Félicité smiled placidly. "He gave her—his love. Ah, yes, he loved her, his Créfinne Gigantesque."
"But——"
The teller of the tale drew a blue silk sock over her hand and poked at the hole in its heel with a thoughtful needle. "He always loves them—for the time, my dear. He is of a sincerity, my man!"
Since the evening of the dragon-skin frock Brigit had done nothing to charm Joyselle; he saw her through his own eyes now, and she, knowing that the game was in her own hands, could afford to wait; when the day came when she wanted to hurt him or to further gratify her own love, she could make him love her almost in a moment. So, so far as she knew, he still enjoyed her beauty withoutarrière pensée, although he saw her through his own eyes, not Théo's. Yet now, at this phrase of his wife's, "He always loves them—for the time," she started, half angrily. When—if—the day came when he loved her, would this "clean old peasant," as Carron had called her, sit and darn his socks and say to herself—"for the time"?
"You are very—placid about it."
"Yes. In the beginning—no. Then I was jealous, and angry. But a jealous woman is always ridiculous, my child, and men are so vain that the implied homage upsets them. Many a woman has lost a man's love through showing jealousy. So—in time I got used to it, andtout passe," she continued comfortably.
"And you wouldn't mind now, if——" asked Brigit, her elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands.
Madame Joyselle laughed. "Wouldn't mind?Oh,ma chère! Just before you came, he had a very bad turn—it was an Italian actress—a pantomimiste, with the most beautiful arms in the world, and the face of a vicious little boy. And he?Épaté.His ties wouldn't tie, he got new shoes—fresh gloves every time he went to see her—scent, a new kind, very expensive—he sent her flowers by the cartload, and went every evening to see her act. Every day little mauve letters and wires from her (he always forgot to burn them, and I was afraid Toinon might see them), etc., etc., etc."
"And how did it end?" asked Brigit, her throat dry and hot. She hated the pantomimiste.
"End? My faith, my dear, it is of a simplicity, the end.You came."
"I came——"
"Yes. And he was so delighted with his new—daughter—that he promptly forgot his—love."
"But what did she do?"
"She made a fool of herself, poor thing; wrote, and telegraphed, and threatened to kill herself. So we sent Théo to see her, and she quieted down."
Brigit burst out laughing. "Sent Théo?"
"Yes. He always goes. He is very quiet and reasonable, you see."
"I see."
Madame Joyselle rose. "I must go and see about the dinner. Will you come? Ah, yes," as they went downstairs, "they are like that, the men. But Théo will be faithful to you, of that I am sure. He is like my people, and then, thank God, he is not an artist!"
"Antoinette, I have something to say to you."
"So I ventured to gather from the fact that you have come to see me."
It was mid-May, and a fragrant breeze stirred the delicate curtains of Lady Kingsmead's little drawing-room in Pont Street. There were flowers everywhere, chiefly white lilacs, and the pale green and white chintz and the quantities of light-hued pillows on the sofas (all of which belonged, as yet, to Messrs. Liberty) made of the room a pleasant refuge from the unusual heat outside. Lady Kingsmead, dressed in pale pink, looked in the faint light very pretty as she leaned back in her deep chair and played with the Persian cat.
Carron, upright on his small gilt chair, was pale and agitated, the primitive feelings showing in his ravaged face looking in some way more out of place, because he was exquisitely frock-coated and had a fresh-blown tea-rose in his button-hole, than they would have done if he had been shabby.
When Lady Kingsmead had spoken, he cleared his throat and began hurriedly: "Antoinette—my—my wife is dead."
"Good Lord, Gerald, how you startled me! Is she really?"
"Yes, I—I saw her this morning."
"Drink?" asked Lady Kingsmead, pleasantly.
He frowned. "No. Cancer."
"How—horrid!"
She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"You look ill, poor dear. What is the matter?Yourlooks are a bit on the blink, too, Gerry! You must buck up."
She sat down and dabbed gingerly at her eyes with a scrap of handkerchief. "Itisrather tragic, in its very insignificance, isn't it? Well—what is it? Is it Brigit?"
Mutely and miserably he bowed his head, until she saw the carefully concealed thin place on his crown.
"I thought so. It's no good, Gerald—give me the cat, will you?—she dislikes you."
"She loathes me. And I would be burnt to death for her to-morrow."
She started at something in his tone—something she had not heard for years.
"Can't you get over it?"
"No."
"Then——"
"Oh, my God, Tony,Idon't know. Can't—can't you help me?"
"I!"
"Yes. She can't love that boy; he is utterly insignificant. She's marrying him for his money."
"No. She likes him. But, of course, the money helped. But she wouldn't marry you if you were a millionaire yourself. She loathes you. Always has."
"I am going mad, I think. I haven't slept for months. Look at my hand, how it shakes; anyone would think I was a drunkard! Look here, Tony, couldn't you ask her to speak civilly to me, at least?"
She was almost frightened as she looked at his piteous face. He had indeed changed appallingly in the last six or eight months, and there was a tremulous movement about his well-cut mouth that was alarming.
"Yes, Gerald, I'll ask her. I—I am awfully sorry for you."
"Thanks. As far as that's concerned, everybody in the world ought to be sorry for everybody else. We all have our little private hell. When is the—is the wedding-day fixed?"
"Oh, no," she returned hastily, "dear me, no. She is in no hurry to marry, and he is, of course, dough in her hands. You, at least, needn't worry about that. Will you dine here?"
"Sorry——"
"She is to be here, and Joyselle. Théo is out of town."
Carron rose and hesitated. "Do you think she'd mind?" he asked piteously. A sharp pang touched her worldly heart. If, years ago, she had let him go? If she had not made him give up diplomacy because she wanted him in England? He would, doubtless, have divorced his impossible wife, and married, and this would not have come to him.
"Of course she won't mind. Does she know that you love her?"
He nodded. She stared, and then rang the bell. "Bring Mr. Carron a brandy and soda, Fledge; he is not well."
She went to the window and stood looking out into the quiet street until the man had returned and she heard Carron set down the empty glass.
Then, without looking at him, she came back. Her shallow soul was dismayed.
"Dinner at 8.30?" he asked after a pause.
"Yuss. Good-bye till then, for I must fly and make some calls."
"Good-bye, Tony. You are sure that boy isn't coming? I—I am getting to hate him——"
"Nonsense," she laughed harshly, for she was not merry; "he isn't even invited. He is in the country, I tell you."
"Then,au 'voir."
"Au 'voir, Gerry."
He went away, feeling that his cause perhaps was not utterly hopeless.
And in her gaudy bedroom, in the caravanserai that had been her idea of luxury, his wife lay dead.
When the women had left the dining-room Carron got up from his place and sat down by Joyselle, who looked at him with unconcealed astonishment. He had never liked Carron, and knew that the man did not like him.
"When is your next concert to be, M. Joyselle?"
"The third of June."
"I—I always come. I have come for years, and last June I heard you in Paris. You must like playing with Colonne."
"I do. He is a wonderful director. But—I did not know that you liked music, Mr. Carron."
"I have always liked it. And no one plays the violin as you do."
He would not have hesitated to lie about the matter, had it been necessary, but he happened to be telling the truth, and his weary voice carried conviction.
Joyselle smiled. "I am glad," he said.
The two men eyed each other for a moment, and much was decided by their gaze.
Carron broke the silence. "Did I not see you the other day in Chelsea. I was motoring, and going very fast; but I think it was you."
"It is possible. I have a studio in Tite Street. I go there to practise. It is very quiet there, at the top of the house, and I am very nervous when I am working."
Carron nodded absently; this did not interest him. At the other end of the table one of the Italian secretaries was talking about the Ascot favourite to Freddy Fane, who had recently divorced his chorus girl and stopped drinking, and who was supposed to be looked on with a favourable eye by old Mrs. Banner, the aunt and chaperon of Lady Mary Sligo, the prettiest of the season'sdébutantes.
"Is that man going to marry the beautiful girl I saw on the box-seat of his coach the other day?" asked Joyselle, suddenly.
"I daresay. His mother died last month and left him pots of money. Marmalade-pots—Peet's Peerless." After a moment Carron pursued, drawing lines on the tablecloth with a fruitknife: "I have a very fine violin—left me by my grandfather. It is a Strad, I believe. I wonder if you'd care to see it?"
Joyselle pursed up his lips. "I should, but I warn you, it is probably an imposture. Most cherished violins are—that are in the hands of non-players."
"No doubt, but Sarasate has played on this one, and he believed it to be genuine."
"Aha! When may I come?"
Carron named a near day, and then they went upstairs. He had obtained his immediate object, and now there remained to him that evening a far more difficult task.
Brigit was sitting by the window, fanning herself with a fan made of eagle-feathers. She wore white and looked very tired.
"May I sit down here, Brigit?"
She turned at his voice, and then stared at him. "You look very ill," she said abruptly, "is your heart all right?"
Her face did not change as she spoke, and there was no friendliness in her tone, but he thanked God that he was, and looked, ill.
"My heart is weak, I believe; nothing organic. It is very warm, and I never can bear heat. You look tired yourself."
She nodded absently. "Yes, I have been away—at the Bertie Monson's. Nelly Monson always gives me a headache, she talks so loud. And my room was under the nursery. I do hate children."
Carron caught his breath. She was actually talking civilly to him. And, then, remembering his request to her mother, he, for a second, hated Lady Kingsmead with a bitter and senseless hatred. Was Brigit, after all, only talking to him as a favour to her mother? But a second's reflection showed him the folly of this idea. Had Brigit ever done anything to please her mother? Never.
One of the two women-guests sat down at the piano and began to play, very softly, an old song of Tosti's. Everybody listened. A hansom jingled by and a bicycle's sharp bell was a loud noise in the after-dinner silence.
Joyselle was standing by a table, absently balancing on his forefinger a long, broad, ivory paper-knife. He was, Brigit remembered, curiously adept in balancing, and once she had seen him go through, for Tommy's amusement, a whole series of the kind, from the classic broomstick on his chin, to blowing three feathers about the room at a time, allowing none of them to fall. How quickly he had moved, in spite of his great height, and how Tommy had laughed. But, for the past week, something had gone wrong with the violinist. He had been away from the house one day when she went, and that afternoon, when she "dropped in" on her way from the station, he had hardly spoken. In his silence he seemed immeasurably far from her, and she would have given worlds to read his thoughts.
During dinner he had been conventionally polite, but playing arôlewas so foreign to him that even this laudable one of pretending to be amused when he was bored sat gloomily and guiltily on him.
Carron sat by her for twenty minutes, but her eyes were fixed on Joyselle, and her whole mind groping in the darkness for his.
There was a ball that night, so the party broke up early, but Joyselle stayed, absently, as if he did not notice that the others were going. He sat on a sofa and smoked cigarettes rapidly, rolling them himself, with quick, nervous movements, and throwing them into a silver bowl before they were half-burnt.
Lady Kingsmead tried to talk to him, but finding that, though he answered her politely enough, his thoughts were elsewhere, gave him up and took up a book, casting an impatient look at her daughter.
Carron had gone early, too restless to stay quiet, and afraid to rouse Brigit out of her curious lethargic state.
For a long time the three people sat in silence, and then Lady Kingsmead rose. "I think I'll go upstairs," she said, "but if you two enjoy sitting as mute as fish, there is no reason why you shouldn't continue to do so. Good-night, Joyselle."
He rose and kissed her hands, and a moment later he and Brigit were alone. It was the first time it had happened, for weeks, the girl realised suddenly.
He stood where Lady Kingsmead had left him, the light falling directly on his head in a way that showed up very plainly the curious halo-like effect caused by the silver greyness of the hair about his brow.
"What is wrong, Master?" she asked softly, using Tommy's name for him. He started. "The matter? Nothing that bears talking about, Brigit. But I am in its clutches and I will go."
A cold terror came over her. Was it—some woman? "Do not go," she said, her cheeks burning. "I don't mind your being silent."
He looked at her inquiringly, raising his eyebrows. It was clear that he noticed something strange in her voice; also that he did not know what it meant. But he sat down and began rolling a fresh cigarette. The flat silver box in which he carried his tobacco lay on the table beside him, and she idly took it up. "Rose-Marie à Victor," she saw engraved on it. "What a pretty name! The box is old, isn't it?"
"Yes. Or pretends to be. I have had it for years."
"And—she? Rose-Marie?"
"I don't know. It was twenty years ago—in Paris."
Félicité's story recurred to Brigit, the "bad time" in Paris; "how he loved them all for the time."
He was smoking fitfully, and frowning to himself. She was again forgotten. It was very warm, and the curtains swayed in irregular puffs of wind; then came a rumble of thunder. Joyselle started nervously.
"Un orage," he said; "I—I hate thunder."
"Do you? I like it." Together they went to the window and looked up at the threatening sky. A whirl of dust met them, and they drew quickly back, his sleeve brushing against her shoulders. "It will be bad," he said, broodingly.
"Yes."
She felt breathless and welcomed the coming storm as suiting her mood.
"I—you asked me what is the matter," Joyselle began, speaking very quickly. "I will tell you. It is this. There is in me a god, and I refuse to give him speech. I have genius and I waste it; I have a soul and I am crushing it. I am a most unworthy and miserable being!"
Absolutely sincere in every word he said, his dramatic temperament gave force and a kind of rhythm to his confession that made it very poignant, and his face very white, his big eyes glowed tragically as he stood looking over his hearer's head.
"A most miserable being."
He groaned, and throwing himself into a chair, buried his face in his hands.
Outside one or two carriages hurried past, and the darkness was streaked with quick recurring flashes of lightning.
Brigit looked long at Joyselle, and then, irresistibly drawn to him, laid her hand with great gentleness on his head. "You are tired, and the storm has got on your nerves."
"No, no! I am not tired. There is for my great good-for-nothingness not that excuse. I am—a wastrel of my gifts." It was, she saw, one of the crises of despair under which many artists suffer, but its intensity was most painful. "You are good to me, Brigitte," he said, brokenly, taking her left hand and holding it to his forehead, which was cold and damp. "You are an angel!"
As he spoke a terrific zigzag of fire crossed the windows, and the house shook in the almost immediate crash. Like a child Joyselle threw his arms round Brigit and hid his face against the embroidery on her corsage, holding her tight. It seemed to her an eternity before either of them moved, and when, abruptly, he let her go, and rose, his face had changed.
"Good-bye—I must go—I beg your pardon——"
He stammered piteously, and did not look at her, but stood holding the lapels of his coat as if he was trying to tear them off. Then, without another word, he was gone, out into the storm.
Brigit was not at all surprised when, early the next morning, a note from Joyselle was brought to her.
She had slept very badly, for she seemed to have reached a crisis in her relations with Joyselle; and lying awake in the heat that the storm had but increased, she passed hours in unprofitable forecastings. What would he do, now that he knew? Would he make love to her? Or would he try to hurry on the wedding? Or——
Of course, what he did do proved an utter surprise to her.
"My dear Brigit," he wrote, "just a line to say good-bye to you for a time. I am accepting an offer to do two months' touring in the United States (which country I do not like, but which likes me), and shall come back laden with dollars with which to buy you a beautiful wedding present. What shall it be—diamonds? I hope you will say lace—yards and yards of exquisite lace of all kinds—it is so much more poetic than stones. Soau revoir, my dear, and may all happiness be yours.Joyselle."
"My dear Brigit," he wrote, "just a line to say good-bye to you for a time. I am accepting an offer to do two months' touring in the United States (which country I do not like, but which likes me), and shall come back laden with dollars with which to buy you a beautiful wedding present. What shall it be—diamonds? I hope you will say lace—yards and yards of exquisite lace of all kinds—it is so much more poetic than stones. Soau revoir, my dear, and may all happiness be yours.
Joyselle."
She sat up in bed and drew a long, uneven breath. She had not counted on the possibility of flight! And she could not bear it.
There had been some talk of his going to America, but he had disliked the idea, and she had not dreamed that he would even seriously consider it. There was not the slightest doubt that his decision was entirely due to the little scene of the evening before. That moment when his nervous horror of the lightning had impelled him to put his arms round her had, she knew, opened his eyes to his own danger. And it was characteristic of the man to act immediately and without hesitation. He would go—it was Saturday, and very probably he would leave by the noon train for Liverpool. It was now eight.
She lay for a long time with her eyes shut, trying to realise what life would be like without him. And then her undisciplined, wayward mind revolted. It was unbearable; therefore she would not bear it. She would not let him go.
Half an hour later she was in a hansom, trying to decide the details relative to her decision. He should not go, but which of the several possible ways should she employ to prevent it?
Before she could decide on anything more than the great fact that, cost what it may, she would not let him go, the hansom drew up at the house, and she was about to get out when the front door opened and Joyselle himself appeared.
"You!" he cried, impetuously, and then stood still. "You got my note?" he added a second later, sternly.
Her heart sank. He was very strong. Then he came towards her, his brows drawn down over his eyes, his nostrils dilated, and she lied.
"No—what note?"
Normans are quick to suspect deceit, and for a moment his expression did not change; then, for individually the man was as trustful as racially he was suspicious, he smiled. "I see. But why are you out so early? It is not yet nine."
"And you?" she returned deftly, her heart beating not only with the excitement of the duel, but with enjoyment of her own skill.
"I—well, I have business."
"Then get in and I'll take you wherever you want to go, I want to talk to you."
He hesitated, but she smiled at him and he succumbed, thinking to himself, she could see, that after all she knew nothing of what was going on in his mind.
As he took his place beside her the cabman opened his trap-door and asked with the hoarseness of his kind:
"W'ere to, sir?"
Joyselle frowned. "To—Piccadilly. I'll tell you when we get to where I wish to stop."
Brigit suppressed a smile. Now he was thinking, she saw, that he would tell her of his intended departure before he gave the Cunard Company's address.
He was pale, but to her surprise looked younger rather than older than usual. His mental disturbance had left traces on his face, and they were, as it was, young in their nature. He had fallen in love, and the youth in him, both physical and mental, flared up responsively to the call of the emotion.
Suddenly she saw her line of action clearly marked out for her, and without an instant's hesitation took it. If he suspected that she loved him, nothing in the world could keep him by her. So he must not know. In all her dreams and reflections about their relations, she had never taken into account the possibility of things turning out as they had. She had always tacitly taken for granted that it would be by her will that the man should be waked up to the real state of his own mind. Even after the evening of the dragon-skin frock he had not known the real explanation of his amazement on her entrance, and had, she knew, merely advanced in his perilous path to the point of realising that she was, although his future daughter, an amazingly desirable woman.
So far she had read him correctly. But that something outside her own personal sway should open his eyes she had not anticipated.
This had, however, happened, and with the acute intuition of a woman fighting for her life, she understood what she must do to prevent his flight.
So, turning towards him, she smiled amusedly.
"Eh, b'en, Beau-papa? Got over your fright? You big baby!"
He stared, and she went on without a pause, but speaking slowly, to give an idea of leisure, "To think that you of all people should be afraid ofthunder! It was lucky you had your valorous daughter to shield you."
He gave a short, nervous laugh. "Yes, it is very idiotic, I know, but——"
"And then to bolt away into the very thick of it! That was because you wereashamed! I shall tellpetite mèreand Théo. But it was an awful storm, and so fearfully warm afterwards, wasn't it? I couldn't sleep at all—that's why I'm up so early. I came over to ask you to go up to Hampstead with me to get some real air. This London extract of air is a very poor substitute, isn't it? Now don't say no to a poor daughter whose young man is out of town!"
As she talked, looking casually at the passers-by, she could, so tense were her nerves, almost hear him think. "She is quite unsuspecting," he was telling himself, "there is no danger for her, and—it doesn't matter aboutme. And I am strong and need never betray myself——"
She talked on, the kind of unconcerned nonsense that was, her strange, new instinct told her, best calculated to quite his vibrant nerves. "Little child, little child," he returned mutely, "how little you know! Well—as you are so innocent, why should not I snatch this fearful joy while I may? It harms no one but myself, and such pain is better than any happiness on earth——"
"Yes,ma fille," he said at length, as she pointed to a barrow of nodding daffodils, "we will go to Hampstead; it is a good idea. But first I must send a wire or two. And—you must promise to return to me, unopened, the note you will find in Pont Street."
Her wandering stare was admirable. "Return unopened? But why? Was it—cross?"
He laughed aloud, his brilliant teeth flashing. "Si, si, that is it. Cross! You know how stupid I was last night? The coming storm—well—it was a silly note, and you will return it."
"Oh, of course, if you wish me to," she answered carelessly, but clenching her hands. "C'est une boutade comme une autre!"
He laughed again. His spirits were flying upwards like those of a criminal unexpectedly reprieved.
"Yes—just a fad. Hi, cabbee, stop here, will you?"
While he was in the telegraph-office Brigit allowed her muscles to relax and her face to express her hitherto rigidly concealed triumph.
He was not going. He would stay; she should continue to see him, and the world was full of joy. "Heavens, how I can lie," she whispered softly, "and now we shall both have to lie. We both know about him; he thinks I don't know; and he doesn't know about me! It is a comedy. Oh, Victor, Victor, Victor!"
He came out a moment later, seeming to fill the world with his giant bulk and his astounding radiation of joy. Two narrow-chested city clerks stood still to stare at him, their pallid little faces blank with amazement. A red-nosed flower-girl thrust a great bunch of yellow roses up at him with certainty of sale written all over her. "Roses? Of course. How much?"
He laughed aloud as he gave her some money and then got into the hansom.
"Hampstead Heath, cabby. At Falaise there are millions of these roses—see, with the outside leaves wrinkled and red. Oh, Brigit, Brigit, what a day!"
If it be true that everything is in the eye of the beholder, then Joyselle's and Brigit Mead's eyes must have been full of beauties that day.
For to them Hampstead Heath was the most marvellously lovely place on earth.
His light-heartedness, chiefly due to his faculty for ignoring side-issues and enjoying the present, was of course magnified as well by the fact that it followed close on the heels of one of his despairing black fits. Yesterday he had been, because of an unsatisfactory morning's work in Chelsea, in the very depths, honestly despising himself as an artist, sincerely loathing his incorrigible love of amusement and consequent wasting of time.
So this sunny, rather windy morning, Brigit by his side, and his newly awakened conscience stilled for the moment, was to him as near Paradise as anything he could imagine.
They lunched somewhere—neither of them could ever remember where—on very tough cold ham and insufficiently cooled beer, but they were both too happy to mind, or even to observe the faults of themenu. And as neither of them had ever before set eyes on the Heath, it was full of surprises, as well as of beauties. Yielding to some unexplained instinct, they both took off their hats (what is it that induces people to uncover their heads in high places?), and the warm sun shone down on their hair.
"Your hair must be very long, Brigitte?" observed Joyselle once, as he looked at her silky plaits that covered her crown in disregard of the laws of fashion.
"It is. Comes to my knees. Oh, look!"
Two people, a man and a girl, sat in the shade of an isolated tree only a few yards below the place where they stood. They were evidently enjoying an unlawful holiday, for they were workers—factory hands, probably, and they were as palpably rejoicing in their freedom.
The girl, whose brilliant red hair was pulled out at the sides until her head was as big as a bushel basket, wore a pink blouse and a green skirt. The youth, stunted and pale, was gorgeous only as to tie, but quite evidently she considered him her complement. For they were busy drinking beer from a bottle, turn about, and kissing each other delightedly between swallows. Joyselle started, drawing a deep breath, and Brigit, without moving her head, looked at him sideways, as the so-called Fornarina looks in the Uffizi, in Florence.
"They are cheery, aren't they?" she asked hastily, and he, nodding, turned away. For a few moments he was silent, and then he began to talk rather loudly about nothing in particular, and in a few moments was himself—the Joyselle of that particular day. Brigit realised that their stronghold of reserves and lies had been dangerously threatened by his mounting emotion. If he had broken down in hisrôle—and she knew that the playing of any kind of arôlewas foreign to his nature, and therefore perilous—she would have lost him.
His mind, of course, except in certain moments when it all unconsciously was subjugated by her will, was a closed book to her.
For he was not only a man (and no woman can ever wholly understand any man's mind), but he was nearly twenty years older than she, and he was a Norman—a race very complicated, in its mixture of shrewd cunning and simplicity, and difficult for even other French people to comprehend. But groping in the dark though she was, the girl had grasped two essential facts: if Joyselle learned that she loved him, he would go away if it killed him; and if, though remaining in ignorance of her love, he was led to betray his, the result would be the same.
So her aim must be to keep him well under his own control, and to avoid betraying her personal feelings in the very least degree.
It was easy that first day. He was still more or less dazed and taken up with his discovery that he loved her, and therefore not so shrewd as usual. The future, she knew, would be harder.
But that one day was a delight to them both. He told her about his youth—as truthful an account as his wife's, but oh, how infinitely more picturesque and interesting.
His acquisition of the Amati was recounted with a wealth of detail that enchanted her, and she closed her eyes the better to see the little dark shop on thequaiat Rouen, and the old man who would not sell his treasure, even for a good price, until he had heard the would-be purchaser play on it. "And then, my dear, I tuned it, and played. It was a bit from Tschaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony—the adagio movement. It was dark in the shop, with the velvety darkness old places get on a sunny day, and on the other side of the street lay the sunshine like gold. He sat,le vieux, in his chair away from the light, for his eyes were bad, and listened. And I played well, for I was playing for the greatest price I had ever commanded!"
"And then?" she asked softly, stroking her cheek with some young beech-leaves.
"And then he kissed me, and—I took out my cheque-book," returned Joyselle simply.
It was after four, and the wind had gone down, freeing the common from the beautiful cloud-streams that had chased over it earlier in the day.
The red-headed girl and her young man had disappeared, and from where they sat Joyselle and Brigit saw no signs of life.
"To-morrow it will be crowded with odious people," Brigit sighed.
"Why odious?"
"Well, I mean vulgar, noisy people."
He shook his head in a way that ruffled his halo of silver hair, and laughed.
"You should not be a snob," he teased. "After all, you are marrying the son of peasants."
"Peasants are different," she insisted, a little sulkily.
"Peasants are picturesque only in books, my dear. As for me, I like happy people, and even your English 'noisy and vulgar' ones are happy, I suppose, when they come up here on Sunday. Some day you and I will come again. And bring Théo," he added suddenly.
Then he rose. "Come, we had better start to walk back." She obeyed in silence.
"If I had not had genius," he continued as they reached the bottom of the slope and turned homewards, "I should be now—what? A Norman peasant in a black blouse driving, probably, a char-à-bancs to sell my fruit—or my corn. I could never have been a gamekeeper like my father, for I cannot kill. And if you, then, had come to Falaise and gone to the market, you might have bought a pennyworth of cherries of me. And all this might have been if I had not, one day, heard an old half-witted blind man play a cracked fiddle on the high road, thirty years ago!"
She frowned, for she hated this kind of talk. It was too true, and it hurt her baser pride, even while her nobler pride rejoiced in the very humbleness of his origin because it emphasised his present greatness.
"But—you are you, and I am only—me," she returned, ungrammatical but proudly humble.
He turned, his face flushing brilliantly. "Then you are proud of me?" he cried.
Danger again. After a long pause, which visibly hurt him, she returned with a smile, "Of course I am. Who would not be proud of such a father-in-law?"
Half an hour later it was all over, the wonderful day was finished, and to Brigit's amazement she was more than a little glad. It had been delightful, but it had been full of danger.
In time Joyselle would learn to evade these pitfalls, with which their future seemed to bristle, but as yet he was so unused to avoiding things in his path that it was almost a miracle that she had, as she put it with a half-whimsical, half-despairing smile, got him safely home without an outburst.
She was, had been from the first, fairly sure of herself, but she was wise enough to acknowledge that her strength depended largely on his. If he had broken down, she knew that the odds were largely against her being able, in her inevitable despair over his certain-to-follow good-bye, to continue to hide her own feelings. And after that, she believed, he would never see her again.
So it was with a strong feeling of relief that she said good-bye to him, half-way home, and went on alone.
As the hansom started again she turned and looked back. Joyselle stood, hat in hand, where she had left him, his face, now that he believed himself to be unseen by her, black with thought. Then, with the so familiar jerk of his head, he put on his hat, smiled, and marched off down the street.
One afternoon, a few days later, Tommy Kingsmead burst into his sister's room where she was sitting writing.
"I say, Bick——"
"Hello, little boy, what's the matter?"
Tommy shrugged his shoulders in close imitation of Joyselle.
"I don't know, but something is. Very. It's—Théo!"
She started. "Théo? He isn't ill, is he?"
"No, no. He's downstairs; wants to see you. There's been some kind of a row in Golden Square.Petite mèreand the Master have been talking for an hour, as hard as ever they can talk, and Théo is upset, and the Master has gone off in a tearing rage—do go down and find out, Brigit, and then come back and tell me."
Lord Kingsmead's pristine curiosity regarding everything with which he came into contact had by no means suffered eclipse since he had been living in London.
Devoted as he was to Joyselle and to his music, the little boy's passion for knowledge of all kinds seemed to increase, and there was in his small, pale, pointed face a strained, overkeen look that troubled his sister at times. Now, however, she had no leisure to think of it, and hurried downstairs to the drawing-room, where she found Théo walking restlessly up and down.
"Brigit," he burst out abruptly, as she came in, "when will you marry me?"
"Good gracious, Théo—what—what has put that into your head?" she parried ineffectively, sitting down, as he did not offer to give her any further greeting.
"Into my head? Has it ever been out of it? I am sorry to have startled you, dear," he continued, more gently, sitting down by her and taking her hands in his, "but surely I have been patient. And—I am tired of waiting."
She sat with bent head, looking at their joined hands. His hands were smaller and whiter than his father's, but very like them in shape. If they had been Joyselle's! If he had been able to come to her with that question: "When will you marry me?"
"You are very good," she said slowly, after a long pause.
"Then—?"
"Suppose you tell me why this sudden frenzy of haste?"
He hesitated. "Well—we have been engaged nearly eight months—and I love you, dear."
But she remembered Tommy's story and persisted.
"Surely, though, something must have happened to-day? You were quite content yesterday."
He flushed. "Eh bien, oui.It is that my grandmother has written. In September is to be their Golden Wedding. They are very old, and—they want—me to bring my wife to them. Brigit," he added, his boyish face flushing with anticipatory pink, "may I not do it?"
She rose and went to the window, her temples beating violently. For weeks Théo had played such a subordinaterôlein her mind, owing as much to his native modesty as to her absorption in his father, that his mood of to-day came to her as a shock. After all, put the thought away, forget the inevitable future in an almost hysterical enjoyment of the present, as she would, it must be faced some time. Could she possibly marry this boy whom her sentimental contemporaneousness with his father naturally seemed to relegate to a generation younger than herself?
It would be horrible, unnatural. A husband, be he ever so modern, and his wife ever so unruly, is in the nature of things more or less a master, whereas, she realised with a flash of very miserable amusement, she would, if displeased with him, feel less inclined to use wifely diplomacy than to box his ears. Emphatically, she had hopelessly outgrown him. Then, what should she do?
If she refused him now, what would be his father's attitude? She did not know. A week ago Joyselle would have hated her—or thought that he did, which is practically the same thingpro tem.
But now! Now that the violinist had had time to face and measure his own passion, would he not realise the futility of trying to force one's inclinations in such matters? Again she could only shake her head; she was out of her depth. Meantime, behind her, Théo was waiting for his answer. Suddenly the horrors of the situation seemed to burst on her from all sides. What had she done? Accepted this boy because he had money, and because she disliked her mother and her mother's friends; then she had, finding that she loved her future father-in-law, deliberately torn from his eyes the veil of family sentiment that had protected him from her, and later, when he had by an accident learned that she was to be loved, and that he loved her, she had by an ignoble trick kept him in England, refusing to let him play the decent part he had chosen. What was she, then, to have done this abominable and traitorous thing?
"Brigit—is it so—horrible to you?"
There was in his voice something like a repressed sob, and she had an extravagant horror of melodrama. If he wept she would, she knew, lose her temper.
"Listen, Théo. I—I will tell you to-night. I mean, I'll set a date. Only you must go now. I—I have an engagement."
"Then——"
"Then you are a goose to be so upset! I must think it over. I know I'm queer and—rather horrid, but—I have not changed. You knew what I was when you asked me to marry you. And—I never pretended to be—romantic, did I?"
He watched her dumbly. She had never looked to him more beautiful than at that moment in her simple blue frock, her hands behind her, her eyes almost deprecating. He rose with an effort. "All right, then. To-night. Thank you, Brigit."
As full of humble doubts as he had been the night he asked her to marry him, his honest eyes shining with the tears she had arrested in their course, he kissed her hand and withdrew.
When she had heard the front door close she went to a mirror on the wall and looked at herself.
"And now, you loathsome creature," she said aloud, fiercely, "you must make up your mind what you are going to do."
Like many nervous people, she had a habit of walking while she thought hard, and now after a few turns up and down the overcrowded room she went upstairs, put on a hat, and, leaving the excited Tommy a prey to a most maddening attack of thwarted curiosity, left the house.
She walked rapidly, looking straight ahead, seeing nothing, a rather ferocious frown causing many people to stare at her in surprise. She wore a delicately hued French frock and a mauve hat covered with blue convolvuli, but in her extraordinary self-absorption and intentness of thought there was something uncivilised about her. Her clothes were unsuited to her, and she walked as if quite alone in a vast plain.
Her answer to Théo? What was it to be? Should she find it here, in Sloane Street? How could she decide, not having the remotest idea what effect her decision would have on Joyselle? Could she live without him? As things now stood, he might, on her announcement that she was willing to marry Théo in, say, three months' time, fly to the ends of the earth that he might hide his own suffering, or—he might have the strength to endure it in silence for his son's sake.
If on the other hand she said no, that she could not marry his son, would he look on her decision as perfidy, and refuse to see her ever again, or—A man in a hansom swore softly with relief as she just escaped being knocked down by his horse, and quite unconscious of her danger, hurried on, her head bent.
Or—would he then—allow himself to love her—to love her frankly, so far as she was concerned?
At the corner of Sloane Square a man coming towards her saw her trance-like condition, and stopping short, forced her almost to run into his arms. "I beg your pardon," she began mechanically, and then her face changed. "You, Gerald! How d'ye do?"
She had not seen him for days, and then it had been in the evening, so that now in the strong afternoon sun she saw with a momentary shock that he looked very ill indeed.
"Seedy?" she asked, some unanalysed feeling of understanding urging her to an unusual gentleness of tone.
"Yes. What is wrong with you, Brigit?"
She had never forgiven him the affair of the evening when Tommy had walked in his sleep, but her mind was too full of her own trouble to have much room for resentment, and his value as an enemy had gone down. He looked too broken and ill to be dangerous.
"I—I'm all right," she returned.
"Where are you walking so fast?"
"I'm just walking."
"I see. A race with the demons," he said in a curious, hurried voice. "I do it, too. Everyone does, it seems. I just met Joyselle tearing out Chelseaward—the father, I mean."
She looked up at him, her face clearing. "Ah!"
"Yes. I like him. He is a great artist and—a whole man. No disrespect to your young man, my dear," he added, with a dismal attempt of his old jaunty manner.
"Yes; he is 'a whole man.' Well, I must get on. Good-bye." With a nod she left him and hurried on.
To Chelsea? Yes; No. 16-1/2 Tite Street—she knew. She had never seen the house, but she had heard the number. No one ever went there. Madame Joyselle had never been, and Théo only once. Why was he "tearing" there at that hour? Because, of course, he wanted to be alone. There had certainly been a row of some kind, of which Théo had not told her. The old woman in Normandy had written, oh, yes; but then there must have been a greatpourparler, and even Félicité had grown angry. Poor Félicité! To-night—oh, yes; at a dance at the Newlyns; she must give Théo his answer. At a dance!
But how could she decide until she knew what Victor—"Hansom!" Her own voice surprised her as a pistol shot might have done. "Tite Street, Chelsea, 16-1/2."
The cabby, who was a romanticist and fed his brain on pabulum from the pen of Mr. Fergus Hume and other ingenious concocters of peripatetic mystery, wondered as he gave his horse a meaning lash with his whip—a tribute to the beauty of the fare—"Wot the dickens she was h'up to, with 'er big eyes and 'er 'ealthy pallor."
It further excited the excellent man's interest to be obliged, when he had arrived at his destination, to remind his fare that they had done so. "'Ere y'are, miss," he murmured soothingly down the trap. "Shall I wait?"
The house was an old one with a broad, low front door and shallow, much-worn oak stairs. In answer to Brigit's knock a Gamp-like person with a hare-lip appeared, and informing her curtly that Mr. Joyselle had come in only a few minutes before, added that she might go up—"To the top, miss, an' there's only one door when you've got up."
Brigit almost ran up the four flights, and then, when opposite the door, sat down on the top step and hid her face in her hands.
What should she say? Why had she come? Would he be glad to see her—or shocked? Worse still, would he accept her coming as an act of filial devotion?
No. That she would not allow.
Her mind, boiling, as it were, with a thousand ingredients, she could hardly be said to be thinking. Realising perfectly that she had behaved outrageously, sincerely ashamed of herself and full of remorse, yet her own position and her own welfare had never for a second ceased to be her chief concern. Suffering was of a certainty in store for some of the actors in the drama, but she held the centre of the stage and meant to avoid as much pain as possible. For her love for Joyselle was, of course, a purely selfish one. For several minutes she sat crouching on the stairs, utterly undecided as to what her next step was to be. Then a sound from within the room behind her caused her to turn sharply. A sound of—not music, but of pitiless, furious scraping and grinding on a violin.
Could it be Joyselle? It was horrible, like the cries of some animal in agony. And it went on and on and on.
"It must be Victor," she whispered; "it is his room. But—oh, how frightful! Has he gone mad? Oh, my God, my God!"
Rising, she stood for a horrible minute bending towards the door, and then with a quick movement opened it and went in.
The curtains were drawn, but a large window in the roof let in a square of cross daylight that looked like an island in a surrounding sea of dusky darkness; and in the light stood Joyselle, his back to her, his head bent over his violin in a way almost grotesque, as he groaned and tore at the hapless strings with venomous energy.
Brigit stood, unable to move. It is always an uncanny thing to watch for any length of time a person who believes himself to be absolutely alone, and when, as in this case, the person is undergoing, and giving full vent to a very strong emotion, the strangeness is increased tenfold.
The man was, it was plain, after a week's tremendous and for him wholly unusual self-restraint, now giving full rein to his great rage over his miserable situation. As he played, she could see the muscles of his strong neck move under the brown skin, and his shoulders rise and fall tumultuously with his uneven breaths. The din he made was almost unbearable, and she pressed her hands to her ears to shut it out.
The room was very large, and high, and round it, half-way up the dull yellow walls, ran an old carved gallery, relic of the time when it had been the studio of a hare-brained painter, a friend of Hazlitt and Coleridge, a believer in poor young Keats while the rest of the world laughed at him—in the very early days.
In those days feasts had been held here, and in the gallery, hidden behind flowering dwarf peach-trees in tubs, stringed instruments were played—very softly, for the painter of one good picture and dozens of bad ones, had taste—while his guests sat at his board. Stories are still told of the small table that used to be brought into the room at the end of dinner by two little Ethiopians in white tunics. An ancient table with faded gilding just visible on the claw feet that looked out from under its petticoat of finest damask; and on it priceless gold and silver bowls and salvers of all shapes, full of the most marvellous fruits from all countries, some of which fruits were never seen elsewhere in England. All dead and gone to dust years ago, host and guest and grinning little Ethiopians. Joyselle had told Brigit this story, and now as she stood watching him vent his wrath and anguish on his faithful Amati, a kind of vision came to her; and she seemed to see the room as it used to be—vaguely, the big table with six or eight men sitting around it drinking wine, and, more distinctly, the heaped-up bowls and plates of fruit——
Half hypnotised she stood there, her hands pressed to her ears until, with a final excruciating dig into the strings, he dropped his left arm and turned.
For a moment he, in his square of light, did not see her in the dusk under the gallery. Then he took a step forward, and with a low cry caught her in his arms and crushed her and the violin painfully to his breast.
"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu," he repeated over and over, kissing her roughly, "you have come. Then you know, ma Brigitte, you know!"
"Yes, I know," she admitted sullenly. "Let me go, Victor, you—you hurt me."
He dropped his arms and she withdrew a few steps. He was very pale and his hair was ruffled.
"You—it was good of you to come," he said after a pause. "Then, you are not angry?"
"No."
"Brigit—je t'aime, je t'aime. I am infamous, I am a monster, a father to be execrated by all honest men and women, but—I love you!"
He laid the violin down in a chair and came to her. "Et toi?" he asked hoarsely.
The moment had come when shemustthink, she told herself, but her brain refused to work. The only thing that mattered was that he should stay. What must she say, truth or lie, that would inspire that necessity?
She stared at him blankly, and then, before she could speak, he knelt at her feet and pressed a fold of her dress to his face.
"Victor," she said slowly, trembling so she could hardly stand, "you will not—leave me?"
And Joyselle caught her up off the floor and held her as if she had been a baby.
"Dieu merci," he cried. "Dieu merci."
An hour later Brigit Mead came quietly down the now nearly dark stairs of the old house, smiling faintly to herself.
Joyselle's confession had been complete and circumstantial. He had not attempted to hide from her one thing, and in the relief of his, as it seemed, unavoidable avowal, he had hardly given her time to speak. "It was, I think, the evening you came in the golden gown. You remember? It was a vision; but an angelic vision, Most Beautiful; but one that turned me first to stone, and then to fire. Vivien must have worn a golden gown. And then the evening in Pont Street—the storm, when I put my arms round you—they went round the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, it is true, but also round my daughter. But—in that lightning flash of time I found they were round the woman compared to my love of whom the whole world does not matter! And I ran into the night and walked for hours in the rain, and I think I was mad. Then I determined to go to America. And I would have gone, God knows, but—you came, and your unconsciousness broke me down. If you had suspected, I should have gone; I was on my way to the Steamship Company when I met you. And then, Hampstead—and this past week—and then you came to me here where I work—and where I dream—ah, my beloved!"
He was very gentle in his unhoped-for happiness, and to her immense relief he never once mentioned, or even appeared to remember, his son.
When he asked her, with the marvelling curiosity of a boy lover, when and why she ever came to love him, she only shook her head. "I love you," she answered, and he forgot, looking at her, to insist.
No word of the future had been said, not a plan had been made. Only, at parting, to meet later in the evening at the Newlyns, he said to her, "I will be the greatest violinist in the world, my woman."
And her heart beat high with honest pride in him.
Too happy to think, she went down the stairs, and half-way down found herself face to face with Gerald Carron.
It was nearly dark, but she could just see that his white face was drawn and hideous with anger.
"What are you doing here?" she cried, drawing back, but furious in her turn.
"What are you doing here? You—you!"
"You have been spying on me," she returned with a good assumption of courage that she was very far from feeling. "Well—I have been to talk to Mr. Joyselle. Have you any objection to my doing so?"
"Objection? Yes, I have. You have fooled us all. Engaged to the boy, and—I have always known that you didn't care for that child, and wondered—Now I know." He laughed shrilly. "And other people shall know, too! Your mother will be pleased, and—the clean peasant! I only wonder you haven'tmarriedthat poor wretch. The situation would then be even more—biblical."
She tried to pass him, but he barred her way. "If you don't let me go, I will call for M. Joyselle. And if he doesn't hear me, someone else will. Do you understand?"
He did not answer, and looking at him carefully for a moment she was for the first time terrified. His eyes were not those of a sane man.
"Gerald, don't be nasty," she urged, gently. "Surely you must see that there is no harm in my coming to see Joyselle! In a month or two he will be my father-in-law."
He sneered. "Ah, bah! I saw your face as you passed the last window. It was not the face of a girl coming from her future father-in-law. It was the face——"
Before he could finish a door opened on the floor above and two children came downstairs, chattering gaily to each other. Brigit turned to the elder, a boy of six, dressed in a quaintly cut green blouse.
"Is your papa at home, my dear?" she asked.
The child laughed. "My papa is dead," he answered cheerfully, "but Uncle Chris is there."
Brigit looked at Carron for a moment, and then went downstairs with her hand on the little boy's shoulder. "And what is your name?" she asked.
"I'm Bob Seymour, and this is Patty. Uncle Chris has been painting us. He gives us a shilling apiece each time."
"How very nice." Patty, who wore as obviously artistic a costume as her brother's, thumped noisily from behind them, and a few seconds later Brigit had kissed her unconscious but all-powerful bodyguard and jumped into the hansom.
If a man had come instead of the children, almost anything might have happened, for she had no doubt that Carron's sanity was approaching snapping-point, but the innocent courage of Bob and Patty had quieted him.
Brigit had a very unpleasant drive home, but the romantic cabby was delightfully thrilled. As it happened, he had been "crawling" for some minutes before Brigit had engaged him in Sloane Square, and had noticed her being accosted by Carron.
"Something queer along of all this," he meditated; "that lean chap didn't look quite right, an' she 'adn't no patience with 'im neither. Then in she goes to the old 'ouse, an' then along comes another 'ansom with the lean chap. Then I waits an hour, an' out she comes with the little kids, kissin' 'em, an' the biggest little kid arsks 'er 'er nime! If she didn't know 'im, why did she kiss 'im? An' before we'd got to the corner out comes the lean 'un, lookin' like a bloomin' corpse. Something must 'ave 'appened in that old 'ouse, an' I'll keep a lookout in thePeopleand see wot it was. I'd like to 'ave been a fly on the wall during that there interview, I would. A fly on the wall with a tiste for short'and."
Lady Kingsmead, who was going to the Newlyns' ball later, was having dinner in her little sitting-room when Carron came rushing in, nearly treading on the heels of the afflicted Fledge, who did like to have a chance to announce visitors properly.
"Good Lord, Gerald!—what is the matter?"
"Matter enough. Brigit is Victor Joyselle's mistress."
He sank into a chair and pressed his thin hands together until the bones cracked.
"Gerald!"
"She is! sheis! I have just come from his studio in Chelsea. Followed her there. She was alone with him for over an hour. And when she came out——"
Lady Kingsmead rose and went to him.
"Now listen to me," she said firmly. "You have either been drinking or you are mad. I don't care where you have been or where you saw Brigit. This story is—rot!"
Lady Kingsmead was not a clever woman, but this move on her part, the result not of a virtuous belief in virtue or of a sudden swing of her mental pendulum towards the effective, such as some women have—was amazing in its effect, because it was spontaneous and sincere.
"Will you have something to drink?" she asked.
It was a curious scene; the dainty little room with the swivel-table laid for one, the pretty, well-preserved woman, looking down with real pity but something very near scorn at the broken, haggard, untidy man sprawling in a rose-coloured chair.
"You are a fool, Tony," he said roughly. "I tell you I know."
"Bosh. You know perfectly well that I was never silly about my children. Well—I don't care what you say about Brigit, Iknowshe is all right. As yet, anyway," she added.
"She loves that—that brute," he stammered, wiping the perspiration from his face with a crumpled handkerchief. "I saw her face as she left his studio."
Lady Kingsmead pursed her mouth thoughtfully.
"That may be," she admitted. "I've thought for some time that something was in the air——"
Breaking off, she glanced hastily at him. The old habit of telling him her thoughts as they came to her was still strong, but this was not her Gerald Carron. This was a new man of whom she knew little. For this much wisdom she had learned: that every new love makes a new man of a man.
And this Carron, with his wild eyes, was no person to confide in.
"Come, buck up, old thing," she said, with an affectation of brusque good-humour: "you haven't been sleeping. Isn't that it?"
"Yes. I'll never sleep any more."
"And you're taking—Veronal?"
"Yes, sometimes. Oh, don't bully me, Tony! I'm—done."
"I should think you were, to come and tell a woman beastly stories about her own daughter! You'll be sorry to-morrow. Did you tellherthis beautiful idea by way of making yourself engaging?"
"I told her—yes."
"And she didn't knock you down? Upon my word, I am surprised. Now look here, Gerald; you must go. I'm going to dress. We are going to the Cassowary's ball. You'd better go to bed and try to sleepwithout any Veronal. Will you? Will you, Gerry, poor old boy?"
His nerves were in such a condition that this unmerited and unexpected kindness broke him down utterly. Suddenly, to her horror, the poor wretch burst into tears, sobbing like a child.
"Gerry, don't—oh, for Heaven's sake, don't!" she cried, laying her hand on his head. "You—youmustn't. Gerry, Gerry dear——"
"Yes, pat his head and call him dear!" cried Brigit furiously from the open door. "He insults me in the most abominable way, the vile little beast, and then you pet him. Bah! mother, you do really make me ill!"
Lady Kingsmead turned, amazed. "You are off your head, too! Can't you see he isill?"
But Brigit's anger, nursed all during the drive home, burst out afresh. All her life she and her mother had quarrelled; there had never been implanted in her even an idea of the common decency of filial respect, or of its semblance. Her mother's gusty, fitful temper had always, when roused, been given instant vent in a torrent of vituperation, and the girl, while too sulky to be so spontaneous even in the unpleasant sense of the word, had early acquired the habit of speaking to her mother as she would have to a greatly disliked sister.
So now, when her rage with Carron burst its bounds, and she found, as she thought, her mother taking his part, she gave free rein to her temper, and its eloquent bitterness struck Lady Kingsmead for the moment dumb.
Carron sat still, his face hidden in his hands. When at last Brigit's arraignment ceased, Lady Kingsmead's turn came, and more feebly, less effectively, but to the best of her powers, she gave back abuse for abuse.
It was not a pleasant sight. Unbridled rage never is, even when in a good cause, and these two undisciplined women had lost all dignity and said very bad things to each other.
Brigit's one excuse was her mistaken assumption that her mother had believed Carron's story, and when Lady Kingsmead had shrieked out everything else that she thought might hurt her daughter, she added, "I believed in you, you little brute, though he said hesawyou there. I might have known he wouldn't have dared to make up such a tale."
Brigit, who had stood quite still, now spoke. "Then—you believe him now?"
"Yes, Ido!" lied Lady Kingsmead, goaded by the sneer on her daughter's fierce mouth.
There was a long pause, and then Brigit Mead went to the door.
"I am sorry I lost my temper and made such a beast of myself," she said slowly, "and—I will never speak to you again as long as I live."
She closed the door gently and went upstairs to her room.
It was done now, decided, her boats were burnt. From this day henceforth she would be spoken of as the queer Mead girl who doesn't live with her mother.
While she dressed for dinner she laid her plans with the quickness native to her. She would dine and dance at the Newlyns, and then she would go to the Joyselles' for the night.
The next day she would go and talk to a girl friend who had a flat in huge and horrible "Mansions" out Kensington way. She would live alone with a maid; and she would have to pinch and scrape—but that would not matter. And then—Joyselle would come to see her, and very probably some day they would lose their heads, and it would be her mother's fault. There was much satisfaction in this reflection, for she ignored the fact that in all probability the crisis had been only precipitated by her mother's speech.
There was Tommy. Well, Joyselle would be good to him for her sake. And even if Tommy should elect to come and live with her, her mother could not prevent his doing so. She would fuss and cry and tell all her friends how ungrateful her children were, but in the end Tommy's firmness would prevail.
She laughed as she got out of the carriage at the Newlyns. By great good luck Joyselle was dining there, and Théo coming only to the dance.
"I will tell him," she thought, and her heart gave a great throb and then sank warmly into its place at the thought of seeing him. "He will turn slowly and hold his shoulders stiffly and try to look indifferent," she thought, "but oh—his eyes!"