“That is a terrible thing for your Majesty to say,” pronounced his minister severely.
“All true things are terrible—especially beautiful true things. Milords, I will announce my decision at the State banquet to-morrow night. It is, as you know, His Royal Highness’ birthday to-morrow—his eighteenth birthday. Yes, yes, you all are right, he is getting to be a man. A man!—or rather a king. Between the two words, milords, a tremendous gulf is fixed. But I will detain you no longer, gentlemen; I desire an hour or two alone before retiring. Sir Estes, pray send my Fool into the garden—er, not now, you understand, but in half an hour. Yes, thank you, that will be quite soon enough.” And the royal mannequin watched his courtiers disappear into the Palace, always with that gentle, commiserating smile upon his lips.
Then, with a brief sigh that might have meant almost anything, or nothing, he sank down on to theold garden seat, and lit his strange long pipe. The garden was very still, in the pale mystery of the moonlight, very still, and very empty. The King from his shadowy corner gazed past its loveliness at the great palace unbelievingly: it was not a real Palace, there was no real Court inside. Only the exquisite soft arches of the cloister were real, and the long sweep of the old steps, down which he had stolen to meet—he drew in his breath sharply. Yes, the steps, and the grand towering oaks, and the beckoning green vistas, luring one into their ever-vanishing embrace, promising one at the end surely some sweet, half-forgotten memory of childhood. Why, one’s first kite had flirted away down that leafy winding lane; and, yes! at the end of this, that wretched pony had tumbled one’s enraged manhood off its seat—at the resentful age of four. Then that other: it was there as far as the bend in the trees that one’s mother had walked with one, that day of departure for the University. A Queen she was, to be sure, but—marvelously!—one’s wonderful mother as well. And “I’m so glad you don’t have to succeed, Dick,” she had whispered against his cheek, starting guiltily at her own words: “I—I want you to be just a man, you know. A man, with all a man’s pleasures, and burdens, and hobbies, and—and loves, dear. You don’t have to be superb, thank God! you can be just a commonplace man. Ah, Dick, that’s the greatest privilege in the world!”
The King flung his pipe away abruptly. She was dead now. And he——“She was right,” he muttered harshly, beginning to stride up and down, “that’s the greatest privilege in the world. But I——”
“You are alone out here, my dear?” The voice that came to him from a balcony above was as coldly sweet as the moon’s own rays.
“I am alone,” he answered mechanically.
A stately figure trailed down the winding stair and joined him, directing his steps to that corner of the garden that was farthest from the Palace. “Some one has told me that our son—that John will soon come to you with a most unreasonable request.I beg of you, Richard, do not grant it. It has to do with the announcement to be made to-morrow night.”
“The announcement? Why I——”
“You understand me, I am sure.” The cold voice lowered cautiously. “It is imperative that nothing shall be done to mar my plan for adjusting our relations with Franconia; I am only more and more regretful that you have kept the matter of John’s alliance with the Princess Royal pending for so long a time.”
“I have not yet consented——”
“You have not consented to discuss the question formally with the Franconian ambassador”—in the smooth voice an element of irritation was rising—“nor to have him present at the banquet to-morrow night; when, very firmly, you will announce your desire, yourearnestdesire that the alliance should take place. And listen to me, Richard—you remember that this is the last resort: you have admitted everything else has been tried, and to no purpose, in this situation with Franconia. Now itlies with you. Hitherto, you have refused to discuss the subject of John’s betrothal, even with the family, or your ministers. In this I do not say you have been wrong. It has doubtless been as well to keep the matter quiet until we could learn that the suggestion would be welcomed by Franconia. Now that we are assured of that, however—well, you will make the informal announcement to-morrow night. You know, Richard, where John is concerned, you are apt to be over-lenient. And some one told me——”
“I understand you, Alix.” He understood, too, that when she said over-lenient, she meant weak; no one appreciated the fact that the Queen reigned, more intelligently than did the King. “I could wish, however, that ‘some one’ was not always telling you things about John. It looks—you will pardon me—unpleasantly like spying.”
“One cannot sacrifice the State to looks,” returned the Queen coolly. “If you will insist on forgetting your duty to your people, Richard, somebody must remember it for you. You are not just a plain, ordinary person, you know.” And she swept back up the stair again, and into the Palace.
“Oh, God, if I only were!” groaned the King, turning on his heel with a sudden fierceness very foreign to a mere mannequin. Then he saw his Fool standing there.
“A fine night,” observed the King formally.
“It would be if it were raining, your Majesty,” replied the Fool.
“If it wereraining?”
“Yes, your Majesty. When it rains, so many things can happen. One slips, one slides, one tumbles into a puddle: there are all sorts of possibilities. While a fine night—is just a fine night, that’s all. Most distressingly ordinary. Before I was a fool——”
“What were you?” interrupted the King.
“A very wise man, my liege. You see, I have changed but little; except that when I was a wise man, I did not enjoy knowing myself to be a fool; whereas now it gives me the subtlest sort of pleasure, knowing how very wise I really am. All amatter of placing oneself, Sire; a matter of light and shade; and if one has the true artistic eye——”
“Do you think that one is then competent to place others?” asked the King abruptly.
The Fool stopped twirling his bauble (his boutonnière, I mean, of course). “One is never competent,” he said slowly, “one is only less stupid than before. One’s sense of values is in better equilibrium. With your Majesty, for instance——”
“Yes?” The King bent toward him eagerly.
“The King can do no wrong,” began his Fool pompously. “Which is only another way of saying that the King is left no chance to do anything but right. He is not an ordinary person.”
“He is,” contradicted the King calmly. “At least he is going to be. Your next King, my dear Fool, is to be just an ordinary person!”
Limply the Fool leaned against a balustrade. “Your Majesty istooexotic in his fancies—quite too exotic,” he protested feebly. “I beg your Majesty to allow me to retire: I am so truly a fool that a joke quite unnerves me. Besides, His Royal Highness is coming—see, yonder he is—an idea, smiling at a makeshift! I beg leave to take the makeshift within the Palace, Sire.”
“So then, Father!”—one felt with a thrill the onslaught of Youth—“you have been railing at the world, with the help of that soberest man at Court. Fie upon you! And you, sir, off with you! I will not have my father’s Fool turn him into an old sobersides!” The young Prince ran lightly down the steps from the terrace and came laughing to the King’s side.
“I suppose I should have said ‘your Majesty’ before him,” he apologized, locking arms with his father, as the Fool vanished within; “Mother told me only this morning that I did not sufficiently realize the respect due you as a monarch. But how can I? Why, we’ve always been such pals, eh, Father? And if ever I’m a king and have children—well, I’ll try to make them forget I’m a king, that’s all.”
“Have I made you forget it?” asked the King wistfully. “Do I seem to you just—just yourfather, Jack—you know what I mean, just an ordinary man?”
“You seem”—his son regarded him half puzzled—“an ordinary man? Well, no, Father. Of course, you’re keen for sport, as keen as I am; and then in your heart you’ve that passion for the flute—ah, yes, you have! You needn’t shake your head: you know you’d pawn the Palace if only you could play the flute. But something’s always hindering you. I suppose something always hinders a king, Father?” The King’s own wistfulness had crept into the young voice.
The King cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it does,” he acknowledged, looking away from the boy, and up at the balcony—so cold and white in the moon’s radiance. “I—but come, let’s walk. You were saying——”
“There’s something I’ve got to ask you.” The Prince walked a little faster. “You must know what it is, Father—they’ve all talked so much about it. And last night at the Masque Ermyntrude whispered to me that it was no use at all, asking you—that Mother had arranged everything, and you would never go against Mother. But, somehow, because youaren’tjust an ordinary man, because you’ve always been different to me from the rest of the world, I made up my mind to ask you. You see, it’s—it’s about this marriage.” For the moment the young Prince looked a good deal more than eighteen. “I haven’t said anything up till now—I’ve always known, of course, that being a king made a difference, that it meant one could never do as one liked, you know; so when Mother and all of them first talked about the Princess—all along, in fact—I didn’t say anything. Oh, I understood”—and for the first time in his life the King saw bitterness in his son’s face—“an alliance with Franconia is essential; my tutor’s told me of it many times: he’s prepared me very cleverly. But, Father, I don’t want to make an alliance. I want to marry a woman.”
The King stopped walking. They were just at the foot of the steps where he had used to meet—“I see,” he said gently.
“I’ve tried to go through with it”—the boy’s voice grew more and more unsteady—“since Mother told me how much it would mean to all the millions of our people I’ve nerved myself up to it; and I told myself again and again that, as Ermyntrude says, a man who’s got to be a king has no right to any feelings. That he must be just a dummy, to support the prestige and ambitions of his subjects. His subjects!” The Prince’s laugh was not a pleasant thing to hear. “Oh, I wonder that you don’t see the screaming satire of it, Father—even though you are a king.”
The King looked at him strangely. “I was not always a king,” he said; and again his glance strayed down the dim green vistas with their whimsical shadows. At the end of each vista it was black now. “When I was your age, Jack, I had no idea that I ever would be King. But—but I want to askyousomething: if the country were to go to war, and a good man was needed to lead the troops, would you go? Understand me: even though there was every probability of your being killed, though you had onechance in a thousand, or say no chance at all—and—you were also just about to marry—a woman. Would you go?”
“I”—the boy drew a long breath. “But of course I’d go. You know that, Father.”
“Then—the countryisat war; for a great nation, the subtlest, deadliest kind of war, John: with international opinion. It does need a leader. The King, you see”—the even voice never wavered—“is just a dummy—no more than the King. And I’m very much afraid that the leader will have to be killed, at least all but the mere blood and bones and breath of him: and those amount to so little, don’t they? Yes, yes; they amount to so little. Well! so this some one must sacrifice himself. We’ve tried everything, we’ve come dangerously near showing ourselves abject, in this adjustment with Franconia: at least, so the queen tells me. There is left just this way out, the alliance, I mean, and ... some one must sacrifice himself. Who do you think will do it, John?” Under the cold stone balcony, the King stretched his hand toward the Crown Prince.Did he congratulate himself that for once he was not being over-lenient?
“Very well, your Majesty.” There was no doubt as to its being the Crown Prince who spoke. At the same time his hand as it met the King’s was the hand of a subject. “I will do it. You will, I suppose, make the formal announcement to the Court to-morrow night? I will be prepared, sir. Good-night.”
“Good-night.” An infinite sadness was in the King’s eyes as once more he turned about to pace up and down, alone.
The alliance, then, was assured. The Queen and all her ministers—far more than his—would be satisfied. He supposed it was a very satisfactory piece of business. But—he wondered suddenly—would the next King be just an ordinary person?
“Jack.” Some one was calling softly. “Jack, are you there?” The moon had gone down; it was very dark in the vast old garden. But through the blackness one could see a dainty figure, like an adorable phantom image, poised uncertainly, justat the top of the steps. “It’s so dark, I can’t see you, Jack”—the little laugh held a note of the piteous. “And I daresay it’s the last time I shall see you, isn’t it? For of course he wouldn’t listen to you. He—he’s such arealking, isn’t he?” For a moment longer she stood there, the beseeching, fairy thing; then with a quick sob of disappointment, she fled.
But the half-concealed impatience of her last speech had told the King that it was the little Maid of Honor, Ermyntrude. Ah—he remembered: she had come to Court not so long ago, just a month—after her father died. Her father was—why should it seem suddenly so significant?—a professor at the University; a very learned man. Her mother, a Princess, had broken rank to marry him. Women did those things.
A professor at the University! And “It’s the last time I shall see you, isn’t it?” Who was it standing there at the top of the steps? Standing there for the last time, piteously brave, with that heartbreaking little laugh in her voice. The Kingdashed his hand across his eyes. “Rosemary!” he called yearningly; and fled after her up the steps.
The great banquet hall was hushed. The minstrels had put away their songs, and the Court sat quiet. Only the Fool played with his gardenia: he whispered to some one that nothing gave him confidence like appearing trivial.
“Milords, Ladies of the Court, and our distinguished guests”—as the King raised his handsome face to the colonial Princes, one saw that it was very pale—as pale as that of the Crown Prince, who sat at his right.
“The King is but just beginning to be alive to the privileges of his position. You know how in olden times, and in these modern reckless days as well, monarchs have sacrificed thousands—lives, ducats, principalities even, for the sake of some passing fancy—some hobby, perhaps, that wanted gratifying. And no one has dared to say them nay. Milords, I have been up to this time a very lenient sovereign” (the Queen was tapping her slipper nervously); “I have been content to be just an ordinary King!” He looked from one to the other of the company whimsically. “Emperors have given away continents; great lords have sold their every slave—all for the sake of a whim. And so now, milords, I intend to gratify a little notion of my own. It has long been the custom to betroth the Crown Prince on His Highness’ birthday. His Highness grows to manhood, he attains his majority, and voila! One picks him a bride! Quite suitable;quitesuitable.” (The Queen was breathing more freely. The Crown Prince sat with his young face half shaded. The whole Court held its breath with attention; particularly the Fool, who was watching his master with a new concentration.)
“Very good. The King has taken the fancy—oh, a very flighty fancy no doubt, milords—to present the Crown Prince and his affections to er—some one quite unexpected—some one whom the King shall choose on the ah—spur of the moment, you understand. It lends more excitement to a game, to cast the die quite on the spur of the moment, eh?” (Bythis time the Queen was beside herself; while the Prince had half risen, in his indignation.)
“So—let me see—I assure you, milords”—and the King’s voice had never been so lightly gay, his face so gravely sweet—“I assure you this moment is worth all the monotony of Kingship, yes, though that monotony had lasted a thousand dreary years!—this moment on which one stakes his all: his destiny, his country, his lands beyond the seas—for the sake of one glorious, mad whim! I bestow the hand of Prince John upon which one? Let us say the littlest—she who sits yonder in the corner—what, notcrying? There’ll be plenty of time for that when you’re Queen, my dear. Come bring her forward, your Highness, and let all men see whom the King has chosen to carry out his one wild madness. Your name is——? Ermyntrude! Milords, I pledge you Ermyntrude, your future Queen, the daughter of a Princess, and” (for the first time the King’s voice faltered) “of a professor at the University. Ermyntrude!”
“And so he’s no more than a King?” The Fool was asking the Maid of Honor a moment later—and for a Fool, his voice was beautiful.
The Maid of Honor’s lovely, vivid little face was like a drenched spring flower—all the more radiant for its tears. “No—no more than a King? Oh!” she caught the velvet sleeve impetuously. “Oh, Fool, you’re his best friend—you’re his Fool, so you know him best—could any one, I ask you couldany onebe more than the King!”
But why, asks the Child (the Child we all are, when it comes to a story), why was the King so wonderful? Was it because he was one of our Plain People?
And the story-teller turns back over the pages wistfully—on each of them, for her, is written a little of the great tragedy and great sublimity of Life. “It was because he couldn’t be one” (she says finally), “because he couldn’t be a Plain Person; but had nevertheless the supreme courage to demandfor his son what he could never have for himself. And I think, in the power to make this subtlest of sacrifices, every man is King; and every King that divinely privileged creature: a Plain Man.”
“I’vecome,” said Lucia, “for a very long visit.”
Something in the weary little sigh with which she threw herself down on the sofa, made her mother look up, arrested.
“You—you don’t mean that you aren’t happy, my dear?” she asked uncertainly.
Lucia gave a faint smile. “At least I’m not unhappy. I wish” (with sudden vehemence) “I were. I wish——”
Mrs. Loring took an apprehensive step towards her.
“There, mother, it’s all right. I’m a little tired, and—and unstrung with seeing you again, that’s all. It’s all right.”
“But my dear, I’m afraid that is just what it isn’t. I——”
“Yes, really! It’s only that I—I’ve always been a little over-balanced, you know, if such a state were possible. And it is,” tensely, “outside of mathematics.”
Mrs. Loring—whose intimacy with mathematics was fleeting—looked at her daughter anxiously. “Just what do you mean, Lucy? There, my dear—throw your coat off. And your hat—so! Jacqueline will unpack you while we have our tea. Tell me what you mean—over-balanced?” She inclined her well-dressed head vaguely.
“I mean,” said Lucia, pressing back against a nest of cushions, “just that. All my life I’ve seen things evenly, mother: in parallel rows, that always tallied. When you sent me to finishing-school, I hated it; but I put up with the two years’ boredom without complaint, because I realized it was making valuable friends for me. When I took up drawing, later, I did it because I knew that on the other side of the hard work and cruel discouragement in getting started, would lie a hobby—and a profitableone—in which I might bury myself at any time, and with absorbing interest. And when I married——”
“Yes?” Mrs. Loring sat forward a little.
“You thought I never would marry, didn’t you, mother darling?” with a brief laugh. “I was afraid of marriage, rather. But when John came, and I thought I cared enough and—well, it seemed to me that if I went into the thing with no illusions, I couldn’t lose any. That if I got married, just because I wanted to,—if I expected nothing, at least I couldn’t get less.”
“Lucy,” put in her mother uncomfortably, “you think too much. You always did. Cream, my dear?”
“Please. I said, when I came in, I’d come for a very long visit.”
“Isn’t John Gwynne a good husband?” demanded Mrs. Loring. “Is there anything——?”
“Oh, nothing—nothing. Our life is as even as the lines in my account-book. That,” said Lucia in a low voice, “is what I simply can’t stand; what I had to get away from.”
“But—but, my dear, it doesn’t sound very serious. Really, you know, it doesn’t!”
“I know it doesn’t—perhaps it isn’t. Only to me”—Lucia’s fingers closed dangerously over the fragile cup-handle—“it was growing unbearable! I had to get away.”
“Yes, yes, dear. And you were right to come to me. I was delighted when your wire arrived—quite delighted,” said Mrs. Loring quickly. “But what about Tommy?”
“Tommy’s away at school,” said his mother, sipping her tea with a pretense of tranquillity. “We decided to send him to military school this year, you know, as he’s nine. He left yesterday. That gave me my opportunity to come to you. Oh, mother, I snatched at it!”
“Yes, dear—yes,” Mrs. Loring leaned over to pat her hand. She had certainly not known Lucy was so nervous! “And I’ll let the Granvilles and Ada Barker and the Temple girls know you’re here, and we’ll have a gay little visit,” she added cheerfully. “The longer the better, Lucy!”
“Dear mother!” murmured Lucia. “Though I would rather not do a lot of social things—I really would, mother. I’m—I believe I’m rather tired. And John said”—she checked herself swiftly.
“Yes? What did John say?”
“A stupid married woman’s habit I’ve fallen into! What he said was ‘do get rested.’ What he should have said——”
“Lucia,” interrupted her mother, “I was married to your father only four years, but ‘what he should have said’ never happened. I wouldn’t let it happen.”
“He should have said ‘I shall miss you,’”murmured Lucia stubbornly. “That’s one of the things, mother: I’m taken—and let go—so for granted!”
Mrs. Loring looked at her judiciously. “You’re a very pretty woman,” said she. “Even excepting your hair, you’d be striking. And” (running her left hand through its ripples) “it seems to me your hair’s blacker than ever. Doesn’t John think so?”
“John—is occupied more with Consolidated Iron than he is with my hair. Nonsense, mother! Whybe tragic about it? John is kind, I’m contented. Why” (lightly) “should I go into heroics because our romance is not so gossamer but that I can pull it to pieces and put it together again? I’m thirty-two. Yet”—she added, laying down her cup—“I seem as greedy for romance as a débutante in the first season. I,” reminiscently, “was rather a nice débutante, eh, mummy?”
“You were delicious!” said Mrs. Loring with enthusiasm. “Ambrose Fayerweather was saying only yesterday”——
“Does Mr. Fayerweather still call here?”
Mrs. Loring’s smooth cheeks flushed. “He is a very old friend,” said she, busy with the cream jug. “And he says the girls these last few years can’t”——
“Hold a candle to those a dozen years ago,” finished Lucia.
“Why, yes! How did you know?”
“He’s said it to me—and other oldgalants—every time I’ve seen him in the last decade. Well, mummy! I’m going up to lie down for a little. Ihope,” wistfully, “I haven’t blued you up, dear? I’m afraid I’m rather”——
“You’re in need of rest!” replied Mrs. Loring briskly. “Run along and get it, my dear. John said the right thing, after all!”
She smiled brightly at her daughter; but when Lucia had reached the landing, stood gazing after her. “She thinks too much,” said her mother with a sigh; “it’s a bad habit for a woman.”
Lucia, upstairs, on a couch luxurious with pillows, was still thinking; that is, always the same thing. Why would the figures always balance each other, she wondered wearily? Life was one long sum in algebra—or subtraction: the signs changed, the quantities cancelled, and—X was zero. Everything seemed to beknown; so distinct and matter-of-fact. When she married John Gwynne, she had loved him—passionately; but also reasoningly. She had taken into consideration that the passion would dim, but that a certain comfortable comradeship would take its place. The passion had dimmed; the comradeship had taken its place. And the illusions whichLucia had not possessed had remained unattacked. What was there then to quarrel with? Her house, from which she had anticipated as much satisfaction as care, had given her the two in equal proportion. Her child, who she had known would thrill and agonize her alike, had done both, with impartial intensity. Her art, which she had been willing to abandon in exchange for certain other delights, had been indeed compensated for by those delights; it had been a fair exchange and no more. No more, for that would have been to spoil the law; to dig unevennesses in the groove—which, for Lucia, seemed eternally straight.
“Oh!” She sat up and flung off the soft blanket that covered her. Was there any way, was there any trick or painful art, with which to break the relentlessness of pleasure paid for? Of happiness counter-checked? Perhaps her mother was right—if she didn’t think so much——. But she had to think. It was all the expression she had of a nature that had never been able to escape from itself, for an unconscious minute. Heavens! Lucia beat the pillows and sank down again. “If this keeps on, I’ll go quite mad.” She had the wit to know she was half mad, anyhow—and always had been. It was perhaps the one thing that kept her sane. Analysts are harassed creatures. John Gwynne, who ate meat and potatoes three times a day, and loved a good vaudeville show, did not know of their existence.
John Gwynne was at that moment in a shop, leaving an order for new decorations for Lucia’s rooms.
“You’ll have to push it through in a hurry,” he said anxiously. “Mrs. Gwynne said she didn’t know when she’d be back, and that means any time. I want something in lilac. Lilac’s her color.”
The attentive clerk showed two samples in pale mauve. “We have the chintz to match these, Mr. Gwynne. If I might suggest, I should think the unconventional design——”
“Sure, the unconventional’s the thing for Mrs. Gwynne! You’ve served her for ten years, Eh, Gregg?”
“Yes, sir—” the suave clerk’s face broke into analmost natural smile—“I was here when you brought her in to select her bridal furnishings, ten years ago.”
“Sure!” said John Gwynne again, more slowly. “Ten years ago! George, but time goes by, don’t it, Gregg?” He was staring out the window at the motors tearing up and down outside.
“Well!” with a start, “the unconventional it is,—paper, hangings, and the whole business—and look here, Gregg, rush this for me, will you? Push it right along.”
“We certainly will, Mr. Gwynne,” the clerkly manner was not quite restored again. Heartiness struggled with it; and—“excuse me, sir,” said Gregg hurriedly, “but do you know I think this is the very design Mrs. Gwynne chose when you were married—wistaria, with the pale pink rosebuds in the border—I’m almost positive it is. It’s a piece we didn’t carry for a number of years, and then”——
“Why, sure—sure!” said Gwynne, gazing at it. “The very thing! And then my sister, two years later, went and put on blue—to surprise Mrs.Gwynne—while we were in Europe. And I think it did surprise her some!” he remembered grimly.
The clerk gave a feeble smile. “Yes, sir—blue with a silver stripe—I remember, sir!”
“I should think you would! I told her to come down and have it changed, but Tommy—our little boy—had the measles just then, and afterward I got hurt in that hunting accident, and then we went to the country—and blessed if there’s ever been a time since when she’s had so much as a chance to think about it! That’s why now—well, see you push it through, Gregg.”
“Indeed yes, Mr. Gwynne! Good-day, Mr. Gwynne.”
“Good-day.”
“Beats me,” added Gwynne to himself outside, “why these clerk-fellows can’t say things as they come: ‘indeed yes’—why the Dickens should a thing be turned hind-side to, when you can say it straight out?”
It was a point he and Lucia had not infrequently discussed—in other denominations. Gwynne, goinghome to an empty house, felt he would willingly have dropped his side, if Lucia had been there to carry hers.
“She looked tired,” he thought, sitting alone by the library fire after dinner. “I hope her mother makes her rest. She looked regularly fagged.”
He spent the rest of the evening writing her a letter; and Tommy. In the morning he sent Mrs. Loring a telegram. “How’s Lucia?” it said. Lucia had been gone twenty-four hours.
“And you say you’re taken for granted!” triumphed her mother. “You think he’s more interested in Consolidated Iron? Stuff, my dear! John Gwynne’s forty. For a man of forty to follow his wife up with telegrams, the very day after——”
“He might have sent it to me,” said Lucia, ungraciously.
“Oh, well!” Mrs. Loring tossed her handsome head. “If you’re determined to bedifficile——!”
Lucia, who was pretending to eat a strip of bacon, asked, “Did my drawing-ink come? I ordered somesent down from town, before I left—and a lot of Bristol-board.”
“It came,” said Mrs. Loring, looking at her uneasily. “Lucia, whatever are you——”
“I am going to draw,” said Lucia, with a deep breath. “Ever since I was married, I’ve never had time: first there was Tommy, and then the trip abroad, and then Tommy’s measles, and then John’s accident, and then the new house in the country, and—I’m going to draw, mother! For days and days, and blissful weeks—I’m going to draw!”
Her cheeks were vivid, her eyes afire.
“Oh!” gasped Mrs. Loring, looking at her. “You—you’re going to draw. For—weeks!”
“Yes, mother! And you can tell Ada Barker, and the Temple girls, and whoever else comes, that their fascinations are nothing compared with black-and-white. And if John sends telegrams asking ‘How’s Lucia?’ tell him ‘She’s drawing!’ Do you hear? Tell him ‘She’s drawing!’”
And snatching up her precious parcel that a servant had brought, with an excited little laugh, Luciafairly flew upstairs. Her mother, left with John Gwynne’s telegram, shook her head, perplexedly.
At luncheon, Lucia appeared, less gay, though still flushed and ardent with intention. “It’s wonderful,” she said, “to have one uninterrupted morning—to know there’s no ordering to be done, and that John won’t come tearing home for early lunch. I really believe I shall accomplish something—if I work,” she added, a little pucker coming between her eyes.
After lunch, she went back to it. Mrs. Loring wished she would lie down and rest her eyes; but she knew Lucia fairly well: she did not suggest it. That night when Ambrose Fayerweather came to dinner, he said warmly, “Well, well! And so the mother tells me you’re at work again, drawing! What energy you youngsters have, to be sure!”
Lucia, who was genuinely fond of him, did not answer that she was as old as her own grandmother, but said with a kind of enthusiasm, “Yes, isn’t it nice! I feel as though I should really get somethingdone. Though—it’s rather hard, of course, starting in again, after so many years.”
“Of mere wife-hood, eh?” Mr. Fayerweather looked at her a bit wistfully from under his iron-grey brows. “By the way, I saw that husband of yours the other day. They tell me he’s a man to reckon with, now. I tell them—but you always get cross with me when I tell the truth about yourself.”
Lucia smiled at him. And he remembered she had always been a confoundedly pretty girl. “Dear Mr. Fayerweather, I’m never cross with you. I’m only unconvinced.”
“Oh! very well then” (they were waiting for her mother and dinner), “I’ll tell you: when people say to me what a splendid fellow Gwynne is, and how successful, I say yes, but who’s backing him?Mrs. Gwynne!”
“Backing him?” repeated Lucia slowly.
“Why, yes. Haven’t you always furnished the brains of the combination—the spark? My dear Lucia, we all know that delightful head of yours works in twenty directions a minute!”
Lucia looked at him curiously. “No. It works in only two.” And they kill each other, she started to add; but changed it to “I’m afraid neither has ever helped John.”
“Nonsense—non—sense! Why, Gwynne was nowhere until he got married; and since then—he’s simply soared! There’s no holding him down. Believe me, Lucia, I hear it from men who——”
“Oh, of course he’s done well. I—I’m tremendously proud of John’s success. But it’s his own success, Mr. Fayerweather,” Lucia said passionately. “I haven’t contributed to the length of an idea!” The suddenness with which it struck her, almost overwhelmed Lucia Gwynne.
“My dear,” said Ambrose, looking at her, “you—none of you—can tell what you contribute. You’re women, aren’t you?” He glanced through the door, at the stairs where her mother was coming down. “That’s one thing you can’t help or evade. And—you don’t know what you contribute.”
Lucia, during dinner, thought about it. It was a new kind of thinking for her: what she didn’t know; what she could not possibly determine; what didn’t balance with anything else. In it, she forgot the somewhat disheartening disclosures of the day’s work—that her technique was laborious rather than a joy—that it was hard, impossible almost, to get back at the end of the years; and remembered to write to Tommy. She wondered if he had put his boots away, and if he was homesick. Funny little freckle-faced Tommy! Two stubborn tears, like those that had worked their way out of his brave brown eyes when he parted from her, rose suddenly to Lucia’s. How weak she was! she told herself, the next minute, impatiently.
But she wrote to Tommy that night, before she went to bed. And at the end she said—instead of the caution about colds he hated so—“Mother wishes she could kiss you good-night—really, truly good-night, little son!” When she had sent the letter, she was inclined to be scornful of that last bit. The foolish third person—it was only an advanced baby-talk, that in her training of Tommy she had rigorously excluded.
Next day she worked harder than ever, and when John’s telegram came, she did not even know it. She was upstairs, putting her eyes out drawing a bit of lace on the gown of a gorgeous Wenzell lady. Come right, it would not. All afternoon she toiled; got a smudge on her nose that stayed there when Ada Barker came to tea, and a general irritability that caused that young woman to say later, “Well, I didn’t know Lucia Gwynne had gone off so! She’s positively untidy, and so sharp!”
That, Lucia’s mother had reason to echo during those twenty-four hours. But mothers don’t echo, somehow. They exonerate. Mrs. Loring was kept busy exonerating, while that bit of lace tied itself up in knots, and haughtily refused unravelling. When in the evening John Gwynne wired “why doesn’t Lucia write to me?” Lucia’s mother replied, “She’s drawing a piece of lace.” When, an hour later, he demanded, “What in thunder ails her?” Mrs. Loring wired back, “Why don’t you come and see for yourself?”
He came.
Three days after Lucia had arrived, throwing herself down on the little sofa, her husband followed suit. He looked extraordinarily big there.
“Where’s Lucia?” he asked instantly.
“Drawing lace,” said Mrs. Loring—about whose pretty mouth were little lines.
“Is she mad?” demanded her husband.
“She has been—very near it.” Mrs. Loring looked intently into Gwynne’s face. “Lucia thinks too much. You don’t give her enough to do.”
“Thinks too much—not enough to do? Why, isn’t she my wife? What should she do, except give orders to the servants and enjoy herself? I don’t want her to do anything!”
“Then you mustn’t be surprised,” said her mother, “if she comes off to me and draws lace.”
“What? If she—what?”
“If she finds something to do for herself.”
“But she’s always busy—rushing about, with a thousand things to—! That’s one reason why I was glad to have her get away: the only reason.She looked fagged to death. And you say she hasn’t anything to do!”
“Nothing with her head. Only her arms and legs—and nerves. For Lucia that’s not enough. If her head isn’t busied, it gets away from her, and——”
“You tell her to come down here,” broke in John Gwynne suddenly. “Please!Tell her to come down here, and——”
Lucia appeared in the door. There were two smudges on her nose. “I simply can’t get that wretched”—she began: then, with a gasp, “Oh!John!Why—why——”
“Hello, little girl!” John caught her, smudges and all, half way across the room. Mrs. Loring vanished. “Are you—glad to see me?”
Lucia’s lips were buried somewhere about his ear. “But—I—I—yes,” she murmured with difficulty. “I—was trying to draw lace.”
“Well,” said John Gwynne, “you’re going to draw a good deal bigger things than that.” John Gwynne could act quickly in matters of importance. “I’vea million-dollar combine up for dicker this week—Fayerweather and Lodge and some of the fellows are in it with me—and it’s to do with an art collection of a regent prince who’s gone bankrupt and who’s got to sell to pay his debts. We’re thinking of buying; and I want your—why, Lucia, honey, what’s the matter? Sit down. Why——”
For Lucia was crying. First, softly, then tempestuously; as though her heart would break. John drew her down by him on the sofa, and patted her hand. “It’s all right, honey,” he said steadily, “it’s all right. I know—I took you by surprise, and you were tired to death, and—well, maybe you’d better come home, Lucy.”
“Oh, John—John,” she tried to control herself, “you don’t understand. It’s not that—it’s—John, don’t you see, I’ve tried all along tokeep tabon things! I’ve put down so much on your side, and so much on mine; and then added them up. What you gave out I gave—and they always tallied. And at last—oh, don’t you see how dreary it got? Howworthless? ButI couldn’t stop doing it. I was like a wound-up clock. And so——”
“And so now you are going to begin a new column calledourside,” put in John Gwynne, covering her hands. “And, Lucia! It’ll be so mixed up, and in such big figures, you can never count ’em—my dear! And, anyhow, we’ll be too busy. I’m going to send for Tommy—after you and I——” with swift tenderness, he kissed her.
While Gwynne, next day, was standing with Lucia in the room hung with the wistaria and pale rosebuds of ten years ago, Ambrose Fayerweather was saying to Mrs. Loring, “but I thought she came to make alongvisit?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Loring defensively, “she stayed three days!”
“Ehbien, Marcel! and how does it go?” I asked.
“Oh, it goes, m’sieu—it goes, always. But——”
“Yes? ‘But’——?”
“Well, m’sieu” (pulling my chair out, uneasily), “it is the season of the Americans, and—but pardon, m’sieu!”
“Don’t mind me,” I said, pouncing on the carte du jour of the Café aux Oranges. “In Paris I am equally content as you to forget it—that I am American.Alors, Marcel!—it will be hors d’œuvres variés, and then an omelette fines herbes, and then, I think, an assiette anglaise with a bit of salad, eh? and a Camembert, to finish.”
Marcel regarded me solemnly—consideringly—from over the wide block rims of his glasses. “Butyes, m’sieu,” he said at last, grudgingly, “I suppose that it can go, as a breakfast. And monsieur drinks——?”
“Beer,” I was suddenly occupied with an extraordinarily pretty girl in the orangier opposite, “demibrune, Marcel.”
“Pardon, m’sieu, demiblonde—er—I—a thousand pardons, m’sieu!” Confused, the old fellow brought his eyes back from the same direction; made a violent effort to blush, and hurried off, murmuring, “demibrune, m’sieu, it is understood!”
I looked again at the girl. Even for the Café aux Oranges, where in spring, like this, there are as many pretty girls as blossoms on the chestnut trees above the little tables,—she was extraordinarily pretty. And she was American. One knew that by the upholstered shoulders of the young man and the shopping-bag of the lady, who were with her. The lady was frowning over the menu.
“I will not come here again!” she was heard to say, in a voice with as many corners as her shoppingbag. “The second time this week—no roast beef! I’ll not come again. It’s a cheap place.”
“But, mamma” (by straining one’s ears, one could just get the low response of the pretty girl) “it’s a very nice place, really! And don’t you know it is one of the very few old cafés of the Quarter—the old French cafés—Roger told us?”
“Roger!” exploded the lady (there was no difficulty in hearing her). “If Roger knew less about cafés, it would be a great deal better for——”
Marcel returned with the hors d’œuvres. But not before I had seen a thin smile overtake the features of the heavy-shouldered young man.
“Who are they?” I asked Marcel, carelessly enough.
With a thump he set down the radishes. “They, m’sieu?” Scornfully, “they are Americans who are come since m’sieu went away. While m’sieu was in Italy they came to live in the Rue Vavin, near by. They are friends of Monsieur Roger Elmont—ce beau garçon!But mademoiselle is an angel—but of a goodness! Only last Sunday she gave me twofrancs ten, and always when she takes coffee here in the evening—but she is very good for me.”
“And the others? The mother and brother?”
“Pah! what would you?Canaille!—tourists—but it is not her brother, m’sieu. It is thefuturof mademoiselle,saints dieux!”
“Not possible! But are you sure, Marcel? How do you know?”
“Listen, m’sieu”—he lowered his voice—“m’sieu eats his crevettes, and I shall recount to him: listen. A month ago, before one began to take the repasts outside at Café aux Oranges, there came one evening these three and Monsieur Roger. They are gay—but of a gaiety! They order dinner and—mais si!champagneandchampagne—first Monsieur Roger, then this young man, Stuart, he calls himself, I think. This Monsieur Stuart, of champagne he himself orders two bottles. But they are friendly, he and Monsieur Roger; they are like brothers.
“Then—I am serving them, I and Little-John—all of a sudden something happens. Something is said—I am out, searching their dessert, I do nothear. But Little-John hears, and he murmurs to me, stupidly in high voice as he always does, ‘it is thefuturof Mademoiselle, that one with the made shoulders. Madame has come from telling Monsieur Roger.’ This, then, is the cause of the quick silence, and of Monsieur Roger’s pale face, and mademoiselle’s blushes—ah, but she is beautiful, mademoiselle; m’sieu finds her brunette! For myself, to me she seems blonde. Such blue eyes and the skin so white, like camelia, though certainly her hair——”
“Never mind,” I said, buttering a heel of bread, “I can see her hair.”
“But perfectly, m’sieu. I was saying, Monsieur Roger is all of a surprise with the news. He has not known mademoiselle is engaged. But yes, says madame with victory, since two months—since the ship in which they came from America. This—how you say?—Chames? Chames Stuart was on that ship. Madame is an intimate of M. Stuart’s mother. To Monsieur Roger, madame tells with what singular air ofdouble entendre, this ChamesStuart is a man to be trusted. Agoodman. Monsieur Roger throws back his head and laughs—very long.
“But, m’sieu, I do not like to hear that laugh. Myself, I am foolish for Monsieur Roger, like all the rest at Café aux Oranges, more than all the othergarçonsI am foolish for him. Do I not know him since he came, poor obscure student, five years ago? But of a certainty! And that laugh, it is not the laugh of Monsieur Roger—rich, successful,grand artiste. No! it is a laugh that hides tears, suffering maybe. I do not know. Surely it makes me regard Monsieur Roger more closely, while he says, with whatlegereté, ‘but certainly madame! one knows that you would give Julie to none but a good man—that you would assure yourself as to his goodness.’
“Then, while mademoiselle and Chames Stuart sip their coffee, madame speaks to him severely. I understand but meagerly English, m’sieu knows, I attrap a word here and there—of girls and student balls and the gay life of the Quartier that has embroiled Monsieur Roger. Truly, m’sieu, he has always seemed to me a brave young man,ce beau garçon, not at all a mean young man or ofmauvais sang, like some who come here; but he has been young, parbleu! The saints be thanked, he has been young. Yet with that does Madame reproach him, in low tones. Monsieur Roger’s mother, madame says, has heard of his follies but too often; her heart is broken. ‘Nor can your success repair it,’ adds madame with harshness. ‘All Baltimore knows of your wild affairs and your mother’s shame.’ M’sieu, I do not know who is this Baltimore, but I think he must be droll, if he is shocked at Monsieur Roger’sfolies de jeunesse.N’est ce pas?But certainly, m’sieu—the omelette!”
When he had brought it, “M’sieu does not ennui himself? M’sieu permits that I go on?”
“Go on,” I said—looking at the wide blue eyes of the girl in the orangier opposite.
“That evening passes itself. I do not know why, mademoiselle—the blush once gone—looks pale anddistraite. She speaks quite gay and very fast,yet—why she is sad one can but imagine. This Chames Stuart, he is scarcely of a beauty,hein? A beauty like Monsieur Roger with his black hair and his gay smile and his figure like—Dame! But I am foolish for Monsieur Roger, all the Café knows. And he, what does he do? He says good-night withempressement, formally, and hopes he may have the pleasure of seeing these ladies again very soon. With Chames Stuart he shakes hands—yet more formally. They separate.
“Second chapter, it is—what do you think, m’sieu? Mademoiselle and Monsieur Rogeralone! But of a surety! They come in one warm afternoon and order tea—but they come inside and far over in one corner, and mademoiselle glances about, nervously and says, ‘Oh, Roger, it is rash! It is wrong—I ought not to have come.’ But he soothes her—Mon Dieu: what a voice: what strength—what tenderness divine! The emotion a young girl must feel for him—one can but imagine—he soothes her and tells her it was of a necessity for him, this little hour alone with her.
“‘For I was to have married you, Julie, you know,’ he says sadly. ‘Our mothers planned it when you were a little girl in—how you say, m’sieu? pinafore? and I a clumsy boy in knickers. Have you forgotten?’
“‘No,’ says mademoiselle with a little sigh; ‘but—they sayyoudid. They say—mamma and your mother too—that you forgot everything but what you should have forgotten; that you flung your name and the reputation of your family to the four winds, and cared for nothing but pleasure!—and dissipation and mad gaieties. They say!' mademoiselle tells him with a break in her lovely voice, ‘that you aren’t fit to marry a young girl—that you would break her heart.’
“Monsieur Roger cursed—softly, under his breath. But I, m’sieu, heard him.
“‘Idiots!’ he mutters between his teeth. ‘Fools—prurient-minded canaille!—to fill a child’s head with such drivel. But it’s dangerous drivel.’ He turns to mademoiselle.—‘Listen, Julie,’ he says with what gentleness, ‘Americans have differentideas from ours over here.They lead the same lives,’ says Monsieur Roger bitterly, ‘but they have different ideas about those lives. They take trouble to conceal. Here in Paris, one lives as one lives,—openly. One is ashamed of nothing,—except meanness. I,’ says Monsieur Roger proudly, ‘am ashamed of nothing. I have been foolish, yes! wild. Did I not come here, a boy of twenty-one, from my mother andBaltimore(I wonder what is this Baltimore, m’sieu?), from all the stupid conventions of a society that is nothing butafraid?Of courseI was wild; and the people we know, who came to Paris, would go back with great tales of my escapades.’
“Monsieur Roger folds his arms suddenly. ‘Julie,’ he says with earnestness, ‘I am ready to tell you anything—answer any question you may care to put, about my life here in Paris.’
“Mademoiselle looks frightened—confused. Also she reddens,—she is of a youth, enchanting!
“‘But, Roger,’ she says timidly, ‘I would notknow how to ask you questions. I——’
“‘Then listen,’ he says, leaning forward until his black eyes stare into her blue ones; ‘I could tell you almost anything, and you would believe me, Julie?’
“‘Yes,’ says mademoiselle faintly.
“‘I could tell you no, I have not been all these things—I have not drunk much nor gambled nor lost at cards, as they all say, nor—had flirtations with women. I could tell you that, couldn’t I, and you would believe me?’
“‘Ye-es,’ mademoiselle says—yet more faintly.
“‘Well, I tell you nothing of the sort! I tell you, yes, Julie—I have done all these things; I have been wild and extravagant, and what you call dissipated, perhaps. I have been all these; but since how long? and to whose harm—except my own? Can you find me a man in the Quarter who will tell you that, since a year, I have been anything but what you see me now—sane and keen for my work? Can you find me a woman who will tell you that since a year she has seen me anywhere but drinking coffee in some place like this—or that ever, in all the five years, I was anything but gentle and courteous to her? Youcannot, Julie!’ cries Monsieur Roger passionately, ‘you cannot!’
“Mademoiselle Julie is trembling—and there are tears in her blue eyes.
“‘With you,’ declares Monsieur Roger, ’as with all the world—Paris, Baltimore, all!—I am what I am. I seek to be nothing else. But I think you have never quite understood what I am—is it not so?’
“Mademoiselle shakes her head. She is overcome—pauv’ petite!—But m’sieu is famishing! M’sieu’sassiette anglaise—an instant!”
He hurried back with it, and stood anxiously mixing my salad dressing—though his sharp old eyes strayed sometimes to the trio in the orangier opposite. “After that,” he went on triumphantly, “Monsieur Roger is bold—but of a boldness! He takes mademoiselle’s hand—they have no shame whatever over the tea which is still in the pot!—and says to her with a simplicity that alarms, ‘tell me—do you love this Chames Stuart?’
“‘Love him?’ almost screams mademoiselle. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
“‘Then,’ says Monsieur Roger, with the air of a King of France, ‘I’m going to marry you. It is decided. You have nothing more to say about it.’
“Mademoiselle blushes divinely—leans a suspicion towards him. They sigh—ah, youth enchanting! What they feel one can but imagine. He kisses her hand—of me they are oblivious; until—I cough like one in the throes of sudden death. They start apart.Madamehas entered! And Chames Stuart!
“I wring my hands and babble Holy Mary’s. In such a case what can one do that is practical? Nothing. I wait—in terror for Monsieur Roger and mademoiselle. But Monsieur Roger speaks, with a calm supernal, ‘Will you not have tea, madame?’ he demands, offering her his place all politely. But she—madame—sweeps by him. Catches mademoiselle by the arm. ‘I thought this,’ she cries—‘when I missed you! I suspected it, you ungrateful girl! Perhaps when you hear that you are to be married next week at the Consulate, and to Chames Stuart’—then she does look at Monsieur Roger, and withscorn. Chames Stuart looks at Monsieur Roger too—and gives a little smile. It is like his shoulders, that smile, m’sieu—made up and put on. When I see this Chames Stuart, I feel like Bibi, our café dog, who shows her teeth at him. Madame says he is a good man—tant pis!For myself, if it is true, I prefer a devil.
“The three go out, mademoiselle looks at Monsieur Roger not at all. She looks very far away from him. And Monsieur Roger is left with the pot of tea—that has grown cold. When I ask him shall I renew it, he says ‘to be married next week! And to Chames Stuart!’ And then he laughs one laugh—very short—‘Indeed!’ he says—throwing back his head like he does—‘indeed!’ And he marches out of the café, with two steps—but he has legs, Monsieur Roger!—forgetting to pay—everything. But I do not worry, m’sieu. I know, when he comes to-morrow, he will give me the two francs fifty—and something more. He is very good for me, Monsieur Roger.
“Enfin, that was two weeks ago. And still mademoiselle is not married. Buthèlas, it approaches. Yesterday when madame came with her alone, I heard madame say, ‘Monday—not a day later.’ And I know that it is because of money difficulties that she is anxious. Chames Stuart has much money. So has Monsieur Roger, but not so much as Chames Stuart, and, as madame insists to mademoiselle, Monsieur Roger is not good. One day—yesterday—mademoiselle cried out, ‘Oh, how do you know what is good and what is not good? What matters is what is true!’ Madame is shocked—horrified at this temper. And after an instant mademoiselle apologizes—with meekness—Pauv’ petite!What she feels, one can but imagine.”
He gave me my cheese, and stared gloomily at the back of Chames Stuart’s sandy head. “Monday!” I heard him mutter, belligerently. Then to me—“But where then is Monsieur Roger? Only now does mademoiselle whisper to me if he has been here—Monsieur Roger. Since that day when he comes to pay for the tea, he is not here. I think he tries somewhere to console himself, but I do not tellmademoiselle. A young girl cannot understand such things.”
“Then she should,” I declared with a warmth that surprised myself—forty, and inclined to take young girls and the rest of life negligently. “It is because young girls don’t understand such things better, that they let themselves be overruled by James Stuarts and mammas with empty shopping-bags,” I snapped, to the wonder of old Marcel.
My eyes just then had met the troubled blue of the girl’s—the three were leaving. James Stuart took her arm, always with that thin, satisfied smile. I glared at him. I do not like good young men with padded shoulders, and a smile for features. I grumbled as much to Marcel, who shook his head astonished (delighted, too) at my vehemence. “Madame tells mademoiselle there is nothing in his life which this Chames Stuart might not tell to her,” he said scornfully. “That no one has seen him or heard of him doing anything to be condemned.Eh! la! la!” The Frenchman rolled his eyes. “C’est un drôle d’idéale, heinm’sieu? These Americans!—pardon, m’sieu! M’sieu’s hat?À ce soir, alors, m’sieu.”
That evening at dinner he came up to my table, with an air of tremendous excitement. Indeed the whole Café aux Oranges seemed curiously alert, almost explosive. Mademoiselle Julie and her mother were there in their corner, sippingpetits verres—mademoiselle’s cheeks the color of jacqueminots, to be sure, and madame’s with more corners than ever—if possible. But what caught my attention was—heaven of heavens!—Roger Elmont sitting directly opposite them,between Margot and Suzette! the two madcaps of the Quarter! James Stuart was not in the café.
“But, m’sieu, listen—listen while I tell you,” old Marcel’s words tumbled over themselves in his eagerness—“M’sieu has dined,hein? M’sieu takes only coffee and his liqueur? Listen, then, m’sieu: these ladies, they come in alone. They order dinner—which mademoiselle will scarcely touch. She is miserable, she is without herself. At last she says with a bitterness that is to break the heart, ‘Ifit’s only the money, Roger has plenty; and I am going to tell him to-night that if it’s true, what he says about his life this last year, and if he can prove to you that it’s true, I will marry him. Chames Stuart,’ says mademoiselle—but with a calm—‘can go back to America.’
“Madame is furious. ‘But,’ she repeats, ‘he cannot prove it—Roger can never prove it, that he has been good this last year.’
“‘Ican,’ flashes mademoiselle with a defiance, mon Dieu, divine! ‘We can prove it. Only wait and——’
“M’sieu, at this heart-rending moment, I ask you does not Monsieur Roger come in! Monsieur Roger and” (Marcel groaned in anguish) “that mad Suzette!—arm in arm, singing, laughing—m’sieu, I, the oldgarçon de café, Marcel, want to perish! And, can you believe me, they do not see those ladies, no! But—nom de Dieu!—another sees them! Margot—the vixen—who was mad for Monsieur Roger all last year; Margot sees them. She makes a rush—she leaves her escort—she insults Suzette—tears herhat off. They scream! they pull each other’s hair—the café is of afurore! And Monsieur Roger, he only laughs—he just laughs, and teases those girls to wilder and wilder rage.
“Still he does not see mademoiselle—pauv’ petite, so white, suddenly!—who begs to go; but madame will not permit her. Hard as iron she holds mademoiselle’s arm andmakesher see. ‘Now will you prove?’ she demands, with triumph. ‘Now can you prove?—this scandal!’ Mademoiselle answers nothing. She looks very little and very white. Now the patron has come in, peace is ruled, and Monsieur Roger with good nature promises to give both those girls dinner. Butciel!m’sieu, at the instant, he has seen mademoiselle! It is tragedy. What will happen? It is just at the moment of m’sieu’s entrance that he perceived this—oh, poor young man! Is he desolated!—what he feels one can but imagine. I am bringing m’sieu’s liqueur.”
I glanced about. Mademoiselle Julie was indeed abject; nor did madame and her shopping-bag look too happy in their triumph. As for Roger Elmont—dark, gloomy-eyed, between the two now chattering girls—he looked, if anything, the most wretched of the three. All at once he rose, walked swiftly over to mademoiselle. They were sitting quite near me, to-night, and I heard him say in a firm voice, “Julie, I want to explain.”
“Sir!” said madame, indignantly. (One could have sworn she would say, ‘Sir!’)
Roger beautifully disregarded her. “What I told you was true, Julie,” he concentrated all the conviction of his black eyes on mademoiselle. “I have been this afternoon to the studio of a friend for whom Suzette poses. I was sad—God knows I had reason—she suggested we should come here. Margot—the other girl—came across us. And—you saw the rest. If you do not believe me, others will tell you—what I told you was true! And there is nothing else to tell—nothing.”
The girl looked at him—straight in the eyes. Then suddenly she stood up. “I believe you,” she said—with a smile for which I would give all the philosophy of forty and a bald head.
“Julie!” cried madame sharply. “You foolish girl, what do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Julie slowly, “that I am going to marry Roger.”
“You shan’t do it!” declared madame. By this time again the café was on the verge of uproar. “You are to marry James Stuart, who is a man of moral sense, a good man who——”
Just here, James Stuart came in—in evening dress, very debonair and with the smile. “Er—how de do?” he said feebly—seeing Roger.
Then some one saw him—and darted forward. “C’est lui, c’est lui,” screamed Suzette, seizing him with an impish laugh—“that one who was with me at the Olympia last night—with whom I did the tour of Montmartre. La! la!ces anglais!” And the minx kissed Chames Stuart loudly on both cheeks—before the outraged eyes of madame.
As for Roger Elmont—he looked steadily at madame.
Madame had shrunk back—for an instant crushed. Then she regained confidence, caught thegirl’s hand. “Come,” she said in a voice choking with emotion, “come, Julie! Let us go, quickly—let us get out of this mire—this mud of Paris, where nothing seems to be clean or good. Come!”
But the girl—with a new gleam in her blue eyes—turned and gave her hand to Roger. “I think,” she said to her mother in a clear voice, “it is not the mud that counts, but the way one comes out of it.”
“And did you perceive, m’sieu,” chuckled Marcel—when later I was drinking their health in afine champagne—“did you see that Chames Stuart had, fault of the wet evening, mud on his boots? Chames Stuart—that ‘good man,’eh nom d’un pipe! These Americans—pardon, m’sieu!”
THE END
The Chalk Line
By Anne Warwick
Author of “The Unknown Woman,” “Victory Law,” etc.
12mo, Cloth.$1.25 net
“This dramatic story grips from the first page and holds tensely until at the end of the four days of quarantine comes the solution of a problem more than ordinarily complex.”
—Boston Transcript
“An interesting novel; the dialogue is easy and there is a great deal of clever character analysis.”—New York Times
“The situation is handled in an able and original manner, and the way in which it is finally solved provides an unexpected ending for a thoroughly engrossing and unusual story.”