[image]"He turned and went out of the room."So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been for some moments standing just outside the portières of the doorway had barely time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste. Marie in a more normal moment must have seen that the man was there, but his eyes were blind and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and stick as if the place were a place of gloom, and, because the footman who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let himself out and so went away.Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small room which was furnished as a library but not often used. He closed the door behind him and went to one of the windows which gave upon the street. And he stood there for a long time drawing absurd invisible pictures upon the glass with one finger, and staring thoughtfully out into the late June afternoon.CHAPTER VIA BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT BUTVOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSEWhen Ste. Marie had gone Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain that cool poise, that mental equilibrium which was normal to her and necessary for coherent thought.She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still all aglow with the man's own high fervour; but the second self, which so often sat apart from her and looked on with critical mocking eyes, whispered that to-morrow, the fervour past, the fever cooled, she must see the thing in its truer light—a glorious lunacy born of a moment of enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self whispered to her: picturesque beyond criticism; but, setting aside the practical folly of it, could even the mood last?The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself intolerable at such times as this."If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets, and saying to myself: 'Oh yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"She passed before one of the small narrow mirrors which were let into the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with candles beside them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection with a resentful wonder."Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"She began suddenly to realise what the man's going away meant—that she might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at all likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory thrill—promise of unspeakable uncomprehended mysteries—had wrung her, and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not happen in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and analysing power of mind which she had so long trained to attack all that came to her. What might it not work with the new thing that had come? To what pitiful shreds might it not be rent while he, who only could renew it, was away? She looked ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she was terribly afraid.She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked there. The admirable Peters who opened to her said that his master had not been very well and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together in low tones the old gentleman cried testily from within—"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"Miss Benham went into the dim shaded room, and when old David saw who it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified growl. He certainly looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within the past month, and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket—an imperial yellow one this time."Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before. It's quite wonderful."The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come."Rather good, that! What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me. It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the littleShowmedallions with theswastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon." He introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste. Marie were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket."I told him he was a damned fool.""Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did.""I suppose," she said, "that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well no, perhaps not quite that, but he seems to consider himself engaged to me, and when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we aren't engaged yet: at least I'm not. But it's almost the same, because I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is doing.""If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old David, "he won't give you a chance to accept him. He won't come back. I know him well enough for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a thorough-going fool. He plays the game." The old man looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a little."You two are absurdly unsuited to each other," said he, "and I told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in love with him.""Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do.""Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time.""He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken—of his own accord—to find Arthur. He has some theory about it. And he is not going to see me again until he has succeeded—or until a year is past. If he fails, I fancy he won't come back."Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook and stirred before him. Afterwards he fell to half-inarticulate muttering."The young romantic fool!—Don Quixote—like all the rest of them—those Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool." The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part he mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time he said suddenly—"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."The girl gave a little sigh."I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for it."She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and when presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went down after it. In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart, who was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his hands. He did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused when he saw his niece and smiled upon her a benignant smile, which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for hours together with his sister up in a little boudoir which she had furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that timid and colourless lady embroidered strange tea-cloths with stranger flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic interest.He said—"Ah, my dear! It's you?" Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more to say."I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was asleep and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your mother instead.""I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?""No," said Captain Stewart sadly, "no, nothing. I do not give up hope, but I am, I confess, a little discouraged.""We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham briefly. She gave him a little nod, and turned away into the drawing-room. Her uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and she felt that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason for doubting that he was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him because he bored her. Her mother bored her too—the poor woman bored everybody—but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way.She heard the heavy front door close and gave a little sigh of relief."If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should have screamed."Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted, cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long distance—that is, looking backward upon it later he thought he must have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a chaotic whirl of things and emotions.In the little flat in the Rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who, having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had sat comfortably down with a pipe and a stack ofCourriers Françaisto wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat at ease. Hat, gloves and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower. He extended his arms high in air. His face was, as it were, luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said—"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil are you looking like that for?""Hè!" cried Ste. Marie in a great voice. "Hè, the world is mine! Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there? Embrace me!" He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks, but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a grey bleak look came upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could; but though seven times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realised that he had been waiting for this, bracing himself against its onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month.Ste. Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair."Dance, lump of flesh! dance, sacred Englishrosbifthat you are! Sing,gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him, but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant."Ah, my old," said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!" The Englishman drew a long breath."I take it," said he, "that means that you're—that she has accepted you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said—"I ought to want to murder you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite honestly. My best wishes!"Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of his face. He cried—"Ah,mon cher ami! Pig that I am to forget. Pig! pig! animal!" The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul."Yes! yes!" he said gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens with their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth in labourer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the high palings, one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a high, clear voice: "Vous êtes si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment, and the young woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they strolled on and turned up into the Rue Vavin.Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain? He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his; and he gave a little shiver. He knew that if thatbouleversementwere actually to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley was now for his; but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's black hour must be like."You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why. Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One thinks of nothing but one's self—and one other. I—during this past month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his hands when he chose and lighted a cigarette were quite steady, and he marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such circumstances."She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again."Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do."Apart from wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy," he said, "—and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth about her brother—apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing. I've got to win her respect as well as—the rest. I want her to respect me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat without working for my living. I know how she has felt about all that. Well, she shall feel it no longer.""You're taking on a big order," said the other man."The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or never see her again. I've sworn that." The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly fervour, came there again, and Hartley saw it and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world, a place of unknown terrors, afire for the Great Adventure. And this was one of their blood."I'm afraid you don't realise," he went on, "the difficulties you've got to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know.""A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie, and the other said—"Yes. Oh, yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At last he said—"I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to tell it comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss Benham to marry me."Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy."Ah!" said he. "I have sometimes thought—wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that. Of course I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go there nowadays.""Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She—well, she didn't care for me—not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was impossible."And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I want you to let me help you in what you're going to do—if you think you can, that is. Remember, I—cared for her too. I'd like to do something for her. It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand, do some of the work. D'you think you could let me in?"Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant, something like dismay."Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd hoped to do it all yourself. It's your game, I know. Well, it's your game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run errands, some one perhaps to take counsel with now and then. Look at it on the practical side! Two heads are certainly better than one. Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides—well, I want to do something for her. I—cared too, you see. D'you think you could take me in?"It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had hoped to work alone, to win or lose alone, to stand, in this matter, quite on his own feet, but he could not deny the man who had loved her and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand."You love her too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.CHAPTER VIICAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFERSte. Marie scowled."A caller would come singularly malapropos, just now," said he. "I've half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with you.""Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that you're at home. It may not be a caller anyhow. It may be a parcel or something. You'd best go." So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the while.The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He heard him exclaim in great surprise—"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure. Come in! Come in!" And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and besides he disliked Miss Benham's uncle.He heard the American say—"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that I came straight away."Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say with the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged gentlemen—"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me all about it. Lucky young man! Ah!——" He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing by the window, and he began to apologise profusely, saying that he had had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said—"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed, I have just been talking with him about this very thing." But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old gentleman—a reasonable enough hypothesis—and that Captain Stewart must have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation."Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it." He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste. Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude: it seemed to him such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff glass of absinthe—it was between five and six o'clock."And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled and set at hand, "now, having congratulated you and—ah, welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family, I turn to the other feature of the affair." He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment, turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him without expression."You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for poor Arthur. Good! Good I I welcome you there, also."Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair."Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me; but I think, if you don't mind—— Of course, I know it's very presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us—but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work independently. You see—well, I can't quite put it into words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."Captain Stewart looked disappointed."Oh, I think," said he. "Pardon me for saying it! but I think you're rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed quite on your own. But, look at the practical side! You'll have to go over all the weary weeks of useless labour we have gone over. We could save you that. We have examined and followed up and at last given over a hundred clues that on the surface looked quite possible of success. You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a pity. I shan't like to see you wasting your time and efforts." He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and he took it in his hand and turned it slowly, and watched the light gleam in strange pearl colours upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile which the two younger men found oddly pathetic."I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said—"I am past the age of romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by, but—I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in other people—young people who are simple and earnest and who—and who are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hands."I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not, though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking. Who knows? you may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault: such a way of overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth! Youth!"Eh, my God!" said he, "to be young again just for a little while. To feel the blood beat strong and eager. Never to be tired. Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley. There's so little left for people when youth is gone." He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to break."Don't refuse a helping hand!" said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. "Don't be overproud! I may be able to set you upon the right path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon. I haven't, alas! But each day new clues turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never knows."[image]"'Don't refuse a helping hand!' said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. 'Don't be overproud!'"Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was blowing smoke rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes regarded him smiling a little wistfully, he thought.Ste. Marie scowled out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens."I hardly know," said he. "Of course I sound a braying ass in hesitating even a moment, but—in a way, you understand. I'm so anxious to do this or to fail in it quite on my own! You're—so tremendously kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very ungrateful, I know. But I'm not.""No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your feeling—but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."For the first time Richard Hartley spoke."I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail—and that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you don't mind my saying so, sir—I don't want to seem rude—your trained detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man."No," he said at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have accomplished much—except to prove that there are a great many places poor Arthur hasnotbeen to, and a great many people who havenotseen him. After all, that is something—the elimination of ground that need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had been drinking."I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution. Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be managed—by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends and searching his favourite haunts. Personally I am inclined to think that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of events—before we began to search for him. And of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as yet—nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is alive.""Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?""In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time should be past. He—you must know that he went away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather. My father is not a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy.""Ah yes," said Hartley, "but no boy, however young or angry, would be foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut off altogether.""And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father, sir, may die at any time—any hour. And he's very angry with his grandson. He may have cut him off already."Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the glass in his hand."Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked."No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it. That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The possibility occurred to me suddenly, for the first time." But the elder man looked up at him with a smile."Pray don't apologise!" said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly together. And frankly I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No! I am sure he wouldn't cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond—as we all were."Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh."I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must get home to change. There is a cab-stand near you?" He looked out of the window. "Ah yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens." He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He said—"You refuse to join forces with us then? Well, I'm sorry. But for all that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an incompetent bungler." He gave a little kindly laugh and Ste. Marie tried to protest."Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen upon what seems to be a promising clue, come and talk it over with me. Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I shan't spoil your game.""Ah, now that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for information."The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest."An idea!" he said quickly. "You have an idea? What—may I ask what sort of an idea?""Oh it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that I should learn something from him.""Ah!" said Captain Stewart slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you thought you saw him in the Champs Elysées, and he couldn't very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly worth following up.""Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then.""You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you! Good day, Hartley. Come and see me both of you. You know where I live."He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres there and drive away.Ste. Marie laughed aloud."There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't found Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris (publicly, that is) at about the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact he remains, or at least for a time remained in the city without letting his friends know, because I made no mistake about seeing him in the Champs Elysées. All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth investigation."Of course," he admitted doubtfully—"of course I'm no detective, but that's how it looks to me.""I don't believe Stewart is any detective either," said Richard Hartley. "He's altogether too cock-sure. That sort of man would rather die than admit he is wrong about anything. He's a good old chap though, isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I thought he was rather pathetic when he went on about his age.""He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would have thought I was a presumptuous ass and would have behaved accordingly."Ste. Marie took a turn about the room and his face began to light up with its new excitement and exaltation."And to-morrow," he cried, "to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out into the world and the Adventure is on foot. God send it success!" He laughed across at the other man, but it was a laugh of eagerness not of mirth."I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece.""Ye—es," said the other man a little drily. "Yes, perhaps. I don't want to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?""'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?""I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.CHAPTER VIIISTE. MARIE MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAMSo on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer determination to succeed. To put it fancifully they burnt their tower behind them, for to one of them at least—to him who led—there was no going back.But after all they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident had befallen, a singularly unfortunate incident.It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting uponArmenonvilleor theMadridin the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these would be full of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some quiet place in the Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening perforce to loud music. In the end, for no particular reason, they compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in the Rue Helder. They went there about eight o'clock, without dressing; for it is a very quiet place which the world does not visit, and they had asopa de yerbas, and somelangostinos, which are shrimps, and a heavenlyarrozwith fowl in it, and many tender succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad made out of a little of everything that grows green, with the true Spanish oil, which has a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the philistine; and then they had a strange pastry and some cheese and green almonds. And to make them glad they drank a bottle of old red Valdepeñas, and afterwards a glass each of a special Manzanilla, upon which the restaurant very justly prides itself. It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year, but the two men were hungry, and sat at table, almost alone in the upper room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers. When at last they came out into the narrow street and thence to the thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They stood for a little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the boulevard to where the Place de l'Opéra opened wide, and the lights of the Café de la Paix shone garish in the night, and Ste. Marie said—"There's a streetfêtein Montmartre. We might drive home that way.""An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And after that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in the wrong direction. Lead on!"So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep stone-paved hill to the heights whereLa Bohêmestill reigns, though the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed, and the trail of tourist is over all. They found Montmartre very muchen fête. In the Place Blanche were two of the enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds which only Paris knows—one furnished with stolid cattle, theatrical-looking horses, and Russian sleighs, the other with the ever-popular galloping pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation mechanical organs concealed somewhere in their bowels emitted hideous brays and shrieks, which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon the galloping pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the Parisian streetfêtegathers together, but it was, for the most part, a well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful harmless Latin fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way through the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone and glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune, the huge pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the platform upon which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little group of American trippers, sight-seeing, with a guide, stood near by, and one of the group, a pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively of the friend upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think mamma would be shocked if we took a ride? Wouldn't I love to!"Hartley turned laughing from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He was wondering with mild amusement why anybody should wish to do such a foolish thing, but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth it was impossible for him to look on at any form of active amusement without thirsting to join it. A joyous and care-free lady in a blue hat, who was mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper serpentine at him, and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat off."That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the basket!" A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and when the lady with the blue hat came round on the next turn, lassoed her neatly about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke. Then he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his steed's neck, in the ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed aloud."When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride, just one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years." Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it, and mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round the pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to revolve.At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making her way along the platform towards where Ste. Marie sat hurling serpentines in the face of the world. By the next time round she had come to where he was, mounted astride behind him, and was holding herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other she rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines until they were hung with many-coloured ribbons like a Christmas-tree. Even Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with which his race is cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and the lady in the blue hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward away from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry towards him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He caught Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying in a low voice—"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I want to get away at once.""What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game, you might as well play it.""Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of two motor-cars, to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come from dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me.""The devil!" said Hartley under his breath. Then he gave a shout of laughter, demanding—"Well, what of it? You weren't committing any crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a silly pig in a silly merry-go-round. Everybody does it in thesefêtethings." But even as he spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting was, and the laughter went out of his voice."I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humour of it. Good God, what a thing to happen!Youknow well enough what she'll think of me."At five o'clock this afternoon," he said bitterly, "I left her with a great many fine high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my days and nights to—for her sake. I went away from her like a—knight going into battle—consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes when I went. And now, now, at midnight, she sees me riding a galloping pig in a streetfêtewith a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig with me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What will she think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I know well enough! I saw her face before she turned away."And," he cried, "I can't even go to her and explain—if there's anything to explain, and I suppose there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see her.""Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at it." But Ste. Marie shook his head."No, she won't," said he. And Hartley could say no more, for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very much afraid that she would not laugh.They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove home at once. They were almost entirely silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or twice to cheer him up, realised that he was best left to himself just then, and so held his tongue. But in the Rue d'Assas as Ste. Marie was getting down—Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in the Avenue de l'Observatoire—he made a last attempt to lighten the man's depression. He said—"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it, you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll laugh—if she hasn't already done so."You know," he said, almost believing it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in thinking she's so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind. Yes, by Jove, you are!"Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab-lamp, showed a first faint gleam of hope."Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am. But— O Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that I am: why was I ever born? I ask you." He turned abruptly and began to ring at the door, casting a brief "Good-night," over his shoulder. And, after a moment, Hartley gave it up and drove away.Above, in the long shallow front room of his flat, with the three windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable flavour, which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household. He allowed himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful moments, as an especial treat. And this seemed to him to be the moment for smoking all there were left. Surely his need had never been greater. In England he had, of course learnt to smoke a pipe, but pipe smoking always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never brought him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon heart. Thevieux Jacobof old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia inspired in him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he said, most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars: so he soothed his soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between his fingers.He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful fragrant night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a month before, when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a sudden exultant leap within him when he thought how far and high he had climbed, but after the leap it shivered and stood still when this evening's misadventure came before him.Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend was in this world. He would do his best. But even then—— It was the girl's inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So must have been those calm-eyed ancient ladies for whom other Ste. Maries went out to do battle. It was wellnigh impossible to imagine them lowering their eyes to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such as that. It was beneath their high dignity. And it was beneath hers also. As for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted chivalry—a noble patch—there a patch of bourgeois child-like love of fun; here a patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something quite the reverse. A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from him when she knew? He could not quite imagine her understanding the wholly trivial and meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at the assembled world.Apart from her view of the affair he felt no shame in it. The moment of childish gaiety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his high flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would understand, and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation in which they had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight of her shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place Blanche."What must she think of me?" he cried aloud. "What must she think of me?"So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind his back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded him—torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at last in a calmer moment he realised that he was working himself up into an absurd state of nerves over something which was done and could not now be helped. The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his nature—that will have come of his southern blood—and it came to him now in his need. For the work upon which he was to enter with the morrow he had need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not disordered nerves. So he took himself in hand, and it would have been amazing to any one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin temperament, to see how suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and master of himself.
[image]"He turned and went out of the room."
[image]
[image]
"He turned and went out of the room."
So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been for some moments standing just outside the portières of the doorway had barely time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste. Marie in a more normal moment must have seen that the man was there, but his eyes were blind and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and stick as if the place were a place of gloom, and, because the footman who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let himself out and so went away.
Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small room which was furnished as a library but not often used. He closed the door behind him and went to one of the windows which gave upon the street. And he stood there for a long time drawing absurd invisible pictures upon the glass with one finger, and staring thoughtfully out into the late June afternoon.
CHAPTER VI
A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT BUTVOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE
When Ste. Marie had gone Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain that cool poise, that mental equilibrium which was normal to her and necessary for coherent thought.
She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still all aglow with the man's own high fervour; but the second self, which so often sat apart from her and looked on with critical mocking eyes, whispered that to-morrow, the fervour past, the fever cooled, she must see the thing in its truer light—a glorious lunacy born of a moment of enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self whispered to her: picturesque beyond criticism; but, setting aside the practical folly of it, could even the mood last?
The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself intolerable at such times as this.
"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets, and saying to myself: 'Oh yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"
She passed before one of the small narrow mirrors which were let into the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with candles beside them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection with a resentful wonder.
"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"
She began suddenly to realise what the man's going away meant—that she might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at all likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?
"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.
She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory thrill—promise of unspeakable uncomprehended mysteries—had wrung her, and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not happen in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and analysing power of mind which she had so long trained to attack all that came to her. What might it not work with the new thing that had come? To what pitiful shreds might it not be rent while he, who only could renew it, was away? She looked ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she was terribly afraid.
She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked there. The admirable Peters who opened to her said that his master had not been very well and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together in low tones the old gentleman cried testily from within—
"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"
Miss Benham went into the dim shaded room, and when old David saw who it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified growl. He certainly looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within the past month, and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.
The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket—an imperial yellow one this time.
"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before. It's quite wonderful."
The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.
"Rather good, that! What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me. It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the littleShowmedallions with theswastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon." He introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste. Marie were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket.
"I told him he was a damned fool."
"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did."
"I suppose," she said, "that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well no, perhaps not quite that, but he seems to consider himself engaged to me, and when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we aren't engaged yet: at least I'm not. But it's almost the same, because I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is doing."
"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old David, "he won't give you a chance to accept him. He won't come back. I know him well enough for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a thorough-going fool. He plays the game." The old man looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a little.
"You two are absurdly unsuited to each other," said he, "and I told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in love with him."
"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."
"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."
"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken—of his own accord—to find Arthur. He has some theory about it. And he is not going to see me again until he has succeeded—or until a year is past. If he fails, I fancy he won't come back."
Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook and stirred before him. Afterwards he fell to half-inarticulate muttering.
"The young romantic fool!—Don Quixote—like all the rest of them—those Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool." The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part he mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time he said suddenly—
"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."
The girl gave a little sigh.
"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for it."
She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and when presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went down after it. In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart, who was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his hands. He did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused when he saw his niece and smiled upon her a benignant smile, which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for hours together with his sister up in a little boudoir which she had furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that timid and colourless lady embroidered strange tea-cloths with stranger flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic interest.
He said—
"Ah, my dear! It's you?" Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more to say.
"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was asleep and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your mother instead."
"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"
"No," said Captain Stewart sadly, "no, nothing. I do not give up hope, but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."
"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham briefly. She gave him a little nod, and turned away into the drawing-room. Her uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and she felt that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason for doubting that he was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him because he bored her. Her mother bored her too—the poor woman bored everybody—but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way.
She heard the heavy front door close and gave a little sigh of relief.
"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should have screamed."
Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted, cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long distance—that is, looking backward upon it later he thought he must have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a chaotic whirl of things and emotions.
In the little flat in the Rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who, having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had sat comfortably down with a pipe and a stack ofCourriers Françaisto wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat at ease. Hat, gloves and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower. He extended his arms high in air. His face was, as it were, luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said—
"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil are you looking like that for?"
"Hè!" cried Ste. Marie in a great voice. "Hè, the world is mine! Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there? Embrace me!" He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks, but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a grey bleak look came upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could; but though seven times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realised that he had been waiting for this, bracing himself against its onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month.
Ste. Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.
"Dance, lump of flesh! dance, sacred Englishrosbifthat you are! Sing,gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him, but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant.
"Ah, my old," said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!" The Englishman drew a long breath.
"I take it," said he, "that means that you're—that she has accepted you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said—
"I ought to want to murder you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite honestly. My best wishes!"
Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of his face. He cried—
"Ah,mon cher ami! Pig that I am to forget. Pig! pig! animal!" The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.
"Yes! yes!" he said gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens with their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth in labourer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the high palings, one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a high, clear voice: "Vous êtes si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment, and the young woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they strolled on and turned up into the Rue Vavin.
Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain? He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his; and he gave a little shiver. He knew that if thatbouleversementwere actually to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley was now for his; but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's black hour must be like.
"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why. Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One thinks of nothing but one's self—and one other. I—during this past month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."
The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his hands when he chose and lighted a cigarette were quite steady, and he marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such circumstances.
"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.
"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do.
"Apart from wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy," he said, "—and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth about her brother—apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing. I've got to win her respect as well as—the rest. I want her to respect me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat without working for my living. I know how she has felt about all that. Well, she shall feel it no longer."
"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.
"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or never see her again. I've sworn that." The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly fervour, came there again, and Hartley saw it and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world, a place of unknown terrors, afire for the Great Adventure. And this was one of their blood.
"I'm afraid you don't realise," he went on, "the difficulties you've got to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."
"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie, and the other said—
"Yes. Oh, yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At last he said—
"I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to tell it comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss Benham to marry me."
Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy.
"Ah!" said he. "I have sometimes thought—wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that. Of course I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go there nowadays."
"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She—well, she didn't care for me—not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was impossible.
"And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I want you to let me help you in what you're going to do—if you think you can, that is. Remember, I—cared for her too. I'd like to do something for her. It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand, do some of the work. D'you think you could let me in?"
Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant, something like dismay.
"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd hoped to do it all yourself. It's your game, I know. Well, it's your game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run errands, some one perhaps to take counsel with now and then. Look at it on the practical side! Two heads are certainly better than one. Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides—well, I want to do something for her. I—cared too, you see. D'you think you could take me in?"
It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had hoped to work alone, to win or lose alone, to stand, in this matter, quite on his own feet, but he could not deny the man who had loved her and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.
"You love her too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."
But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.
CHAPTER VII
CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER
Ste. Marie scowled.
"A caller would come singularly malapropos, just now," said he. "I've half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with you."
"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that you're at home. It may not be a caller anyhow. It may be a parcel or something. You'd best go." So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the while.
The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He heard him exclaim in great surprise—
"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure. Come in! Come in!" And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and besides he disliked Miss Benham's uncle.
He heard the American say—
"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that I came straight away."
Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say with the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged gentlemen—
"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me all about it. Lucky young man! Ah!——" He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing by the window, and he began to apologise profusely, saying that he had had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said—
"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed, I have just been talking with him about this very thing." But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old gentleman—a reasonable enough hypothesis—and that Captain Stewart must have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation.
"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it." He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste. Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude: it seemed to him such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff glass of absinthe—it was between five and six o'clock.
"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled and set at hand, "now, having congratulated you and—ah, welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family, I turn to the other feature of the affair." He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment, turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him without expression.
"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for poor Arthur. Good! Good I I welcome you there, also."
Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.
"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me; but I think, if you don't mind—— Of course, I know it's very presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us—but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work independently. You see—well, I can't quite put it into words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."
Captain Stewart looked disappointed.
"Oh, I think," said he. "Pardon me for saying it! but I think you're rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed quite on your own. But, look at the practical side! You'll have to go over all the weary weeks of useless labour we have gone over. We could save you that. We have examined and followed up and at last given over a hundred clues that on the surface looked quite possible of success. You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a pity. I shan't like to see you wasting your time and efforts." He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and he took it in his hand and turned it slowly, and watched the light gleam in strange pearl colours upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.
"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said—
"I am past the age of romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by, but—I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in other people—young people who are simple and earnest and who—and who are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hands.
"I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not, though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking. Who knows? you may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault: such a way of overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth! Youth!
"Eh, my God!" said he, "to be young again just for a little while. To feel the blood beat strong and eager. Never to be tired. Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley. There's so little left for people when youth is gone." He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to break.
"Don't refuse a helping hand!" said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. "Don't be overproud! I may be able to set you upon the right path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon. I haven't, alas! But each day new clues turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never knows."
[image]"'Don't refuse a helping hand!' said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. 'Don't be overproud!'"
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"'Don't refuse a helping hand!' said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. 'Don't be overproud!'"
Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was blowing smoke rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes regarded him smiling a little wistfully, he thought.
Ste. Marie scowled out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.
"I hardly know," said he. "Of course I sound a braying ass in hesitating even a moment, but—in a way, you understand. I'm so anxious to do this or to fail in it quite on my own! You're—so tremendously kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very ungrateful, I know. But I'm not."
"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your feeling—but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."
For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.
"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail—and that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you don't mind my saying so, sir—I don't want to seem rude—your trained detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"
Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.
"No," he said at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have accomplished much—except to prove that there are a great many places poor Arthur hasnotbeen to, and a great many people who havenotseen him. After all, that is something—the elimination of ground that need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had been drinking.
"I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution. Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be managed—by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends and searching his favourite haunts. Personally I am inclined to think that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of events—before we began to search for him. And of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as yet—nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is alive."
"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"
"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time should be past. He—you must know that he went away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather. My father is not a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy."
"Ah yes," said Hartley, "but no boy, however young or angry, would be foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut off altogether."
"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father, sir, may die at any time—any hour. And he's very angry with his grandson. He may have cut him off already."
Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the glass in his hand.
"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.
"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it. That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The possibility occurred to me suddenly, for the first time." But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.
"Pray don't apologise!" said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly together. And frankly I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No! I am sure he wouldn't cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond—as we all were."
Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.
"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must get home to change. There is a cab-stand near you?" He looked out of the window. "Ah yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens." He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He said—
"You refuse to join forces with us then? Well, I'm sorry. But for all that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an incompetent bungler." He gave a little kindly laugh and Ste. Marie tried to protest.
"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen upon what seems to be a promising clue, come and talk it over with me. Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I shan't spoil your game."
"Ah, now that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for information."
The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.
"An idea!" he said quickly. "You have an idea? What—may I ask what sort of an idea?"
"Oh it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that I should learn something from him."
"Ah!" said Captain Stewart slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you thought you saw him in the Champs Elysées, and he couldn't very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly worth following up."
"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."
"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you! Good day, Hartley. Come and see me both of you. You know where I live."
He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres there and drive away.
Ste. Marie laughed aloud.
"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't found Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris (publicly, that is) at about the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact he remains, or at least for a time remained in the city without letting his friends know, because I made no mistake about seeing him in the Champs Elysées. All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth investigation.
"Of course," he admitted doubtfully—"of course I'm no detective, but that's how it looks to me."
"I don't believe Stewart is any detective either," said Richard Hartley. "He's altogether too cock-sure. That sort of man would rather die than admit he is wrong about anything. He's a good old chap though, isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I thought he was rather pathetic when he went on about his age."
"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would have thought I was a presumptuous ass and would have behaved accordingly."
Ste. Marie took a turn about the room and his face began to light up with its new excitement and exaltation.
"And to-morrow," he cried, "to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out into the world and the Adventure is on foot. God send it success!" He laughed across at the other man, but it was a laugh of eagerness not of mirth.
"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."
"Ye—es," said the other man a little drily. "Yes, perhaps. I don't want to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"
"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"
"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.
CHAPTER VIII
STE. MARIE MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM
So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer determination to succeed. To put it fancifully they burnt their tower behind them, for to one of them at least—to him who led—there was no going back.
But after all they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident had befallen, a singularly unfortunate incident.
It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting uponArmenonvilleor theMadridin the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these would be full of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some quiet place in the Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening perforce to loud music. In the end, for no particular reason, they compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in the Rue Helder. They went there about eight o'clock, without dressing; for it is a very quiet place which the world does not visit, and they had asopa de yerbas, and somelangostinos, which are shrimps, and a heavenlyarrozwith fowl in it, and many tender succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad made out of a little of everything that grows green, with the true Spanish oil, which has a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the philistine; and then they had a strange pastry and some cheese and green almonds. And to make them glad they drank a bottle of old red Valdepeñas, and afterwards a glass each of a special Manzanilla, upon which the restaurant very justly prides itself. It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year, but the two men were hungry, and sat at table, almost alone in the upper room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers. When at last they came out into the narrow street and thence to the thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They stood for a little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the boulevard to where the Place de l'Opéra opened wide, and the lights of the Café de la Paix shone garish in the night, and Ste. Marie said—
"There's a streetfêtein Montmartre. We might drive home that way."
"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And after that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in the wrong direction. Lead on!"
So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep stone-paved hill to the heights whereLa Bohêmestill reigns, though the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed, and the trail of tourist is over all. They found Montmartre very muchen fête. In the Place Blanche were two of the enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds which only Paris knows—one furnished with stolid cattle, theatrical-looking horses, and Russian sleighs, the other with the ever-popular galloping pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation mechanical organs concealed somewhere in their bowels emitted hideous brays and shrieks, which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon the galloping pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.
The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the Parisian streetfêtegathers together, but it was, for the most part, a well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful harmless Latin fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way through the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone and glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune, the huge pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the platform upon which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little group of American trippers, sight-seeing, with a guide, stood near by, and one of the group, a pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively of the friend upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think mamma would be shocked if we took a ride? Wouldn't I love to!"
Hartley turned laughing from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He was wondering with mild amusement why anybody should wish to do such a foolish thing, but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth it was impossible for him to look on at any form of active amusement without thirsting to join it. A joyous and care-free lady in a blue hat, who was mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper serpentine at him, and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat off.
"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the basket!" A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and when the lady with the blue hat came round on the next turn, lassoed her neatly about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke. Then he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his steed's neck, in the ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed aloud.
"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride, just one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years." Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it, and mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round the pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to revolve.
At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making her way along the platform towards where Ste. Marie sat hurling serpentines in the face of the world. By the next time round she had come to where he was, mounted astride behind him, and was holding herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other she rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines until they were hung with many-coloured ribbons like a Christmas-tree. Even Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with which his race is cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and the lady in the blue hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.
But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward away from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry towards him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He caught Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying in a low voice—
"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I want to get away at once."
"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game, you might as well play it."
"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of two motor-cars, to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come from dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."
"The devil!" said Hartley under his breath. Then he gave a shout of laughter, demanding—
"Well, what of it? You weren't committing any crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a silly pig in a silly merry-go-round. Everybody does it in thesefêtethings." But even as he spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting was, and the laughter went out of his voice.
"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humour of it. Good God, what a thing to happen!Youknow well enough what she'll think of me.
"At five o'clock this afternoon," he said bitterly, "I left her with a great many fine high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my days and nights to—for her sake. I went away from her like a—knight going into battle—consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes when I went. And now, now, at midnight, she sees me riding a galloping pig in a streetfêtewith a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig with me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What will she think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I know well enough! I saw her face before she turned away.
"And," he cried, "I can't even go to her and explain—if there's anything to explain, and I suppose there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see her."
"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at it." But Ste. Marie shook his head.
"No, she won't," said he. And Hartley could say no more, for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very much afraid that she would not laugh.
They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove home at once. They were almost entirely silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or twice to cheer him up, realised that he was best left to himself just then, and so held his tongue. But in the Rue d'Assas as Ste. Marie was getting down—Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in the Avenue de l'Observatoire—he made a last attempt to lighten the man's depression. He said—
"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it, you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll laugh—if she hasn't already done so.
"You know," he said, almost believing it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in thinking she's so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind. Yes, by Jove, you are!"
Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab-lamp, showed a first faint gleam of hope.
"Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am. But— O Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that I am: why was I ever born? I ask you." He turned abruptly and began to ring at the door, casting a brief "Good-night," over his shoulder. And, after a moment, Hartley gave it up and drove away.
Above, in the long shallow front room of his flat, with the three windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable flavour, which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household. He allowed himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful moments, as an especial treat. And this seemed to him to be the moment for smoking all there were left. Surely his need had never been greater. In England he had, of course learnt to smoke a pipe, but pipe smoking always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never brought him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon heart. Thevieux Jacobof old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia inspired in him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he said, most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars: so he soothed his soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between his fingers.
He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful fragrant night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a month before, when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a sudden exultant leap within him when he thought how far and high he had climbed, but after the leap it shivered and stood still when this evening's misadventure came before him.
Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend was in this world. He would do his best. But even then—— It was the girl's inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So must have been those calm-eyed ancient ladies for whom other Ste. Maries went out to do battle. It was wellnigh impossible to imagine them lowering their eyes to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such as that. It was beneath their high dignity. And it was beneath hers also. As for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted chivalry—a noble patch—there a patch of bourgeois child-like love of fun; here a patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something quite the reverse. A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from him when she knew? He could not quite imagine her understanding the wholly trivial and meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at the assembled world.
Apart from her view of the affair he felt no shame in it. The moment of childish gaiety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his high flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would understand, and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation in which they had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight of her shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place Blanche.
"What must she think of me?" he cried aloud. "What must she think of me?"
So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind his back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded him—torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at last in a calmer moment he realised that he was working himself up into an absurd state of nerves over something which was done and could not now be helped. The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his nature—that will have come of his southern blood—and it came to him now in his need. For the work upon which he was to enter with the morrow he had need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not disordered nerves. So he took himself in hand, and it would have been amazing to any one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin temperament, to see how suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and master of himself.