins and outs of gaming-hells.”
He reeled to a bench under the palm trees, and bursting into tears, gave vent to his misery in the most incoherent language ever uttered by man. I sat beside him and vainly attempted consolation.
“Ah, how mad I am! Ah, how contemptible! I dare not face my beautiful cats again. I dare not see the light of the sun. I have betrayed my trust. Accursed be the cards. I, who had my gigantic combination. It is all gone. Beautiful lady, forgive me. Generous-hearted friend, forgive me. I am the most miserable of God's creatures.”
“It is an accident that might happen to any one,” I said gently. “You were nervous. You looked at the cards, you mistook the nine for a ten, in which case you were right to call for another card.”
“It is not that,” he wailed. “It is the spoiling of my combination, on which I have wasted sleepless nights. A curse on my mad folly. Do you know who the banker was?”
“No,” said I.
“He was Captain Vauvenarde, the husband of Madame Brandt.”
You could have knocked me down with a feather. It is a trite metaphor, I know; but it is none the less excellent. I repeat, therefore, unblushingly—you could have knocked me down with a feather. I gasped. The little man wiped his eyes. He was the tearfullest adult I have ever met, and I once knew an Italianprima donnawith a temperament.
“Captain Vauvenarde? The man with the shoebrush hair and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck? Are you sure?”
The dwarf nodded. “I set out from England to find him. I swore to thecarissima signorathat I would do so. I have done it,” he added, with a faint return of his self-confidence.
“Well, I'm damned!” said I, in my native tongue.
I don't often use strong language; but the occasion warranted it. I was flabbergasted, bewildered, out-raged, humiliated, delighted, incredulous, and generally turned topsy-turvy. In conversation one has no time for so minute an analysis of one's feelings. I therefore summed them up in the only word. Captain Vauvenarde! The wild goose of my absurd chase! Found by this Flibbertigibbet of a fellow, while I, Simon de Gex, erstwhile M.P., was fooling about War Offices and regiments! It was grotesque. It was monstrous. It ought not to have been allowed. And yet it saved me a vast amount of trouble.
“I'm damned!” said I.
Anastasius had just enough English to understand. I suppose, such is mortal unregeneracy, that it is the most widely understood word in the universe.
“And I,” said he, “am eternally beaten. I am trampled under foot and shall never be able to hold up my head again.”
Whereupon he renewed his lamentations. For some time I listened patiently, and from his disconnected remarks I gathered that he had gone to the Cercle Africain in view of his gigantic combinations, but that the demon of gambling taking possession of him had almost driven them from his mind. Eventually he had lost control of his nerves, a cloud had spread over his brain, and he had committed the unspeakable blunder which led to disaster.
“To think that I should have tracked him down—for this!” he exclaimed tragically.
“What beats me,” I cried, “is how the deuce you managed to track him down. Your magnificent intellect, I suppose”—I spoke gently and not in open sarcasm—“enabled you to get on the trail.”
He brightened at the compliment. “Yes, that was it. Listen. I came to Algiers, the last place he was heard of. I go to the cafes. I listen like a detective to conversation. I creep behind soldiers talking. I find out nothing. I ask at the shops. They think I am crazy, but Anastasius Papadopoulos has a brain larger than theirs. I go to my old friend the secretary of the theatre, where I have exhibited the marvellous performance of my cats. I say to him, 'When have you a date for me?' He says, 'Next year.' I make a note of it. We talk. He knows all Algiers. I say to him, 'What has become of Captain Vauvenarde of the Chasseurs d'Afrique?' I say it carelessly as if the Captain were an old friend of mine. The secretary laughs. 'Haven't you heard? The Captain was chased from the regiment——'”
“The deuce he was!” I interjected.
“On account of something,” said Anastasius. “The secretary could not tell what. Perhaps he cheated at cards. The officers said so.
“'Where is he now?' I ask. 'Why, in Algiers. He is the most famous gambler in the town. He is every night at the Cercle Africain, and some people believe that it belongs to him.' My friend the secretary asks me why I am so anxious to discover Captain Vauvenarde. I do not betray my secret. When I do not wish to talk I close my lips, and they are sealed like the tomb. I am the model of discretion. You, Monsieur, with the high-bred delicacy of the English statesman, have not questioned me about my combination. I appreciate it. But, if you had, though it broke my heart, I should not have answered.”
“I am not going to pry into your schemes,” I said, “but there are one or two things I must understand. How do you know the banker was Captain Vauvenarde?”
“I saw him several times in Marseilles with thecarissima signora.”
“Then how was it he did not recognise you to-night?”
“I was then but an acquaintance of Madame; not her intimate friend, counsellor, champion, as I am now. I did not have the honour of being presented to Captain Vauvenarde. I went to-night to make sure of my man, to play the first card in my gigantic combination—but, alas! But no!” He rose and thumped his little chest. “I feel my courage coming back. My will is stiffening into iron. When thecarissima signoraarrives in Algiers she will find she has a champion!”
“How do you know she is coming to Algiers?” I asked startled.
“As soon as I learned that Captain Vauvenarde was here,” he replied proudly, “I sent her a telegram. 'Husband found; come at once.' I know she is coming, for she has not answered.”
An idea occurred to me. “Did you sign your name and address on the telegram?”
He approached me confidentially as I sat, and wagged a cunning finger.
“In matters of life and death, never give your name and address.”
As Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos was himself again, and as I began to sneeze—for the night was chilly—I rose and suggested that we might adjourn this conference till the morrow. He acquiesced, saying that all was not lost and that he still had time to mature his combinations. We crossed the road, and I hailed a cab standing by the Cafe d'Alger. I offered Anastasius to drive him to his hotel, but he declined politely. We shook hands.
“Monsieur,” said he, “I have to make my heartfelt apologies for having caused you so painful, so useless, and so expensive an evening. As for the last aspect I will repay you.”
“You will do no such thing, Professor,” said I. “My evening has, on the contrary, been particularly useful and instructive. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.”
And I drove off homewards, glad to be in my own company.
Here was an imbroglio! The missing husband found and, like most missing husbands, found to be entirely undesirable. And Lola, obviously imagining her summons to be from me, was at that moment speeding hither as fast as theMarechal Bugeaudcould carry her. If I had discovered Captain Vauvenarde instead of Anastasius I would have anathematised him as the most meddlesome, crazy little marplot that ever looked like Napoleon the Third. But as the credit of the discovery belonged to him and not to me, I could only anathematise myself for my dilettanteism in the capacity of a private inquiry agent.
I went to bed and slept badly. The ludicrous scenes of the evening danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, sordid room, the ignoble faces round the table, the foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius, my melodramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the fleshy Captain Vauvenarde. Also, in the small hours of the night, Anastasius's gigantic combinations assumed a less trivial aspect. What lunatic scheme was being hatched behind that dome-like brow? His object in taking me to the club was obvious. He could not have got in save under my protection. But what he had reckoned upon doing when he got there Heaven and Anastasius Papadopoulos only knew. I was also worried by the confounded little pain inside.
On the following afternoon I went down to meet the steamer from Marseilles. I more than expected to find the dwarf on the quay, but to my relief he was not there. I had purposely kept my knowledge of Lola's movements a secret from him, as I desired as far as possible to conduct affairs without his crazy intervention. I was not sorry, too, that he had not availed himself of my proposal to visit me that morning and continue our conversation of the night before. The grotesque as a decoration of life is valuable; as the main feature it gets on your nerves.
I stood on the sloping stone jetty among the crowd of Arab porters and Europeans and watched the vessel waddle in. Lola and I, catching sight of each other at the same time, waved handkerchiefs in an imbecile manner, and when the vessel came alongside, and during the tedious process of mooring, we regarded each other with photographic smiles. She was wearing a squirrel coat and a toque of the same fur, and she looked more like a splendid wild animal than ever. Something inside me—not the little pain—but what must have been my heart, throbbed suddenly at her beauty, and the throb was followed by a sudden sense of shock at the realisation of my keen pleasure at the sight of her. A wistful radiance shone in her face as she came down the gangway.
“Oh, how kind, how good, how splendid of you to meet me!” she cried as our hands clasped. “I was dreading, dreading, dreading that it might be some one else.”
“And yet you came straight through,” said I, still holding her hand—or, rather, allowing hers to encircle mine in the familiar grip.
“Didn't you command me to do so?”
I could not explain matters to her then and there among the hustle of passengers and the bustle of porters. Besides, Rogers, who had come down with the hotel omnibus, was at my side touching his hat.
“I have ordered you a room and a private sitting-room with a balcony facing the sea. Put yourself in charge of me and your luggage in charge of Rogers and dismiss all thoughts of worry from your mind.”
“You are so restful,” she laughed as we moved off.
Then she scanned my face and said falteringly. “How thin and worn you look! Are you worse?”
“If you ask me such questions,” said I, “I'll leave you with the luggage in charge of Rogers. I am in resplendent health.”
She murmured that she wished she could believe me, and took my arm as we walked down the jetty to the waiting cab.
“It's good to hear your voice again,” I said. “It's a lazy voice and fits in with the lazy South.” I pointed to the burnous-enveloped Arabs sleeping on the parapet. “It's out of place in Cadogan Gardens.”
She laughed her low, rippling laugh. It was music very pleasant to hear after the somewhat shrill cachinnation of the Misses Bostock of South Shields. I was so pleased that I gave half a franc to a pestilential Arab shoeblack.
“That was nice of you,” she said.
“It was the act of an imbecile,” I retorted. “I have now rendered it impossible for me to enter the town again. How is Dale?”
She started. “He's well. Busy with his election. I saw him the day before I left. I didn't tell him I was coming to Algiers. I wrote from Paris.”
“Telling him the reason?”
She faced me and met my eyes and said shortly: “No.”
“Oh!” said I.
This brought us to the cab. We entered and drove away. Then leaning back and looking straight in front of her, she grasped my wrist and said:
“Now, my dear friend, tell me all and get it over.”
“My dear Madame Brandt—” I began.
She interrupted me. “For goodness' sake don't call me that. It makes a cold shiver run down my back. I'm either Lola to you or nothing.”
“Then, my dear Lola,” said I, “the first thing I must tell you is that I did not send for you.”
“What do you mean? The telegram?”
“It was sent by Anastasius Papadopoulos.”
“Anastasius?” She bent forward and looked at me. “What is he doing here?”
“Heaven knows!” said I. “But what he has done has been to find Captain Vauvenarde. I am glad he has done that, but I am deeply sorry he sent you the telegram.”
“Sorry? Why?”
“Because there was no reason for your coming,” I said with unwonted gravity. “It would have been better if you had stayed in London, and it will be best if you take the boat back again to-morrow.”
She remained silent for a while. Then she said in a low voice:
“He won't have me?”
“He hasn't been asked,” I said. “He will, as far as I can command the situation, never be asked.”
On that I had fully determined; and, when she inquired the reason, I told her.
“I proposed that you should reunite yourself with an honourable though somewhat misguided gentleman. I've had the reverse of pleasure in meeting Captain Vauvenarde, and I regret to say, though he is still misguided, he can scarcely be termed honourable. The term 'gentleman' has still to be accurately defined.”
She made a writhing movement of impatience.
“Tell me straight out what he's doing in Algiers. You're trying to make things easy for me. It's the way of your class. It isn't the way of mine. I'm used to brutality. I like it better. Why did he leave the army and why is he in Algiers?”
“If you prefer the direct method, my dear Lola,” said I—and the name came quite trippingly on my tongue—“I'll employ it. Your husband has apparently been kicked out of the army and is now running a gambling-hell.”
She took the blow bravely; but it turned her face haggard like a paroxysm of physical pain. After a few moments' silence, she said:
“It must have been awful for him. He was a proud man.”
“He is changed,” I replied gently. “Pride is too hampering a quality for a knight of industry to keep in his equipment.”
“Tell me how you met him,” she said.
I rapidly sketched the whole absurd history, from my encounter with Anastasius Papadopoulos in Marseilles to my parting with him on the previous night. I softened down, as much as I could, the fleshiness of Captain Vauvenarde and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck, but I portrayed the villainous physiognomies of his associates very neatly. I concluded by repeating my assertion that our project had proved itself to be abortive.
“He must be pretty miserable,” said Lola.
“Devil a bit,” said I.
She did not answer, but settled herself more comfortably in the carriage and relapsed into mournful silence. I, having said my say, lit a cigarette. Save for the clanging past of an upward or downward tram, the creeping drive up the hill through the long winding street was very quiet; and as we mounted higher and left the shops behind, the only sounds that broke the afternoon stillness were the driver's raucous admonition to his horses and the wind in the trees by the wayside. At different points the turns of the road brought to view the panorama of the town below and the calm sweep of the bay.
“Exquisite, isn't it?” I said at last, with an indicative wave of the hand.
“What's the good of anything being exquisite when you feel mouldy?”
“It may help to charm away the mouldiness. Beauty is eternal and mouldiness only temporal. The sun will go on shining and the sea will go on changing colour long after our pains and joys have vanished from the world. Nature is pitilessly indifferent to human emotion.”
“If so,” she said, her intuition finding the weakness of my slipshod argument, “how can it touch human mouldiness?”
“I don't know,” said I. “The poets will tell you. All you have to do is to lie on the breast of the Great Mother and your heartache will go from you. I've never tried it myself, as I've never been afflicted with heartache.”
“Is that true?” she asked, womanlike catching at the personal.
I smiled and nodded.
“I'm glad on your account,” she said sincerely. “It's the very devil of an ache. I've always had it.”
“Poor Lola,” said I, prompted by my acquired instinct of eumoiriety. “I wish I could cure you.”
“You?” She gave a short little laugh and then turned her head away.
“I had a very comfortable crossing,” she remarked a moment later.
I gave her into the keeping of the manager of the hotel and did not see her again until she came down somewhat late for dinner. I met her in the vestibule. She wore a closely fitting brown dress, which in colour matched the bronze of her hair and in shape showed off her lithe and generous figure.
I thought it my duty to cheer her by a well-deserved compliment.
“Are you aware,” I said, with a low bow, “that you're a remarkably handsome woman?”
A perfectly unnecessary light came into her eyes and a superfluous flush to her cheeks. “If I'm at least that to you, I'm happy,” she said.
“You're that to the dullest vision. Follow themaitre d'hotel,” said I, as we entered thesalle a manger, “and I'll walk behind in reflected glory.”
We made an effective entrance. I declare there was a perceptible rattle of soup-spoons laid down by the retired Colonels and maiden ladies as we passed by. Colonel Bunnion returned my nod of greeting in the most distracted fashion and gazed at Lola with the frank admiration of British Cavalry. I felt foolishly proud and exhilarated, and gave her at my table the seat commanding a view of the room. I then ordered a bottle of champagne, which I am forbidden to touch.
“It isn't often that I have the pleasure of dining with you,” I said by way of apology.
“This is the very first time,” she said.
“And it's not going to be the last,” I declared.
“I thought you were going to ship me back to Marseilles to-morrow.”
She laughed lazily, meeting my eyes. I smiled.
“It would be inhuman. I allow you a few day's rest.”
Indeed, now she was here I had a curious desire to keep her. I regarded the failure of my eumoirous little plans with more than satisfaction. I had done my best. I had found (through the dwarf's agency) Captain Vauvenarde. I had satisfied myself that he was an outrageous person, thoroughly disqualified from becoming Lola's husband, and there was an end of the matter. Meanwhile Fate (again through the agency of Anastasius) had brought her many hundreds of miles away from Dale and had moreover brought her to me. I was delighted. I patted Destiny on the back, and drank his health in excellent Pommery. Lola did not know in the least what I meant, but she smiled amiably and drank the toast. It was quite a merry dinner. Lola threw herself into my mood and jested as if she had never heard of an undesirable husband who had been kicked out of the French Army. We talked of many things. I described in fuller detail my adventure with Anastasius and Saupiquet, and we laughed over the debt of fifteen sous and the elaborate receipt.
“Anastasius,” she said, “is childish in many ways—the doctors have a name for it.”
“Arrested development.”
“That's it; but he is absolutely cracked on one point—the poisoning of my horse Sultan. He has reams of paper which he calls the dossier of the crime. You never saw such a collection of rubbish in your life. I cried over it. And he is so proud of it, poor wee mite.” She laughed suddenly. “I should love to have seen you hobnobbing with him and Saupiquet.”
“Why?”
“You're so aristocratic-looking,” she did me the embarrassing honour to explain in her direct fashion. “You're my idea of an English duke.”
“My dear Lola,” I replied, “you're quite wrong. The ordinary English duke is a stout, middle-aged gentleman with a beard, and he generally wears thick knickerbockers and shocking bad hats.”
“Do you know any?”
“Two or three,” I admitted.
“And duchesses, too?”
I again pleaded guilty. In these democratic days, if one is engaged in public and social affairs one can't help running up against them. It is their fault, not mine.
“Do tell me about them,” said Lola, with her elbows on the table.
I told her.
“And are earls and countesses just the same?” she asked with a disappointed air.
“Just the same, only worse. They're so ordinary you can't pick them out from common misters and missuses.”
Saying this I rose, for we had finished our dessert, and proposed coffee in the lounge. There we found Colonel Bunnion at so wilful a loose end that I could not find it in my heart to refuse him an introduction to Lola. He manifested his delight by lifting the skirt of his dinner-jacket with his hands and rising on his spurs like a bantam cock. I left her to him for a moment and went over to say a civil word to the Misses Bostock of South Shields. I regret to say I noticed a certain frigidity in their demeanour. The well-conducted man in South Shields does not go out one night with a revolver tucked away in the pocket of his dress-suit, and turn up the next evening with a striking-looking lady with bronze hair. Such goings-on are seen on the stage in South Shields in melodrama, and they are the goings-on of the villain. In the eyes of the gentle ladies my reputation was gone. I was trying to rehabilitate myself when the chasseur brought me a telegram. I asked permission to open it, and stepped aside.
The words of the telegram were like a ringing box on the ears.
“Tell me immediately why Lola has joined you in Algiers. —KYNNERSLEY.”
Not “Dale,” mark you, as he has signed himself ever since I knew him in Eton collars, but “Kynnersley.” Why has Lola joined you? Why have you run off with Lola? What's the reason of this treacherous abduction? Account for yourself immediately. Stand and deliver. I stood there gaping at the words like an idiot, my blood tingling at the implied accusation. The peremptoriness of it! The impudence of the boy! The wild extravagance of the idea! And yet, while my head was reeling with one buffet a memory arose and gave me another on the other side. I remembered the preposterous attitude in which Dale had found us when he rushed from Berlin into Lola's drawing-room.
I took the confounded telegram into a remote corner of the lounge, like a dog with a bone, and growled over it for a time until the humour of the situation turned the growl into a chuckle. Even had I been in sound health and strength, the idea of running off with Lola would have been absurd. But for me, in my present eumoirous disposition of mind; for me, a half-disembodied spirit who had cast all vain and disturbing human emotions into the mud of Murglebed-on-Sea; for me who had a spirit's calm disregard for the petty passions and interests of mankind and walked through the world with no other object than healing a few human woes; for me who already saw death on the other side of the river and found serious occupation in exchanging airy badinage with him; for me with an abominable little pain inside inexorably eating my life out and wasting me away literally and perceptibly like a shadow and twisting me up half a dozen times a day in excruciating agony; for me, in this delectable condition of soul and this deplorable condition of body, to think of running hundreds of miles from home with—to say the least of it—so inconvenient a creature as a big, bronze-haired woman, the idea was inexpressibly and weirdly comic.
I stepped into the drawing-room close by and drew up a telegram to Dale.
“Lady summoned by Papadopoulos on private affairs. Avoid lunacy save for electioneering purposes.—SIMON.”
Then I joined Lola and Colonel Bunnion. She was lying back in her laziest and most pantherine attitude, and she looked up at me as I approached with eyes full of velvet softness. For the life of me I could not help feeling glad that they were turned on me and not on Dale Kynnersley.
Almost immediately the elder Miss Bostock came up to claim the Colonel for bridge. He rose reluctantly.
“I suppose it's no use asking you to make a fourth, Mr. de Gex?” she asked, after the subacid manner of her kind.
“I'm afraid not,” I replied sweetly. Whereupon she rescued the Colonel from the syren and left me alone with her. I lit a cigarette and sat by her side. As she did not stir or speak I asked whether she was tired.
“Not very. I'm thinking. Do you know you've taught me an awful lot?”
“I? What can I have taught you?”
“The way people like yourself look at things. I'm treating Dale abominably. I didn't realise it before.”
Now why on earth did she bring Dale in just at that moment.
“Indeed?” said I.
She nodded her head and said in her languorous voice:
“He's over head and ears in love with me and thinks I care for him. I don't. I don't care a brass button for him. I'm a bad influence in his life, and the sooner I take myself out of it the better. Don't you think so?”
“You know my opinions,” I said.
“If I had followed your advice at first,” she continued, “we needn't have had all this commotion. And yet I'm not sorry.”
“What do you propose to do?” I asked.
“Before deciding, I shall see my husband.”
“You shall do no such thing.”
She smiled. “I shall.”
I protested. Captain Vauvenarde had put himself outside the pale. He was not fit to associate with decent women. What object could she have in meeting him?
“I want to judge for myself,” she replied.
“Judge what? Surely not whether he is eligible as a husband!”
“Yes,” she said.
“But, my dear Lola,” I cried, “the notion is as crazy as any of Anastasius Papadopoulos's. Of course, as soon as he learns that you're a rich woman, he'll want to live with you, and use your money for his gaming-hell.”
“I am going to meet him,” she said quietly.
“I forbid it.”
“You're too late, dear friend. I wrote him a letter before dinner and sent it to the Cercle Africain by special messenger. I also wrote to Anastasius. I asked them both to see me to-morrow morning. That's why I've been so gay this evening.”
At the sight of my blank face she laughed, and with one of her movements rose from her chair. I rose too.
“Are you angry with me?”
“I thought I had walked out of a nightmare,” I said. “I find I'm still in it.”
“But don't be angry with me. It was the only way.”
“The only way to, or out of, what?” I asked, bewildered.
“Never mind.”
She looked at me with a singular expression in her slumbrous eyes. It was sad, wistful, soothing, and gave me the idea of a noble woman making a senseless sacrifice.
“There is no earthly reason to do this on account of Dale,” I protested.
“Dale has nothing to do with it.”
“Then who has?”
“Anastasius Papadopoulos,” she said with undisguised irony.
“I beg your pardon,” I said rather stiffly, “for appearing to force your confidence. But as I first put the idea of joining your husband into your head and have enjoyed your confidence in the matter hitherto, I thought I might claim certain privileges.”
As she had done before, she laid her hands on my shoulders—we were alone in the alcove—and looked me in the eyes.
“Don't make me cry. I'm very near it. And I'm tired to-night, and I'm going to have a hellish time to-morrow. And I want you to do me a favour.”
“What is that?”
“When I'm seeing my husband, I'd like to know that you were within call—in case I wanted you. One never knows what may happen. You will come won't you, if I send for you?”
“I'm always at your service,” I said.
She released my shoulders and grasped my hand.
“Good-night,” she said, abruptly, and rushed swiftly out of the room, leaving me wondering more than I had ever wondered in my life at the inscrutable ways of women.