"'Ah, Moon of my Delight, that knows no wane,The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again'"—
"'Ah, Moon of my Delight, that knows no wane,The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again'"—
Andrew Vane had played an accompaniment to that a hundred times, in her aunt's big shore house at Beverly.
On the following Thursday morning, the bell of St. Germain-des-Prés was striking the hour of eleven when Monsieur Jules Vicot opened his eyes, instantly closed them again, and groaned. It was the hour which he disliked more than any other of the twenty-four, this of awakening, and from day to day it did not differ in essential details. The weather might be hot or cold, fair or foul, wet or dry—that was one thing and not important. Whatwasimportant—what, in the estimation of Monsieur Vicot, distinguished this hour so unenviably from its fellows, was the variety of distressing physical symptoms which, in his own person, inevitably accompanied it. They were symptoms long familiar to Monsieur Vicot—a feeling under his eyelids which appeared to indicate the presence of coarse sand; a throbbing of the heart which seemed, inexplicably, to be taking place in his throat; a dull pain at his temples and back of his ears which prompted him to hold his head sedulously balanced, lest a sudden movement to right or left occasion an acuter pang; finally, ataste on his tongue which suggested a commingling of fur, blotting-paper, and raw quinces.
Presently Monsieur Vicot opened his eyes once more and fixed them upon the window, from which, from his position, nothing was visible save sky of an intense blue. Against this background a number of small reddish-brown blotches swam slowly to and fro, and among these tiny whorls of a light gray colour expanded and contracted with inconceivable rapidity. At one time these symptoms had caused him peculiar uneasiness. Now he ignored them. They were less disturbing to his equanimity than the remarkable twitching of his fingers. For two years he had made a point of keeping his hands in the side pockets of his jacket, save when he found it absolutely necessary to use them. He no longer made gestures. They are desirable as aids to expression, but only when steady.
The majority of men, in waking, apply themselves to consideration of the day which lies before them. It was Monsieur Jules Vicot's custom, on the contrary, to undertake a mental review of the night which lay behind. The review was not always complete. Often there were gaps, and, more frequently, he found himself completely at a loss to account for his return to his room on thecinquièmeof 70, Rue St. Benoit, and the indisputable fact that he was in bed, with his clothes reposing, with something not unrelated to order, on the solitary chair.
Now, as he surveyed it, he assured himself for the thousandth time that it was not a cheerful room. Abundant sunlight, the recompense of Nature for six flights of stairs, was its sole redeeming virtue. For the rest, everything belonging to Monsieur Vicot was applied to some use entirely foreign to the original purpose for which it had been designed. An ink-stand served him as a candlestick, his chair was at once table and clothes-rack, a ramshackle sofa played therôleof bed, and a frouzy plush table-cover was his rug. An astonishing accumulation of cigarette-ends and empty bottles suggested slovenliness in the occupant. On the contrary, they stood for his economical instincts. It is not every one who knows that twenty cigarette-ends make a pipe-ful of tobacco, and that as many empty brandy-flasks may be exchanged for a full half-pint, but the knowledge, if rare, is useful.
"It is a pig-pen," said Monsieur Jules Vicot to himself, "and very appropriate at that!"
Then he set to work upon his matutinal review of the preceding night. His recollections were more than usually hazy. After a wretched dinner atLa Petite Chaise, rendered yet more unpalatable by the proprietor's unpleasant references to certain previous repasts, as yet unpaid, came a distinct hour or so of leaning on the parapet of the Quai d'Orléans, in dreamy contemplation of a man clipping a black poodle on the cobblestones below; then another period, of gradually lessening clearness, ina little wine-shop on the Rue de Beaune; then—nothing.
"Well, I was drunk," reflected Monsieur Vicot; but again manifested his dissimilarity from the majority of men by not committing himself in respect to his intentions for the future.
He arose with an air of languor, yawned, looked dubiously at one trembling hand, shook his head, and then surveyed himself in a triangular bit of looking-glass tacked against the wall.
Candour is oftentimes a depressing thing—particularly in a mirror. Monsieur Vicot's glass showed him a clean-shaven face almost devoid of colour; eyes, the blackness of which seemed to have soaked out, like water-colour through blotting-paper, into gray-blue circles on the lower lids; hair almost white; a thin nose with widely dilated nostrils; a tremulous mouth; and a weak, receding chin. It was a face which might have been handsome before becoming a document with the signatures of the seven cardinal vices written large upon it. Now it was evidence which even Monsieur Vicot could not ignore. He leered defiantly at it, mixed himself a stiff drink of cheap brandy and water, and forthwith applied himself to his toilet.
Seeing the result which he presently achieved, one perceived him to be a man of a certain ability under crushing limitations. With a broken comb, a well-worn brush, which he applied, with admirable impartiality, to both his hair and his coat, a morselof soap, and some cold water, Monsieur Vicot accomplished what was little short of a miracle; and when, a half-hour later, he emerged upon the Rue St. Benoit and turned toward the boulevard, his appearance was akin to respectability. Luck and his face were against him, but incidental obstacles he contrived to overcome.
He took amazagranand a roll at the Deux Magots, fortified himself with a package ofvertes, and swung aboard a passing tram. At one o'clock he was sauntering down the Rue de Villejust, with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly he stopped, looked intently for an instant at a certain window on a level with his eye, and then went on at a brisker gait. He had abruptly become cheerful, and that for no apparent reason. There is, commonly, nothing particularly enlivening in the aspect of a blue jar in an apartment window; yet that, and nothing else, was what had arrested the attention of Monsieur Jules Vicot, and brought the tune he was whistling to his lips.
Mr. Thomas Radwalader occupied arez de chausséeon the Rue de Villejust, which differed from the ordinary run of Paris apartments in that its doorway gave directly on the street, independent of theloge de concierge, and, what was more important, of theconciergesthemselves. Yet the latter held that Radwalader was a gentleman of becomingly regular habits. He kept one servant, abonneon the objectively safe side of fifty, who cooked and marketedfor him; maintained, throughout his quarters, a neatness which would have put the proverbial pin to shame; and, in general, ministered to his material well-being more competently than the average man-servant. That she was not likely to wear his clothes, use his razors, or pilfer his tobacco was half a bachelor's domestic problem solved at the very outset. On the debit side of the account, she pottered eternally, and was an ardent advocate of protracted conversation; but these tendencies Radwalader had managed, in the course of their five years of association, to temper to a considerable degree; so that now she was as near to perfection in her particular sphere as a mere mortal is apt to be. Her name was Eugénie Dufour, and in her opinion the entire system of mundane and material things revolved about the person of Thomas Radwalader.
In view of his avowed love of luxury, the latter's quarters were distinguished by severe, almost military, simplicity. Without exception, the rooms were carpeted, but there were no draperies either at doors or windows. Thesalon, of which the solitary window opened on the street, was Louis Seize in style, with straight-backed chairs, upholstered in dark-red brocade, a grand piano which had belonged to Radwalader's mother, and a large print of the period, simply framed, in the exact centre of each wall-panel. There were no ornaments, save a white Sèvres bust of Marie Antoinette on the mantel, two reading-lamps, and a few odds and ends ofsilver, ivory, and enamel, which had the guilty air of unavoidable gifts, rather than the easy assurance of chosenbibelots. Some books in old bindings, a stand of music, and a tea-table with its service—and that was all.
Separated from thissalonby double doors was what had formerly been a bedroom, but which now, for want of a better name, Radwalader calledLa Boîte. This was hissanctum sanctorum, wherein one might reasonably have looked to find the confusion dear to the happy estate of bachelorhood. But here again was evident, though in a lesser degree, the austerity which characterized thesalon. One naturally expected a litter of periodicals, pipes, and papers; but, on the contrary, the large table was almost clear, and the interior of the writing-desk, which stood open by the window, revealed only symmetrical piles of note-paper, envelopes, and blotters, and writing paraphernalia of the ordinary office variety. In the chimney-place was a brazier on a low tripod, and from this, each morning, the worthy Eugénie removed a quantity of ashes—ashes which had entered the room in the form of Radwalader's correspondence of the previous day. In one corner stood a small safe, and on top of this were boxes of cigars, and cigarettes of eight or ten varieties, but all arranged as methodically as the contents of the desk. The remaining wall-space was occupied by book-shelves, in which no single volume was an inch out of line.
The opinion of Radwalader'sconciergesas to the regularity of his habits was seemingly based on fact. Eugénie lived with her brother in the Chaussée d'Antin, and went to and fro every day, regardless of weather, on top of the Rue Taitbout-La Muette tram. With characteristic regularity and promptitude, she had never once failed, during the five years of her service, to awaken herpatronat eight o'clock. Radwalader invariably replied with a cheerful "Bien!" and five minutes later was splashing in his bath. His coffee was served at nine, his mornings, in general, spent inLa Boîte. He tookdéjeunerat one, and then went out, returning only to dress for dinner, which he rarely had at home. Midnight found him again inLa Boîte, bending over a book or some papers at his desk. Then only it was that the door of his safe stood open. In all this there was, assuredly, no evidence of aught but tastes so quiet as to savour of asceticism. But then Radwalader was a man who believed in a place for everything and everything in its place.
His visitors were few, save only on Thursday afternoons, when he was known to be at home. Then a dozen or so of men lounged in hissalon, which was reinforced for the occasion by chairs from the other rooms, and several little tables for whiskey and tobacco. Eugénie did not appear. They were served, when there was need of service, by a middle-aged man-servant with a furtive eye and a hand that trembled nervously when handling glasses and decanters; forwhich reason those of Radwalader's guests to whom the situation was most familiar preferred to help themselves. They reproached him, when more important topics were exhausted, with the apparent decrepitude of this retainer, whose name was Jules. But their host made it plain that he had good and sufficient reasons for employing him. He had grown up in his mother's family in Philadelphia, said Radwalader, first as page and then as butler. When the Radwalader millions went by the board, Jules had remained with the family through sheer loyalty, accepting but half the wages he had formerly earned. Once he had even saved Radwalader's life in the surf at Atlantic City. Later he had taken to drink, gone rapidly to pieces, and, at last, had been discharged as a hopeless case. They had given him a reference, for charity's sake, on the strength of which he had found a place as travelling valet; but once in Paris, his old weakness had returned, and so he had lost his position, and never chanced upon another. Then Radwalader had found him stranded, begging on the boulevards, and, for the sake of the old days, had given him clothes and money, and found him occasional employment, such as this Thursday service, by means of which he contrived to eke out a living, such as it was. At other times, when he was not drunk, he drove a cab for the Compagnie Urbaine. (This last, the most incongruous feature of Radwalader's explanation, was, curiously enough, the only one which had the slightest foundation in fact!)
"My best quality is gratitude," Radwalader concluded. "He saved my life; so I give him such of my clothes as become unfit for publication, and pay him five francs every Thursday for not being of the least assistance. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with him. It's a case of 'love me, love my dog.'"
And this, under its thin veneer of cynicism, was taken as an indication of a very admirable instinct on Radwalader's part, for which men admired him. They continued to make fun of Jules, but, after this defence of him, they nodded to him on entering, and spoke to him by name.
Andrew Vane joined the gathering in Radwalader's rooms on the Thursday following their Sunday at Auteuil. It was observable that, without exception, the guests were men who had done, or were going to do, something out of the ordinary. No one of them seemed to be in the present tense of achievement. They talked slowly, choosing their words with noticeable care, with an eye to their effect, and switching ever and anon in a new direction, as irresponsibly as a fly in mid-air. To Andrew the atmosphere was not only that of another city, but of another world. From art to literature, from literature to music, from music to the stage, the talk drifted, punctuated with names of men and things whereof he did not remember ever to have heard. Save for their air of having but just stepped out of a barber's chair, they were men of a general type familiar to him—well dressed, evenly poised. The scene might have been Bostonor New York, save for one thing: in all that was said, there was never the most remote hint of actual interest. The opinions were like those of more than usually brilliant schoolboys, putting into their own phraseology certain fundamental axioms. The speakers, with the sole exception of Radwalader, gave the impression of being unutterably tired, and of playing with words with the unique intent of passing the time. Your American has but little leisure for grammar, and less for eloquence, but in what he says there is always present the vivifying spark of vital and intimate concern. His theories are jewels in the rough, but one is conscious of the ceaseless clink-clink of the tool which is busily transforming them into fame and fortune. The men in Radwalader'ssalonwere toying with gems long since cut and polished, whose sole virtue lay in the new light caught by their facets, as the result of some unexpected turn. Radwalader himself went farther. He combined the confidence of the American in his future with that of the Frenchman in his past. Andrew had thought him cynical, but he gained by contrast with his companions. The others seemed merely to be giving thought to what they said, but he to be saying what he thought.
"I'm almost remorseful at having asked you to join us this afternoon," he began, when the introductions were over. "Whenever I see a man in a strange crowd, it reminds me of society's phrase at parting—'I've enjoyedmyselfimmensely!' It has the distinctionof being the only polite remark which has any claim upon veracity. Usually, one hasn't enjoyed anything else! Of course, for the moment, you feel like a brook-trout in salt water. But it's a crowd that I think you'll like, when the grossly overestimated element of novelty wears off. Let me tell you, in a word, who they are, and what they stand for. That's De Boussac at the piano. He knows four major and two minor chords in every key of the gamut, and contrives to fashion, out of the six, an accompaniment for anything you may ask of him. Beside him, leaning over the music, is Lister. He's a would-be playwright, with a mother who has gained the nickname of the 'Jail-breaker,' because she never finishes a sentence. You'll meet her some day and be amused. To the left is Rafferty—who's popular because, just now, brogue happens to rhyme with vogue. Then, Clavercil. He thinks he's not understood, without realizing that his sole ground for dissatisfaction lies in the fact that he is. He's a fool, pure and simple, who inherited a fortune from his uncle—a bully old chap who never made a mistake in his life, and only the one I have mentioned, in his death. Next, Wisby—who paints things as they are not, and will be famous when the public gets educated down to him. The man helping himself to whiskey is Berrith. He wrote 'The Foibles of Fate' in the early '90's, and has been living ever since on the dregs of its success—a 'one-book author' with a vengeance. That's Ford, by the window, with the red hair. He's a crank onaerial navigation, and says his air-ship will be the solution of the problem. I've already christened it 'Eve,' with an eye to its share in another fall of man."
Radwalader lowered his voice.
"On your right is Barclay-Jones. Barclay was his mother's name, and when he came abroad he hyphenated it with his father's. The combination always reminds me of a rather stylish tug-boat with its towline attached to a scow on a mud-flat. The man listening to him is Gerald Kennedy, the singer. He hasn't advanced beyond the Tommy Tucker stage yet, but he's a good sort, an Englishman, a friend of Mrs. Carnby and of the Ratchetts. On my left are Norrich, Peake, and Pfeffer, in the order named. Pfeffer is the only married man in the crowd. He married in haste, and his leisure is employed to the full. He gets his pin-money from his wife, and a prick of the pin goes with every franc. Norrich is on the staff of the ParisHerald. Peake, like Clavercil, is simply the disbursing agent of an inherited fortune."
Radwalader paused, lighted a cigarette, and smiled at Andrew frankly.
"Finis!" he said. "Do you think me very uncharitable? I hope not. It seems so much better to get men's bad qualities out of the way and done with at the start, and then to find out their good points, one by one, in a succession of pleasant surprises. It's a crowd you'll like, when once you get the point of view. You've been used to poise, and at first youwon't like pose. But, after all, the difference lies only in the eye—a pun's only permissible when it tells the truth. We all pose over here. You will, yourself, if you stay long enough. It's as contagious as smallpox. And, by the way, I was talking with Peake about you only yesterday. He's going to the States next week, and wants to find some one to occupy his apartment while he's away. If you're not thinking of remaining at the Ritz, you couldn't do better than to take it. It's a charming little place, on the Rue Boissière, near the Place d'Iéna, perfectly furnished, and with a balcony and bath. Of course, the rent's no object to him. All he wants is some one to keep it aired and clean."
"It can't do any harm to ask him about it," said Andrew. "To tell you the truth, I've rather been thinking of doing something of the kind."
"No sooner said than done," agreed Radwalader, and, leaning forward across Norrich, he added: "I say, Peake, move up here, will you?
"I've been telling Vane about your apartment," he continued, as Peake drew close to them, dragging his chair by the arms, "and he seems to think he might like to have a look at it. He's over here for quite a time, you know, and he certainly couldn't be as comfortable anywhere else."
"I hope you'll take the place, Mr. Vane," said Peake. "I've always maintained that a man of my tastes had no business in the States; but it seems I have, after all. I think I told you, Radwalader—mylate, lamented Aunt Esther, you know. She threatened to leave me nothin' but her good will, and now she's popped off, saddlin' me with everythin' she had in the world."
"That's what she meant by her good will, probably," observed Radwalader.
"P'r'aps," said Peake, with a little nod. "But the c'lamity's just as great. She was a good-hearted creature, but she belonged to the black-walnut and marble-group period. Her sideboard weighed a ton, and she had wax flowers in her 'parlour.' And I'm to sellnothin', my good man! It's all to go to my wife! Why, the very thought's enough to keep any woman from marryin' me. Oh, my dear Radwalader, I mourn my find, I do indeed."
"But about the apartment?" suggested Radwalader.
"Oh! Well, all I can say, Mr. Vane, is that I'm sure you'll be comfortable. It's a modest box, at best; but it suits me, and will probably suit you. 'Man wants but little here below'—a bath, sunlight, a good bed, and cleanliness—that's all. You'll find 'em at my place. Radwalader'll get you avalet de chambre, no doubt. I'd throw mine in, if I hadn't already thrown him out. The wife of myconciergeis doin' for me till I go. I can't say more. Two hundred francs a month. I'll be back by the first of August—I can't miss Trouville, you know, Radwalader—and the chances are I'll have to evict you, Mr. Vane. I knowIwouldn't leave thatapartment except at the business end of a pitch-fork!"
"It sounds like the very thing I want," said Andrew, with a smile at the other's eloquence.
"And there's actually some prospect of your getting it," drawled Radwalader. "What an exceptional animal you are, Vane!"
"Come 'round to-morrow mornin' to breakfast, both of you," said Peake. "Then you can have a look over the place, Mr. Vane, and judge for yourself. If you like it, we'll clinch a bargain on the spot."
"Very well," agreed Andrew. "Shall I stop for you, Mr. Radwalader?"
"By all means. About twelve."
"Thenthat'ssettled!" observed Peake, with an air of profound satisfaction. "I positively must have a whiskey, Radwalader. I'm quite exhausted. I haven't talked so much business in a year."
For an hour the conversation was general, and presently thereafter Radwalader was alone. For a time he stood by thesalontable, idly fingering a paper-cutter and scowling. Then he stepped noiselessly to the door, listened briefly but intently, and abruptly flung it open and looked out into theantichambre.
"Not this time!" observed Jules laconically, from the dining-room beyond, where he was languidly polishing wine-glasses.
"I'm glad to see you profit by experience," retorted Radwalader. "Come here."
The faithful servitor came slowly across the hallway, glanced about the emptysalon, helped himself liberally from the whiskey decanter, swallowed the raw spirit at a gulp, and flung himself heavily into a chair.
"Fire away!" he remarked. "I hope it's something worth while. I don't mind saying I'm hard up."
"I've passed the window every day for a week," continued Monsieur Jules Vicot, "because I hardly thought you were in earnest in your threat to throw me over, and when I saw the jar there again, this morning, I found I was quite right. You'd thought better of it—eh? You wanted to see me. It's just as well, perhaps—for both of us."
There was a suggestion of defiance in his tone which contrasted curiously with the tremor of his hand, as he lit a cigarette.
"I might have taken the liberty of calling on one of your Thursdays, without any summons," he added, as Radwalader made no reply. As he spoke, he glanced up, met the other's steady eyes, and immediately looked away again.
"It doesn't do to push a partner too far," he concluded, with the hint of a whine.
There was a long pause, which was evidently extremely disconcerting to Monsieur Vicot. He removed his cigarette from his lips several times, and as often replaced it, his hand trembling violently. Radwalader never took his eyes from him, but sat,smiling slightly, with his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, and his hand raised and open. There was not a quiver in his fingers, a fact which was duly noted, as it was intended to be, by his companion.
"Have you lost your tongue?" demanded the latter presently, with manifest irritation.
"Oh, by no means, my excellent Jules," answered Radwalader, easily. "I was simply reflecting how I might submit a few facts for your consideration in a manner which would render a repetition of the communication unnecessary. There seems to be some misunderstanding. I think I'm not slow to appreciate another's meaning. I make bold to suppose that you desire to intimidate me?"
Monsieur Vicot fidgeted uneasily, discarded his cigarette, lit another, shrugged his shoulders, and gripped the arms of his chair.
"I think it's time we understood each other," resumed Radwalader, still smiling. "It's long since we spoke of certain things—trivialities, maybe, such as forgery, theft, and blackmail—"
"As to blackmail—" put in the other, with an attempt at bravado.
"Exactly," agreed Radwalader. "You're about to say that we're in the same boat. So we are, but not—to quote the old epigram—but not with the same skulls. I'm not a fool, my good Jules. You are. I walk in the bed of running streams, you in fresh-fallen snow. The inference is plain. My hold upon you is in black and white, and deposited, as youknow, in my safe-deposit vault at the bank. It's as comforting as an insurance policy. In case of my sudden disappearance—"
"Oh, chuck it!" said Vicot.
"Whereas your hold upon me," swerved off Radwalader pleasantly, "also as you know, is as substantial as the cigarette-ash you've just flicked upon my carpet."
"Chuck that, too," put in Vicot, sullenly. "What's the use of all this talk? You've the whip-hand, Radwalader, and you know it."
"Then remember it, by God!" exclaimed the other. His assumption of smiling pleasantly was gone like a wisp of smoke. He had risen suddenly, and, with his fist clenched on the table-edge, was leaning over his companion as if he would crush him by the very force of his personality. His steel-blue eyes had hardened, and at the corners of his lips hovered a sneering smirk which suggested a panther.
"Then remember it," he reiterated, "and remember it for all time! What I say, I say once. After that—I act. You snivelling drunkard! You wretched, nerve-racked lump of bluff!Youthreatenme? Did you suppose I'd forgotten that I could have sent you to the galleys five years ago, just because I haven't mentioned the fact since then? Do you imagine I can't send you there now? Do you think I'd hesitate for a wink about throwing you overboard, body and soul, if I didn't find you useful? Do you fancy I'mafraidof you? God! What a maggot it is!Look at those hands, you whelp! I've seen you grovel, and I've heard you whine, and what a man will do once he'll do again under like conditions. It's too late for you to pit your will against mine, my friend! You gave yourself away five years ago, when first I put on the thumbscrews, and I know at just which turn of them you're going to whimper again!"
To all appearance, the white heat of Radwalader's passion was gone as suddenly as it had come. With the last words, his face resumed its normal expression of placidity, and, before he continued, he began to pace slowly up and down the room, with his thumbs in the pockets of his trousers. Vicot had made no motion, save, at the other's contemptuous reference to his hands, to fold his arms. Now he sank a little farther into his chair, and, under lowered lids, his eyes slid to and fro, following his companion's march.
"If you didn't understand the situation before," resumed Radwalader, "it's probable that you do now. As it happens, I don't fear God, man, or devil; but even if I were as timid as a rabbit, I wouldn't fearyou! You're a convenience, that's all—an instrument to do that part of my work which is a trifle too dirty for a gentleman's hands. So long as you do it to my satisfaction, I see fit to pay you, and pay you well; and you're free to drink like the swine you are, and go to the devil your own way. But the indispensable man doesn't exist, my good Jules, and the moment you kick over the traces, out you go! I discardedyou last month because I don't like people who listen at doors, even if I'm not fool enough to give them an opportunity of hearing anything. If I've chosen to call for you again, it's simply that I've work for you, and assuredly not because I'm in any fear of consequences. Pray get that into your head as speedily, and keep it there as long, as possible. There are plenty of others to take your place. As for partners, you're as much mine as the coyote is the wolf's, and no more. So you've said enough onthatpoint."
"What's the job?" put in Vicot, as the other paused.
"If you haven't forgotten certain things in the past few weeks, you know what it means when I sit close to one man and talk only to him whenever you're in the room."
"Never to forget his face," answered Vicot, as if responding to a question in the catechism. "Is it another game of shadow?"
"To an extent, yes. But it will be more in the open than usual. You won't have to skulk. Do you think you can accustom yourself to the change?"
"Get on!" said Vicot impatiently. "I suppose it's the young chap?"
"Yes. He's to take Remson Peake's apartment, in all probability—or some other. And you, my excellent Jules, are to be hisvalet de chambre."
"Humph!" commented the other, without any evidence of surprise. "And the pay?"
"What's usual from him, I suppose," said Radwalader, "and from me double."
"Say three hundred francs a month, all told?"
"About that."
Radwalader seated himself again, and, leaning forward, continued more earnestly, making a little church and steeple of his linked fingers.
"First, visitors—their names, or, if not that, their appearance, as accurately as possible. Next, letters—both incoming and outgoing—particularly the latter. Steam them, and take copies whenever it seems best. Keep an eye especially on anything relating to—well, to women in general. If any come to the apartment, make good use of your remarkable faculty for eavesdropping, which was so lamentably misapplied here. Keep your hands off his tobacco and wine. Be respectful. Get him to talk as much as possible, and remember what he says. Stay sober—if you can. And report to me immediately if anything important turns up."
"When do I begin?"
"I can't tell. In a few days, probably. I'll let you know."
Vicot rose slowly.
"What a blackguard you are, Radwalader!" he said, almost admiringly.
"That's not the greatest compliment I've known you to pay me," drawled Radwalader. "Imitation is the sincerest flattery."
The other poured himself another half-glass ofwhiskey, set it on the table-edge, and stood looking down at it.
"And I was once a gentleman!" he said.
"Oh, don't get maudlin," answered Radwalader. "We were all of us something unprofitable once. The main fact, by your own confession, is that, as a gentleman, you couldn't make enough to keep body and soul together; and that, as a scalawag, you can turn over three hundred francs a month. The world is full of gentlemen. They're a drug on the market. But accomplished scoundrels are rare, my good Vicot."
"You'll have a deal to answer for one of these days, Radwalader."
Radwalader shrugged his shoulders.
"One never has to answer so long as there are no questions asked," he said flippantly. "You'd better take your tipple and go home. Preaching doesn't become you in the least degree."
"I want to know," said Vicot slowly, taking up his glass, "what you mean to do. I've pulled many a chestnut out of the fire for you, Radwalader, and if I haven't burned my fingers in doing it, I've soiled them enough, God knows. You haven't any scruple about calling me names, and I take your insults because I'd starve to death if I didn't. But I've a conscience, and it cuts me, now and again."
"Bank-notes make good court-plaster," observed Radwalader.
"Yes, but there are some things which I've done that I won't do again. I don't want to be mixed upin another affair like that of young Baxter. Do you ever think of that morning at the Morgue?"
"I wasn't made to look backward," said Radwalader. "Providence put my eyes in the front of my head, and I know how to take a hint."
"Well,Ithink of it—often," said Vicot, with something like a shudder. "He repaid me in my own coin, that boy. If I shadowed him in his life, he shadows me in his death. Even brandy doesn't blot him out of my mind. When I shut my eyes at night, I can see him, sitting in that ghastly chair, with his face, all purple, looking through the cloudy glass—as truly murdered by us who stood looking at him, as if we had pitched him into the lake at Auteuil with our own hands!"
"Oh, rot!" exclaimed Radwalader. "You know what that means, don't you? Other men see centipedes and blue rats: you see Baxter, that's all. Cut off the liquor, and you won't know there ever was such a thing as a Morgue. Baxter was a silly ass. He tried to do things with ten thousand francs that a sane man wouldn't attempt with a hundred. I let him go his pace, and I was as surprised as the next chap when I found how short his rope was. I held his notes for double the amount he had in the beginning. Did I come down on his family for them, after he chose the easiest way of evading payment? Not a bit of it. I burned them."
"Policy," commented Vicot briefly.
"Is the best honesty," supplemented Radwalader.
"He was daft on baccarat, and if he had to lose, why not to me as well as another? And a man who drowns himself for ten thousand francs isn't worth considering."
He crossed to the piano, and, seating himself, let his fingers stray up and down the keyboard through a maze of curiously intermingling minor chords. Then he began to hum softly, looking up, with his eyes half-closed, as if trying to recall the words. After a moment, he struck a final note, low in the bass, and, with his foot on the pedal, listened until the sound died down to silence.
"I want to know what you mean to do," reiterated Vicot obstinately.
"Well, you won't, and that's flat. The job is for you to take or leave, as you see fit. Only I want yes or no, and, after that, no more talk. I'm a hard man to make angry, but you've done it once to-day, and that's once too often for your good. Why, what are you thinking of, man? You've known me for five years. Did you ever see me hesitate or back down? Did you ever find a screw loose in my work, or so much as a scrap of paper to incriminate me? Did you ever know me to leave a footprint in the mud we've been through together—or let you leave one either, for that matter? A man like you would land in Mazas inside of a week, if he tinkered with business like mine, without a head like mine to guide him! Look here. You've been useful to me, Vicot, and, though you've been paid enough to make us quits,I'm not ungrateful to you in my own way. Continue to stick by me and I'll stick by you. Throw it all over, if you will, and you can go your way, with a handsome present to boot. But let me hear any more of such drivel as you've given me to-day, and, as God lives, my man, I'll smooch you off the face of the earth, as I'd smooch a green caterpillar off a page of my book! You'd be a smear of slime, my friend, and nothing more—and I'd turn the page, and go on reading!"
Radwalader had not raised his tone, as on the former occasion, or even risen, but his voice rasped the silence of thesalonlike a diamond on thin glass.
"Is it yes, or no?" he added.
Vicot swallowed the spirit in his glass, and looked across at him with his eyes watering and blinking.
"You know which," he said.
"Say it!"
"It's yes," said Vicot sulkily; "but if I wasn't the cur I am, I'd tell you to go to hell—you and all your works!"
Radwalader closed the piano gently.
"If it affords you any satisfaction to hear it," he answered, rising with a yawn, "I think it likely that the injunction is entirely superfluous. We sha'n't gain anything by prolonging this interview. It's four minutes to six, and I must dress for dinner. When I want you, I'll stick the blue jar in the window. Meanwhile, here's fifty francs on account. I'll get Mr. Vane to pay you in advance."
Vicot stood silent for a moment, the bill crackling as he folded it between his trembling fingers.
"Is that his name?" he asked.
"That's his name.Au revoir."
And Radwalader went to the window, flung it open, and drew a deep breath of the soft, spring-evening air. A girl was selling violets on the corner, and he beckoned to her, and bought a bunch of Palmas, leaning down from the sill to take them. Plunging his face into the fragrant purple mass, he dropped a two-franc piece into her hand with a gesture which bade her keep the coin.
"Comme monsieur est bon!" said the girl, smiling up at him.
Only one other figure was in sight, that of Monsieur Jules Vicot, with his head bent, and his hands in his pockets, turning, at a snail's pace, into the Avenue Victor Hugo. From him Radwalader's eyes came back to the face of the flower-girl.
"You were just in time," he said, with his nose among the violets. "The air was getting a little close."
Then he shut the window, leaving her looking up, smiling, and wrinkling her forehead at the same time, and went back into his bedroom, whistling "Au Clair de la Lune."
The following week found Andrew fairly installeden garçon, with a man-servant, recommended by Radwalader, presiding over his boots and apparel, and a fat apple-cheekedconciergepreparing his favourite dishes in a fashion which suggested that all former cooks of his experience had been the veriest tyros. It had taken but a week at the Ritz to disgust him with the elaborate pomposity of life at a fashionable hotel, and, in its unpretentious way, Remson Peake's apartment was a gem. A tiled bath, with a porcelain tub; a bedchamber in white and sage-green, with charmingly odd, splay-footed furniture of the Glasgow school; a severely simple dining-room, with curtains and upholstery of heavy crimson damask; a study with furniture ofmarqueteriemahoghany, a huge divan, and a club-fender upon which to cock one's feet; a pantry and a kitchen like a doll's—it was complete, inviting, and equipped in every detail. For Andrew it had a very special charm. His whole life had been, to a great extent, subordinate to the presence and personality of his grandfather. Even college had not brought him the usual accompanimentof rooms at Claverly or Beck, for—and it was to his credit—he had never so much as suggested leaving Mr. Sterling alone in the big house on Beacon Hill. But even an influence as kindly as this gentle, indulgent old man's may irk. Now, for the first time, Andrew found himself the practical master of his movements. And Remson Peake's apartment had the rare, almost unique, quality of disarming criticism. One had no suggestions to make. One would—given the opportunity—have done the same in every particular.
And so, the faint qualms of homesickness having worn off in the course of his initial fortnight in the capital, Andrew found himself supremely contented, and discovered a new charm in life at every turn. Radwalader was the essence of courtesy and consideration, invariable in his good humour, tireless in his efforts to amuse and entertain the youngprotégéof his good friend Mrs. Carnby. Paris, he told Andrew, was like a box of delicatepastilles, each of which should be allowed to melt slowly on the tongue: it disagreed with those who attempted to swallow the whole box of its attractions at a gulp. So they went about Andrew's sight-seeing in a leisurely manner, taking the Louvre and the Luxembourg by half-hours, and sandwiching in a church, a monument, or a celebrated street, on the way; for it was another theory of Radwalader's that a franc found on the pavement, or in the pocket of a discarded waistcoat, is more gratifying than fifty deliberately earned.
"It's the things you happen on which you will enjoy," he said, "not those you go to work to find, by taking a tram or walking a mile. Unpremeditated discoveries, like unpremeditated dissipations, are always the most successful. There's nothing so flat as a plan."
As was to be expected, Mrs. Carnby was not able to monopolize Andrew. Mrs. Ratchett took him into her good graces, and, as was usual with her where men were concerned, contrived to make him think of her between his calls. And there were many others—women characteristic of the American Colony, whose husbands were never served up except with dinner. It was as Mrs. Carnby told him:
"If a bachelor has manners, discretion, and presentable evening dress, he need never pay for a dinner in Paris, so long as the Colony knows of his existence. And remember this. Nothing is dearer to a woman's heart than a man at five o'clock. She will excuse anything, if you'll give her a chance to remember how many lumps you take and whether it's cream or lemon. Attend to your teas, my young friend, and you can do just about as you like about yourp's andq's!"
Madame Palffy, too, seeking whom she might entertain (which, in her case, was equivalent to devouring), collected young men as geologists collect specimens of minerals. The analogy was strengthened by her predilection for chipping off portions—the darker portions—of their characters, and handing thesearound for the edification of her friends. She cultivated Andrew assiduously, though it was not for this reason that he dropped in so frequently at tea-time. Margery, with her clean-cut beauty, appealed to him in a very special sense. They had in common many memories of the free, open-air, sane, and wind-blown life of the North Shore; and now, when they idled through portions of "The Persian Garden," which had been the fad at Beverly, it was by way of getting a whiff of sea air, and an echo of the laughter that had been.
Often he found himself looking at her admiringly. She had the knack of satisfying one's sense of what ought to be. Her dress was almost always of a studied simplicity which depended for its effect entirely upon colour and fit, and could have been bettered in neither. Not the least factor in her striking beauty was its purity, its freedom from the smallest suggestion of artificiality. She was singularly alive, admirably clear-eyed and strong, and in her fresh propriety there was always a challenge to the open air and the full light of day. She had, even in the ballroom, an indefinable hint of out-of-doors. The contrast between her personality and that of Parisian women—of Mirabelle Tremonceau, for example—was the contrast between the clean, dull linen of a New England housekeeper and the dainty shams of an exhibition bedroom; between a physician's hands and a manicure's; between the keen, salt air of the North Shore and that of a tropical island. Herfemininity impressed where that of others merely charmed. The majority of women are pink: Margery Palffy was a soft, clear cream.
Nevertheless, Andrew seemed to feel, rather than to see, a subtle alteration in her. A few months had given her a new reserve, almost an attitude of distrust, which puzzled and eluded him. Their talks at Beverly had been different from these. There, they had spoken much of the future, of what they hoped and believed: here they skirted, instead of boldly boarding, serious topics, and were fallen unconsciously, but immediately, into the habit of chaffing each other over meaningless trifles. He was baffled and disconcerted by the change. There was much which he had come to say. He had rehearsed it all many times, and remembering the charming lack of constraint which had characterized all their former intercourse, to say it had seemed comparatively easy. But now he was like a man who has been recalling his fluent renderings, at school or college, of the classic texts, but, suddenly confronted with the same passages, cannot translate a word.
Again, the presence of her family depressed him with something of her own visible distress, humiliated him with something of her own evident shame. There was no such thing as making allowances for either Monsieur or Madame Palffy. From the moment of one's first glimpse of them, they were hopelessly and irretrievably impossible. Not that they had the faintest suspicion of this. They were supremelyself-satisfied, and moved massively through life with a firm conviction that they fulfilled all requirements. Madame, with her frightful French, was as complacent in a conversation with a duchess of the Faubourg as was Monsieur, with his feeble and flatulent observations upon subjects of which he had no knowledge, in a company of after-dinner smokers. It was impossible to exaggerate their preternatural idiocy. A bale of cotton, suddenly introduced into polite society, could have manifested no more stupendous lack of resource than they. It was only when tempted with the bait of gossip—most probably untrue—that they rose heavily to the surface of the conversation instead of floundering in its depths. Half the Colony detested them, all of the Colony laughed at them, and none of the Colony believed them. In short—they were Monsieur and Madame Palffy. There was no more to be said.
Had Margery been farther from him, curiously enough she would have been far more readily approached in the manner which Andrew had planned. He was far from comprehending that it was her vital and intimate interest in him which showed her that he would note all the defects of the deplorable frame wherein he thus found her placed. The very fact that they had known each other under different and happier conditions forced her to assume the defensive now that other circumstances were patent to his eyes. She was intensely proud. There must be no chance for him to pity her. So, she assumed agaiety which she was far from feeling, and sought in the by-ways of banter a refuge from the broader and more open road of surrender. On her side and on his it was a more mature case of the painful embarrassment incidental to the early stages of a children's party. They had played unrestrainedly together, as it were, but now, in the artificial light of a society strange to both of them, were stricken dumb.
From the strain of this baffling position Andrew sought relief in the company of Mirabelle Tremonceau. Here was no constraint, no unuttered solemnities to come up choking into the throat. She was very beautiful, very inconsequent, very gay; but the same lightinsouciancewhich in Margery distressed and humiliated him, because of the unsounded deeps which lay below, attracted and amused him in Mirabelle, by simple reason of its essential shallowness. She was altogether different from any woman he had ever known, but her novelty meant no more to him than a part of that charmingly sparkling and intoxicating wine of Paris of which he was learning to take deep draughts. Never for an instant did it alter the strength of the original purpose which had brought him from America, but it went far toward lessening the keen disappointment which Margery's apparent disregard of that purpose caused him. In the latter's presence he was exquisitely sensitive to the possible significance of every word. He thought too much, and the sombre current of these reflections too often darkened the surface of conversation, turned her uneasyand unnatural, and sent him away in a fit of the blues. With Mirabelle, on the contrary, he never thought at all. Since he had nothing to ask of her beyond what she had already granted him—the privilege of her friendship and the fascination of her presence—he enjoyed these to the full. It was his consuming desire for another and more tender relation with Margery that caused him to be blind to the promise of that which existed—almost to despise it.
Minutes grew into hours with unbelievable celerity in the company of Mirabelle Tremonceau. With something akin to intuition, all unsuspecting as he was, he said nothing of her to Mrs. Carnby, to Margery, or even to Radwalader. At the first, there was but one who could have told him whither he was tending—but Thomas Radwalader had all-sufficient reasons for holding his tongue. Yet, back of his slight infatuation, there lay in Andrew's mind a little sense of guilt. He could not have laid finger upon the quality of his indiscretion, but he felt indefinitely that all was not right. He recognized, or seemed to recognize, in Mirabelle a fruit forbidden, but told himself that it was a passing episode. He was confident that the way would yet lie open for the attainment of his heart's desire, and meanwhile he would amuse himself and say nothing. Your ostrich, with his silly head buried in the sand, is not the only creature that fatuously underestimates both its own desirability and the perspicacity of those interested in its movements. Twice, in the afternoon,Andrew had driven with Mirabelle in the Allée des Acacias. She gave him the seat at her right, and people turned to look at the passing victoria, as they had turned and looked on the afternoon when she took his arm at the gate of Auteuil.
But better than driving was the time passed, daily, in her apartment on the Avenue Henri Martin. It was on the fifth floor, running the whole width of the house, and with a broad balcony looking down upon the rows of trees below. A corner of this balcony was enclosed by gay awnings, and made garden-like by azaleas and potted palms. Mademoiselle Tremonceau had a great lounging chair, and a table for books andbon-bons, and Andrew sprawled at her feet, on red cushions, with his back against the balcony rail, his hands linked behind his head, and his long legs stretched out upon a Persian rug. All this was the most unexpected feature of his new life, and hence the most attractive. It was as far as possible removed from a suggestion of metropolitan existence. May was already upon them, and the air above the wide and shaded avenue was indescribably soft and sweet. The roar of the city mounted to their high coign only in a subdued murmur, as of the sea at a distance. Birds came and went, twittering on the cornice above their heads. The sun soaked through Andrew's serge and linen, and sent pleasurable little thrills of warmth through the muscles of his broad back. A faint perfume came to him from the roses on the table. A delicious, indefinablelanguor hung upon his surroundings. He was vaguely reminded of afternoons at Newport and Nahant—afternoons when everything smelt of new white flannel, warm leaves, and the fox-terrier blinking and quivering on his knee—when the only sounds were the whine of insects in the vines, the rasping snore of locusts in the nearest trees, and the snarl of passing carriage-wheels on a Macadam driveway. He could close his eyes and remember it all, and know that what had been, was good. He could open them, and feel that what was, was better!
As is always the case, when sympathy is pregnant with prophecy, Andrew's acquaintance with Mirabelle Tremonceau had grown into friendship before he realized the change. At first he had made excuses for the frequency of his calls; but at the end of three weeks the daily visit had come, in his eyes as well as hers, to be a matter of course.
So it was that three o'clock would find him upon her balcony, or in a cushioned corner of her divan; and whereas, at the outset, he had been but one of several men present, he discovered of a sudden not only that for four days had he found her alone at the accustomed hour, but that she refused herself to other callers when themaître d'hôtelbrought in their cards. He was not insensible to the compliment, but it was one he had experienced before.
That afternoon, themaître d'hôtelhad not even taken his name, but ushered him directly through thesalonto the Venetian blind at the window, andlifted this to let him pass out upon the balcony. Mademoiselle Tremonceau was in her great chair, with a yellow-covered novel perched, tent-like, upon her knee. She smiled as he came out, and gave him her hand. Andrew bent over and kissed it, before taking his seat. It was a trick of the Frenchmen he had met at Mrs. Carnby's—one of the things which are courtesies in Paris, and impertinence elsewhere. The girl's hand lay for an instant against his lips. It was as soft as satin, and smelt faintly of orris, and her fingers closed on his with a little friendly pressure.
"You were expecting me?" he asked, as he dropped upon the cushions beside her.
"I'd given you up," she answered. "It's ten minutes past three."
"Am I as regular as that?" he laughed. "I was lunching at my friend Mrs. Carnby's, and we didn't get up from table till long after two. I came directly over."
Mirabelle looked away across the house-tops with a little frown.
"What is it?" asked Andrew. "Anything gone wrong?"
"Oh no! My thoughts wouldn't be a bargain at a penny. Tell me—have you seen Mr. Radwalader lately?"
"Last night. We went to the Français."
"You continue to like him?"
"I think we should never be intimate friends. Apart from the difference in our ages and opinions,there's something about him which I don't seem to get at—like shaking a gloved hand, if you know what I mean."
"Ye-es," said Mirabelle slowly. "It's odd you should have noticed that."
"But it's ungrateful of me to mention even that small objection," continued Andrew. "He's been the soul of kindness, and has shown me all over Paris, introduced me everywhere, and, in general, explained things. I've learned more in three weeks with him than I could have learned myself in a year. So, you see, I couldn't very well help liking him, even if I wanted to help it—which I don't. Why do you ask?"
For an instant Mirabelle's slender hand fluttered toward him with an odd little tentative gesture, and then went back to her cheek.
"I'm not sure," she answered. "Perhaps only for lack of anything else to say. People have told me that they disliked Mr. Radwalader—that they distrusted him."
"I suppose we're all of us disliked and distrusted—by somebody," said Andrew. "But, so far as I'm concerned, Radwalader's my friend. Perhaps you don't know me well enough yet to understand that that means a great deal."
"You're very loyal you mean?" suggested the girl.
"I hope so—yes. I have few friends; but those I have, I care for and respect and, if necessary, defend. They can't be talked against in my presence."
"I wonder," said Mirabelle slowly, "if I'm one of the happy few."
"Decidedly!" said Andrew heartily.
"Do you mean," she continued, "that you care for me as you care for these other friends, that you—that you respect me, and that you'd defend me—if necessary?"
"Decidedly, decidedly! I hope I've proved the first two, and I hope there'll never be any cause to prove the last. But if there is, you may count on me."
Mirabelle looked at him for a moment, and then leaned back and closed her eyes.
"Thank you," she said. "You don't know what that means to me."
"Why, how serious you are over it!" laughed Andrew. "Does it seem to you so very wonderful? To me it appears to be the most natural thing in the world."
"Ah, toyou, perhaps," answered Mirabelle. "But to me—yes, it does seemverywonderful. You see—I've never had it said to me before!"
May was close upon the heels of June before there came a change, but one afternoon, as Andrew paused in his playing, an atmosphere of new intimacy seemed to touch him. He had been alone with Margery for half an hour, and something in the music—or was it only fancy?—told him that her thoughts were occupied with him. She had greeted him with a little air of weariness—but not unfriendly—and, as he took her hand, she looked at him with some indefinite question in her eyes. The impression made by this gained on him as they talked, and, more strongly, as he played. Once or twice he was upon the point of turning abruptly and seeking the clue, but he had been so long perplexed, so long uncertain, that he hesitated still. If only she would give him an opening, if she would but come, as she had often come at Beverly, to lean above him, humming the words of some song into which he had unconsciously drifted, then had he had the courage to turn, to grip her hands, to ask her....
"I wonder if we would, even if we could," she said.
"What?" asked Andrew.
"How should you be expected to know? I've been a thousand miles away—thinking of Omar. I mean whether we would 'shatter it to bits, and then remould it nearer to the heart's desire.'"
Andrew swung round on the piano-stool, slowly chafing his palms together. He did not dare trust himself to look at her. For the first time since they had met in Paris, he caught an echo of the old life in her tone.
"I wonder if we could, even if we would," he answered. "I think so—perhaps. Whatever set you thinking about that?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Margery, with a short laugh. "Sometimes, in my own little way, I'm quite a philosopher! I was just thinking that if any of us were given the chance to change things—everything—shatter 'the sorry scheme of things' into bits, as Omar says—we should perhaps make an equally sorry bungle of the task of reconstruction. We're always saying 'If!' but when it actually came to the point, do you suppose we'd really want anything to be different?"
Again that singular, appealing query in her eyes. It was the old Margery at last, simple, serious, and candid. There was a responsive light in Andrew's face as he replied:
"Some things, no doubt. I don't think I could suggest a desirable change in you—except one. Will you let me tell you?"
Margery nodded.
"It's more of a restoration than a change," continued Andrew. "I'd like to see you, in every respect, precisely as you were at Beverly."
"And am I not? A little older, of course, and bound to be more dignified, as becomes a young woman in society; but for the rest, I'd be sorry to think you find a change in me."
Andrew wheeled back to the piano, and refingered a few chords.
"Now that you've seen the world," he said presently, "tell me what pleases you most in life."
And he faced her again, smiling.
"Motion!" replied Margery promptly. "I can't explain that, but I know it's so. Motion! I don't care what kind, just so long as it shows that the world is alive and happy. I love to see things run and leap—a man, or a horse, or a dog. I love the surf, the trees in a wind; all evidences of strength, of activity, of—well, oflifein every and any form. Not so much dancing. That always seems to me to be a forced, an artificial kind of movement, unless it'sverysmoothly done—and you know, almost every one hops! But I could watch swimming and driving and rowing for hours, and, for that matter, any outdoor sport—racing, football, lacrosse—anything which gives one the idea that men are glad to be alive!"
"How curious!" said Andrew.
"Curious? Why?"
"Because that's a man's point of view, not a girl's. I ask you what pleases you most in life, and I expectthat you're going to say music, or flowers, or the play. Instead, you cut out remorselessly everything which one naturally associates with a woman's way of amusing herself, and give me an answer which sounds as if it came from one of the lads at St. Paul's. That's the way they used to talk, exactly. It was all rush, vim, get-up-and-get-out, with them. If you know what I mean, they breathed so hard and talked so fast that it always seemed to me as if they'd just come in from running in a high wind."
"Yes," agreed Margery, with a nod. "I know. That's what I like. That's what I call the glad-to-be-alive atmosphere."
There fell a little silence. Andrew's fine eyes were tiptoeing from point to point of the big, over-furnishedsalonwith a kind of amazed disgust. He had not known that there were so many hideous things in the world. Madame Palffy worshipped at the twin altars of velvet and gilt paint. Much of what now encumbered the room and smote the eye had been picked up in Venice, at the time of her ponderous honeymoon with the apoplectic Palffy. That was twenty years before, when thecalleback of the Piazza were filled with those incalculable treasures of tapestry, carved wood, and ivory now in thepalazziof rich Venetians—if, indeed, they are not in Cluny. But the Palffys were as stupid as they were pompous. They moved heavily round and round the Piazza, and furnished their prospectivesalonout of the front windows of smirking charlatans. Theirreparable and damning results of their selection, as Andrew now surveyed them, had been modified—or, more exactly, exaggerated—by the subsequent purchases of two decades in the flamboyant bazars of the Friedrichs Strasse, in the "art departments" of the big shops on Regent and Oxford streets, and in the degenerate galleries of the Palais Royal. Madame Palffy's idea of statuary was a white marble greyhound asleep upon a cushion of redsarrancolin: and her taste ran to Bohemian glass, to onyx vases, and to plaques with broad borders of patterned gilt, enclosing heads of simpering Neapolitan girls—these last to hang upon the wall. There were spindle-legged chairs, with backs like golden harps, and seats of brocade wherein salmon-pink and turquoise-blue wrestled for supremacy; and in front of the huge mantel (logically decked with a red lambrequin) there was a velvet ottoman in the form of a mushroom, whereon when Monsieur Palffy sat, his resemblance to a suffocating frog became absolutely startling. The rest of the furniture was so massive as to suggest that it could have been moved to its present position by no agency less puissant than a glacier, and, for the most part, the upholstery was tufted, and so tightly stuffed that one slid about on the chairs and sofas as if they had been varnished. The room contained four times as much of everything as was appropriate or even decent, and this gave all the furnishings the air of being on exhibition and for sale. One's imagination, however, was not apt to embracethe possibility, under any conceivable circumstances, of voluntary purchase.
Presently Andrew's eyes came back to Margery. It was evident that she had been watching him: for she smiled whimsically.
"Well?" she suggested.
"Can you guess what I was thinking?" he asked, with a slightly embarrassed laugh.
"In part, I imagine," said Margery. "Wasn't it something like this: that, as a matter of fact, Ihavepretty well shattered my scheme of things to bits and remoulded it—and that the new arrangement is not altogether a success?"
"I don't seem to see you in these surroundings," returned Andrew evasively. "At Beverly you seemed to 'belong': you were all of a piece with the life. Here—well, it's different. That was why I asked you that question, and that was why I thought there was something about you which I wanted to see changed—or restored. You know we used to be very open with each other, very good friends in every sense of the word; but now something's come between us. I've felt it all along, and I thought perhaps it was that you'd stopped caring for the things that used to mean most to you, that new interests, and perhaps your success and the compliments that people pay you, had cut the old ties, and that you had new ideas and ideals. I've felt—I've felt, Miss Palffy, that I'd forfeited even the small place I had in your life. You've been holding me at a distance, haven't you?I've thought so. I asked you that question to see if I was right or wrong, and to my surprise I find that you are apparently the same as ever. You still love all that made the sympathy between us. Well, then, the fault must be in me. Tell me: what have I done, that you treat me almost as a stranger?"
"I'm sorry, very sorry," said Margery earnestly. "If I've given you any such impression, believe me, it was quite without reason or even intention. I've always looked upon you as one of my best friends. Surely, I've not been holding you at a distance: that must have been a fancy of yours. You must know that you're always welcome here, that I'm always glad to see you. Please believe that."
But the little restraint was there!
"I can't quite explain what I mean," said Andrew. "You see, Paris is a queer sort of place. It upsets all one's notions. There's so much that's strange and interesting and new all about us that we're apt to find the old things growing dim. I know, in my own case, that I'm wiser for these few weeks, and perhaps"—he laughed unevenly—"sadder! Forgive me for thinking that it might have been the same with you. This big city is so full of fascinations of one sort or another, that one can hardly be blamed if one is distracted at the first. Until I saw you that Sunday at Mrs. Carnby's, I'd never realized what a difference a few months might make. Your voice brought back—a lot! I forgot that it was all in the past, that we couldn't pick up things as they were in Beverly—the sailing, the bathing, the horseback rides, the golf, and all the rest. Those months had made you a woman and me a man. Much that we used to do and say was done and said and finished with forever. But Ididhope that the spirit of the thing would remain, that we'd 'grown parallel to each other,' as Mrs. Carnby says, and that we'd be nearer together, instead of farther apart, for the separation. But no! It isn't a fancy on my part. There's something changed. Do you remember Wordsworth? 'There hath passed away a glory from the earth'—and, Miss Palffy, there has, therehas! I know I'm not wrong—something's come between us, and that something is just what I've said—Paris! Isn't it?"
"Yes!" she answered, with her eyes on his.
But Andrew Vane, the blind, did not understand.
Margery rose, almost with a shudder, crossed the room, and stood at the window opening upon the balcony. Below, a whirling stream of cabs, bound in from Longchamp, split around the island in the centre of theplace, merged again upon the opposite side, and went rocking and rattling on, up the Avenue Victor Hugo, toward the Arc. In curious contrast to this continuous and flippant clatter, the harsh bell of St. Honoré d'Eylau was striking six.