The reception in honor of the little company of French tragedians, at which almost the whole of the English stage and a sprinkling of society people were present, was a complete success. Louise made a charming hostess, and Sir Edward more than ever justified his reputation for saying the right thing to the right person at the right moment. The rooms were crowded with throngs of distinguished people, who all seemed to have plenty to say to one another.
The only person, perhaps, who found himself curiously ill at ease was John. He heard nothing but French on all sides of him—a language which he read with some facility, but which he spoke like a schoolboy. He had been wandering about for more than an hour before Louise discovered him. She at once left her place and crossed the room to where he was standing by the wall.
"Cheer up!" she begged, with a delightful smile. "I am afraid that you are being bored to death. Will you not come and be presented to our guests?"
"For goodness' sake, no!" John implored. "I have never seen one of them act, and my French is appalling. I am all right, dear. It's quite enough pleasure to see you looking so beautiful, and to think that I am going to be allowed to drive you home afterward."
Louise looked into a neighboring mirror, and gazed critically at her own reflected image. The lines of herfigure, fine and subtle, seemed traced by the finger of some great sculptor underneath her faultlessly made white-satin gown. She studied her white neck and shoulders and her perfectly shaped head, seeking everywhere for some detail with which an impartial critic might find fault.
She had a curious feeling that at that precise moment she had reached the zenith of her power and her charm. Her audience at the theater had been wonderfully sympathetic, had responded with rare appreciation to every turn of her voice, to every movement and gesture. The compliments, too, which she had been receiving from the crowds who had bent over her fingers that night had been no idle words. Many distinguished men had looked at her with a light in their eyes which women understand so well—a light questioning yet respectful, which provokes yet begs for something in the way of response.
She was conscious, acutely conscious, of the atmosphere she had created around her. She was glorying in the subtle outward signs of it. She was in love with herself; in love, too, with this delightful new feeling of loving. It would have given her more joy than anything else in the world, in that moment of her triumph, to have passed her arm through John's, to have led him up to them all, and to have said:
"After all, you see, I am a very simple sort of woman. I have done just the sort of simple thing that other women do, and I am glad of it—very glad and very happy!"
Her lips moved to the music of her thoughts. John leaned toward her.
"Did you say anything?" he asked.
"You dear stupid, of course I did not! Or if I did,it was just one of those little whispers to oneself which mean nothing, yet which count for so much. Can I not do anything to make you enjoy yourself more? I shall have to go back to my guests now. We are expecting a royal personage, and those two dears who keep so close to my side do not speak a word of English."
"Please go back, dear," John begged promptly. "It was nice of you to come at all. And here's Sophy at last, thank goodness! Now I am all right."
She laid her fingers upon his arm.
"You must take me back to my place," she said. "Then you can go and talk nonsense to Sophy. I won't even ask you what she said when you told her the news. I suppose you did tell her?"
"Of course!"
She glanced at him swiftly. His reply had sounded a little lame; but they were back in the crowd now, and she dismissed him with a little nod. He made his way quickly to the spot where he had seen Sophy. To his disappointment, she had disappeared. Graillot, however, came up and seized him by the arm.
"Still playing the moth, my young friend?" he exclaimed. "Aren't the wings sufficiently burned yet?"
"I am afraid it's become a permanent rôle," John replied, as the two men shook hands. "Where have you been all these weeks, and why haven't you been to see me?"
"Paris, my dear young friend—Paris and life! Now I am back again—I am not sure that I know why. I came over with these French people, to see them start their theater. Forgive me, I have not paid my respects to our hostess. We shall meet again presently."
He strolled off, and a few minutes later John found Sophy.
"How late you are!" he grumbled.
"I couldn't help it," she answered. "This is the only evening dress I possess at present, and I had to mend it before it was decent to come out in. Why are you wandering about alone? Hasn't Louise been kind to you?"
"She has been charming," John declared promptly, "but she is surrounded with all sorts of people I don't know. I can't help her. For one thing, my French is absurd. Then they are all talking about things which I don't understand in the least."
Sophy remained silent for a moment. Then she took John's arm and led him to the buffet.
"Give me an ice and a cigarette, will you, please? You are a dear, impractical person, but you are as much out of this world as a human being well could be!"
John waited upon her without any further remark. The Prince of Seyre, passing through, bowed to them. John looked after his retreating figure. An irresistible impulse seized him.
"Sophy," he asked, sitting down by her side, "tell me, why have the prince and Louise always been such great friends?"
Sophy looked steadfastly at her ice.
"I suppose because the prince is a very clever and cultivated person," she said. "He has been of great assistance to Louise several times. It was he who financed Miles Faraday when he put on this play of Graillot's. Graillot hasn't a penny, you know, and poor Miles was almost broke after three failures."
"That was just an investment," John remarked irritably. "He will get his money back again."
"Of course," Sophy agreed. "I think the prince generally manages to get value for what he does in life."
"You don't think Louise ever thought of caring for him, do you?" John persisted.
Sophy paused until she had lit a cigarette. The expression in her face, when she looked up at John, irritated him vaguely. It was as if she were talking to a child.
"I think," she said, "you had better ask Louise that question yourself, don't you?"
He asked it an hour or so later, when at last the party of guests had taken their leave, and, somewhat to the well-bred surprise of the one or two friends who lingered, Louise had beckoned to John to take her out to her car. Her hand had sought his at once, her head rested a little wearily but very contentedly upon his shoulder.
"Louise dear," he began, "I asked Sophy a question to-night which I ought to have asked you. Quite properly, she told me so."
"Nice little soul, Sophy!" Louise murmured. "What was it, John?"
"Once or twice I have wondered," he went on, "whether you have ever cared in any sort of way, or come near to caring, for the Prince of Seyre?"
For a moment she made no movement. Then she turned her head and looked at him. The sleepy content had gone from her eyes.
"Why do you ask?"
"Isn't it quite a natural question from a jealous man who believes that every one who sees you must be in love with you? You have seen a great deal of theprince, haven't you, in the last few years? He understands your art. There are many things that you and he have in common."
Louise was looking out of the window at the thin stream of people still passing along Piccadilly. She seemed suddenly to have become only the shadow of her former brilliant self.
"I think that once—perhaps twice," she confessed, "I came very near to caring for him."
"And now?"
"And now," she repeated, suddenly gripping John's hands, "I tell you that I am very much nearer hating him. So much for the prince! In ten minutes we shall be at home, and you are such a dear stupid about coming in. You must try to say all the nice things in the world to me quickly—in ten minutes!"
"How shall I begin?" he whispered.
She leaned once more toward him.
"You don't need any hints," she murmured. "You're really quite good at it!"
The ten minutes passed very much too quickly. She was gone, and John, thrilled though he was through all his senses by the almost passionate fervor of her leave-taking, found himself once more confronted by that little black demon. He sat up in the car, which bore him quickly back toward his rooms; and although the sense of her presence, the delicate perfume, the empty place by his side, even a fallen flower from her gown, were still there, the unrest seemed sharper.
There was something about all of them, all these people whom he knew to be his friends, which seemed to him to savor of a conspiracy. One by one they flitted through his brain—Graillot's covert warning; Sophy's plaintive, almost fearful doubts; the prince's subtle yet cynical silence; and behind it all, Stephen's brutal and outspoken words. There was nothing that could be put into definite shape—just the ghost of torturing, impossible thoughts. John told himself that it must be ended. Even though the words should blister his tongue with shame, they must be spoken.
A moment later he hated himself for the thought. He set his teeth, filled his thought with the glory of her presence, and crushed those demoniacal suggestions to the back of his brain. He was in no humor to go home, however. Changing the order he had first given to the chauffeur, he was driven instead to a small Bohemian club which he had joined at Graillot's instigation. Hehad a vague hope that he might find the great dramatist there. There were no signs of him, however, in the smoking room, or any one else whom John knew.
He threw himself into an easy chair and ordered a whisky-and-soda. Two men close at hand were writing at desks; others were lounging about, discussing the evening's reception. One man, sitting upon the table, a recognized authority, was treating the company to a fluent dissertation upon modern actresses, winding up by contrasting Louise Maurel's style with that of her chief French rival. John found himself listening with pleased interest. The man's opinion was certainly not unfavorable to Louise.
"It is only in the finer shades of emotionalism," the critic declared, "that these French actresses get at us a little more completely even than Louise Maurel. Do you know the reason? I'll tell you. It is because they live the life. They have a dozen new emotions in a season. They make a cult of feeling. They use their brains to dissect their passions. They cut their own life into small pieces and give us the result without concealment. That is where they score, if anywhere. This Mme. Latrobe, who opens over here to-morrow night, is living at the present moment with Jean Tourbet. She had an affair with that Italian poet in the summer, so they tell me. She was certainly in Madrid in October with Bretoldi, the sculptor. These men are all great artists. Think what she must have learned from associating with them! Now Louise Maurel, so far as we know, has never had but one lover, the Prince of Seyre, and has been faithful to him all the time."
It was out at last! John had heard it spoken in plain words. The black demon upon which his hand had lain so heavily, was alive now, without a doubt, jeering athim, mocking at him—alive and self-assertive in the sober words of the elderly, well-bred man who lounged upon the table.
For a moment or two John was stunned. A wild impulse assailed him to leap up and confront them all, to choke the lie back down the throat of the man who had uttered it. Every nerve in his body was tingling with the desire for action. The stupor of his senses alone kept him motionless, and a strange, incomprehensible clarity of thought. He realized exactly how things were. This man had not spoken idly, or as a scandalmonger. He had spoken what he had accepted as a fact, what other people believed.
John rose to his feet and made his way toward the door. His face showed little sign of disturbance. He even nodded to some men whom he knew slightly. As he passed down the stairs, he met Graillot. Then once more the self-control became in danger. He seized the Frenchman savagely by the arm.
"Come this way," he said, leading him toward the card-room. "Come in here! I want to speak to you."
He locked the door—a most unheard-of and irregular proceeding. Graillot felt the coming of the storm.
"Well!" he exclaimed grimly. "Trouble already, eh? I see it in your face, young man. Out with it!"
John—who had won a hard match at rackets a few days before against a more experienced opponent simply because of his perfect condition—was breathing hard. There was a dull patch of color in his cheek, drops of sweat stood upon his forehead. He controlled his voice with difficulty. Its tone was sharp and unfamiliar.
"I was sitting in the smoking room there, a few moments ago," he began, jerking his head toward thedoor. "There were some men talking—decent fellows, not dirty scandalmongers. They spoke of Louise Maurel."
Graillot nodded gravely. He knew very well what was coming.
"Well?"
"They spoke, also, of the Prince of Seyre."
"Well?"
John felt his throat suddenly dry. The words he would have spoken choked him. He banged his fist upon the table by the side of which they were standing.
"Look here, Graillot," he cried, almost piteously, "you know it is not true, not likely to be true! Can't you say so?"
"Stop, my young friend!" the Frenchman interrupted. "I know nothing. It is a habit of mine to know nothing when people make suggestions of that sort. I make no inquiries. I accept life and people as I find them."
"But you don't believe that such a thing could be possible?"
"Why not?" Graillot asked steadily.
John could do no more than mumble a repetition of his words. The world was falling away from him. He was dimly conscious that one of the engravings upon the wall opposite was badly hung. For the rest, Graillot's face, stern, yet pitying, seemed to loom like the features of a giant, eclipsing everything else.
"I will not discuss this matter with you, my friend. I will only ask you to remember the views of the world in which we live. Louise Maurel is an artist, a great artist. If there has been such an affair as you suggest, between her and any man, if it were something which appealed to her affections, it is my opinion that shewould not hesitate. You seem to think it an outrageous thing that the prince should have been her lover. To be perfectly frank, I do not. I should be very much more surprised at her marriage."
John made his escape somehow. He remembered opening the door, but he had no recollection of reaching the street. A few minutes later, however, he found himself striding down Piccadilly toward Hyde Park Corner.
The night was warm, and there were still plenty of people about. A woman touched his arm; her hackneyed greeting filled him with inexpressible horror. He stared at her, barely conscious of what he was doing, filled with an indescribable sickness of heart.
"You look about done up," she said in friendly fashion. "Come round to my flat and have a drink. You needn't stay if you don't want to."
He muttered something and passed on. A moment or two later, however, he retraced his steps. Out of the horror of his thought had come an irresistible impulse. He slipped some gold into her hand.
"Please take this and go home," he enjoined. "Go home at once! Get out of the streets and hide yourself."
She stared at him and at the money.
"Why, I've only just come out," she protested. "All the same, I'm dead tired. I'll go. Walk with me, won't you? You look as if you wanted looking after."
"I'm all right," he answered. "You go home."
She slipped the money carefully into her purse, and hailed a taxi.
"You shall have your own way," she declared. "Can't I drop you anywhere?"
He raised his hat, and, once more swinging around, passed on his way. Presently he found himself in the street where Louise lived. He looked at his watch—it was twenty minutes to three o'clock.
The house was in solemn darkness. He stood and looked up at it. There was no sign of a light, not even from the top windows. Its silence seemed to him more than the silence of sleep. He found himself wondering whether it was really inhabited, whether there were really human souls in this quiet corner, waiting peacefully for the dawn, heedless of the torment which was tearing his soul to pieces. Perhaps, behind that drawn blind, Louise herself was awake. Perhaps she was thinking, looking back into the past, wondering about the future. He took a step toward the gate.
"Are you going in there, sir?"
He turned quickly around. A policeman had flashed a lantern upon him. John suddenly became intensely matter-of-fact.
"No," he replied. "It is too late, I am afraid. I see that they have all gone to bed. Any chance of a taxi about here?"
"Most likely you'll find one at the corner," the policeman pointed out. "There's a rank there, and one or two of them generally stay late. Very much obliged, sir."
John had slipped a coin into the man's hand. Then he walked deliberately away. He found a taxicab and was driven toward the Milan. He let down both the windows and leaned out. He was conscious of a wild desire to keep away from his rooms—to spend the night anywhere, anyhow, sooner than go back to the little apartment where Louise had sat with him only a few hours ago, and had given herself into his arms.Every pulse in his body was tingling. He was fiercely awake, eager for motion, action, excitement of any sort.
Suddenly he remembered the night-club to which he had been introduced by Sophy on the first night of his arrival in London. The address, too, was there quite clearly in his disordered brain. He leaned out of the cab and repeated it to the driver.
The little place was unexpectedly crowded when John entered, after having handed his hat and coat to avestiaire. A large supper-party was going on at the further end, and the dancing space was smaller than usual. Themaître d'hôtelwas escorting John to a small table in a distant corner, which had just been vacated, when the latter heard his name suddenly called by a familiar voice. Sophy, who had been dancing, abandoned her partner precipitately and came hurrying up to John with outstretched hands.
"John!" she exclaimed. "You, of all people in the world! What do you mean by coming here alone at this time of night? Fancy not telling me! Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing," he replied. "I really don't exactly know why I am here. I simply didn't want to go to bed."
She looked at him closely. It was clear that she was a little puzzled at his appearance.
"If it were not you, John," she declared, "I should say that you had been having more to drink than was good for you!"
"Then you would be very wrong," John assured her, "because I haven't had anything at all. I have come here to get something. Can't you come and sit with me?"
"Of course!" she assented eagerly. "The princeis giving a supper-party at the other end of the room there. We all came on together from the reception. Let us get away to your corner quickly, or they will see you and make you go and join them. I would much rather have you to myself. The people here seem so stupid to-night!"
John stood still, and made no movement toward the table which themaître d'hôtelwas smilingly preparing for them.
"Where is the prince?" he asked.
Sophy, struck by something in his voice, swung around and looked at him. Then she thrust both her arms through his, clasped her two hands together, and led him firmly away. A glimmering of the truth was beginning to dawn upon her.
"Tell me where you have been since you left the reception," she insisted, when at last they were seated together.
"Wait till I have ordered some wine," he said.
A waiter served them with champagne. When John's glass was filled, he drained its contents. Sophy watched him with surprise. She came a little closer to him.
"John," she whispered, "you must tell me—do you hear? You must tell me everything! Did you take Louise home?"
"Yes."
"What happened, then? You didn't quarrel with her?"
"Nothing at all happened," he assured her. "We parted the best of friends. It wasn't that."
"Then what? Remember that I am your friend, John dear. Tell me everything."
He poured himself more wine and drank it.
"I will tell you," he assented. "I went to a littleclub I belong to on the Adelphi Terrace. I sat down in the smoking room. There was no one there I knew. Some men were talking. They had been to the reception to-night. They were comparing French actresses and English. They spoke first of the French woman, Latrobe, and her lovers; then of Louise. They spoke quite calmly, like men discussing history. They compared the two actresses, they compared their lives. Latrobe, they said, had lovers by the score—Louise only one."
Sophy's hand stole into his. She was watching the twisting of his features. She understood so well the excitement underneath.
"I think I can guess," she whispered. "Don't hurt yourself telling me. Something was said about the prince!"
His eyes blazed down upon her.
"You, too?" he muttered. "Does the whole world know of it and speak as if it did not matter? Sophy, is it true? Speak out! Don't be afraid of hurting me. You call yourself my friend. I've been down, looking at the outside of her house. I dared not go in. There's a fire burning in my soul! Tell me if it is true!"
"You must not ask me that question, John," she begged. "How should I know? Besides, these things are so different in our world, the world you haven't found out much about yet. Supposing it were true, John," she went on, "remember that it was before you knew her. Supposing it should be true, remember this—your idea of life is too absurd. Is one creed made to fit human beings who may differ in a million different ways? A woman may be as good as any ever born into the world, and yet take just a little love into her life, ifshe be true and faithful in doing it. I don't believe there is a dearer or sweeter woman breathing than Louise, but one must have love. Don't I know it? A man may be strong enough to live without it, but a woman—never!"
The skirts of the women brushed their table as they danced, the rhythm of the music rose and fell above the murmur of laughter and conversation. John looked around the room, and a sort of despair crept in upon him. It was no good! He had come to London to understand; he understood nothing. He was made of the wrong fiber. If only he could change himself! If it were not too late! If he could make himself like other men!
He turned and glanced at his companion. Sophy was looking very sweet and very wistful. The warm touch of her fingers was grateful. Her sympathy was like some welcome flower in a wilderness. His heart ached with a new desire. If only he could make himself different! If only he could stretch out his hand for the flowers which made the lives of other men so sweet!
"I must not ask you any more questions, Sophy," he said. "You are her friend, and you have spoken very sweetly. To-morrow I will go and see her."
"And to-night, forget it all," she pleaded. "Wipe it out of your memory. Louise and your future belong to to-morrow. To-night she is not here, and I am. Even if you are furiously in love with her, there isn't any harm in your being just a little nice to me. Give me some champagne; and I want some caviar sandwiches!"
"I wonder why you are so good to me, Sophy!" he exclaimed, as he gave the order to a waiter. "You ought either to marry your young man down at Bath,or to have a sweetheart of your own, a companion, some one quite different."
"How different?"
"Some one who cared for you as you deserve to be cared for, and whom you cared for, too."
"I cannot take these things as lightly as I used to," she answered a little sadly. "Something has come over me lately—I don't know what it is—but I seem to have lost my taste for flirtations. John, don't look up, don't turn round! I have been afraid of the prince all the evening. When you came in, I fancied that you had been drinking. When the prince asked me something about you, an hour or so ago, I knew that he had. I saw him like it once before, about a year ago. Don't take any notice of him! Don't talk to him, if you can help it!"
John was scarcely conscious of her words. A new glow of excitement seemed to be taking entire possession of him, to be thrilling his blood, to be shining out of his eyes. He rose slowly to his feet. It was as if he were being drawn forward out of himself to meet some coming challenge.
Toward their table the prince was slowly making his way, skilfully avoiding the dancers, yet looking neither to the right nor to the left. His eyes were fastened upon John. If he had been drinking, as Sophy suggested, there were few signs of it. His walk was steady; his bearing, as usual, deliberate and distinguished.
He came to a standstill beside them. Sophy's fingers clutched at the tablecloth. The prince looked from one to the other.
"You have robbed me of a guest, Mr. Strangewey," he remarked; "but I bear you no ill-will. It is very seldom that one sees you in these haunts of dissipation."
"It is a gala night with me," John replied, his tone raised no more than usual, but shaking with some new quality. "Drink a glass of wine with me, prince," he invited, taking the bottle from the ice-pail and filling a tumbler upon the table. "Wish me luck, won't you? I am engaged to be married!"
"I wish you happiness with all my heart," the prince answered, holding his glass up. "May I not know the name of the lady?"
"No doubt you are prepared for the news," John told him. "Miss Maurel has promised to become my wife."
The prince's hand was as steady as a rock. He raised his glass to his lips.
"I drink to you both with the greatest pleasure," he said, looking John full in the face. "It is a most remarkable coincidence. To-night is the anniversary of the night when Louise Maurel pledged herself to me in somewhat different fashion!"
John's frame seemed for a moment to dilate, and fire flashed from his eyes.
"Will you be good enough to explain those words?" he demanded.
The prince bowed. He glanced toward Sophy.
"Since you insist," he replied. "To-night, then, let me tell you, is the anniversary of the night when Louise Maurel consented to become my mistress!"
What followed came like a thunder-clap. The prince reeled back, his hand to his mouth, blood dropping upon the tablecloth from his lips, where John had struck him. He made a sudden spring at his assailant. Sophy, shrieking, leaped to her feet. Every one else in the place seemed paralyzed with wonder.
John seized the prince by the throat, and held him fora moment at arm's length. Then he lifted him off his feet as one might lift a child from the floor. Holding his helpless victim in a merciless grip, he carried him across the room and deliberately flung him over the table toward his empty chair.
There was a crash of glass and crockery which rang through the momentarily hushed room. The dancers had stopped in their places, the bow of the violinist lay idle upon the strings of his instrument. The waiters were all standing about like graven images. Then, as the prince fell, there was a shout, and all was pandemonium. They rushed to where he was lying motionless, a ghastly sight, across the wreck of his flower-strewn supper-table.
Sophy held John by the arm, clutching it hysterically, striving to drag him away. But to John the room was empty. He stood there, a giant, motionless figure, his muscles still taut, his face tense, his eyes aflame, glaring down at the prostrate figure of the man on whom he had wreaked the accumulated fury of those last days and weeks of madness.
Toward nine o'clock on the following morning John rose from a fitful sleep and looked around him. Even before he could recall the events of the preceding night he felt that there was a weight pressing upon his brain, a miserable sense of emptiness in life, a dull feeling of bewilderment. Although he had no clear recollection of getting there, he realized that he was in his own sitting room, and that he had been asleep upon the couch. He saw, too, that it was morning, for a ray of sunlight lay across the carpet.
As he struggled to his feet, he saw with a little shock that he was not alone. Sophy Gerard was curled up in his easy chair, still in evening clothes, her cloak drawn closely around her, as if she were cold. Her head had fallen back. She, too, was asleep. At the sound of his movement, however, she opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment with a puzzled stare. Then she jumped to her feet.
"Why, we have both been asleep!" she murmured, a little weakly.
At the sound of her voice it all came back to him, a tangled, hideous nightmare. He sat down again upon the couch and held his head between his hands.
"How did I come here?" he asked. "I can't remember!"
She hesitated. He answered the unspoken question in her eyes.
"I remember everything that happened at the club," he went on slowly. "Is the prince dead?"
She shook her head.
"Of course not! He was hurt, though, and there was a terrible scene of confusion in the room. The people crowded around him, and I managed, somehow, to drag you away. The manager helped us. To tell the truth, he was only too anxious for you to get away before the police arrived. He was so afraid of anything getting into the papers. I drove you back here, and, as you still seemed stunned, I brought you up-stairs. I didn't mean to stay, but I couldn't get you to say a single coherent word. I was afraid to leave you alone!"
"I suppose I was drunk," he said, in a dull tone. "I remember filling my glass over and over again. There is one thing, though," he added, his voice gaining a sudden strength; "I was not drunk when I struck the prince! I remember those few seconds very distinctly. I saw everything, knew everything, felt everything. If no one had interfered, I think I should have killed him!"
"You were not drunk at all," she declared, with a little shiver, "but you were in a state of terrible excitement. It was a long time before I could get you to lie down, and then you wouldn't close your eyes until I came and sat by your side. I watched you go to sleep. I hope you are not angry with me! I didn't like to go and leave you."
"How could I be angry?" he protested. "You are far kinder to me than I deserve. I expect I should have been in a police cell but for you!"
"And now," she begged, coming over to him and speaking in a more matter-of-fact tone, "do let us be practical. I must run away, and you must go andhave a bath and change your clothes. Don't be afraid of your reputation. I can get out by the other entrance."
He made no movement. She laid her hand on his arm. In the sunlight, with a little patch of rouge still left on her cheek, with her disordered hair and tired eyes, she looked almost ghastly.
"Remember," she whispered, "you have to go to see Louise!"
He covered his face with his hands.
"What's the use of it?" he groaned. "It's only another turn of the screw!"
"Don't be foolish, John," she admonished briskly. "You don't actually know anything yet—nothing at all; at least, you are not sure of anything. And besides, you strange, impossible person," she went on, patting his hand, "don't you see that you must judge her, not by the standards of your world, in which she has never lived, but by the standards of her world, in which she was born and bred? That is only fair, isn't it?"
He made no answer. She watched him anxiously, but there was no sign in his face.
"Pull yourself together, John," she continued. "Ring for some tea, get your bath, and then have it out with Louise. Remember, life is a very big thing. You are dealing this morning with all it may mean to you."
He rose listlessly to his feet. There was a strange, dull look in his face.
"You are a dear girl, Sophy!" he said. "Don't go just yet. I have never felt like it before in my life, but just now I don't want to be left alone. Send a boy for some clothes, and I will order some tea."
She hesitated.
"My own reputation," she murmured, "is absolutely of no consequence, but remember that you live here, and—"
"Don't be silly!" he interrupted. "What does that matter? And besides, according to you and all the rest of you here, these things don't affect a man's reputation—they are expected of him. See, I have rung the bell for breakfast. Now I am going to telephone down for a messenger-boy to go for your clothes."
They breakfasted together, a little later, and she made him smoke. He stood before the window, looking down upon the river, with his pipe in his mouth and an unfamiliar look upon his face.
"Do you suppose that Louise knows anything?" he asked at length.
"I should think not," she replied. "It is for you to tell her. I rang up the prince's house while you were in your bathroom. They say that he has a broken rib and some bad cuts, sustained in a motor accident last night, but that he is in no danger. There was nothing about the affair in the newspapers, and the prince's servants have evidently been instructed to give this account to inquirers."
A gleam of interest shone in John's face.
"By the bye," he remarked, "the prince is a Frenchman. He will very likely expect me to fight with him."
"No hope of that, my belligerent friend," Sophy declared, with an attempt at a smile. "The prince knows that he is in England. He would not be guilty of such an anachronism. Besides, he is a person of wonderfully well-balanced mind. When he is himself again, he will realize that what happened to him is exactly what he asked for."
John took up his hat and gloves. He glanced at the clock—it was a little past eleven.
"I am ready," he announced. "Let me drive you home first."
His motor was waiting at the door, and he left Sophy at her rooms. Before she got out, she held his arm for a moment.
"John," she said, "remember that Louise is very high-strung and very sensitive. Be careful!"
"There is only one thing to do or to say," he answered. "There is only one way in which I can do it."
He drove the car down Piccadilly like a man in a dream, steering as carefully as usual through the traffic, and glancing every now and then with unseeing eyes at the streams of people upon the pavements. Finally he came to a standstill before Louise's house and stopped the engine with deliberate care. Then he rang the bell, and was shown into her little drawing-room, which seemed to have become a perfect bower of pink and white lilac.
He sat waiting as if in a dream, unable to decide upon his words, unable even to sift his thoughts. The one purpose with which he had come, the one question he designed to ask, was burning in his brain. The minutes of her absence seemed tragically long. He walked up and down, oppressed by the perfume of the flowers. The room seemed too small for him. He longed to throw open all the windows, to escape from the atmosphere, in which for the first time he seemed to find some faint, enervating poison.
Then at last the door opened and Louise entered. She came toward him with a little welcoming smile upon her lips. Her manner was gay, almost affectionate.
"Have you come to take me for a ride before lunch?" she asked. "Do you know, I think that I should really like it! We might lunch at Ranelagh on our way home."
The words stuck in his throat. From where she was, she saw now the writing on his face. She stopped short.
"What is it?" she exclaimed.
"Ever since I knew you," he said slowly, "there have been odd moments when I have lived in torture. During the last fortnight, those moments have become hours. Last night the end came."
"Are you mad, John?" she demanded.
"Perhaps," he replied. "Listen. When I left you last night, I went to the club in Adelphi Terrace. There was a well-known critic there, comparing you and Latrobe. On the whole he favored you, but he gave Latrobe the first place in certain parts. Latrobe, he said, had had more experience of life. She had had a dozen lovers—you, only one!"
She winced. The glad freshness seemed suddenly to fade from her face. Her eyes became strained.
"Well?"
"I found Graillot. I cornered him. I asked him for the truth about you. He put me off with an evasion. I came down here and looked at your window. It was three o'clock in the morning. I dared not come in. A very demon of unrest was in my blood. I stopped at a night-club on my way back. Sophy was there. I asked her plainly to put me out of my agony. She was like Graillot. She fenced with me. And then—the prince came!"
"The prince was there?" she faltered.
"He came up to the table where Sophy and I weresitting. I think I was half mad. I poured him a glass of wine and asked him to drink with me. I told him that you had promised to become my wife. He raised his glass—I can see him now. He told me, with a smile, that it was the anniversary of the day on which you had promised to become his mistress!"
Louise shrank back.
"He told you that?"
John was on his feet. The fever was blazing once more.
"He told me that, face to face—told me that it was the anniversary of the day on which you had consented to become his mistress!"
"And you?"
"If we had been alone," John answered simply, "I should have killed him. I drove the words down his throat. I threw him back to the place he had left, and hurt him rather badly, I'm afraid. Sophy took me home somehow, and now I am here."
She leaned a little forward on the couch. She looked into his face searchingly, anxiously, as if seeking for something she could not find. His lips were set in hard, cold lines. The likeness to Stephen had never been more apparent.
"Listen!" she said. "You are a Puritan. While I admire the splendid self-restraint evolved from your creed, it is partly temperamental, isn't it? I was brought up to see things differently, and I do see them differently. Tell me, do you love me?"
The veins swelled for a moment upon his forehead, stood out like whip-cord along the back of his hands, but of softening there was no sign in his face.
"Love you?" he repeated. "You know it! Could I suffer the tortures of the damned if I didn't? CouldI come to you with a man's blood upon my hands if I didn't? If the prince lives, it is simply the accident of fate. I tell you that if we had been alone I should have driven the breath out of his body. Love you!"
She rose slowly to her feet. She leaned with her elbow upon the mantelpiece, and her face was hidden for a moment.
"Let me think!" she said. "I don't know what to say to you. I don't know you, John. There isn't anything left of the John I loved. Let me look again!"
She swung around.
"You speak of love," she went on suddenly. "Do you know what it is? Do you know that loves reaches to the heavens, and can also touch the nethermost depths of hell? If I throw myself on my knees before you now, if I link my fingers around your neck, if I whisper to you that in the days that were past before you came I had done things I would fain forget, if I told you that from henceforth every second of my life was yours, that my heart beat with yours by day and by night, that I had no other thought, no other dream, than to stay by your side, to see you happy, to give all there was of myself into your keeping, to keep it holy and sacred for you—John, what then?"
Never a line in his face softened. He looked at her a moment as he had looked at the woman in Piccadilly, into whose hand he had dropped gold.
"Are you going to tell me that it is the truth?" he asked hoarsely.
She stood quite still, her bosom rising and falling. Even then she made one last effort. She held out her hands with a little trembling gesture, her eyes filled with tears.
"Think for a single moment of that feeling which you call love, John!" she pleaded. "Listen! I love you. It has come to me at last, after all these years. It lives in my heart, a greater thing than my ambition, a greater thing than my success, a greater thing than life itself. I love you, John. Can't you feel, don't you know, that nothing else in life can matter?"
Not a line in his face softened. His teeth had come together. He was like a man upon the rack.
"It is true? It is true, then?" he demanded.
She looked at him without any reply. The seconds seemed drawn out to an interminable period. He heard the rolling of the motor-buses in the street. Once more the perfume of the lilacs seemed to choke him. Then she leaned back and touched the bell.
"The prince spoke the truth," she said. "I think you had better go!"
Before the wide-flung window of her attic bedchamber, Sophy Gerard was crouching with her face turned westward. She had abandoned all effort to sleep. The one thought that was beating in her brain was too insistent, too clamorous. Somewhere beyond that tangled mass of chimneys and telegraph-poles, somewhere on the other side of the gray haze which hung about the myriad roofs, John and Louise were working out their destiny, speaking at last the naked truth to each other.
Somehow or other, during those few minutes every thought of herself and her own life seemed to have passed away. John's face seemed always before her—the sudden, hard lines about his mouth; the dull, smoldering pain in his eyes. How would he return? Louise had guarded the secret of her life so well. Would he wrest it from her, or—
She started suddenly back into the room. There was a knocking at the door, something quite different from her landlady's summons. She wrapped her dressing-gown around her, pulled the curtains around the little bed on which she had striven to rest, and moved toward the door. She turned the handle softly.
"Who is that?" she asked.
John almost pushed his way past her. She closed the door with nerveless fingers. Her eyes sought his face, her lips were parted. She clung to the back of the chair.
"You have seen Louise?" she exclaimed breathlessly.
"I have seen Louise," he answered. "It is all over!"
She looked a little helplessly around her. Then she selected the one chair in the tiny apartment that was likely to hold him, and led him to it.
"Please sit down," she begged, "and tell me about it. You mustn't despair like this all at once. I wonder if I could help!"
"No one can help," he told her grimly. "It is all finished and done with. I would rather not talk any more about it. I didn't come here to talk about it. I came to see you. So this is where you live!"
He looked around him, and for a moment he almost forgot the pain which was gnawing at his heart. It was such a simple, plainly furnished little room, so clean, so neat, so pathetically eloquent of poverty. She drew closer together the curtains which concealed her little chintz-covered bed, and came and sat down by his side.
"You know, you are rather a silly person," she whispered soothingly. "Wait for a time and perhaps things will look different. I know that Louise cares. Isn't that the great thing, after all?"
"I would like not to talk about it any more," said John. "Just now I cannot put what I feel into words. What remains is just this: I have been a fool, a sort ofDon Quixote, building castles in Spain and believing that real men and women could live in them. I have expected the impossible in life. It is perhaps a good thing that I can see the truth now. I am going to climb down!"
She clasped her hands tighter around his arm. Her eyes sought his anxiously.
"But you mustn't climb down, John," she insisted. "You are so much nicer where you are, so much too good for the silly, ugly things. You must fight this in your own way, fight it according to your own standards. You are too good to come down—"
"Am I too good for you, Sophy?"
She looked at him, and her whole face seemed to soften. The light in her blue eyes was sweet and wistful. A bewildering little smile curled her lips.
"Don't be stupid!" she begged. "A few minutes ago I was looking out of my window and thinking what a poor little morsel of humanity I am, and what a useless, drifting life I have led. But that's foolish. Come now! What I want to persuade you to do is to go back to Cumberland for a time, and try hard—very hard indeed—to realize what it means to be a woman like Louise, with her temperament, her intense intellectual curiosity, her charm. Nothing could make Louise different from what she is—a dear, sweet woman and a great artist. And, John, I believe she loves you!"
His face remained undisturbed even by the flicker of an eyelid.
"Sophy," he said, "I have decided to go abroad. Will you come with me?"
She sat quite still. Again her face was momentarily transformed. All its pallor and fatigue seemed to have vanished. Her head had fallen a little back. She was looking through the ceiling into heaven. Then the light died away almost as quickly as it had come. Her lips shook tremulously.
"You know you don't mean it, John! You wouldn't take me. And if you did, you'd hate me afterward—you'd want to send me back!"
He suddenly drew her to him, his arm went around her waist. She had lost all power of resistance. For the first time in his life of his own deliberate accord, he kissed her—feverishly, almost roughly.
"Sophy," he declared, "I have been a fool! I have come an awful cropper, but you might help me with what's left. I am going to start afresh. I am going to get rid of some of these ideas of mine which have brought me nothing but misery and disappointment. I don't want to live up to them any longer. I want to just forget them. I want to live as other men live—just the simple, ordinary life. Come with me! I'll take you to the places we've talked about together. I am always happy and contented with you. Let's try it!"
Her arms stole around his neck.
"If only you cared, John!" she sobbed.
"But I do," he insisted. "I love to have you with me, I love to see you happy, I shall love to give you pretty things. I shall be proud of you, soothed by you—and rested. What do you say, Sophy?"
"John," she whispered, hiding her face for a moment. "What can I say? What could any poor, weak, little creature like me say? You know I am fond of you—I haven't had the pride, even, to conceal it!"
He stood up, held her face for a moment between his hands, and kissed her forehead.
"Then that's all settled," he declared. "I am going back to my rooms now. I want you to come and dine with me there to-night, at eight o'clock."
Her eyes sought his, pleaded with them, searched them.
"You are sure, John?" she asked, her voice a littlebroken. "You want me really? I am to come? You won't be sorry—afterward?"
"I am sure," he answered steadfastly. "I shall expect you at eight o'clock!"
John went back to his rooms fighting all the time against a sense of unreality, a sense almost of lost identity. He bought an evening newspaper and read it on the way. He talked to the hall-porter, he talked to a neighbor with whom he ascended in the lift—he did everything except think.
In his rooms he telephoned to the restaurant for a waiter, and with the menu in his hand, a few minutes later, he ordered dinner. Then he glanced at his watch—it was barely seven o'clock. He went down to the barber-shop, was shaved and had his hair cut, encouraging the barber all the time to talk to him. He gave his hands over to a manicure, and did his best to talk nonsense to her. Then he came up-stairs again, changed his clothes with great care, and went into his little sitting room.
It was five minutes to eight, and dinner had been laid at a little round table in the center of the room. There was a bowl of pink roses—Sophy's favorite flower—sent in from the florist's; the table was lighted by a pink-shaded lamp. John went around the room, turning out the other lights, until the apartment was hung with shadows save for the little spot of color in the middle. An unopened bottle of champagne stood in an ice-pail, and two specially prepared cocktails had been placed upon the little side-table. There were no more preparations to be made.
John walked restlessly to the window and gazed at the curving line of lights along the Embankment. Thiswas the end, then—the end of his strenuous days, the end of his ideals, the end of a love-story which had made life for a time seem so wonderful! He could hear them talking about him in a few days' time—the prince's subtle sneer, the jests of his acquaintances. And Louise! His heart stopped for a moment as he tried to think of her face when she heard the news.
He turned impatiently away from the window and glanced at the clock. It was almost eight. He tried to imagine that the bell was ringing, that Sophy was standing there on the threshold in her simple but dainty evening dress, with a little smile parting her lips. The end of it all! He pulled down the blind. No more of the window, no more looking out at the lights, no more living in the clouds! It was time, indeed, that he lived as other men. He lifted one of the glasses to his lips and drained its contents.
Then the bell rang. He moved forward to answer its summons with beating heart. As he opened it, he received a shock. A messenger-boy stood outside. He took the note which the boy handed him and tore it open under the lamp. There were only a few lines: