CHAPTER XIII
IT was a cold, damp day in the middle of February. Paris had for the moment borrowed a fog from her neighbour across the Channel; and habituated as she is to sunlight and clear air, she looked dirtier and far less comfortable than consistently and imperturbably grimy London.
“It is the kind of day,” said Romain D’Ucelles, looking out of the window, “in which one might as well do one’s duty; anything else would be equally unpleasant. My angel,” he added to his wife over his shoulder, “do you require the motor this morning?”
“Yes,” said Madame D’Ucelles, without looking up from her correspondence.
“But I am desolated,” said Romain, “because I shall have to deprive you. I am about to go out in it myself.”
“In that case,” said Madame, “you might have spared me your offer!”
“I don’t think it was exactly an offer,” saidRomain, with a thoughtful smile. “I merely wished to show you a little graceful consideration. You should, of course, have said that you did not want the motor, and then you might always have believed in the consistency of my good intentions. But alas! you have acquired that fatal habit of saying the wrong thing! It is a habit that goes with economy and all the domestic virtues. It explains much, and you will forgive me I know, my dear Marie, if I say that I think it excuses more!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said his wife coldly, “but the bills you have been running up lately are simply disgraceful. Here are three from the florist’s. I don’t ask where you send these flowers, but the account comes to more than a thousand francs!”
“Dear, dear!” said Romain, humming a tune. “Do you not remember, my life, that I bought you some on the anniversary of our wedding? That was an expensive affair, I grant you!”
Marie shot a glance of rage at her husband; she would have liked it to be hatred, and she often thought it was; but he had too charming a smile.
“The expense of that affair,” she said bitterly, “was altogether my own!”
“Do not let us quarrel, my adorable one,” murmured Romain, who by now had reached the door. “It sounds as if we were on our honeymoon.But there is, you know, after all, more than one way of being expensive!”
“There you speak truly,” said Madame, “and you have shown me them all!”
Romain laughed out at this sally, and under cover of his laughter brought off his retreat. He enjoyed an occasional conversation with his wife; he said that it added so to the charm of the conversation of other women.
It was three weeks since he had received Miss Prenderghast’s letter imploring him to do his duty about Jean. He had been extremely amused and a trifle annoyed by it; during the three weeks the annoyance had worn off, and now only the amusement was left. He rang for the motor and drove at once to Jean’s new address.
Margot opened the door to him. She was quite overwhelmed by the gorgeous person in the fur-lined overcoat who asked for Jean. This was the first of Jean’s friends who had called upon him, except his fellow artists, and Margot had not a high opinion of artists.
Romain looked at her with amused eyes under his heavy eyelids. “So this was the successor of Liane de Brances!” he thought. “Pretty, decidedly, but not worth six flights of stairs.”
Aloud he said he was shocked at having given her so much trouble; he should suppose from the loud sounds over the way that his nephew was practising his new and rather noisy career?
“Yes, I think he is,” said Margot flushing delicately.
Romain gave her a charming confidential smile. “My dear child,” he said,—“you will allow me this familiarity, for I feel that we already know each other through Jean—do not, I beg of you, encourage this career! Oh, yes! You see I know your influence is great. It is delightful for my nephew to be here, and your room—well! one can see you have a taste. But you want to do what is best for him, do you not?”
“Oh, yes, yes!” said Margot, with a quick catch in her breath. “Only indeed you mistake; I have no influence, none at all!”
“Come, come!” said Romain, laughing. “Do you want me to believe my nephew a perfect fool? I grant you this piano-playing is an absurdity, but if that is his only attraction here, I must give him up altogether. I assure you, you under rate his judgment! I could prove to you very speedily, Mademoiselle, that such judgment as that does not run in our family, but I greatly fear I must leave pleasure for duty, and go in to my nephew. I can count on you, though, can I not, to support my plans for him? They don’t exclude, I assure you, his having charming friendships!”
Margot blushed very deeply and her eyes fell before the laughter in Romain’s. She felt as if a clear, hard light had fallen upon a little shining secret of her own, a secret that lived best in thedark, and which she herself had turned her eyes away from, lest they should see that which desired to escape.
Of course she would do whatever Jean’s uncle thought best for Jean; and naturally a future which promised fur-lined overcoats and a motor would be best for Jean, but they couldn’t, poor Margot knew, be reconciled with singing lessons on thesixième étage, so that her heart sank a little as she knocked for admittance on Jean’s door.
Jean had given up expecting his uncle, and he was not particularly pleased to see him. There was something in the contrast between Romain’s air of finished ease and prosperity and Jean’s poor little room and inexpensive appearance which made Jean feel rather ridiculous. One might be superior to Romain and disagree fundamentally with his sense of the values of life, but there was something about his bright, amused incredulity in the presence of a higher standard which was apt to make the higher standard look a trifle flat.
Romain sat down carefully in Jean’s only armchair, and regarded his nephew, who clung to his music-stool as if it was a banner, with tolerant amusement.
“My poor boy,” he began, “all this is very sad, isn’t it? Shall we smoke?”
Jean felt a renewed pang as his uncle drew out his gold monogrammed cigarette-case and passedit to him. He was determined to resist Romain to the death, but he wished he had not to resist him to the point of being laughed at!
“I’ve seen the little girl,” Romain continued, leaning back as luxuriously as he could and letting his eyes wander over the embroidery mats, the religious pictures, and all Margot’s ambitious attempts at embellishments. “She’s charming, my dear boy, charming! The upper lip is too long, the figure a little too straight, I should imagine that after forty she might have to take precautions against a moustache; but where there is freshness and bloom it does not do to look too critically into these things. Yes, on the whole, I congratulate you!”
“I don’t know what you mean,mon oncle,” said Jean impatiently. “There is nothing to congratulate me upon, I assure you! If you suppose that Mademoiselle Selba——”
Romain waved his hand gently in the air and half closed his eyes.
“Ah, yes, yes!” he said. “Of course, you take the proper attitude; only between ourselves, you know, Jean, afille de théâtreis one thing and afemme du mondeis quite another; one alters one’s tone accordingly. But I have come to speak seriously to you. You have made a fatal mistake. I was really distressed to hear of it. A big folly has about it something that attracts the eye—the world will forgive much for the sake ofan adventure; but a little folly—an obscure intrigue with an unknown singer—my dear Jean, it is not a sin, it is a muddle! When I first heard of your inconceivable good fortune in a certain quarter, I was delighted, a little amused too at your precipitate good fortune—the luck of the first throw! but grateful to the good Liane. ‘Enfin,’ I said, ‘this begins his education, he is at the height of felicity; work below his intelligence and happiness beyond his means! what farther can a man desire?’ But, my good Jean, you lack discrimination. This is a very grave fault. Let me implore you to be careful! I used often to have this very question out with your father. ‘Let me tell you,’ he used to say, ‘that with me, it is all or nothing.’ I regretted it, for those who take that tone invariably begin with all and end with nothing. Violence is a mistake, it destroys the senses. In pleasure, my dear boy, as in delicate health, a little and often is the best possible prescription. Now this kind of thing,” said Romain, fingering a blue bead mat, “this kind of thing is very extreme; it leads you nowhere.”
“I must protest, Uncle, once and for all,” said Jean firmly, “that I am not here for my pleasure, and that my connection with Mademoiselle is wholly innocent. I stay here with her and her mother because it happens to be the only possible means of carrying on my career; but music is absolutely the only tie between us.”
“Your career?” said Romain, and he looked at the piano, he looked at Jean, and he looked at the rain on the window-pane. “If what you tell me is true,” he added after a significant pause, “it is very much more regrettable than anything I had supposed. A mistaken passion can be rectified, but a mistaken virtue is apt to remain upon one’s hands. Pray do not lose your temper; I take your word for it, of course. It confirms me in my opinion of innocence. It is a quality which damps the imagination. It reminds me of a wet day I once spent in the country. Well, my dear Jean, you have, I take it, innocence and your career and six flights of stairs to climb daily; pray, does it amuse you, this combination?”
Jean had prepared himself, or thought he had, for the shafts of his uncle’s wit, but he was hardly prepared for the unconscionable fit of laughter in which Romain proceeded to indulge. He felt bitterly exposed to the crudity of his inexperience. Romain did not dislike his nephew, but he resented him a little; in the first place, he felt that he ought to have done more for Jean, and in the second place, he envied him his youth with that deep resentment of a man who has outlived his own primary emotions without having found anything to replace them. Jean blushed hotly, but he managed to keep his temper.
“I don’t know that I expected to be amused,” he said. “Of course, it’s all ugly enough, and hardenough too, perhaps, but I’m very keen about my work, Uncle Romain.”
“Yes,” said Romain. “So one gathers, and may one ask, do you live on that appetite without satisfying any other?”
Jean hesitated. To tell the truth, he hardly knew what he did live on. He had three pupils beside Margot—a hairdresser’s assistant and two extremely stupid young women, the daughters of the friend of Margot’s late father. These lessons appeared to pay for his board, which was incredibly small, but Margot said that it was really quite as cheap to feed three people as two.
“I have made a small beginning,” he said, looking down at his boots. They shone beautifully, almost as beautifully as Romain’s; for the first time it suddenly flashed into his mind to wonder who had cleaned them.
“I don’t know that, if I were in your place,” said his uncle thoughtfully, “I should care to have that little one provide for me. Perhaps I am hardly the person to point this out to you, but at least I gave Marie a fair equivalent. One can marry a rich woman—there isn’t that possibility in your case!”
Jean sprang to his feet as if Romain had shot him—indeed, for the moment he wished he had; the thought that shook him was an unbearable agony, it had struck straight at his pride! Margot provide for him?
“Mon oncle!” he said, stammering with rage and terror, “you make it impossible for me to answer you, for there is only one answer I can give to such a suggestion.”
“One answer, my dear boy?” said Romain coolly. “There are at least a hundred! However, I assure you I don’t want any of them. It is a pity to take this tragic note. If my suggestion is not true—all the better; but let us admit for the moment that it is true, all may re-arrange itself. I have in my mind a little plan that offers you a way of escape. I have talked it over with your aunt, and I have at last won her consent. It was not altogether an easy thing to do, for I foresaw that it might include a small sum of money to your little friend here—one must free you from obligations in that quarter! And your aunt—like the good woman that she is—does not enter readily into a man’s obligations to other women. However, I pointed out to her that in the long run you would be in a position to repay her handsomely, and really, my dear Jean, it only depends on yourself how soon!”
Jean leaned forward eagerly; his uncle’s words gave him a sense of escape from the shame that was burning at his heart. He could pay Margot back! And he thought that money could do it!
“You remember that night you dined with us?” Romain continued lightly. “Your aunt sent you in with a rich American. You were shy then, and I was afraid you would not be a success with women.It appears, however, that I was mistaken. Now, this American is very rich and consumed with a desire to become one of us. I don’t know who her people were; in America, I take it, there are no people, only parents. Your aunt has pointed out to the girl that young unmarried women entirely unsupported by suitable relations do not find anentréeinto the best French houses, and that there is one way, and only one, of her arriving at her purpose. She must, you perceive, naturally enough, marry one of us. Do not be startled, my dear Jean, and above all do not be precipitate. I daresay you wonder what the fair Pauline should see in you. To tell the truth, I fancy she does not see very much, but you have a certain value—you are my nephew, you have a good old name, and (for these Americans are so like children) it appears that your little title is not indifferent to her, and then there is your aunt. The poor girl considers your aunt to be the ideal Frenchgrande dame. They have such an infallible instinct, these young persons, for breeding and the rightton. I have succeeded in making little histories up about you. She has become interested; like all people of cold natures and wooden virtues, she is immensely attracted by what she considers, in her charming elementary manner, wickedness. Doubtless you will be as surprised as I am to hear of your poor little affairs called by so fine a name. Big names and little facts suitces gens-là; they have no amusements, you know, except their dollars andtheir religions. Fortunately for them, perhaps, they have a great many of both.
“Now, my little plan is that you should come and stay with us for a week or two, and allow us to arrange for you this very suitable match. If you will agree to this, I will discharge all your obligations, and there will be no further need to refer to the Bank, nor,” added Romain with a faint smile, “to the—career! And, my dear boy, you will get the taste out of your mouth of this very bad furniture! Come! The little Pauline looks well, and really you need see very little of her! I can promise you from my own experience that with a little tact and the discrimination we were talking of just now, one’s wife is the woman of all others with whom we need have least to do. I myself will see that suitable settlements are drawn up.”
There were moments during Romain’s speech when Jean hesitated. His uncle had a way of making ideals seem very silly affairs. Jean hated marriage, he disliked Pauline, the life before him had in it nothing that could rivet his heart, and yet so great was his shame and his sense of moral exhaustion that he listened with a feeling of relief. Perhaps this was the best way out of his false start; perhaps work and courage and privation were not worth the sacrifices one made for them; the flesh that he had thought so little of as a temptation, when he was leading the higher life, seemed different now—it became, after all, the respectable thing, as, indeed,it very often is. He was young enough to despise good food, but Liane had taught him to think about his clothes, and he already shrank from small rooms and sordid surroundings; he had learned that poverty is not romantic when it is uncomfortable; and it is generally uncomfortable. Other men paid the same price that he would have to pay; it seemed a mean thing to do, but Pauline wanted his name; it would be an equivalent—she would expect no more of him; and he? Had he ceased already, then, to expect anything from himself? Romain watched him with speculative eyes. He hoped very much Jean would be sensible. He hardly acknowledged to himself that he would respect Jean less if he was.
It was at this moment that Margot began to sing. She thought Jean’s fine uncle must be gone by now, and she was longing to go to Jean, because she had some very good news for him, news which made her spirit dance and her eyes shine, and the voice that came from her glad little heart took wings and flew to meet her comrade. He would be sure to hear her and call out for her to come in.
But Jean did not call her in just yet. Instead he turned a little brusquely towards Romain. “I am immensely grateful to you,mon oncle,” he said, “but I could not think of accepting your plan for a moment. I shall get on somehow, you know.” Romain D’Ucelles shrugged his shoulders and held out his hand, smiling his thin, bored smile.
“Think it over, my dear boy, think it over,” hesaid. “There is no hurry, you are the only pretender yet in the field. And as for the little girl here, you know, why really there’s no particular reason why you should give that up!”
“There’s one thing I’ll never do!” said Jean to himself, as he watched his uncle’s head disappearing slowly down the precipitous drop of the stairs. “Never! Never! Never!”
He did not refer to his marriage with Pauline.