“
For the first time in my life,” Deyes declared, accepting the cigarette and the easy-chair, “I have appreciated Paris. I have gone there as a tourist. I have drunk strange drinks at the Café de la Paix. I have sat upon the boulevards and ogled the obvious lady.”
“And my little guide?” she asked.
“Has disappeared!” he answered.
“Since when?”
“A month ago! It is reported that he came to England.”
Wilhelmina sat still for several moments. To a casual observer she might have seemed unmoved. Deyes, however, was watching her closely, and he understood.
“I am sorry,” he said, “to have so little to tell you. But that is the beginning and the end of it. The man had gone away.”
“That is precisely what I desired to ascertain,” she said. “It seemed to me possible that the man had come to England. I wished to know for certain whether it was true or not.”
“I think,” Deyes said, withdrawing his cigarette and looking at it thoughtfully, “that it is true.”
“You have any further reason for thinking so,” she asked, “beyond your casual inquiries?”
“Well, yes!” he admitted. “I went a little farther than those casual inquiries. It seemed such a meagre report to bring you.”
“Go on!”
“The ordinary person,” he continued smoothly, “would never believe the extreme difficulty with which one collects any particulars as to the home life of a guide. More than once I felt inclined to give up the task in despair. It seemed to me that a guide could have no home, that he must sleep in odd moments on a bench at theHôtel de Luxe. I tried to fancy a guide in the bosom of his family, carving a Sunday joint, and surrounded by Mrs. Guide and the little Guides. I couldn’t do it. It seemed to me somehow grotesque. Just as I was giving it up in despair, the commissionaire at a night café in Montmartre told me exactly what I wanted to know. He showed me the house where Johnny, as they called him, had a room.”
“You went there?” she asked.
“I did,” he answered.
“It was locked up?”
“On the contrary,” he declared, “Mrs. or Miss Guide was at home, and very pleased to see me.”
“There was a woman there?”
“Assuredly. Whether she is there now or not I cannot say, for it is three days ago, and to me she seemed nearer than that to death!”
“And about this woman! What was she like? Was she his wife or his daughter?”
“He called her his daughter. I am not sureabout the relationship. She had been good-looking, I should say, but she was very ill.”
“What did she tell you—about the man Johnson?”
“That he had gone to England to try to get some money. They were almost destitute! He was a good guide, she said, but people came so often to Paris, and they liked some one fresh. Then she coughed—how she coughed!”
“Did she tell you to what part of England the man Johnson had gone?”
“I asked her, but she was not sure. I do not believe that she knew. She said that there was some one in England who was very rich, and from whom he hoped to be able to get money.”
“Anything else?”
“No! I spoke of myself as an old client of Johnny’s, and I left money. Afterwards, at the café where I lunched, I found a commissionaire who told me more about our friend.”
“Ah! What was the name of the café?”
“The Café de Paris!”
She took up a screen and held it before her face. There seemed to be little need of it, however, for her cheeks were as pale as the white roses by her side.
“This man Johnny, as they call him,” Deyes continued, “seems to have had his ups and downs. One big stroke of luck he had, however, which seems to have kept him going for several years. The commissionaire was able to tell me something about it. Shall I go on?” he asked, dropping his voice a little.
“I should like to know what the commissionaire told you,” she answered.
“Somehow or other this fellow, Johnny or Johnson as some of them called him, was recommended to a young lady, a very young lady, who was in Paris with an invalid chaperon.”
“Stop!” she cried.
He looked at her fixedly.
“You were that young lady,” he said softly. “Of course, I know that!”
“I was,” she admitted. “Don’t speak to me for a few moments. It was years ago—but——”
She bent the screen which she held in her hand until the handle snapped.
“You seem,” she said, “to have rather exceeded your instructions. I simply wanted to know whether the man was in Paris or not.”
He bowed.
“The man is in England,” he said. “Don’t you think it might be helpful if you gave me more of your confidence, and told me why you wanted to hear about him?”
She shook her head.
“I would sooner tell you than any one, Gilbert,” she said, “but I do not want to talk about it.”
“It must be as you will, of course,” he answered, “but I hope you will always remember that you could do me no greater kindness—at any time—than to make use of my services. I do not know everything of what happened in Paris—about that time. I do not wish to know. I am content to serve you—blindly.”
“I will not forget that,” she said softly. “If ever the necessity comes I will remind you. There! Let that be the end of it.”
She changed the subject, giving him to understand that she did not wish to discuss it further.
“You are for Marienbad, as usual?” she asked.
“Next week,” he answered. “One goes from habit, I suppose. No waters upon the earth or under it will ever cure me!”
“Liver?” she asked.
“Heart!” he declared.
“You shouldn’t smoke so many cigarettes.”
“Harmless,” he assured her. “I don’t inhale.”
“I think,” she said, “that I shall come over next month.”
“Do!” he begged. “I’ll answer for the bridge. May I come and lunch to-morrow?”
She turned to a red morocco book by her side.
“A bishop and Lady Sarah,” she said. “Several more parsons, and I think the duchess.”
“I’ll face ’em,” he declared.
“I think I shall send for Peggy,” Wilhelmina said. “She is always so sweet to the Church.”
Deyes grinned.
“I shall go round and look her up,” he declared. “Perhaps she’ll come and have lunch with me somewhere.”
She held out her hand.
“You’re a good sort to have gone over for me,” she said. “The things you tumbled up against you’d better forget.”
“Until you remind me of them,” he said. “Very well, I’ll do that. Sorry I didn’t run Johnny to earth.”
He went off, and Wilhelmina after a few minutes went to her desk and wrote a letter to Stephen Hurd.
“As usual,” she wrote, “when you were here this morning I forgot to mention several matters upon which I meant to speak to you. The first is with regard to the man whose brutal assault upon your father caused his death. I understand that the police have never traced him, have never even found the slightest clue to his whereabouts. The more I think of this, the more strange it seems to me, and I am inclined to believe that he never, after all, escaped from the wood in which he first took shelter. I know that the slate quarry was dragged at the time, but I have been told that this was hastily done, and that there are several very deep holes into which the man’s body may have drifted. I wish you, therefore, to send over to Nottingham to get some experienced men to bring back the drags and make an exhaustive search. Please have this done without delay.“Further, I wish to communicate with the young man Macheson, who was in Thorpe at the time. They may know his address at the post-office, but if you are unable to procure it in any other way, you must advertise in your own name. Please carry out my instructions in these two matters immediately.”
“As usual,” she wrote, “when you were here this morning I forgot to mention several matters upon which I meant to speak to you. The first is with regard to the man whose brutal assault upon your father caused his death. I understand that the police have never traced him, have never even found the slightest clue to his whereabouts. The more I think of this, the more strange it seems to me, and I am inclined to believe that he never, after all, escaped from the wood in which he first took shelter. I know that the slate quarry was dragged at the time, but I have been told that this was hastily done, and that there are several very deep holes into which the man’s body may have drifted. I wish you, therefore, to send over to Nottingham to get some experienced men to bring back the drags and make an exhaustive search. Please have this done without delay.
“Further, I wish to communicate with the young man Macheson, who was in Thorpe at the time. They may know his address at the post-office, but if you are unable to procure it in any other way, you must advertise in your own name. Please carry out my instructions in these two matters immediately.”
Wilhelmina laid down her pen and looked thoughtfully through the window into the square. A policeman was coming slowly along the pavement. She watched him approach and pass the house, his eyes still fixed in front of him, his whole appearance stolid and matter-of-fact to the last degree. She watched him disappear with fascinated eyes. After all, he represented great things; behind him wasa whole national code; the machinery of which he was so small a part drove the wheels of life or death. She turned away from the window with a shrug of the shoulders. Humming a tune, she threw herself back in her chair, and began the leisurely perusal of her letters.
Macheson in those days felt himself rapidly growing older. An immeasurable gap seemed to lie between him and the eager young apostle who had plunged so light-heartedly into the stress of life. All that wonderful enthusiasm, that undaunted courage with which he had faced coldness and ridicule in the earlier days of his self-chosen vocation seemed to have left him. Some way, somehow, he seemed to have suffered shipwreck! There was poison in his system! Fight against it as he might—and he did fight—there were moments when memory turned the life which he had taken up so solemnly into the maddest, most fantastic fairy story. At such times his blood ran riot, the sweetness of a strange, unknown world seemed to be calling to him across the forbidden borders. Inaction wearied him horribly—and, after all, it was inaction which Holderness had recommended as the best means of re-establishing himself in a saner and more normal attitude towards life!
“Look round a bit, old chap,” he advised, “and think. Don’t do anything in a hurry. You’re young, shockingly young for any effective work. You can’t teach before you understand. Lifeisn’t such a sink of iniquity as you young prigs at Oxford professed to find it. See the best of it and the worst. You’ll be able to put your finger on the weak spots quick enough.”
But the process of looking around wearied Macheson excessively—or was it something else which had crept into his blood to his immense unsettlement? There were several philanthropic schemes started by himself and his college friends in full swing now, in or about London. To each of them he paid some attention, studying its workings, listening to the enthusiastic outpourings of his quondam friends and doing his best to catch at least some spark of their interest. But it was all very unsatisfactory. Deep down in his heart he felt the insistent craving for some fiercer excitement, some mode of life which should make larger and deeper demands upon his emotional temperament. A heroic war would have appealed to him instantly—for that, he realized with a sigh, he was born many centuries too late. For weeks he wandered about London in a highly unsatisfied condition. Then one afternoon, in the waning of a misty October day, he came face to face with Wilhelmina in Bond Street.
She was stepping into her motor brougham when she saw him. He had no opportunity for escape, even if he had desired it. Her tired lips were suddenly curved into a most bewildering smile. She withdrew her hand from her muff and offered it to him—for the first time.
“So you are still in London, Mr. Macheson,” she said. “I am very glad to see you.”
The words were unlike her, the tone was such as he had never heard her use. Do what he could, he could not help the answering light which sprang into his own eyes.
“I am still in London,” he said. “I thought you were to go to Marienbad?”
“I left it until it was too late,” she answered. “Walk a little way with me,” she added abruptly. “I should like to talk to you.”
“If I may,” he answered simply.
She dismissed the brougham, and they moved on.
“I am sorry,” she began, “that I was rude to you when you brought that girl to me. You did exactly what was nice and kind, and I was hateful. Please forgive me.”
“Of course,” he answered simply. “I felt sure that when you thought it over you would understand.”
“You are not going back—to Thorpe?” she asked.
“Not at present, at any rate,” he answered.
She looked up at him with a faint smile.
“You can have the barn,” she said.
His eyes answered her smile, but his tone was grave.
“I have given that up—for a little time, at any rate,” he said. “I mean that particular sort of work.”
“My villagers must content themselves with Mr. Vardon, then,” she remarked.
He nodded.
“Perhaps,” he said, “ours was a mistaken enterprise. I am not sure. But at any rate, so far asThorpe is concerned, I have abandoned it for the present.”
She was walking close to his side, so close that the hand which raised her skirt as they crossed the street touched his, and her soft breath as she leaned over and spoke fell upon his cheek.
“Why?”
He felt the insidious meaning of her whispered monosyllable, he felt her eyes striving to make him look at her. His cheeks were flushed, but he looked steadily ahead.
“There were several reasons,” he said.
“Do tell me,” she begged; “I am curious.”
“For one,” he said steadily, “I did an unjust thing at Thorpe. I sheltered a criminal and helped him to escape.”
“So it was you who did that,” she remarked. “You mean, of course, the man who killed Mr. Hurd?”
“Yes!” he answered. “I showed him where to hide. He either got clean away, or he is lying at the bottom of the slate quarry. In either case, I am responsible for him.”
“Well,” she said, “he is not at the bottom of the slate quarry. I can at least assure you of that. I have had the place dragged, and every foot of it gone over by experienced men from Nottingham.”
“Really,” he said, surprised. “Well, I am glad of it.”
She sighed.
“I want you, if you can,” she said, “to describe the man to me. It is not altogether curiosity. Ihave a reason for wishing to know what he was like.”
“He was in such a state of panic,” Macheson said doubtfully, “that I am afraid I have only an imperfect impression of him. He was not very tall, he had a round face, cheeks that were generally, I should think, rather high-coloured, brown eyes and dark hair, almost black. He wore a thick gold ring on the finger of one hand, and although he spoke good English, I got the idea somehow that he was either a foreigner or had lived abroad. He was in a terrible state of fear, and from what I could gather, I should say that he struck old Mr. Hurd in a scuffle, and not with any deliberate intention of hurting him.”
She nodded.
“I have heard all that I want to,” she declared.
They walked on in silence for several minutes. Then she turned to him with a shrug of the shoulders.
“The subject,” she declared, “is dismissed. I did not ask you to walk with me to discuss such unpleasant things. I should like to know about yourself.”
He sighed.
“About myself,” he answered, “there is nothing to tell. There isn’t in the whole of London a more unsatisfactory person.”
She laughed softly.
“Such delightful humility,” she murmured, “especially amongst the young, is too touching. Nevertheless, go on. It amuses me to hear.”
The note of imperiousness in her tone was pleasantly reminiscent. It was the first reminder he had received of the great lady of Thorpe.
“Well,” he said, “what do you want to know?”
“Everything,” she answered. “I am possessed by a most unholy curiosity. Your relatives for instance, and where you were born.”
He shook his head.
“I have no relatives,” he answered. “I was born in Australia. I am an orphan, twenty-eight years old, and feel forty-eight, no profession, no settled purpose in life. I am Japhet in search of a career.”
She glanced at his shabby clothes. He had been to a mission-house in the East End.
“You are poor?” she asked softly.
“I have enough, more than enough,” he answered, “to live on.”
Her eyes lingered upon his clothes, but he offered no explanation. Enough to live on, she reflected, might mean anything!
“You say that you have no profession,” she remarked. “I suppose you would call it a vocation. But why did you want to come and preach to my villagers at Thorpe? Why didn’t you go into the Church if you cared for that sort of thing?”
“There was a certain amount of dogma in the way,” he answered. “I should make but a poor Churchman. They would probably call me a free-thinker. Besides, I wanted my independence.”
She nodded.
“I am beginning to understand a little better,” she said. “Now you must tell me this. Why did you entertain the idea of mission work in a place like Thorpe, when the whole of that awful East End was there waiting for you?”
“All the world of reformers,” he answered, “rushesto the East End. We fancied there was as important work to be done in less obvious places.”
“And you started your work,” she asked, “directly you left college?”
“Before, I think,” he answered. “You see, I wasn’t alone. There were several of us who felt the same way—Holderness, for instance, the man who came to your house with me the other night. He works altogether upon the political side. He’s a Socialist—of a sort. Two of the others went into the Church, one became a medical missionary. I joined in with a few who thought that we might do more effective work without tying ourselves down to anything, or subscribing to any religious denomination.”
She looked at him curiously. He was tall, broad-shouldered and muscular. He wore even his shabby clothes with an air of distinction.
“I suppose,” she said calmly, “that I must belong to a very different world. But what I cannot understand is why you should choose a career which you intend to pursue apparently for the benefit of other people. All the young men whom I have known who have taken life seriously enough to embrace a career at all, have at least studied their individual tastes.”
“Well,” he answered, smiling, “it isn’t that I fancy myself any better than my fellows. I was at Magdalen, you know, under Heysey. I think that it was his influence which shaped our ideas.”
“Yes! I have heard of him,” she said thoughtfully. “He was a good man. At least every one says so. I’m afraid I don’t know much about goodmen myself. Most of those whom I have met have been the other sort.”
The faint bitterness of her tone troubled him. There was deliberation, too, in her words. Instinctively he knew that this was no idle speech.
“You have asked me,” he reminded her, “a good many questions. I wonder if I might be permitted to ask you one?”
“Why not? I can reserve the privilege of not answering it,” she remarked.
“People call you a fortunate woman,” he said. “You are very rich, you have a splendid home, the choice of your own friends, a certain reputation—forgive me if I quote from a society paper—as a brilliant and popular woman of the world. Yours is rather a unique position, isn’t it? I wonder,” he added, “whether you are satisfied with what you get out of life!”
“I get all that there is to be got,” she answered, a slight hardness creeping into her tone. “It mayn’t be much, but it amuses me—sometimes.”
He shook his head.
“There is more to be got out of life,” he said, “than a little amusement.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“How about yourself? You haven’t exactly the appearance of a perfectly contented being.”
“I’m hideously dissatisfied,” he admitted promptly. “Something seems to have gone wrong with me—I seem to have become a looker-on at life. I want to take a hand, and I can’t. There doesn’t seem to be any place for me. Of course, it’s only a phase,” he continued. “I shall settle down intosomething presently. But it’s rather beastly while it lasts.”
She looked at him, her eyes soft with laughter. Somehow his confession seemed to have delighted her.
“I’m glad you are human enough to have phases,” she declared. “I was beginning to be afraid that you might turn out to be just an ordinary superior person. Perhaps you are also human enough to drink tea and eat muffins. Try, won’t you?”
They were in front of her door, which flew immediately open. She either took his consent for granted, or chose not to risk his refusal, for she went on ahead, and his faint protests were unheard. His hat and stick passed into the care of an elderly person in plain black clothes; with scarcely an effort at resistance, he found himself following her down the hall. She stopped before a small wrought-iron gate, which a footman at once threw open.
“It makes one feel as though one were in a hotel, doesn’t it?” she remarked, “but I hate stairs. Besides, I am going to take you a long, long way up.... I am not at home this afternoon, Groves.”
“Very good, madam,” the man answered.
They stepped out into a smaller hall. A dark-featured young woman came hurrying forward to meet them.
“I shall not need you, Annette,” Wilhelmina said. “Go down and see that they send up tea for two, and telephone to Lady Margaret—say I’m sorry that I cannot call for her this afternoon.”
“Parfaitement, madame,” the girl murmured, and hurried away. Wilhelmina opened the door of a sitting-room—the most wonderful apartment Macheson had ever seen. A sudden nervousness seized him. He felt his knees shaking, his heart began to thump, his brain to swim. All at once he realized where he was! It was not the lady of Thorpe, this! It was the woman who had come to him with the storm, the woman who had set burning the flame which had driven him into a new world. He looked around half wildly! He felt suddenly like a trapped animal. It was no place for him, this bower of roses and cushions, and all the voluptuous appurtenances of a chamber subtly and irresistibly feminine! He was bereft of words, awkward, embarrassed. He longed passionately to escape.
Wilhelmina closed the door and raised her veil. She laid her two hands upon his shoulders, and looked up at him with a faint but very tender smile. Her forehead was slightly wrinkled, her fingers seemed to cling to him, so that her very touch was like a caress! His heart began to beat madly. The perfume of her clothes, her hair, the violets at her bosom, were like a new and delicious form of intoxication. The touch of her fingers became more insistent. She was drawing his face down to hers.
“I wonder,” she murmured, “whether you remember!”
Mademoiselle Rosine raised her glass. Her big black eyes flashed unutterable things across the pink roses.
“I think,” she said, “that we drink the good health of our host, Meester Macheson, Meester Victor, is it not?”
“Bravo!” declared a pallid-looking youth, her neighbour at the round supper table. “By Jove, if we were at theCôte d’Orinstead of theWarwick, we’d give him musical honours.”
“I drink,” Macheson declared, “to all of us who know how to live! Jules, another magnum, and look sharp.”
“Certainly, sir,” the man answered.
There flashed a quick look of intelligence between the waiter and a maître d’hôtel who was lingering near. The latter hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. It was a noisy party and none too reputable, but a magnum of champagne was an order. They were likely to make more noise still if they didn’t get it. So the wine was brought, and more toasts were drunk. Mademoiselle Rosine’s eyesflashed softer things than ever across the table, but she had the disadvantage of distance. Ella Merriam, the latest American importation, held the place of honour next Macheson, and she was now endeavouring to possess herself of his hand under the table.
“I say, Macheson, how is it none of us ever ran up against you before?” young Davenant demanded, leaning back in his chair. “Never set eyes on you myself, from the day you left Magdalen till I ran up against you at the Alhambra the other evening. Awfully studious chap Macheson was at college,” he added to the American girl. “Thought us chaps no end of rotters because we used to go the pace a bit. That’s so, isn’t it, Macheson?”
Macheson nodded.
“It is only the young who are really wise,” he declared coolly. “As we grow older we make fools of ourselves inevitably, either fools or beasts, according to our proclivities. Then we begin to enjoy ourselves.”
The girl by his side laughed.
“I guess you don’t mean that,” she said. “It sounds smart, but it’s real horrid. How old are you, Mr. Macheson?”
“Older than I look and younger than I feel,” he answered, gazing into his empty glass.
“Have you found what you call your proclivities?” she asked.
“I am searching for them,” Macheson answered. “The trouble is one doesn’t know whether to dig or to climb.”
“Why should one search at all?” the other manasked, drawing out a gold cigarette case from his trousers pocket, and carefully selecting a cigarette. “Life comes easiest to those who go blindfold. I’ve got a brother, private secretary to a Member of Parliament. He’s got views about things, and he makes an awful fag of life. What’s the good of it! He’ll be an old man before he’s made up his mind which way he wants to go. This sort of thing’s good enough for me!”
The magnum had arrived, and Macheson lifted a foaming glass.
“Davenant,” he declared, “you are a philosopher. We will drink to life as it comes! To life—as it comes!”
They none of them noticed the little break in his voice. A party of newcomers claimed their attention. Macheson, too, had seen them. He had seen her. Like a ghost at the feast, he sat quite motionless, his glass half raised in the air, the colour gone from his cheeks, his eyes set in a hard fast stare. Wilhelmina, in a plain black velvet gown, with a rope of pearls about her neck, her dark hair simply arranged about her pallid, distinguished face, was passing down the room, followed closely by the Earl of Westerdean, Deyes, and Lady Peggy. Her first impulse had been to stop; a light sprang into her eyes, and a delicate spot of colour burned in her cheeks. Then her eyes fell upon his companions; she realized his surroundings. The colour went: the momentary hesitation was gone. She passed on without recognition; Lady Peggy, after a curious glance, did the same. She whispered and laughed in Deyes’ ear as they seatedthemselves at an adjacent table. He looked round behind her back and nodded, but Macheson did not appear to see him.
A momentary constraint fell upon the little party. The American young lady leaned over to ask Davenant who the newcomers were.
“The elder man,” he said, “is the Earl of Westerdean, and the pretty fair woman Lady Margaret Penshore. The other woman is a Miss Thorpe-Hatton. Macheson probably knows more about them than I do!”
Macheson ignored the remark. He whispered something in his neighbour’s ear, which made her laugh heartily. The temporary check to their merriment passed away. Macheson was soon laughing and talking as much as any of them.
“Supper,” he declared, “would be the most delightful meal of the day in any other country except England. In a quarter of an hour the lights will be out.”
“But it is barbarous,” Mademoiselle Rosine declared. “Ah! Monsieur Macheson, you should come to Paris! There it is that one may enjoy oneself.”
“I will come,” Macheson answered, “whenever you will take me.”
She clapped her hands.
“Agreed,” she cried. “I have finished rehearsing. I have a week’s ‘vacance.’ We will go to Paris to-morrow, all four of us!”
“I’m on,” Davenant declared promptly. “I was going anyway in a week or two.”
Mademoiselle Rosine clapped her hands again.
“Bravo!” she cried. “And you, Mademoiselle?”
The girl hesitated. She glanced at Macheson.
“We will both come,” Macheson declared. “Miss Merriam will do me the honour to go as my guest.”
“We’ll stay at the Vivandiére,” Davenant said. “I’ve a pal there who knows the ropes right up to date. What about the two-twenty to-morrow? We shall get there in time to change and have supper at Noyeau’s.”
“And afterwards—au Rat Mort——” Mademoiselle Rosine cried. “We will drink a glass of champagne withcherMonsieur François.”
Davenant raised his glass.
“One more toast, then, before the bally lights go out!” he exclaimed. “To Paris—and our trip!”
Some one touched Macheson on the arm. He turned sharply round. Deyes was standing there. Tall and immaculately attired, there was something a little ghostly in the pallor of his worn, beardless face, with its many wrinkles and tired eyes.
“Forgive me for interrupting you, my dear fellow,” he said. “We are having our coffee outside, just on the left there. Miss Thorpe-Hatton wants you to stop for a moment on your way out.”
Macheson hesitated perceptibly. A dull flush of colour stained his cheek, fading away almost immediately. He set his teeth hard.
“I shall be very happy,” he said, “to stop for a second.”
Deyes bowed and turned away. The room now was almost in darkness, and the people were streaming out into the foyer. Macheson paid the bill and followed in the wake of the others. Seeinghim approach alone, Wilhelmina welcomed him with a smile, and drew her skirts on one side to make room for him to sit down. He glanced doubtfully around. She raised her eyebrows.
“Your friends,” she said, “are in no hurry. They can spare you for a moment.”
There was nothing in her tone to indicate any surprise at finding him there, or in such company. She made a few casual remarks in her somewhat languid fashion, and recalled him to the recollection of Lady Peggy, who was to all appearance flirting desperately with Lord Westerdean. Deyes had strolled across to a neighbouring group, and was talking to a well-known actor. Wilhelmina leaned towards him.
“Has it ever occurred to you,” she asked quietly, “that you left me a little abruptly the other afternoon?”
His eyes blazed into hers. He found it hard to emulate the quiet restraint of her tone and manner. It was a trick which he had never cultivated, never inherited, this playing with the passions in kid gloves, this muzzling and harnessing of the emotions.
“You know why,” he said.
She inclined her head ever so slightly to where his late companions were seated.
“And this?” she asked. “Am I responsible for this, too?”
He laughed shortly.
“It would never have occurred to me to suggest such a thing,” he declared. “I am amusing myself a little. Why not?”
“Are you?” she asked calmly.
Her eyes drew his. He almost fancied that the quiver at the corners of her lips was of mirth.
“Somehow,” she continued, “I am not sure of that. I watched you now and then in there. It seemed to me that you were playing a part—rather a ghastly part! There’s nothing so wearisome, you know, as pretending to enjoy yourself.”
“I had a headache to-night,” he said, frowning.
She bent towards him.
“Is it better now?” she whispered, smiling.
He threw out his hands with a quick fierce gesture. It was well that the great room was wrapped in the mysterious obscurity of semi-darkness, and that every one was occupied with the business of farewells. He sprang to his feet.
“I am going,” he said thickly. “My friends are expecting me.”
She shook her head.
“Those are not your friends,” she said. “You know very well that they never could be. You can go and wish them good night. You are going to see me home.”
“No!” he declared.
“If you please,” she begged softly.
He crossed the room unsteadily, and made his excuses with the best grace he could. Mademoiselle Rosine made a wry face. Miss Ella laid her fingers upon his arm and looked anxiously up at him.
“Say you won’t disappoint us to-morrow,” she said. “It’s all fixed up about Paris, isn’t it? Two-twenty from Charing Cross.”
“Yes!” he answered. “I will let you know if anything turns up.”
They all stood around him. Davenant laid his hand upon his shoulder.
“Look here, old chap,” he said, “no backing out. We’ve promised the girls, and we mustn’t disappoint them.”
“Monsieur Macheson would not be so cruel,” Mademoiselle Rosine pleaded. “He has promised, and Englishmen never break their workd. Is it not so? A party of four, yes! that is very well. But alone with Herbert here I could not go. If you do not come, all is spoilt! Is it not so, my friends?”
“Rather!” Davenant declared.
The other girl’s fingers tightened upon his arm.
“Don’t go away now,” she whispered. “Come round to my flat and we’ll all talk it over. I will sing you my new song. I’m crazy about it.”
Macheson detached himself as well as he could.
“I must leave you now,” he declared. “I can assure you that I mean to come to-morrow.”
He hurried after Wilhelmina, who was saying good night to her friends. A few minutes later they were being whirled westwards in her brougham.
“
And now,” she said, throwing herself into an easy-chair and taking up a fan, “we can talk.”
He refused the chair which she had motioned him to wheel up to the fire. He stood glowering down upon her, pale, stern, yet not wholly master of himself. Against the sombre black of her dress, her neck and bosom shone like alabaster. She played with her pearls, and looked up at him with that faint maddening curl of the lips which he so loved and so hated.
“So you won’t sit down. I wonder why a man always feels that he can bully a woman so much better standing up.”
“There is no question of bullying you,” he answered shortly. “You are responsible for my coming here. What is it that you want with me?”
“Suppose,” she murmured, looking up at him, “that I were to say—another kiss!”
“Suppose, on the other hand,” he answered roughly, “you were to tell me the truth.”
She sighed gently.
“You jump so rapidly at conclusions,” shedeclared. “Are you sure that it would not be the truth!”
“If it were,” he began fiercely.
“If it were,” she interrupted, “well?”
“I would rather kiss Mademoiselle Rosine or whatever her name is,” he said. “I would sooner go out into the street and kiss the first woman I met.”
She shook her head.
“What an impossible person you are!” she murmured. “Of course, I don’t believe you.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and glanced at the clock.
“Are you going to keep me here long?” he asked roughly. “I am going to Paris to-morrow, and I have to pack my clothes.”
“To Paris? With Mademoiselle Rosine?”
“Yes!”
She laughed softly.
“Oh! I think not,” she declared. “That sort of thing wouldn’t amuse you a bit.”
“We shall see!” he muttered.
“I am sure that you will not go,” she repeated.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Because—I beg you not to!”
“You!” he exclaimed. “You! Do you think that I am another of those creatures of straw and putty, to dance to your whims, to be whistled to your heel, to be fed with stray kisses, and an occasional kind word? I think not! If I am to go to the Devil, I will go my own way.”
“You inconsistent creature!” she said. “Why not mine?”
“I’ll take my soul with me, such as it is,” heanswered. “I’ll not make away with it while my feet are on the earth.”
“Do you know that you are really a very extraordinary person?” she said.
“What I am you are responsible for,” he answered. “I was all right when you first knew me. I may have been ignorant, perhaps, but at any rate I was sincere. I had a conscience and an ideal. Oh! I suppose you found me very amusing—a missioner who thought it worth while to give a part of his life to help his fellows climb a few steps higher up. What devil was it that sent you stealing down the lane that night from your house, I wonder?”
She nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry you can speak of it like that,” she said. “To me it was the most delightful piece of sentiment! Almost like a poem!”
“A poem! It was the Devil’s own poetry you breathed into me! What a poor mad fool I became! You saw how easily I gave my work up, how I sulked up to London, fighting with it all the time, with this madness—this——”
“Dear me,” she said, “what an Adam you are! My dear Victor, isn’t it—you are very, very young. There is no need for you to manufacture a huge tragedy out of a woman’s kiss.”
“What else is it but a tragedy,” he demanded, “the kiss that is a lie—or worse? You brought me here, you let me hold you in my arms, you filled my brain with mad thoughts, you drove everything good and worth having out of life, you filled it with what? Yourself! And then—you pat me on the cheek and tell me to come, and be kissed some other day,when you feel in the humour, a wet afternoon, perhaps, or when you are feeling bored, and want to hunt up a few new emotions! It may be the way with you and your kind. I call it hellish!”
“Well,” she said, “tell me exactly what it is that you want?”
“To be laughed at—as you did before?” he answered fiercely. “Never mind. It was the truth. You have lain in my arms, you came willingly, your lips have been mine! You belong to me!”
“To be quite explicit,” she murmured, “you think I ought to marry you.”
“Yes!” he declared firmly. “A kiss is a promise! You seem to want to live as a ‘poseuse,’ to make playthings of your emotions and mine. I wanted to build up my life firmly, to make it a stable and a useful thing. You came and wrecked it, and you won’t even help me to rebuild.”
“Let us understand one another thoroughly,” she said. “Your complaint is, then, that I will not marry you?”
The word, the surprising, amazing word, left her lips again so calmly that Macheson was staggered a little, confused by its marvellous significance. He was thrown off his balance, and she smiled as a wrestler who has tripped his adversary. Henceforth she expected to find him easier to deal with.
“You know—that it is not that—altogether,” he faltered.
“What is it that you want then?” she asked calmly. “There are not many men in the world who have kissed—even my hand. There are fewerstill—whom I have kissed. I thought that I had been rather kind to you.”
“Kind!” he threw out his arms with a despairing gesture. “You call it kindness, the drop of magic you pour into a man’s veins, the touch of your body, the breath of your lips vouchsafed for a second, the elixir of a new life. What is it to you? A caprice! A little dabbling in the emotions, a device to make a few minutes of the long days pass more smoothly. Perhaps it’s the way in your world, this! You cheat yourself of a whole-hearted happiness by making physiological experiments, frittering away the great chance out of sheer curiosity—or something worse. And we who don’t understand the game—we are the victims!”
“Really,” she said pleasantly, “you are very eloquent.”
“And you,” he said, “are——”
Her hand flashed out almost to his lips, long shapely fingers, ablaze with the dull fire of emeralds.
“Stop,” she commanded, “you are not quite yourself this evening. I am afraid that you will say something which you will regret. Now listen. You have made a most eloquent attack upon me, but you must admit that it is a perfect tangle of generalities. Won’t you condescend to look me in the face, leave off vague complaints, and tell me precisely why you have placed me in the dock and yourself upon the bench? In plain words, mind. No evasions. I want the truth.”
“You shall have it,” he answered grimly. “Listen, then. I began at Thorpe. You were atonce rude and kind to me. I was a simple ass, of course, and you were a mistress in all the arts which go to a man’s undoing. It wasn’t an equal fight. I struggled a little, but I thanked God that I had an excuse to give up my work. I came to London, but the poison was working. Every morning before you were up, and every night after dark, I walked round your square—and the days I saw you were the days that counted.”
“Dear me, how interesting!” she interrupted softly. “And to think that I never knew!”
“I never meant you to know,” he declared. “A fool I was from the first, but never fool enough to misunderstand. When I brought Letty Foulton to you, I brought her against my will. It was for the child’s sake. And you were angry, and then I saw you again—and you were kind!”
She smiled at him.
“I’m glad you admit that,” she said gently. “I thought that I was very kind indeed. And you repaid me—how?”
“Kind!” he cried fiercely. “Yes! you were kind! You were mine for the moment, you lay in my arms, you gave me your lips! It was an impression! It amused you to see any human being so much in earnest. Then the mood passed. Your dole of charity had been given! I must sit apart and you must smooth your hair. What did it all amount to? An episode, a trifling debauch in sentiment—and for me—God knows!”
“To return once more,” she said patiently, “to your complaint. Is it that I will not marry you?”
“I did not ask that—at first,” he answered. “It is a good deal, I know.”
“Then do you want to come and kiss me every day?” she asked, “because I don’t think that that would suit me either.”
“I can believe it,” he said.
“I am inclined to think,” she said, “that you are a very grasping and unreasonable person. I have permitted you privileges which more men than my modesty permits me to tell you of have begged for in vain. You have accepted them—I promised nothing beyond, nor have you asked for it. Yet because I was obliged to talk reasonably to you, you flung yourself out of my house, and I am left to rescue you at the expense of my pride, perhaps also of my reputation, from associations which you ought to be ashamed of.”
“To talk reasonably to me,” he repeated slowly. “Do you remember what you said?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Naturally! And what I said was true enough.”
“I was to be content with scraps. To go away and forget you, until chance or a whim of yours should bring us together again.”
“Did you want so much more?” she asked, with a swift maddening glance at him.
He fell on his knees before her couch.
“Oh! I love you!” he said. “Forgive me if I am unreasonable or foolish. I can’t help it. You came so unexpectedly, so wonderfully! And you see I lost my head as well as my heart. I have so little to offer you—and I want so much.”
Her hands rested for a moment caressingly uponhis shoulders. A whole world of wonderful things was shining out of her eyes. It was only her lips that were cruel.
“My dear boy,” she said, “you want what I may not give. I am very, very sorry. I think there must have been some sorcery in the air that night, the spell of the roses must have crept into my blood. I am sorry for what I did. I am very sorry that I did not leave you alone.”
He rose heavily to his feet. His face was grey with suffering.
“I ought to have known,” he said. “I think that I did know.”
“All the same,” she continued, laying her hand upon his arm, “I think that you are a rank extremist.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Shall I teach you?” she whispered.
He flung her hand away.
“No!” he said savagely.
She sighed.
“I am afraid you had better go away,” she said.
As he closed the door he fancied that he heard a sob. But it might have been only fancy.
“
To-night,” young Davenant declared, with something which was suspiciously like a yawn, “I really think that we must chuck it just a little earlier. Shall we say that we leave here at two, and get back to the hotel?”
Mademoiselle Rosine pouted, but said nothing. The young lady from America tried to take Macheson’s hand.
“Yes!” she murmured. “Do let’s! I’m dead tired.”
She whispered something in Macheson’s ear which he affected not to hear. He leaned back in his cushioned seat and laughed.
“What, go home without seeing François!” he exclaimed. “He’s keeping the corner table for us, and we’re all going to dance the Maxixe with the little Russian girl.”
“We could telephone,” Davenant suggested. “Do you know that we haven’t been to bed before six one morning since we arrived in Paris?”
“Well, isn’t that what we came for?” Macheson exclaimed. “We can go to bed at half-past twelve in London. Maître d’hôtel, the wine! My friendsare getting sleepy. What’s become of the music? Tell our friend there—ah! Monsieur Henri!”
He beckoned to the leader of the orchestra, who came up bowing, with his violin under his arm.
“Monsieur Henri, my friends are ‘triste,’” he explained. “They say there is no music here, no life. They speak of going home to bed. Look at mademoiselle here! She yawns! We did not come to Paris to yawn. Something of the liveliest. You understand? Perhaps mademoiselle there will dance.”
“Parfaitement, monsieur.”
The man bowed himself away, with a twenty-franc piece in the palm of his hand. The orchestra began a gay two-step. Macheson, starting up, passed his arm round the waist of a little fair-haired Parisienne just arriving. She threw her gold satchel on to a table, and they danced round the room. Davenant watched them with unwilling admiration.
“Well, Macheson’s a fair knockout,” he declared. “I’m hanged if he can keep still for five minutes. And when I knew him at Oxford, he was one of the most studious chaps in the college. Gad! he’s dancing with another girl now—look, he’s drinking champagne out of her glass. Shouldn’t stand it, Ella.”
Ella was watching him. Her eyes were very bright, and there was more colour than usual in her cheeks.
“It’s nothing to me what Mr. Macheson does,” she said, with a catch in her voice. “I don’t understand him a bit. I think he’s mad.”
Mademoiselle Rosine leaned across and whispered in her ear. Ella shook her head.
“You see—it is any girl with him,” she said. “He dances with them, pays their bills—see, he pays for Annette there, and away he goes—laughing. You see it is so with them, too. He has finished with them now. He comes back to us. Guess I’m not sure I want him.”
Nevertheless she moved her skirts and made room for him by her side. Macheson came up out of breath, and poured himself out a glass of wine.
“What a time they are serving supper!” he exclaimed.
Davenant groaned.
“My dear fellow,” he exclaimed, “remember our dinner at Lesueur’s. You can’t be hungry!”
“But I am,” Macheson declared. “What are we here for but to eat and drink and enjoy ourselves? Jove! this is good champagne! Mademoiselle Rosine!”
He raised his glass and bowed. Mademoiselle Rosine laughed at him out of her big black eyes. He was rather a fascinating figure, this tall, good-looking young Englishman, who spoke French so perfectly and danced so well.
“I would make you come and sit by me, Monsieur Macheson,” she declared, “but Ella would be jealous.”
“What about me?” Davenant exclaimed.
“Oh! là, là!” she answered, pinching his arm.
“I’m sure I don’t mind,” Ella declared. “I guess we’re all free to talk to whom we please.”
Macheson drew up a chair and sat opposite to them.
“I choose to look at you both,” he said, banging the table with his knife. “Garçon, we did not come here to eat your flowers or your immaculate tablecloth. We ordered supper half an hour ago. Good! It arrives.”
No one but Macheson seemed to have much appetite. He ate and he drank, and he talked almost alone. He ordered another bottle of wine, and the tongues of the others became a little looser. The music was going now all the time, and many couples were dancing. The fair-haired girl, dancing with an older woman, touched him on the shoulder as she passed, and laughed into his face.
“There is no one,” she murmured, “who dances like monsieur.”
He sprang up from his seat and whirled her round the room. She leaned against his arm and whispered in his ear. Ella watched her with darkening face.
“It is little Flossie from theFolies Marigny,” Mademoiselle Rosine remarked. “You must have a care, Ella. She has followed Monsieur Macheson everywhere with her eyes.”
He returned to his place and continued his supper.
“Hang it all, you people are dull to-night,” he exclaimed. “Drink some more wine, Davenant, and look after mademoiselle. Miss Ella!”
He filled her glass and she leaned over the table.
“Every one else seems to make love to you,” she whispered. “I guess I’ll have to begin. If you call me Miss Ella again I shall box your ears.”
“Ella then, what you will,” he exclaimed. “Remember, all of you, that we are here to have a good time, not to mope. Davenant, if you don’t sparkle up, I shall come and sit between the girls myself.”
“Come along,” they both cried. Mademoiselle Rosine held out her arms, but Macheson kept his seat.
“Let’s go up to theRat Mortif we’re going,” Ella exclaimed. “It’s dull here, and I’m tired of seeing that yellow-headed girl make eyes at you.”
Macheson laughed and drained his glass.
“Au Rat Mort!” he cried. “Good!”
They paid the bill and all trooped out. The fair-haired girl caught at Macheson’s hand as he passed.
“Au Rat Mort?” she whispered.
She threw a meaning glance at Ella.
“Monsieur is well guarded,” she said softly.
“Malheureusement!” he answered, smiling.
Davenant drew him on one side as the girls went for their cloaks.
“I say, old chap,” he began, “aren’t you trying Ella a bit high? She’s not a bad-tempered girl, you know, but I’m afraid there’ll be a row soon.”
Macheson paused to light a cigarette.
“A row?” he answered. “I don’t see why.”
“You’re a bit catholic in your attentions, you know,” Davenant remarked.
“Why not?” Macheson answered. “Ella is nothing to me. No more are the rest of them. I amuse myself—that’s all.”
Davenant looked as he felt, puzzled.
“Well,” he said. “I’m not sure that Ella sees it in that light.”
“Why shouldn’t she?” Macheson demanded.
“Well, hang it all, you brought her over, didn’t you?” Davenant reminded him.
“She came over as my guest,” Macheson answered. “That is to say, I pay for her whenever she chooses to come out with us, and I pay or shall pay her hotel bill. Beyond that, I imagine that we are both of us free to amuse ourselves as we please.”
“I don’t believe Ella looks at it in that light,” Davenant said hesitatingly. “You mean to say that there is nothing—er——”
“Of course not,” Macheson interrupted.
“Hasn’t she——”
“Oh! shut up,” Macheson exclaimed. “Here they come.”
Ella passed her arm through his. Mademoiselle Rosine had told her while she stood on tiptoe and dabbed at her cheeks with a powder-puff, that she was too cold. The Messieurs Anglais were often so difficult. They needed encouragement, so very much encouragement. Then there were more confidences, and Madame Rosine was very much astonished. What sort of a man was this Monsieur Macheson, yet so gallant, so gay! She promised herself that she would watch him.
“We will drive up together, you and I,” Ella whispered in his ear, but Macheson only laughed.
“I’ve hired a motor car for the night,” he said. “In you get! I’m going to sit in front with the chauffeur and sing.”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” Ella declared, almost sharply. “You will come inside with us.”
“Anywhere, anyhow,” he answered. “To thelittle hell at the top of the hill, Jean, and drive fast,” he directed. “Jove! it’s two o’clock! Hurry up, Davenant. We shall have no time there at all.”
There was barely room for four. Mademoiselle Rosine perched herself daintily on Davenant’s knee. Ella tried to draw Macheson into her arms, but he sank on to the floor, and sat with his hands round his knees singing a French music-hall song of the moment. They shouted to him to leave off, but he only sang the louder. Then, in a block, he sprang from the car, seized the whole stock of a pavement flower-seller, and, paying her magnificently, emptied them through the window of the car into the girls’ laps, and turning round as suddenly—disappeared.
“He’s mad—quite mad,” Ella declared, with a sigh. “I don’t believe we shall see him again to-night.”
Nevertheless, he was on the pavement outside theRat Mortawaiting them, chaffing the commissionaire. He threw open the door and welcomed them.
“They are turning people away here,” he declared. “Heaps of fun going on! All the artistes from the Circus are here, and a party of Spaniards. François has kept our table. Come along.”
Ella hung on to him as they climbed the narrow, shabby staircase.
“Say,” she pleaded in his ear, “don’t you want to be a little nicer to me to-night?”
“Command me,” he answered. “I am in a most amenable temper.”
“Sit with me instead of wandering round so.You don’t want to talk to every pretty girl, do you?”
He laughed.
“Why not? Aren’t we all on the same quest? It is the ‘camaraderie’ of pleasure!”
They reached the bend of the stairs. From above they could hear the music, the rattle of plates, the hum of voices. She leaned towards him.
“Kiss me, please,” she whispered.
He stooped down and raised her hand to his lips. She drew it slowly away and looked at him curiously.
“Your lips are cold,” she said.
He laughed.
“The night is young,” he answered. “See, there is François.”
They passed on. Ella was a little more content. It was the most promising thing he had said to her.