Isobel knew the whole truth. I told her one evening—the only one on which we two had dined out together alone. I think that the weather had tempted me to this indulgence, which I had up to now so carefully avoided. An early summer, with its long still evenings, had driven us out of doors. The leaves which rustled over our heads, stirred by the faintest of evening breezes, made sweeter music for us than the violins of the more fashionable restaurants, and no carved ceiling could be so beautiful as the star-strewn sky above. I omitted nothing. I laid the whole situation before her. When I had finished, she was very white and very quiet.
"And now that you have told me all this," she asked, after a long silence, "does it remain for me to make my choice? Even now I do not see my way at all clearly. My relations do not want me. Monsieur Feurgéres has left me some money. Cannot I choose for myself how I shall spend my life?"
"I am afraid," I answered, "that you may not. For my part I am bound to say, Isobel, that I think Monsieur Feurgéres was right. The letter of which I have told you, and which I found in my room, was written only a few hours before his death. At such a time a man sees clearly. You are not only yourself the Princess Isobel of Waldenburg, but you have a grandfather who has never recovered the loss of your mother and of you. It was not his fault or by his wish that you were sent away from Waldenburg. He has been deceived all the time by your aunt the Archduchess. I think that it is your duty to go to him."
"You will come with me?" she murmured anxiously.
"I shall not leave you," I answered slowly, "until you are in his charge. But afterwards——"
"Well?" she interrupted anxiously.
"Afterwards," I said, firmly keeping my eyes away from her and bracing myself for the effort, "our ways must lie apart, Isobel. You are the daughter of one of Europe's great families, you have a future which is almost a destiny. You must fulfil your obligations."
I saw the look in her face, and my heart ached for her. I leaned forward in my chair.
"Dear child," I said, "remember that this is what your mother would have wished. Monsieur Feurgéres believed this before he died, and I think that no one else could tell so well what she would have desired for you. Just now it may seem a little hard to go amongst strangers, to begin life all over again at your age. But, after all, we must believe that it is the right thing."
Her face was turned away from me, but I could see that her cheeks were pale and her lips trembling. She said nothing, I fancied because she dared not trust her voice. Above the tops of the trees the yellow moon was slowly rising; from a few yards away came all the varied clatter of the Boulevard. And around us little groups and couples of people were gay—gay with the invincible, imperishable gaiety of the Frenchman who dines. The white-aproned waiters smiled as with deft hands they served a different course, or with a few wonderful touches removed all traces of the repast, and served coffee and liqueurs upon a spotless cloth. And amidst it all I watched with aching heart Isobel, the child of to-day, the woman of to-morrow, as she fought her battle.
Her face seemed marble-white in the strange light, half natural, half artificial. When she spoke at last she still kept her face turned away from me.
"The right thing!" she murmured. "That is what I want to do. I want to do what she would have wished. But just now it seems a little hard. I do not want to be a princess. I do not want to be rich. Monsieur Feurgéres has made me independent, and that is all I desire. I would like to be free to live always my own life—free like you and Allan, who paint and write and think, for I, too, would love so much to be an artist. But it seems that all these things have been decided for me—by you and Monsieur Feurgéres. No," she added quickly, "I know very well that you are right. I am willing to do what Monsieur Feurgéres thinks that my mother would have wished. I will go to my grandfather, and if he wishes it I will stay with him. But there will be a condition!"
She turned at last and looked at me. The lines of her mouth had altered, the carriage of her head, a subtle change in her tone, told their own story. It was the Princess Isobel who spoke.
"I will not have my mother ignored or spoken of as one who forgot her rank and station. These are all very well, but they are trifles compared with the great things of life. I am proud of my mother's courage, I am proud of the love which made his life, after she had gone, so beautiful. I know that you understand me, Arnold, but I do not think that those others will. They must bear with me, or I shall not stay."
I looked at her wonderingly. It seemed to me so strange that, under our very eyes, the child whom I had led by the hand through Covent Garden on that bright Spring morning should have developed in thought and mind under our own roof, and with so little conscious instruction, into a woman of perceptions and character. Somewhere the seed of these things must have lain hidden. One knows so little, after all, of those whom one knows best.
"It is a fair condition, Isobel," I said. "You are going into a world which is hedged about with conventions and prejudices. The things which are so clear to you and to me, they may look at differently. You must be received as your mother's daughter, and not as the King's granddaughter."
She nodded gravely. Then she leaned across the table and looked into my eyes. Notwithstanding her pallor and her black dress, I was forced to realize what I ever forbade my thoughts to dwell upon—her great and increasing beauty. She looked into my eyes, and my heart stood still.
"Arnold," she murmured, "shall you miss me?"
My heel dug into the turf beneath my foot. My eyes fell from hers. I dared not look at her.
"We shall all miss you so much," I said gravely, "that life will never be the same again to us. You made it beautiful for a little time, and your absence will be hard to bear. I suppose we shall all turn to hard work," I added, with an attempt at lightness. "Allan will paint his great picture, Arthur will invent a new motor and make his fortune, and I shall write my immortal story."
"The story," she said, "which you would not show me?"
Show her! How could I, when I knew that for one who read between the lines the story of my own suffering was there? My secret had been hard enough to keep faithfully, even from her to whom the truth, had she ever divined it, must have seemed so incredible.
"That one, perhaps," I answered lightly, "or the next! Who can tell? One is never a judge of one's own work, you know."
"Why would you not show me that story, Arnold?" she asked softly.
I met her eyes fixed upon me with a peculiar intentness. I tried to escape them, but I could not. It was impossible for me to lie to her. My voice shook as I answered her.
"Don't ask me, Isobel!" I said. "We all make mistakes sometime, you know. Not to show you that story when you asked me was one of mine."
"If you had it here——?"
"If I had it here I would show it you," I declared.
She sighed. She did not seem altogether satisfied.
"Sometimes, Arnold," she said thoughtfully, "you puzzle me very much. You treat me always as though I were a child; you keep me at arm's length always, as though there were between us some impassable barrier, as though it could never be possible for you to come into my world or for me to pass into yours. I know that you are wiser and cleverer than I am, but I can learn. I have been learning all the time. Are we always to remain at this great distance?"
"Dear Isobel," I answered, "you forget that I am more than twice your age. You are eighteen, and I am thirty-four. I cannot make myself young like you. I cannot call back the years, however much I might wish to do so. And for the rest, I have been your guardian. I, a poor writer of no particular family and very meagre fortune, and you my ward, a princess standing at the opposite pole of life. I have had to remember these things, Isobel."
She leaned a little further across the table. Again her eyes held mine, and I felt my heart beat like a boy's at the touch of her soft white fingers as she laid her hand on mine.
"I wish," she murmured, "oh, I wish——"
"So we've found you at last, have we?"
Isobel's speech was never ended. Mabane and Arthur stood within a few feet of us, the former grave, the latter white and angry. I rose slowly to my feet and held out my hand to Allan.
"I am glad to see you, Allan!" I said.
He looked first at my hand, and afterwards at me. Then, with a sigh of relief, he took it and nearly wrung it off.
"And I can't tell you how glad I am to see you both again!" he exclaimed. "We've heard strange stories—or rather Arthur has—from his friend Lady Delahaye, and at last we decided to come over and find out all about it for ourselves. Don't take any notice of Arthur," he added under his breath, "he's not quite himself."
Arthur was standing with his back to me, talking to Isobel. Certainly her welcome was flattering enough. I realized with a sudden gravity that I had not heard her laugh like this since she had been in England. Arthur continued talking in a low, earnest tone.
"How did you find us?" I asked Allan.
"We called at the Rue de St. Antoine," he answered. "The housekeeper said that she had heard you talk about dining at one of these places. Arnold?"
"Well?"
"Why are you and Isobel staying on in Paris?"
"First of all," I answered promptly, "we had to stay for the funeral, and now there are some legal formalities which cannot be finished until to-morrow. I am Monsieur Feurgéres' executor, Allan, and he has left me twenty thousand pounds. Isobel has the rest."
"I am delighted, old chap," Mabane declared heartily. "In fact, I'll drink your health."
I called a waiter and ordered liqueurs. Arthur took his with an ill grace, and he still avoided any direct speech with me. Isobel was evidently uneasy, and looked at me once or twice as though anxious that I should break up theirtête-à-tête. But when I had paid the bill and we rose to go, Allan passed his arm through mine, and I was forced to let the two go on.
"Let the boy have his chance," Allan said, pausing a little as we turned into the Boulevard. "He's in such a state that he won't listen to reason only from her."
"But," I protested, "it is absurd for him to speak to her. Does he know who she is? The Princess Isobel of Waldenburg! Their little kingdom is small enough, but they play at royalty there."
Allan nodded.
"He knows. But he's a good-looking boy, and the girls have spoilt him a little. He has an idea that she cares for him."
"Impossible!" I declared, sharply.
"No! Not impossible!" Allan answered, shaking his head. "They have been together a great deal, you must remember, and Arthur can be a very delightful companion when he chooses. No, it isn't impossible, Arnold."
I shook my head.
"Isobel's future is already arranged," I said. "In three days' time I am taking her to her grandfather. If he receives her, as I believe that he will receive her, she will pass out of our lives as easily as she came into them. She will marry a grand duke, perhaps even a petty king. She will be plunged into all manner of excitements and gaiety. Her years with us will never be mentioned at Court. She herself will soon learn to look back on them as a quaint episode."
"You do not believe it, Arnold?" Mabane declared scornfully.
"Heaven only knows what I believe," I answered, with a little burst of bitterness. "Look at that!"
We had reached the Rue de St. Antoine. Isobel stood in the doorway at the apartments waiting for us. But Arthur had already disappeared.
I examined the tickets carefully and placed them in my pocket-book. Then I paused to light a cigarette on my way out of the office, and almost immediately felt a hand upon my arm. I looked at first at the hand. It was feminine and delicately gloved. Then I looked upwards into the blue eyes of Lady Delahaye.
"Abominable!" she murmured. "You are not glad to see me!"
I raised my hat.
"The Boulevard des Italiennes," I said, "has never seemed to me to be a place peculiarly suitable for the display of emotion."
"Come and try the Rue Strelitz," she answered, smiling.
I glanced down at her. She was gowned even more perfectly than usual—Parisienne to the finger-tips. She had too all the delightful confidence of a woman who knows that she is looking her best.
I smiled back at her. It was impossible to take her seriously.
"Your invitation," I said, "sounds most attractive. But I am curious to know what would happen to me in the Rue Strelitz. Should I be offered poison in a jewelled cup, or disposed of in a cruder fashion? Let me make my will first, and I will come. I am really curious!"
"Arnold," she said, looking up at me with very bright eyes, "you are brutal."
"Not quite that, I hope," I protested.
"Let me tell you something," she continued.
We were in rather a conspicuous position. Lady Delahaye seemed suddenly to realize it.
"May I beg for your escort a little way?" she said. "I am not comfortable upon the Boulevard alone."
"You could scarcely fail," I remarked, throwing away my cigarette, "to be an object of attention from the Frenchman, who is above all things a judge of your sex. I will accompany you a little way with pleasure. Shall we take a fiacre?"
"I would rather walk," she answered. "Do you mind coming this way? I will not take you far."
"I have two whole unoccupied hours," I assured her, "which are very much at your service."
"Where, then," she asked, "is Isobel?"
"Shopping with Tobain," I answered.
"Are you not afraid," she asked with a smile, "to send her out alone with Tobain?"
"Not in the least," I answered. "Monsieur Feurgéres' only friend in Paris was the chief commissioner of police, and he has been good enough to take great interest in us. Isobel is well watched."
"I wonder," she said, after a moment's pause, "whether you have still any faith in me!"
"My dear lady!"
"I wish I could make you believe me. The—her Highness—she prefers us here to call her Madame—has relinquished altogether her designs against you. She desires an alliance."
"Is this," I asked, "an invitation to me to join in the spoils? Am I to become murderer, or poisoner, or abductor, or what?"
Lady Delahaye bit her lip.
"You are altogether too severe," she said. "Madame simply realizes that she has been mistaken. She is willing for Isobel to be restored to her grandfather. It will mean a million or so less dowry for Adelaide, but that must be faced. Madame desires to make peace with you."
"I am charmed," I answered. "May I ask exactly what this means?"
Lady Delahaye smiled up at me.
"The Archduchess will explain to you herself," she said. "I am taking you to her."
I slackened my pace.
"I think not," I said. "To tell you the truth, the Archduchess terrifies me. I see myself inveigled into a room with a trap-door, or knocked on the head by hired bullies, and all manner of disagreeable things. No, Lady Delahaye, I think that I will not run the risk."
She laughed softly.
"I know that you will come," she said softly.
"And why?" I asked.
"Because you are a man, and you do not know fear!"
I raised my hat and proceeded.
"My head is turned," I said. "Nothing flatters a coward so much as the imputation of bravery. I think that I shall go with you anywhere."
"Even—to the Rue Strelitz?"
"My courage may fail me at the last moment," I answered. "At present it feels equal even to the Rue Strelitz."
Again she laughed.
"You are a fraud, Arnold," she declared. "As if we did not know—I and Madame and all of us, that in Paris, even throughout France, you could walk safely into any den of thieves you choose. Your courage isn't worth a snap of the fingers. Any man can be brave who has the archangels of Dotant at his elbows."
"What an easily pricked reputation," I answered regretfully. "Well, it is true. Dotant was Feurgéres' greatest friend, and even Isobel might walk the streets of Paris alone and in safety. Hence, I presume, the amiable desire of the Archduchess for an alliance."
Lady Delahaye shrugged her lace-clad shoulders.
"My dear Arnold," she said, "for myself I adore candour, and why should I try and deceive you? Madame has played a losing game, and knows it. She has the courage to admit defeat. She can still offer enough to make an alliance desirable. For instance, those tickets in your pocket for Illghera will take you there, it is true, but they will not take you into the presence of the King."
"The King," I remarked pensively, "leads a retired life."
"He does," Lady Delahaye answered. "He has the greatest objection to visitors, and for a stranger to obtain an audience is almost an impossibility. He never leaves the grounds of the villa, and his secretary, who opens all his letters, is—a friend of Madame's."
"You have put your case admirably," I remarked. "If Madame is sincere, I should at least like to hear what she has to say."
Lady Delahaye drew a little sigh of content.
"At last," she exclaimed, "I do believe that you are going to behave like a reasonable person."
I could not refrain from the natural retort.
"I have an idea," I said, "that up to now my actions have been fairly well justified."
We were mounting the steps of her house. She looked round and raised her eyebrows.
"We must let bygones be bygones!" she said. "Madame has declared that henceforth she adjures all intrigue."
A footman took my hat and stick in the hall. Lady Delahaye led me into a small boudoir leading out of a larger room. She herself only opened the door and closed it, remaining outside. I was alone with the Archduchess.
She rose slowly to her feet, a very graceful and majestic-looking person, with a suggestion of Isobel in her thin neck and the pose of her head. She did not hold out her hand, and she surveyed me very critically. I ventured to bestow something of the same attention upon her. She was certainly a very beautiful woman, and her expression by no means displeasing. She had Isobel's dark blue eyes, and there was a humorous line about her mouth which astonished me.
"I am not offering you my hand, Mr. Greatson," she said, "because I presume that until we understand each other better it would be a mere matter of form. Still, I am glad that you have come to see me."
"I am very glad too, Madame," I answered, "especially if my visit leads to a cessation of the somewhat remarkable proceedings of the last few weeks."
The Archduchess smiled.
"Well," she said, "I am forced to admit myself beaten. I have been ill-served, it is true, but I suppose my methods are antiquated."
"They belong properly," I admitted, "to a few centuries ago."
Madame smiled a little queerly.
"A few centuries ago," she said, "I fancy that if our family history is true, the affair would have been more simple."
"I can well believe it," I answered.
Madame relapsed into her chair, from which I judged that the preliminary skirmishing was over.
"You will please to be seated, Mr. Greatson!"
I obeyed.
"I am not going to play the hypocrite with you, sir," she said quietly. "It is not worth while, is it? The object of the struggle between us has been, on my part, to keep Isobel and her grandfather apart. You have doubtless correctly gauged my motive. Isobel's mother was my father's favourite child. If he had an idea that her child was alive, he would receive her without a word. She would completely usurp the place of Adelaide, my own daughter, in his affection—and in his will."
"In his will!" I repeated quietly. "Yes, I understand."
Madame nodded.
"It is quite simple," she said. "For myself I am willing to admit that I am an ambitious woman. Money for its own sake I take no heed of, but it remains always one of the great levers of the world, and it is the only lever by means of which I can gain what I desire. I never forget that the country over which my father rules was once an absolute kingdom, and semi-Royalty does not appeal to me. The betrothal of my daughter Adelaide to Ferdinand of Saxonia was of my planning entirely. The dowry required by the Council of Saxonia is so large that it could not possibly be paid if any portion of my father's fortune, great though it is, is diverted towards Isobel. Hence my desire to keep Isobel and her grandfather apart."
"Madame," I said, "you are candour itself. I can only regret that it is my hard fate to oppose such admirable plans."
"I have been given to understand," the Archduchess said, "that it is now your intention to take Isobel yourself to Illghera!"
"The tickets," I murmured, "are in my pocket."
Madame bowed.
"Well," she said, "I have seen and heard enough of you to make no further effort to thwart or even to influence you. Yet I have a proposition to make. First of all, consider these things. If we come to no arrangement with each other I shall use every means I can to prevent your obtaining an interview with my father. Everything is in my favour. He is very old, he has a hatred of strangers, he grants audiences to no one. He never passes outside the grounds of the villa, and all the gates are guarded by sentries, who admit no one save those who have the entrée. Then, if you attempt to approach him by correspondence, his private secretary, who opens every letter, is one of my own appointing. I have exaggerated none of these things. It will be difficult for you to approach the King. You may succeed—you seem to have the knack of success—but it will take time. Isobel's re-appearance will be without dignity, and open to many remarks for various reasons. You may even fail to convince my father, and if you failed the first time there would be no second opportunity."
"What you say, Madame," I admitted, "is reasonable. I have never assumed that as yet my task is completed. I recognize fully the difficulties that are still before me."
"You have common-sense, Mr. Greatson, I am glad to see," she continued. "I am the more inclined to hope that you will accede to my proposition. Briefly, it is this! Let me have the credit of bringing Isobel to her grandfather. Her year in London would at all times, in these days of scandal, be a somewhat delicate matter to publish. What you have done, you have done, as I very well know, from no hope of or desire for reward. Efface yourself. It will be for Isobel's good. I myself shall stand sponsor for her to the world. I shall have discovered her in the convent here, and I shall take her back to her rightful place with triumph. All your difficulties then will vanish, your end will have been creditably and adequately attained. For myself the advantage is obvious. A difference to Adelaide it must make, but it will inevitably be less if the credit of her discovery remains with me. Have I made myself clear, Mr. Greatson?"
"Perfectly," I answered. "But you forget there is Isobel herself to be considered. She is no longer a child. She has opinions and a will of her own."
"She owes too much to you," Madame replied quietly, "to disregard your wishes."
I believed from the first that the woman was in earnest, and her proposal an honest one. And yet I hesitated. The past was a little recent. She showed that she read my thoughts.
"Come," she said, "I will prove to you that I mean what I say. To-night I will give a dinner-party—informal, it is true, but the Prince of Cleves, my cousin the Cardinal, and your own ambassador, shall come. I will introduce Isobel as my niece. The affair will then be established. Do you consent?"
For one moment I hesitated. I knew very well what my answer meant. Absolute effacement, the tearing out of my life for ever of what had become the sweetest part of it. In that single moment it seemed to me that I realized with something like complete despair the barrenness of the days to come.
"Madame, if Isobel is to be persuaded," I answered, "I consent."
"This, then," the Prince remarked, raising his eyeglass, "is the young lady whose romantic history you have been recounting to me? But, my dear lady, she is charming!"
Madame held out her hands affectionately and kissed Isobel, who had entered the room with her cousin, on both cheeks. Then she took her by the hand and presented her to the Prince of Cleves and several others of the company. Isobel was a little pale, but her manner was perfectly easy and self-possessed. She was dressed, somewhat to my surprise, in the deepest mourning, and she even wore a band of black velvet around her neck.
"My dear child," her aunt said pleasantly, "I scarcely think that your toilette is a compliment to us all. White should be your colour for many years to come."
Isobel raised her eyes. Her tone was no louder than ordinary, but somehow her voice seemed to be possessed of unusually penetrating qualities.
"My dear aunt," she said, "you forget I am in mourning for my stepfather, Monsieur Feurgéres, who was very good to me."
A company of perfectly bred people accepted the remark in sympathetic silence. There was not even an eyebrow raised, but I fancy that Isobel's words, calmly spoken and with obvious intent, struck the keynote of her future relations with her aunt.
Isobel, a few minutes later, brought her cousin over to me.
"Adelaide is very anxious to know you, Arnold!" she said quietly. This was all the introduction she offered. Immediately afterwards her aunt called Isobel away to be presented to a new arrival.
"Mr. Greatson," Adelaide said earnestly, "I cannot tell you how delighted I am that all this trouble is over, and that Isobel is coming to us. But I think—I think she is paying too great a price. I think my mother is hatefully, wickedly cruel!"
"My dear young lady," I protested, "I do not think that you must say that. Your mother's conditions are necessary. In fact, whether she made them or not, I think that they would be inevitable."
"You are not even to come to Illghera with us? Not to visit us even?"
I shook my head.
"I belong to the great family of Bohemians," I reminded her, "who have no possessions and but one dress suit. What should I do at Court?"
"What indeed!" she answered, with a little sigh, "for you are a citizen of the greater world!"
"There is no such thing," I answered. "We carry our own world with us. We make it small or large with our own hands."
"For some," she murmured, "the task then is very difficult. Where one lives in a forcing-house of conventions, and the doors are fast locked, it is very easy to be stifled, but it is hard indeed to breathe."
"Princess," I said gravely, "have you examined the windows?"
"I do not understand you," she answered.
"But it is simple, surely," I declared. "Even if you must remain in the forcing-house, it is for you to open the windows and breathe what air you will. For your thoughts at least are free, and it is of our thoughts that our lives are fashioned."
She sighed.
"Ah, Mr. Greatson," she said, "one does not talk like that at Court."
"You have a great opportunity," I answered. "Character is a flower which blossoms in all manner of places. Sometimes it comes nearest to perfection in the most unlikely spots. Prosperity and sunshine are not the best things in the world for it. Sometimes in the gloomy and desolate places its growth is the sturdiest and its flowers the sweetest."
The service of dinner had been announced. The English Ambassador took Adelaide away from me, but as she accepted his arm she looked me in the eyes with a grave but wonderfully sweet smile.
"I thank you very much, Mr. Greatson," she said. "Our little conversation has been most pleasant."
The Archduchess swept up to me. She was looking a little annoyed.
"Mr. Greatson," she said, "Isobel is pleading shyness—an absurd excuse. She insists that you take her in to dinner. I suppose she must have her own way to-night, but it is annoying."
Madame looked at me as though it were my fault that her plans were disarranged, which was a little unfair. And then Isobel, very serene, but with that weary look about the eyes which seemed only to have increased during the evening, came quietly up and took my arm.
"If this is to be our last evening, Arnold, we will at least spend as much of it as possible together," she said gently. "I will be a very dutiful niece, aunt, to-morrow."
We moved off together, but not before I was struck with something singular in Madame's expression. She stood looking at us two as though some wholly new idea had presented itself to her. She did not follow us into the dining-room for some few moments.
The dinner itself, for an informal one, was a very brilliant function. There were eighteen of us at a large round table, which would easily have accommodated twenty-four. The Cardinal, whose scarlet robes in themselves formed a strange note of colour, sat on the Archduchess's right, touching scarcely any of the dishes which were continually presented to him, and sipping occasionally from the glass of water at his side. The other men and women were all distinguished, and their conversation, mostly carried on in French, was apt, and at times brilliant. Isobel and I perhaps, the former particularly, contributed least to the general fund. Isobel met the advances of her right-hand neighbour with the barest of monosyllables. Lady Delahaye, who sat on my left, left me for the most part discreetly alone. Yet we two spoke very little. I could see that Isobel was disposed to be hysterical, and that her outward calm was only attained by means of an unnatural effort. Yet I fancied that my being near soothed her, and every time I spoke to her or she to me, a certain relief came into her face. All the while I was conscious of one strange thing. The Archduchess, although she had the Cardinal on one side and the Prince of Cleves on the other, was continually watching us. Her interest in their conversation was purely superficial. Her interest in us, on the contrary, was an absorbing one. I could not understand it at all.
The conclusion of dinner was marked by an absence of all ceremony. The cigarettes had already been passed round before the Archduchess rose, but those who chose to remain at the table did so. Isobel leaned over and whispered in my ear.
"Come with me into the drawing-room. I want to talk to you."
I obeyed, and the Archduchess seemed to me purposely to leave us alone. We sat in a quiet corner, and when I saw that there were tears in Isobel's eyes, I knew that my time of trial was not yet over.
"Arnold," she said quietly, "you care—whether I am happy or not? You have done so much for me—you must care!"
"You cannot doubt it, Isobel," I answered.
"I do not. This sort of life will not suit me at all. I do not trust my aunt. I am weary of strangers. Let us give it all up. Take me back to London with you. I feel as though I were going into prison."
"Dear Isobel," I said, "you must remember why we decided that it was right for you to rejoin your people."
"Oh, I know," she answered. "But even to the last Monsieur Feurgéres hesitated. My mother would never have wished me to be miserable."
I shook my head.
"I believe that Feurgéres was right," I answered. "I believe that your mother would wish to see you in your rightful place. I believe that it is your duty to claim it."
Then I think that for the first time Isobel was unfair to me, and spoke words which hurt.
"You do not wish to have me back again," she said slowly. "I have been a trouble to you, I know, and I have upset your life. You want me to go away."
I did not answer her. I could not. She leaned forward and looked into my face, and instantly her tone changed. Her soft fingers clutched mine for a moment.
"Dear Arnold," she whispered, "I am sorry! Forgive me! I will do what you think best. I did not mean to hurt you."
"I am quite sure that you did not, Isobel," I answered. "Listen! I am speaking now for Allan as well as for myself, and for Arthur too. To tear you out of our lives is the hardest thing we have ever had to do. Your coming changed everything for us. We were never so happy before. We shall never know anything like it again. If you were what we thought, a nameless and friendless child, you would be welcome back again, more welcome than I can tell you. But you have your own life to live, and it is not ours. You have your own place to fill in the world, and, forgive me, your mother's memory to vindicate. Monsieur Feurgéres was right. For her sake you must claim the things that are yours."
"But shall I never see you again, Arnold?" she asked, with a little catch in her breath.
I set my teeth. I could see that the Archduchess was watching us.
"Our ways must lie far apart, Isobel," I said. "But who can say? Many things may happen. The Princess Isobel may visit the studios when she is in London or at Homburg. She may patronize the poor writer whose books she knows."
Isobel sat and listened to me with stony face.
"I wonder," she murmured, "why the way to one's duty lies always through Hell?"
Isobel's lips were quivering, and I dared make no effort to console her. The Archduchess came suddenly across the room to us, and bent affectionately over Isobel.
"My dear child," she said, "you are overtired. Go and talk to Adelaide. She is alone in the music-room. I have something to say to Mr. Greatson."
Isobel rose and left us at once. The Archduchess took her place. She was carrying a fan of black ostrich feathers, and she waved it languidly for some time as though in deep thought.
"Mr. Greatson," she said at length.
I turned and found her eyes fixed curiously upon me. These were moments which I remembered all my life, and every little detail in connection with them seemed flashed into my memory. The strange perfume, something like the burning of wood spice, wafted towards me by her fan, the glitter of the blue black sequins which covered her magnificent gown, the faint smile upon her parted lips, and the meaning in her eyes—all these things made their instantaneous and ineffaceable impression. Then she leaned a little closer to me.
"Mr. Greatson," she repeated, "I know your secret!"
I am afraid that for the moment I lost my self-possession. I had gone through so much during the last few hours, and this woman spoke with such confidence—so quietly, and yet with such absolute conviction—that I felt the barriers which I had built about myself crumbling away. I answered her lamely, and without conviction.
"My secret! I do not know what you mean. I have no secret!"
The black feathers fluttered backwards and forwards once more. She regarded me still with the same quiet smile.
"You love my niece, Mr. Greatson," she said.
"Madame," I answered, "you are jesting!"
"Indeed I am not," she declared. "I have made a statement which is perfectly true."
"I deny it!" I exclaimed hoarsely.
"You can deny it as much as you like, if you think it worth while to perjure yourself," she replied coolly. "The truth remains. I have had a good deal of experience in such matters. You love Isobel, and I am not at all sure that Isobel does not love you."
"Madame," I protested, "such statements are absurd. I am no longer a young man. I am thirty-four years old. I have no longer any thought of marriage. Isobel is no more than a child. I was nearly her present age when she was born. The whole idea, as I trust you will see, is ridiculous."
The Archduchess regarded me still with unchanged face.
"Your protestations, Mr. Greatson," she said, "amuse, but utterly fail to convince me."
"Let us drop the subject, then," I said hastily. "At least, if you persist in your hallucination, I hope you will believe this. I have never spoken a word of what could be called love-making to the child in my life."
"I believe you implicitly," she answered promptly. "I believe that I know and can appreciate your position. Let me tell you that I honour you for it."
"Madame," I murmured, "you are very good. Let us now abandon the subject."
"By no means," she answered. "On the contrary, I should like to discuss it with you fully."
"Madame!" I exclaimed.
"Let us suppose for a moment," she went on calmly, "that I am correct, that you really love Isobel, but that your peculiar position has imposed upon your sense of honour the necessity for silence. Well, your guardianship of her may now be considered to have ended. From to-night it has passed into my hands. Still, you would say the difference between your positions is immeasurable. You are, I doubt not, a gentleman by birth, but Isobel comes from one of the ancient and noble families of the world, and might almost expect to share a throne with the man whom she elects to marry. It is true, in effect, Mr. Greatson, that you are of different worlds."
"Madame," I answered, "why do you trouble to demonstrate such obvious facts? They are incontestable. But supposing for a moment that your surmises concerning myself were true, you will understand that they are painful for me to listen to."
"You must have patience, Mr. Greatson," she said quietly. "At present I am feeling my way through my thoughts. There is rash blood in Isobel's veins, and I should like her life to be happier than her mother's. She is unconventional and a lover of freedom. The etiquette of our Court at Illghera will chafe her continually. I wonder, Mr. Greatson, if she would not be happier—married to some one of humbler birth, perhaps, but who can give her the sort of life she desires."
I was for a moment dumb with astonishment. Apart from the amazement of the whole thing, the Archduchess was not in the least the sort of person to be seriously interested in the abstract question of Isobel's happiness. At least, I should not have supposed her capable of it. I imagine that she must have read my thoughts, for after a searching glance at me she continued:
"You doubt my disinterestedness, Mr. Greatson. Perhaps you are right. I wish the child well, but there is also this fact to be considered. Isobel married to an English gentleman such as, say, yourself, would be no longer a serious rival to my daughter in the affections of her grandfather."
Then indeed I began to understand. What a woman of resource! She watched me closely behind the feathers of her fan.
"Come," she said, "this time my plot is an innocent one, and it is for Isobel's happiness as well as for my daughter's benefit. Speak to her now. Marry her at once, here in Paris, and I will give her for dowry twenty thousand pounds!"
I ground my heel into the carpet, and I was grateful for those long black feathers which waved gracefully in front of my face. For I was tempted—sorely tempted. The woman's words rang like mad music in my brain. Speak to her! Why not? It was the great joy of the world which waited for me to pluck it. Why not? I was not an old man, the child was fond of me, a single word of compliance, and I might step into my kingdom. Oh, the rapture of it, the wonderful joy of taking her hands in mine, of dropping once and for ever the mask from my face, the gag from my tongue! A rush of wild thoughts turned me dizzy. My secret was no longer a secret at all. The Archduchess leaned a little closer to me, and whispered behind those fluttering feathers—
"You are a very wonderful person, Mr. Greatson, that you have kept silence so long. The necessity for it has passed. The child loves you. I am sure of it."
But my moment of weakness was over. I had a sudden vision of Feurgéres, standing on the stage, listening with bowed head to the thunder of applause, but with his eyes turned always to the darkened box, with its lonely bouquet of pink roses—lonely to all save him, who alone saw the hand which held them—of Feurgéres in his sanctuary, bending lovingly over that chair, empty to all save him, Feurgéres, with that smile of unearthly happiness upon his lips—calm, debonair and steadfast. This was the man who had trusted me. I raised my head.
"Madame," I said quietly, "what you suggest is impossible."
She stared at me in incredulous astonishment.
"But I do not understand," she exclaimed weakly. "You agree, surely?"
I shook my head.
"On the contrary, Madame," I said, "I beg that you will not allude further to the matter."
The Archduchess muttered something in German to herself which I did not understand. Perhaps it was just as well.
"You will vouchsafe me," she begged, speaking very slowly, and keeping her eyes fixed on me, "some reason for your refusal?"
"I will give you two," I answered. "First, it is contrary to the spirit of my promise to Monsieur Feurgéres."
Her lip curled.
"Well?"
"Secondly," I continued, "I should be taking a dishonourable advantage of my position with regard to Isobel. She is very grateful to me, and she would very likely mistake her sentiments if I were to speak to her as you suggest. She is too young to know what love is. She has met no young men of her own rank, she does not understand in the least what sort of position is in store for her."
"These are your reasons, then?"
"I venture to think that they are sufficient ones, Madame," I answered.
The Archduchess rose.
"We shall need a new Cervantes," she remarked, "to do justice to the Englishman of to-day. I shall keep my word, Mr. Greatson, as regards Isobel, and I can promise you this. If gaiety and eligible suitors, and the luxury of her new life are not sufficient to stifle any sentimental follies she may be nursing just now, I will not rest till I find other means. Adelaide's future is arranged. I will set myself to make Isobel's equally brilliant. I will make her the beauty of Europe. She shall forget in a month the squalid days of her life with you and your friends in an attic."
"So long as Isobel is happy," I answered, "my mission is accomplished, and I am content."
"You are a fool and a liar!" she answered contemptuously. "You will love her all your days, and you know it. You will grow to curse the memory of this hour in which you threw away the only chance you will ever have of winning her. The only chance, mind, I will answer for that. I wish you good-evening, Mr. Greatson. You are excused. Isobel, as you are aware, remains here. You will find her in the music-room with Adelaide. Go and make your adieux, and make them quickly. You will be interrupted in three minutes."
She swept away from me with only the slightest inclination of her head. I made my way to the music-room, where Isobel and her cousin were sitting together. Directly I entered, the latter, with a little nod of curious meaning to me, rose and left us alone. I held out my hands.
"Isobel, dear," I said, "this must be—our farewell, then—for a time!"
She placed her hands in mine. They were as cold as ice. Her cheeks were white, her eyes seemed fastened upon mine. All the while her bosom was heaving convulsively, but she said nothing.
"I can only wish you what Arthur and Allan have already wished you," I said, "happiness! You have every chance of it, dear. You surely deserve it, for you brightened up our dull lives so that we can, no one of us, ever forget you. Think of us sometimes. Good-bye!"
I stooped and kissed her lightly on the cheek. But suddenly her arms were wound around my neck. With a strength which was amazing she held me to her.
"Arnold!" she sobbed. "Oh, Arnold!"
Her lips were upon mine, and in another second I should have been lost, for my arms would have been around her. The door opened and closed. We heard the jingling of sequins, the sweep of a silken train. The Archduchess had entered. Isobel's arms fell from my neck, but her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes like stars.
"You—are going?" she pleaded.
"I am going," I answered huskily.
The Archduchess came down the room, humming a light tune.
"So the dread farewell is over, then!" she exclaimed, with light good humour. "Come, child, no red eyes. Remember, a Waldenburg weeps only twice in her life. Once more, good-night, Mr. Greatson."
I had reached the door. Isobel was standing still with outstretched arms. The Archduchess glided between us—and I went.
The next morning I travelled unseen by the Riviera express, to which the saloon of the Archduchess had been attached, all the way to Illghera. I saw her driven with the others to the villa.
Two days afterwards, from a hill overlooking the grounds, I saw an old gentleman in a pony chaise preceded by two footmen in dark green livery. Adelaide walked on one side, and Isobel on the other. That night I left Illghera for England.
I knew the moment I opened the door that changes were on foot. Our studio sitting-room was dismantled of many of its treasures. Allan, with his coat off and a pipe in his mouth, was throwing odds and ends in a promiscuous sort of way into a huge trunk which stood open upon the floor. Arthur, a few yards off, was rolling a cigarette.
Our meeting was not wholly free from embarrassment. I think that for the first time in our lives there was a cloud between Allan and myself. He stood up and faced me squarely.
"Arnold," he said, "where is Isobel?"
"In Illghera with her grandfather," I answered. "Where else should she be?"
"Are you sure?"
"I have seen her there with my own eyes," I affirmed.
There was a moment's pause. I saw the two exchange glances. Then Allan held out his hand.
"That damned woman again!" he exclaimed. "Forgive me, Arnold!"
"Willingly," I answered, "when I know what for."
"Suspecting you. Lady Delahaye wrote Arthur a note, in which she said that the Archduchess and you had made fresh plans. You can guess what they were. And Illghera was off. You did hurry us away from Paris a bit, you know, and I was fool enough to imagine for a moment that there might be something in it. Forgive me, Arnold!" he added, holding out his hand.
"And me!" Arthur exclaimed, extending his.
I held out a hand to each. There was something grimly humorous in this reception, after all that I had suffered during the last few days. My first impulse of anger died away almost as quickly as it had been conceived.
"My friends," I said, "the Archduchess did propose some such scheme to me, but you forget that my honour was involved, not only to you, not only to the child, but to a dead man. I can look you both in the face and assure you that in word and letter I have been faithful to my trust."
"I knew it!" Allan declared gruffly. "Dear old chap, forgive me!"
"I am the brute who dangled the letter before his eyes," Arthur exclaimed bitterly, "and I am the only one of the three who has broken our covenant."
"My dear friends," I said slowly, "the things which are past, let us forget. Isobel has gone back to the life which claimed her. No barrier which human hand could rear could separate her from us so effectually and irrevocably as the mere fact that she has taken up the position which belongs to her. She is the Princess Isobel of Waldenburg, a king's grandchild. And we are—what we are! Let me now make my confession to you. I, too, loved her."
The two hands which held mine tightened for a moment their grasp. The old "camaraderie" was established once more.
"It is I who was responsible for her coming," I continued. "It is only fitting that I, too, should suffer. How she grew into our hearts you all know. She has gone, and nothing can ever be the same. Yet I for one do not regret it. I regret nothing! I am content to live with the memory of these wonderful days she spent with us."
"And I!" Allan declared.
"And I!" Arthur echoed.
I wrung their hands, for it was a joy to me to feel that we had come once more into complete accord.
"You know what sort of a state we were drifting into when she came," I continued. "We were like thousands of others. We were rubbing shoulders, hour by hour and day by day, with the world which takes no account of beautiful things. She came and laid the magician's hand upon our lives. We had perforce to alter our ways, to alter our surroundings, our amusements, our ideals. Joy came with her, and pain may find a secret place in our hearts now that she has gone, but I do not think that either of us would willingly blot out from his life these last two years. Would you, Arthur?"
"Not I!" he declared. "We had to learn ourselves to teach her. To chuck the things that were rotten, anyhow, just because she was around. Jolly good for us, too!"
"I agree with Arthur and you," Allan said. "I agree with all that you have said. The child was dear to me too. So dear, that I do not think that it would be easy to go back to our old life without her. That is why——"
He glanced around the room. Our hands fell apart. I lit a cigarette and looked at the open trunk.
"You are going away, Allan?"
He nodded.
"I'm off to Canada," he said. "I've an old uncle there who's worth looking after, and he's always bothering me to pay him a visit. Right time of the year, too—and hang it all, Arnold, I've sat here for a week in front of an empty canvas, and I'd go to hell sooner than stand it any longer!"
"And you, Arthur?"
"I have been appointed manager of our Paris Depôt," Arthur answered a little grandiloquently. "I couldn't refuse it. Much better pay and more fun, and all that sort of thing, and—oh, hang it all, Arnold, is it likely a fellow could stay here now she's gone?" he wound up, with a little catch in his throat.
So the old days were over! I looked at my desk, and by the side of it was the chair in which she used sometimes to sit while I read to her. Then I think that I, too, was glad that this change was to come.
"There is one thing, Arnold," Mabane said quietly, "about her things. We locked the door of her room. Mrs. Burdett has packed up most of her clothes, but there are the ornaments and a few little things of her own. We should like to go in—Arthur and I. We have waited for you."
"We will go now," I answered. "She will have no need of anything that she has left behind. We will each choose a keepsake, and lock the rest up."
We entered the room all together, almost on tiptoe. If we had been wearing hats I am sure that we should have taken them off. How, with such trifling means at her command, she could have left behind in that tiny chamber so potent an impression of daintiness and comfort I cannot tell. But there it was. Her little bed, with its spotless counterpane, was hung with pink muslin. There was a lace spread upon her toilet-table, on which her little oddments of silver made a brave show. Only one thing seemed out of place, a worn little slipper peeping out from under a chair. I thrust it into my pocket. The others took some trifle from the table. Then, as silently as we had entered, we left the room. As I turned the key I choked down something in my throat, and did my best to laugh—a little unnaturally, I am afraid.
"Come!" I cried, "it is I who am responsible for this attack of sentiment. I will show you how to get rid of it. You dine with me at Hautboy's. I have money—lots of it. Feurgéres left me twenty thousand pounds. Hautboy's and a magnum of the best. How long will you fellows be dressing?"
They tried to fall into my mood. Allan mixed cocktails. We drank and smoked and shouted to one another uproariously from our rooms as we changed our clothes. We drove to Hautboy's three in a hansom, and Arthur spent his usual five minutes chaffing the young lady behind the tiny bar. But when the wine came, and our glasses were filled, a sudden silence fell upon us. We looked at each other, and we all knew what was in the minds of all of us. It was Allan who spoke.
"To Isobel!" he said softly.
We drank in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. But afterwards Arthur raised his glass high above his head.
"To the Princess Isobel!" he cried. "Long life and good luck to her!"
Afterwards there were no more toasts.
Arthur and Allan went their several ways within twenty-four hours of our farewell dinner. I saw them both off, and I forced them with great difficulty to share to some small extent in Feurgéres' legacy. Then I took some rooms near my club in the heart of London, and line for line, word for word, I re-wrote the whole of the story which I had not dared to show to Isobel, determined that the one thing I still had which was part of her body and soul should be the best that my brain and skill could fashion. So the winter and the early spring passed, and then my story was published.
A miracle of white daintiness, from the spotless muslin of her gown to the creamy lace which hung from her parasol. So far as toilette went, Lady Delahaye was always an artist. Yet my pulses were unmoved, and my heart unstirred, as she stood under my dark cedar-tree and welcomed me with all the expression which her tone and eyes could command.
"So you see, Sir Hermit," she murmured, "what happens to those who will not go to the mountain? Seriously, I hope you are glad to see me."
"Why not?" I answered calmly. "Will you come inside, or shall we sit here in the shade?"
"Here, by all means," she answered, subsiding gracefully into a wicker chair.
"You will let me order you some tea?"
She checked my movement towards the house.
"For Heaven's sake, no! I have been paying calls all the afternoon with Mrs. Jerningham, and you know what that means. She has gone to the Hall now, and I am to pick her up in half an hour."
"You are staying at Eastford House, then?" I remarked.
"For a few days. Can you guess why?"
"The house parties there have the reputation of being amusing," I suggested.
She shook her head.
"It was not that. Can you make no better guess?"
"I am a dunce at riddles," I admitted.
"You are a dunce at many things," she replied. "The reason I came was because I knew that you were living in these parts, and I had a fancy to see you again."
"You are very good," I remarked.
She looked at me critically.
"You have not changed," she said slowly. "One would almost say that the life of a recluse agrees with you. You have by no means the white and wasted look which I expected. Is it fame which you have found so potent a tonic?"
I laughed lightly.
"Don't call it fame," I answered. "Success, if you will. My profession is so much of a lottery. A whiff of public opinion, a criticism which hits the popular fancy, and the bubble is floated. I'm not pretending that I don't appreciate it, but it was a stroke of luck all the same."
She was silent for a few moments. From outside we could hear the jingling of harness as Mrs. Jerningham's fat bays resented the onslaught of officious flies. Nearer at hand there was only the lazy humming of bees to break the stillness of the summer afternoon. Lady Delahaye sighed.
"You are talking nonsense, and you know it," she said. "I do not want to flatter you. Any man who has the trick of the pen, and chooses to give himself wholly and utterly away, can write a powerful story."
"I am afraid that I do not understand you," I protested.
"Yes, you do. You cut open your own heart, and you offered the world a magnifying glass to study its wounds. You wrote your own story. You told the tale of your own suffering. Of course it was strong, of course it rang with all the truth of genius. So you loved that child, Arnold! You, a man of the world, not a callow schoolboy. You loved her magnificently. Did she know?"
"She did not know," I answered. "She never will know."
"She may read the book!"
"She may read it, and yet not know," I answered.
"It is true," she murmured. "Unless she loved herself she might not understand."
Again we were silent for a while. The perfume of the cedars floated upon the hot breathless air. Lady Delahaye half closed her eyes and leaned back.
"You read the newspapers, Sir Hermit?"
"Sometimes."
"You have heard the news from Waldenburg?"
"I read of the King's death."
"And of the betrothal of the Princess Isobel?"
"Yes. I have read also of that."
"The cousins will both be the consorts of reigning sovereigns, small though their kingdoms may be. One reads great things of Adelaide. Her people call her already 'the well-beloved.'"
A swift rush of thought carried me back to the dark stormy crossing, when the rain had beaten in our faces, and the wind came booming down the Channel. Adelaide stood once more by my side. I heard the quiet, bitter words, the low, passionate cry of her troubled heart. "The well-beloved" of her people! After all, race tells.
"I spoke but twice alone to the Princess Adelaide," I said. "I learnt enough of her, however, to be sure that in any position she would do the thing that was right and gracious."
"And so will Isobel," Lady Delahaye said. "I know the race well. The men are degenerates, but the women have nerve to rule and courage to hold their own against the world. Isobel's future may well be the more brilliant of the two. Can you realize, I wonder, that Isobel of Waldenburg was once the child who filled your brain with such strange fancies?"
"I never think," I answered, "of Isobel of Waldenburg."
"You are wise," she answered. "She is as surely separated from us eternally as though she had made that little journey from which one does not return. Yet you—you are going to hug your wounds all your life. Is that wise, my friend?"
I laughed softly.
"You are mistaken," I assured her. "I have no wounds—not even regrets. I believe that there are few men happier. Look at my home!"
"It is beautiful," she admitted.
"My gardens, my flowers, my cedar-tree and my books," I said. "These are all a joy to me. What more can a man want? Friends have moods, and they pass away out of one's life. The friends who smile from my study wall are patient and always ready. There is one to fit every hour. They do not change. They are always ready to show me the way into the world beautiful, to cheer me when I am sad, to laugh with me when I am gay. You must not waste any sympathy on me, Lady Delahaye. The man who has learnt to live alone is the man who has learnt the greatest lesson life has to teach. He is the man for whom the sun shines always, who carries with him for ever the magic key."
Lady Delahaye disturbed the smoothness of my turf with the point of her parasol.
"Are there no times," she asked in a low tone, "when these things fail you? No times when like calls for like, when the human part of you finds the comfort of ashes a dead thing? You and your books and your flowers!" she cried scornfully, raising her head and looking at me with heightened colour. "Bah! You are a man, are you not, like the others? How long will these content you? How long will you stop your ears and forget that life has passions and joys which these dead things can never yield to you?"
"Until," I answered, "the magician comes who can make me believe it. And I am afraid, Lady Delahaye, that he has passed me by."
She rose to her feet.
"I am answered," she said. "I promise you that I will not intrude again into this Paradise of wood and stone. Give me a cigarette to keep off these flies, and take me down to the carriage. Thanks! If one might venture upon a prophecy, my dear Arnold, I think that I can see your fate very clearly written. I do not even need your hand to read it."
"Would the spell," I asked, "be broken if I shared the knowledge?"
"Not in the least," she answered, with a hard little laugh. "You will become one of those half-mad sort of creatures whom people call cranks, or you will marry your housekeeper. In either case you will deserve your fate."
So Lady Delahaye drove away down the white dusty road, and I walked back to the study from whence her coming had brought me. As I sat down to my interrupted work I smiled. How little she understood!
I wrote till seven o'clock. Punctually at that hour there was a discreet knock at the door, and my servant reminded me that it was time to change. At a quarter before eight I strolled into the garden and selected a piece of heliotrope for the buttonhole of my dinner coat. A few minutes later my dinner was served.
My table was a small round one set in front of the open French windows. Looking a little to the right I could see the extent of my domain—a low laurel hedge, a sloping field beyond, in which my two Alderneys were standing almost knee-deep amongst the buttercups; a ring fence, a paddock, and, beyond, the road. To the left were my gardens, the sweetness of which came stealing through the window with the very faintest breath of the slowly moving air, bordered by that ancient red brick wall, mellowed and crumbling with the sun and west winds of generations, and in front of me my lawn and the cedar-tree under which Lady Delahaye had sat an hour or so ago and prophesied evil things. My lips parted into a smile as I thought of her words. Did she indeed think me a creature so weak as to pile gloom on the top of sorrow, to shut my eyes to all the joys of life, because supreme happiness was denied me, to play skittles with my self-respect, and—marry a kitchen-maid? I, who had turned over great pages in the book of life! I, who had known Feurgéres! Wallace had left the room for a moment, and I raised my glass full of clear amber wine, and drank silently my evening toast. I drank to the memory of the greatest love I had ever known, to the man whose strong and beautiful life had taught me how to fashion my own. Perhaps my thoughts flashed a little further afield. It was so always when I thought of Feurgéres, but it was to the joyous and wonderful memory of those earlier days, to Isobel the child I drank. Isobel of Waldenburg had passed away into the world of shadows. I courted no heartaches by vain thoughts of her. I pored over no papers to find mention of her name. I was content with what had gone before.
I morbid! Lady Delahaye had judged me wrongly indeed. I, before whom two great worlds stretched themselves continually, full of countless treasures, always changing, yet always beautiful. Only yesterday I had seen the sun rise. I had seen the still slumbering world break into quivering life. I had seen the curtain roll up on a new act of this most wonderful of all plays to the music of an orchestra hidden indeed in my grove of chestnuts, but sweeter, more joyous, more full of the promise of perfect things than ever a violin touched by human fingers. Then the thrushes had hopped out on to my dew-spangled lawn, where before the hot sun the grey, gossamer-like mist was vanishing like breath from a mirror; my roses raised their heads, and the breeze from the west—a lazy, fluttering breeze—borrowed their sweetness; my peaches cracked through their full skins upon the wall, and the bees commenced their eternal lullaby of murmuring sounds. Then at night—such a night as this, too, promised to be—I had watched the shadows come creeping over the land when the sun had set and the moon had barely risen; a new order of things had come. The fire of the day was replaced by the infinite peace of night. Beyond the confines of my little domain the whole world lay hushed and hidden. There were few stars as yet to mock with their passionless serenity the toilers of the earth, worn out with the long day's struggle. Only a great quiet—a great, peaceful quiet—and the shadows of dim things!
I morbid, with eyes to see these things, with a whole room full of waiting friends, ready at a touch of my fingers, the turning of a page, to take me by the hand and lead into even other worlds as beautiful as this, to scale with me the mountains, or to wander along the flower-strewn valleys. Lady Delahaye was a very foolish woman. She had seen nothing of my well-ordered household, of the ease, the luxury—simple, yet almost Sybaritic—with which I had surrounded myself. She did not understand life from my point of view—life as Feurgéres had lived it. The life sentimental, but not passionate; the life to be evolved by will from the tangle of bruised hopes and hot desires. The life——
I set down my glass empty. The last drop had tasted like vinegar. Always one has to fight, and for a while I sat in silence before my table piled now with dishes of fruit. My hands gripped the sides of my chair, my eyes were fixed upon a twinkling light which had shot out from the distant hillside. Always one has to fight for the things worth having—and the pain soon passes.
In a few minutes I rose. I lit a cigarette from the box which Wallace had placed at my elbow, and with a handful more in my pocket I stepped outside. On the lawn under the cedar-tree something was lying—something pink and fluffy, and very soft to the fingers. As I held it at arm's length a faint, familiar perfume stole up from its flouncy depths. The pain was all gone now. I smiled as I looked at it. It was Lady Delahaye's parasol!
I turned it over meditatively. The fancy seized me that it had been left there on purpose—my last chance! Eastford House was barely a mile and a half away—a very reasonable after-dinner stroll. I smiled to myself as I summoned Wallace from the dining-room.
"Take this parasol over to Eastford House as soon as you have served my coffee," I directed. "Lady Delahaye must have left it here this afternoon."
"Very good, sir," Wallace answered, relieving me of my burden and carrying it into the house.
Then I departed on my usual evening pilgrimage. I entered the flower garden by a little iron gate, and walked slowly amongst my roses. Here the air was full of delicate scents—lavender insistent; mignonette faint, but penetrating; homely wall-flowers, sweet even as the roses themselves. Night insects now were buzzing around me; the bushes took to themselves phantasmal shapes; even the path, very narrow and overgrown, was hard to find. I filled my hand with flowers and made my way slowly back to the cedar-tree. The shadows were deeper now. It was the one hour of darkness before the rising of the late moon. I threw myself into a low chair, and the flowers on to the seat which encircled the cedar-tree. Oh, wonderful Feurgéres, who had taught me the sweetness of such moments as this!