CHAPTER XVI
LIANE did not use empty threats. She was, as she was fond of proclaiming, a good-natured woman, and she never went out of her way to do anyone harm unless she meant to. Margot and Jean had defied her and disappeared, and she was willing for the moment to let the matter rest there. But they made the mistake of reappearing. She read notices of Margot’s singing and she heard from her friends in the musical world that her little Baron was achieving something. He had played for one of Torialli’s pupils, he was getting a name as an accompanist; and he was still with Margot. This she gathered directly from Margot’s ill-spelt appeal to her. She was gratified by the appeal, and she would have been immensely touched by Jean’s death. Jean, however, did not die—he went so far as to recover without renewing the appeal.
“One must do something,” said Liane, duringthe temporary absence of one of Jean’s successors. “I will call upon the uncle.”
Madame de Brances found Romain at home and alone. Madame, the servants told her at the door, was away for a week, the Comte, however, had not accompanied her, he had a slight indisposition, but he would most certainly see Madame.
Romain’s indisposition was of so slight a nature that it only consisted of an inability to do what he disliked. He told Madame de Brances that the thought of a country visit had made him ill, and that the only remedy which suggested itself to him was to remain in town.
“For me,” said Liane, lifting her eyes to the ceiling, “I adore the country!”
“So I should suppose,” agreed Romain with his enigmatical smile. “Madame gives me that impression.”
“If my life would only permit,” continued Madame de Brances, “I would stay there for months at a time. How it would rest me! I can imagine days in the green fields—it brings tears to my eyes.”
“It would to mine,” said Romain. “But I prefer to keep them dry.”
“If that were possible!” sighed Liane.
Romain bowed. He was intensely amused at this interview; he had already the honour of a slight acquaintance with the famous actress, buthe did not for one moment suppose that she had called to renew it.
“Talking of the country,” said Liane, drawing her long soft gloves through her fingers, “brings one back to your little nephew. You are so alike, Monsieur, one would suppose him to be a younger brother.”
Romain bowed again.
“I should have said myself,” he murmured, “my elder brother, but do not let me interrupt you!”
“Pauvre petitJean!” said Liane in her best tragic manner. “There I blame myself! It is, in fact, to blame myself—to make, as it were, a little confession that I come here to-day.”
“Ah!” said Romain. “May I ask, Madame, if you come to confess his sins or your own?”
“Altogether my own,” said Liane, with a little sigh. “I have been unconscionably cruel to him!”
“Ah, then, it was Jean who tired first!” thought Romain to himself.
“ChèreMadame, when are not beautiful women cruel?” he said aloud. “It is their chief quality; even their kindness one suffers from—probably more,” he added to himself.
“Indeed I meant to be kind,” said Liane quickly. “I thought, ‘Here is this poor young man, inexperienced, bored with his bank, with a great talent (that I most emphatically declare he really has,Monsieur, a unique talent).’ I am an artist to my finger-tips, think of me what you like. I could not resist the temptation, I persuaded him to forsake the Bank. I threw him with both hands into the world of music, all this time without dreaming of the poor boy’s emotions—they were, I thought, only gratitude. Monsieur le Comte, they were not!”
“At his age what could you expect?” laughed Romain.
“I never yet knew a grateful young man; indeed, I would rather not.”
Liane brushed aside Romain’s comments; she leaned forward in her chair.
“She is getting a little too old to be so dramatic; it tires one,” Romain said to himself.
“It was not gratitude,” said Liane, drawing herself up with a superb gesture, “c’était l’amour!”
“Dear me!” said Romain, concealing a desire to yawn. “Wouldn’t you have been awfully annoyed with him if it hadn’t been?”
Liane’s eyes met his for a moment; she ceased to be superbly dramatic. Then she leaned back in her chair and laughed.
“Perhaps,” she said. “Give me a cigarette, please!”
Romain handed her one and rang the bell. Liane did not protest when he ordered a liqueur, she merely stated which she preferred. As soon as her wantswere satisfied, she continued her story, but her tone was different.
“Oh well!” she said. “I am not, as you may imagine, as particular as all that—a little love is never out of place in a young man, and if your nephew had been satisfied with a little in return, who knows how long the arrangement might have lasted? But he was not—he is a young man of a terribly serious nature, brought up in the country, which I find we both detest. He required a great deal of love, he required a great deal of everything, that young man. I am a busy woman and I could not find time for him. I frankly told him so. What a business! He raved, he stormed, he made himself ill. He drove me to my wits’ end. I was patient, but in the end I became bored.”
“Too much is always a bore,” murmured Romain gently.
“I gave him his dismissal. What was my horror when in despair (perhaps, too, poor boy, with some thought of revenge) I beheld him throw himself away on a little girl of the theatre, a trifle of acabotine, used, I believe, to clean the boards! This is what (I said to myself) I have driven him to!”
“I can fancy it must have annoyed you,” agreed Romain.
“It was of his relations that I thought most,” Liane continued. “You whom I have met—Madame la Comtesse whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting. But I comforted myself—itwill be over before they have time to hear of it, I said. I must not blame myself too severely.”
“And then what happened?” asked Romain, with some interest. He had heard nothing from Jean lately.
“Jean has been very ill,” said Liane. “One can imagine the kind of thing; truly I feel myself consumed with remorse—poor boy! what sufferings I have caused him! This girl has nursed him. It appears that for his sake she has given up scrubbing the boards; they have no means of support, and out of gratitude—and I cannot forbear saying to myself, out of despair—he is contemplating a union with her.”
“A what!” cried Romain, now really startled.
“My dear friend, I regret to say that I believe Jean capable of anything,” said Liane, “even marriage!”
“Mon Dieu!” said Romain. “This is worse than his poor father! But surely he would not think of contemplating such a step without speaking to me?”
“He is very weak,” said Liane. “He has romantic ideas, and he is in the hands of a little girl who boasts of respectability. One knows what that means.”
“I am certainly very much obliged to you,” said Romain, after a pause. “The affair needs looking into; they must, at any cost, be separated.”
Liane rose to her feet.
“Tell him that he has my good wishes,” she said with a melancholy smile. “I have done what I could for him. Was it my fault that I could not give him what he asked?”
“From what I have gathered,” said Romain, holding out his hand to her, “I should imagine that it was entirely his own.”
They parted. Romain smoked for some time in silence. Then he laughed.
“Rather clever of Jean,” he said to himself, “to begin his career by tantalizing a born coquette. But,Mon Dieu! How they hate, these women! I would not give much for Mademoiselle Margot, if she found herself under Madame’s heel! After all it is possible that what she says is true. I really cannot go to see the boy again—a sick room after six flights of stairs would be worse than one’s wife in the country! But I can write him a letter. It’s a pity that I haven’t any money just now. I should like to send him some. Perhaps after all I had better wait till Marie comes back. It’s the kind of thing one ought to talk over with one’s wife, it makes one feel like the father of a family! The good Liane is decidedly going off, I fear. Jealousy is never becoming in a woman after thirty. It is something for a boy of Jean’s age to have made a woman of experience so much excited. Ah! Henri, is that you? Bring me amarnier. I shall not be in to dinner to-night, and put mylatch-key in the pocket of my dress clothes.” And the domesticated Romain lit another cigarette, and went over in imagination his interesting evening programme, which did not altogether coincide with his new character ofpère de famille.