The Sparrow and the Cassowary were much delighted with their own dinner and their own ball.
Freddy Newlyn was a kindly little man, with an absurd fussy manner full of importance, as so many kindly little men have. Is it by some gentle providential dispensation that the physically insignificant are so often upheld by harmless vanity?
The Cassowary, on the other hand, bony and distressingly red in the wrong places, suffered from a realisation of her own defects that she endeavoured to conceal by an assumption of the wildest high spirits. This jocularity, of course, became at times rather painful, but as she was possessed of much money and a kind heart, it was forgiven her.
The dinner was very large, and the guests sat at small tables all over the place—a delightful invention of the Cassowary's, who screamed with piercing glee at the excitement displayed as lots were drawn for the different tables.
"Seven, Sir John? Then you'll find your partner and go to the library—only three tables there! Dicky, what is your number? Four? Oh, you lucky little brute The conservatory. Who's your girl? Oh, yes, Piggy! Aren't I a lamb?"
The numbers of the various tables were being drawn, as she spoke, from a vase on the drawing-room table.
"And you, M. Joyselle? Thirteen. Oh, what awful luck!"
Everyone screamed with laughter, for the Norman was looking with unfeigned concern at his bit of paper.
"Je n'aime pas le treize, madame," he protested, disregarding the prevailing mirth.
"But—what can I do? It's a nice table in the billiard-room. Who's your partner?"
"Lady Sophy Browne—which is she?"
"Oh, Sophy Browne. Go on drawing, you men, I must speak to Fred. I say, Fred——"
The good-natured Cassowary tramped across to the door where the Sparrow was standing, and bending down, said something to him.
"Is he really? I say, that's too bad. But you can't change the tables, can you, dear?"
"I don't know. These kind of people are so superstitious, you see; it's enough to make him glum all the evening, and Sophy was so keen—she says he looks like a bust by Rodin, and she wants to do him in pen and ink."
The Sparrow rubbed his pointed nose thoughtfully.
"Change the two of 'em to another table, can't you?"
"I've got 'em all sorted, though. Unless—I might change Billy and the Farquhar girl to their table, and put them in the boudoir balcony! Billy wouldn't mind and the Farquhar girl doesn't matter; she didn't get me those tickets, anyhow."
The Sparrow gave a little hop of satisfaction.
"Right. That'll do famously."
So the Cassowary went back to the table and laid her hand on Joyselle's sleeve. "I have put you at another table, M. Joyselle. You go to the boudoir balcony—Sophy will take you there—so it's all right. I must go and find Billy Vere now. Oh——" turning, she found herself face to face with Brigit Mead, who had just arrived.
"I say, Brigit, would you mind sitting at the table with M. Joyselle? Eugene Struther is your man, and M. Joyselle objects to his table because it is number thirteen."
Brigit, shaking hands with her enthusiastic hostess, caught Joyselle's eye. He had heard.
"Mind? Not a bit," she answered carelessly, "if he doesn't."
Mrs. Newlyn turned, to find the top of Joyselle's head presented to her in a bow of mockly-resigned acquiescence. "Then,that'sall right. What's the matter, Oliver?"
Lord Oliver Maytopp, a cherished clown in that section of society in which the Newlyns had their being, was making believe to cry, his large mouth opened grotesquely, his fists digging into his eyes.
"I d—don't want to sit at the table next Meg's," he sobbed, "when I tell funny stories she always—makes faces at me. I want to go home to Nursey."
Brigit moved away, her upper lip raised disdainfully. How odious they all were!
And how detestable the whole house with its health of art-treasures, selected by an artist friend of Newlyn's.
"Nouveau-riche?" asked Joyselle, joining her.
"No. That is, they are well-born, but they arenouveauas regards money. Her father made a lucky speculation in electric-lighting, I think it was, after she was married. They haven't got used to their money yet. So," she added, as they stepped out on to one of the many balconies with which the house was ornamented, "you don't object to sitting at my table?"
"Brigitte!"
His was of the type of face that is ennobled by any strong passion, and he looked very splendid as he towered above her, white and shaken.
"You will not leave me?" she asked, again possessed by the fear that had tormented her from the moment when he had dropped his violin the evening of the golden frock.
"Brigitte," he returned, leaning on the rail and presenting a non-committal back to anyone who might chance to join them, "let us not talk of that yet. I love you, and you are mine, and I am yours, whatever happens."
An agony of terror took her strength as he spoke. Uncertainty was always hard for her to bear, but in this vital matter she felt that she could not endure it.
"If you are going to be cruel and leave me," she said, her face taking on an expression of relentless cruelty, "you must do so at once."
He turned.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean—I cannot bear suspense. If, for any reason, you are going to—to go—please go now."
He was honestly puzzled, for she looked at him as if he had been an enemy.
"My dear—my beloved—what do you mean?" His voice was grieved and gentle. "Surely you can see that——" he broke off into French, "that the situation is not simple? That we love we cannot help—nor would we, by God!—but in an honest man and an honest woman——"
"Come along, you two," cried Mrs. Newlyn, "dinner is announced. M. Joyselle, go and find Lady Sophy, and you, Brigit, come and be found by your man—I forget who he is——"
"Eugene Struther," she answered quietly, "I am glad, too."
Struther was one of the best of the young men to be met at the Newlyns, and he and she always got on fairly well. Their table was squeezed rather tightly into a little balcony looking over the diminutive garden that, although she never went into it, or knew one of its flowers from another, was one of the several joys of the Cassowary's heart. So few people have gardens in London.
Lady Sophy Browne, an ethereal-looking woman, with a consciously wan smile and a grey chiffon frock, that looked as if it would have had to be unpinned and unwound, rather than taken off, when bed-time came, put her elbows on the table and clasped her hands under her chin.
"Do you know Rodin's Portrait d'un Inconnu?" she asked Joyselle.
"No, madame."
"But you know Rodin?"
"I have met him."
Ecstatic was her smile.
"I knew it. And unconsciously you were his model for the Inconnu. But it is you, M. Joyselle! Do not deny it, for I know."
Joyselle took an olive.
"I do not deny it, Lady Sophy. But I know nothing of it. If you are right I am—much flattered."
Brigit was amused, for she saw that the Spectre, as her friends called the grey-draped peeress, had anticipated excitement and curiosity on Joyselle's part.
There was music somewhere in the distance, and the air was sweet with the smell of roses from the room behind them as well as from the garden below.
Struther talked little, Brigit, with her usual indifference to others, almost not at all, and as Joyselle's self-command rose only to the height of an occasional reply to the Spectre's monologue, which was not of an arresting nature, the party on the balcony was very quiet.
Brigit suffered tortures as she sat watching Joyselle. It was, then, as she had feared. He was going to be strong and make everyone miserable.
If she had been asked to propose any kind of a plan for the future, her answer would have been, when denuded of side issues and fantasy, simply that she could see nothing better than simple drifting. As yet she could not anticipate, and it roused in her a kind of jealousy that Joyselle had so soon begun to think of Théo. His love for her should have dimmed all consideration for his son—it should have beenshewho suggested some means of hurting the boy as little as possible.
But she could see that Joyselle was going to be what she called in the frankness she allowed herself, tiresome about that wretched boy of his.
She also knew that Joyselle would be anything but pleased by her resolution to leave home and live by herself. His respect for certain laws were an integral part of his nature, and she knew that he would not approve of her deserting what he was certain to call the maternal roof. This curious element of Philistinism in his otherwise Bohemian nature was very perplexing, and she told herself, as she looked at him while he gravely listened to the ghostly Lady Sophy, that her troubles were in reality only just beginning.
"M. Joyselle," she asked him during a pause that only a burning desire for champagne induced Lady Sophy to allow to pass unchallenged, "willpetite mèremind my coming to sleep to-night? I want very much to see her about something, and so I told mother I'd get you and Théo to take me home."
He bowed with an assumption of fatherly gratification. "But of course, my dear." Then, for his powers of dissimulation were not of durable quality, he turned quickly to Lady Sophy.
So that was all right.
When dinner was over and the women were herded together in the drawing-room, Brigit sat down and took up a book. In an hour Théo would be coming, and would want his answer. What was it to be?
Théo arrived rather late, and after making his bow to his hostess, came straight to her. His fine young face was flushed and eager and his eyes very bright.
Brigit, who was standing talking to Maytopp, felt her heart sink. She had not yet decided what to say, and instinctively she looked round the room for Joyselle.
"Brigit—will you dance?" Théo bowed, a trifle lower than Englishmen bow, and offered her his arm with the very slightest suggestion of swagger. And somehow he reminded her at that moment more of his father than he had ever done.
He did not speak as they danced, but she knew that he was fairly confident of her answer being a favourable one, and she tried to think that the waltz was never going to end.
But it did end, and she found herself near the window leading to the balcony where she had talked with his father early in the evening.
"Brigit——" he whispered gently, looking out into the darkness.
And then she heard herself answer: "Yes, Théo. But—ask your father what he and I have decided."
"Ask papa!"
"Yes. He knows what we are going to do, and he will tell you."
Without a word he left her and she stepped out on the balcony. Leaning against the parapet she stared down into the empty street, wondering what Joyselle would say. She had not intended to put the responsibility of the future on him; she had said the words almost unconsciously, but they were said. And he, when he came?
Would the horrible courage she had felt in him prevail to the extent of allowing him to give her to his son? Or would he refuse to settle things? Or would he, worst of all, announce his departure for America!
He was so many men, each of whom were so strong and so individual, that she could not know what he would say. Closing her eyes she waited. When the two men joined her Théo was—laughing. And to her overwrought nerves the sound seemed an insult.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked sharply.
He started. "Why—I don't remember. Papa said something amusing. Is anything wrong, my dear?"
"No." Joyselle stood in the light and she could see his face. It looked set and a little grim, but there was a fierce light in his eyes.
She looked at him defiantly. Yes, she had done well; he should choose.
"Eh, bien?" suggested Joyselle suddenly, "why have you sent for me, Most Beautiful?"
So Théo had not explained!
"Théo is very impatient," she answered in a low voice; "he wants me to set our wedding-day. And—I have to make up my mind, you know—I thought as you and I had talked it over before dinner, you would not mind—casting the die for us."
There was a pause while Joyselle deliberately moved beyond the radius of the light.
Théo did not move, but his immobility was the motionlessness of extreme tension. He had not observed the discrepancy in her story, Brigit saw, and was simply waiting.
It seemed many minutes before Joyselle spoke. Then he said briskly, "The pros and cons are many, Théo. Brigit will tell you them later. And there are—clothes to be got, are there not? And I must go away in a few days—to Madrid, and shall be gone three weeks. It might be well for you to marry at once, say early in June, or—you might wait until the autumn."
He lit a cigarette and Brigit drew a deep breath of relief. Thank God, he was hedging, and could not make up his mind.
"I do not wish to wait," announced Théo, with unexpected and terrible decision. "I can see no reason for it,père. Brigit, let it be early in June."
Joyselle's match fell to the floor, and his cigarette was still unlit.
"I think I have been patient," pursued the young man, his voice trembling a little. "Ah, father, I love her, and I want my wife."
Joyselle's arm jerked and the unlit cigarette flew out into the darkness. "You are right," he began abruptly, but Brigit drew nearer to him and in the darkness laid her hand on his.
"He is right in one way,Beau-père" she said, grasping his hand with spasmodic strength, "and I am a brute, but I should somuchrather wait a little longer. I have reasons, Théo."
Joyselle caught her hand in his, and gave a great laugh.
"Oh,mes enfants, mes enfants," he cried. "When lovers disagree, who is to decide but—chance? Come, Théo, your chances shall be the same as hers. Heads you win, tails you lose. Agreed?"
Staggering back into the light, his face flushed, his teeth flashing in a broad smile, he took a sixpence from his pocket. "You both agree?"
Théo nodded in silence and Brigit answered simply "Yes."
The coin shot from the violinist's thumb-nail, flew up into the air and was caught on his palm, his left hand covering it.
"Heads, then, a June wedding. Tails, thenmeeshas her way, and the event is put off till autumn? Right?"
"Yes."
Théo had turned away, and Brigit was free to look full into Joyselle's face. It was a wonderful face in its absolute oneness of expression. There were no complications, no remorse, nothing but wild and fierce love of gambling, and hope that the woman he loved should remain free a little longer.
"It is—tails."
Théo walked into the ballroom without a word, and Brigit found herself close in his father's arms for a wild moment. "We have won,mon adorée, mon adorée," he murmured. "Thank God!"
She drew away, trying to remember prudence.
"Yes. Then—this summer is ours. And in the autumn——"
"It is not even summer yet. Do not think of it. We shall be happy, Brigitte, for you are my woman and I am your man. And the future—oh, never mind the future, my love, my love!"
Cromwell Mansions are a depressing pile of buildings not far from the Kensington High Street; they have lifts, uniformed hall-porters, house telephones and other modern inconveniences, and a restaurant.
The restaurant is, of course, the Mansions being inhabited chiefly by women, very bad indeed, but it obviates the necessity of cooks and kitchens in the, for the most part, diminutive flats into which the place is divided.
One day early in August Brigit Mead sat in the restaurant at a small table near an open window through which she caught an invigorating view of a brick court in the middle of which a woman was washing a cabbage at a pump.
It was a very warm day and the butter, more liquid than solid, seemed to be the last of a huge bundle of straws the weight of which threatened to break the girl's back.
That the cold beef was hard and tasteless was a detail to be borne with, but the butter seemed particularly insulting as it melted before her eyes.
"Going to thunder, I believe," observed a wan girl at the next table. "Itwould, of course, as I have tickets for Ranelagh!"
"Of course," agreed Brigit, absently.
She hated being so late in town, but the Lenskys, to whom she had been going, had wired to put her off, as Pammy had come down with measles. And the wire having come only that morning, she had as yet made no other plan for the rest of the month.
"Give me some cream, please," she said to the waiter, "without too much boracic acid powder in it."
There was no irony in her remark and the waiter accepted it in good faith. "It's the 'eat, my lady," he explained serenely. "It all goes sour if they don't put something in it."
Brigit ate a piece of fruit tart, a bit of cheese, and rose languidly.
"I see your mother has gone to the country, Lady Brigit," said a girl near the door, as she passed.
"Yes. She always goes on the 28th of July."
"I saw it in some paper. Are you staying on long?"
The story of her leaving her mother's house was, Brigit knew, common property, but this was the first time anyone had ventured to broach the matter to her.
"I suppose," went on the unlucky questioner, "that you will soon be joining her?"
"Do you?" asked Brigit.
"Do I what?"
"Suppose so?" And Miss M'Caw was alone, staring after the tall figure in the plain white frock, that for all its plainness looked so out of place in Cromwell Mansions.
Unlocking her door, Brigit went into her sitting-room and lit a cigarette. She had taken the flat from a friend who had been sent abroad by her doctor, and the whole place was absurdly unsuited to its present owner.
Maidie Conyers was blonde and small, so the room was pale blue and "cosy." There were embroidered pillows on the buttony Chesterfield, lace shades to the electric lights, and be-rosebudded liberty silk curtains.
Brigit hated the house, but it was cheap, and she had little money.
With a grunt of furious distaste she sat down in a satin chair, and leaning back began to smoke. The tables in the room were very bare, for the chief ornaments had been photographs—in very elaborate frames—of Maidie Conyers' friends, and Brigit, finding that she loathed Maidie Conyers' friends, had banished them one and all.
"Loathsome room," the girl said aloud, lighting a fresh cigarette, "disgusting curtains."
What she in reality felt mostly, though she did not know it, was the lack of room in the flat. Used all her life to the large rooms of Kingsmead, she felt, now that the unusual heat had come, cramped and restless.
It maddened her to have to make plans. Where should she go? How like that little wretch Pammy to go and have measles now.
She would go to Golden Square as soon as it got a little cooler and make Victor play to her. They might go for a drive later. Or she might make Théo take her for a walk in the park. Suddenly she heard a slight scratching noise in the entry, and rose. The porter, to save himself trouble, was letting some visitor in unannounced. She would murder that porter.
But when she saw the visitor she forgot the guilty official.
"Gerald!"
"Yes, Brigit. Do—do you mind?"
"I—yes, I mind, of course I do. Why have you come?"
Carron, who was very smartly dressed and who looked wretchedly ill, sank into a chair.
"It is nearly four months ago," he murmured. "I—I hoped you would have forgiven me."
"Well, I haven't. So please go."
Her ill-humour, accumulating ever since the receipt of the wire from the Lenskys, seemed about to burst. She looked exceedingly angry, and the poor wretch in the chair before her trembled as he looked at her.
"D—don't be so hard on me, Bicky."
"Don't call me Bicky. And please go. I don't want to be rude, but I shall lose my temper if you don't."
Carron's pinched face quivered. "I—I am very ill Brigit," he said in a hurried, deprecating way. "I—I am not sleeping at all, my nerves are—rotten. And I thought I'd die if I couldn't see you. Don't be any harder on me than—than necessary."
She sat down on the arm of a chair, and looked at him closely.
"You do look ill—very ill. And you look—I say, Gerald, are you taking anything?"
He gave a shrill, cackling laugh. "Taking anything. No. You mean morphine or something of that kind?Pas si bête, my dear. Oh, no, I have always had a perfect horror of anything like that. W—why?"
"Because—I think youare," she returned coolly. "Show me your left arm, Gerald."
"No, no, you are mad, my dear,—I assure you I don't. I give you my word of honour——"
She came to him, and taking his arm in her strong hands pushed up his sleeves and studied his emaciated arm for a few seconds in silence.
"I thought as much," she commented, as he almost whimpered in his helpless annoyance.
"You are so rough, Brigit. Tony always says you are so rough."
"Yes, I am. Well—I am sorry for you, Gerald. When did you begin?"
"Oh—long ago. But—I seem to need more of late."
"Took it at first to make you sleep, I suppose?"
"Yes. And then—well you see, I like it. And it's nobody's business," he finished defiantly.
"That's true. Would you like some tea?"
"Oh, yes, Brigit. Youarekind. It is good of you to forgive me."
"I haven't forgiven you," she retorted, going to the tea table, "but I am sorry for you. Where have you been of late?"
"Oh, all about, as usual. I came up from Morecambe yesterday. Rotten party. Have you seen your mother?"
Brigit's lips tightened. "No."
"I saw her three weeks ago. She is very much hurt by your behaviour."
"Broken-hearted, I should think!"
"Well, she's queer enough, I grant you, and not over-motherly, but—sheisyour mother when all's said and done."
The girl watched the kettle boil and said nothing.
"Tommy is coming on wonderfully with his violin, isn't he?" pursued Carron.
"Yes."
"Does he come here often?"
She looked up, frowning. "You know perfectly well that he hasneverbeen here," she returned shortly. "Do you like your tea strong?"
"Yes, please, no milk. Well—you must miss him."
"And you know perfectly well that I see him twice a week at Joyselle's."
Carron took his cup with trembling hands and set it down carefully on the table.
"You needn't snap my head off," he observed.
"No. But why play comedy? Mother has told you all about it, so I can't see the use of this sort of humbug."
He was silent for a moment, and then began in a new voice. "Brigit, I—I really have something to say to you."
"What is it?"
"It's this. That day—the last time I saw you, you know, your mother was standing up for you when you came in. She—refused to believe me when I, when I——"
"I know. But when I came in she was——"
"She was simply being good to me. Look here, Brigit, really and truly, she was. Shewentfor me when I said—that. And your coming in in a temper was what—upset the apple-cart."
Brigit raised her eyebrows.
"Right. Now let's talk about something else. When did you see Tommy?"
"A week ago. He is in town now."
"I know. I shall see him to-morrow."
"At Joyselle's?"
"Yes."
"Brigit—you can see what a wreck I am. Tell me. Are you going to marry that boy?"
"I am."
"When?"
"In October."
"Then——"
She rose. "I am a model of patience, Gerald, but you have asked enough questions."
"But—well, I am sorry I was such a beast. Can you endure seeing me once in a long time—say once a month? It—it may make life possible to me—don't say that you don't see the necessity for that! Brigit——"
"But it is so useless, Gerald, and so painful——"
"No. And I can tell you all kind of things about people—you must be lonely! Tommy is only a kid after all, and doesn't hear—By the way, why does he never come here?"
She hesitated. "Do you really not know?" Then, seeing sincerity in his eyes, she went on. "Well—Joyselle made me promise mother that."
"Madeyou!"
"Yes. He—you see he is old-fashioned. And—well, in two words he said that unless I promised he—he—would not teach Tommy or even see him!"
Carron whistled. "Well, I'll be damned!"
"Yes. Absurd, wasn't it? But—Oh, well, there's no use in explaining."
As she spoke she heard the introductory scraping at the keyhole again, and a moment later Tommy came in.
A remarkably dandified Tommy; a solemn and significant Tommy, who shook hands solemnly with his sister and Carron and then sat down and took off his gloves.
"I have come on business, Brigit," he announced quietly.
Carron rose. "Then I will go. Thanks very much, Brigit, for your hospitality—and I will look in again in three or four weeks, if you don't mind."
Tommy's frame of mind was too dignified to permit of his staring, but he was obviously surprised at Carron's presence, and when the man had gone he said with considerable importance: "Since when has Carron been calling on you?"
"This is the first time. Oh, Tommy—should you have come?"
"I have just left mother at Aunt Emily's," he answered, his voice explaining plainly what his dignity forbade his putting into words.
So her mother knew!
"New clothes; also gloves; also something smelly andverynice on your hair!"
Brigit bent over and kissed him tenderly, her face very sweet with affection. "Please elucidate, little brother. Has mother sent you?"
"No. She knows I have come, though."
"Some tea?"
"If you please."
So she lit the kettle and going to a cupboard produced two enchanting-looking white jars. "Marmalade or cherry jam?"
"I think—neither, please," returned Kingsmead, with an effort. "I—am not hungry."
It was all very mysterious, and Brigit, scanning the little boy's face, saw that he was nervous as well as important; pale as well as elegant in attire. So she made the tea and gave him a cup in silence.
After a long pause he cleared his throat and began. "Brigit, of course I'm only a kid—and all that sort of thing."
"Yes, dear?"
"And you are grown up, and have a great deal more—well, experience than I. And then you are very beautiful, and I am—not," he added with a flicker of irrepressible mirth that was immediately quenched.
"Yes, Tommy?"
"Well—I just say all that, dear old thing, so you won't think me sidey, you know."
"I don't, Tommy. In fact, I have sometimes observed in you symptoms of almost radical——"
"Don't laugh, Brigit," he broke in with a quaint wave of his hand. "What I mean to say is simply this. I am, although so young, and not very big—the Head of the Family."
This magnificent declaration was so unlike his usual style of conversation that his sister with difficulty refrained from laughing.
"Well, Tommy—yes, there would be no use in my denying that you, not I, are the Earl of Kingsmead. But—your manner is somewhat solemn; surely you are not thinking of marrying?"
The earl's mouth broadened spasmodically, and his eyes gleamed with amusement.
"I say, Bick, if you laugh at me, how on earth am I ever to get it said?"
"All right. Only take some jam and don't terrify me with magnificence. This is the first time to my knowledge that an earl has ever shed the effulgence of his presence in these humble walls——"
Tommy's grandeur gave up the ghost, and with a yell of delight he dived deep into one of the jars and heaped his plate with suspiciously crimson cherry jam.
"Good old Bick! I must have looked an awful little ass. But—well,willyou chuck it all and come home?"
"Oho!"
"Yes, 'oho' as much as you like, but it is all rot your living here, andshehates it, and it's unpleasant all round. Besides the country is really lovely now, and I miss you."
"Do you, Tommy dear?"
"I do."
"Did mother send you?"
"No. She said you wouldn't come if she did, but that you might if I—if I——"
"If you exerted your authority as Head of the Family!"
"Well, yes." Tommy, now completely shamefaced, took more jam and handed back his cup.
"Sheisfunny," mused Brigit. "To have so little sense of humour."
"That's what I told her. But Aunt Emily says people are talking about your living alone, etc. And—besides, I think she is really rather fond of you, Bick."
"Oh, no, she isn't. However, M. l'Ambassadeur, you have fulfilled your mission, so be content."
Tommy paused in his task of biting into a piece of cake and looked up at her. "Then—you will?"
"No, dear; I most certainly won't. But don't you bother about that. I like this very well, and after all it isn't for long."
"Oh. You mean you are going to marry Théo. When?"
"In October, probably. Nothing is settled. More jam?"
"No, thanks. I say, Bicky, what are you going to do in September?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"Because they are all going to Là-bas, to the Golden Wedding. They were talking about it the other day. Are you going, too?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no. But I daresay I shall be with the Lenskys then. I can't go now, because one of the children is ill."
Tommy rose and looked at his watch, a shadow of his former proud manner settling on him as he put on his gloves. "She will be very much disappointed," he remarked, "but I don't see how she can forbid my coming here now, do you?"
"No, of course she can't. And oh, Tommy, I have missed you! Are you at Golden Square to-night?"
"Yes. Coming to supper?"
"I think so. Good-bye, you darling little boy."
After he had closed the door, Tommy pounded on it until she opened it.
"I say, Bicky, what happens to ambassadors who fail in their missions?" he asked, winking delightedly.
Yellow Dog Papillon lay asleep on the Chesterfield in Joyselle's room. He was dreaming an enchanting dream about a particularly aromatic bone that he found in a dust-bin—a ham-bone slashed by a careless hand and cast away before all meat had been removed from it—a bone for which any dog would have risked much.
So it was tiresome to be awakened by a sound of low voices.
Opening one eye warily Yellow Dog Papillon looked up and saw something he had of late seen several times, his beloved master standing by the Girl Who Had Sometimes Just Come from a Cat.
The girl had water in her eyes, too.
"I am very sorry, Victor," she was saying, "but I cannot, and will not. I can't see why you should care."
"But I do care. You know that I have always hated it. And Tommy told me himself that she let him go with the express purpose of making up with you. It is your duty to go back."
She drew away from him.
"I cannot."
"You mean you will not."
"Exactly; I will not."
Yellow Dog did not understand all of this dialogue, but he knew his master's face as well as his voice, and because he liked the Girl Who Had Sometimes Just Come from a Cat, he would have liked to advise her to lay down her arms at once. "No good opposing him when his eyes are like that," he said to himself; "if it wasme, I'd just sit up and beg and make him laugh."
But Brigit would not condescend to sit up and beg.
"There's no use in discussing it," she said very coldly, "for I will not go back."
Joyselle watched her in silence for a long time. "Not even if I entreat you?" he asked in a gentle voice.
Her lips tightened, for tenderness with coercion behind it had no delusions for her.
"Not even if you entreat me. I have told you that I dislike my mother and I do not wish to see her. I will not tell you why, and that, at least, you ought to approve of."
"It is horrible for a daughter to say that she does not like her mother——"
"It is horrible for me not to like her, but I can't help it. And it is not horrible for me to tell—anything to you."
But his face did not soften. "I wish you to go to Kingsmead, Brigit."
"I will not go to Kingsmead, Victor."
"Then," his anger now finally blazed up, "I can say only—good-bye."
Her face was as white and as hard as his own, and being a woman she could even laugh.
"Adieu, donc—Beau-père!"
"What do you mean by that? You will not—surely you cannot mean that you will——"
"But I do!" He himself had suggested a revenge to her. "If you and I quarrel, I will most certainly not marry your son."
For a moment the father in him dominated the mere man, and his eloquence was great as he reproached her.
"No—no, I am not cruel," she answered cruelly, her anger reinforced by a wave of jealousy anent Théo, "but as I do not love him, why should I marry him? And this kind of thing had far better cease. After all, you care for him far more than you care for me."
"Grand Dieu!"
"Yes, of course you do," she went on in the tone of gentle, unimpassioned reason that women sometimes use in violent anger, to the utter amazement and undoing of their male opponents. "And moreover, I daresay if I really loved you as much as I thought I did, I should be unable to refuse to do what you wish about my mother."
Joyselle's face was very white.
"What do you mean? Do you mean that your love for me was a mere caprice, and that—it has gone?"
His agony was unconcealed, and as she gazed she smiled, for her own torture was nearly unbearable.
"I shouldn't like to say it was only a caprice——" She hesitated, and he sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
Suddenly he rose and seizing her arm roughly, gave her another cue, which she remorselessly and instantly took.
"There is someone else," he cried, utterly forgetting that the very day before she had loved him madly, "you love some other man. Tell me who it is!"
And with the extraordinary fortitude common to fanatics and furious women, she smiled and answered:
"Perhaps!Tout passe, mon cher."
It was a cheap and melodramatic bit of acting, and any unprejudiced onlooker must have seen the agony in her face, but Joyselle was blinded by his own pain and fled from the room without another word.
She heard a door slam and knew that he had gone out. And the world came to an end for her.
It was about six o'clock, and Tommy had gone out with Théo. They would not be back until about eight.
Félicité, too, was out. She was alone. She saw Papillon, who was sitting up, looking at her with a world of sympathy in the cock of his ear.
Suddenly Brigit burst into tears, nervous, hysterical, noisy sobbing, as she had done that day in the olive grove at the Villa Arcadie. She had been living under great nervous strain for months, and these breakdowns were of appalling violence. Shecouldnot stop crying, and she could not reason and tell herself that he would come back and forgive her.
All she could realise was her hideous misery and sense of desolation. She was utterly alone, she was hungry, she was cold, she was hopeless.
Presently someone touched her shoulder very gently. It was Félicité.
"What is it, my dear?" the elder woman asked. "What has happened?"
And Brigit, too unstrung to tell the usual conventional lies, simply sobbed on, her whole body shaking with agony.
Madame Joyselle sat patiently by her, stroking her shoulders with a kind hand, murmuring little broken phrases in French, patting her hair.
"Oui, oui, ma mie—Pauvre petite, ça te soulagera—Pleures, ma cocotte, pleures!"
And at last the girl was quiet, and reached for her handkerchief.
"I—I am sorry to have been so idiotic, I don't know why I am such a fool——"
Félicité smoothed back her wet hair and smiled at her.
"Poor child," she answered quietly. "I am so sorry. I have seen it for some time——"
Brigit stared at her.
"Seen—?"
"That you have fallen in love with Victor. It is really too bad of him, the old rascal."
Her gentle face was so undisturbed, so calmly acceptant of the heinous fact that Brigit could do nothing but stare. "I am glad poor Théo does not suspect," went on Félicité, untying the strings of her old-fashioned bonnet, "we must not let him know,n'est ce pas?"
"I—I don't see——" stammered the girl, blankly.
"No, he must not know. Nor Victor either, if we can help it. Though he is very vain, and vain men always see. On the whole," she added with a kind of gentle amusement, "you have all been absurdly blind but me. And I did not like to warn you."
"This is—very extraordinary," began Brigit, rising. "I don't quite see——"
But Félicité drew her down to her chair again. "That is just it,ma pauvre petite. I did see. I saw his little fancy for you, too. It began the evening of the dragon-skin frock, and it lasted, oh—about a month. And you never noticed it, poor child. And now you are miserable about him. I am so sorry."
There was such convincing sincerity in her every tone that Brigit could not even pretend to be angry.
"You must think me very silly," she murmured.
But the little woman shook her head, "Non, non, it is not silly to love. It is unwise, or wrong, or heavenly, or mad, but silly,non. And he is very attractive,mon homme." This tribute she added reluctantly, as if from a sense of fairness. "And many have loved him."
Suddenly Brigit's anger flamed up.
"And—I am so insignificant that you are not afraid of me," she cried. "What if he hadnotgot over it? What if he loved me as much—morethan I love him?"
Félicité smiled serenely and sweetly.
"No, I know him. I saw it come—and go. But do not be angry and proud, my dear. I wish only to help you."
And Brigit, touched by her kindness as well as terrified by her own indiscretion, sat down by her.
When Joyselle came in at eight o'clock he went straight to his room to dress. He was still very angry, but his anger was less poignant than his sense of helpless defeat. Brigit's attitude was absolutely incomprehensible to him, and hurt him in an almost unbearable degree. That she should defy him, grow as angry as he himself, he had already learned was not impossible; but the cruel hardness of her face as she had sent him away had shocked him more than anything in his whole experience.
He was a shrewd man, and his love for her had never blinded him as to her faults; often he had corrected her for unfilial behaviour, for a too sharp word, for selfishness. But the one quality which to a strong and tender man is unendurable in the woman he loves, cruelty, he had never before realised in the girl, and his discovery that it lay in her to hurt him as she had done, had nearly broken his heart.
For hours he had walked rapidly through the streets, seeing no one, avoiding being knocked down by a kind of subconscious attention and alertness of mind, his brain struggling desperately with its problem.
In a few words, all life seemed to him to have reduced itself to the question, "How could she?" As yet he had not got further than this, and it did not occur to him to wonder whether or no her mental attitude was definite or only temporary. "How could she? How could she so rend him? Of what was her heart made that it could allow her so to wound his?"
When he reached home the incomprehensibility of this problem was fast outweighing his anger, and Félicité, who came in as he stood in the middle of the room brushing his hair, smiled at the misery in his face.
"So she was cruel, the little one?" she asked gently, sitting down and folding her hands in her characteristic way.
"She was—abominable. But how did you know?"
"I found her in tears. You must be gentle with her, my man."
He stared. "Gentle? But she is a demon when she is angry. Tell me to be gentle with an enraged lioness."
Félicité's smile was good to see. "She is not an enraged lioness, Victor. She is—very unhappy, and we must help her."
He went to the dressing-table and put down his brushes. "I am tired, wife," he said quietly; "let us talk of something else. Besides, it is nearly half-past eight."
She nodded.
"Yes. But—Victor, you remember the Polish girl?"
"Franska? Yes."
"Well? And the pantomimiste, and Miss Belton, and Lady Paula——"
Joyselle started in the act of shaking scent on his handkerchief. "Of course I remember them. But what have they to do with Brigitte?"
"Only this, Victor. The poor child is in love with you,vieux vaurien! And that is why she is so savage."
She sat quite still, looking up at him with an indulgent smile, into which the maternal element largely entered. He was a fatal person, this great fiddler of hers; but to her he was also a child to be cared for, and a not quite normal being, to whose absent mind much must be explained.
Her charming face, almost old in spite of its fresh colour, was touched, as she watched his back, with a flicker of kindly mischief.
"And to think that you did not know, blind one," she teased.
"It—it is your imagination," he returned with a slight stammer, turning and facing her.
"No, no. Also I did not imagine that at first you, too, were a littleépris. It was most natural, my dear. She is so very beautiful. I was glad when it passed. It was the day of the long discussion about the wedding—the day of the letter from your mother—do you remember? When you rushed away like a whirlwind?"
"Yes—I remember."
"Well, when you returned, you were quiet and a little pale, and I understood. The talk about Théo's wedding had put things into their right places in your mind, silly old child,pas? And then you brought her back here after the dance, and—all was well."
Joyselle stood quite still. He was bitterly ashamed of himself for deceiving this dear, good woman, who was so innocently believing in him, but he could say nothing. All was well, she said, when he came home that evening after Brigit had come to him in the studio. Yes, but it was because he knew then that she loved him; because his scruples were for the time overwhelmed by the irresistible force of their passion for each other; because the glory of the present blinded his eyes to any visualising of the future.
That love, like everything else, must go through a series of mathematically exact evolutions, Joyselle of course, in his present frame of mind, could not realise. To him, as to every lover, the happenings and exigencies of his situation seemed those of pure hazard, and this phase, as he listened to his wife's interpretation of it, appeared to him absolutely the result of a chance quarrel with Brigit.
"She is distressed and very tragic about it all," continued Félicité. "Of course shewouldbe tragic; it is her nature. She no doubt believes that she will never get over it. It is a pity, isn't it?"
"Oui, oui." He had again turned away, and stood by the window polishing his nails, of which he was very vain, in the palm of his hand.
"The only thing that troubles me is—Théo. It would break his heart, poor child. He, too," she added, still with her kindly cynicism, "would think she will never get over it. It is thus that all lovers think. But—what are we to do, Victor? I have been thinking much about it. Shall we try separation—from you—for her? Or would that make it worse? She is not patient, and she has no discipline or self-control. She might do something foolish."
"Why should she do something foolish, if it is only a—passionette?" he asked harshly, for he did not enjoy his wife's hypothesis.
"It is not the greatest loves that are the most desperate, my dear. But we must go down. Be kind to her. Remember that she is young, and that her imagination has made a king of you."
Joyselle frowned ferociously as he followed his wife downstairs. He did not like being taken into her confidence in this way, and her calm assumption that he, too, regarded Brigit as a silly schoolgirl who must be managed into giving up a childish fancy for an old man cut him to the quick. When they reached his study they found Théo sitting at the piano playing with the parrot, while Brigit stood, looking like a thunder cloud, at an open window. Joyselle started as he saw her face. Surely its expression must rouse even Félicité's slow suspicion!
And never, for his sins, he told himself grimly, had she been more beautiful. Her storm of tears had left her eyes unswollen, but shadowy and unusually melting, while her face, as white as paper, was the face of one who had been face to face with a horrible death.
"I beg your pardon for having been—rude," she said to him sulkily, holding out her hand, which was as cold as ice.
"But it is I," he murmured, touching his lips to her fingers and feeling her quiver as he did so. "It is that we both have what you English call bad tempers,pas?"
"You must have been very bad this time, papa," commented Théo, closing the cage door on le Conquérant and joining them. "Brigit is very angry. Look at her!"
"I am not angry, Théo. But—quarrelling is disgusting."
Why she had stayed the girl hardly knew. She had not forgiven Joyselle, and her apology was a mere concession to the feelings of Félicité and Théo.
Joyselle had hurt her, but her treatment of him had so wounded herself that she could not forgive him. All of which is quite illogical and quite feminine.
"I will go away—anywhere—to-morrow," she told herself as she ate her supper. "Théo will not know why, and Félicité will not tell. This sort of thing cannot go on. This is the fifth row in the last month. We are both too pig-headed. It's no use trying to keep the peace. I suppose if I were his mistress he would be easier to manage—or I should. The truth is, we are both struggling for supremacy, and we can neither of us drive the other."
Joyselle, with a great effort, chattered gaily throughout the meal. His thoughts, too, were in a turmoil, for he knew that her apology had been offered merely on Théo's account, and he also knew that something was going to happen.
Félicité, sincerely sorry for Brigit and anxious anent Théo, talked more than usual, so that the uncongenial gathering was more voluble and noisy than usual.
At its close Félicité called her son to her room under some pretext or other, and Joyselle and Brigit went alone to his study. He closed the door very quietly, and then turning to her, caught her hands threateningly.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Do?" She raised her eyebrows. "I am going, of course."
"Where?"
She smiled.
"Sais pas.Let go my hands, please; you hurt me—Beau-papa!"
He flung away from her and stood by the window, staring with blinded eyes into the street.
"This is really no good, you know," she went on in a conversational tone; "we quarrel and squabble and are no earthly use to each other—the whole position is bad. I think I will tell Théo, and go."
He did not answer, and after a pause she added: "Or marry him by special license the day after to-morrow, and make him take me—somewhere—for a few months."
"A—ah!"
She smiled at his groan.
"You and I have made fools of ourselves, haven't we? But it was natural. I am very beautiful, and you are a very great genius, so——"
Maddened at her tone of indifferent justice, he turned, his face drawn with pain.
"So it was natural? A childish fancy on your part, a senile one on mine? A thing to—laugh at already! Oh, howcanyou torture me like this? You—you——"
"Devil? Or demon?" Her voice was mocking, but her lips had paled, and she gasped a little as if breathless.
"Let's not be melodramatic,please. Call it what you like. I was at least perfectly sincere."
"You were sincere——"
"Yes. Listen." Advancing swiftly to where he stood, she had the amazing courage to give a little laugh. Then she laid her hand on his shoulder. "Seriously, let's be good friends and forget all—the rest. I have been a fool, but you have not; for after all, I am fairly attractive, and you are not the first! So let's make a bargain: I will never again attract you; you will never againplay at me. And then things will be quite comfy. Shall we? I have been an awful pig to Théo, who is a darling, and from now on I shall try to make up to him."
He shrank back from her.
"What are you?" he whispered painfully. "What are you made of? And do you want to make me hate my own son?"
"Eh, bien, are things all right?"
Madame Joyselle had come in, followed by Théo. Joyselle, standing in the shadow, did not answer, but Brigit laughed gaily, and her gaiety was unfeigned, for she had assured herself, by watching him under torture, of the strength of Joyselle's love for her.
The next morning at half-past six Madame Joyselle, creeping quietly downstairs, was, to her amazement, overtaken by Brigit.
"I have not slept," the girl explained, "and am going for a walk. I have promised to take Tommy to see 'Peter Pan' this afternoon and must feel better when I do."
"I am sorry you did not sleep. I am going marketing—and to Mass."
They opened the door and went out into the fresh morning air. Golden Square was asleep as yet, and the well-kept grass in the garden looked pleasantly fresh behind the brown railings.
"Come with me; it will do you good," said the older woman suddenly, "and it will amuse you to see France in this old dark London of ours."
She carried a large basket, and looked, in her trim dark dress and bonnet, so exactly what she was that it occurred to Brigit, by force of contrast, how remarkably few people nowadaysdolook what they are.
"I will come with pleasure," she said gently, as they turned to the left. "Where do you go first?"
"To Notre Dame de France in Leicester Street. There's a Low Mass at seven. Then I must go to the butcher in Pulteney Street, and to the Ile de Java for coffee. Toinon," she continued, reflecting, pausing to give a penny to a beggar, "is a very good girl, but she cannotbuy. She simply takes what they offer her, and no housekeeper can stand that, of course."
Leicester Street is but a ten minutes' walk from Golden Square, and Brigit felt as she walked that the world was meant for better things than tragedy, after all.
Her torture of Joyselle the evening before had been infinitely cruel, and yet her love for him had grown as she tortured him. She was as yet quite unused to the dominion of her own emotions, and they, being so much stronger than her self-control, had carried her away with them. It had been a kind of mental fakirism, and as fakirs smile as they burn and cut themselves, so she had been able to smile as she burnt and cut at her own heart in Joyselle. Yet she was not an altogether cruel woman.
And this quiet walk with the homely, good, little Félicité tranquillised and steadied her maddened nerves and brought reason to her mind.
Félicité left her basket in the vestibule of the church, and going in dipped her fingers into the holy water fountain and held her hand out to Brigit.
Unconsciously the girl touched it, and then, as the other woman turned and knelt at one of the worn praying-desks, Brigit hastily touched her own forehead and breast.
The drop of water stayed for some seconds on her forehead, and in its coolness seemed to burn her.
After a short pause she walked down the aisle and sat down in the second row of seats.
The priest came out as she took her place, and the Mass began.
Its very silence was restful to the girl, and as she watched, the sleep that had refused to come to her all through the night touched her eyelids and they closed wearily.
When she opened them it was as if a cool hand had been laid on her aching heart. Here was peace.
The Good Shepherd in the round window seemed to mean much as he looked down at her, and even the statue of the Mother and Child in the altar to her left looked beautiful to her. "Salve Regina, Mater Misericordiæ," she read.
To the right of the main altar a group of tiny votive candles were burning; an old nun in a kind of white sunbonnet, draped with a black gauze veil, dropped her rosary with a little clatter to the wooden floor.
There were only a dozen or so people in the church, but this made no difference. The priest would not feel slighted, as an Anglican curate might. He had a serious ascetic face, and seemed not to know that any was present beside his God and himself.
"I am a brute," Brigit told herself, "a perfect fiend to torture him so. Why cannot we be good to each other? And how will it all end? I will be good to him in the future."
Then she shivered, for she was not a child and realised perfectly that her "being good" to Joyselle was by no means altogether safe.
"It is playing with fire," she thought. "That is one reason why Iamso horrid, perhaps."
The priest had gone, and the little congregation, with last genuflections, were hurrying out of the church. Busy people, these; workers who before their day's labour begins have always time to sayBonjourto their God.
"A beautiful church,hein?" asked Félicité, as they came out of the church. "You liked it, my daughter?"
"Yes. I liked it. Where do we go now,petite mère?"
More than one passerby turned to stare at the beautiful girl with the weary eyes and her humble companion as they made their way towards Rupert Street. With the violently sudden change of mood that was part of her character, Brigit's spirits had gone up. She would be kind to Joyselle; that would be being kind to herself, and therefore she would be happy. In an hour they would be at home and she would see him. A great longing to feel his strong arms round her came to her, and her face flushed as she decided to go to him frankly and ask to be taken back.
"It is a beautiful day," she said softly.
Félicité smiled up at her.
"Yes. And it is good to begin a day by going to Mass. It clears one's mind of yesterday, and to-day is—ours, Brigitte."
For all her native shrewdness, it would not at all have surprised Félicité if Brigit had suddenly becomedévote, and even now as she watched the girl's radiant face it seemed to the Norman that the Mass had helped even more than she had ventured to hope. "She is going to try to fight it down," she thought gratefully, "and that is all that is necessary."
M. Bourbon, charcutier, in Rupert Street, has a beautiful shop full of wonderful things. Félicité bought a pound of galantine de volaille truffée, for which she paid two-and-six, and for which in Piccadilly she would have paid five shillings; she bought half a pound of jellied eel; she bought Pont l'Évêque cheese; flat little Parisian sausages; she bought a glass jar of preserved pears, brown with cinnamon.
Then they made their way to the Ile de Java, where they acquired a large tin of coffee, on to the Boucherie Française, where Félicité had a long discussion with M. Perigotlui-même, whom she insisted on seeing, to the disgust of the young man in attendance, who wished to look at Brigit, and whom fate assigned to an ancient dame from Brewer Street.
There were other errands to be done, but at last they reached home, and in the passage Félicité paused and set down the basket.
"You will find my husband in his study," she said, looking earnestly at Brigit. "Go to him, my dear, and be happy. Remember, he is nearly an old man, and loves you like his daughter. And remember, also, that because it is not fitting in any way, your love for him will change sooner or later, and become that of a daughter for her father. So don't worry."
Brigit stood looking after her for a moment, and then went slowly upstairs. Joyselle, in the crimson-velvet garment, was writing a letter as she entered; he looked ill and miserably unhappy.
"Victor," she began without preamble, laying her arm across his shoulders and pressing her cheek to his hair. "Will you forgive me? I—I love you."
Then she broke down and cried in an old-fashioned and weakly feminine way that she could not combat, although she quite realised its absolute inappropriateness to her character.
"How could you?" he whispered, holding her close with the greatest tenderness, the torturing formula of yesterday coming to his lips. "How could you?"
His eyes, too, were wet, but her breakdown had given him his strength back. "I thought you did not care."
"Not care!"
"But you said so," he persisted, manlike.
"Victor—you don't know how much I love you, and I don't know how I can be such a brute as I am. But—it hurts me the worst. It—it kills me. Say you forgive me."
"Dear child—I forget," he answered, as gently as a father. And Félicité, on her way upstairs, heard him through the half-open door, and smiled.