CHAPTER XXVIA LAST ENCOUNTER
“SINCE this is our last night in Paris,” said Selden, looking up from his paper, “we ought to celebrate it. What shall we do?”
“The opera,” replied Rénee instantly. “Let me see what it is,” and she took the paper away from him.
It was Samson and Delila.
“And the curtain is at eight,” she added. “We must hurry!”
They were there when the curtain rose, and were soon under the spell of the enchanting music with which Saint-Saëns has clothed the old Scripture allegory of man’s weakness and woman’s perfidy—a drama which is re-enacted daily wherever men and women live, and so touches a chord in every heart. Surely no lovelier song was ever written than Delila’s
Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix comme s’ouvrent les fleursAux baisers de l’aurore....
Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix comme s’ouvrent les fleursAux baisers de l’aurore....
Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix comme s’ouvrent les fleurs
Aux baisers de l’aurore....
“My heart opens at thy voice as the flowers open to the kisses of the dawn....”
And no more effective scene was ever staged than that of the blinded Samson, chained like a beast tothe mill, and pushing it round and round. So the great drama swept on to the supreme moment when Samson, praying for strength, bends his back between the mighty pillars of the temple and brings it crashing down upon the heads of his enemies.
There was to be a ballet afterwards to a Chopin suite, and when Selden and his companion came back from a turn in the foyer, they found that the front row of the orchestra, which had been empty during the opera, was filling up with distinguished-looking old men, most of them with the rosette of the Legion gleaming red on their coats.
Rénee nodded toward them with a smile.
“You see,” she said; “it is as I told you. They come for the ballet only. But look—who is that? Is it not the Baron Lappo?”
“So it is,” said Selden, and they watched him take his seat, a little thinner, perhaps, with the passage of the months, a little greyer, but still erect, alert. “I wonder what he is doing in Paris? Shall we waylay him after the ballet?”
“Yes, let us. There are so many things I should like to ask him!”
“I also,” said Selden, and then fell silent, for the music had begun.
There is nothing lovelier to be seen anywhere than that Chopin suite as danced at the Paris Opéra....
“Do you regret that it is not you?” asked Selden, as the tall and willowy Ida Rubenstein came forward again and again to acknowledge the applause.
“Not the slightest—not the smallest bit,” and she nestled against his shoulder. “I know too well whatis behind the scenes. Besides, I could never have been like that—I was not a great dancer.”
Selden put his hand over hers and held it tight. He could never get over his astonishment at the thought that this magnificent woman loved him, was his....
“We must hurry,” she added, “if we are going to catch the baron.”
“Wait a moment here,” said Selden, “and I will go around and get him. I should like to surprise him—I don’t think he knows.”
She nodded, and he hurried away to the door by which the baron would emerge into the foyer. Yes, there he was—not changed; and yet changed, too, in some subtle way—clouded, a little sad, with the lines about the eyes a trifle more pronounced.
Selden’s heart moved curiously, as he watched him coming forward; he had never before realized how fond he had grown of the old diplomat.
“My dear baron,” he said, and stepped forward with hand outstretched.
The baron adjusted his glass and looked to see who it was.
“Why, it is M. Selden!” he cried. “My dear friend!” and he caught Selden’s hands in both of his and shook them up and down, his face irradiated. “How glad I am to see you again! Come—we must have a talk—yes?”
“By all means! But first I want you to meet some one,” and he caught the baron’s arm and guided him to the spot where Rénee waited. “Baron,” he said, “permit me to introduce you to my wife.”
“Your wife!” The baron’s lips were trembling as he pressed them to Rénee’s hand. “Tiens!” and he dropped his glass and polished it vigorously. “But, my dear children—how happy you make me! I should like to embrace you! I am a silly old man—yes?” and he touched his handkerchief to his eyes without shame. “But you recall so many things! Where shall we go? We cannot talk here. To Rizzi’s—it is but a step!” and seizing an arm of each, he led them down the great stairway and across the square, talking in broken sentences all the way.
Monsieur Rizzi knew the Baron Lappo, and he snatched the reservation card from a glass on the corner table and seated the baron and his guests there, and himself took the order.
“Let me see,” said the baron, “you used to have a Moët et Chandon, very dry....”
“Ah, yes, the ’98,” said M. Rizzi. “We still have a few bottles, M. le Baron.”
“It is foolish at my age, at this hour,” said the baron; “but never mind; and a little lobster, yes? with mayonnaise. I have not forgotten your mayonnaise. And afterwards—what?”
“Permit me,” said M. Rizzi; “a surprise.”
“Very well,” agreed the baron; “I am sure it will be a delightful one.” And then as Rizzi hastened away to make sure that the order was properly executed, the baron turned back to his guests. “Now let me look at you,” he said. “Madame, I have never seen you so lovely, so radiant. And you also,” he added to Selden; “you also appear content!”
“Content is a feeble word!” said Selden.
“So—it is well! But would you believe, madame, that I one day found this great imbecile in his room at Monte Carlo, trembling with fear, packing his bag, even; planning to run away—to run away from a great happiness. Incredible, is it not? But men do stupid things like that sometimes, and women, too, though not so often. So, because I had grown fond of him, I ventured to give him some advice....”
“Which I followed,” said Selden.
“You have not been sorry?”
“Sorry!”
“Just the same,” went on the baron, “you are not worthy of her.”
“Good Lord, don’t I know it?” groaned Selden. “Don’t I wake up every morning in a panic for fear it is only a dream!”
“Fi donc!” laughed Rénee. “How silly you both are!”
The waiter had filled the glasses, and the baron lifted his from the table.
“Words are so weak to express what is in the heart,” he said, “but I am sure you know what is in mine—every wish for your happiness and your good fortune—and may you always love each other!”
They drank, and set the glasses back upon the table, and there was a little silence.
Then M. Rizzi brought the lobster for the baron’s approval, and himself proceeded to dismember it.
“There is something else that I recall very vividly,” went on the baron; “that day, when I found you so depressed, there was another thingthat worried you—how did you say it?—that your future was behind you! Is it still there, or is it in front, where it should be?”
“It is in front again,” said Selden with a smile, “due also to this wonderful woman.”
“I will not have it!” cried Rénee. “It was M. Scott’s idea.”
“But it was you who found a way to realize it.”
“It needed but a word!” she protested.
“Please tell me about it,” said the baron, who had watched this altercation with a smile.
“It was like this,” Rénee explained. “It is true that at one moment this imbecile was so stupid as to think his career ended. He permitted himself to become discouraged because he could not, all at once, persuade his country to think as he did—to make it think, as he calls it, internationally.”
“That is something no country does,” observed the baron. “Perhaps it will come some day, but I am not at all hopeful. The better we know other peoples the less we seem to like them. But go on.”
“It was M. Scott—a friend—who proposed the idea of an organ—a journal, you understand, hebdomadaire—where he could gather together a band of fanatics like himself and keep on fighting for his beliefs. The idea appealed to him—he began to think that, in control of such a journal, he might find life again worth living.”
“So he doubted, did he, that life was worth living?” commented the baron. “Even when he had you? It is easy to see that he is an American!”
“Yes; Americans are like that. They have something,I know not what—an engine—a dynamo—inside them, driving them on. I doubt if they are ever really happy, as a Frenchman can be happy—entirely happy and content. At least, not for long; they feel they must be doing something.”
The baron nodded.
“You are right. What is M. Selden going to do?”
“He has his journal!” cried Rénee and clapped her hands.
“Yes,” laughed Selden, “she got it for me, much as she would buy a toy for a child, to keep it quiet.”
“But how?” asked the baron.
“Ah, it was simple,” Rénee explained. “The only difficulty, it seemed, was one of finance. You remember that young M. Davis?”
“Very well.”
“You knew, by the way, that he had married my niece, Mlle. Fayard?”
“But certainly!” laughed the baron. “That was another of my defeats. The Princess Anna is still a spinster—though she also has become a bride—but of the church. M. Davis is happy, I trust?”
“Oh, yes; but he also is an American—though not so earnest a one as my husband here. Nevertheless he wished to find something to do—some way to employ his money—a way that would amuse him and not be too fatiguing. I had only to suggest the journal.”
“It is going to be rather wonderful,” said Selden, his eyes shining. “I have been in New York all summer making the arrangements; I was astonished at the enthusiasm; I shall have a splendid staff, andperhaps we shall accomplish something yet! But before I started it, I came back for this lady.”
“And now you are returning?”
“Yes—we sail to-morrow on theParis.”
“That is good,” said the baron. “But come—let us drink to the journal—that it may accomplish all you hope for it! Yes,” he went on after a moment, “I am glad you are going back—though that means that I shall, perhaps, not see you again, for I am growing old. But it is not well for an American to stay too long in Europe. It is difficult for me to explain just what I mean. It is like an apple,” and he picked one up from the basket of fruit on the table. “One gathers one’s crop of apples and one puts them away for the winter, and some of them keep very well. But others, after a time, begin to show little specks here and there. That does not hurt them—indeed, it improves their flavour—but they must be used at once. Otherwise, almost before one knows it, they grow rotten at the core and have to be thrown away.
“Americans are like that. They do not keep well in the atmosphere of Europe. It is good for them, yes, up to a certain point. They grow a little specked, perhaps, but their flavour is better, more rich, more satisfying. But beyond that—no. Forgive me,” he added, carefully replacing the apple. “An old man likes to preach. Ah, here comes the surprise!”
M. Rizzi’s surprise proved to be a soufflé piping hot with an ice in the middle.
“But tell us about yourself,” said Selden. “What are you doing in Paris?”
“It is a long story,” answered the baron musingly. “After the king’s death—which, as you know, was very sudden—I felt as you had felt—though with much more reason—that I was finished, that there was nothing left for me to do but to creep away somewhere and die. Then Jeneski sent for me. He asked me to be his minister in place of one whom he had discovered to be a traitor to him. And I found that I still loved my country. We get along very well together.”
“And his wife?” asked Rénee, her eyes shining.
“She has already become a sort of saint to her people; they adore her, and they have reason to, for there is no country in Europe which progresses as ours does. She is very happy.”
“Have you ever heard from the Countess Rémond?” Selden asked.
“Not directly; but I believe she is in Budapest plotting to place Charles back on the throne. It seems she has a passion for restorations. That poor M. Halsey has been released, as perhaps you know. He was sent to a maison de santé for a time, but Jeneski refused to press the case.”
They sat silent for a moment with full memories and tender hearts. Then the baron looked at his watch.
“It is good to be here,” he said; “it renews my youth. But I must go. M. Rizzi,” he added to the bowing restaurateur, “permit me to compliment you upon this little supper. I have never tasted better mayonnaise, and your surprise was exquisite. No—I shall not need a cab—I have but a step to go.”
They passed together into the street.
“My hotel is just there,” said the baron. “So I shall bid you good-bye.” He looked at them for a moment pensively. “The French have a proverb,” he added, “‘To part is to die a little!’ It is true, especially for the old. Write me sometimes.”
“Oh, we shall!”
They watched him as he walked away—a gallant figure, defiant of the years. At the corner he turned and waved his hand. Then he was gone.
Selden raised his hat.
“I hope,” he said softly, “that some day I shall meet another man like that!”
THE END