Prosper having embarked on a sea of indiscretion, went through the day consistently. With a love of the melodramatic in his Latin temperament he had admitted thehôtel meublé sans cérémonie: and late that afternoon he gave entrance to another group of quite a different order, and without formality ushered the lady and her friends to the terrace, where the solitary inhabitant of another man's house was taking a farewell beverage before leaving Paris.
"We have caught you in time, Jimmy!" Mrs. Falconer made a virtue of it. "If you are absconding with the Montensier treasures, then let me show Molly and the Marquis at least what has been left behind."
His bags and boxes in the hall, his automobile at the door, and Bulstrode himself in travelling trim, it looked very much like a flight, indeed. Miss Molly and the Marquis, it transpired, were able to explore for themselves and to find in the gallery and salons pictures and objects of interest to excuse a prolonged absence.
"They're engaged," Mrs. Falconer explained to her host. "Isn't it ridiculous? As you know, she hasn't a cent in the world, and his family are not in the secret, but Molly and De Presle-Vaulxare, andIam, and I brought them off in pity for a spin to Paris."
The apparition of the lady, whose mocking beauty had a fresh charm every time he saw her—her worldly wisdom and her keen reasonableness—made, as he stood talking with her, his past debauch in philanthropies seem especially grotesque. With a long breath of joy at the sight of her Bulstrode also realized how wonderfully separated from her the introduction of another life into his environment would have made him.
"Your garden is a waste," the lady criticised, "dusty and dull. I don't wonder you're getting away. Fontainebleau, too, was only afaute de mieux, and I have left it. One should get really far away at this season. It's the time when only the persons who are actually bred in its stones can stay in Paris—certainly the birds of passage may now, if ever, fly."
"We are going to Trouville," she said; "we are all going to motor through Normandy. Won't you come—won't you come?" He shook his head.
Mrs. Falconer looked across the terrace to where a little chair had been overturned, and on the floor by its side lay a broken doll.
"Jimmy!" she laughed in triumph at the sight. "Youhavebroken your doll!"
Bulstrode said: "Yes, beyond repair, and I don't want another." Then in a few words, briefly, a little impatient, and still smarting under the child's defection, he gave her the story.
Listening, absorbed, her charming eyes on him or at one moment turned suspiciously away, the lady heard him to the end, and at the end said softly:
"Jimmy, my poor Jimmy! What have you nearly done! Whatwouldpeople have thought? Not that it matters in the least—it's what peopledothat counts—but oh, I tremble for your next folly!"
"It might"—he spoke with something like bitterness—"be less harmless and leave me less alone."
She had finished a glass of iced tea, put her goblet down on the tray and rose, coming over to where Bulstrode stood; she lightly laid her hand on his arm.
"You are, then, so very lonely? So lonely that you would be capable of doing this foolish thing? Oh, you would have found, as I have found, that it is those things which come into our lives, not those which we by forcetake, which mean all we want them to mean! This wasn'tyour child!" Mrs. Falconer's face softened as he had never seen it. "Nor yet is she the child of some woman you love. Believe me, it would have made you far lonelier if it so happened—if you should ever come to love—if you ever had loved——"
Bulstrode interrupted her abruptly:
"Yes, in that case I should no doubt be glad that Simone had gone back on me." He waited silent for a second, and then continued gently, "Iamglad, very glad indeed!"
There were times when Bulstrode decided that he never could see the woman he loved any more: there were times when he felt he must follow her to the ends of the world, just in order to assure himself that she was alive and serene. Such is the gentleman's character and point of view, that she must always be serene, no matter what his own troubled emotions might be.
He had the extraordinary idea that he could not himself be happy or make a woman happy over the dishonor of another man. It was old-fashioned and unworldly of Bulstrode: still, that was the way he was constituted.
It was on one of the imperious occasions when he felt as if he must follow her to the ends of the earth, that he steered his craft toward a little town on the edge of the Norman coast, to a very fashionable bit of France—Trouville. As soon as he understood that Mrs. Falconer was to be in Normandy for the race week, he packed his things and ran down and put up at the Hôtel de Paris. On this occasion the gentleman followed so fast that he overleaped his goal, and arrived at the watering-place before the others appeared. Bulstrode took his own rooms, and in response to a telegram, engaged the Falconers' apartments. He liked the way the little salon gave on the heavenly blue sea, and with a nice fancy to make it something more home-like for his friend to begin with, he filled it with flowers ... ran what lengths he dared in putting a few rare vases and several pieces of old Italian damask here and there.
"Falconer," he consoled himself, "will be too taken up with his horses to notice theinsideof anything but a stable! And I shall tell the others that the hôtel proprietor is a collector: most of these Norman innkeepers are collectors." And, as his idea grew, he went to greater lengths, with the curiosity shops on either side the Rue de Paris to tempt him. The result was that when Mrs. Falconer came, she found the hôtel room wonderfully mellow and harmonious, and as a woman who revels in beauty she responded to its charm. She was delighted, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed. And Jimmy Bulstrode had a moment of high happiness as she looked at him and touched with her pretty hands the flowers he had himself arranged. It was a delightful moment, a moment that was much to him.
The Falconers arrived with the usual lot of servants and motors and, moreover, with a racing outfit, for Falconer had decided to enter his English filly, Bonjour, for the events of August. There was also with them a Miss Molly Malines and a young sprig of nobility, the Marquis de Presle-Vaulx, to whom Bulstrode was a trifle paternal.
"He can't, at least, be after Molly'smillions," he reflected; "he can't, at any rate, be afortunehunter, for the girl's face is the only fortune she has!"
On a bright and beautiful morning, the first of all the days for many weeks—for Bulstrode reckoned his calendar in broken bits, beginning a New Year each time he saw his lady again—a bright and beautiful morning he walked out at the fashionable hour of noon and turned into the Rue de Paris.
The eyes of many women followed Bulstrode.
Being an early riser, he had already taken a brisk walk over the cliffs, had swum out beyond the buoys, and now in his flannels, his panama, a gay rose in the lapel of his coat, amongst the many debonnaire and pleasing people who filled the little fishing town, his was a distinguished figure. He trusted very much to instinct to discover his friend, and after a few moments found her at the extreme end of the street which the papers of Paris tell you is "the most worldly and fashionable in any part of the Continent, during race week at Trouville." Mary Falconer was of course dressed in the very height of the mode. She looked up and saw Bulstrode before he saw her, but she could wait until he made his leisurely way down to her side. She waited for him a great deal. He did not know how much, but then her point of view and her feelings have never come into the history. It amused her to make him her many clever little bits of speech, for he was so appreciative of everything she said, and looking up at him now as he approached she said: "These people never seem to have anything to do, do they? Leisure is like money: to enjoy thoroughly either money or leisure one should only have a little of each. Now for us good-for-nothings who have no occupation it doesn't make much difference what we do or where we do it!"
The lady's camp-stool had been set down at the end of the street. Those who are not promenading opened littlechaises pliantesand watched from their little seats. Mrs. Falconer sat facing the ocean, or what was visible of it between the bathing tents. Pagodas gay with children's shovels and bright pails, striped bonbons and the sea of muslins, ribbons and feathers and sunshades of the midsummer crowd. All the capitals of Europe had poured themselves into Trouville, and the resort overflowed with beauty and fashion.
'"It's perfectly bewitching," Bulstrode said to her, "perfectly bewitching, and it makes one feel as though there were nothing but pleasure in the world."
She wore a white dress and her hat was bright with flowers. She opened her rose-lined parasol over her head.
"Jimmy," she said abruptly, and brought his eyes to hers like a flash, for he had been looking over the scene, "do you know I begin to see where the innkeeper found his rare treasures;there are a great many other thingsthat suggest them in this little street!"
Bulstrode replied, "You don't want him to take them away, do you?"
She shook her head. "No," she said slowly, "they have been a great pleasure, but I don't want tobuythem from him, either."
"I don'tthinkhe'd sell them," Bulstrode was certain of it, "they're extremely precious in his eyes."
"I'm a good judge of works of art, however," she said after a moment, "that is to say, I know a good thing when I see it. There was a little picture in one of the shops back of me that I would have given a lot to own."
Her friend exclaimed: "Are you going to buy it! That is to say, will Falconer buy it for you?"
"My dear soul—with his horse running to-morrow! At any rate, the bijou is already bought above my head. I went in yesterday to see what was the least they would take for it, and found the Prince Pollona, the Englishman who buys for the Wallace Collection, and somebody who, they tell me, was the Rockefeller of St. Petersburg. Well, my little picture was what they all wanted, and you can imagine thatIretired from the running...! But I tell you this," she said, "only to show you how very good my taste is, and so that you may rely on my selections."
Bulstrode smiled in a way that said he thought he might rely on her, but still he asked rather quizzically, "Well, what are you going to recommend to menow?"
The lady at the moment, not having anything in mind, looked suddenly up, gave him whimsically:
"Molly and her Marquis."
The two young people with Jack Falconer were coming slowly along the Rue de Paris toward them. The grace of the girl, her freshness under her wide hat where flowers and ribbons danced and blended; the radiant pleasure she exhaled, the swing of her dress, her youth, expressed so happily the joy of life, recommended themselves easily in a flash....
"Oh,Molly—she's perfect!"
"And the Marquis?"
"He is perfectly inlove," ... Bulstrode allowed him so much.
"My dear friend, remember I know myobjets d'art."
"Oh, as anobjet d'art...!"
Bulstrode took the young man in: his white immaculateness, his boutonnière, his panama—(not less than forty dollars a straw, as Jimmy knew) his monocle.
"As anobjet d'art," he further conceded to her, "he's perfect, too!"
"As anhomme de race," said the American lady eagerly, with the true Republican appreciation of blood and title, "as anhomme du monde, as a..."
"Title?" he finished for her. "Oh, the Presle-Vaulx are all right! I'll grant him a perfect title, sound as a bell, first Crusade—Léonce de Presle-Vaulx main droite, or sur azur—Pour toi seule. It's a good old tradition—a good old name."
She scented his lack of sympathy. "Oh, I'll stand for him, Jimmy. I know thepâte, as they say. I know the ring and the tone; and you must, at my valuation, take him."
"Molly, dear lady, has done the taking." Bulstrode lifted his hat as the trio came up. "And what, after all, can we—the rest of us do?"
"The rest of them" watched the young couple with mingled emotions: Mary Falconer with all the romance in her, and in spite of unusual cool reasonableness she had a feminine share—Jimmy with the sympathy of a kindly nature, a certain sting of jealousy at the decidedly perfect completeness of young love, and with a singularly wide-awake practical common sense for an impulsive gentleman whose pleasure in life is to pour into people's hands the things they most long for and cannot without him ever hope to enjoy!
Bulstrode, although owning his share of horse-flesh and a proper number of automobiles and keeping, for the best part of the time, a yacht out of commission, was a sport only in a certain sense of the word. The people who liked him best and who were themselves able to judge, said he was a "dead game sport," but Jimmy smiled at this and knew that the human element interested him in life above all, and that he only cared for amusements as they helped others to enjoy. He was backing Falconer's horse, although he felt certain the winnings would go to the Rothschild's gelding. On the afternoon, however, when De Presle-Vaulx came up to him in the Casino and said: "On what are you going to put your money, Monsieur?" Bulstrode looked at him thoughtfully. He had stood by the young man the night before at baccarat and seen him lose enough to keep a little family of Trouville fisherfolk for a year.
"Are you going to play the races, Marquis?"
"But naturally!" ...
De Presle-Vaulx had an attractive frankness, and his smile was—Bulstrode understood what a girl would think about it!
"... But of course! One doesn't come to Trouville inla grande semainenot to play!"
He put his hand cordially on Bulstrode's arm.
"Entre nous," he said, "I don't believe Falconer's horse has a chance against Rothschild's Grimace. And you?"
"Oh, I shall back Jack Falconer's mare," the older man replied.
The Marquis played with his moustache. "She doesn't stand a show."
Bulstrode was walking slowly down the grand staircase by his companion's side. "And you will back Grimace?" He ignored the young man's prognostication.
De Presle-Vaulx said ingenuously: "I? Oh, seriously, I'm not betting. I lost at baccarat last night, and I haven't a sou for the race."
He looked boyish and regretful. The American put his hand in his pocket and took out his portefeuille.
"Let me," he suggested pleasantly, "be your banker."
The light dry rustle of French bank-notes came agreeably from between his fingers.
The young man hesitated, then put out his hand.
"A thousand thanks, Monsieur, you are too good—Iwillback Grimace, and after the race——"
Jimmy handed him the notes to choose from.
At the stair foot stood Molly and Mrs. Falconer.
"We went this afternoon to see Jack's horse," Miss Malines said to the Marquis. Whatever she said, no matter how general, she said to him—others might gather what they could. "Bon Jour's a beauty—a dear, and as fit as possible. Oh, she's in great form! Jack's crazy about her, and so is the jockey. I know Bon Jour will win! I'm going to put twenty-five francs on her to-morrow."
Mary Falconer smiled radiantly. "And you, Jimmy," she took for granted, "are of course betting on the favorite?"
"If you mean Grimace—" his tone was indifferent—"no, I shall back your husband's horse."
"Jimmy!" Her tone changed, and her expression as well.
De Presle-Vaulx saw it, and he knew what women's voices can mean. He was a Frenchman, and he understood what a slow, delicious flush, a darkening of the eyes, a sharp note in the voice can signify of feeling—as well as of gratitude, surprise and a little scorn. There was all this in Mary Falconer's exclamation and her face.
"And Maurice!" Molly said, "of course, you're doing the same?"
The Marquis met his fiancée's clear eyes, her girlish enthusiasm and her confidence. He bit his lip, shrugged, hesitated, looked at Bulstrode, at Molly, and laughed. The presence of the others and the custom of his country made it only a pretty courtesy—he lifted Molly's hand to his lips.
"Of course—chère Mademoiselle, I am backing Bon Jour with all my heart,cela va sans dire!"
Miss Malines regarded her friend with a pretty grimace and a smile.
As they walked along together all four, Bulstrode said to himself:
"He's a sport, a true sport—that's five thousand francs to the bad. He was game, however, he's a good sport and, better yet, he's a true lover!"
Whether or not Mary Falconer really had an exalted idea of the merits of Bon Jour, or whether she thoroughly understood the situation, how was her friend to know?
Falconer adored the horse, and the lady showed in the matter, as in everything else, a fine loyalty to her husband, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons why—but this is going too deeply into the domain of Bulstrode's feelings, which, since he keeps them honorably sealed, it is unworthy to surprise even in the interest of psychology.
Bulstrode saw that his friend was pleased: her color, her mounting spirits at dinner, showed it. She spoke with interest of the races, and with confidence greater than she had hitherto evinced in the fortunes of her husband's racer—indeed she talked horse to Molly's edification, her husband's delight, and Bulstrode's admiration. All this—the sense that the party was, so to speak, with him—put Jack Falconer in the best of spirits, and the unruffled course of the dinner, and, above all, the humor of the elder of the two ladies, quite repaid Jimmy Bulstrode for the sure loss of his stakes.
"Does she really think that I have faith in the horse?" he wondered—-meeting her charming eyes over the glass of champagne she was drinking. They did not answer in text his question, but their glow and the light of content in them answered for him other questions which were perhaps of greater interest.
She was not unhappy. All his life, since his acquaintance with her, it had been his aim, in so far as he could aid it, that she should not be unhappy. His idea of affection was that in all cases it should bring to the object—joy. In his own life these things which brought him, no matter how pleasant they might be, the after taste of regret and misery he strove with all his manliness to tear out: "and surely," he so argued, "if my presence in her life cause her for one moment anything but peace, it would be better that we had never looked into each other's eyes."
There was nothing especially buoyant, in the attitude of the young Marquis! His inclination to feminine will had cost him—he was so familiar with the turf and the next day's programme to feel sure—five thousand francs, which he had not the means to pay.
Later in the evening, very much later, indeed well on to one o'clock, Bulstrode, wandering through the baccarat rooms—for no other purpose, it would be said from his indifferent air, than to study types—saw Maurice de Presle-Vaulx just leaving the Casino.
Bulstrode's air was as friendly and as naïve as though he had not a pretty clear idea of just how the tide of events was fluctuating toward misfortune in the case of this young nobleman.
"What do you say," he suggested, "to getting something to drink or eat? What do you say to a piece ofperdreauand some champagne?"
The Frenchman followed the older man, who in contrast to his pallor looked the picture of health and spirits. Bulstrode cheerily led him to a small table in the corner of the restaurant, where they sat opposite one another, and for a little time applied themselves in silence to the light supper served them.
The Marquis drank more than he ate, and Bulstrode dutifully finished the game and toast, quite glad, in truth, to break the fast of a long evening which he had spent in the close rooms: for no other reason than unseen, to befriend—and unasked, to chaperone Molly's lover. Finally, when he felt that the right moment to say something had come, he smiled at the young man, and said frankly:
"Voyons, mon ami, don't you feel that you can talk to me a little more freely than you could possibly to even so kind and charming a friend as Mrs. Falconer? We are not of the same race, perhaps, but then under certain circumstances such distinctions are not important. How do you"—he handled the words as though in presenting them to the young man he was afraid they might prick him—"How doyounow stand?—I mean to say, the luck has been rather against you, I'm afraid."
Bulstrode would never be so near forty again, and De Presle-Vaulx was a spoiled child—at all events, all that could be spoiled in him had been taken care of by his mother, and in his own way he had spoiled a large part of what remained. He looked up smartly, for he had been following the pattern of the table-cloth. If the frankness of the other threatened to offend him, as he met the kind eyes of the American he found nothing there that could do otherwise than please him. He shrugged with his national habit, then threw out his hands without making any verbal reply, but his smile and his gesture comprehended so much that Bulstrode intelligently exclaimed:
"Oh, but you don't mean tosay——?"
"I have not, monsieur, much to lose," the scion of an old house replied simply. "We have the reputation of being poor; but to-night and last night have quite 'wiped me out,' as you say in America. Je suis ruiné."
Bulstrode lit his cigar. De Presle-Vaulx took from his pocket one of his own cigarettes and puffed at it gently. Bulstrode smoked silently, and thought of the young man without looking at him. He liked him, and did not understand him at all: not at all! He supposed, that with his different traditions, his Puritanism, his New World point of view, he couldneverunderstand him, but he would enjoy trying to do so, for aside from the quality of spoiled boy, there was something of the man in De Presle-Vaulx to which the New Englander extremely responded.
His next remark was impersonal:
"Bon Jour, then, you think is not likely——?"
"Mon cher Monsieur! ... She is not even mentioned for place! Even in the event of her winning," De Presle-Vaulx was gloomy, "I should be able to discharge my debt to you and nothing more." Again he looked up quickly. "I shall, of course, be quite able to dischargethat; I only mean to say thaten somme, I amroulé completément roulé."
"What, then, are you going to do?"
De Presle-Vaulx looked at the end of his cigarette as though he took counsel from it, and said measuredly:
"There is, in my position, but one thing possible for a man to do."
"You mean to say, marry, make a rich marriage?"
The Marquis flashed at him:
"A month ago, yes! that would have been the one way out of my embarrassment: but I am no longer in the market. It is the other alternative."
Bulstrode in no case caring to hear put in words a tragically disagreeable means of solving the problems of debt and love, and having less faith in this extravagant, explosive alternative than in themarriage de convenance, did not urge the Frenchman further. He simply brought out—his quiet eyes fixed on the other:
"And the little girl?—Molly—Miss Malines?——"
He gave him three chances to think of the pretty child, and for the first De Presle-Vaulx's expression changed. He had with a nonchalance submitted to the discussion of his fortune and his fate, but now he distinctly showed dignity.
"Don't, I beg of you,speakof Mademoiselle Malines!" and then he said more gently, "mille pardons, mon cher ami!"
Bulstrode smoked his Garcia meditatively. He had not attempted the solving of other people's questions, had not played the good fairy for a long time. He had the hazy feeling—such as he often experienced just before stepping into the mysterious excitement of doing some good deed, of undergoing the effects of a narcotic which put to sleep reason and practical common-sense, and left alive only a desire to befriend. In this case, determined not again to be the victim of sentimentality, determined for once to unite common sense and common humanity, he forcibly dissipated the haze and said:
"Your family! I have, as you know, understood from Mrs. Falconer, the facts of the case. You must not be formal with me." He smiled delightfully. "I am an American; you know we have all sorts of barbarous privileges. We rush in quite where the older races fear to tread ... and Molly Malines' father is an old friend of mine."
(Mr. Bulstrode did not say what kind of an old friend! or even allow himself to remember the I.O.U.s and loans that his bankers had made to the visionary, good-humored, sanguine, unfortunate stockbroker.)
"Your family—how do they take the idea of your marriage to a poor American?"
De Presle-Vaulx pushed his coffee cup aside, leaned his arms on the table, bent over, and said with more confidence:
"Oh, they are entirely opposed to it. That's one reason, to be quite frank with you, why I have been so reckless."
He added: "My mother has refused her consent, and I can never hope to alter my father's attitude. I have their letters to-day as well as telegrams from Presle-Vaulxoron—they bid me 'come home immediately,' and so far as my people are concerned, their refusal puts an end to the affair!"
There was a mixture of amusement and reproach in Bulstrode's tone—"and you have found nothing better to do than to throw away at baccarat what money you had, and have found no other solution for the future than to...?" he eyed the young man keenly, and a proper severity came into his expression. "Nonsense," he said, and repeated the word with more indulgence: "nonsense,mon ami!"
His reproof was borne:
"We are an old race, M. Bulstrode——"
Bulstrode had heard this allocution before. It gave lee-way to so much; permitted so much; excused so much!
"... I don't need to tell you our traditions, or recall our customs. You of course know them. If I marry without my parents' consent I shall probably, during my mother's lifetime, never see her again, and I am her only son. It means that I sever all relations with my people."
Bulstrode knocked the ash off his cigar and said thoughtfully:
"It's too bad! A choice, if thereisone, is always too bad. There should in real thingsbeno choice. As soon as such a contingent arises, it proves that neither thing is really worth while! When a man loves a woman there can be no choice. My dear friend, when aman"—he paused—"loves—there is nothing in the worldbut the woman."
The Marquis looked at the fine face of the elder man. Years had, with their gentle history, and kindly records, touched Jimmy Bulstrode lightly. Every experience made him better to look at; "like a good picture," Mrs. Falconer had said, "painted by a master, and only growing more splendid." Nothing of the worldliness of the roué marked his expression. His memories were clear and honorable, and the Frenchman experienced a sensation of surprise and also one of enlightenment as he looked at him and responded to his expression. He had never seen any one quite like this man of the world, could not think of his prototype in France.
He repeated:
"Nothing but the woman in the world—? Honor—" Bulstrode quickly added, "and the woman—they are synonymous."
In watching his companion he wondered in how much of a tangle the Frenchman's mind was, and just how deep his feet were sunk in the meshes of conventionality and tradition, and decided: "Oh, is it too much to believe that he could——!"
As if in answer to his thoughts, De Presle-Vaulx spoke in the simplest manner possible:
"J'aime Molly."
Quite surprised at the simplicity, Bulstrode beamed on him and waited.
Then the other added:
"But I can't ask any woman to share poverty and debts, and I have no way of making a living; I'm not bred for it."
"You are not an invalid?"
"On the contrary."
"You can work."
De Presle-Vaulx smiled: "I am afraid not! No De Presle-Vaulx has done a stroke of work in three hundred years."
"It's time, then"—Bulstrode was tart—"that you broke the record. Why don't you?" He said as though suddenly illumined—"make me your banker, draw on me for whatever sum you will, and since you have faith in her and are so well supported by the public opinion—bet on Grimace. I believe, with you, that he is sure to win. You would recoup much of your loss here."
De Presle-Vaulx pushed back his chair and exclaimed: "Monsieur!"
"Oh," shrugged Bulstrode, "a woman's caprice, my dear fellow! A foolish little whim of a girl! You can't be expected to mix sport and flirtation to the tune of two or three thousand dollars."
He smiled deceptively.
The young man laughed bitterly:
"So that is something of what you think of me? for I see you are not serious! It's a folly, of course, a sentimental folly," he met Bulstrode's eyes that silently accused him of a like—"but only a man in love knows what sentimental follies are worth! There is"—the young man was suddenly serious, "a sort of prodigality in love only understood by certain temperaments, certain races: it may be degenerate: I suppose it is, and to push it quite to the last phase, is, of course, cowardly, certainly very weak, and men like you, Monsieur, will deem it so."
"You mean—?" and now Bulstrode's tone urged him to make himself clear.
"I mean," said De Presle-Vaulx firmly, "rather than renounce this woman I adore I will without doubt—(given the tangle in which the whole matter is!...") and he could not for the life of him put his intention into words. He smiled nevertheless unmistakably. Bulstrode leaned across the table and put his hand on the other's arm.
"Then you don't love her well enough not to break her heart? Or well enough to live a commonplace life for her?"
"I don't know how to do it."
"Well," said Bulstrode, "I have run upon quite a good many hard moments, perhaps some, in their way, as difficult as this, and I have never thought of getting out of the muddle. Perhaps itisa question, as you say, of temperament and race. I am inclined also to think, stubbornly, that it is a question of the quality of the love that one has for the woman. You won't think it impertinent of me, my dear friend,"—and his tone was such that no one could have thought it impertinent—"you won't, I am sure, take it amiss if we talk this over to-morrow, and if I try to show you something that meanslife, instead of what you plan."
"You know you as good as stood for De Presle-Vaulx."
Bulstrode held Mrs. Falconer's parasol, her fan, as well as a gold bag purse full of louis, a handkerchief and his own cane and field-glass. For the lady, standing on a chair the better to see the race-track, was applauding with enthusiasm the result of the first handicap. She had placed a bet on a horse called Plum-Branch "from a feeling of sentiment," as she said, because she had, that day, quite by chance, selected a hat with a decorative plum-branch amongst other garnitures.
"I amstanding, certainly, Jimmy," she replied to his remark, "and to the peril of my high heels!—There, I've won! and won't you, like an angel, go and cash my bets?—give me the purse, you might have your hand picked! You can put my winnings in your pocket; they're not so enormous."
During his absence she watched the scene around her with animation. The spotless day, if one might so call it, when the sky and the turf and the whole world looked as though washed clean, and nature, seen in the warm sunlight, seemed to palpitate and flutter in the wind that gently stirred ends of ribbon or tips of plumes, and set the fragrance of the country air astir. Back of the lady the tribune was like a floral display: here and there a corner red as roses, there a mass of lily-white dresses enlivened by pink and blue parasols, and the greenpesagestretched between the spectators and the race-track in bands of emerald, whilst across it promenaded or stood in groups those interested in the races. Mrs. Falconer acknowledged a friend here and there, glanced affectionately over to where Molly and the Marquis, seated near, fixed their attention on the race-course, where the winner, flying his blue ribbon, cantered triumphantly around the track.
One of a little group Falconer, the worse for many cocktails, stood by the railing, talking familiarly with his jockey, whilst Bon Jour, blanketed to the eyes, was being led up and down the outside track alongside of her rival, Rothschild's Grimace.
Bulstrode returning, gave his friend a handful of gold, which she put into her purse, and he repeated: "You remember that you stood, as it were, for De Presle-Vaulx?"
"I do," she said, "if you think the race-course is the place to take me to account for anything so serious, I do remember, and I do stand. What is the trouble that he needs me?"
"He needs," Bulstrode was serious, "a good many things, it seems to me, in order to get firmly on the plane where he should be!"
"And that is——?"
"On his feet, my dear friend."
"Well, he is head over heels in love," she nodded, "but when he finally lands I think you will find Maurice perfectly perpendicular."
"He won't," returned the other, "at all events, land in the bosom of his family."
"No?"—she looked away from the race-course and laughed—"you mean to say, Jimmy, has he heard, then?"
"I mean to say thattheyare quite clear in their minds about his marriage! They seem to have all the firmness that the young man lacks. Tell me," he asked his friend, "just what do you know about the matter? What happened that you so strongly took up his cause with Molly? You have not told me yet."
She relinquished the interests of the moment to those of the sentimental question.
"It seems," she said, lowering her tone, "that they have been secretly engaged for a year. Nothing that an American girl can do would surprise me, but you can imagine that I was overwhelmed at his part in the matter. When Molly joined me in Fontainebleau, De Presle-Vaulx promptly followed, and I naturally obliged her to tell me everything. I was dismayed at the lack oftenuehe had shown. I had a plain talk with him. He said that he had first met Molly at some dance or other in the American colony, I don't know where; that he understood that American girls disposed of their own lives; that he loved her and wanted to marry her, and that he was only waiting to gain the consent of his family before writing to her father. He seemed delighted to talk with me and perfectly conventional in his feelings. He further told me that his parents until now knew nothing, that he had not been able to tear himself away from Molly long enough to go down to the country where they were and see them. I forced him to write at once; exacted myself that until he received their answer there should be nothing between Molly and him but the merest distant acquaintance. I did not know that he had heard from the Marquise or his father. You seemed to have suddenly entirely gained his confidence and taken my place." She looked over at the young couple. "Poor Molly!" she exclaimed. "He has not, I should say, told her: she looks so happy and so serene! It's of course only a question ofdot, otherwise there could be no possible objection. She is perfectly beautiful, the sweetest creature in the world; and she is a born Marquise!"
Bulstrode interrupted her impatiently:
"It would be more to the purpose if he were a born bread-winner and she were a dairy-maid!"
"Jimmy, how vulgar you are!"
"Very—" he was wonderfully sarcastic for him—"money is a very vulgar thing, my dear friend; it's as vulgar as air and bread and butter. It is like all other clean, decent vulgarity, it can be abused, but it's necessary to life."
Mrs. Falconer opened her eyes wide on this new Bulstrode.
"Why, what has happened to you?"
He made a comprehensive gesture: "Oh, I am always supporting a family!" he said with an amusing attempt at irritability. "I am always supporting a family that is not mine, that does not sit at my hearthstone or at my table. I am always marrying other people to some one else, and dressing other people's children!"
He finished with a laugh: "There, No. 5 is up! Aren't you interested in this race?"
Mrs. Falconer and Bulstrode had walked a little from where the young couple chattered indifferent to everything but each other.
"No; I am only interested in what you are saying. What have you planned to do or thought out for them, Jimmy? What do your rebellious phrases imply?Areyou really going to make a home for——?"
Bulstrode said stubbornly. "No! I am going to show him how to make one for himself."
He stopped short where he stood: he had resumed the care of her parasol, her fan, and purse.
Her face, as she took in his exposition of his plan for the regeneration of a decayed nobility, was inscrutable. Instead of exclaiming, she stopped to speak a moment to some people who passed, shook hands with the owner of the favorite, and when they were once again alone said to her friend:
"Isn't it too delightful! the whole scene? I mean to say, how perfectly they do it all. How thoroughly gay it is, how debonnair, graceful, andbien compris. Look at the wonderful color of thepesage, and the life of the whole thing! These Latin most thoroughly understand the art of living. You scarcely ever see a care-worn face in France. Look at Jack now! Did you ever see such anxiety as he represents? If Bon Jour is beaten I don't knowwhatwill become of him. What shall I do with him?"
Bulstrode's interest on this subject was tepid.
"Oh, he'll be all right!" he said indifferently. "Take him to the Dublin Horse Fair."
And then as though she had not capriciously left the other topic, Mrs. Falconer asked:
"Just whatisyour plan for Molly and her Marquis? May I not know?"
And Bulstrode who had never in any way thought out a plan or scheduled a scheme for the wise distribution of the good he intended to do, educated now, so he fondly hoped, by his failures, wiser, he was proud to believe, by several sharp lessons—with no little confidence and something of pride, said to his companion:
"I have a ranch out West, you know; a little property I took for a bad debt once. It has turned out to be a great and good piece of luck. That time I was fortunate—" (his tone, was congratulatory and Mrs. Falconer smiled prettily). "I now need a second overseer again—a man of brains, good temper, and physical endurance, who can keep accounts. Experience isn't at all necessary. There's my Englishman there, my Christmas tramp, you recall; he'll show De Presle-Vaulx his duties. It's a good enough berth for any determined chap who has his way to make and an ideal to work for. I purpose to send this Frenchman out on a salary and to see what stuff he's made of. After a year or two, with good sense and push, he will be in a position to ask any girl to be his wife. I'll raise his salary, and if Molly is the girl I take her for, she will help him there."
"And his family, Jimmy?"
"Damn his family!" risked the aroused Bulstrode.
Mrs. Falconer laughed.
"Really! It is casual of you! but you don't know them and can't! But they can quite spoil the whole thing as far as Molly is concerned. His tradition and race, his home and all it means to him—why you can't roughly run against all the old conventions like that, my dear man!"
"Well," said the ruthless gentleman, "then he can go and feed on their charity, can take to his flesh-pots and give up the girl. She is far too good for any foreign fortune-hunter anyway. You spoil a man, all of you. You'd prefer a disreputable roué to a cowboy with money in his pocket and a heart."
"Would it then prove to you De Presle-Vaulx's heart if he threw over his family and went West?"
"Yes," said the other quickly. "It would prove he loves the girl."
"You forget his mother."
Bulstrode fumed.
"I have not the honor to forget her; I don't know the Marquise de Presle-Vaulx."
"I do," interrupted his friend. "She is a charming, gentle old dear; narrow, if you call it so, clear-headed and delightful. She adores her only son, and thinks quite properly that his name, his estates, beautiful if mortgaged, are a fair exchange for an Americandot. Maurice de Presle-Vaulx, after all, does not go poverty-stricken to the woman he marries. There are not so many ways to live after one is twenty-five, and to uproot this scion of an old race, to exact such a sacrifice——"
"It would make a man of him."
"He is one already. There are all kinds, I need not tell you so."
"He is head over heels in debt."
Mrs. Falconer laughed again.
"We make him out an acrobat between us."
"He gambles on borrowed money."
"You mean that you have forced him to borrow from you? He will pay what he owes, I am sure of him."
Bulstrode wheeled and scrutinized her, and said with the natural asperity of a man who is bored by a woman's too generous championship of another man:
"You stand for him warmly."
Mrs. Falconer, reading him, said quickly:
"Oh, I know him thoroughly! He has the faults of his race, but as an individual he is the right sort."
With their pretty habit, her cheeks had grown red in the course of the discussion.
"Please give me my parasol; it's awfully hot here."
He opened it for her and she held its rosy lining against the sun.
Mr. Falconer, who from the rail had been observing, through the haze formed by countless cocktails, the figure of his wife in her white dress, as well as the figure of her faithful squire, here came swaggering up to them both. He was never jealous, but Mr. Bulstrode's uniform courtesy and attention to the woman neglected by her husband often piqued him to attention. As he drew near, Mrs. Falconer asked quickly:
"And the Marquis, Jimmy? What do you suppose he will say to your Wild West scheme?"
Bulstrode smiled.
"Oh, you women understand us even when we are stupid mysteries to ourselves! Tell me, how will he take this?"
"He will refuse." The lady was quick in her decision. "He cannot in consistence do otherwise. He will consider your plan provincial and Yankee, and he will consider, what you ignore, that it will kill his mother. If he cannot marry Molly with the family consent in proper French fashion he will naturally give her up. But first of all, my dear Jimmy, he will putyouin your place!"
Bulstrode cast a fatherly glance to where the young people sat talking together: the Marquis in gray clothes of the latest London make, a white rose in his button-hole, and monocle in his eye, a figure more unlike the traditional cowboy one could scarcely conceive.
"Your taste is good, ma chere amie," his voice was delighted. "Your instinct as a connoisseur is faultless; but you are not quite sure of yourobjet d'artthis time." He nodded kindly at the Parisian—"He's all right! he's a true sport, a lover and a man. De Presle-Vaulx knows my Wild West scheme and has accepted."