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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Mountebank + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8430] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 9, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOUNTEBANK *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>The Mountebank</h1> + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">by</p> + +<h2>William J. Locke</h2> + + + + +<h1>Chapter I</h1> + + + +<p>In the month of June, 1919, I received a long letter from Brigadier-General +Andrew Lackaday together with a bulky manuscript.</p> + +<p>The letter, addressed from an obscure hotel in Marseilles, ran as +follows:--</p> + +<p>MY DEAR FRIEND,</p> + +<p>On the occasion of our last meeting when I kept you up to an ungodly hour +of the morning with the story of my wretched affairs to which you patiently +listened without seeming bored, you were good enough to suggest that I +might write a book about myself, not for the sake of vulgar advertisement, +but in order to interest, perhaps to encourage, at any rate to stimulate +the thoughts of many of my old comrades who have been placed in the same +predicament as myself. Well, I can't do it. You're a professional man of +letters and don't appreciate the extraordinary difficulty a layman has, not +only in writing a coherent narrative, but in composing the very sentences +which express the things that he wants to convey. Add to this that English +is to me, if not a foreign, at any rate, a secondary language--I have +thought all my life in French, so that to express myself clearly on any +except the humdrum affairs of life is always a conscious effort. Even this +little prelude, in my best style, has taken me nearly two cigarettes to +write; so I gave up an impossible task.</p> + +<p>But I thought to myself that perhaps you might have the time or the +interest to put into shape a whole mass of raw material which I have slung +together--from memory (I have a good one), and from my diary. It may seem +odd that a homeless Bohemian like myself should have kept a diary; but +I was born methodical. I believe my mastery of Army Forms gained me my +promotion! Anyhow you will find in it a pretty complete history of my +career up to date. I have cut out the war----"</p> + +<p>Is there a <i>lusus naturæ</i> of any nationality but English, who +rising from Private to Brigadier-General, could write six hundred and +seventy-three sprawling foolscap pages purporting to contain the story +of his life from eighteen-eighty something to June nineteen hundred and +nineteen and deliberately omit, as if it were neither here nor there, its +four and a half years' glorious and astounding episode?</p> + +<p>"<i>I have cut out the war!</i>"</p> + +<p>On looking through the MS. I found that he had cut out the war, in so far +as his military experiences were concerned. In khaki he showed himself to +be as English and John Bull as you please; and how the deuce his meteoric +promotion occurred and what various splendid services compelled the +exhibition on his breast of a rainbow row of ribbons, are matters known +only to the War Office, Andrew Lackaday and his Maker. Well--that is +perhaps an exaggeration of secrecy. The newspapers have published +their official paragraphs. Officers who served under him have given me +interesting information. But from the spoken or written word of Andrew +Lackaday I have not been able to glean a grain of knowledge. That, I say, +is where the intensely English side of him manifested itself. But, on the +other hand, the private life that he led during the four and a half years +of war, and that which he lived before and after, was revealed with a +refreshing Gallic lack of reticence which could only proceed from his +French upbringing.</p> + +<p>To return to his letter:--</p> + +<p>I have cut out the war. Thousands of brainy people will be spending the +next few years of their lives telling you all about it. But I should rather +like to treat it as a blank, a period of penal servitude, a drugged sleep +afflicted with nightmare, a bit of metempsychosis in the middle of normal +life--you know what I mean. The thing that is <i>I</i> is not General +Lackaday. It is Somebody Else. So I have given you, for what it is worth, +the story of Somebody Else. The MS. is in a beast of a muddle like the +earth before the Bon Dieu came in and made His little arrangements. Do with +it what you like. At the present moment I am between the Devil and the Deep +Sea. I am hoping that the latter will be the solution of my difficulties. +(By the way, I'm not contemplating suicide.) In either case it doesn't +matter.... If you are interested in the doings of a spent meteor, I shall +be delighted to write to you from time to time. As you said, you are the +oldest friend I have. You are almost the only living creature who knows the +real identity of Andrew Lackaday. You have been charming enough to give me +not only the benefit of your experience, riper than mine, of a man of the +world, but also such a very human sympathy that I shall always think of you +with sentiments of affectionate esteem.</p> + +<p>Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p>ANDREW LACKADAY</p> + +<p>Well. There was the letter, curiously composed; half French, half English +in the turning of the phrase. The last sentence was sheer translation. +But it was sincere. I need not say that I sent a cordial reply. Our +correspondence thenceforward became intimate and regular.</p> + +<p>In his estimate of his manuscript from a literary point of view the +poor General did not exaggerate. Anything more hopeless as a continuous +narrative I have never read. But it supplied facts, hit off odds and +ends of character, and--what the autobiography seldom does--it gave the +<i>ipsissima verba</i> of conversations written in helter-skelter fashion +with flowing pen, sometimes in excellent French, sometimes in English, +which beginning in the elaborate style of his letter broke down into queer +vernacular; it was charmingly devoid of self-consciousness, so that the man +as he was, and not as he imagined himself to be or would like others to +imagine him, stood ingenuously disclosed.</p> + +<p>If the manuscript had been that of a total stranger I could not have +undertaken the task of the Bon Dieu making His little arrangements to shape +the earth out of chaos. An elderly literary dilettante, who is not a rabid +archæologist, has an indolent way of demanding documents clear and precise. +As a matter of fact, it was some months before I felt the courage to tackle +the business. But knowing the man, knowing also Lady Auriol and having +in the meantime made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle Elodie Figasso and +Horatio Bakkus, playing, in fact, a minor rôle, say, that of Charles, his +friend, in the little drama of his life, I eventually decided to carry out +my good friend's wishes. The major part of my task has been a matter +of arrangement, of joining up flats, as they say in the theatre, of +translation, of editing, of winnowing, as far as my fallible judgment can +decide, the chaff from the grain in his narrative, and of relating facts +which have come within the horizon of my own personal experience.</p> + +<p>I begin therefore at the very beginning.</p> + +<p>Many a year ago, when the world, myself included, was young, I knew a +circus. This does not mean that I knew it from the wooden benches outside +the ring. I knew it behind the scenes. I was on terms of intimacy with the +most motley crowd it has been my good fortune to meet. It was a famous +French circus of the classical type that has by now, I fear me, passed +away. Its <i>hautè école</i> was its pride, and it demanded for its +<i>première équestrienne</i> the homage due to the great artists of the +world. Bernhardt of the Comédie Francaise--I think she was still there in +those far-off days, Patti of the Opera and Mlle Renée Saint-Maur of the +Cirque Rocambeau were three stars of equal magnitude. The circus toured +through France from year's end to year's end. It pitched its tent--what +else could it do, seeing that municipal ineptitude provided no building +wherein could be run chariot races of six horses abreast? But the tent, in +my youthful eyes, confused by the naphtha glares and the violent +shadows cast on the many tiers of pink faces, loomed as vast as a Roman +amphitheatre. It was a noble tent, a palace of a tent, the auditorium being +but an inconsiderable section. There was stabling for fifty horses. +There were decent dressing-rooms. There was a green-room, with a wooden, +practicable bar running along one end, and a wizened, grizzled, old barman +behind it who supplied your wants from the contents of a myriad bottles +ranged in perfect order in some obscure nook beneath the counter. They did +things in the great manner in the Cirque Rocambeau. It visited none but +first-class towns which had open spaces worthy of its magnificence. It +despised one or two night stands. The Cirque Rocambeau had a way of +imposing itself upon a town as an illusory permanent institution, a week +being its shortest and almost contemptuous sojourn. The Cirque Rocambeau +maintained the stateliness of the old world.</p> + +<p>Now the Cirque Rocambeau fades out of this story almost as soon as it +enters it. But it affords the coincidence which enables this story to be +written. For if I had not known the Cirque Rocambeau, I should never +have won the confidence of Andrew Lackaday and I should have remained as +ignorant, as you are, at the present moment, of the vicissitudes of that +worthy man's career.</p> + +<p>You see, we met as strangers at a country house towards the end of the war. +Chance turned the conversation to France, where he had lived most of his +life, to the France of former days, to my own early wanderings about +that delectable land, to my boastful accounts of my two or three months' +vagabondage with the Cirque Rocambeau. He jumped as if I had thrown a bomb +instead of a name at him. In fact the bomb would have startled him less.</p> + +<p>"The Cirque Rocambeau?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He looked at me narrowly. "What year was that?"</p> + +<p>I told him.</p> + +<p>"Lord Almighty," said he, with a gasp. "Lord Almighty!" He stared for a +long time in front of him without speaking. Then to my amazement he said +deliberately: "I remember you! You were a sort of a young English god in a +straw hat and beautiful clothes, and you used to take me for rides on the +clown's pig. The clown was my foster father. And now I'm commanding a +battalion in the British Army. By Gum! It's a damn funny world!"</p> + +<p>Memory flashed back with almost a spasm of joy.</p> + +<p>"'By Gum!'" I repeated. "Why, that was what my old friend Ben Flint used to +say twenty times an hour!"</p> + +<p>It was a shibboleth proving his story true. And I remembered the weedy, +ugly, precocious infant who was the pride and spoiled darling of that +circus crowd.</p> + +<p>Why I, a young gentleman of leisure, fresh from Cambridge, chose to go +round France with a circus, is neither here nor there. For one thing, I +assure you it was not for the bright eyes of Mlle Renée Saint-Maur or her +lesser sister luminaries. Ben Flint, the English clown, classically styled +"Auguste" in the arena, and his performing pig, Billy, somehow held +the secret of my fascination. Ben Flint mystified me. He was a man of +remarkable cultivation; save for a lapse here and there into North Country +idiom, and for a trace now and then of North Country burr, his English +was pure and refined. In ordinary life, too, he spoke excellent French, +although in the ring he had to follow the classical tradition of the +English clown, and pronounce his patter with a nerve-rasping Britannic +accent. He never told me his history. But there he was, the principal +clown, and as perfect a clown as clown could be, with every bit of his +business at his fingers' ends, in a great and important circus. Like most +of his colleagues, he knew the wide world from Tokio to Christiania; but, +unlike the rest of the crowd, whose life seemed to be bounded by the canvas +walls of the circus, and who differentiated their impressions of Singapore +and Moscow mainly in terms of climate and alcohol, Ben Flint had observed +men and things and had recorded and analysed his experiences, so that, +meeting a more or less educated youth like myself--perhaps a rare bird +in the circus world--standing on the brink of life, thirsting for the +knowledge that is not supplied by lectures at the Universities, he must +have felt some kind of satisfaction in pouring out, for my benefit, the +full vintage of his wisdom.</p> + +<p>I see him now, squat, clean-shaven, with merry blue eyes in a mug of a +face, sitting in a deck chair, on a scrap of ragged ground forming the +angle between the row of canvas stables and the great tent, a cob pipe in +his humorous mouth, a thick half litre glass of beer with a handle to it on +the earth beside him, and I hear his shrewd talk of far-away and +mysterious lands. His pretty French wife, who knows no English, charmingly +dishevelled, uncorseted, free, in a dubious <i>peignoir</i> trimmed +with artificial lace--she who moulded in mirific tights, sea-green with +reflections of mother-of-pearl, like Venus Anadyomene, does the tight rope +act every afternoon and evening--sits a little way apart, busy with needle +and thread repairing a sorry handful of garments which to-night will be +tense with some portion of her shapely body. Between them sprawls on his +side Billy, the great brown pig whom Ben has trained to stand on his hind +legs, to jump through hoops, to die for his country....</p> + +<p>"They don't applaud. They don't appreciate you, Billy," the clown would +say, choosing his time when applause was scant. "Show them what you think +of them."</p> + +<p>And then Billy would deliberately turn round and, moving in a semicircle, +present his stern to the delighted audience....</p> + +<p>There lies Billy, the pig, the most human pig that ever breathed, adored +by Ben Flint, who, not having given the beast one second's pain in all its +beatific life, was, in his turn, loved by the pig as only a few men are +loved by a dog--and there, sitting on the pig's powerful withers, his blue +smock full of wilted daisies, is little eight-year-old tow-headed Andrew +Lackaday making a daisy chain, which eventually he twines round the +animal's semi-protesting snout.</p> + +<p>Yes. There is the picture. It is full summer. We have lunched, Madame +and Ben and Andrew and I, at the little café restaurant at the near-by +straggling end of the town. At other tables, other aristocratic members of +the troupe. The humbler have cooked their food in the vague precincts of +the circus. We have returned to all that Ben and his wife know as home. It +is one o'clock. At two, matinee. An hour of blissful ease. We are in the +shade of the great tent; but the air is full of the heavy odour of the dust +and the flowers and the herbs of the South, and of the pungent smell of the +long row of canvas stables.</p> + +<p>I call little Andrew. He dismounts from Billy the pig, and, insolent brat, +screws an imaginary eyeglass into his eye, which he contrives to keep +contorted, and assuming a supercilious expression and a languid manner, +struts leisurely towards us, with his hands in his pockets, thereby +giving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in its +burlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw him +across knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle lustily till Madame cries +out:</p> + +<p>"But cease, André. You are making Monsieur too hot."</p> + +<p>And Andrew, docile, ceased at once; but standing in front of me, his back +to Madame, he noiselessly mimicked Madame's speech with his lips, so +drolly, so exquisitely, that Ben Flint's hearty laugh broke out again.</p> + +<p>"Just look at the little devil! By Gum! He has a fortune in him."</p> + +<p>I learned in the circus as much about Andrew as he knew himself. Perhaps +more; for a child of eight has lost all recollection of parents who died +before he was two. They were circus folk, English, trapeze artists, come, +they said, from a long tour in Australia, where Andrew was born, and their +first European engagement was in the Cirque Rocambeau. Their stay was +brief; their end tragic. Lackaday <i>Père</i> took to drink, which is the +last thing a trapeze artist should do. Brain and hand at rehearsal one +day lost co-ordination by the thousandth part of a second and Lackaday +<i>Mère</i>, swinging from her feet upwards, missed the anticipated grip, +and fell with a thud on the ground, breaking her spine. Whereupon Lackaday +<i>Père</i> went out and hanged himself from a cross-beam in an empty +stable.</p> + +<p>Thus, at two years old, Andrew Lackaday started life on his own account. +From that day, he was alone in the world. Nothing in his parents' modest +luggage gave clue to kith or kin. Ben Flint who, as a fellow-countryman, +went through their effects, found not even one letter addressed to them, +found no sign of their contact with any human being living or dead. They +called themselves professionally "The Lackadays." Whether it was their real +name or not, no one in the world which narrowed itself within the limits of +the Cirque Rocambeau, could possibly tell. But it was the only name that +Andrew had, and as good as any other. It was part of his inheritance, the +remainder being ninety-five francs in cash, some cheap trinkets, a couple +of boxes of fripperies which were sold for a song, a tattered copy of +Longfellow's Poems, and a brand new gilt-edged Bible, carefully covered in +brown paper, with "For Fanny from Jim" inscribed on the flyleaf. From which +Andrew Lackaday, as soon as his mind could grasp such things, deduced that +his mother's name was Fanny, and his father's James. But Ben Flint assured +me that Lackaday called his wife Myra, while she called him Alf, by which +names they were familiarly known by their colleagues. So who were Fanny and +Jim, if not Andrew's parents, remained a mystery.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile there was the orphan Andrew Lackaday rich in his extreme youth +and the fortune above specified, and violently asserting his right to live +and enjoy. Meanwhile, too, Ben Flint and his wife had lost their pig +Bob, Billy's predecessor. Bob had grown old and past his job and become +afflicted with an obscure porcine disease, possibly senile decay, for +which there was no remedy but merciful euthanasia. The Flints mourned him, +desolate. They had not the heart to buy another. They were childless, +pigless. But behold! There, to their hand was Andrew, fatherless, +motherless. On an occasion, just after the funeral, for which Ben Flint +paid, when Madame was mothering the tiny Andrew in her arms, and Ben stood +staring, lost in yearning for the lost and beloved pig, she glanced up and +said:</p> + +<p>"<i>Tiens</i>, why should he not replace Bob, <i>ce petit cochon?</i>"</p> + +<p>Ben Flint slapped his thigh.</p> + +<p>"By Gum!" said he, and the thing was done. The responsibility of self +dependence for life and enjoyment was removed from the shoulders of young +Andrew Lackaday for many years to come.</p> + +<p>In the course of time, when the child's <i>état civil</i>, as a resident +in France, had to be declared, and this question of nationality became of +great importance in after years--Madame said:</p> + +<p>"Since we have adopted him, why not give him our name?"</p> + +<p>But Ben, with the romanticism of Bohemia, replied:</p> + +<p>"No. His name belongs to him. If he keeps it, he may be able to find out +something about his family. He might be the heir to great possessions. +One never knows. It's a clue anyway. Besides," he added, the sturdy North +countryman asserting itself, "I'm not giving my name to any man save +the son of my loins. It's a name where I come from that has never been +dishonoured for a couple of hundred years."</p> + +<p>"But it is just as you like, <i>mon chéri</i>," said Madame, who was the +placidest thing in France.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>For thirty years I had forgotten all this; but the "By Gum!" of Colonel +Lackaday wiped out the superscription over the palimpsest of memory and +revealed in startling clearness all these impressions of the past.</p> + +<p>"Of course we're fond of the kid," said Ben Flint. "He's free from vice and +as clever as paint. He's a born acrobat. Might as well try to teach a duck +to swim. It comes natural. Heredity of course. There's nothing he won't be +able to do when I'm finished with him. Yet there are some things which lick +me altogether. He's an ugly son of a gun. His father and mother, by the +way, were a damn good-looking pair. But their hands were the thick spread +muscular hands of the acrobat. Where the deuce did he get his long, thin +delicate fingers from? Already he can pass a coin from back to front----" +he flicked an illustrative conjuror's hand--"at eight years old. To teach +him was as easy as falling off a log. Still, that's mechanical. What I want +to know is, where did he get his power of mimicry? That artistic sense of +expressing personality? 'Pon my soul, he's damn well nearly as clever as +Billy."</p> + +<p>During the talk which followed the discovery of our former meeting, I +reported to Colonel Lackaday these encomiums of years ago. He smiled +wistfully.</p> + +<p>"Most of the dear old fellow's swans were geese, I'm afraid," said he. "And +I was the awkwardest gosling of them all. They tried for years to teach me +the acrobat's business; but it was no good. They might just as well have +spent their pains on a rheumatic young giraffe."</p> + +<p>I looked at him and smiled. The simile was not inapposite. How, I asked +myself, could the man into which he had developed, ever have become an +acrobat? He was the leanest, scraggiest long thing I have ever seen. Six +foot four of stringy sinew and bone, with inordinately long legs, around +which his khaki slacks flapped, as though they hid stilts instead of human +limbs. His arms swung long and ungainly, the sleeves of his tunic far above +the bony wrist, as though his tailor in cutting the garment had repudiated +as fantastic the evidence of his measurements. Yet, when one might have +expected to find hands of a talon-like knottiness, to correspond with the +sparse rugosity of his person, one found to one's astonishment the most +delicately shaped hands in the world, with long, sensitive, nervous +fingers, like those of the thousands of artists who have lived and died +without being able to express themselves in any artistic medium. In a word, +the fingers of the artiste manqué. I have told you what Ben Flint, shrewd +observer, said about his hands, as a child of eight. They were the same +hands thirty years after. To me, elderly observer of human things, they +seemed, as he moved them so gracefully--the only touch of physical grace +about him--to confer an air of pathos on the ungainly man, to serve as an +index to a soul which otherwise could not be divined.</p> + +<p>From this lean length of body rose a long stringy neck carrying a small +head surmounted by closely cropped carotty thatch. His skin was drawn tight +over the framework of his face, as though his Maker had been forced to +observe the strictest economy in material. His complexion was brick red +over a myriad freckles. His features preserved the irregular ugliness of +the child I half remembered, but it was redeemed by light blue candid eyes +set in a tight net of humorous lines, and by a large, mobile mouth, which, +though it could shut grimly on occasions, yet, when relaxed in a smile, +disarmed you by its ear-to-ear kindliness, and fascinated you by the +disclosure of two rows of white teeth perfectly set in the healthy pink +streaks of gum. He had the air of a man physically fit, inured to hardship; +the air, too, in spite of his gentleness, of a man accustomed to command. +In the country house at which we met it had not occurred to me to speculate +on his social standing, as human frailty determined that one should do in +the case of so many splendid and gallant officers of the New Army. His +manners were marked by shy simplicity and quiet reserve. It was a shock to +preconceived ideas to find him bred in a circus, even in so magnificent a +circus as the Cirque Rocambeau, and brought up by a clown, even by such a +superior clown as Ben Flint,</p> + +<p>"And my old friend?" I asked. For I had lost knowledge of Ben practically +from the time I ended my happy vagabondage. <i>Maxima mea culpa</i>.</p> + +<p>"He died when I was about sixteen," replied Colonel Lackaday, "and his wife +a year or so later."</p> + +<p>"And then?" I queried, eager for autobiographical revelations.</p> + +<p>"Then," said he, "I was a grown up man, able to fend for myself."</p> + +<p>That was all I could get out of him, without allowing natural curiosity to +outrun discretion. He changed the conversation to the war, to the France +about which I, a very elderly Captain--have I not confessed to early +twenties thirty years before?--was travelling most uncomfortably, doing +queer odd jobs as a nominal liaison officer on the Quartermaster-General's +staff. His intimacy with the country was amazing. Multiply Sam Weller's +extensive and peculiar knowledge of London by a thousand, and you shall +form some idea of Colonel Lackaday's acquaintance with the inns of +provincial France. He could even trot out the family skeletons of the +innkeepers. In this he became animated and amusing. His features assumed an +actor's mobility foreign to their previous military sedateness, and he used +his delicate hands in expressive gestures. In parenthesis I may say we had +left the week-end party at their bridge or flirtation (according to age) in +the drawing-room, neither pursuits having for us great attraction, in spite +of Lady Auriol Dayne, of whom more hereafter, and we had found our way to +cooling drinks and excellent cigars in our host's library. It was the first +time we had exchanged more than a dozen words, for we had only arrived +that Saturday afternoon. But after the amazing mutual recognition, we sat +luxuriously chaired, excellent friends, and I, for my part, enjoying his +society.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said he, "Montélimar. I know that hotel. <i>Infect</i>. And the +<i>patron</i>, eh? You remember him. Forty stone. Phoo!"</p> + +<p>The gaunt man sat up in his chair and by what mesmeric magic it happened I +know not, but before my eyes grew the living image of the gross, shapeless +creature who had put me to bed in wringing wet sheets.</p> + +<p>"And when you complained, he looked like this--eh?"</p> + +<p>He did look like that. Bleary-eyed, drooping-mouthed, vacant. I recollected +that the fat miscreant had the middle of his upper lip curiously sunken +into the space of two missing front teeth. The middle of Colonel Lackaday's +upper lip was sucked in.</p> + +<p>"And he said: 'What would you have, Monsieur? <i>C'est la guerre?</i>'"</p> + +<p>The horrible fat man, hundreds of miles away from the front, with every +convenience for drying sheets, had said those identical words. And in the +same greasy, gasping tone.</p> + +<p>I gaped at the mimetic miracle. It was then that the memory of the +eight-year-old child's travesty of myself flashed through my mind.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," said I, "but haven't you turned this marvellous gift of yours +to--well to practical use?"</p> + +<p>He grinned in his honest, wide-mouthed way, showing his incomparable teeth.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," said he, "I'm the model of a Colonel of the Rifles?"</p> + +<p>He grinned again at the cloud of puzzlement on my face, and rose holding +out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Time for turning in. Will you do me a favour? Don't give me away about the +circus."</p> + +<p>Somehow my esteem for him sank like thermometer mercury plunged into ice. I +had thought him, with the blazing record of achievement across his chest, a +man above such petty solicitude. His mild blue eyes searched my thoughts.</p> + +<p>"I don't care a damn, Captain Hylton," said he, in a tone singularly +different from any that he had used in our pleasant talk--"if anybody knows +I was born in a stable. A far better man than I once had that privilege. +But as it happens that I am going out to command a brigade next week, it +would be to the interest of my authority and therefore to that of the army, +if no gossip led to the establishment of my identity."</p> + +<p>"I assure you, sir----" I began stiffly--I was only a Captain, he, but for +a formality or two, a Brigadier-General.</p> + +<p>He clapped his hands on my shoulders--and I swear his ugly, smiling face +was that of an angel.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said he, "so long as you regard me as an honest cuss, +nothing matters in the world."</p> + +<p>I went to bed with the conviction that he was as honest a cuss as I had +ever met.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter II</h1> + + + +<p>Our hosts, the Verity-Stewarts, were pleasant people, old friends of mine, +inhabiting a Somerset manor-house which had belonged to their family since +the days of Charles the Second. They were proud of their descent; the +Stewart being hyphenated to the first name by a genealogically enthusiastic +Verity of a hundred years ago; but the alternative to their motto suggested +by the son of the house, Captain Charles Verity-Stewart, "The King can do +no wrong," found no favour in the eyes of his parents, who had lived remote +from the democratic humour of the officers of the New Army.</p> + +<p>It was to this irreverent Cavalier, convalescent at home from a machine-gun +bullet through his shoulder, and hero-worshipper of his Colonel, that +Andrew Lackaday owed his shy appearance at Mansfield Court. He was proud of +the boy, a gallant and efficient soldier; Lady Verity-Stewart had couched +her invitation in such cordial terms that a refusal would have been +curmudgeonly; and the Colonel was heartily tired of spending his hard-won +leave horribly alone in London.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I may seem to be explaining that which needs no explanation. It is +not so. In England Colonel Lackaday found himself in the position of many +an officer from the Dominions overseas. He had barely an acquaintance. +Hitherto his leave had been spent in France. But one does not take a +holiday in France when the War Officer commands attention at Whitehall. He +was very glad to go to the War Office, suspecting the agreeable issue of +his visit. Yet all the same he was a stranger in a strange land, living +on the sawdust and warmed-up soda-water of unutterable boredom. He had +spent--so he said--his happiest hours in London, at the Holborn Empire. +Three evenings had he devoted to its excellent but not soul-enthralling +entertainment.</p> + +<p>"In the name of goodness, why?" I asked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"There was a troupe of Japanese acrobats," said he. "In the course of a +roving life one picks up picturesque acquaintances. Hosimura, the head of +them, is a capital fellow."</p> + +<p>This he told me later, for our friendship, begun when he was eight years +old, had leaped into sudden renewal; but without any idea of exciting my +commiseration. Yet it made me think.</p> + +<p>That a prospective Brigadier-General should find his sole relief from +solitude in the fugitive companionship of a Japanese acrobat seemed to me +pathetic.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile there he was at Mansfield Court, lean and unlovely, but, as I +divined, lovable in his unaffected simplicity, the very model of a British +field-officer. At dinner on Saturday evening, he had sat between his +hostess and Lady Auriol Dayne. To the former he had talked of the things +she most loved to hear, the manifold virtues of her son. There were +fallings away from the strict standards of military excellence, of course; +but he touched upon them with his wide, charming smile, condoned them with +the indulgence of the man prematurely mellowed who has kept his hold on +youth, so that Lady Verity-Stewart felt herself in full sympathy with +Charles's chief, and bored the good man considerably with accounts of the +boy's earlier escapades. To Lady Auriol he talked mainly about the war, of +which she appeared to have more complete information than he himself.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think," she said at last with a swift side glance, "that I'm +laying down the law about things I'm quite ignorant of."</p> + +<p>He said: "Not at all. You're in a position to judge much better than I. +You people outside the wood can see it, in its entirety. We who are in the +middle of the horrid thing can't see it for the trees."</p> + +<p>It was this little speech so simple, so courteous and yet not lacking a +touch of irony, that first made Lady Auriol, in the words which she used +when telling me of it afterwards, sit up and take notice.</p> + +<p>Bridge, the monomania which tainted Sir Julius Verity-Stewart's courtly +soul, pinned Lady Auriol down to the green-covered table for the rest of +the evening. But the next day she set herself to satisfy her entirely +unreprehensible curiosity concerning Colonel Lackaday.</p> + +<p>Lady Auriol, born with even more curiosities than are the ordinary +birthright of a daughter of Eve, had spent most of her life in trying to +satisfy them. In most cases she had been successful. Here be it said that +Lady Auriol was twenty-eight, unmarried, and almost beautiful when she took +the trouble to do her hair and array herself in becoming costume. As to +maiden's greatest and shyest curiosity, well--as a child of her epoch--she +knew so much about the theory of it that it ceased to be a curiosity at +all. Besides, love--she had preserved a girl's faith in beauty--was a +psychological mystery not to be solved by the cold empirical methods which +could be employed in the solution of other problems. I must ask you to bear +this in mind when judging Lady Auriol. She had once fancied herself in love +with an Italian poet, an Antinous-like young man of impeccable manners, +boasting an authentic pedigree which lost itself in the wolf that suckled +Romulus and Remus. None of your vagabond ballad-mongers. A guest when she +first met him of the Italian Ambassador. To him, Prince Charming, knight +and troubadour, she surrendered. He told her many wonders of fairy things. +He led her into lands where woman's soul is free and dances on buttercups. +He made exquisite verses to her auburn hair. But when she learned that +these same verses were composed in a flat in Milan which he shared with a +naughty little opera singer of no account, she dismissed Prince Charming +offhand, and betook herself alone to the middle of Abyssinia to satisfy her +curiosity as to the existence there of dulcimer-playing maidens singing of +Mount Abora to whom Coleridge in his poem assigns such haunting attributes.</p> + +<p>Lady Auriol, in fact, was a great traveller. She had not only gone all over +the world--anybody can do that--but she had gone all through the world. +Alone, she had taken her fate in her hands. In comparison with other +geographical exploits, her journey through Abyssinia was but a trip to +Margate. She had wandered about Turkestan. She had crossed China. She had +fooled about Saghalien.... In her schooldays, hearing of the Sanjak of Novi +Bazar, she had imagined the Sanjak to be a funny little man in a red cap. +Riper knowledge, after its dull exasperating way, had brought disillusion; +but like Mount Abora the name haunted her until she explored it for +herself. When she came back, she knew the Sanjak of Novi Bazar like her +pocket.</p> + +<p>Needless to say that Lady Auriol had thrown all her curiosities, her +illusions--they were hydra-headed--her enthusiasms and her splendid +vitality into the war. She had organized and directed as Commandant a great +hospital in the region of Boulogne. "I'm a woman of business," she told +Lackaday and myself, "not a ministering angel with open-worked stockings +and a Red Cross of rubies dangling in front of me. Most of the day I sit +in a beastly office and work at potatoes and beef and army-forms. I can't +nurse, though I daresay I could if I tried; but I hate amateurs. No +amateurs in my show, I assure you. For my job I flatter myself I'm trained. +A woman can't knock about the waste spaces of the earth by herself, head +a rabble of pack-carrying savages, without gaining some experience in +organization. In fact, when I'm not at my own hospital, which now runs on +wheels, I'm employed as a sort of organizing expert--any old where they +choose to send me. Do you think I'm talking swollen-headedly, Colonel +Lackaday?"</p> + +<p>She turned suddenly round on him, with a defiant flash of her brown eyes, +which was one of her characteristics---the woman, for all her capable +modernity, instinctively on the defensive.</p> + +<p>"It's only a fool who apologizes for doing a thing well," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"He couldn't do it well if he was a fool," Lady Auriol retorted.</p> + +<p>"You never know what a fool can do till you try him," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>It was a summer morning. Nearly all the house-party had gone to church. +Lady Auriol, Colonel Lackaday and I, smitten with pagan revolt, lounged on +the shady lawn in front of the red-brick, gabled manor house. The air was +full of the scent of roses from border beds and of the song of thrushes +and the busy chitter-chatter of starlings in the old walnut trees of +the further garden. It was the restful England which the exiled and the +war-weary used so often to conjure up in their dreams.</p> + +<p>"You mean a fool can be egged on to do great things and still remain a +fool?" asked Lady Auriol lazily.</p> + +<p>Lackaday smiled--or grinned--it is all the same--a weaver of fairy nothings +could write a delicious thesis on the question; is Lackaday's smile a grin +or is his grin a smile? Anyhow, whatever may be the definition of the +special ear-to-ear white-teeth-revealing contortion of his visage, it had +in it something wistful, irresistible. You will find it in the face of a +tickled baby six months old. He touched his row of ribbons.</p> + +<p>"<i>Voilà</i>," said he.</p> + +<p>"It's polite to say I don't believe it," she said, regarding him beneath +her long lashes. "But, supposing it true for the sake of argument, I should +very much like to know what kind of a fool you are."</p> + +<p>Lying back in her long cane chair, an incarnation of the summer morning, +fresh as the air in her white blouse and skirt, daintily white hosed and +shod, her auburn hair faultlessly dressed sweeping from the side parting in +two waves, one bold from right to left, the other with coquettish grace, +from left to right, the swiftness of her face calmed into lazy contours, +the magnificent full physique of her body relaxed as she lay with her +silken ankles crossed on the nether chair support, her hands fingering a +long necklace of jade, she appealed to me as the most marvellous example I +had ever come across of the woman's power of self-transmogrification.</p> + +<p>The last time I had seen her was in France, wet through in old +short-skirted kit, with badly rolled muddy puttees, muddier heavy boots, a +beast of a dripping hat pinned through rain-sodden strands of hair, streaks +of mud over her face, ploughing through mud to a British Field Ambulance, +yet erect, hawk-eyed, with the air of a General of Division. There sex was +wiped out. During our chance meeting, one of the many queer chance meetings +of the war, a meeting which lasted five minutes while I accompanied her to +her destination, we spoke as man to man. She took a swig out of my brandy +flask. She asked me for a cigarette--smoked out, she said. I was in nearly +the same predicament, having only, at the moment, for all tobacco, the pipe +I was then smoking. "For God's sake, like a good chap, give me a puff or +two," she pleaded. And so we walked on through the rain and mud, she pipe +in mouth, her shoulders hunched, her hands, under the scornfully hitched up +skirt, deep in her breeches pockets. And now, this summer morning, there +she lay, all woman, insidiously, devilishly alluring woman, almost +voluptuous in her self-confident abandonment to the fundamental conception +of feminine existence.</p> + +<p>Lackaday's eyes rested on her admiringly. He did not reply to her remark, +until she added in a bantering tone:</p> + +<p>"Tell me."</p> + +<p>Then he said, with an air of significance: "The most genuine brand you can +imagine, I assure you."</p> + +<p>"A motley fool," she suggested idly.</p> + +<p>At that moment, Evadne, the thirteen-year-old daughter of the house, who, +as she told me soon afterwards, in the idiom of her generation, had given +the divine-services a miss, carried me off to see a litter of Sealyham +puppies. That inspection over, we reviewed rabbits and fetched a compass +round about the pigsties and crossed the orchard to the chicken's parade, +and passed on to her own allotment in the kitchen garden, where a few +moth-eaten cabbages and a wilting tomato in a planted pot seemed to hang +degraded heads at our approach, and, lingering through the rose garden, we +eventually emerged on the further side of the lawn.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you want to go and join them," she said with a jerk of her +bobbed head in the direction of Lady Auriol and Colonel Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we ought," said I.</p> + +<p>"They don't want us--you can bet your boots," said she.</p> + +<p>"How do you know that, young woman of wisdom?"</p> + +<p>She sniffed. "Look at 'em."</p> + +<p>I looked at 'em; mole-visioned masculine fifty seeing through the eyes of +feminine thirteen; and, seeing very distinctly indeed, I said:</p> + +<p>"What would you like to do?"</p> + +<p>"If you wouldn't mind very much," she replied eagerly, her interest in, or +her scorn of, elderly romance instantly vanishing, "let us go back to the +peaches. That's the beauty of Sundays. That silly old ass Jenkins"--Jenkins +was the head gardener--"is giving his family a treat, instead of coming +down on me. See?"</p> + +<p>Evadne linked her arm in mine. Again I saw. She had already eaten two +peaches. Who was I to stand in the way of her eating a third or a fourth or +a fifth? With the after consequences of her crime against Jenkins, physical +and otherwise, I had nothing to do. It was the affair of her parents, her +doctor, her Creator. But the sight of the rapturous enjoyment on her face +when her white teeth bit into the velvet bloom of the fruit sped one back +to one's own youth and procured a delight not the less intense because it +was vicarious.</p> + +<p>"Come along," said I.</p> + +<p>"You're a perfect lamb," said she.</p> + +<p>Before the perfect lamb was led to the peach slaughter, he looked again +across the lawn. Colonel Lackaday had moved his chair very close to Lady +Auriol's wicker lounge, so that facing her, his head was but a couple +of feet from hers. They talked not so much animatedly as intimately. +Lackaday's face I could not see, his back being turned to me; I saw Lady +Auriol's eyes wide, full of earnest interest, and compassionate admiration. +I had no idea that her eyes could melt to such softness. It was a +revelation. No woman ever looked at a man like that, unless she was +an accomplished syren, without some soul-betrayal. I am a <i>vieux +routier</i>, an old campaigner in this world of men and women. Time was +when--but that has nothing to do with this story. At any rate I think I +ought to know something about women's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see anything so idiotic?" asked Evadne, dragging me round.</p> + +<p>"I think I did once," said I.</p> + +<p>"When was that?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said I.</p> + +<p>"Do tell me, Uncle Tony."</p> + +<p>I, who have seen things far more idiotic a thousand times, racked my brain +for an answer that would satisfy the child.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," I began, "your father and mother, when they were +engaged----"</p> + +<p>She burst out: "But they were young. It isn't the same thing. Aunt Auriol's +as old as anything. And Colonel Lackaday's about sixty."</p> + +<p>"My dear Evadne," said I. "I happen to know that Colonel Lackaday is +thirty-eight."</p> + +<p>Thirteen shrugged its slim shoulders. "It's all the same," it said.</p> + +<p>We went to the net-covered wall of ripe and beauteous temptation, trampling +over Jenkins's beds of I know not what, and ate forbidden fruit. At least +Evadne did, until, son of Adam, I fell.</p> + +<p>"Do have a bite. It's lovely. And I've left you the blushy side."</p> + +<p>What could I do? There she stood, fair, slim, bobbed-haired, green-kirtled, +serious-eyed, carelessly juicy-lipped, holding up the peach. I, to whom all +wall-fruit is death, bit into the side that blushed. She anxiously watched +my expression.</p> + +<p>"Topping, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yum, yum," said I.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it?" she said, taking back the peach.</p> + +<p>That's the beauty of childhood. It demands no elaborate expression. +Simplicity is its only coinage. A rhapsody on the exquisiteness of the +fruit's flavour would have bored Evadne stiff. Her soul yearned for the +establishment between us of a link of appreciation. "Yum, yum," said I, and +the link was instantly supplied.</p> + +<p>She threw away a peach stone and sighed.</p> + +<p>"Let's go."</p> + +<p>"Why?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm not looking for any more trouble," she replied.</p> + +<p>We returned to the lawn and Lady Auriol and Colonel Lackaday. Not a hole +could be picked in the perfect courtesy of their greeting; but it lacked +passionate enthusiasm. Evadne and I sat down, and our exceedingly dull +conversation was soon interrupted by the advent of the church goers.</p> + +<p>Towards lunch time Lackaday and I, chance companions, strolled towards the +house.</p> + +<p>"What a charming woman," he remarked.</p> + +<p>"Lady Verity-Stewart," said I, with a touch of malice--our hostess was the +last woman with whom he had spoken--"is a perfect dear."</p> + +<p>"So she is, but I meant Lady Auriol."</p> + +<p>"I've known her since she was that high," I said spreading out a measuring +hand. "Her development has been most interesting."</p> + +<p>A shade of annoyance passed over the Colonel's ugly good-humoured face. +To treat the radiant creature who had swum into his ken as a subject for +psychological observation savoured of profanity. With a smile I added:</p> + +<p>"She's one of the very best."</p> + +<p>His brow cleared and his teeth gleamed out my tribute.</p> + +<p>"I've met very few English ladies in the course of my life," said he half +apologetically. "The other day, a brother officer finding me fooling about +Pall Mall insisted on my lunching with him at the Carlton. He had a party. +I sat next to a Mrs. Tankerville, who I gather is a celebrity."</p> + +<p>"She is," said I. "And she said, 'You must really come and have tea with me +to-morrow. I've a crowd of most interesting people coming.'"</p> + +<p>"She did," cried Lackaday, regarding me with awestricken eyes, as Saul must +have looked at the Witch of Endor. "But I didn't go. I couldn't talk to +her. I was as dumb as a fish. Oh, damned dumb! And the dumber I was the +more she talked at me. I had risen from the ranks, hadn't I? She thought +careers like mine such a romance. I just sat and sweated and couldn't eat. +She made me feel as if she was going to exhibit me as the fighting skeleton +in her freak museum. If ever I see that woman coming towards me in the +street, I'll turn tail and run like hell."</p> + +<p>I laughed. "You mustn't compare Mrs. Tankerville with Lady Auriol Dayne."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon Dieu!</i> I should think not!" he cried with a fervent gesture. +"Lady Auriol----"</p> + +<p>Our passage from the terrace across the threshold of the drawing-room cut +short a possible rhapsody.</p> + +<p>Later in the afternoon, in the panelled Elizabethan entrance hall, I came +across Lady Auriol in tweed coat and skirt and business-like walking boots, +a felt hat on her head and a stout stick in her hands.</p> + +<p>"Whither away?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Colonel Lackaday and I are off for a tramp, over to Glastonbury." Her lips +moved ironically. "Like to come?"</p> + +<p>"God forbid!" I cried.</p> + +<p>"Thought you wouldn't," she said, drawing on a wash-leather gauntlet, "but +when I'm in Society, I do try to be polite."</p> + +<p>"My teaching and example for the last twenty years," said I, "have not been +without effect."</p> + +<p>"You're a master of deportment, my dear Tony." I was old enough to be her +father, but she had always called me Tony, and had no more respect for my +grey hairs than her cousin Evadne. "Tell me," she said, with a swift change +of manner, "do you know anything about Colonel Lackaday?"</p> + +<p>"We met here as strangers," said I, "and I can only say that he impresses +me as being a very gallant gentleman."</p> + +<p>Her face beamed. She held out her hand. "I'm so glad you think so." She +glanced at the clock.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord! I'm a minute late. He's outside. I loathe unpunctuality. So +long, Tony."</p> + +<p>She waved a careless farewell and strode out.</p> + +<p>In the evening she gave Sir Julius to understand that, for aught she cared, +he could go into a corner and play Bridge by himself, thus holding herself +free, as it appeared to my amused fancy, for any pleasanter eventuality. In +a few moments Colonel Lackaday was sitting by her side. I drew a chair to +a bridge-table, and idly looked over my hostess's hand. Presently, being +dummy, she turned to me, with a little motion of her head towards the pair +and whispered:</p> + +<p>"Those two--Auriol and ---- don't you think it's rather rapid?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Selina," said I. "What would you have? '<i>C'est la guerre</i>.'"</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter III</h1> + + + +<p>It was rather rapid, this intimacy between the odd assorted pair--the +high-bred woman of fervid action and the mild and gawky Colonel born in a +travelling circus. Holding the key to his early life, and losing myself in +conjecture as to his subsequent career until he found himself possessed of +the qualities that make a successful soldier, I could not help noticing the +little things, unperceived by a generous war society, which pathetically +proved that his world and that of Lady Auriol, for all her earth-wide +Bohemianism, were star distances apart. Little tiny things that one +feels ashamed to record. His swift glance round to assure himself of the +particular knife and fork he should use at a given stage of the meal--the +surreptitious pushing forward on the plate, of the knife which he had +leaned, French fashion, on the edge; his queer distress on entering the +drawing-room--his helplessness until the inevitable and unconscious rescue, +for he was the honoured guest; the restraint, manifest to me, which he +imposed on his speech and gestures. Everyone loved him for his simplicity +of manners. In fact they were natural to the man. He might have saved +himself a world of worry. But his trained observation had made him aware +of the existence of a thousand social solecisms, his sensitive character +shrank from their possible committal, and he employed his mimetic genius +as an instrument of salvation. And then his English--his drawing-room +English--was not spontaneous. It was thought out, phrased, excellent +academic English, not the horrible ordinary lingo that we sling at each +other across a dinner-table; the English, though without a trace of foreign +accent, yet of one who has spent a lifetime in alien lands and has not met +his own tongue save on the printed page; of one, therefore, who not being +sure of the shade of slang admissible in polite circles, carefully and +almost painfully avoids its use altogether.</p> + +<p>Yet all through that long weekend--we were pressed to stay till the +Wednesday morning--no one, so far as I know, suspected that Colonel +Lackaday found himself in an unfamiliar and puzzling environment.</p> + +<p>His appointment to the Brigade came on the Tuesday. He showed me the +letter, during a morning stroll in the garden.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell anybody, please," said he.</p> + +<p>"Of course not." I could not repress an ironical glance, thinking of Lady +Auriol. "If you would prefer to make the announcement your own way."</p> + +<p>He gasped, looking down upon me from his lean height. "My dear fellow--it's +the very last thing I want to do. I've told you because I let the thing out +a day or two ago--in peculiar circumstances--but it's in confidence."</p> + +<p>"Confidence be hanged," said I.</p> + +<p>Heaven sent me Evadne--just escaped from morning lessons with her +governess, and scuttling across the lawn to visit her Sealyhams. I whistled +her to heel. She raced up.</p> + +<p>"If you were a soldier what would you do if you were made a General?"</p> + +<p>She countered me with the incredulous scorn bred of our familiarity.</p> + +<p>"You haven't been made a General?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't," I replied serenely. "But Colonel Lackaday has." + +She looked wide-eyed up into Lackaday's face.</p> + +<p>"Is that true?"</p> + +<p>I swear he blushed through his red sun-glaze.</p> + +<p>"Since Captain Hylton says so----"</p> + +<p>She held out her hand with perfect manners and said:</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad. My congratulations." Then, before the bewildered Lackaday +could reply, she tossed his hand to the winds.</p> + +<p>"There'll be champagne for dinner and I'm coming down," she cried and fled +like a doe to the house. At the threshold of the drawing-room she turned.</p> + +<p>"Does Cousin Auriol know?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows," I said.</p> + +<p>She shouted: "Good egg!" and disappeared.</p> + +<p>I turned to the frowning and embarrassed Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"Your modesty doesn't appreciate the pleasure that news will give all those +dear people. They've shown you in the most single-hearted way that they're +your friends, haven't they?"</p> + +<p>"They have," he admitted. "But it's very extraordinary. I don't belong to +their world. I feel a sort of impostor."</p> + +<p>"With this--and all these?"</p> + +<p>I flourished the letter which I still held, and with it touched the rainbow +on his tunic. His features relaxed into his childish ear-to-ear grin.</p> + +<p>"It's all so incomprehensible--here--in this old place--among these English +aristocrats--the social position I step into. I don't know whether you can +quite follow me."</p> + +<p>"As a distinguished soldier," said I, "apart from your charming personal +qualities, you command that position."</p> + +<p>He screwed up his mobile face. "I can't understand it. It's like a +nightmare and a fairy-tale jumbled up together. On the outbreak of war I +came to England and joined up. In a few months I had a commission. I don't +know..." he spread out his ungainly arm--"I fell into the métier--the +business of soldiering. It came easy to me. Except that it absorbed me body +and soul, I can't see that I had any particular merit. Whatever I have +done, it would have been impossible, in the circumstances, not to do. Out +there I'm too busy to think of anything but my day's work. As for these +things"--he touched his ribbons--"I put them up because I'm ordered to. A +matter of discipline. But away from the Army I feel as though I were made +up for a part which I'm expected to play without any notion of the words. +I feel just as I would have done five years ago if I had been dressed like +this and planted here. To go about now disguised as a General only adds to +the feeling."</p> + +<p>"If you'll pardon me for saying so," said I, "I think you're +super-sensitive. You imagine yourself to be the same man that you were five +years ago. You're not. You're a different human being altogether. Men with +characters like yours must suffer a sea-change in this universal tempest."</p> + +<p>"I hope not," said he, "for what will become of me when it's all over? +Everything must come to an end some day--even the war."</p> + +<p>I laughed. "Don't you see how you must have changed? Here you are looking +regretfully to the end of the war. If it were only bloodless you would like +it to go on for ever. Who knows whether you wouldn't eventually wear two +batons instead of the baton and sword."</p> + +<p>"I'm not an ambitious man, if you mean that," said he, soberly. "Besides +this war business is far too serious for a man to think of his own +interests. Suppose a fellow schemed and intrigued to get high rank and then +proved inefficient--it would mean death to hundreds or thousands of his +men. As it is, I assure you I'm not cock-a-whoop about commanding a +brigade. I was a jolly sight happier with a platoon."</p> + +<p>"At any rate," said I, "other people are cock-a-whoop. Look at them."</p> + +<p>The household, turned out like a guard by Evadne, emerged in a body from +the house. Sir Julius beamed urbanely. Lady Verity-Stewart almost fell on +the great man's neck. Young Charles broke into enthusiastic and profane +congratulations. From the point of view of eloquent compliment his speech +was disgraceful; but I loved the glisten in the boy's eyes as he gazed on +his hero. A light also gleamed in the eyes of Lady Auriol. She shook hands +with him in her direct fashion.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad. So very very glad." Perhaps I alone--except Lackaday--detected a +little tremor in her voice. "Why didn't you want us to know?"</p> + +<p>Instinctively I caught Evadne's eye. She winked at me, acknowledging +thereby that she had divulged the General's secret. But by what feminine +process of divination had she guessed it? Charles came to his chief's +rescue.</p> + +<p>"The General couldn't go around shouting 'I'm to command a brigade mother, +I'm to command a brigade,' could he?"</p> + +<p>"He might have stuck on his badges and walked in as if nothing had +happened. It would have been such fun to see who would have spotted them +first."</p> + +<p>Thus Evadne, immediately called to order by Sir Julius. The hero said very +little. What in his modesty could the good fellow say? But it was obvious +that the sincere and spontaneous tributes pleased him. Sir Julius, after +the suppression of Evadne, made him the little tiniest well-bred ghost +of an oration. That the gallant soldier under whom his son had the +distinguished honour to serve should receive the news of his promotion +under his roof was a matter of intense gratification to the whole +household.</p> + +<p>It was a gracious scene--the little group, on the lawn in shade of the old +manor house, so intimate, so kindly, so genuinely emotional, yet so restful +in its English restraint, surrounding the long, lank, khaki-clad figure +with the ugly face, who, after looking from one to the other of them in a +puzzled sort of way, drew himself up and saluted.</p> + +<p>"You're very kind," said he, in reply to Sir Julius. "If I have the same +loyalty in my brigade as I had in my old regiment," he glanced at Charles, +"I shall be a very proud man."</p> + +<p>That ended whatever there was of ceremony. Lady Auriol drew me aside.</p> + +<p>"Come for a stroll."</p> + +<p>"To see the Sealyhams and the rabbits?"</p> + +<p>"No, Tony. To talk of our friend. He interests me tremendously."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to hear it," said I.</p> + +<p>We entered the rose garden heavy with the full August blooms.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," said I. "Talk away."</p> + +<p>"If you have a bit of sense in you, it would be you who would talk. If +you were a bit <i>simpático</i> you would at once set the key of the +conversation."</p> + +<p>"All of which implied abuse means that you're dying to know, through the +medium of subtle and psychological dialogue, which is entirely beyond my +brain power, whether you're not just on the verge of wondering if you're +not on the verge of falling in love with Colonel Lackaday."</p> + +<p>"You put it with your usual direct brutality----"</p> + +<p>"Well," said I. "Are you?"</p> + +<p>"Am I what?"</p> + +<p>"Dying to know etcetera, etcetera--I am not addicted to vain repetition."</p> + +<p>She sighed, tried to pick a black crimson Victor Hugo, pricked her fingers +and said "Damn!" With my penknife I cut the stalk and handed her the rose, +which she pinned on her blouse.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I am," she eventually replied. Then she caught me by the arm. +"Look here, Tony, do be a dear. You're old enough to be my ancestor and by +all accounts you've had a dreadful past. Do tell me if I'm making an ass of +myself. I only did it once," she went on, without giving me time to answer. +"You know all about it--Vanucci, the little beast. I needn't put on frills +with you. Since then I swore off that sort of thing. I've gone about in +maiden meditation and man's breeches, fancy free. I've loved lots of men +just as I've loved lots of women--as friends, comrades. I'm level-headed +and, I think, level-hearted. I haven't gone about like David in his wrath, +saying that all men are liars. They're not. They're just as good as women, +if not better. I've no betrayed virgin's grouch against men. But I've made +myself too busy to worry about sex. It's no use talking tosh. Sex is the +root of the whole sentimental, maudlin----"</p> + +<p>"But tremulous and bewildering and nerve-racking and delicious and +myriad-adjectived soul-condition," I interrupted, "known generally as love. +Ninety-nine point nine repeater per cent of the world's literature has been +devoted to its analysis. It's therefore of some importance. It's even the +vital principle of the continuity of the human race."</p> + +<p>"I'm perfectly aware of it."</p> + +<p>"Then why, my dear, resent, as you seem to do, the inevitable reassertion, +in your own case, of the vital principle?"</p> + +<p>She laughed. "<i>Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop</i>. But that's +just it. Is it a gallop or is it a crawl? I tell you, I thought myself +immune for many years. But now, these last two or three days I'm beginning +to feel a perfect idiot. A few minutes ago if the whole lot of you hadn't +been standing round, I think I should have cried. Just for silly gladness. +After all there are thousands of Brigadier-Generals."</p> + +<p>"To be accurate, not more than a few hundreds."</p> + +<p>"Hundreds or thousands, what does it matter?" she cried impatiently. +"What's Hecuba to me or I to Hecuba?" Few women have the literary sense +of apposite quotation--but no matter. She went on. "What's one +Brigadier-General to me or I to one Brigadier-General? And yet--there it +is. I'm beginning to fear lest this particular Brigadier-General may mean +a lot to me. So I come back to my original question. Am I making an ass of +myself?"</p> + +<p>"One can't answer that question, my dear Auriol," said I, "without knowing +how far your fears, feelings and all the rest of it are reciprocated."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I think they are?"</p> + +<p>"Then all I can say is: 'God bless you my children.' But," I added, after a +pause, "I must warn you that your budding idyll is not passing unnoticed."</p> + +<p>She snapped her fingers. "I've lived my private life in public too long to +care a hang for that. I'm only concerned about my own course of action. +Shall I go on, or shall I pull myself up with a jerk?"</p> + +<p>"What would you like to do?"</p> + +<p>She walked on for a few yards without replying. I glanced at her and saw +that the colour had come into her cheeks, and that her eyes were downcast. +At last she said:</p> + +<p>"Now that I'm a woman again, I should like to get some happiness out of it. +I should like to give happiness, too, full-handed." She flashed up and took +my arm and pressed it. "I could do it, Tony."</p> + +<p>"I know you could," said I.</p> + +<p>After which the conversation became more intimate. Anybody, to look at us, +as we walked, arm in arm, round the paths of the rose garden, would have +taken us for lovers. Of course she wanted none of my advice. Her frank and +generous nature felt the imperious need of expansion. I, to whom she could +talk as to a sympathetic wooden idol, happened to be handy. I don't think +she could have talked in the same way to a woman, I don't think she would +have talked so even to me, who had taken her pick-a-back round about her +nursery, if I had not with conviction qualified Lackaday as a gallant +gentleman.</p> + +<p>Eventually we came down to the practical aspect of a situation, as old as +Romance itself. The valorous and gentle knight of hidden lineage and the +Earl's daughter. Not daring to aspire, and ignorant of the flame he has +kindled in the high-born bosom, he rides away without betraying his +passion, leaving the fair owner of the bosom to pine in lonely ignorance.</p> + +<p>"At this time of day, it's all such damn nonsense," said Lady Auriol.</p> + +<p>I pointed out to her that chivalrous souls still beautified God's earth and +that such damn nonsense could not be other than the essence of their being. +To this knightly company Colonel Lackaday might well belong. On the other +hand, there was she, the same old proud Earl's daughter. For all her +modernity, her independence, her democratic sympathies, she remained a +great lady. She had little fortune; but she had position and an ancient +name. Her father, the impoverished fourteenth Earl of Mountshire, and the +thirtieth Baron of something else, refused to sit among the canaille of the +present House of Peers. He bred shorthorns and Berkshire pigs, which he +disposed of profitably, and grew grapes and melons for Covent Garden, read +the lessons in church and wrote letters to the <i>Times</i> about the war +on which the late Guy Earl of Warwick would have rather prided himself when +he took a fancy to make a King.</p> + +<p>"The dear old idiot," said Lady Auriol. "He belongs to the time of +Nebuchadnezzar."</p> + +<p>But, all the same, in spite of her flouting, her birth assured her a social +position from which she could be thrown by nothing less than outrageous +immorality or a Bolshevist revolution. That Lackaday, to whom the British +Peerage, in the ordinary way, was as closed a book as the Talmud, +realized her high estate I was perfectly aware. Dear and garrulous Lady +Verity-Stewart had given him at dinner the whole family history--she +herself was a Dayne--from the time of Henry I. I was sitting on the other +side of her and heard and amused myself by scanning the expressionless face +of Lackaday who listened as a strayed aviator might listen to the social +gossip of the inhabitants of Mars. Anyhow he left the table with the +impression that the Earl of Mountshire was the most powerful noble in +England and that his hostess and her cousin, Lady Auriol, regarded the +Royal Family as upstarts and only visited Buckingham Palace in order to set +a good example to the proletariat.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he does," said I, after summarizing Lady Verity-Stewart's +monologue.</p> + +<p>"The family has been the curse of my life," said Auriol. "If I hadn't +anticipated them--or is it it?--by telling them to go to the devil, they +would have disowned me long ago. Now they're afraid of me, and I've got the +whip hand. A kind of blackmail; so they let me alone."</p> + +<p>"But if you made a <i>mésalliance</i>, as they call it," said I, "they'd be +down upon you like a cartload of bricks." + +"Bricks?" she retorted, with a laugh. "A cartload of puff-balls. There +isn't a real brick in the whole obsolete structure. I could marry a beggar +man to-morrow and provided he was a decent sort and didn't get drunk and +knock me about and pick his teeth with his fork, I should have them all +around me and the beggar man in a week's time, trying to save face. They'd +move heaven and earth to make the beggar man acceptable. They know that if +they didn't, I'd be capable of going about with him like a raggle-taggle +gipsy--and bring awful disgrace on them."</p> + +<p>"All that may be true," said I, "but the modest Lackaday doesn't realize +it."</p> + +<p>"I'll put sense into him," replied Lady Auriol. And that was the end, +conclusive or not, of the conversation.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon they went off for a broiling walk together. What they +found to say to each other, I don't know. Lady Auriol let me no further +into her confidence, and my then degree of intimacy with the General did +not warrant the betrayal of my pardonable curiosity as to the amount of +sense put into him by the independent lady.</p> + +<p>Now, from what I have related, it may seem that Lady Auriol had brought up +all her storm troops for a frontal attack on the position in which the shy +General lay entrenched. This is not the case. There was no question of +attack or siege or any military operation whatever on either side. The +blessed pair just came together like two drops of quicksilver. Each +recognized in the other a generous and somewhat lonely soul; an +appreciation of the major experiences of life and, with that, a craving +for something bigger even than the war, which would give life its greater +meaning. She, born on heights that looked contemptuously down upon a +throne, he born almost in a wayside ditch, their intervening lives a mutual +mystery, they met--so it seemed to me, then, as I mused on the romantical +situation--on some common plane not only of adventurous sympathy but of +a humanity simple and sincere. From what I could gather afterwards, they +never exchanged a word, during this intercourse, of amorous significance. +Nor did they steer the course so dear to modern intellectuals (and so dear +too to the antiquated wanderers through the Land of Tenderness) which led +them into analytical discussions of their respective sentimental states of +being. They talked just concrete war, politics and travel. On their tramps +they scarcely talked at all. They kept in step which maintained the rhythm +of their responsive souls. She would lay an arresting touch on his arm at +the instant in which he pointed his stick at some effect of beauty; and +they would both turn and smile at each other, intimately, conscious of +harmony.</p> + +<p>We left the next morning, Lackaday to take over his brigade in France, I to +hang around the War Office for orders to proceed on my further unimportant +employment. Lady Auriol and Charles saw us off at the station.</p> + +<p>"It's all very well for your new brigade, sir," said the latter when +the train was just coming into the station. "They're in luck. But the +regiment's in the soup."</p> + +<p>He wanted to discuss the matter, but with, elderly tact I drew the young +man aside, so that the romantic pair should have a decent leave-taking. But +all she said was:</p> + +<p>"You'll write and tell me how you get on?"</p> + +<p>And he; with a flash in his blue eyes and his two-year-old grin:</p> + +<p>"May I really?"</p> + +<p>"You may--if a General in the field has time to write to obscure females."</p> + +<p>She looked adorable, provoking, with the rich colour rising beneath her +olive cheek--I almost fell in love with her myself and I was glad that the +ironical Charles had his back to her. An expression of shock overspread +Lackaday's ingenuous features. He shot out both hands in protest, and +mumbled something incoherent. She took the hands with a happy laugh, as the +train lumbered noisily in.</p> + +<p>Lackaday was silent and preoccupied during the run to London.</p> + +<p>At the terminus we parted. I asked him to dinner at my club. He hesitated +for a moment, then declined on the plea of military business. I did not see +him or the Verity-Stewarts or Lady Auriol till after the Armistice.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter IV</h1> + + + +<p>Like Ancient Gaul, time is nowadays divided into three parts, before, +during and after the war. The lives of most men are split into these three +hard and fast sections. And the men who have sojourned in the Valley of the +Shadow of Death have emerged, for all their phlegm, their philosophy, their +passionate carelessness and according to their several temperaments, not +the same as when they entered. They have taken human life, they have +performed deeds of steadfast and reckless heroism unimagined even in the +war-like daydreams of their early childhood. They have endured want and +misery and pain inconceivable. They have witnessed scenes of horror one of +which, in their former existence, would have provided months of shuddering +nightmare. They have made instant decisions affecting the life or death of +their fellows. They have conquered fear. They have seen the scale of values +upon which their civilized life was so carefully based swept away and +replaced by another strange and grim to which their minds must rigidly +conform. They return to the world of rest where humanity is still +struggling to maintain the old scale. The instinct born of generations of +tradition compels a facile reacceptance. They think: "The blood and mud and +the hell's delight of the war are things of the past. We take up life where +we left it five years ago; we come back to plough, lathe, counter, bank, +office, and we shall carry on as though a Sleeping Beauty spell had been +cast on the world and we were awakening, at the kiss of the Fairy Prince of +peace, to our suspended tasks."</p> + +<p>Are they right or are they wrong in their surmise, these millions of +men, who have passed through the Valley of the Shadow, haunted by their +memories, tempered by their plunge into the elemental, illumined by the +self-knowledge gained in the fierce school of war?</p> + +<p>Does the Captain V.C. of Infantry, adored and trusted by his men, from +whose ranks he rose by reason of latent qualities of initiative command and +inspiration, contentedly return to the selling of women's stockings in his +old drapery establishment, to the vulgar tyranny of the oily shopwalker, to +the humiliating restrictions and conditions of the salesman's life? Return +he must--perhaps. He has but two trades, both of which he knows profoundly; +the selling of hosiery and the waging of war. As he can no longer wage +war, he sells hosiery. But does he do it contentedly? If his soul, through +reaction, is contented at first, will it continue to be so through the long +uneventful stocking-selling years? Will not the war change he has suffered +cause nostalgias, revolts? Will it bring into his resumed activities a new +purpose or more than the old lassitudes?</p> + +<p>These questions were worrying me, as they were worrying most demobilized +men, although I, an elderly man about town, had no personal cause +for anxiety, when, one morning, my man brought me in the card of +Brigadier-General Lackaday. It was early March. I may mention incidentally +that I had broken down during the last wild weeks of the war, and that an +unthinkingly beneficent War Office had flung me into Nice where they had +forgotten me until a few days before.</p> + +<p>During my stay in the South I led the lotus life of studious +self-indulgence. I lived entirely for myself and neglected my +correspondence to such a point that folks ceased to write to me. As a +matter of fact I was a very sick man, under the iron rule of doctors and +nurses and such like oppressors; but, except to explain why I had lost +touch with everybody, that is a matter of insignificant importance. The one +or two letters I did receive from Lady Auriol did not stimulate my interest +in The Romance. I gathered that she was in continuous relations with +General Lackaday, who, it appeared, was in the best of health. But when a +man of fifty has his heart and lungs and liver and lights all dislocated he +may be pardoned for his chilly enthusiasm over the vulgar robustness of a +very young Brigadier.</p> + +<p>On this March morning, however, when I was beginning, in sober joyousness, +to pick up the threads of English social life, the announcement of General +Lackaday gave me a real thrill of pleasure.</p> + +<p>He came in, long, lean, khaki clad, red-tabbed, with, I swear, more rainbow +lines on his breast, and a more pathetically childish grin on his face +than ever. We greeted each other like old friends long separated, and fell +immediately into intimate talk, exchanging our personal histories of seven +months. Mine differed only in brevity from an old wife's tale. His had the +throb of adventure and the sting of failure. In October his brigade had +found immortal glory in heroic death. He had obeyed high orders. The +slaughter was no fault of his. But after the disaster--if the capture of an +important position can be so called--he had been summarily appointed to a +Home Command, and now was demobilized.</p> + +<p>"Demobilized?" I cried, "what on earth do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"It appears that there are more Brigadier-Generals in the dissolving Army," +said he, "than there are brigades. I can retire with my honorary rank, but +if I care to stay on, I must do so with the rank and pay of a Major."</p> + +<p>I flared up indignant. I presumed that he had consigned the War Office to +flamboyant perdition. In his mild way he had. The War Office had looked +pained. By offering a permanent Major's commission in the Regular Army, +with chance of promotion and pension, it thought it had dealt very +handsomely by Lackaday. It hinted that though he had led his brigade to +victory, he might have employed a safer, a more Sunday school method. Oh! +the hint was of the slightest, the subtlest, the most delicate. The War +Office very pointedly addressed him as General, and, regarding his row of +ribbons, implicitly declared him an ingrate. But for a certain stoniness +of glance developed in places where Bureaucracy would have been very +frightened, the War Office would have so proclaimed him in explicit speech.</p> + +<p>"I would have stayed on as a Brigadier," said he. "But the Major's job's +impossible. I should have thought any soldier would have appreciated the +position--and it was a soldier, a colonel whom I saw--but it seems that if +you stay long enough in that place you're at the mercy of the little +girls who run you round, and eventually you arrive at their level of +intelligence. However," he grinned and lit a cigarette, "it's all over. I +can call myself General Lackaday till the day of my death, but not a sou +does it put into my pocket. And, odd as it may appear, I've got to earn my +living. Well, I suppose something will turn up."</p> + +<p>Before I had time to question him as to his plans and prospects, he shifted +the talk to our friends, the Verity-Stewarts. He had stayed with them two +or three times. Once Lady Auriol had again been a fellow guest. He had met +her in London, dined at her tiny house in Charles Street, Mayfair--a little +dinner party, doubtless in his honour--and he had called once or twice. +Evidently the Romance was in the full idyllic stage. I asked somewhat +maliciously what Lady Auriol thought of it. He rose to my question like a +simple fish.</p> + +<p>"She's far more indignant than I am, I've had to stop her writing to the +newspapers and sending the old Earl down to the House of Lords."</p> + +<p>"Lady Auriol ought to be able to pull some strings," said I.</p> + +<p>"There are not any strings going to be pulled for me in this business," +said Lackaday. He rose, stalked about the room--it is a modest bachelor St. +James's Street sitting-room, and he took up about as much of its space as +a daddy-long-legs under a tumbler--and suddenly halted in front of me. "Do +you know why?"</p> + +<p>I made a polite gesture of enquiring ignorance.</p> + +<p>"Because it's a damn sight too sacred."</p> + +<p>I bowed. I understood.</p> + +<p>"I can find it in my heart to owe many things to Lady Auriol," he +continued. "She's a great woman. But even to her I couldn't owe my position +in the British Army."</p> + +<p>"Did you tell her so?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>I pictured the scene, knowing my Auriol. I could see the pride in her dark +eyes and masterful lips. His renunciation had in it that of the <i>beau +geste</i> which she secretly adored. It put the final stamp on the man.</p> + +<p>Upon this little emotional outburst he left, promising to dine with me the +next day. For a month I saw him frequently, once or twice with Lady Auriol. +He was still in uniform, waiting for the final clip of the War Office +scissors severing the red tape that still bound him to the Army.</p> + +<p>Lady Auriol said to me: "I think the day he puts off khaki he'll cry."</p> + +<p>He stuck to it till the very last day possible. Then he appeared, gaunt and +miserable, in an ill-fitting blue serge suit which, in the wind, flapped +about his lean body. He had the pathetic air of a lost child. On this +occasion--Lady Auriol and he were lunching with me--she adopted a motherly +attitude which afforded me both pleasure and amusement. She seemed bent +on assuring him that the gaudy vestments of a successful General went for +nothing in her esteem; that, like Semele, she felt (had that unfortunate +lady been given a second chance) more at ease with her Jupiter in the +common guise of ordinary man.</p> + +<p>How the Romance had progressed I could not tell. Nothing of it was +perceptible from their talk, which was that of mutually understanding +friends. I hinted a question after the meal, when she and I were alone for +a few moments. She shrugged her shoulders, and regarded me enigmatically.</p> + +<p>"I'm a little more mid-Victorian than I thought I was."</p> + +<p>"Which means?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever you like it to."</p> + +<p>And that is all I had a chance of getting out of her. Well, the relations +between Lackaday and Lady Auriol were no business of mine. I had plenty to +do and to think about, and anxiety over their tender affairs did not rob me +of an hour's slumber.</p> + +<p>Then came a day when the offer of a humble mission in connection with the +Peace Conference sent me to Paris. Before starting I had a last interview +with Lackaday. He dined with me alone in my chambers.</p> + +<p>He looked ill and worried. His scraggy neck rising far above an evening +collar too low for him seemed to betray by its stringy workings the +perturbation of his spirit. His carroty thatch no longer crisp from the +careful military cut had grown into a kind of untamable towslement. The +last month or two had aged him. He was the last person one would have +imagined to be a distinguished soldier in the Great War.</p> + +<p>We talked pleasantly of indifferent things till the cigars were lit--he was +always a charming companion, possessing a gentle and somewhat plaintive +humour--and then he began, against his habit, to speak of himself. Like +thousands of demobilized officers he was looking around for some opening in +civil life. As to what particular round hole his square peg could fit he +was most vague. Perhaps a position in one of the far-away regions that were +to be administered by the League of Nations. Something in Syria or German +East Africa.</p> + +<p>"Look here, my dear fellow," I said at last, "I presume I'm the very oldest +surviving acquaintance you have in the world. And you can't accuse me of +indiscreet curiosity. But surely you must have had some kind of profession +before the war."</p> + +<p>"Of course I had."</p> + +<p>"Then why not go back to it?"</p> + +<p>It was the first time I had ventured to question him on his antecedents. +For all his gentleness, he had a personal dignity which was enhanced by the +symbolism of his uniform and forbade impertinent questioning. As he had +kept the shutters pulled down over his pre-war career, having in all our +intercourse given me no hint of the avocations that had led him to know the +Inns of France with the accuracy of a Michelin guide, it was obvious that +he had done so for his own good and deliberate reasons. I had got it into +my stupid head that the qualities which had raised him from private to +Brigadier-General had served him in a commercial pursuit; that he had been, +at the time of his pilgrimage through the country, the agent of some French +business house.</p> + +<p>On my question he stared at his cigar, twisting it backwards and forwards +between his delicate thumb and two fingers, with the air of a man +hesitating on a decision, until the inevitable happened; the long ash of +the cigar fell over his trousers. He rose with a laugh and a damn and +brushed himself. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear of Les Petit Patou?"</p> + +<p>"No," said I, mystified.</p> + +<p>"Scarcely anyone in this country ever has. That's the advantage of +obscurity." He reflected for a moment then he said: "I never realized, +until I went very shyly among them, the exquisite delicacy of English +gentlefolk. Not one of you, not even Lady Auriol who has given me the +privilege of her intimate friendship, has ever pressed me to give an +account of myself. I'm not ashamed of Les Petit Patou. But it seems +so--so----" he snapped his fingers for the word--"so incongruous. My +military rank demanded that I should preserve it from ridicule--you'll +remember I asked you to say nothing of the circus."</p> + +<p>"Still," said I, "the name Petit Patou conveys nothing to me."</p> + +<p>"I'm the original Petit Patou. When I took a partner we became plural. +<i>Regardez un instant.</i>"</p> + +<p>It was only later that I saw the significance of the instinctive French +phrase.</p> + +<p>He rose, glanced around him, pounced on a little silver match-box and +an empty wire waste-paper basket, and contorting his mobile face into a +hideous grimace of imbecility, began to juggle with these two objects and +his cigar, displaying the faultless technique of the professional. After +a few throws, the cigar flew into his mouth, the matchbox fell into the +opened pocket of his dinner jacket and the waste-paper basket descended +over his head. For a second he stood grinning through the wire cage, in +the attitude of one waiting for applause. Then swiftly he disembarrassed +himself of the basket and threw the insulted cigar into the fire.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that's a dignified way for General Andrew Lackaday, C.B., to +make his living--in the green skin tights of Petit Patou?"</p> + +<p>We talked far into the night. My sleep was haunted by the nightmare of the +six foot four of the stringy, bony emaciation of General Lackaday in green +skin tights.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter V</h1> + + + +<p>To realize Petit Patou in the British General of Brigade, we must turn to +the manuscript mentioned at the beginning of this story.</p> + +<p>We meet him, a raw youth, standing, one blazing summer day on the Bridge +of Avignon. He insists on this episode, because, says he, the bridge is +associated with important events in his life. It was not, needless to +remark, the Pont d'Avignon of the gay old song, for the further arch of +that was swept away by floods long ago, and it now remains a thing of +pathetic uselessness. Three-quarters of the way across the Rhone might you +go, and then you would come to abrupt nothingness, just the swirling river +far below your arrested feet. It was the new suspension bridge, some +three hundred yards further up, sadly inharmonious with the macchiolated +battlements of the city and the austere mass, rising above them, of the +Palace of the Popes on the one side, and, on the other, the grey antiquity +of the castle of Villeneuve brooding like an ancient mother over its aged +offspring, the clustering sun-baked town. The joyous generation of the Old +Bridge has long since passed away, but to the present generation the New +Bridge affords the same wonder and delight. For it entices like the old, +from stifling streets to the haunts of Pan. There do you find leafy walks, +and dells of shade, and pathways by the great cool river leading to +sequestered spots where you may sit and forget the clatter of flagstones +and the stuffy apartment above them for which the rent is due; where the +air of early June is perfumed by wild thyme and marjoram and the far-flung +sweetness of new mown hay, and where the nightingales sing. So, whenever it +can, all Avignon turns out, as it has turned out for hundreds of years, on +its to and fro adventure across the Bridge of Promise.</p> + +<p>It was on a Sunday afternoon when young Lackaday stood there, leaning +moodily over the parapet, regarding it not as a bridge of Promise, but as +a Bridge of Despair. He had fled from the dressing-room of the little +music-hall just outside the city walls, which he shared with three others +of the troupe, from its horrible reek of escaping gas and drainage and +grease-paint and the hoarded human emanations of years, and had come here +instinctively to breathe the pure air that swept down the broad stream. +He had come for rest of mind and comfort of soul; but only found himself +noisily alone amid an unsympathetic multitude.</p> + +<p>He had failed. He had learned it first from the apathy of the audience. +He had learned it afterwards from the demeanour and the speech far from +apathetic of the manager and leader of the troupe. They were a company of +six, Les Merveilleux, five jugglers, plate spinners, eccentric musicians, +ventriloquists, and one low comedian. Lackaday was the low comedian, his +business to repeat in burlesque most of the performance of his fellow +artists. It was his first engagement, outside the Cirque Rocambeau, his +first day with the troupe. Everything had gone badly. His enormous lean +length put the show out of scale. The troupe, accustomed to the business of +a smaller man, whose sudden illness caused the gap which Lackaday came from +Paris to fill, resented the change, and gave him little help. They demanded +impossibilities. Although they had rehearsed--and the rehearsals had been +a sufficient nightmare of suffering--everybody had seemed to devote a +ferocious malice to his humiliation. Where the professional juggler is +accustomed to catch things at his hip, they threw them at his knees; they +appeared to decide that his head should be on the level of his breast. The +leading lady, Madame Coinçon, wife of the manager, a compact person of five +foot two, roundly declared that she could not play with him, and in his +funniest act, dependent on her co-operation, she left him to be helplessly +funny by himself. The tradition of the troupe required the comedian to be +attired in a loud check suit, green necktie and white felt bowler hat. On +the podgy form of Lackaday's predecessor it produced its comic effect. On +the lank Lackaday it was characterless. In consequence of all this, he had +been nervous, he had missed cues, he had fumbled when he ought to have been +clear, and been clear when he ought comically to have fumbled. He had gone +about his funny business with the air of a curate marrying his vicar to the +object of his hopeless affections.</p> + +<p>And Coinçon had devastatingly insulted him. What worm was in the head +of Moignon (the Paris music-hall agent) that he should send him such a +monstrosity? He wasn't, <i>nom de Dieu</i>, carrying about freaks at a +fair. He wanted a comedian and not a giant. No wonder the Cirque Rocambeau +had come to grief, if it depended on such canaries as Lackaday. Didn't he +know he was there to make the audience laugh?--not to give a representation +of Monsieur Mounet-Sully elongated by the rack.</p> + +<p>"<i>Hop, man petit</i>," said he at last. "<i>F---- moi le camp</i>," which +is a very vulgar way of insisting on a person's immediate retirement. "Here +is your week's salary. I gain by the proceeding. The baggage-man will see +us through. He has done so before. As for Moignon--"</p> + +<p>Although Lackaday regarded Moignon as a sort of god dispensing fame and +riches, enthroned on unassailable heights of power, he trembled at the +awful destiny that awaited him. He would be cast, like Lucifer from heaven. +He would be stripped of authority. Coinçon's invective against him was so +terrible that Lackaday pitied him even more than he pitied himself. Yet +there was himself to consider. As much use to apply to the fallen Moignon +for an engagement as to the Convent of the Daughters of Calvary. He and +Moignon and their joint fortunes were sent hurtling down into the abyss.</p> + +<p>On the parapet of the Bridge of Despair leant young Lackaday, gazing +unseeingly down into the Rhone. His sudden misfortune had been like the +stunning blow of a sandbag. His brain still reeled. What had happened was +incomprehensible. He knew his business. He could conceive no other. He had +been trained to it since infancy. There was not a phase of clown's work +with which he was not familiar. He was a passable gymnast, an expert +juggler, a trick musician, an accomplished conjurer. All that the +Merveilleux troupe act required from him he had been doing successfully for +years. Why then the failure? He blamed the check suit, the ill-will of the +company, the unreason of Madame Coinçon....</p> + +<p>It did not occur to him that he had emerged from an old world into a new. +That between the old circus public and the new music-hall public there +was almost a generation's change of taste and critical demand. The Cirque +Rocambeau had gone round without perceiving that the world had gone round +too. It wondered why its triumphant glory had declined; and it could +not take steps to adapt itself to the new conditions which it could not +appreciate. Everyone grew old and tradition-bound in the Cirque Rocambeau, +even the horses, until gradually it perished of senile decay. Andrew +Lackaday carrying on the traditions of his foster father, the clown Ben +Flint, had remained with it, principal clown, to the very end. Now and +then, rare passers through from the outer world, gymnasts down on their +luck, glad to take a makeshift engagement while waiting for better things, +had counselled him to leave the antiquated concern. But the Cirque +Rocambeau had been the whole of his life, childhood, boyhood, young +manhood; he was linked to it by the fibres of a generous nature. All +those elderly anxious folk were his family. Many of the children, his +contemporaries, trained in the circus, had flown heartlessly from the +nest, and the elders had fatalistically lamented. Madame Rocambeau, bowed, +wizened, of uncanny age, yet forceful and valiant to the last--carrying +on for the old husband now lying paralysed in Paris who had inherited the +circus from his father misty years ago, would say to the young man, when +one of these defections occurred: "And you André, you are not going to +leave us? You have a fine position, and if you are dissatisfied, perhaps we +can come to an arrangement. You are a child of the circus and I love you +like my own flesh and blood. We shall turn the corner yet. All that is +necessary is faith--and a little youth." And Andrew, a simple soul, who had +been trained in the virtues of honour and loyalty by the brave Ben Flint, +would repudiate with indignation the suggestion of any selfish desire to go +abroad and seek adventure.</p> + +<p>At last, one afternoon, when the tent, a miserable gipsy thing compared +with the proud pavilion of the days of the glory of Billy the pig, was +pitched on the outskirts of a poor little town, they found Madame Rocambeau +dead in the canvas box-office which she had occupied for fifty years, the +heartbreaking receipts in front of her, counted out into little piles of +bronze and small silver. The end had come. The circus could not be sold as +a going concern. It crumbled away. Somebody bought the old horses, Heaven +knows for what purpose. Somebody bought the antiquated harness and +moth-eaten trappings. Somebody else bought the tents and fittings. But +nobody bought the old careworn human beings, riders and gymnasts and stable +hands who crept away into the bright free air of France, dazed and lost, +like the prisoners released from the Bastille.</p> + +<p>It was not so long ago; long enough ago, however, for young Andrew Lackaday +to have come perilously near the end of his savings in Paris, before the +Almighty Moignon (now curse-withered), but then vast and unctuous, reeking +of fat food and diamonds and great cigars, had found him this engagement at +Avignon. He had journeyed thither full of the radiant confidence of twenty. +He stood on the bridge overwhelmed by the despair whose Tartarean blackness +only twenty can experience.</p> + +<p>Not a gleam anywhere of hope. His humiliation was absolute. The maniacal +Coinçon had not even given him an opportunity of redeeming his failure. He +had been paid to go away. The disgusting yet necessary price of his shame +rattled in his pockets. To-night the baggage man would play his part--a +being once presumably trained, yet sunk so low in incompetence that he was +glad to earn his livelihood as baggage man. And he, Andrew Lackaday, was +judged more incompetent even than this degraded outcast. Why? How could it +be? What was the reason? He dug his nails into his burning temples. + +The summer sun beat down on him, and set a-glitter the currents in the +Rhone. The ceaseless, laughing stream of citizens passed him by. Presently +youth's need of action brought him half-unconsciously to an erect position. +He glanced dully this way and that, and then slowly moved along the bridge +towards the Villeneuve bank. Girls bare-headed, arm-in-arm, looked up +at him and laughed, he was so long and lean and comical with his ugly +lugubrious face and the little straw hat perched on top of his bushy +carroty poll. He did not mind, being used to derision. In happier days he +valued it, for the laugh would be accompanied by a nudge and a "<i>Voilà +Auguste!</i>" He took it as a tribute. It was fame. Now he was so deeply +sunk in his black mood that he scarcely heeded. He walked on to the end of +the bridge, and turned down the dusty pathway by the bank.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he became aware of sounds of music and revelry, and a few yards +further on he came to a broad dell shaded by plane trees and set out as a +restaurant garden, with rude tables and benches, filled with good-humoured +thirsty folk; on one side a weather-beaten wooden châlet, having the proud +title of Restaurant du Rhône, served apparently but to house the supply +of drinks which nondescript men and sturdy bare-headed maidens carried +incessantly on trays to the waiting tables. On the dusty midway space--the +garden boasted no blade of grass--couples danced to the strains of a +wheezing hurdy-gurdy played by a white bearded ancient who at the end of +each tune refreshed himself with a draught from a chope of beer on the +ground by his side, while a tiny anæmic girl went round gathering sous in a +shell. When the music stopped you could hear the whir and the click of the +bowls in an adjoining dusty and rugged alley and the harsh excited cries +of the players. During these intervals the serving people in an absent way +would scatter an occasional carafe-full of water on the dancing floor to +lay the dust.</p> + +<p>Young Lackaday hung hesitatingly on the outskirts under the wooden archway +that was at once the entrance and the sign-board. The music had ended. The +tables were packed. He felt very thirsty and longed to enter and drink some +of the beer which looked so cool in the long glasses surmounted by its +half inch of white froth--inviting as sea-foam. Shyness held him. These +prosperous, care-free bourgeois, almost indistinguishable one from the +other by racial characteristics, and himself a tragic failure in life and +physically unique among men, were worlds apart. It had never occurred to +him before that he could find himself anywhere in France where the people +were not his people. He felt heart-brokenly alien.</p> + +<p>Presently the hurdy-gurdy started the ghostly tinkling of the <i>Il +Bacio</i> waltz, and the ingenuous couples of Avignon rose and began to +dance. The thirst-driven Lackaday plucked up courage, and strode to +a deserted wooden table. He ordered beer. It was brought. He sipped +luxuriously. One tells one's thirst to be patient, when one has to think of +one's sous. He was half-way through when two girls, young and flushed from +dancing together, flung themselves down on the opposite bench--the table +between.</p> + +<p>"We don't disturb you, Monsieur?"</p> + +<p>He raised his hat politely. "By no means, Mesdemoiselles."</p> + +<p>One of them with a quick gesture took up from the table a forgotten +newspaper and began to fan herself and her companion, to the accompaniment +of giggling and chatter about the heat. They were very young. They ordered +grenadine syrup and eau-de-seltz. Andrew Lackaday stared dismally beyond +them, at the dancers. In the happy, perspiring girls in front of him he +took no interest, for all their youth and comeliness and obviously frank +approachability. He saw nothing but the fury-enflamed face of Coinçon and +heard nothing but the rasping voice telling him that it was cheaper to pay +him his week's salary than to allow him to appear again. And "<i>f---- moi +le camp!</i>" Why hadn't he taken Coinçon by the neck then and there with +his long strong fingers and strangled him? Coinçon would have had the +chance of a rabbit. He had the strength of a dozen Coinçons--he, trained to +perfection, with muscle like dried bull's sinews. He could split an apple +between arm and forearm, in the hollow of his elbow. Why shouldn't he go +back and break Coinçon's neck? No man alive had the right to tell him to +<i>f---- le camp!</i></p> + +<p>"You don't seem very gay," said a laughing voice.</p> + +<p>With a start he recovered consciousness of immediate surroundings. Instead +of two girls opposite, there was only one. Vaguely he remembered that a man +had come up.</p> + +<p>"<i>Un tour de valse, Mademoiselle?</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Je vieux bien</i>."</p> + +<p>And one of the girls had gone, leaving her just sipped grenadine syrup and +seltzer-water. But it had been like some flitting unreality of a dream.</p> + +<p>At his blinking recovery the remaining girl laughed again.</p> + +<p>"You look like a somnambulist."</p> + +<p>He replied: "I beg pardon, Mademoiselle, but I was absorbed in my +reflections."</p> + +<p>"Black ones--<i>hein?</i> They have made you little infidelities?"</p> + +<p>He frowned. "They? Who do you mean--they?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Un joli garçon is not absorbed in his reflections</i>"--she mimicked +his tone--"unless there is the finger of a <i>petite femme</i> to stir them +round and darken them."</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle," said he, seriously. "You are quite mistaken. There's not a +woman in the world against whom I have the slightest grudge."</p> + +<p>He spoke truly. It was a matter of love, and Mme Coinçon's hostility did +not count.</p> + +<p>"Word of honour," he added looking into the smiling ironical face.</p> + +<p>Love had entered very little into his serious scheme of life. He had had +his entanglements of course. There was Francine Dumesnil, who had fluttered +into the Cirque Rocambeau as a slack wire artist, and after making him vows +of undying affection, had eloped a week afterwards with Hans Petersen, the +only man left who could stand on the bare back of a horse that was not +thick with resin. But the heart of Andrew Lackaday had nothing to do +with the heart of Francine Dumesnil. He had agreed with the aged Madame +Rocambeau. <i>Sales types</i>, both of them.</p> + +<p>"If it had been <i>chagrin d'amour</i>--sorrow of love, Mademoiselle," +said he, "I should not have been so insensible to the presence of two such +charming young ladies."</p> + +<p>"We are polite, all the same," she remarked approvingly.</p> + +<p>She sipped her grenadine. Having nothing further to say he sipped his beer. +Presently she said:</p> + +<p>"I saw you this afternoon at the <i>boite</i>." He looked at her with a +touch of interest. No one would allude to the music-hall as the "box" +except a fellow professional engaged there.</p> + +<p>"You too?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She nodded. She belonged to a troupe of dancing girls. As they were the +first number, they got away early. She and her friend had gone for a walk +and found this restaurant. It was gay, wasn't it? He said, soberly:</p> + +<p>"You were dancing at rehearsal this morning. You've danced at the +music-hall this afternoon, you'll be dancing again this evening--why do you +dance here?"</p> + +<p>"One can only be young once," she replied.</p> + +<p>"How old are you?"</p> + +<p>"Seventeen. And you?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two."</p> + +<p>She would have given him thirty, she said, he looked so serious. And he, +regarding her more narrowly, would have given her fifteen. She was very +young, slight, scarcely formed, yet her movements were lithe and complete +like those of a young lizard. She had laughing, black eyes and a fresh +mouth set in a thin dark face that might one day grow haggard or coarse, +according to her physical development, but was now full with the devil's +beauty of youth. A common type, one that would not arrest masculine eyes as +she passed by. Dozens of the girls there round about might have called her +sister. She was dressed with cheap neatness, the soiled white wing of a +bird in her black hat being the only touch of bravura. She spoke with the +rich accent of the South.</p> + +<p>"You are of the <i>Midi?</i>" he said.</p> + +<p>Yes. She came from Marseilles. Ingenuously chattering she gave him her +family history. In the meanwhile her companions and her partner having +finished their dance had retired to a sequestered corner of the restaurant, +leaving the pair here to themselves. Lackaday learned that her name was +Elodie Figasso. Her father was dead. Her mother was a dressmaker, in which +business she, too, had made her apprenticeship. But an elderly man, a +<i>huissier</i>, one of those people who go about with a tricolour-rosetted +cocked hat, and steel buttons and canvas trousers and a leather satchel +chained to their waist, had lately diverted from Elodie the full tide of +maternal affection. As she hated the <i>huissier</i>, a vulgar man who +thought of nothing but the good things that the Veuve Figasso could put +into his stomach, and as her besotted mother starved them both in order to +fulfil the <i>huissier's</i> demands, and as she derived no compensating +joy from her dressmaking, she had found, thanks to a friend, a positron as +<i>figurante</i> in a Marseilles Revue, and, <i>voilà</i>--there she was +free, independent, and, since she had talent and application, was now +earning her six francs a day.</p> + +<p>She finished her grenadine. Then with a swift movement she caught a passing +serving maid and slipped into her hand the money for her companion's +scarcely tasted drink and her own. Instantly Andrew protested--Mademoiselle +must allow him to have the pleasure.</p> + +<p>But no--never in life, she had not intruded on his table to have free +drinks. As for the <i>consommation</i> of the feather-headed Margot--from +Margot herself would she get reimbursement.</p> + +<p>"But yet, Mademoiselle," said he, "you make me ashamed. You must still be +thirsty--like myself."</p> + +<p>"<i>ça ne vous gênera pas?</i>"</p> + +<p>She asked the question with such a little air of serious solicitude that +he laughed, for the first time. Would it upset his budget, involve the +sacrifice of a tram ride or a packet of tobacco, if he spent a few sous on +more syrup for her delectation? And yet the delicacy of her motive appealed +to him. Here was a little creature very honest, very much of the people, +very proud, very conscientious.</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, Mademoiselle," said he, "I shall feel that you do me an +honour."</p> + +<p>"It is not to be refused," said she politely, and the serving maid was +despatched for more beer and syrup.</p> + +<p>"I waited to see your turn," she said, after a while.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he sighed.</p> + +<p>She glanced at him swiftly. "It does not please you that I should talk +about it?"</p> + +<p>"Not very much," said he.</p> + +<p>"But I found you admirable," she declared. "Much better than that <i>espèce +de poule mouillée</i>--I already forget his name--who played last week. +Oh--a wet hen--he was more like a drowned duck. So when I heard a comedian +from Paris was coming, I said: 'I must wait' and Margot and I waited in the +wings--and we laughed. Oh yes, we laughed."</p> + +<p>"It's more than the audience did," said the miserable Andrew.</p> + +<p>The audience! Of Avignon! She had never played to such an audience in her +her life. They were notorious, these people, all over France. They were so +stupid that before they would laugh you had to tell them a thing was funny, +and then they were so suspicious that they wouldn't laugh for fear of being +deceived.</p> + +<p>All of which, of course, is a libel on the hearty folk of Avignon. But +Elodie was from Marseilles, which naturally has a poor opinion of the other +towns of Provence. She also lied for the comforting of Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"They are so unsympathetic," said he, "that I shall not play any more."</p> + +<p>She knitted her young brow. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean that I play neither to-night nor to-morrow night, nor ever again. +To-morrow I return to Paris."</p> + +<p>She regarded him awe-stricken. "You throw up an engagement--just like +that--because the audience doesn't laugh?" + +She had heard vague fairy-tales of pampered opera-singers acting with such +Olympian independence; but never a music-hall artist on tour. He must be +very rich and powerful.</p> + +<p>Lackaday read the thought behind the wide-open eyes.</p> + +<p>"Not quite like that," he admitted honestly. "It did not altogether depend +on myself. You see the <i>patron</i> found that the audience didn't laugh +and the <i>patronne</i> found that my long body spoiled her act--and so--I +go to Paris to-morrow."</p> + +<p>She rose from the depths of envying wonder to the heights of pity. She +flashed indignation at the abominable treatment he had received from +the Coinçons. She scorched them with her contempt. What right had that +<i>tortoise</i> of a Madame Coinçon to put on airs? She had seen better +juggling in a booth at a fair. Her championship warmed Andrew's heart, and +he began to feel less lonely in a dismal and unappreciative world. Longing +for further healing of an artist's wounded vanity he said:</p> + +<p>"Tell me frankly. You did see something to admire in my performance?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't I always said so? <i>Tiens</i>, would you like me to tell +you something? All my life I have loved Auguste in a circus. You know +Auguste--the clown? Well, you reminded me of Auguste and I laughed."</p> + +<p>"Until lately I was Auguste--in the Cirque Rocambeau."</p> + +<p>She clapped her hands.</p> + +<p>"But I have seen you there--when I was quite little--three--four years ago +at Marseilles."</p> + +<p>"Four years," said Andrew looking into the dark backward and abysm of time.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember you well, now. We're old friends."</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll allow me to continue the friendship," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>They talked after the way of youth. He narrated his uneventful history. She +added details to the previous sketch of her own career. The afternoon +drew to a close. The restaurant garden emptied; the good folks of Avignon +returned dinnerwards across the bridge. They looked for Margot, but Margot +had disappeared, presumably with her new acquaintance. Elodie sniffed in a +superior manner. If Margot didn't take care, she would be badly caught one +of these days. For herself, no, she had too much character. She wouldn't +walk about the streets with a young man she had only known for five +minutes. She told Andrew so, very seriously, as they strolled over the +bridge arm-in-arm.</p> + +<p>They parted, arranging to meet at 10 o'clock when she was free from the +music-hall, at the Café des Négociants or the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville.</p> + +<p>Andrew, shrinking from the table d'hôte in the mangy hotel in a narrow back +street where the Merveilleux troupe had their crowded being, dined at a +cheap restaurant near the railway station, and filled in the evening with +aimless wandering up and and down the thronged Avenue de la Gare. Once he +turned off into the quiet moonlit square dominated by the cathedral and the +walls and towers of the Palace of the Popes. The austere beauty of it said +nothing to him. It did not bring calm to a fevered spirit. On the contrary, +it depressed a spirit longing for a little fever, so he went back to the +broad, gay Avenue where all Avignon was taking the air. A girl's sympathy +had reconciled him with his kind.</p> + +<p>She came tripping up to him, almost on the stroke of ten, as he sat at the +outside edge of the café terrace, awaiting her. The reconciliation was +complete. Like most of the young men there, he too had his maid. They met +as if they had known each other for years. She was full of an evil fellow, +<i>un gros type</i>, with a roll of fat at the back of his neck and a great +diamond ring which flashed in the moonlight, who had waited for her at the +stage door and walked by her side, pestering her with his attentions.</p> + +<p>"And do you know how I got rid of him? I said: 'Monsieur, I can't walk with +you through the streets on account of my comrades. But I swear to you that +you will find me at the Café des Négotiants at a quarter past ten.' And so +I made my escape. Look," said she excitedly, gripping Andrew's arm, "here +he is."</p> + +<p>She met the eyes of the <i>gros type</i> with the roll of fat and the +diamond ring, who halted somewhat uncertainly in front of the cafe. +Whereupon Andrew rose to his long height of six foot four and, glaring at +the offender, put him to the flight of over-elaborated unconcern. Elodie +was delighted.</p> + +<p>"You could have eaten him up alive, <i>n'est-ce pas</i>, André?"</p> + +<p>And Andrew felt the thrill of the successful Squire of Dames. For the rest +of the evening, there was no longer any 'Monsieur' or 'Mademoiselle.' It +was André and Elodie.</p> + +<p>Yes, he would write to her from Paris, telling her of his fortunes. And +she too would write. The Agence Moignon would always find him. It is +parenthetically to be noted how his afternoon fears of the impermanence of +the Agence Moignon had vanished. Time flew pleasantly. She seemed to have +set herself, her youth and her femininity, to the task of evoking the wide +baby smile on his good-natured though dismal face. It was only on their +homeward way, after midnight, that she mentioned the '<i>boîle</i>.' There +had been discussions. Some had said this and some had said that. There had +been partisans of the Coinçons and partisans of André. There was subject +matter for one of the pretty quarrels dear to music-hall folk. But Elodie +summed up the whole matter, with her air of precocious wisdom--a wisdom +gained in the streets and sewing-rooms and cafés-concerts of Marseilles.</p> + +<p>"What you do is excellent, <i>mon cher</i>; but it is <i>vieux jeu</i>. The +circus is not the music-hall. You must be original."</p> + +<p>As originality was banned from the circus tradition, he stood still in the +narrow, quiet street and gasped.</p> + +<p>"Original?"</p> + +<p>"You are so long and thin," she said.</p> + +<p>"That has always been against me; it was against me to-day."</p> + +<p>"But you could make it so droll," she declared. "And there would be no one +else like you. But you must be by yourself, not with a troupe like the +Merveilleux. <i>Tiens</i>," she caught him by the lapels of his jacket and +a passer-by might have surmised a pleading stage in a lovers' discussion, +"I have heard there is a little little man in London--oh, so little, <i>et +pas du tout joli</i>."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Andrew, "but he is a great artist."</p> + +<p>"And so are you," she retorted. "But as this little man gets all the +profit he can out of his littleness--it was <i>la grosse</i> Léonie--the +<i>brune</i>, number three, you know--ah, but you haven't seen us--anyhow +she has been in London and was telling me about him this evening--all that +nature has endowed him with he exaggerates--<i>eh bien!</i> Why couldn't +you do the same?"</p> + +<p>The street was badly lit with gas; but still he could see the flash in +her dark eyes. He drew himself up and laid both his hands on her thin +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"My little Elodie," said he--and by the dim gaslight she could see the +flash of his teeth revealed by his wide smile--"My little Elodie, you have +genius. You have given me an idea that may make my fortune. What can I give +you in return?"</p> + +<p>"If you want to show me that you are not ungrateful, you might kiss me," +said Elodie.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter VI</h1> + + + +<p>A kiss must mean either very much or very little. There are maidens to whom +it signifies a life's consecration. There are men whose blood it fires with +burning passion. There are couples of different sex who jointly consider +their first kiss a matter of supreme importance, and, the temporary rapture +over, at once begin to discuss the possibilities of parental approbation +and the ways and means of matrimony. A kiss may be the very devil of a +thing leading to two or three dozen honourably born grandchildren, or to +suicide, or to celebate addiction to cats, or to eugenic propaganda, or to +perpetual crape and the boredom of a community, or to the fate of Abelard, +or to the Fall of Troy, or to the proud destiny of a William the Conqueror. +I repeat that it is a ticklish thing to go and meddle with it without due +consideration. And in some cases consideration only increases the fortuity +of its results. Volumes could be written on it.</p> + +<p>If you think that the kiss exchanged between Andrew and Elodie had any +such immediate sentimental or tragical or heroical consequences you +are mistaken. Andrew responded with all the grace in the world to the +invitation. It was a pleasant and refreshing act. He was grateful for her +companionship, her sympathy, and her inspired counsel. She carried off her +frank comradeship with such an air of virginal innocence, and at the same +time with such unconscious exposure of her half fulfilled womanhood, that +he suffered no temptations of an easy conquest. The kiss therefore evoked +no baser range of emotion. As his head was whirling with an artist's sudden +conception--and, mark you, an artist's conception need no more be a case +of parthenogenesis than that of the physical woman--it had no room for the +higher and subtler and more romantical idealizations of the owner of the +kissed lips. You may put him down for an insensible young egoist. Put him +down for what you will. His embrace was but gratefully fraternal.</p> + +<p>As for Elodie, if it were not dangerous--she had the street child's +instinct--what did a kiss or two matter? If one paid all that attention to +a kiss one's life would be a complicated drama of a hundred threads.</p> + +<p>"A kiss is nothing"--so ran one of her <i>obiter dicta</i> recorded +somewhere in the manuscript--"unless you feel it in your toes. Then look +out."</p> + +<p>Evidently this kiss Elodie did not feel in her toes, for she walked along +carelessly beside him to the door of her hotel, a hostelry possibly a shade +more poverty-stricken in a flag paved by-street, a trifle staler-smelling +than his own, and there put out a friendly hand of dismissal.</p> + +<p>"We will write to each other?"</p> + +<p>"It is agreed."</p> + +<p>"Alors, au revoir."</p> + +<p>"Au revoir, Elodie, et merci."</p> + +<p>And that was the end of it. Andrew went back to Paris by the first train in +the morning, and Elodie continued to dance in Avignon.</p> + +<p>If they had maintained, as they vaguely promised, an intimate +correspondence, it might have developed, according to the laws of the +interchange of sentiment between two young and candid souls, into a +reciprocal expression of the fervid state which the kiss failed to produce. +A couple of months of it, and the pair, yearning for each other, would have +effected by hook or crook, a delirious meeting, and young Romance would +have had its triumphant way. But to the gods it seemed otherwise. Andrew +wrote, as in grateful duty bound. He wrote again. If she had replied, +he would have written a third time; but as there are few things more +discouraging than a one-sided correspondence, he held his hand. He felt a +touch of disappointment. She was such a warm, friendly little creature, +with a sagacious little head on her--by no means the <i>tête de linotte</i> +of so many of her sisters of song and dance. And she had forgotten him. He +shrugged philosophic shoulders. After all, why should she trouble herself +further with so dull a dog? Man-like he did not realize the difficulties +that beset even a sagacious-headed daughter of song and dance in the matter +of literary composition, and the temptation to postpone from day to day the +grappling with them, until the original impulse has spent itself through +sheer procrastination. It is all very well to say that a letter is an easy +thing to write, when letter-writing is a daily habit and you have writing +materials and table all comfortably to hand. But when, like Elodie, you +would have to go into a shop and buy a bottle of ink and a pen and paper +and envelopes and take them up to a tiny hotel bedroom shared with an +untidy, space-usurping colleague, or when you would have to sit at a café +table and write under the eyes of a not the least little bit discreet +companion--for even the emancipated daughters of song and dance cannot, in +modesty, show themselves at cafés alone; or when you have to stand up in a +post office--and then there is the paper and envelope difficulty--with a +furious person behind you who wants to send a telegram--Elodie's invariable +habit when she corresponded, on the back of a picture post card, with +her mother; when, in fact, you have before you the unprecedented task of +writing a letter--picture post cards being out of the question--and a +letter whose flawlessness of expression is prescribed by your vanity, or +better by your nice little self-esteem, and you are confronted by such +conditions as are above catalogued, human frailty may be pardoned for +giving it up in despair.</p> + +<p>With this apologia for Elodie's unresponsiveness, conscientiously recorded +later by Andrew Lackaday, we will now proceed. The fact remains that they +faded pleasantly and even regretlessly from each other's lives.</p> + +<p> +There now follow some years, in Lackaday's career, of high endeavour +and fierce struggle. He has taken to heart Elodie's suggestion of the +exploitation of his physical idiosyncracy. He seeks for a formula. In the +meanwhile he gains his livelihood as he can. His powers of mimicry stand +him in good stead. In the outlying café-concerts of Paris, unknown to +fashion or the foreigner, he gives imitations of popular idols from Le +Bargy to Polin. But the Ambassadeurs, and the Alcazar d'Eté and the Folies +Marigny and Olympia and such-like stages where fame and fortune are to be +found, will have none of him. Paris, too, gets on his vagabond nerves. +But what is the good of presenting the unsophisticated public of Brest or +Béziers with an imitation of Monsieur le Bargy? As well give them lectures +on Thermodynamics.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he escapes from mimicry. He conjures, he juggles, he plays +selections from Carmen and Cavaleria Rusticana on a fiddle made out of +a cigar box and a broom-handle. The Provinces accept him with mild +approbation. He tries Paris, the Paris of Menilmontant and the Outer +Boulevards; but Paris, not being amused, prefers his mimicry. He is alone, +mind you. No more Coinçon combinations. If he is to be insulted, let the +audience do it, or the vulgar theatre management; not his brother artists. +Away from his imitations he tries to make the most of his grotesque figure. +He invents eccentric costumes; his sleeves reach no further than just +below his elbows, his trouser hems flick his calves; he wears, inveterate +tradition of the circus clown, a ridiculously little hard felt hat on the +top of his shock of carroty hair. He paints his nose red and extends his +grin from ear to ear. He racks his brain to invent novelties in manual +dexterity. For hours a day in his modest <i>chambre garnie</i> in the +Faubourg Saint Denis he practises his tricks. On the dissolution of the +Cirque Rocambeau, where as "Auguste" he had been practically anonymous, he +had unimaginatively adopted the professional name of Andrew-André. He is +still Andrew-André. There is not much magic about it on a programme. But, +<i>que voulez-vous?</i> It is as effective as many another.</p> + +<p>During this period we see him a serious youth, absorbed in his profession, +striving towards success, not for the sake of its rewards in luxurious +living, but for the stamp that it gives to efficiency. The famous +mountebank of Notre Dame did not juggle with greater fervour. Here and +there a woman crosses his path, lingers a little and goes her way. Not +that he is insensible to female charms, for he upbraids himself for +over-susceptibility. But it seems that from the atavistic source whence +he inherited his beautiful hands, there survived in him an instinct which +craved in woman the indefinable quality that he could never meet, the +quality which was common to Melisande and Phèdre and Rosalind and Fédora +and the child-wife of David Copperfield. It is, as I have indicated, the +ladies who bid him <i>bonsoir</i>. Sometimes he mourns for a day or two, +more often he laughs, welcoming regained freedom. None touches his heart. +Of men, he has acquaintances in plenty, with whom he lives on terms of good +comradeship; but he has scarcely an intimate.</p> + +<p>At last he makes a friend--an Englishman, Horatio Bakkus; and this +friendship marks a turning-point in his history.</p> + +<p>They met at a café-concert in Montmartre, which, like many of its kind, had +an ephemeral existence--the nearest, incidentally, to the real Paris to +which Andrew Lackaday had attained. It tried to appeal to a catholicity of +tastes; to outdo its rivals inscabrousness--did not Farandol and Lizette +Blandy make their names there?--and at the same time to offer to the +purer-minded an innocent entertainment. To the latter both Lackaday, +with his imitations, and Horatio Bakkus, with his sentimental ballads, +contributed. Somehow the mixture failed to please. The one part scared +the virtuous, at the other the deboshed yawned. <i>La Boîte Blanche</i> +perished of inanition. But during its continuance, Lackaday and Bakkus had +a month's profitable engagement.</p> + +<p>They bumped into each other, on their first night, at the stage-door. Each +politely gave way to the other. They walked on together and turned down the +Rue Pigalle and, striking off, reached the Grands Boulevards. The Brasserie +Tourtel enticed them. They entered and sat down to a modest supper, +sandwiches and brown beer.</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Andrew, "you would do me the pleasure to speak English with +me."</p> + +<p>"Why?" cried the other. "Is my French so villainous?"</p> + +<p>"By no means," said Andrew, "but I am an Englishman."</p> + +<p>"Then how the devil do you manage to talk both languages like a Frenchman?"</p> + +<p>"Why? Is my English then so villainous?"</p> + +<p>He mimicked him perfectly. Horatio Bakkus laughed.</p> + +<p>"Young man," said he, "I wish I had your gift."</p> + +<p>"And I yours."</p> + +<p>"It's the rottenest gift a man can be born with," cried Bakkus with +startling vindictiveness. "It turns him into an idle, sentimental, +hypocritical and dissolute hound. If I hadn't been cursed young with a +voice like a Cherub, I should possibly be on the same affable terms with +the Almighty as my brother, the Archdeacon, or profitably paralysing the +intellects of the young like my brother, the preparatory schoolmaster."</p> + +<p>He was a lean and rusty man of forty, with long black hair brushed back +over his forehead, and cadaverous cheeks and long upper lip which all the +shaving in the world could not redeem for the blue shade of the strong +black beard which at midnight showed almost black. But for his black, +mocking eyes, he might have been taken for the seedy provincial tragedian +of the old school.</p> + +<p>"Young man----" said he.</p> + +<p>"My name," said Andrew, "is Lackaday."</p> + +<p>"And you don't like people to be familiar and take liberties."</p> + +<p>Andrew met the ironical glance. "That is so," said he quietly.</p> + +<p>"Then, Mr. Lackaday----"</p> + +<p>"You can omit the 'Mr.,'" said Andrew, "if you care to do so."</p> + +<p>"You're more English than I thought," smiled Horatio Bakkus.</p> + +<p>"I'm proud that you should say so," replied Andrew.</p> + +<p>"I was about to remark," said Bakkus, "when you interrupted me, that I +wondered why a young Englishman of obviously decent upbringing should be +pursuing this contemptible form of livelihood."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Andrew, pausing in the act of conveying to his +mouth a morsel of sandwich. He was puzzled; comrades down on their luck had +cursed the profession for a <i>sale métier</i> and had wished they were +road sweepers; but he had never heard it called contemptible. It was a +totally new conception.</p> + +<p>Bakkus repeated his words and added: "It is below the dignity of one made +in God's image."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I do not agree with you," replied Andrew, stiffly. "I was born +in the profession and honourably bred in it and I have known no other and +do not wish to know any other."</p> + +<p>"You were born an imitator? It seems rather a narrow scheme of life."</p> + +<p>"I was born in a circus, and whatever there could be learned in a circus I +was taught. And it was, as you have guessed, a decent upbringing. By Gum, +it was!" he added, with sudden heat.</p> + +<p>"And you're proud of it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see that I've got anything else to be proud of," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"And you must be proud of something?"</p> + +<p>"If not you had better be dead," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Bakkus, and went on with his supper.</p> + +<p>Andrew, who had hitherto held himself on the defensive against +impertinence, and was disposed to dislike the cynical attitude of his new +acquaintance, felt himself suddenly disarmed by this "Ah!" Perhaps he had +dealt too cruel a blow at the disillusioned owner of the pretty little +tenor voice in which he could not take very much pride. Bakkus broke a +silence by remarking:</p> + +<p>"I envy you your young enthusiasm. You don't think it better we were all +dead?"</p> + +<p>"I should think not!" cried Andrew.</p> + +<p>"You say you know all that a circus can teach you. What does that mean? You +can ride bare back and jump through hoops?"</p> + +<p>"I learned to do that--for Clown's business," replied Andrew. "But that's +no good to me now. I am a professional juggler and conjurer and trick +musician. I'm also a bit of a gymnast and sufficient of a contortionist to +do eccentric dancing."</p> + +<p>Bakkus took a sip of beer, and regarded him with his mocking eyes.</p> + +<p>"And you'd sooner keep on throwing up three balls in the air for the rest +of your natural life than just be comfortably dead? I should like to know +your ideas on the point. What's the good of it all? Supposing you're the +most wonderful expert that ever lived--supposing you could keep up fifty +balls in the air at the same time, and could balance fifty billiard cues, +one on top of another, on your nose--what's the good of it?"</p> + +<p>Andrew rubbed his head. Such problems had never occurred to him. Old Ben +Flint's philosophy pounded into him, at times literally with a solid and +well-deserved paternal cuff, could be summed up in the eternal dictum: +"That which thou hast to do, do it with all thy might." It was the +beginning and end of his rule of life. He looked not, nor thought of +looking, further. And now came this Schopenhaurian with his question. +"What's the good of it?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'm an artist, in my way," he replied, modestly.</p> + +<p>"Artist?" Bakkus laughed derisively. "Pardon me, but you don't know what +the word means. An artist interprets nature in concrete terms of emotion, +in words, in colour, in sound, in stone--I don't say that he deserves to +live. I could prove to you, if I had time, that Michael Angelo and Dante +and Beethoven were the curses of humanity. Much better dead. But, anyhow, +they were artists. Even I with my tinpot voice singing 'Annie Laurie' and +'The Sands of Dee' and such-like clap-trap which brings a lump in the +throat of the grocer and his wife, am an artist. But you, my dear +fellow--with your fifty billiard cues on top of your nose? There's a devil +of a lot of skill about it of course--but nothing artistic. It means +nothing."</p> + +<p>"Yet if I could perform the feat," said Andrew, "thousands and thousands of +people would come to see me; more likely a million."</p> + +<p>"No doubt. But what would be the good of it, when you had done it and they +had seen it? Sheer waste of half your lifetime and a million hours on the +part of the public, which is over forty thousand days, which is over a +hundred years. Fancy a century of the world's energy wasted in seeing you +balance billiard cues on the end of your nose!"</p> + +<p>Andrew reflected for a long time, his elbow on the cafe table, his hand +covering his eyes. There must surely be some fallacy in this remorseless +argument which reduced his life's work to almost criminal futility. At last +light reached him. He held out his other hand and raised his head.</p> + +<p>"<i>Attendez</i>. I must say in French what has come into my mind. Surely +I am an artist according to your definition. I interpret nature, the +marvellous human mechanism in terms of emotion--the emotion of wonder. The +balance of fifty billiard cues gives the million people the same catch at +the throat as the song or the picture, and they lose themselves for an hour +in a new revelation of the possibilities of existence, and so I save the +world a hundred years of the sorrow and care of life."</p> + +<p>Bakkus looked at him approvingly. "Good," said he. "Very good. Thank God, +I've at last come across a man with a brain that isn't atrophied for want +of use. I love talking for talking's sake--good talk--don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot say that I do," replied Andrew honestly, "I have never thought of +it.'</p> + +<p>"But you must, my dear Lackaday. You have no idea how it stimulates your +intellect. It crystallizes your own vague ideas and sends you away with the +comforting conviction of what a damned fool the other fellow is. It's the +cheapest recreation in the world--when you can get it. And it doesn't +matter whether you're in purple and fine linen or in rags or in the greasy +dress-suit of a café-concert singer." He beckoned the waiter. "Shall we +go?"</p> + +<p>They parted outside and went their respective ways. The next night they +again supped together, and the night after that, until it became a habit. +In his long talks with the idle and cynical tenor, Andrew learned many +things.</p> + +<p>Now, parenthetically, certain facts in the previous career of Andrew +Lackaday have to be noted.</p> + +<p>Madame Flint had brought him up nominally in the Roman Catholic Faith, +which owing to his peripatetic existence was a very nebulous affair without +much real meaning; and Ben Flint, taking more pains, had reared him in +a sturdy Lancashire Fear of God and Duty towards his Neighbour and Duty +towards himself, and had given him the Golden Rule above mentioned. Ben had +also seen to his elementary education, so that the <i>régime du participe +passé</i> had no difficulties for him, and Racine and Bossuet were not +empty names, seeing that he had learned by heart extracts from the writings +of these immortals in his school primer. That they conveyed little to him +but a sense of paralysing boredom is neither here nor there. And Ben Flint, +most worthy and pertinacious of Britons, for the fourteen impressionable +years during which he was the arbiter of young Andrew's destiny, never for +an hour allowed him to forget that he was an Englishman. That Andrew should +talk French, his stepmother tongue, to all the outside world was a matter +of necessity. But if he addressed a word of French to him, Ben Flint, there +was the devil to pay. And if he picked up from the English stable hands +vulgarisms and debased vowel sounds, Ben Flint had the genius to compel +their rejection.</p> + +<p>"My father," writes Lackaday--for as such he always regarded Ben +Flint--"was the most remarkable man I have ever known. That he loved me +with his whole nature I never doubted and I worshipped the ground on which +he trod. But he was remorseless in his enforcement of obedience. Looking +back, I am lost in wonder at his achievement."</p> + +<p>Still, even Ben Flint could not do everything. The eternal precepts of +morality, the colloquial practice of English speech, the ineradicable +principles of English birth and patriotism, the elementary though thorough +French education, the intensive physical training in all phases of circus +life, took every hour that Ben Flint could spare from his strenuous +professional career as a vagabond circus clown. I who knew Ben Flint, and +drank of his wisdom gained in many lands, have been disposed to wonder why +he did not empty it to broaden the intellectual and æsthetic horizon of his +adopted son. But on thinking over the matter--how could he? He had spent +all his time in filling up the boy with essentials. Just at that time when +Andrew might have profited by the strong, rough intellectuality that had +so greatly attracted me as a young man, Ben Flint died. In the realm of +gymnasts, jugglers, circus-riders, dancers in which Andrew had thence found +his being, there was no one to replace the mellow old English clown, who +travelled around with Sterne and Montaigne and Shakespeare and Bunyan and +the Bible, as the only books of his permanent library. Such knowledge as +he possessed of the myriad activities of the great world outside his +professional circle he had picked up in aimless and desultory reading.</p> + +<p>In Horatio Bakkus, therefore, Andrew met for the first time a human being +interested in the intellectual aspect of life; one who advanced outrageous +propositions just for the joy of supporting them and of refuting +counter-arguments; one, in fact, who, to his initial amazement, +could juggle with ideas as he juggled with concrete objects. In this +companionship he found an unknown stimulus. He would bid his friend adieu +and go away, his brain catching feverishly at elusive theories and new +conceptions. Sometimes he went off thrilled with a sense of intellectual +triumph. He had beaten his adversary. He had maintained his simple moral +faith against ingenious sophistry. He realized himself as a thinking being, +impelled by a new force to furnish himself with satisfying reasons for +conduct. It was through Horatio Bakkus that he discovered The Venus of Milo +and Marcus Aurelius and Longchamps races....</p> + +<p>From the last he derived the most immediate benefit.</p> + +<p>"If you've never been to a race-meeting," said Bakkus, "you've missed one +of the elementary opportunities of a liberal education. Nowhere else can +you have such a chance of studying human imbecility, knavery and greed. You +can also glut your eyes with the spectacle of useless men, expensive women, +and astounded, sensitive animals."</p> + +<p>"I prefer," replied Andrew, with his wide grin, "to keep my faith in +mankind and horses."</p> + +<p>"And I," said Bakkus, "love to realize myself for what I really am, an +imbecile, a knave, and a useless craver of money for which I've not had the +indignity of working. It soothes me to feel that for all my heritage of +culture I am nothing more or less than one of the rabble-rout. I've backed +horses ever since I was a boy and in my time I've had a pure delight in +pawning my underwear in order to do so."</p> + +<p>"It seems to be the height of folly," said sober Andrew.</p> + +<p>Bakkus regarded him with his melancholy mocking eyes.</p> + +<p>"To paraphrase a remark of yours on the occasion of our first meeting--if a +man is not a fool in something he were better dead. At any rate let me show +you this fool's playground."</p> + +<p>So Andrew assented. They went to Longchamps, humbly, on foot, mingling with +the Paris crowd. Bakkus wore a sun-stained brown and white check suit and +an old grey bowler hat and carried a pair of racing-glasses slung across +his shoulders, all of which transformed his aspect from that, in evening +dress, of the broken old tragedian to that of the bookmaker's tout rejected +of honest bookmaking men. As for Andrew, he made no change in his ordinary +modest ill-fitting tweeds, of which the sleeves were never long enough; and +his long red neck mounted high above the white of his collar and his straw +hat was, as usual, clamped on the carroty thatch of his hair. For them no +tickets for stands, lawn or enclosure. The far off gaily dressed crowd in +these exclusive demesnes shimmered before Andrew's vision as remote as some +radiant planetary choir. The stir on the field, however, excited him. The +sun shone through a clear air on this late meeting of the season, investing +it with an air of innocent holiday gaiety which stultified Bakkus's bleak +description. And Andrew's great height overtopping the crowd afforded him a +fair view of the course.</p> + +<p>Bakkus came steeped in horse-lore and confidently prophetic. To the +admiration of Andrew he ran through the entries for each race, analysing +their histories, summarizing their form, and picking out dead certainties +with an esoteric knowledge derived from dark and mysterious sources. Andrew +followed him to the booths of the <i>Pari Mutuel</i>, and betting his +modest five franc piece, on each of the first two events, found Bakkus +infallible. But on looking down the list of entries for the great race of +the day he was startled to find a name which he had only once met with +before and which he had all but forgotten. It was "Elodie."</p> + +<p>"My friend," said Bakkus, "now is the time to make a bold bid for a sure +fortune. There is a horse called Goffredo who is quoted in the sacred inner +ring of those that know at 8 to 1. I have information withheld from this +boor rabble, that he will win, and that he will come out at about 15 to 1. +I shall therefore invest my five louis in the certain hope of seventy-five +beautiful golden coins clinking into my hand. Come thou and do likewise."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to back Elodie," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>Bakkus stared at him. "Elodie--that ambulatory assemblage of cat's meat! +Why she has never been placed in a race in her life. Look at her." He +pulled Andrew as near the railings as they could get and soon picked her +out of the eight or nine cantering down the straight--a sleek, mild, +contented bay whose ambling gentleness was greeted with a murmur of +derision. "Did you ever see such a cow?"</p> + +<p>"I like the look of her," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"Why--in the name of----"</p> + +<p>"She looks as if she would be kind to children," replied Andrew.</p> + +<p>They rushed quickly to the <i>Pari Mutuel</i>. Bakkus paid his five louis +for his Goffredo ticket. He turned to seek Andrew, but Andrew had gone. In +a moment or two they met among the scurrying swarm about the booths.</p> + +<p>"What have you done?"</p> + +<p>"I've put a louis on Elodie," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"The next time I want to give you a happy day I'll take you to the Young +Men's Christian Association," said Bakkus witheringly.</p> + +<p>"Let us see the race," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>They paid a franc apiece for a stand on a bench and watched as much of the +race as they could see. And Bakkus forgot to share his glasses with Andrew, +who caught now and then an uncomprehending sight of coloured dots on moving +objects and gaped in equally uncomprehensible bewilderment when the racing +streak flashed home up the straight. A strange cry, not of gladness but +of wonder, burst from the great crowd. Andrew turned to Bakkus, who, with +glasses lowered, was looking at him with hollow eyes from which the mockery +had fled.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" asked Andrew.</p> + +<p>"The matter? Your running nightmare has won. Why the devil couldn't you +have given me the tip? You must have known something. No one could play +such a game without knowing. It's damned unfriendly."</p> + +<p>"Believe me, I had no tip," Andrew protested. "I never heard of the beast +before."</p> + +<p>"Then why the blazes did you pick her out?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Andrew. Then realizing that his philosophical and paradoxical +friend was in sordid earnest he said mildly:</p> + +<p>"There was a girl of that name who once brought me good luck."</p> + +<p>The gambler, alive to superstitious intuitions, repented immediately of his +anger.</p> + +<p>"That's worth all the tips in the world. Why didn't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>"I don't wear my heart upon my sleeve," replied Andrew.</p> + +<p>So peace was made. They joined the thin crowd round their booth of the +<i>Pari Mutuel</i>, mainly composed of place winners, and when the placards +of the odds went up, Bakkus gripped his companion's arm.</p> + +<p>"My God! A hundred and three to one. Why didn't you plank on your last +penny."</p> + +<p>"I'm very well content with two thousand francs," said Andrew. "It's +something against a rainy day."</p> + +<p>They reached the <i>guichet</i> and Andrew drew his money.</p> + +<p>"Suppose the impossible animal hadn't won--you would have been rather +sick."</p> + +<p>"No," Andrew replied, after a moment's thought. "I should have regarded my +louis as a tribute to the memory of one who did me a great service."</p> + +<p>"I believe," said Bakkus, "that if I could only turn sentimentalist, I +should make my fortune."</p> + +<p>"Let us go and find a drink," said Andrew.</p> + +<p> +For the second time Elodie brought him luck. This time in the shape of a +hundred and three louis, a goodly sum when one has to live from hand to +mouth. And the time came, at the end of their engagement at <i>La Boîte +Blanche</i>, when they lost even that precarious method of existence. +For the first time in his life Andrew spent a month in vain search for +employment. Dead season Paris had more variety artists than it knew what to +do with. The provinces, so the rehabilitated Moignon and his confrères, the +other agents, declared, in terms varying from apologetic stupor to frank +brutality, had no use for Andrew-André and his unique entertainment.</p> + +<p>"But what shall I do?" asked the anxious André.</p> + +<p>"Wait, <i>mon cher</i>, we shall soon well arrange it," said Moignon.</p> + +<p>"?" pantomimed the other agents, with shrugged shoulders and helplessly +outspread hands.</p> + +<p>And it happened too that Bakkus, the sweet ballad-monger, found himself on +the same rocks of unemployment.</p> + +<p>"I have," said he, one evening, when the stranded pair were sitting +outside a horrid little liquor retreat with a zinc bar in the Faubourg +Saint-Denis--the luxury of <i>consommations</i> at sixty centimes on the +Grands Boulevards had faded from their dreams--"I have, my dear friend, +just enough to carry me on for a fortnight."</p> + +<p>"And I too," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"But your hundred louis at Longchamps?"</p> + +<p>"They're put away," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"Thank God," said Bakkus.</p> + +<p>Andrew detected a lack of altruism in the pious note of praise. He did not +love Bakkus to such a pitch of brotherly affection as would warrant his +relieving him of responsibility for self support. He had already fed Bakkus +for three days.</p> + +<p>"They're put away," he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Bring them out of darkness into the light of day," said Bakkus. "What are +talents in a napkin? You are a capitalist--I am a man with ideas. May I +order another of this <i>mastroquet's</i> bowel-gripping absinthes in order +to expound a scheme? Thank you, my dear Lackaday. <i>Oui, encore une</i>. +Tell me have you ever been to England?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever heard of Pierrots?"</p> + +<p>"On the stage--masked balls--yes."</p> + +<p>"But real Pierrots who make money?"</p> + +<p>"In England? What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"There is in England a blatant, vulgar, unimaginative, hideous institution +known as the Seaside."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Andrew.</p> + +<p>The dingy proprietor of the "Zingue" brought out the absinthe. Bakkus +arranged the perforated spoon, carrying its lump of sugar over the glass +and began to drop the water from the decanter.</p> + +<p>"If you will bear with me for a minute or two, until the sugar's melted, +I'll tell you all about it."</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter VII</h1> + + + +<p>It was a successful combination. Bakkus sang his ballads and an occasional +humorous song of the moment to Andrew's accompaniment on mandolin or +one-stringed violin, and Andrew conjured and juggled comically, using +Bakkus as his dull-witted foil. A complete little performance, the patter +and business artistically thought out and perfectly rehearsed. They wore +the conventional Pierrot costume with whited faces and black skull caps.</p> + +<p>Bakkus, familiar with English customs, had undertaken to attend to the +business side of their establishment on the sands of the great West Coast +resort, Andrew providing the capital out of his famous hundred louis. But +it came almost imperceptibly to pass that Andrew made all the arrangements, +drove the bargains and kept an accurate account of their varying finances.</p> + +<p>"You'll never be a soldier of fortune, my dear fellow," said Bakkus once, +when, returning homewards, he had wished to dip his hand into the leather +bag containing the day's takings in order to supply himself lavishly with +comforting liquid.</p> + +<p>"It's the very last thing I want to be," replied Andrew, hugging the bag +tight under his long arm.</p> + +<p>"You're bourgeois to your finger-tips, your ideal of happiness is a meek +female in a parlour and half a dozen food-sodden brats."</p> + +<p>Andrew hunched his shoulders good-naturedly at the taunt. A home, and wife +and offspring seemed rather desirable of attainment.</p> + +<p>"You've lots of money in your pocket to pay for a drink," said he. "It's +mere perversity that makes you want to touch the takings. We haven't +counted them."</p> + +<p>"Perversity is the only thing that makes this rotten life worth living," +retorted Bakkus.</p> + +<p>It was his perversity, thus exemplified, which compelled Andrew to +constitute himself the business manager of the firm. He had a sedate, +inexorable way with him, a grotesque dignity, to which, for all his gibes, +Bakkus instinctively submitted. Bakkus might provide ideas, but it was the +lank and youthful Andrew who saw to their rigid execution.</p> + +<p>"You've no more soul than a Prussian drill sergeant," Bakkus would say.</p> + +<p>"And you've no more notion of business than a Swiss Admiral," Andrew would +reply.</p> + +<p>"Who invented this elegant and disgustingly humiliating entertainment?"</p> + +<p>Andrew would laugh and give him all the credit. But when Bakkus, in the +morning, clamouring against insane punctuality, and demanding another +hour's sloth, refused to leave his bed, he came up against an +incomprehensible force, and, entirely against his will, found himself on +the stroke of eleven ready to begin the performance on the sands. Sometimes +he felt an almost irresistible desire to kick Andrew, so mild and gentle, +with his eternal idiotic grin; but he knew in his heart that Andrew was not +one of the idiots whom people kicked with impunity. He lashed him, instead, +with his tongue, which Andrew, within limits, did not mind a bit. To +Bakkus, however, Andrew owed the conception of their adventure. He also +owed to him the name of the combination, and also the name which was to be +professionally his for the rest of his stage career.</p> + +<p>It all proceeded from the miraculous winning of the mare Elodie. Bakkus had +made some indiscreet remark concerning her namesake. Andrew, quick in his +dignity, had made a curt answer. Ironical Bakkus began to hum the old +nursery song:</p> + +<blockquote> <i>Il était une bergère<br /> + Et ron, ron, ron, petit patapon</i>.</blockquote> + +<p>Suddenly he stopped.</p> + +<p>"By George! I have it! The names that will <i>épater</i> the English +bourgeois. Ron-ron-ron and Petit Patapon. I'll be Ron-ron-ron and you'll be +dear little Patapon."</p> + +<p>As the English seaside public, however, when he came to think of it, have +never heard of the shepherdess who guarded her muttons and still less of +the refrain which illustrated her history, he realized that the names as +they stood would be ineffective. Ron-ron and Patapon therefore would they +be. But Andrew, remembering Elodie's wise counsel, stuck to the "petit." +His French instinct guiding him, he rejected Patapon. Bakkus found Ron-ron +an unmeaning appellation. At last they settled it. They printed it out in +capital letters.</p> + +<p>THE GREAT PATAPON AND LITTLE PATOU</p> + +<p>So it came to pass that a board thus inscribed in front of their simple +installation on the sands advertised their presence.</p> + +<p>Now, Lackaday in his manuscript relates this English episode, not so much +as an appeal to pity for the straits to which he was reduced, although he +winces at its precarious mountebankery, and his sensitive and respectable +soul revolts at going round with the mendicant's hat and thanking old women +and children for pennies, as in order to correlate certain influences and +coincidences in his career. Elodie seems to haunt him. So he narrates what +seems to be another trivial incident.</p> + +<p>Andrew was a lusty swimmer. In the old circus summer days Ben Flint had +seen to that. Whenever the Cirque Rocambeau pitched its tent by sea or +lake, Ben Flint threw young Andrew into the water. So now every morning, +before the world was awake, did Andrew go down to the sea. Once, a week +after their arrival, did he, by some magnetic power, drag the protesting +Bakkus from his bed and march him down, from the modest lodgings in a +by-street, to the sea front and the bathing-machines. Magnetic force may +bring a man to the water, but it can't make him go in. Bakkus looked at the +cold grey water--it was a cloudy morning--took counsel with himself and, +sitting on the sands, refused to budge from the lesser misery of the windy +shore. He smoked the pipe of disquiet on an empty stomach for the half-hour +during which Andrew expended unnecessary effort in progressing through many +miles in an element alien to man. In the cold and sickly wretchedness of a +cutting wind, he cursed Andrew with erudite elaboration. But when Andrew +eventually landed, his dripping bathing-suit clinging close to his gigantic +and bony figure, appearing to derisive eyes like the skin covered fossil of +a prehistoric monster of a man, his bushy hair clotted, like ruddy seaweed, +over his staring, ugly face, Bakkus forgot his woes and rolled on his back +convulsed with vulgar but inextinguishable laughter.</p> + +<p>"My God!" he cried later, when summoned by an angry Andrew to explain his +impolite hilarity. "You're the funniest thing on the earth. Why hide the +light of your frame under a bushel of clothing? My dear boy, I'm talking +sense"--this was at a hitherto unfriendly breakfast-table--"You've got +an extraordinary physique. If I laughed, like a rude beast, for which I +apologize, the public would laugh. There's money in it. Skin tights and +your hair made use of, why--you've got 'em laughing before you even begin +a bit of business. Why the devil don't you take advantage of your physical +peculiarities? Look here, don't get cross. This is what I mean."</p> + +<p>He pulled out a pencil and, pushing aside plates and dishes, began to +sketch on the table-cloth with his superficial artistic facility. Andrew +watched him, the frown of anger giving way to the knitted brow of interest. +As the drawing reached completion, he thought again of Elodie and her sage +counsel. Was this her mental conception which he had been striving for +years to realize? He did not find the ideal incongruous with his lingering +sense of romance. He could take a humorous view of anything but his +profession. That was sacred. Everything did he devote to it, from his soul +to his skinny legs and arms. So that, when Bakkus had finished, and leaned +back to admire his work, Andrew drew a deep breath, and his eyes shone as +if he had received an inspiration from on High. He saw himself as in an +apotheosis.</p> + +<p>There he was, self-exaggeratingly true to life, inordinately high, +inordinately thin, clad in tights that reached to a waistband beneath his +armpits giving him miraculous length of leg, a low-cut collar accentuating +his length of neck, his hair twisted up on end to a fine point.</p> + +<p>"And I could pad the feet of the tights and wear high heels that would +give me another couple of inches," he cried excitedly. "By Gum!" said he, +clutching Bakkus's shoulder, a rare act of demonstrativeness, "what a thing +it is to have imagination."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Bakkus, "what a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How +infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in +action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the +world! the paragon of animals!"</p> + +<p>"What the devil do you mean?" asked Andrew.</p> + +<p>Bakkus waved a hand towards the drawing.</p> + +<p>"If only I had your application," said he, "I should make a great name as +an illustrator of Hamlet."</p> + +<p>"One of these days," said Andrew, the frown of anger returning to his brow, +"I'll throw you out of the window."</p> + +<p>"Provided it is not, as now, on the ground floor, you would be committing +an act of the loftiest altruism."</p> + +<p>Andrew returned to his forgotten breakfast, and poured out a cup of tepid +tea.</p> + +<p>"What would you suggest--just plain black or red--Mephisto--or stripes?"</p> + +<p>He was full of the realization of the Elodesque idea. His brain became +a gushing fount of inspiration. Hundreds of grotesque possibilities of +business, hitherto rendered ineffective by flapping costume, appeared in +fascinating bubbles. He thought and spoke of nothing else.</p> + +<p>"Once I denied you the rank of artist," said Bakkus. "I retract. I +apologize. No one but an artist would inflict on another human being such +intolerable boredom."</p> + +<p>"But it's your idea, bless you, which I'm carrying out, with all the +gratitude in the world."</p> + +<p>"If you want to reap the tortures of the damned," retorted Bakkus, "just +you be a benefactor."</p> + +<p>Andrew shrugged his shoulders. That was the way of Horatio Bakkus, perhaps +the first of his fellow-creatures whom he had deliberately set out to +study, for hitherto he had met only simple folk, good men and true or +uncomplicated fools and knaves, and the paradoxical humour of his friend +had been a puzzling novelty demanding comprehension; the first, therefore, +who put him on the track of the observation of the twists of human +character and the knowledge of men. That was the way of Bakkus. An idea was +but a toy which he tired of like a child and impatiently broke to bits. +Only a week before he had come to Andrew:</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, I've got a song. I'm going to write it, set it and sing it +myself. It begins:--</p> + +<blockquote> <i>I crept into the halls of sleep<br /> + And watched the dreams go by.</i></blockquote> + +<p>I'll give you the accompaniment in a day or two and we'll try it on the +dog. It's a damned sight too good for them--but no matter."</p> + +<p>Andrew was interested. The lines had a little touch of poetry. He refrained +for some time from breaking through the gossamer web of the poet's fancy. +At last, however, as he heard nothing further, he made delicate enquiries.</p> + +<p>"Song?" cried Bakkus. "What song? That meaningless bit of moonshine +ineptitude I quoted the other day? I have far more use for my intellect +than degrading it to such criminal prostitution."</p> + +<p>Yes, he was beginning to know his Bakkus. His absorption in his new +character was not entirely egotistic. Both his own intelligence and his +professional experience told him that here, as he had worked out-the +business in his mind, was an entirely novel attraction. In his young +enthusiasm he saw hundreds crowding round the pitch on the sands. It was as +much to Bakkus's interest as to his own that the new show should succeed. +And even before he had procured the costume from Covent Garden, Bakkus +professed intolerable boredom. He shrugged his shoulders. Bored or not, +Bakkus should go through with it. So again under the younger man's +leadership Bakkus led the strenuous life of rehearsal.</p> + +<p>It took quite a day for their fame to spread. On the second day they +attracted crowds. Money poured in upon them. Little Patou, like a +double-tailed serpent rearing himself upright on his tail tips, appeared +at first a creature remote, of some antediluvian race--until he talked +a familiar, disarming patter with his human, disarming grin. The Great +Patapon, contrary to jealous anticipation, saw himself welcomed as a +contrast and received more than his usual meed of applause. This satisfied, +for the time, his singer's vanity which he professed so greatly to despise. +They entered on a spell of halcyon days.</p> + +<p>The brilliant sunny season petered out in hopeless September, raw and +chill. A week had passed without the possibility of an audience. Said +Bakkus:</p> + +<p>"Of all the loathsome spots in a noisome universe this is the most +purulent. In order to keep up our rudimentary self-respect we have done +our best to veil our personal identity as images of the Almighty from the +higher promenades of the vulgar. Our sole associates have been the blatant +frequenters of evil smelling bars. We've not exchanged a word with a +creature approaching our intellectual calibre. I am beginning to conceive +for you the bitter hatred that one of a pair of castaways has for the +other; and you must regard me with feelings of equal abhorrence."</p> + +<p>"By no means," replied Andrew. "You provide me with occupation, and that +amuses me."</p> + +<p>As the occupation for the dismal week had mainly consisted in dragging a +cursing Bakkus away from public-house whisky on damp and detested walks, +and in imperturbably manoeuvring him out of an idle--and potentially +vicious--intrigue with the landlady's pretty and rather silly daughter, his +reply brought a tragic scowl to Bakkus's face.</p> + +<p>"There are times when I lie awake, inventing lingering deaths for you. You +occupy yourself too much with my affairs. It's time our partnership in this +degrading mountebankery should cease."</p> + +<p>"Until it does, it's going to be efficient," said Andrew. "It's a come down +for both of us to play on the sands and pass the hat round. I hate it as +much as you do, but we've done it honourably and decently--and we'll end up +in the same way."</p> + +<p>"We end now," said Bakkus, staring out of their cheap lodging house +sitting-room window at the dismal rain that veiled the row of cheap lodging +houses opposite.</p> + +<p>Andrew made a stride across the room, seized his shoulder and twisted him +round.</p> + +<p>"What about our bookings next month?"</p> + +<p>For their success had brought them an offer of a month certain from a +northern Palladium syndicate, with prospects of an extended tour.</p> + +<p>"Dust and ashes," said Bakkus.</p> + +<p>"You may be dust," cried Andrew hotly, "but I'm damned if I'm ashes."</p> + +<p>Bakkus bit and lighted a cheap cigar and threw himself on the dilapidated +sofa. "No, my dear fellow, if it comes to that, I'm the ashes. Dead! With +never a recrudescent Phoenix to rise up out of them. You're the dust, the +merry sport of the winds of heaven."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk foolishness," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"Was there ever a man living who used his breath for any other purpose?"</p> + +<p>"Then," said Andrew, "your talk about breaking up the partnership is mere +stupidity."</p> + +<p>"It is and it isn't," replied Bakkus. "Although I hate you, I love you. +You'll find the same paradoxical sentimental relationship in most cases +between man and wife. I love you, and I wish you well, my dear boy. I +should like to see you Merry-Andrew yourself to the top of the Merry-Andrew +tree. But for insisting on my accompanying you on that uncomfortable and +strenuous ascent, without very much glory to myself, I frankly detest you."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't matter a bit to me," said Andrew. "You've got to carry out +your contract."</p> + +<p>Bakkus sighed. "Need I? What's a contract? I say I am willing to perform +vocal and other antics for so many shillings a week. When I come to think +of it, my soul revolts at the sale of itself for so many shillings a week +to perform actions utterly at variance with its aspirations. As a matter of +fact I am tired. Thanks to my brain and your physical cooperation, I have +my pockets full of money. I can afford a holiday. I long for bodily sloth, +for the ragged intellectual companionship that only Paris can give me, for +the resumption of study of the philosophy of the excellent Henri Bergson, +for the absinthe that brings forgetfulness, for the Tanagra figured, +broad-mouthed, snub-nosed shrew that fills every day with potential +memories."</p> + +<p>"Oh that's it, is it?" cried Andrew, with a glare in his usually mild +eyes and his ugly jaw set. They had had many passages at arms. Bakkus's +sophistical rhetoric against Andrew's steady common sense; and they had +sharpened Andrew's wit. But never before had they come to a serious +quarrel. Feeling his power he had hitherto exercised it with humorous +effectiveness. But now the situation appeared entirely devoid of humour. He +was coldly and sternly angry.</p> + +<p>"That's the beginning and end of the whole thing? It all comes down to a +worthless little Montmartroise? For a little thing of <i>rien du tout,</i> +the artist, the philosopher, the English public school man will throw over +his friend, his partner, his signed word, his honour? <i>Mon Dieu!</i> Well +go--I can easily--No, I'll not say what I have in my mind."</p> + +<p>Bakkus turned over on his side, facing his adversary, his under arm +outstretched, the cigar in his fingers.</p> + +<p>"I love to see youth perspiring--especially with noble rage. It does it +good, discharges the black humours of the body. If I could perspire more +freely I should be singing in Grand Opera."</p> + +<p>"You can break your contract and I'll do without you," cried the furious +Andrew.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to break the contract, my young friend," replied Bakkus, +peering at him through lowered eyelids. "When did I say such a thing? We +end the damp and dripping folly of the sands."</p> + +<p>"We don't," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"As you will," said Bakkus. "Again I prophesy that you'll be drilling +awkward squads in barrack yards before you've done. It's all you're fit +for."</p> + +<p>Andrew smiled or grinned with closed lips. It was his grim smile, many +years afterwards to become familiar to larger bodies of men than awkward +squads. Once more he had won his little victory.</p> + +<p>So peace was made. They finished up the miserable fag end of the season +and with modest success carried out their month's contract in the northern +towns. But even Andrew's drastic leadership could not prevail on Bakkus's +indolence to sign an extension. Montmartre called him. An engagement. He +also spoke vaguely of singing lessons. Now that Parisians had returned to +Paris, he could not afford to lose his connections. With cynical frankness +he also confessed his disinclination to be recognized in a music-hall Punch +and Judy show by his brother the Archdeacon.</p> + +<p>"Archdeacons," said Andrew--he had a confused idea of their prelatical +status, "don't go to music-halls."</p> + +<p>"They do in this country," said Bakkus. "They're everywhere. They infest +the air like microbes. You only have to open your mouth and you get your +lungs filled with them. It's a pestilential country and I've done with it."</p> + +<p>"All right," replied Andrew, "I'll run the show on my own."</p> + +<p>But the Palladium syndicate, willing to book "The Great Patapon and Little +Patou" for a further term, declined to rebook Little Patou by himself. +He returned to Paris, where he found Bakkus wallowing in absinthe and +philosophic sloth.</p> + +<p>"We might have made our fortune in England," said he.</p> + +<p>Said Bakkus coolly sipping his absinthe, "I have no desire to make my +fortune. Have you?"</p> + +<p>"I should like to make my name and a big position," replied Andrew.</p> + +<p>"And I, my young friend? As the fag end of the comet's tail should I have +made my name and a big position? Ah egotist! Egotist! Sublime egotist! The +true artist using human souls as the rungs of his ladder! Well, go your +ways. I have no reproach against you. Now that I'm out of your barrack +square, my heart is overflowing with love for you. You have ever a friend +in Horatio Bakkus. When you fall on evil days and you haven't a sou in your +pocket, come to me--and you'll always find an inspiration."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would give me one now," said Andrew, who had spent a fruitless +morning at the Agence Moignon.</p> + +<p>"You want a foil, an intelligent creature who will play up to you--a +creature far more intelligent than I am. A dog. Buy a dog. A poodle."</p> + +<p>"By Gum!" cried Andrew, "I believe you're right again."</p> + +<p>"I'm never wrong," said Bakkus. "Garcon!" He summoned the waiter and waved +his hand towards the little accusing pile of saucers. "Monsieur always pays +for my inspirations."</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter VIII</h1> + + + +<p>We behold Petit Patou now definitely launched on his career. Why the +execution of Bakkus's (literally) cynical suggestion should have met with +instant success, neither he nor Andrew nor Prépimpin, the poodle, nor +anyone under heaven had the faintest idea. Perhaps Prépimpin had something +to do with it. He was young, excellently trained, and expensive. As to the +methods of his training Andrew made no enquiries. Better not. But, brought +up in the merciful school of Ben Flint, in which Billy the pig had many +successors, both porcine and canine, he had expert knowledge of what kind +firmness on the part of the master and sheer love on that of the animal +could accomplish.</p> + +<p>Prépimpin went through his repertoire with the punctilio of the barrack +square deprecated by Bakkus.</p> + +<p>"I buy him," said Andrew. "<i>Viens, mon ami</i>."</p> + +<p>Prépimpin cast an oblique glance at his old master.</p> + +<p>"<i>Va-t-en</i>," said the latter.</p> + +<p>"<i>Allons</i>" said Andrew with a caressing touch on the dog's head.</p> + +<p>Prépimpin's topaz eyes gazed full into his new lord's. He wagged the tuft +at the end of his shaven tail. Andrew knelt down, planted his fingers in +the lion shagginess of mane above his ears and said in the French which +Prépimpin understood:</p> + +<p>"We're going to be good friends, eh? You're not going to play me any dirty +tricks? You're going to be a good and very faithful colleague?"</p> + +<p>"You mustn't spoil him," said the vendor, foreseeing, according to his +lights, possible future recriminations.</p> + +<p>Andrew, still kneeling, loosed his hold on the dog, who forthwith put both +paws on his shoulder and tried to lick the averted human face.</p> + +<p>"I've trained animals since I was two years old, Monsieur Berguinan. Please +tell me something that I don't know." He rose. "<i>Alors</i>, Prépimpin, we +belong to each other. <i>Viens</i>."</p> + +<p>The dog followed him joyously. The miracle beyond human explanation was +accomplished, the love at first sight between man and dog.</p> + +<p>Now, in the manuscript there is much about Prépimpin. Lackaday, generally +so precise, has let himself go over the love and intelligence of this most +human of animals. To read him you would think that Prépimpin invented his +own stage business and rehearsed Petit Patou. As a record of dog and man +sympathy it is of remarkable interest; it has indeed a touch of rare +beauty; but as it is a detailed history of Prépimpin rather than an account +of a phase in the career of Andrew Lackaday, I must wring my feelings and +do no more than make a passing reference to their long and, from my point +of view, somewhat monotonous partnership. It sheds, however, a light on +the young manhood of this earnest mountebank. It reveals a loneliness +ill-becoming his years--a loneliness of soul and heart of which he appears +to be unconscious. Again, we have here and there the fleeting shadow of a +petticoat. In Stockholm--during these years he went far afield--he fancies +himself in love with one Vera Karynska of vague Mid-European nationality, +who belongs to a troupe of acrobats. Vera has blue eyes, a deeply +sentimental nature, and, alas! an unsympathetic husband who, to Andrew's +young disgust depends on her for material support, seeing that every +evening he and various other brutes of the tribe form an inverted pyramid +with Vera's amazonian shoulders as the apex. He is making up a besotted +mind to say, "Fly with me," when the Karinski troupe vanishes Moscow-wards +and an inexorable contract drives him to Dantzic. In that ancient town, +looking into the faithful and ironical eyes of Prépimpin, he thanks God he +did not make a fool of himself.</p> + +<p>You see, he succeeds. If you credited his modesty, you would think that +Prépimpin made Petit Patou. <i>Quod est absurdum</i>. But the psychological +fact remains that Andrew Lackaday needed some magnetic contact with another +individuality, animal or human, to exhibit his qualities. There, in +counselling splendid isolation, Elodie Figasso, the little Marseilles +gutter fairy was wrong. She saw, clearly enough, that, subordinated to +others, with no chance of developing his one personality he must fail. +But she did not perceive--and poor child, how could she?--that given the +dominating influence over any combination, even over one poodle dog, he +held the key of success.</p> + +<p>So we see him, the born leader, unconscious of his powers for lack of +opportunity, instinctively craving their exercise for his own spiritual +and moral evolution, and employing them in the benign mastery of the dog +Prépimpin.</p> + +<p>They were happy years of bourgeois vagabondage. At first he felt the young +artist's soreness that, with the exception of rare, sporadic engagements, +neither London nor Paris would have him. Once he appeared at the Empire, +in Leicester Square, an early turn, and kept on breaking bits of his heart +every day, for a week, when the curtain went down in the thin applause that +is worse than silence.</p> + +<p>"Prépimpin felt it," he writes, "even more than I did. He would follow me +off, with his head bowed down and his tail-tuft sweeping the floor, so that +I could have wept over his humiliation."</p> + +<p>Why the great capitals fail to be amused is a perpetual mystery to Andrew +Lackaday. Prépimpin and he give them the newest things they can think of. +After weeks and weeks of patient rehearsal, they bring a new trick to +perfection. It is the <i>clou</i> of their performance for a week's +engagement at the Paris Folies-Bergère. After a conjuring act, he retires. +Comes on again immediately, Petit Patou, apparently seven foot high, in +the green silk tights reaching to the arm-pit waist, a low frill round his +neck, his hair up to a point, a perpetual grin painted on his face. On the +other side enters Prépimpin on hind legs, bearing an immense envelope. +Petit Patou opens it--shows the audience an invitation to a ball.</p> + +<p>"Ah! dress me, Prépimpin."</p> + +<p>The dog pulls a hidden string and Petit Patou is clad in a bottle green +dress-coat. Prépimpin barks and dances his delight.</p> + +<p>"But <i>nom d'un chien</i>, I can't go to a ball without a hat."</p> + +<p>Prepimpin bolts to the wings and returns with an opera hat.</p> + +<p>"And a stick."</p> + +<p>Prepimpin brings the stick.</p> + +<p>"And a cigar."</p> + +<p>Prépimpin rushes to a little table at the back of the stage and on his hind +legs offers a box of cigars to his master, who selects one and lights it. +He begins the old juggler's trick of the three objects. The dog sits on his +haunches and watches him. There is patter in which the audience is given +to understand that Prépimpin, who glances from time to time over the +footlights, with a shake of his leonine mane, is bored to death by his +master's idiocy. At last the hat descends on Petit Patou's head, the +crook-handled stick falls on his arm, and he looks about in a dazed way for +the cigar, and then he sees Prépimpin, who has caught it, swaggering off on +his hind legs, the still lighted cigar in his mouth.</p> + +<p>"No," writes Lackaday, "it was a failure. Poor Prépimpin and I left Paris +with our tails between our legs. We were to start a tour at Bordeaux. +'<i>Mon pauvre ami</i>,' said I, on the journey--Prépimpin never suffered +the indignity of a dog cage--'There is only one thing to be done. It is you +who will be going to the ball and will juggle with the three objects, and +I who will catch the cigar in my mouth.' But it was not to be. At Bordeaux +and all through the tour we had a <i>succès fou</i>."</p> + +<p>Thus Andrew washed his hands of Paris and London and going where he was +appreciated roved the world in quiet contentment. He was young, rather +scrupulously efficient within his limits, than ambitious, and of modest +wants, sober habits, and of a studious disposition which his friendship +with Horatio Bakkus had both awakened and stimulated. Homeless from birth +he never knew the nostalgia which grips even the most deliberately vagrant +of men. As his ultimate goal he had indeed a vague dream of a home with +wife and children--one of these days in the future, when he had put by +enough money to justify such luxuries. And then there was the wife to find. +In a wife sewing by lamp-light between a red-covered round table and +the fire, a flaxen haired cherub by her side--for so did his ingenuous +inexperience picture domestic happiness--he required the dominating +characteristic of angelic placidity. Perhaps his foster-mother and the +comfort Ben Flint found in her mild and phlegmatic devotion had something +to do with it.</p> + +<p>In his manuscript he tries to explain--and flounders about in a +psychological bog--that his ideal woman and his ideal wife are two totally +different conceptions. The woman who could satisfy all his romantic +imaginings was the Princesse Lointaine--the Highest Common Factor of the +ladies I have already mentioned--Mélisande, Phèdre, Rosalind, Fédora, and +Dora Copperfield--it is at this stage that he mentions them by name, having +extended his literary horizon. Her he did not see sewing, in ox-eyed +serenity, by a round table covered with a red cloth. With Her it was a +totally different affair. It was a matter of spring and kisses and a +perfect spiritual companionship.... As I have said, he gets into a terrible +muddle. Anyhow, between the two conflicting ideals, he does not fall to the +ground of vulgar amours. At the risk of tedium I feel bound to insist on +this aspect of his life. For in the errant cosmopolitan world in which he, +irresponsible and now well salaried bachelor had his being, he was thrown +into the free and easy comradeship of hundreds of attractive women, as free +and irresponsible as himself. He lived in a sea of temptation. On the other +hand, I should be doing as virile a creature as ever walked a great wrong +if I presented him to you under the guise of a Joseph Andrews. He had his +laughter and his champagne and his kisses on the wing. But it was:</p> + +<p>"We'll meet again one of these days."</p> + +<p>"One of these days when our paths cross again."</p> + +<p>And so--in effect--<i>Bon soir</i>.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to compress into a page or two the history of several +years. But that is what I have to do.</p> + +<p>He is not wandering all the time over France, or flashing meteor-like about +Europe. He has periods of repose, enforced and otherwise. But his position +being ensured, he has no anxieties. Paris is his headquarters. He lives +still in his old <i>hôtel meublé</i> in the Faubourg Saint-Denis. But +instead of one furnished room on the fifth floor, he can afford an +apartment, salon, salle à manger, bedrooms, cabinet de toilette, on the +prosperous second, which he retains all the year round. And Petit Patou can +now stride through the waiting crowd in Moignon's antechamber and enter the +sacred office, cigar in mouth, and with a "look here, <i>mon vieux</i>," +put the fear of God into him. Petit Patou and Prépimpin, the idols of the +Provinces, have arrived.</p> + +<p>In Paris, when their presences coincide, he continues to consort with +Bakkus, whose exquisite little tenor voice still affords him a means +of livelihood. In fact Bakkus has had a renewed lease of professional +activity. He sings at watering places, at palace hotels; which involves the +physical activity which he abhors.</p> + +<p>"Bound to this Ixion wheel of perpetual motion," says he, "I suffer +tortures unimagined even by the High Gods. Compared with it our degrading +experience on the sands seven years ago was a blissful idyll."</p> + +<p>"By Gum!" says Andrew, "seven years ago. Who would have thought it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, who?" scowled the pessimist, now getting grey and more gaunt of blue, +ill-shaven cheek. "To me it is seven æons of Promethean damnation."</p> + +<p>"To me it seems only yesterday," says Andrew.</p> + +<p>"It's because you have no brain," says Bakkus.</p> + +<p>But they are good friends. Away from Paris they carry on a fairly regular +correspondence. Such of Bakkus's letters as Lackaday has kept and as I have +read, are literary gems with--always--a perverse and wilful flaw ... like +the man's life.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>From Paris, after this particular meeting with Bakkus, Andrew once more +goes on tour with Prépimpin. But a Prépimpin grown old, and, though +pathetically eager, already past effective work. Nine years of strenuous +toil are as much as any dog can stand. Rheumatism twinged the hind legs +of Prépimpin. Desire for slumber stupefied his sense of duty. He could no +longer catch the lighted cigar and swagger off with it in his mouth, across +the stage.</p> + +<p>"And yet, I'm sure," writes Lackaday, "that every time I cut his business, +it nearly broke his heart. And it had come to Prépimpin's business being +cut down to an insignificant minimum. I could, of course, have got another +dog. But it would have broken his heart altogether. And one doesn't +break the hearts of creatures like Prépimpin. I managed to arrange the +performance, at last, so that he should think he was doing a devil of a +lot...."</p> + +<p>Then the end came. It was on the Bridge of Avignon, which, if you will +remember, Lackaday superstitiously regards as a spot fraught with his +destiny.</p> + +<p>Fate had not taken him to the town since his last disastrous appearance. No +one recognized in the Petit Patou of provincial fame the lank failure +of many years ago. Besides, this time, he played not at the wretched +music-hall without the walls, but at the splendid Palace of Varieties in +the Boulevard de la Gare. He was a star--<i>en vedette</i>, and he had +a dressing-room to himself. He stayed at the Hôtel d'Europe, the famous +hostelry by the great entrance gates. To avoid complication, he went +everywhere now as Monsieur Patou. Folks passing by the open courtyard of +the hotel where he might be taking the air, pointed him out to one another. +"<i>Le voilà--Petit Patou</i>"</p> + +<p>It was in the middle of his week's engagement--once more in summer time. He +lunched, saw to Prépimpin's meal, smoked the cheap cigar of content, and +then, crossing the noisy little flagged square, went through the gates, +Prépimpin at his heels, and made his way across the dusty road to the +bridge. The work-a-day folk, on that week-day afternoon, had all returned +to their hives in the town, and the pathways of the bridge contained but +few pedestrians.</p> + +<p>In the roadway, too, there was but lazy life, an occasional omnibus, the +queer old diligence of Provence with its great covered hood in the midst of +which sat the driver amid a cluster of peasants, hidden like the queen bee +by the swarm, a bullock cart bringing hay into the city, a tradesman's +cart, a lumbering wine waggon, with its three great white horses and great +barrels. Nothing hurried in the hot sunshine. The Rhone, very low, flowed +sluggishly. Only now and then did a screeching, dust-whirling projectile of +a motor-car hurl itself across this bridge of drowsy leisure.</p> + +<p>Andrew leaned over the parapet, finding rest in a mild melancholy, his +thoughts chiefly occupied with the decay of Prépimpin who sat by his heels +gazing at the roadway, occupied possibly by the same sere reflections. +Presently the flea-catching antics of a ragged mongrel in the middle of the +roadway disturbed Prépimpin's sense of the afternoon's decorum. He rose +and with stiff dignity stalked towards him. He stood nose to nose with the +mongrel, his tufted tail in straight defiance up in the air.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly there was a rush and a roar and a yell of voices--and the +scrunch of swiftly applied brakes. Andrew turned round and saw a great +touring car filled with men and women--and the men were jumping out. And +he saw a mongrel dog racing away for dear life. And then at last he saw a +black mass stretched upon the ground. With horror in his heart he rushed +and threw himself down by the dog's body. He was dead. He had solved the +problem--<i>solverat ambulando</i>. Andrew heard English voices around him; +he raised a ghastly face.</p> + +<p>"You brutes, you have killed my dog."</p> + +<p>He scarcely heard the explanations, the apologies. The dog seeing the car +far off, had cleared himself. Then without warning he had flung himself +suicidally in the path of the car. What could they do now by way of amends? +The leader of the little company of tourists, a clean-shaven, florid +man, obviously well bred and greatly distressed, drew a card from his +pocket-book.</p> + +<p>"I am staying a couple of days at the Hôtel Luxembourg at Nîmes--I know +that nothing can pay for a dog one loves--but--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no, no," said Andrew waving aside the card.</p> + +<p>"Can we take the dog anywhere for you?"</p> + +<p>"You're very kind," said Andrew, "but the kindest thing is to leave me +alone."</p> + +<p>He bent down again and took Prépimpin in his arms and strode with him +through the group of motorists and the little clamouring crowd that had +gathered round. One of the former, a girl in a blue motor veil, ran after +him and touched his arm. Her eyes were full of tears.</p> + +<p>"It breaks my heart to see you like that. Oh can't I do anything for you?"</p> + +<p>Andrew looked at her. Through all his stunning grief he had a dim vision of +the Princesse Lointaine. He said in an uncertain voice:</p> + +<p>"You have given me your very sweet sympathy. You can't do more."</p> + +<p>She made a little helpless gesture and turned and joined her companions, +who went on their way to Nîmes. Andrew carried the bleeding body of +Prépimpin, and there was that in his face which forbade the idle to trail +indiscreetly about his path. He strode on, staring ahead, and did not +notice a woman by the pylon of the bridge who, as he passed, gave a +bewildered gasp, and after a few undecided moments, followed him at a +distance. He went, carrying the dog, up the dirty river bank outside the +walls, where there was comparative solitude, and sat down on a stone seat, +and laid Prépimpin on the ground. He broke down and cried. For seven years +the dog's life and his had been inextricably interwoven. Not only had they +shared bed and board as many a good man and dog have done, but they had +shared the serious affairs of life, its triumphs, its disillusions. And +Prépimpin was all that he had to love in the wide world.</p> + +<p>"<i>Pardon, monsieur</i>," said a voice.</p> + +<p>He looked up and saw the woman who had followed him. She was dark, of the +loose build of the woman predisposed to stoutness who had grown thin, and +she had kind eyes in which pain seemed to hold in check the promise of +laughter and only an animal wistfulness lingered. Her lips were pinched +and her face was thin and careworn. And yet she was young--obviously under +thirty. Her movements retained all the lissomeness of youth. Although +dressed more or less according to the fashion of the year, she looked poor. +Yet there was not so much of threadbare poverty in her attire, as lack of +interest--or pathetic incongruity; the coat and skirt too heavy for the +sultry day; the cheap straw hat trimmed with uncared for roses; the soiled +white gloves with an unmended finger tip.</p> + +<p>"Madame?" said he.</p> + +<p>And as he saw it, the woman's face and form became vaguely familiar. He +had seen her somewhere. But in the last few years he had seen thousands of +women.</p> + +<p>"You have had a great misfortune, monsieur?"</p> + +<p>"That is true, madame."</p> + +<p>She sat on the bench beside him.</p> + +<p>"<i>Vous pleurez</i>. You must have loved him very much."</p> + +<p>It was not a stranger speaking to him. Otherwise, he would have risen and, +as politely as anguished nerves allowed, would have told her to go to the +devil. She made no intrusion on his grief. Her voice fell with familiar +comfort on his ear. He was vaguely conscious of her right to offer +sympathy. He regarded her, grateful but perplexed.</p> + +<p>"You don't recognize me? <i>Enfin</i>, why should you?" She shrugged +her shoulders. "We only met for a few hours many years ago--here in +Avignon--but we were good friends."</p> + +<p>Then Andrew drew a deep breath and turned swiftly round on the bench and +shot out both his hands.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon Dieu!</i> Elodie!"</p> + +<p>She smiled sadly.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said she, "I'm glad you remember."</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter IX</h1> + + + +<p>They sat awhile and talked of the tragedy, the dead Prépimpin, at once a +link and a barrier between them, lying at their feet. Her ready sympathy +brought her near; but while the dog lay there, mangled and bloody, he could +think of nothing else. It was Elodie who suggested immediate and decent +burial. Why should he not go to the hotel for a workman and a spade?</p> + +<p>He smiled. "You always seem to come to my help in time of trouble. But +while I am absent, what will happen to him?"</p> + +<p>"I will guard him, my friend," said Elodie.</p> + +<p>He marched off. In a few minutes he came back accompanied by one of the +hotel baggage porters. The grave, on the waste land by the Rhone, was +quickly dug, and Prépimpin covered over for ever with the kindly earth. As +soon as the body was hidden, Andrew turned away, the tears in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"And now," said he, "let us sit somewhere else and you shall tell me about +yourself. I have been selfish."</p> + +<p>The tale she had to tell was very old and very sad. She did not begin +it, however, until, drawing off her old gloves, for coolness' sake, she +disclosed a wedding ring on her finger. His eye caught it at once.</p> + +<p>"Why, you are married."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "I am married."</p> + +<p>"You don't speak in the tone of a happy woman."</p> + +<p>She shrugged hopeless shoulders. "A woman isn't happy with a <i>goujat</i> +for a husband."</p> + +<p>Now a <i>goujat</i> is a word for which scoundrel, and miscreant, are but +weak translations. It denotes lowest depths of infamy.</p> + +<p>Andrew frowned terribly. "He ill-treats you?"</p> + +<p>"He did. But that is past. Fortunately I am alone. He has deserted me."</p> + +<p>"Children?"</p> + +<p>"Thank God, no," replied Elodie.</p> + +<p>And then it all came out in the unrestrained torrent of the south. She had +been an honest girl, in spite of a thousand temptations. When André met +her, she was as pure as any young girl in a convent. It wasn't that she was +ignorant. Oh no. The girl who had gone through the workrooms of Marseilles +and the music-halls of France and could retain virginal innocence would +be either a Blessed Saint or an idiot. It was knowledge that had kept her +straight; knowledge and pride. She was not for sale. <i>Grand Dieu</i>, no! +And love? If a man's love fell short of the desire for marriage, well, it +didn't amount to a row of pins. Besides, even where there could be a love +quite true without the possibility of marriage, she had seen enough of the +world to know the unhappinesses that could happen to women. No. André must +not think she was cold or prudish. She had set out to be merely reasonable. +To André the girl's apology for preserving her chastity seemed perfectly +natural. In her world it was somewhat of an eccentric feat.</p> + +<p>"<i>Et puis, enfin.</i>" And then, at last, came the conquering male, a +singer in a light opera touring company in the chorus of which she was +engaged. He was young, handsome--played secondary parts; one of the great +ones, in fact, in her limited theatrical hierarchy. He fell in love with +her. She, flattered, responded. Of course, he suggested setting up house +together, then and there. But she had her aforesaid little principles. +His infatuation, however, was such that he consented to run the terrific +gauntlet of French matrimonial procedure. Why people in France go to the +nerve-racking trouble of getting married Heaven only knows. Camels can +gallop much more easily through needles' eyes. Anybody can be born in +France, anybody can die; against these phenomena the form-multiplying and +ream-writing <i>Ad-min-is-tra-tion</i> is powerless. But when you come to +the intermediate business of world population, then bureaucracy steps in +and plays the very devil. Elodie and Raoul Marescaux desired to be married. +In England they would have got a special license, or gone to a registry +office, and the thing would have been over. But in France, Monsieur and +Madame Marescaux, and Madame Figasso, and the <i>huissier</i> Boudin, who +insisted on coming forward although he was not legally united to Madame, +and lawyers representing each family, were set all agog, and there +were meetings and quarrels, and delays--Elodie had not a cent to her +dowry--which of course was the stumbling-block--with the final result that +nothing was done which might not have been done at once, namely, that the +pair were doubly married--once by Monsieur le Maire and then by Monsieur le +Curé.</p> + +<p>For a few months she was happy. Then the handsome Raoul became enamoured of +a fresh face. Then Elodie fell ill, oh, so ill, they thought she was going +to die. And during her illness and slow recovery Raoul became enamoured +of every fresh face he saw. A procession. If it had been one, said Elodie +philosophically, she could perhaps have arranged matters. But they had been +endless. And what little beauty she had her illness had taken away, so +her only weapon was gone; and Raoul jeered at her and openly flaunted his +infidelities in her presence. When she used beyond a certain point the +ready tongue with which Providence had endowed her, she was soundly beaten. +"<i>Le goujat!</i>" cried Andrew. Ah! It was a life of hell. But they had +kept nominally together, in the same companies, she singing in the chorus, +he playing his second rôles. And then there came a day when he obtained +an engagement in the Opera at Buenos Ayres. She was to accompany him. Her +berth was booked, her luggage packed. He said to her, "I have to go away +for a day or two on business. Meet me at the boat train for Havre on +Wednesday." She went to the Gare St. Lazare on Wednesday to find that the +boat train had gone on Tuesday. <i>Un sale tour</i>--eh? Did ever anyone +hear of such a dirty trick? And later she learned that her berth was +occupied by a little modiste of the Place de la Madeleine with whom he had +run away.</p> + +<p>That was two years ago. Since then she had not heard of him; and she wished +never to hear of him again.</p> + +<p>"And you have been supporting yourself all the time, on the stage?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have lived. But it has been hard. My illness affected my voice. No +one wants me very much. But still"--she smiled wanly--"I can manage. And +now, you. I saw you yesterday at the Palace. They know me there and give me +my <i>entrée</i>. You have had a <i>beau succès</i>. You are famous. I am +so glad."</p> + +<p>Modestly he depreciated the fame, but acknowledged the success which was +due to her encouragement. He told her of the racehorse Elodie and his lucky +inspiration. For the first time she laughed and clapped her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am flattered! Yes, and greatly touched. Now I know that you have +remembered me. But if the horse had lost wouldn't you have pested against +me? Say?"</p> + +<p>Andrew replied soberly: "I could not possibly have lost. I knew it would +win, just as I know that five minutes hence the sun will continue to shine. +I had faith in your star, Elodie."</p> + +<p>"My star--it's not worth very much, my star."</p> + +<p>"It has been to me," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>They talked on. By dint of questioning she learned most of his not +over-eventful history. He told her of Horatio Bakkus, and of the season +on the sands, when first he realized her original idea of exploiting his +figure; of Prépimpin in his prime and their wanderings about Europe. And +now alas! there was no longer a Prépimpin.</p> + +<p>"But how will you give the performance this evening without him?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. He had not given a thought to that yet. It was +the loss of his friend that wrung his heart.</p> + +<p>"You are so gentle and sympathetic. Why is it that no woman has loved you?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps because I've not found a woman I could love," said he.</p> + +<p>She did not pursue the subject, but sighed and looked somewhat drearily in +front of her. It was then that he became aware of the cruel treatment that +the years had inflicted on her youth. He knew that she was under thirty, +yet she looked older. The colour had gone from her olive skin, leaving it +sallow; her cheeks were drawn; haggard lines appeared beneath her eyes; +her cheekbones and chin were prominent. It struck him that she might be +fighting a hard battle against poverty. She looked underfed. He asked her.</p> + +<p>"Have you an engagement here in Avignon?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. No, she was resting.</p> + +<p>"How long have you been out?"</p> + +<p>She couldn't tell. Many weeks. And prospects for the immediate future? The +Tournée Tardieu was coming next Monday to Avignon. She knew the manager. +Possibly he would give her a short engagement.</p> + +<p>"And if he doesn't?"</p> + +<p>"I will arrange," said Elodie with a show of bravery.</p> + +<p>Andrew frowned again, and his mild blue eyes narrowed keenly. He stretched +out his arm and put his delicate fingers on her hand.</p> + +<p>"You have given me your help and sympathy. Do you refuse mine? Why does +your pride forbid you to tell me that you are in great distress?"</p> + +<p>"What would be the good?" she replied with averted face. "How could you +help me? Money? Oh no. I would sooner fling myself in the river."</p> + +<p>"You're talking foolishness," said he. "You know that you are in debt for +your little room, and that the <i>propriétaire</i> won't let you stay much +longer. You know that you have not sufficient food. You know that you have +had nothing to-day but a bit of bread and a cup of coffee, if you have had +that. Confess!"</p> + +<p>The corners of her mouth worked pathetically. In spite of heroic effort, a +sob came into her throat and tears into her eyes. Then she broke down and +wept wretchedly.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was true. She had but a few sous in the world. No other clothes but +those she wore. Oh, she was ashamed, ashamed that he should guess. If she +had not been weak, he would have gone away and never have known. And so on, +and so forth. The situation was plain as day to Andrew. Elodie, if not his +guardian angel, at any rate his mascot, was down and out. While she was +crying, he slipped, unperceived, a hundred-franc note into the side pocket +of her jacket. At all events she should have a roof over her head and food +to eat for the next few days, until he could devise some plan for her +future welfare. Her future welfare! For all his generous impulses, it gave +him cause for cold thought. How the deuce could a wandering, even though +successful, young mountebank assure the future of a forlorn and untalented +young woman?</p> + +<p>"<i>Voyons, chère amie</i>," said he comfortingly, "all is not yet lost. If +the theatre does not give you a livelihood, we might try something else. I +have my little savings. I could easily lend you enough to buy a <i>petit +commerce</i>, a little business. You could repay me, bit by bit, at your +convenience. <i>Tiens!</i> Didn't you tell me you were apprenticed to a +dressmaker?"</p> + +<p>But Elodie was hopeless. All that she had learned as a child she had +forgotten. She was fit for nothing but posturing on the stage. If André +could get her a good engagement, that was all the aid she would accept.</p> + +<p>Andrew looked at his watch. The afternoon had sped with magical rapidity. +He reflected that not only must he dine, but he must think over and +rehearse the evening's performance with Prépimpin's part cut out. He dared +not improvise before the public. He rose with the apologetic explanation--</p> + +<p>"My little Elodie," said he, as they walked along the battlemented city +walls towards the great gate, "have courage. Come to the Palace to-night. I +will arrange that you shall have a loge. You only have to ask for it. And +after my turn, you shall meet me, as long ago, at the Café des Négociants, +and we shall sup together and talk of your affairs."</p> + +<p>She meekly consented. And when they parted at the entrance to the Hôtel +d'Europe, he said:</p> + +<p>"If I do not ask you to dine, it is because I have to think and work. You +understand? But in your pocket you will find <i>de quoi bien dîner. Au +revoir, chère amie</i>."</p> + +<p>He put out his hand. She held it, while her eyes, tragically large and +dark, searched his with painful intensity.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she said, "is it better that I should come and see you to-night +or that I should throw myself over the bridge into the Rhone?"</p> + +<p>"If you meet me to-night," said Andrew, "you will still be alive, which, +after all, is a very good thing."</p> + +<p>"<i>Je viendrai,</i>" said Elodie.</p> + +<p>"The devil!" said Andrew, entering the courtyard of the hotel, and wiping a +perspiring brow, "here am I faced with a pretty responsibility!"</p> + +<p>Experience enabled him to give a satisfactory performance; and his manager +prepared his path by announcing the unhappy end of Prépimpin and craving +the indulgence of the audience. But Andrew passed a heartbroken hour at the +music-hall. In his dressing-room were neatly stored the dog's wardrobe and +properties--the gay ribbons, the harness, the little yellow silk hat which +he wore with such a swaggering air, the little basket carried over his +front paw into which he would sweep various objects when his master's back +was turned, the drinking dish labelled "Dog" ... He suffered almost a human +bereavement. And then, the audience, for this night, was kind. But, as +conscientious artist, he was sensitively aware of makeshift. A great +element of his success lay in the fact that he had trained the dog to +appear the more clever of the two, to score off his pretended clumsiness +and to complete his tricks. For years he had left uncultivated the art of +being funny by himself. Without Prépimpin he felt lost, like a man in a +sculling race with only one oar. He took off his make-up and dressed, +a very much worried man. Of course he could obtain another trained dog +without much difficulty, and the special training would not take long; +but he would have to love the animal in order to establish that perfect +partnership which was essential to his performance. And how could he love +any other dog than Prépimpin? He felt that he would hate the well-meaning +but pretentious hound. He went out filled with anxieties and repugnances.</p> + +<p>Elodie was waiting for him by the stage door. She said:</p> + +<p>"You got out of the difficulty marvellously."</p> + +<p>"But it was nothing like the performance you saw yesterday."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah non</i>" she replied frankly. + +"<i>Voilà</i>," said he, dejectedly.</p> + +<p>They walked, almost in silence, along the Avenue de la Gare, thronged, +as it was at the time of their first meeting, with the good citizens +of Avignon, taking the air of the sultry summer evening. She told him +afterwards that she felt absurdly small and insignificant trotting by the +side of his gaunt height, a feeling which she had not experienced years +before when their relative positions were reversed. But now she regarded +him as a kind of stricken god; and womanlike she was conscious of haggard +face and shrunken bosom, whereas before, she had stepped beside him proud +of the ripe fulness of her youth.</p> + +<p>Whither the commonplace adventure was leading them neither knew. For his +part pity compelled superstitious sentiment to the payment, in some vague +manner, of a long-standing obligation. She had also given him very rare +sympathy that afternoon, and he was grateful. But things ended there, in a +sort of blind alley.</p> + +<p>For her part, she let herself go with the current of destiny into which, by +strange hazard, she had drifted. She had the humility which is the fiercest +form of pride. Although she clung desperately to him, as to the spar that +alone could save her from drowning, although the feminine within her was +drawn to his kind and simple manliness, and although her heart was touched +by his grief at the loss of the dog, yet never for a moment did she count +upon the ordinary romantic <i>dénouement</i> of such a situation. The +idea came involuntarily into her mind. Into the mind of what woman of her +upbringing would not the idea come? But she banished it savagely. Who was +she, waste rag of a woman, to attract a man? And even had she retained the +vivid beauty and plenitude of her maidenhood, it would have been just the +same. Elodie Figasso had never sold herself. No. All that side of things +was out of the question. She wished, however, that he was less of an +enigmatic, though kindly, sphinx.</p> + +<p>Over their modest supper of sandwiches and Côtes du Rhône wine, in an +inside corner of the Café des Négociants--it was all the café could +offer, and besides she swore to a plentiful dinner--they discussed their +respective forlorn positions. Adroitly she tacked away from her own +concerns towards his particular dilemma. If he shrank from training another +dog and yet distrusted a solo performance, what was he going to do? Take a +partner like his friend--she forgot the name--yes, Bakkus, on whom perhaps +he couldn't rely, and who naturally would demand half his salary?</p> + +<p>"Never again," Andrew declared, feeling better after a draught of old +Hermitage. "The only thing I can think of is to engage a competent +assistant."</p> + +<p>Then Elodie's swift brain conceived a daring idea.</p> + +<p>"You would have to train the assistant."</p> + +<p>"Of course. But," he added in a dismal tone, "most of the assistants I +have seen are abysmally stupid. They are dummies. They give nothing of +themselves, for the performer to act up to."</p> + +<p>"In fact," said Elodie, trying hard to steady her voice, "you want someone +entirely in sympathy with you, who can meet you half-way--like Prépimpin."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said Andrew. "But where can I find a human Prépimpin?"</p> + +<p>She abandoned knife and fork and, with both arms resting on the table, +looked across at him, and it suddenly struck him that her great dark eyes, +intelligent and submissive, were very much like the eyes of Prépimpin. And +so, womanlike, she conveyed the Idea from her brain to his.</p> + +<p>He said very thoughtfully, "I wonder--"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"What have you done on the stage? What can you do? Tell me. Unfortunately I +have never seen you."</p> + +<p>She could sing--not well now, because her voice had suffered--but still she +sang true. She had a musical ear. She could accompany anyone on the piano, +<i>pas trop mal</i>. She could dance. Oh, to that she owed her first +engagement. She had also learned to play the castagnettes and the +tambourine, <i>à l'Espagnole</i>. And she was accustomed to discipline.... +As she proceeded with the unexciting catalogue of her accomplishments she +lost self-control, and her eyes burned and her lips quivered and her voice +shook in unison with the beatings of a desperately anxious heart. Our +Andrew, although an artist dead set on perfection and a shrewd man of +business, was young, pitiful and generous. The pleading dog's look in +Elodie's eyes was too much for him. He felt powerless to resist. His brain +worked swiftly, devising all kinds of artistic possibilities. Besides, was +not Fate accomplishing itself by presenting this solution of both their +difficulties?</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether you would care to try the experiment?"</p> + +<p>With an effort of feminine duplicity she put on a puzzled and ingenuous +expression.</p> + +<p>"What experiment?"</p> + +<p>He was somewhat taken aback: surely he must have misinterpreted her +pleading. From the dispenser of fortune, he became the seeker of favours.</p> + +<p>"I know it's not much of a position to offer you," said he, almost +apologetically, "but if you care to accept it----"</p> + +<p>"Of your assistant?" she asked, as though the idea had never entered her +head.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes. If you will consent to a month of very hard work. You would +have to learn a little elementary juggling. You would have to give me +instantaneous replies in act and speech. But if you would give yourself up +to me I could teach you."</p> + +<p>"But, <i>mon pauvre André</i>," she said, with an astonished air, "this is +the last thing I ever dreamed of. I am so ignorant. I should put you to +shame."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, you wouldn't," said he, confidently. "I know my business. Wait. +<i>Les affaires sont les affaires</i>. I should have to give you a little +contract. Let us see. For the remainder of my tour--ten weeks--ten francs a +day with hotel <i>en pension</i> and railway fares."</p> + +<p>To Elodie, independent waif in theatre-land, this was wealth beyond her +dreams. She stretched both hands across the table.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that? It is true? And, if I please you, you will keep me +always?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said Andrew. "And, if you show talent, we may come to a better +arrangement for the next tour."</p> + +<p>"And if I show no talent at all?"</p> + +<p>He made a deprecating gesture and grinned in his charming way. But Elodie's +intuition taught her that there was the stern purpose of a man behind the +grin. She had imposed her helplessness on him this once. But if she failed +him she would not have, professionally, a second chance.</p> + +<p>"I insist on your having talent," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>The walk home to her dingy lodgings repeated itself. She felt very humble +yet triumphant. More than ever did she regard him as a god who had raised +her, by a touch, from despair and starvation to hope and plenty, and in her +revulsion of gratitude she could have taken both his hands and passionately +kissed them. And yet she was proudly conscious of something within her, +unconquerably feminine, which had touched his godship and wrought the +miracle.</p> + +<p>They halted in the narrow, squalid street, before the dark entry of the +house where she lodged. Andrew eyed the poverty-stricken hole in disgust. +Obviously she had touched the depths.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow you must move," said he. "I shall arrange a room for you at the +hotel. We shall have much business to discuss. Can you be there at ten +o'clock?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever you say shall be done," she replied humbly.</p> + +<p>He put out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Elodie. Have courage and all will be well."</p> + +<p>She murmured some thanks with a sob in her voice and, turning swiftly, +disappeared up the evil-smelling stone stairs. The idea of kissing her did +not occur to him until he found himself alone and remembered the pretty +idyll of their leave-taking long ago. He laughed, none too gaily. Between +boy and girl and man and woman there was a vast difference.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter X</h1> + + + +<p>That was the beginning of the combination known a little while afterwards +as <i>Les Petit Patou</i>. Elodie, receptive, imitative, histrionic, showed +herself from the start an apt pupil. To natural talent she added the +desire, born of infinite gratitude, to please her benefactor. She possessed +the rare faculty of perfect surrender. Andrew marvelled. Had he hypnotized +her she could not have more completely executed his will. And yet she was +no automaton. She was artist enough to divine when her personality should +be effaced and when it should count. She spoke her patter with intelligent +point. She learned, thanks to Andrew's professional patience, and her own +vehement will, a few elementary juggling tricks. Andrew repeated the famous +Prépimpin cigar-act. Open-mouthed, Elodie followed his manipulations. When +he threw away the cigar it seemed to enter her mouth quite naturally, +against her will. She removed it with an expression of disgust and hurled +it at Andrew, who caught it between his lips, smoked it for a second or two +and grinned his thanks. With a polite gesture he threw it, as the audience +thought, back to her; but by a sleight-of-hand trick the cigar vanished and +she caught, to her delighted astonishment, a pearl necklace, which, as she +clasped it round her neck, vanished likewise. After which he overwhelmed +her with disappearing jewels. At once it became a popular item in their +entertainment.</p> + +<p>In the course of a few months he swore she was worth a hundred Prépimpins. +He could teach her anything. By the end of the year he evolved the +grotesque performance that made Les Petit Patou famous in provincial +France, brought them for a season to Paris at the Cirque Médrano, to London +(for a week) at the Hippodrome, to the principal cities of Italy, and +doubled and trebled the salary which he enjoyed as Petit Patou all alone +with the dog.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile it is important to note a very swift physical change in Elodie. +When a young woman, born to plumpness, is reduced by misery to skin and +bone, a short term of succulent nourishment and absence of worry, will +suffice to restore her to a natural condition. She had no beauty, save that +of her dark and luminous eyes and splendid teeth. Her features were coarse +and irregular. Her uncared for skin gave signs of future puffiness. But +still--after two or three happy months, she more or less regained the +common attractiveness and the audacious self-confidence of the Marseilles +<i>gamine</i> who had asked him to kiss her long ago.</p> + +<p>Thus, imperceptibly, she became less an assistant than a partner, less a +paid servant on the stage than a helpmeet in his daily life. Looking at +the traditions of their environment and at the enforced intimacy of their +vagabondage, one sees the inevitability of this linking of their fortunes. +That there was any furious love about the affair I have very grave doubts. +Andrew in his secret soul still hankered after the Far-away Princess, and +Elodie had spent most of her passionate illusions on the unspeakable +Raoul. But they had a very fair basis of mutual affection to build upon. +Philosophers will tell you that such is the basis of most happy marriages. +You can believe them or not, as you please. I am in no position to +dogmatise.... At any rate Les Petit Patou started off happily. If Elodie +was not the perfect housewife, you must remember her upbringing and her +devil-may-care kind of theatrical existence. Andrew knew that hers were +not the habits of the Far-away One, who like himself would be a tidy soul, +bringing into commonplace tidiness an exquisitely harmonious sense of +order; but the Far-away One was a mythical being endowed with qualities +which it would be absurd to look for in Elodie. Besides, their year +being mainly spent in hotels, she had little opportunity of cultivating +housewifely qualities. If she neglected the nice conduct of his underlinen +after the first few months of their partnership, he could not find it in +his heart to blame her. Professional work was tiring. Her own clothes +needed her attention. But still, the transient comfort had been very +agreeable.... In Paris, too, at first she had played at house-keeping in +the apartment of the Faubourg Saint-Denis. But Elodie did not understand +the <i>bonne</i>, and the <i>bonne</i> refused to understand Elodie in the +matter of catering, and they emphasized their mutual misunderstanding with +the unrestrained speech of children of the people. Once or twice Andrew +went hungry. In his sober and dignified way he drew Elodie's attention to +his unusual condition. It led to their first quarrel. After that they ate, +very comfortably, at a little restaurant round the corner.</p> + +<p>It was not the home life of which Andrew had dreamed--not even the +reincarnation of Madame Flint sitting by the round table darning socks by +the light of the shaded lamp. Elodie loathed domestic ideals.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon vieux</i>," she would declare, "I had enough sewing in my young +days. My idea of happiness would be a world without needles and thread."</p> + +<p>He noted in her, too, a curious want of house-pride. Dust gave her no great +concern. She rather loved a litter of periodicals, chiffons, broken packets +of cigarettes, tobacco and half-eaten fruit on the tables. A picture askew +never attracted her attention. To remain in the house, dressed in her +out-of-door clothes, seemed to her vain extravagance and discomfort. A +wrapper and slippers, the more soiled and shapeless the better, were the +only indoor wear. Andrew deplored her lack of literary interest. She would +read the feuilletons of the <i>Petit Journal</i> and the <i>Matin</i> in a +desultory fashion; but she could not concentrate her mind on the continuous +perusal of a novel. She spent hours over a pack of greasy cards, telling +her fortune by intricate methods. The same with music; though in this case +she had a love for it in the open air when a band was playing, and was +possessed of a natural ear, and could read easy pieces and accompaniments +at sight with some facility. But she would never try to learn anything +difficult; would never do more than strum a popular air or two until swift +boredom paralysed her nerves.</p> + +<p>Yet, for all her domestic slatternness, the moment she emerged from private +into professional life, her phlegmatic indolence was transformed into quick +energy. No rehearsal wearied her. Into every performance she concentrated +the whole of her being. If it were a question of mastering a grotesque +accompaniment to a new air on Andrew's one-string fiddle, she would slave +for hours until it was perfect. She kept her stage costume in scrupulous +repair. Her make-up box was a model of tidiness. She would be late for +lunch, late for dinner, late for any social engagement, but never once was +she late for a professional appointment. On the stage her loyalty to Andrew +never wavered. No man could have a more ideal co-worker. She never lost her +head, demanded a more prominent position, or grudged him the lion's share +of the applause. In her praiseworthy lack of theatrical vanity, writes +Lackaday, by way of encomium, she was unique among women. A pearl of great +price.</p> + +<p>Also, when they walked abroad, she dressed with neatness. Her hair, a +stringy bush at home, appeared a miracle of coiffure. Lips and eyes +received punctilious attention. The perfection of her high-heeled shoes was +a matter of grave concern. Whatever may have been underneath, the outside +of her toilette received anxious care. She thought much of externals. +Andrew came within her purview. She did her best to remodel his outer man +more in accordance with his prosperity; but what woman can have sartorial +success with the man who is the tailor's despair?</p> + +<p>Lackaday is pathetically insistent on her manifold virtues. She retains +all through the years her street-child's swift intelligence. She has +<i>flair</i>. She predicts instinctively the tastes of varying audiences. +She has a vivid imagination curiously controlled by the most prosaic common +sense. He rarely errs in taking her advice.... To her further credit +balance, she is more saving than extravagant. Bits of jewellery please her, +but she does not crave inordinate adornment. When he buys a touring-car for +the greater comfort of their vagrant life, she is appalled by the cost and +upbraids him with more than a touch of shrewishness. Her tastes do not rise +with her position. She would sooner have a <i>chou-croûte garnie</i> than +a fore-quarter of Paris lamb or a duck <i>à la presse</i>. She could never +understand why Andrew should pay four or five francs for a bottle of wine, +when they could buy a good black or grey for three sous a litre. On tour +gaieties were things unthought of. But during periods of rest, in Paris, +she cared little for excitement. With an income relieving her from the +necessity of work, she would have been content to lounge slipshod about the +house till the day of her death.</p> + +<p>Once Andrew, having to entertain, for politic reasons, the director of +a Paris music-hall, took her to the Café de Paris. The guest, in a +millionaire way, had suggested that resort of half-hungry wealth. Modest +Andrew had never entered such a place in his life; nor, naturally, had +Elodie. Knowing, however, that one went there in full dress, he disinterred +a dress-suit which he had bought three years before in order to attend +the funeral of a distinguished brother artist, and sent Elodie with a +thousand-franc note to array herself in an adequate manner, at the Galeries +La Fayette. Elodie's economical soul shrank in horror from the expenditure, +at one fell swoop, of a thousand francs. She bought God knows what for less +than half the money.</p> + +<p>Proud of her finery, secretly exulting also that she had a matter of twenty +pounds or so put away in her private stocking, she flaunted down the +crowded restaurant, followed by the little fat director, only remarkable +for a diamond flash-light in his shirt-front, and by Andrew, inordinately +long and gawky, in his ill-fitting, short-sleeved evening suit, his ready +made white tie already wandering in grievance towards a sympathetic ear. +Women in dreams of diaphanous and exiguous raiment stared derisively at +the trio as they passed their tables. Elodie stared back at them. Now, +Lackaday, honest soul, had, not the remotest notion of what was wrong with +her attire. In his eyes she was dressed like a queen. She wore, says he, a +beautiful emerald green dress, and a devil of a hat with a lot of dark blue +feathers in it. But, as she was surrendering her cloak to the white-capped +lady of the vestiare, there came from a merry adjoining table the clear-cut +remark of a young woman, all bare arms, back and bosom, but otherwise +impeccably vestured:</p> + +<p>"They oughtn't to allow it, in a place like this--<i>des grues des +Batignolles</i>."</p> + +<p>Unsuccessful ladies of easy virtue from Whitechapel, perhaps, is the +nearest rendering of the phrase.</p> + +<p>Elodie had quick ears. She also had the quick temper and tongue of +Marseilles. She hung behind the two men, who proceeded to their table +unconscious of drama.</p> + +<p>"In these places," she spat, "they pay naked women like you to come to +attract men. You fear the competition of the modest, <i>ma fille</i>."</p> + +<p>The indiscreet young woman had no retort. She flushed crimson over neck and +shoulders, while Elodie, triumphant, swept away. But the ensuing dinner +was not an exhilarating meal. She burned with the insult, dilated upon it, +repeated over and over again her repartee, offered her costume to the frank +criticism of Andrew and their guest. Did she look like a <i>grue?</i> +Did her toilette in any way suggest the Batignolles? In vain did the fat +director proclaim her ravishing. Andrew, at first indignant, assured her +that the insulter had been properly set down. If it had been a man, he +would have lifted the puppy from his chair and beaten him before the whole +restaurant. But a woman! She had met her match in Elodie. In vain he +confirmed the director's opinion. Elodie could not eat. Food stuck in her +throat; she could only talk interminably of the outrage. The little fat +director made his escape as soon as he had eaten the last mouthful of +dinner.</p> + +<p>"<i>Eh bien</i>," said Elodie, as they were driving home to the Faubourg +Saint-Denis, "and is it all fixed up, the Paris contract?"</p> + +<p>"My dear," replied Andrew gently, "you gave us little chance to discuss +it."</p> + +<p>"I prevented you?" cried Elodie. "I? <i>Bon Dieu!</i> Oh no. It is too +much. You first take me to a place where I am insulted, and then reproach +me for being an obstacle between you and your professional success. No +doubt the naked woman would be a better partner for you. She could wheedle +and coax that little horror of a manager. I, who am an honest woman, am a +drag on you--"</p> + +<p>And so on, with a whirling unreason, with which Andrew had grown familiar. +But the episode of the Café de Paris marks the beginning and the end of +Elodie's acquaintance with the smart world. She hates it with a fierce +jealousy, knowing that it is a sphere beyond her ken. Herein lay a +fundamental principle of her character. The courtesan, with her easy +adaptability to the glittering environment which she craves, and Elodie, +essentially child of the people, proud, and virtuous according to her +lights, were worlds apart. A bit of a socialist, Elodie, she stuck fiercely +to her class. People she was. People she would remain. A daw of the people, +she had tried to peacock it among the gentry. She had been detected in her +borrowed plumes. At the stupid reference to her supposed morals she snapped +her fingers. It was idiotic. It was the detection of the plumage that +rankled in her soul. From that moment she hated society and every woman in +it with an elaborate ostentation. The very next day she sold the emerald +green dress and the devil of a hat and, with a certain grim satisfaction, +stuffed the proceeds into the stocking of economy. In spite of the +disastrous dinner, Andrew obtained the Paris engagement. He was not, +however, greatly surprised--so far had his education advanced--when Elodie +claimed the credit.</p> + +<p>"At that dinner--what did you do? You sat silent as the obelisk in the +Place de la Concorde. It was I who made all the conversation. Monsieur +Wolff was very enchanted."</p> + +<p>Andrew grinned.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I should do without you, Elodie," said he.</p> + +<p>Now, in sketching the life of Andrew Lackaday and Elodie, I again labour +under the difficulty of having to compress into a few impressionistic +strokes the history of years. The task is in one way made easier, in +that these years of work and wandering scarcely show the development of +anything. What was true at the end of the first year of their partnership +seems to be true at the end of the second, third, fourth and fifth. After a +time when their grotesque performance was a fixed and settled thing, there +was little need for the invention of novelty or for rehearsal. Week after +week, month after month, year after year, they reproduced their almost +stereotyped entertainment. Here and there, according to the idiosyncrasy +of the audience, they introduced some variety. But the very variations, in +course of time, became stereotyped. Too violent a change proved disastrous. +The public demanded the particular antics with which the name of Les +Petit Patou was identified. Thus life was reduced to terms of beautiful +simplicity.</p> + +<p>Yet, perhaps, after all, their sentimental relations did undergo an +imperceptible development, as subtle as that which led in the first place +to their union. This union had its original promptings in a not unromantic +chain of circumstances. Of vulgarity or sordidness it had nothing. Had +Elodie been free it would never have entered Andrew's head not to marry +her, and she would have married him offhand. Lackaday insists on our +remembering this vital fact. Sincere affection drew them together. Then the +first couple of years or so were devoted to mutual discoveries. There was +no question on either part of erring after strange fancies. Elodie carried +her air of propriety in the happy-go-lucky music-hall world almost to the +point of the absurd. As for Andrew, he had ever shown himself the most +lagging Lothario of his profession. Indeed, for a period during which she +suffered an exaggeration of her own sentiments, she upbraided him for not +being the perfect lover of her half-forgotten dreams....</p> + +<p>"Why don't you love me any longer, André?"</p> + +<p>"But I love you, surely. That goes without saying."</p> + +<p>"Then why do you go on reading, reading all the time instead of telling me +so?"</p> + +<p>She would be lying on a couch, dressed in her soiled wrapper and old +bedroom slippers, occupied with nothing but boredom, while Andrew devoted +himself to the unguided pursuit of knowledge, the precious pleasure of +his life. He would put the book face downwards on his knee and pucker his +brows.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon Dieu, ma chérie</i>, what do you want me to say?"</p> + +<p>"That you love me."</p> + +<p>"I've just said it."</p> + +<p>"Say it again."</p> + +<p>"<i>Je l'aime bien. Voilà!</i>"</p> + +<p>"And that's all?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it's all. What remains to be said?"</p> + +<p>The honest fellow was mystified. He could not keep on repeating the formula +for the two or three hours of their repose. It would be the monotonous +reiteration of the idiot. And he could no more have knelt by her side and +poured out his adoration in the terms, let us say, of Chastelard, than he +could have lectured her on Hittite inscriptions. What did she want? + +She sighed. He cared for his old book much more than for her.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said he, "if you would only read a bit you would find it a great +comfort and delight."</p> + +<p>You see, at this rather critical period, each had their grievance--Elodie +only, of course, as far as their private lives were concerned. Elodie, +somewhat romantically inclined, wanted she knew not what. Perhaps a +recrudescence of the fine frenzy of the early days of her marriage with +Raoul. Sober Andrew craved some kind of intellectual companionship. If +Elodie grudged him the joy of books and he yielded to her resentment, he +was a lost mountebank. And the very devil of it was that, just at this +time, he had discovered the most fascinating branch of literature +imaginable. Creasy's <i>Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World</i>, picked +up in a cheap edition, had put him on the track. He procured Kinglake's +<i>Crimea</i>. He was now deep in the study of Napier's <i>Peninsular +War</i>. He studied it, pencil in hand and notebook by his side, filled +with diagrams and contours of country and little parallelograms all askew +denoting Army Corps or divisions. Of course, he did not expect Elodie to +interest herself in military history, but he deplored her unconcealed +hatred of his devotion to a darling pursuit. Why could not she find +pleasure in some intelligent occupation? To spend one's leisure in untidy +sloth did not consort with the dignity of a human being. Why didn't she do +this or that? She rejected all suggestions. Retorted: Why couldn't he spend +a few hours in relaxation like everybody else? If only he would go and play +billiards at the café. That he should amuse himself outside among men was +only natural. Sitting at home, in her company, over a book, got on her +nerves.</p> + +<p>Horatio Bakkus encouraged her maliciously. In Paris he made the flat in the +Faubourg Saint-Denis his habitual resting-place, and ate his meals in their +company at the café round the corner.</p> + +<p>"If there is one thing, my dear Elodie, more futile than fighting battles, +it is reading about them," he declared at one of their symposia.</p> + +<p>"<i>Voilà!</i> You hear what Horace says! An educated man who knows what he +is talking about."</p> + +<p>"It's a kind of disease, like chess or the study of the Railway Guide. And +when he prefers it to the conversation of a beautiful and talented woman, +it's worse than a disease, it's a crime. My dear fellow," he cried with an +ironical gleam in his dark eyes, "you're blind to the treasure the gods +have given you. Any ass can write a text-book, but the art of conversation +is a gift bestowed by Heaven upon the very few."</p> + +<p>Elodie, preening herself, asked:</p> + +<p>"Is it true that I have that gift?"</p> + +<p>"You have the flow of words. You have wit. You talk like a running brook. +You talk like no book that ever was written. I would sooner, my dear, +listen to the ripple of your speech than read all the manuals of military +science the world has produced."</p> + +<p>Andrew saw her flattered to fluttering point.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know that he is the greatest <i>blagueur</i> an existence?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>But Elodie had fallen under the spell of Bakkus. like him she loved talk, +although her education allowed her only the lightest kind. She loved its +give-and-take, its opportunities for the flash of wit or jest. Bakkus could +talk about an old boot. She too. He could analyse sentiment in his mordant +way. She could analyse it in her own unsophisticated fashion. Now Andrew, +though death on facts and serious argument, remained dumb and bewildered +in a passage-at-arms about apparently nothing at all; and while Bakkus and +Elodie enjoyed themselves prodigiously, he gaped at them, wondering what +the deuce they found to laugh at. He was for ever warning Elodie not to put +a too literal interpretation on Bakkus's sayings.</p> + +<p>The singer had gone grey, and that touch of venerability gave him an air +of greater distinction, as a broken down tragedian, than he possessed when +Andrew had first met him ten years or so before. Elodie could bandy jests +with him, but when he spoke with authority she listened overawed.</p> + +<p>"My dear André," she replied to his remark. "I am not a fool. I know when +Horace is talking nonsense and when he means what he says."</p> + +<p>"And I maintain," said Bakkus, "that this most adorable woman is being +sacrificed on the altar of Cæsar's Commentaries and the latest French +handbook on scientific slaughter."</p> + +<p>"I think," said Andrew, who had imprudently sketched his course of reading +to the cynic, "that <i>The Art of War</i> by Colonel Foch is the most +masterly thing ever written on the subject of warfare."</p> + +<p>"But who is going to war, these days, my good fellow?"</p> + +<p>"They're at it now," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"The Balkans--Turkey--Bulgaria? Barbarians. What's that got to do with +civilized England and France?"</p> + +<p>"What about Germany?"</p> + +<p>"Germany's never going to sacrifice her commercial position by going to +war. Among great powers war is a lunatic anachronism."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>," cried Elodie, "now you're talking politics."</p> + +<p>Bakkus took her hand which held a fork on which was prodded a gherkin--they +were at lunch--and raised it to his lips.</p> + +<p>"<i>Pardon, chère madame</i>. It was this maniac of an André. He is mad or +worse. Years ago I told him he ought to be a sergeant in a barrack square."</p> + +<p>"Just so!" cried Elodie. "Look at him now. Here he is as soft as two +pennyworth of butter. But in the theatre, if things do not go quite as he +wants them--oh la la! It is Right turn--Quick march! Brr! And I who speak +have to do just the same as the others."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Bakkus. "A Prussian without bowels. Ah, my poor Elodie! My +heart bleeds for you."</p> + +<p>"Where do you keep it--that organ?" asked Andrew.</p> + +<p>"He keeps it," retorted Elodie, "where you haven't got it. Horace +understands me. You don't. Horace and I are going to talk. You smoke your +cigar and think of battles and don't interfere."</p> + +<p>It was said laughingly, so that Andrew had no cause for protest; but +beneath the remark ran a streak of significance. She resented the serious +tone at which Andrew had led the conversation. He and his military studies +and his war of the future! They bored her to extinction. She glanced at him +obliquely. A young man of thirty, he behaved himself like the senior of +this youthful, flashing, elderly man who had the gift of laughter and could +pluck out for her all that she had of spontaneity in life.</p> + +<p>This conversation was typical of many which filled Elodie's head with +an illusion of the brilliant genius of Horatio Bakkus. In spite of her +peevishness she had a wholesome respect for Andrew--for his honesty, his +singleness of purpose, his gentle masterfulness. But, all the same, their +common detection of the drill-sergeant in his nature formed a sympathetic +bond between Bakkus and herself. In the back of her mind, she set Andrew +down as a dull dog. For all his poring over books, Bakkus could defeat him +any day in argument. The agreeable villain's mastery of phrase fascinated +her. And what he didn't know about the subtle delicacies of women's +temperament was not worth knowing. She could tell him any thing and count +on sympathy; whereas Andrew knew less about women than about his poodle +dog.</p> + +<p>There was, I say, this mid-period of their union when they grew almost +estranged. Andrew, in spite of his loyalty, began to regret. He remembered +the young girl who had rushed to him so tearfully as he was bending over +the body of Prépimpin--the flashing vision of the women of another world. +In such a one would he find the divine companionship. She would stand with +him, their souls melting together in awe before the majesty of Chartres, +in worship before the dreaming spires of Rheims, in joy before the smiling +beauty of Azay-le-Rideau. They would find a world of things to say of the +rugged fairyland of Auvergne or the swooning loveliness of the Côte d'Azur. +They would hear each other's heart beating as they viewed great pictures, +their pulses would throb together as they listened to great opera. He would +lie at her feet as she read the poets that she loved. She would also take +an affectionate interest in military strategy. She would be different, oh, +so different from Elodie. To Elodie, save for the comfort of inns, the +accommodation of dressing-rooms and the appreciation of audiences, one town +was exactly the same as another. She found amusement in sitting at a café +with a glass of syrup and water in front of her, and listening to a band; +otherwise she had no æsthetic sense. She used terms regarding cathedrals +and pictures for which boredom is the mildly polite euphemism. A busy +street gay with shop windows attracted her far more than any grandeur of +natural scenery. She loved displays of cheap millinery and underwear. +Andrew could not imagine the Other One requiring his responsive ecstasy +over a fifteen-franc purple hat with a green feather, or a pile of silk +stockings at four francs fifty a pair ... The Other One, in a moment of +delicious weakness, might stand enraptured before a dream of old lace or +exquisite tissue or what not, and it would be his joy to take her by the +hand, enter the shop and say "It is yours." But Elodie had no such moments. +Her economical habits gave him no chance of divine extravagance. Even when +he took her in to buy the fifteen-franc hat, she put him to shame by trying +to bargain.</p> + +<p>So they lost touch with each other until a bird or two brought them +together again. Figuratively it is the history of most unions. In theirs, +the birds were corporeal. It was at Montpellier. An old man had a turn with +a set of performing birds, canaries, perroquets, love-birds, beauregards. +Elodie came across him rehearsing on the stage. She watched the rehearsal +fascinated. Then she approached the cages.</p> + +<p><i>"Faites attention, Madame,"</i> cried the old man in alarm. "You will +scare them. They know no one but me."</p> + +<p><i>"Mais non, mais non,"</i> said Elodie. <i>"Voyons, ça me connaît."</i></p> + +<p>She spoke from idle braggadocio. But when she put her hands on the cages, +the birds came to her. They hopped about her fearlessly. She fished in +her pockets for chocolate--her only extravagant vice--and bird after bird +pecked at the sweet from her mouth. The old man said:</p> + +<p>"Truly the birds know you, Madame. It is a gift. No one can tell whence +it comes--and it comes to very few. There are also human beings for whom +snakes have a natural affinity."</p> + +<p>Elodie shuddered. "Snakes! I prefer birds. Ah, <i>le petit amour. Viens +donc!</i>"</p> + +<p>She had them all about her, on head and shoulders and arms, all unafraid, +all content; then all fluttering with their clipped wings, about her lips, +except a grey parrot who rubbed his beak against her ear.</p> + +<p>Andrew, emerging suddenly from the wings, stood wonder-stricken.</p> + +<p>"But you are a bird-woman," said he. "I have heard of such, but never seen +one."</p> + +<p>From that moment, the town-bred, town-compelled woman who had thought of +bird-life only in terms of sparrows, set about to test her unsuspected +powers. And what the old man and Andrew had said was true.... They wandered +to the Peyrou, the beautiful Louis XIV terraced head of the great aqueduct, +and sat in the garden--she alone, Andrew some yards apart--and once a few +crumbs attracted a bird, it would hop nearer and nearer, and if she was +very still it would light on her finger and eat out of the palm of her +hand, and if she were very gentle, she could stroke the wild thing's head +and plumage.</p> + +<p>A new and wonderful interest came into her life. To find birds, Elodie, who +by this time hated walking from hotel to music-hall, so had her indolence +grown accustomed to the luxurious car, tramped for miles through the woods +accompanied by Andrew almost as excited as herself at the new discovery. +And he bought her books on birds, from which she could learn their names, +their distinguishing colours and marks, their habits and their cries.</p> + +<p>It must be remarked that the enthusiastic search for knowledge, involving, +as it did, much physical exertion, lasted only a summer. But it sufficed +to re-establish friendly relations between the drifting pair. She found an +interest in life apart from the professional routine. During the autumn and +winter she devoted herself to the training of birds, and Andrew gave her +the benefit of his life's experience in the science. They travelled about +with an aviary. And while Andrew, now unreproached, frowned, pencil in hand +and notebook by his side, over the strategics of the Franco-Prussian War, +Elodie, always in her slatternly wrapper, spent enraptured hours in putting +her feathered troupe through their pretty tricks or in playing with them +foolishly as one plays with a dog.</p> + +<p>Thus their midway mutual grievances imperceptibly vanished. The positive +was eliminated from their relations. They had been beginning to hate each +other. Hatred ceased. Perhaps Elodie dreamed now and then of the Perfect +Lover. Andrew had ever at the back of his soul the Far-away Princess, the +Other One, the Being who would enable him to formulate a mode of nebulous +existence and spiritual chaos, and then to live the wondrous life recalled +by the magical formula. I must insist on this, so that you can recognize +that the young and successful mountebank, although dead set on the +perfection of his mountebankery, and, in serious fact, never dreaming of +a work-a-day existence outside the walls of a Variety Theatre yet had the +tentacles of his being spread gropingly, blindly, octopus-like, to the +major potentialities of life. Even when looking back upon himself, as he +does in the crude manuscript, he cannot account for these unconscious, or +subconscious, feelings. He has no idea of the cause of the fascination +wrought on him by military technicalities. It might have been chess, it +might have been conchology, it might have been heraldry. Hobbies are more +or less unaccountable. In view of his later career it seems to me that he +found in the unalluring textbooks of Clausewitz and Foch and those bound in +red covers for the use of the staff of the British Army, some expressions +of a man's work--which was absent from the sphere into which fate had set +him clad in green silk tights. The subject was instinct with the commanding +brain. If his lot had been cast in the theatre proper, instead of in the +music-hall, he might have become a great manager. However, all that is by +the way. The important thing, for the time we are dealing with, is his +relations with Elodie for the remainder half of their union before the war. +These, I have said, ceased to be positive. They accepted their united life +as they accepted the rain and the sunshine and the long motor journeys from +town to town. Spiritually they went each their respective ways, unmolested +by the other. But they each formed an integral part of the other's +existence. They were bound by the indissoluble ties of habit. And as +Elodie, now that she had got her birds to amuse her, made no demands on +Andrew, and as Andrew, who had schooled his tidy soul to toleration of her +slovenliness, made no demands on Elodie, they were about as happy as any +pair in France.</p> + +<p>When she passed thirty, her face coarsened and her uncared-for figure began +to spread.</p> + +<p>And then the war broke out.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XI</h1> + + + +<p>The outbreak of war knocked the Petit Patou variety combination silly, as +it knocked many thousands of other combinations in France. One day it was a +going concern worth a pretty sum of money; the next day it was gone.</p> + +<p>They happened to be in Paris, putting in a fortnight's rest after an +exhausting four months on the road, and waiting for the beginning of a +beautiful tour booked for Aix-les-Bains, for the race-weeks at Dieppe and +Deauville, for Biarritz--the cream of August and September resorts of the +wealthy.... Then, in a dazzling flash, mobilization. No more actors, +no more stage hands, no more croupiers, no more punters, no more +theatre-goers. No more anything but all sorts and conditions of men getting +into uniform and all sorts and conditions of women trying to smile but +weeping inward blood. Contracts, such as Andrew's, were blown away like +thistledown.</p> + +<p>Peremptory authorities required Andrew's papers. They had done so years +before when he reached the age of military service. But now, as then, they +proved Andrew indisputably to be a British subject--he had to thank Ben +Flint for that--and the authorities went their growling way.</p> + +<p>"What luck!" cried Elodie, when she heard the result of the perquisition. +"Otherwise you would have been taken and sent off to this <i>sale +guerre.</i>"</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure," replied Andrew, with a grim set of his ugly jaw, "that +I'm not going off to the <i>sale guerre,</i> without being sent."</p> + +<p>"But it is idiotic, what you say!" cried Elodie, in consternation. "What do +you think, Horace?"</p> + +<p>Bakkus threw a pair of Elodie's corsets which encumbered the other end of +the sofa on which he was lounging on to the floor and put up his feet and +sucked at his cigar, one of Andrew's best--the box, by the way, Elodie, +who kept the key of a treasure cupboard, seldom brought out except for +Bakkus--and said:</p> + +<p>"Andrew isn't a very intellectual being. He bases his actions on formulas. +Such people in times of stress even forget the process of thought that led +to the establishment of the formulas. They shrink into a kind of trained +animal. Andrew here is just like a little dog ready to do his tricks. Some +voice which he can't resist will soon say, 'Bingo, die for your country.' +And our good friend, without changing a muscle of his ugly face, will +stretch himself out dead on the floor."</p> + +<p>"Truth," said Andrew, with a hard glint in his eyes, "does sometimes issue +from the lips of a fool."</p> + +<p>Bakkus laughed, passing his hand over his silvering locks; but Elodie +looked very serious. Absent-mindedly she picked up her corsets, and, the +weather being sultry, she fanned herself with them.</p> + +<p>"You are going to enlist in the Legion?"</p> + +<p>"I am an Englishman, and my duty is towards my own country."</p> + +<p>"Bingo is an English dog," said Bakkus.</p> + +<p>Reaction from gladness made Elodie's heart grow cold, filled it with sudden +dread. It was hard. Most of the women of France were losing their men of +vile necessity. She, one of the few privileged by law to retain her man, +now saw him swept away in the stream. Protest could be of no avail. When +the mild Andrew set his mug of a face like that--his long smiling lips +merged into each other like two slugs, and his eyes narrowed to little pin +points, she knew that neither she nor any woman nor any man nor the <i>bon +Dieu</i> Himself could move him from his purpose. She could only smile +rather miserably.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a little bit mad, your idea?"</p> + +<p>"Mad? Of course he is," said Bakkus. "Much reading in military text-books +has made him mad. A considerably less interesting fellow than Andrew, who, +after all, has a modicum of brains, one Don Quixote, achieved immortality +by proceeding along the same lunatic lines."</p> + +<p>Then Elodie flashed out. She understood nothing of the allusion, but she +suspected a sneer.</p> + +<p>"If I were a man I should fight for France. If Andre thinks it is his +duty to fight for England, it may be mad, but it is fine, all the same. +Yesterday, in the street, I sang the Marseillaise with the rest. <i>'Amour +sacré de la Patrie.' Eh bien!</i> There are other countries besides France. +Do you deny that the <i>amour sacré</i> exists for the Englishman?"</p> + +<p>Andrew rose and gravely took Elodie's face in his delicate hands and kissed +her.</p> + +<p>"I never did you the wrong, my dear, of thinking you would feel otherwise."</p> + +<p>"Neither did I, my good Elodie," said Bakkus, hurriedly opportunist. "If +I have had one ambition in my life it is to sun myself in the vicarious +glamour of a hero."</p> + +<p>The corsets rolled off Elodie's lap as she turned swiftly.</p> + +<p>"You really think André if he enlists in the English Army will be a hero?"</p> + +<p>"Without doubt," replied Bakkus.</p> + +<p>"I am glad," said Elodie. "You have such a habit of mocking all the world +that when you are talking of serious things one doesn't know what you +mean."</p> + +<p>So peace was made. In the agitated days that followed she saw that a +profound patriotism underlay Bakkus's cynicism, and she relied much on his +counsel. Every man that England could put into the field was a soldier +fighting for France. She glowed at the patriotic idea. Andrew, to his great +gladness, noted that no hint of the cry "What is to become of me?" passed +her lips. She counted on his loyalty as he had counted on hers. When he +informed her of the arrangement he had made with her lawyer for her support +during his absence, all she said was:</p> + +<p><i>"Mon cher,</i> it is far too much! I can live on half. And as for the +will--let us not talk of it. It makes me shiver."</p> + +<p>Here came out all that was good in Elodie. She took the war and its +obligations, as she had taken her professional work. Through all her +flabbiness ran the rod of steel. She suffered, looking forward with terror +to the unthinkable future. Already one of her friends, Jeanne Duval, +comedienne, was a widow ... What would life be without André? She trembled +before the illimitable blankness. The habit of him was the habit of her +life, like eating and drinking; his direction her guiding principle. Yet +she dominated her fears and showed a brave face.</p> + +<p>Often a neighbour, meeting her in the quarter, would say:</p> + +<p>"You are fortunate, Madame. You will not lose your husband." To the +quarter, as indeed to all the world, they were Monsieur and Madame Patou. +"He is an Englishman and won't be called up."</p> + +<p>She would flash with proud retort:--</p> + +<p>"In England men are not called up. They go voluntarily. Monsieur Patou goes +to join the English army."</p> + +<p>She was not going to make her sacrifice for nothing.</p> + +<p>To Bakkus Andrew confided the general charge of Elodie.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said the cynic, "isn't it rather overdoing your saintly +simplicity? Do you remember the farce 'Occupe-toi d'Amélie?' Do I appeal to +you as a squire of deserted dames, grass-widows endowed with plenty? I--a +man of such indefinite morals that so long as I have mutton cutlets I +don't in the least care who pays for them? Aren't you paying for this very +mouthful now?"</p> + +<p>"You are welcome," replied Andrew with a grin, "to all the mutton that +Elodie will give you."</p> + +<p>Elodie's only proclaimed grievance against Bakkus, whom otherwise she +vastly admired, was his undisguised passion for free repasts.</p> + +<p>When it came to parting, Elodie wept and sobbed. He marvelled at her +emotion.</p> + +<p>"You love me so much, my little Elodie?"</p> + +<p><i>"Mais tu es ma vie toute entière.</i> Haven't you understood it?"</p> + +<p>In that sense--no. He had not understood. They had arranged their lives so +much as business partners, friends, fate-linked humans dependent on each +other for the daily amenities of a joint existence. He had never suspected; +never had cause to suspect, this hidden flood of sentiment. The simple +man's heart responded. For such love she must be repaid. In the packed +train which sped him towards England he carried with him no small remorse +for past indifference.</p> + +<p>Now, what next happened to Andrew, is, as I have said before, omitted from +his manuscript. Nor has he vouchsafed to me, in conversation, anything +but the rudest sketch. All we know is that he enlisted straight into the +regular Army, the Grenadier Guards. Millions of Tommies have passed through +his earlier experiences. His gymnastic training, his professional habits +of accuracy and his serious yet alert mind bore him swiftly through +preliminary stages to high efficiency. In November, 1914, he found himself +in Flanders. Wounded, a few months afterwards, he was sent home, patched +up, sent back again. Late in 1915, a sergeant, he had his first leave, +which he spent in Paris.</p> + +<p>Elodie received him with open arms. She was impressed by the martial +bearing of her ramrod of a man, and she proudly fingered the three stripes +on his sleeve and the D.C.M. ribbon on his breast. She took him for +walks, she who, in her later supineness, hated to put one foot before the +other--by the Grands Boulevards, the Rue Royale, the Place de la Concorde, +the Champs Elysées, hanging on his arm, with a recrudescence of the defiant +air of the Marseilles <i>gamine.</i> She made valiant efforts to please +her hero who had bled in great battles and had returned to fight in great +battles again. She had a thousand things to tell him of her life in Paris, +to which the man, weary of the mud and blood of war, listened as though +they were revelations of Paradise. Yet, she had but existed idly day in and +day out, in the eternal wrapper and slippers, with her cage of birds. The +little beasts kept her alive--it was true. One was dull in Paris without +men. And the women of her acquaintance, mostly professional, were in +poverty. They had the same cry, "My dear, lend me ten francs." "My little +Elodie, I am on the rocks, my man is killed." <i>"Ma bien aimée,</i> I am +starving. You who are at ease, let me come and eat with you"--and so on and +so on. Her heart grieved for them; but <i>que veux-tu?</i>--one was not a +charitable institution. So it was all very sad and heartrending. To say +nothing of her hourly anxiety. If only the <i>sale guerre</i> would cease +and they could go on tour again! Ah, those happy days!</p> + +<p>"Were they, after all, so very happy?" asked Andrew.</p> + +<p>"One was contented, free from care."</p> + +<p>"But now?"</p> + +<p>"May they not come to tell me at any minute that you are killed?"</p> + +<p>"That's true," said Andrew gravely.</p> + +<p>"And besides--"</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"Besides, what?"</p> + +<p>"I love you more now," replied Elodie.</p> + +<p>Which gave Andrew food for thought, whenever he had time at the front to +consider the appetite.</p> + +<p>When next he had a short leave it was as a Lieutenant; but Elodie had gone +to Marseilles, braving the tedious third-class journey, to attend her +mother's funeral. There Madame Figasso having died intestate, she battled +with authorities and lawyers and the <i>huissier</i> Boudin who professed +heartbreak at her unfilial insistence on claiming her little inheritance. +With the energy which she always displayed in the serious things of life +she routed them all. She sold the furniture, the dressmaking business, +wrested the greasy bag of savings from the hands of a felonious and +discomfited Boudin, and returned to Paris with some few thousand francs in +her pocket. Horatio Bakkus, meanwhile, had moved into the Saint-Denis flat +to take care of the birds. Nobody in France craving the services of a light +tenor, he would have starved, had not his detested brother the Archdeacon, +a rich man, made him a small allowance. It was a sad day for him when, +after a couple of months' snug lying, he had to betake himself to his attic +under the roof, where he shivered in the coalless city.</p> + +<p>"I die of convention," said he. "Behold, you have a spare room centrally +heated. You are virtue itself. I not only occupy the sacred position of +your guardian, but am humiliatingly aware of my supreme lack of attraction. +And yet--"</p> + +<p><i>"Fich'-moi le camp,"</i> laughed Elodie.</p> + +<p>And Bakkus took up his old green valise and returned to his eyrie. There +should be no scandal in the Faubourg Saint-Denis if Elodie could help it. +But a few days later--</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah, je m'ennuie, je m'ennuie</i>," she cried in an accent of boredom.</p> + +<p>Then Bakkus elaborated a Machiavellian idea. Why shouldn't she work? At +what? Why, hadn't she a troupe of trained birds? Madame Patou was not +the first comer in the variety world. She could get engagements in the +provinces. How did she know that the war would not last longer than +Andrew's savings?</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon Dieu</i>, it is true," she said.</p> + +<p>Forthwith she went to the agent Moignon. After a few weeks she started +on the road with her aviary, and Bakkus once more left his eyrie to take +charge of the flat in the Faubourg St. Denis.</p> + +<p>It came to pass that the next time Andrew and Elodie met in their Paris +house, he wore a Major's crown and the ribbons of the Distinguished Service +Order, the Military Cross and the Legion of Honour. From his letters she +had grasped but little of his career and growing distinction; but the sight +of him drove her mad with pride. If she had loved to parade the Paris +streets with him as a Sergeant, now she could scarcely bear to exist with +him otherwise than in public places. Not only an officer, but almost a +Colonel. And decorated--he, an English officer, with the Legion of Honour! +The British decorations she scarcely understood--but they made a fine +display. The salutes from uniformed men of every nation almost turned her +head. The little restaurant round the corner, where they had eaten for +so many years, suddenly appeared to her an inappropriate setting for his +exalted rank. She railed against its meanness.</p> + +<p>"Let us eat then," laughed Andrew, who had not given the matter a thought, +"on the Place de la Madeleine."</p> + +<p>But if the Restaurant Mangin in the Faubourg Saint-Denis was too lowly, +the Restaurant Weber frightened her by its extravagance. She hit upon the +middle course of engaging a cook for the wonderful fortnight of his leave +and busying herself with collaborating in the preparation of succulent +meals.</p> + +<p>"My dear child," said Andrew, sitting at his own table in the tiny and +seldom-used <i>salle à manger</i> for the first time since their early +disastrous experience of housekeeping, "why in the world haven't we had +this cosiness before?"</p> + +<p>He seemed to have entered a new world of sacred domesticity. The outward +material sign of the inward grace drew him nearer to her than all +protestations of affection.</p> + +<p>"Why have you waited all these years?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Elodie, expansive, rejoicing in the success of the well-cooked dinner, +reproached herself generously. It was all her fault. Before the war she had +been ignorant, idle. But the war had taught her many things. Above all it +had taught her to value her <i>petit homme</i>.</p> + +<p>"Because you now see him in his true colours," observed Bakkus, who took +for granted a seat at the table as the payment for his guardianship. "The +drill sergeant I always talked to you about."</p> + +<p>"Sergeant!" Elodie flung up her head in disdain. "He is <i>Commandant</i>. +And see to it that you are not wanting in respect."</p> + +<p>"From which outburst of conjugal ferocity, my dear fellow," said Bakkus, +"you can gauge the conscientiousness of my guidance of Elodie during your +absence."</p> + +<p>Andrew grinned happily. He was full of faith in both of them--loving woman, +loyal friend.</p> + +<p>"It is true," said he, "that I have found my vocation."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do when the war is over and Othello's occupation is +gone?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think the war will ever be over," he laughed. "It's no good +looking ahead. For the present one has to regard soldiering as a permanent +pursuit."</p> + +<p>"I thought so," said Bakkus. "He'll cry when it's over and he can't move +his pretty soldiers about."</p> + +<p>"That is true?" asked Elodie, in the tone of one possessed of insight.</p> + +<p>Andrew shrugged his shoulders, a French trick out of harmony with his +British uniform.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said he with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"I too," said Elodie, "will be sorry when you become <i>Petit Patou</i> +again."</p> + +<p>He touched her cheek caressingly with the back of his hand, and smiled. +Strange how the war had brought her the gift of understanding. Never had he +felt so close to her.</p> + +<p>"All the same," added Elodie, "it is very dangerous <i>là-bas, mon +chéri</i>--and I don't want you to get killed."</p> + +<p>"All the glory and none of the death," said Bakkus. "Conducted on those +principles, warfare would be ideal employment for the young. But you would +be going back to the Middle Ages, when, if a knight were killed, he was +vastly surprised and annoyed. Personally I hate the war. It prevents me +from earning a living, and insults me with the sense of my age, physical +decay and incapacity. I haven't a good word to say for it."</p> + +<p>"If you only went among the wounded in the Paris hospitals," replied +Andrew, with some asperity, "and sang to them--"</p> + +<p>"My good fool," said Bakkus, "I've been doing that for about four or five +hours a day since the war began, till I've no voice left."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you know?" cried Elodie. "Horace has never worked so hard in his +life. And for nothing. In his way he is a hero like you."</p> + +<p>"Why the devil didn't you tell me?" cried Andrew.</p> + +<p>Bakkus flung a hand. "If you hadn't to dress the part what should I have +known of your rank and orders? Would you go about saying 'I'm a dam fine +fellow'?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said Andrew, filling his guest's glass. "I ought to have taken +it for granted."</p> + +<p>"We give entertainments together," said Elodie. "He sings and I take the +birds. Ah! the poilus. They are like children. When Riquiqui takes off +Paulette's cap they twist themselves up with laughing. <i>Il faut voir +ça."</i></p> + +<p>This was all news to Andrew, and it delighted him beyond measure. He could +take away now to the trenches the picture of Elodie as ministering angel +surrounded by her birds--an exquisite, romantic, soul-satisfying picture.</p> + +<p>"But why," he asked again, "didn't you tell me?"</p> + +<p><i>"Ah, tu sais</i>--letters--I am not very good at letters. <i>Fante +d'éducation.</i> I want so much to tell you what I feel that I forget to +tell you what I do."</p> + +<p>Bakkus smiled sardonically as he sipped his liqueur brandy. She had given +her bird performance on only two occasions. She had exaggerated it into +the gracious habit of months or years. Just like a woman! Anyhow, the +disillusionment of Andrew was none of his business. The dear old chap was +eating lotus in his Fool's Paradise, thinking it genuine pre-war lotus and +not war <i>ersatz.</i> It would be a crime to disabuse him.</p> + +<p>For Andrew the days of leave sped quickly. Not a domestic cloud darkened +his relations with Elodie. Through indolent and careless living she had +grown gross and coarse, too unshapely and unseemly for her age. When the +news of his speedy arrival in Paris reached her, she caught sight of +herself in her mirror and with a sudden pang realized her lack of +attraction. In a fever she corseted herself, creamed her face, set +a coiffeur to work his will on her hair. But what retrieval of lost +comeliness could be effected in a day or two? The utmost thing of practical +value she could do was to buy a new, gay dressing-gown and a pair of +high-heeled slippers. And Andrew, conscious of waning beauty, overlooked it +in the light of her new and unsuspected coquetry. Where once the slattern +lolled about the little salon, now moved an attractively garbed and tidy +woman. Instead of the sloven, he found a housewife who made up in zeal for +lack of experience. The patriotic soldier's mate replaced the indifferent +and oft-times querulous partner of Les Petit Patou. It is true that, when, +in answer to the question, "A battle--what is that like?" he tried to +interest her in a scientific exposition, she would interrupt him, a +love-bird on her finger and its beak at her lips, with: "Look, isn't he +sweet?" thereby throwing him out of gear; it is true that she yawned and +frankly confessed her boredom, as she had done for many years when the talk +of Andrew and Bakkus went beyond her intellectual horizon; but--<i>que +voulez-vous?</i>--even a great war cannot, in a few months, supply +the deficiencies of thirty uneducated years. The heart, the generous +instinct--these were the things that the war had awakened in Elodie--and +these were the things that mattered and made him so gracious a homecoming. +And she had grasped the inner truth of the war. She had accepted it in the +grand manner, like a daughter of France.</p> + +<p>So at least it seemed to Andrew. The depth of her feelings he did not try +to gauge. Into the part in her demonstrativeness played by vanity or by +momentary reaction from the dread of losing him, her means of support, it +never entered his head to enquire. That she should sun herself in reflected +splendour for the benefit of the quarter and of such friends as she had, +and that she should punctiliously exact from them the respect due to his +military rank, afforded him gentle amusement. He knew that, as soon as his +back was turned, she would relapse into slipshod ways. But her efforts +delighted him, proved her love and her loyalty. For the third time he +parted from her to go off to the wars, more impressed than ever by the +sense of his inappreciation of her virtues. He wrote her a long letter of +self-upbraiding for the past, and the contrast between the slimy dug-out +where he was writing by the light of one guttering candle, and the cosy +salon he had just quitted being productive of nostalgia, he expressed +himself, for once in his life, in the terms of an ardent lover.</p> + +<p>Elodie, who found his handwriting difficult to read at the best of times, +and undecipherable in hard pencil on thin paper, handed the letter over to +the faithful Bakkus, who read it aloud with a running commentary of ironic +humour. This Andrew did not know till long afterwards.</p> + +<p>In a few weeks he got the command of his battalion.</p> + +<p>Bakkus wrote:--</p> + +<p>"How you'll be able to put up with us now I know not. Elodie can scarcely +put up with herself. She gives orders in writing to tradesmen now and +subscribes herself 'Madame La Colonelle Patou.' She has turned down a bird +engagement offered by Moignon, as beneath her present dignity. You had +better come home as soon as you can."</p> + +<p>Andrew laughed and threw the letter away. He had far more serious things to +attend to than Elodie's pretty foibles. And when you are commanding a crack +regiment in a famous division in the line you no more think of leave than +of running away from the enemy. Months passed--of fierce fighting and +incessant strain, and he covered himself with glory and completed the +rainbow row of ribbons on his breast, until Petit Patou and Elodie and +Bakkus and the apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Denis became things of a +far-off dream.</p> + +<p>And before he saw Elodie again, he had met Lady Auriol Dayne.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XII</h1> + + + +<p>That was the devil of it. He had met Lady Auriol Dayne. He had found in +that frank and capable young woman--or thought he had found, which comes to +the same thing--the Princesse Lointaine of his dreams. If she differed from +that nebulous and characterless paragon, were less ethereal, more human +nature's daily food, so much the better. She possessed that which he had +yearned for--<i>quality.</i> She had style--like the prose of Theophile +Gautier, the Venus of Milo, the Petit Trainon. She suggested Diana, who +more than all goddesses displayed this gift of distinction; yet was she not +too Diana-ish to be unapproachable. On the contrary, she blew about him as +free as the wind.... That, in a muddle-headed way, was his impression of +her: a subtle mingling of nature and artistry. On every side of her he +beheld perfection. Physically, she was as elemental as the primitive woman +superbly developed by daily conditions of hardship and danger; spiritually, +as elemental as the elves and fairies; and over her mind played the wisdom +of the world.</p> + +<p>Thus, in trying to account for her to himself, did the honest Lackaday +flounder from trope to metaphor. "To love her," he quotes from Steele, "is +a liberal education."</p> + +<p>The last time he met her in England, was after my departure for Paris. You +will remember that just before then he had confided to me his identity +as Petit Patou and had kept me up half the night. It was a dismal April +afternoon, rain and mud outside, a hopeless negation of the spring. They +had the drawing-room to themselves--to no one, the order had gone forth, +was her ladyship at home--that drawing-room of Lady Auriol which Lackaday +regarded as the most exquisite room in the world. It had comfort of soft +chairs and bright fire and the smell of tea and cigarettes; but it also had +the style, to him so precious, with which his fancy invested her. The +note of the room was red lacquer partly inherited, partly collected, the +hangings of a harmonious tone, and the only pictures on the distempered +walls the colour-prints of the late eighteenth century. It had the glow of +smiling austerity, the unseizable, paradoxical quality of herself. An old +Sèvres tea-service rested on a Georgian silver tray, which gleamed in the +firelight. Wherever he looked, he beheld perfection. And pouring out the +tea stood the divinity, a splendid contrast to the shrine, yet again +paradoxically harmonious; full-bosomed, warm and olive, wearing blue serge +coat and skirt, her blouse open at her smooth throat, her cheeks flushed +with walking through the rain, her eyes kind.</p> + +<p>For a while, like a Knight in the Venusberg, he gave himself up to the +delight of her. Then suddenly he pulled himself together, and, putting down +his teacup, he said what he had come to say:--</p> + +<p>"This is the last time that I shall ever see you."</p> + +<p>She started.</p> + +<p>"What on earth do you mean? Are you going off to the other end of the +world?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going back to France."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>She twisted round in her chair, her elbow on the arm and her chin in her +hand and looked at him.</p> + +<p>"That's sudden, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>He smiled rather sadly. "When once you've made up your mind, it's best to +act, instead of hanging on."</p> + +<p>"You're sure there's no hope in this country?"</p> + +<p>"I know I'm as useful as a professional wine-taster will soon be in the +United States."</p> + +<p>They laughed, resumed the discussion of many previous meetings. Had he +tried this, that or the other opening? He had tried everything. No one +wanted him.</p> + +<p>"So," said he, "I'm making a clean cut and returning to France."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry." She sighed. "Very sorry. You know I am. I hoped you would +remain in England and find some occupation worthy of you--but, after +all--France isn't Central China. We shall still be next-door neighbours. +The Channel can be easily crossed by one of us. You used the word 'ever,' +you know," she added with an air of challenge,</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"That would take a lot of telling," said Andrew grimly.</p> + +<p>"We've got hours, if you choose, in front of us."</p> + +<p>"It's not a question of time," said he.</p> + +<p>"Then, my good Andrew, what are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"Only that I must return to the place I came from, my dear friend. Let it +rest at that."</p> + +<p>She lit a cigarette. "Rather fatalistic, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Four years of fighting make one so."</p> + +<p>"You speak," said she, after a little reflection occasioning knitting of +the brows, "you speak like the Mysterious Unknown of the old legends--the +being sent from Hell or Heaven or any other old place to the earth to +accomplish a mission. You know what I mean. He lives the life of the world +into which he is thrown and finds it very much to his liking. But when +the mission is fulfilled--the Powers that sent him say: 'Your time is up. +Return whence you came.' And the poor Make-believe of a human has got to +vanish."</p> + +<p>"You surely aren't jesting?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "God forbid! I've too deep a regard for you. Besides, I +believe the parable is applicable. Otherwise how can I understand your 'for +ever'?"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you understand without my blundering into an explanation," he +replied. "It's something, as you say. Only the legendary fellow goes back +to cool his heels--or the reverse--in Shadow Land, whereas I'll still +continue to inhabit the comfortable earth. I'm as Earth-bound as can be."</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment, and continued:--</p> + +<p>"Fate or what you will dragged me from obscurity into the limelight of +the war to play my little part. It's over. I've nothing more to do on the +stage. Fate rings down the curtain. I must go back into obscurity. <i>La +commedia è finita</i>."</p> + +<p>"It's more like a tragedy," said she.</p> + +<p>Andrew made a gesture with his delicate hands.</p> + +<p>"A comedy's not a farce. Let us stick to the comedy."</p> + +<p>"Less heroically--let us play the game," she suggested.</p> + +<p>"If you like to put it that way."</p> + +<p>She regarded him searchingly out of frank eyes; her face had grown pale.</p> + +<p>"If you gave me the key to your material Shadow Land, it would not be +playing the game?"</p> + +<p>"You are right, my dear," said he. "It wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"I thought as much," said Lady Auriol.</p> + +<p>He rose, mechanically adjusted his jacket, which always went awry on his +gaunt frame. "I want to say something," he declared abruptly. "You're the +only lady--highly-bred woman--with whom I've been on terms of friendship in +my life. It has been an experience far more wonderful than you can possibly +realize. I'll keep it as an imperishable memory"--he spoke bolt upright as +though he were addressing troops on parade before a battle--"it's right +that you should know I'm not ungrateful for all you have done for me. I've +only one ambition left--that you should remember me as a soldier--and--in +my own way--a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"A very gallant gentleman," she said with quivering lips.</p> + +<p>He held out his hand, took hers, kissed it French fashion.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye and God bless you," said he, and marched out of the room.</p> + +<p>She stood for a while, with her hand on her heart--suffering a pain that +was almost physical. Then she rushed to the door and cried in a loud voice +over the balustrade of the landing:</p> + +<p>"Andrew, come back."</p> + +<p>But the slam of the front door drowned her call. She returned to the +drawing-room and threw up the window. Andrew was already far away, tearing +down the rainswept street.</p> + +<p>Now, if Andrew had heard the cry, he would have heard that in it which no +man can hear unmoved. He would have leaped up the stairs and there would +have been as pretty a little scene of mutual avowals as you could wish for. +Auriol knew it. She has frankly told me so. Not until this last interview +was she certain of his love. But then, although he said nothing, any fool +of a woman could have seen it as clear as daylight. And she had been +planted there like a stuck pig all the time--her <i>ipsissima verba</i> (O +Diana distinction of lover's fancy!) and when common sense came to her aid, +she just missed him by the fraction of a second.... Yet, after all, my +modern Diana--or Andrew's, if you prefer it--had her own modern mode +of telling an elderly outsider about her love affairs--the mode of the +subaltern from whom is dragged the story of his Victoria Cross. Andrew +Lackaday's quaintly formulated idealizations had their foundations in fact. +This is by the way. What happened next was Lady Auriol's recovery of real +common sense when she withdrew her head and her rained-upon hat from the +window and drew down the sash. She flew to her bedroom, stamped about with +clenched fists until she had dried up at their source the un-Auriol like +tears that threatened to burst forth. Her fury at her weakness spent, she +felt better and strangled the temptation to write him then and there a +summons to return that evening for a full explanation. My God! Hadn't they +had their explanation? If he could in honour have said, "I am a free live +man as you are a free live woman, and I love you as you love me"--wouldn't +he have said it? He was the last man in the world to make a mystery about +nothing. Into the mystery she was too proud to enquire. Enough for her to +know in her heart that he was a gallant gentleman. She should have stopped +at her parable....</p> + +<p>Meanwhile she let Andrew return to France unaware of the tumult he had +raised. That he had won her interest, her respect, her friendship--even her +affectionate friendship--he was perfectly aware. But that his divinity was +just foolishly and humanly in love with him he had no notion. He consoled +himself with reflections on her impeccability, her wondrous intuition, her +Far-away Princess-like delicacy. Who but she could have summed up in a +parable the whole dismal situation?</p> + +<p>Well, the poor Make-believe had to vanish.</p> + +<p>The last time he travelled to Boulogne it was in a military train. He had +a batman who looked after his luggage. He wore a baton and sword on his +shoulder-straps. Only now, a civilian in a packed mass of civilians, did he +recognize what a mighty personage he then was--a cock of the walk, +saluted, "sired," treated with deference. None of the old-fashioned +pit-of-the-theatre scrum for passport inspection, on the smoking-room deck. +And there, on the quay, were staff officers and R.T.O.'s awaiting him with +a great car--no worry about Customs or luggage or anything--everything done +for him by eager young men without his bidding--and he had thought nothing +of it. Indeed, if there had been a hitch in the machinery which conveyed +him to his brigade, he would have made it hot for the defaulter. And +now--with a third share in a porter he struggled through the Customs in the +midst of the perspiring civilian crowd, and, emerging on to the platform, +found a comfortless middle seat in an old German first-class carriage +built for four. There were still many men in uniform, English, French and +American, doing Heaven knows what about the busy station. But none took +notice of him, and he lounged disconsolately by the carriage door waiting +for the train to start. He scarcely knew which of his experiences, then or +now, was an illusion.</p> + +<p>In spite of the civilian horde, women, young girls, mufti-clad men, the +station still preserved a military aspect. A company of blue-clad poilus +sat some way off, in the middle of their packs, eating a scratch meal. Here +and there were bunches of British Tommies, with a sergeant and a desultory +officer, obviously under discipline. It seemed impossible that the war +should be ended--that he, General Lackaday, should have finished with it +for ever.</p> + +<p>At last, a young subaltern passed him by, recognized him after a second, +saluted and paused undecided. A few months ago, Andrew would have returned +his salute with brass-hatted majesty, but now he smiled his broad +ear-to-ear smile, thrust out his long arm and gripped the young man's hand. +It was Smithson, one of his brigade staff--a youth of mediocre efficiency, +on whom, as the youth remembered, he was wont most austerely to frown. But +all this Andrew forgot.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," he cried. "How glad I am to see you."</p> + +<p>It was as if a survivor from a real world had appeared before him in a land +of dreams. He questioned him animatedly on his doings. The boy responded +wonderingly. At last:--</p> + +<p>"When are you going to be demobilized?"</p> + +<p>The subaltern smiled. "I hope never, sir. I'm a regular."</p> + +<p>"Lucky devil," said Andrew. "Oh, you lucky devil! I'd give anything to +change places with you."</p> + +<p>"I'm on, sir," laughed Smithson. "I'm all for being a Brigadier-General."</p> + +<p>"Not on the retired list--out of the service," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>The train began to move. Andrew jumped hastily into his compartment and, +leaning out of the window before the stout Frenchman, waved a hand to the +insignificant young man in the King's uniform. With all his soul he +envied him the privilege of wearing it. He cursed his stiff-neckedness +in declining the Major's commission offered by the War Office. A line of +Tennyson reminiscent of the days when Bakkus had guided his reading came +into his head. Something about a man's own angry pride being cap and bells +for a fool. He tried to find repose against the edge of the sharp double +curve that divided the carriage side into two portions. The trivial +discomfort irritated him. The German compartment might be a symbol of +victory, but it was also a symbol of the end of the war, the end of the +only intense life full of meaning which he had ever known.</p> + +<p>As the train went on, he caught sight from the window of immense stores of +war--German waggons with their military destinations still marked in chalk, +painted guns of all calibres, drums of barbed wire, higgledy-piggledy +truck-loads of scrap, all sorts of flotsam and jetsam of the great +conflict. All useless, done with, never to be thought of again, so the +world hoped, in the millennium that was to be brought about by the League +of Nations. Yet it seemed impossible. In wayside camps, at railway +stations, he saw troops of the three great countries. Now and then +train-loads of them passed. It was impossible that the mighty hosts they +represented should soon melt away into the dull flood of civil life. The +war had been such a mighty, such a gallant thing. Of course the genius of +mankind must now be bent to the reconstruction of a shattered world. He +knew that. He knew that regret at the ending of the universal slaughter +would be the sentiment of a homicidal lunatic. Yet deep down in his heart +there was some such regret, a gnawing nostalgia.</p> + +<p>After Amiens they passed by the battle-fields. A young American officer +sitting by the eastern window pointed them out to him. He explained to +Andrew what places had been British gun emplacements, pointed to the white +chalk lines that had been British trenches. Told him what a trench looked +like. Andrew listened grimly. The youth had pointed out of window again. +Did he know what those were? Those were shell-holes. German shells.... +Presently the conductor came through to examine tickets. Andrew drew from +his pocket his worn campaigning note-case and accidently dropped a letter. +The young American politely picked it up, but the typewritten address on +the War Office envelope caught his eye. "Brigadier-General Lackaday, C.B." +He handed it to Andrew, flushing scarlet.</p> + +<p>"Is that your name, sir?"</p> + +<p>"It is," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"Then I reckon, sir, I've been making a fool of myself."</p> + +<p>"Every man," said Andrew, with his disarming smile, "is bound to do that +once in his life. It's best to get it over as soon as possible. That's the +way one learns. Especially in the army."</p> + +<p>But the young man's talk had rubbed in his complete civiliandom.</p> + +<p>As the train neared Paris, his heart sank lower and lower. The old pre-war +life claimed him mercilessly, and he was frozen with a dread which he had +never felt on the fire-step in the cold dawn awaiting the lagging hour of +zero. On the entrance to the Gare du Nord he went into the corridor and +looked through the window. He saw Elodie afar off. Elodie, in a hat over +her eyes, a fur round her neck, her skirt cut nearly up to her knees +showing fat, white-stockinged calves. She had put on much flesh. The great +train stopped and vomited forth its horde of scurrying humans.</p> + +<p>Elodie caught sight of him and rushed and threw herself into his arms, and +embraced him rapturously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my André, it is good to have you back. <i>O mon petit homme</i>--how +I have been longing for this moment. Now the war is finished, you will not +leave me again ever. <i>Et te voilà Général</i>. You must be proud, eh? But +your uniform? I who had made certain I should see you in uniform."</p> + +<p>He smiled at her characteristic pounce on externals.</p> + +<p>"I no longer belong to the Army, my little Elodie," he replied, walking +with her, his porter in front, to the barrier.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais tu es toujours Général?</i>" she asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I keep the rank," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"And the uniform? You can wear it? You will put it on sometimes to please +me?"</p> + +<p>They drove home through twilight Paris, her arm passed through his, while +she chattered gaily. Was it not good to smell Paris again after London with +its fogs and ugliness and raw beefsteaks? To-night she would give him such +a dinner as he had never eaten in England--and not for two years. Did he +realize that it was two years since he had seen her?</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon Dieu</i>," said he, "so it is."</p> + +<p>"And you are pleased to have me again?"</p> + +<p>"Can you doubt it?" he smiled.</p> + +<p>"Ah, one never knows. What can't a man do in two years? Especially when he +becomes a high personage, a great General full of honours and decorations."</p> + +<p>"The gods of peace have arrived, my little Elodie," said he with a touch of +bitterness, "and the little half-gods of war are eclipsed. If we go to a +restaurant there's no reason why the waiter with his napkin under his arm +shouldn't be an ex-colonel of Zouaves. All the glory of the war has ended, +my dear. A breath. Phew! Out goes the candle."</p> + +<p>But Elodie would have none of this pessimistic philosophy.</p> + +<p>"You are a General to the end of your days."</p> + +<p>They mounted to the flat in the Faubourg Saint-Denis. To Andrew, accustomed +of late months to the greater spaciousness of English homes, it seemed +small and confined and close. It smelt of birds--several cages of which +occupied a side of the salon. Instinctively he threw open a window.</p> + +<p>Instinctively also: "The <i>courant d'air!</i>" cried Elodie.</p> + +<p>"Just for a minute," said Andrew--and added diplomatically, "I want to see +what changes there are in the street."</p> + +<p>"It's always the same," said Elodie. "I will go and see about dinner."</p> + +<p>So till she returned he kept the window open and looked about the room. It +was neat as a new pin, redded-up against his arrival. His books had been +taken from their cases and dusted; the wild displacement of volumes that +should have gone in series betrayed the hand of the zealous though inexpert +librarian. The old curtains had been cleaned, the antimacassars over the +backs of chairs and sofa had been freshly washed, the floor polished. Not a +greasy novel or a straggling garment defiled the spotlessness of the room, +which, but for the row of birds and the books, looked as if it subserved +no human purpose. A crazy whatnot, imitation lacquer and bamboo, the only +piece of decorative furniture, was stacked with photographs of variety +artists, male and female, in all kinds of stage costumes, with sprawling +signatures across, the collection of years of touring,--all scrupulously +dusted and accurately set out. The few cheap prints in maple frames that +adorned the walls (always askew, he remembered) had been adjusted to the +horizontal. On the chenille-covered table in the middle of the room stood +a vase with artificial flowers. The straight-backed chairs upholstered +in yellow and brown silk stood close sentry under the prints, in their +antimacassar uniforms. Two yellow and brown arm-chairs guarded the white +faience stove. The sofa against the wall frowned sternly at the whatnot on +the opposite side. Andrew's orderly soul felt aghast at this mathematical +tidiness. Even the old slovenly chaos was better. At least it expressed +something human. And then the picture of that other room, so exquisite, +so impregnated with the Far-away Princess spirit of its creator, rose up +before him, and he sighed and rubbed his fingers through his red stubbly +hair, and made a whimsical grimace, and said, "Oh Damn!" And Elodie then +bursting in, with a proud "Isn't it pretty, <i>ton petit chez-toi!</i>" +What could he do but smile, and assure her that no soldier home from the +wars could have a more beautifully regulated home?</p> + +<p>"And you have looked enough at the street?"</p> + +<p>Andrew shut the window.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XIII</h1> + + + +<p>Through one of the little ironies of fate, my mission at the Peace +Conference ended a day or two after Andrew's arrival in Paris, so that when +he called at my hotel I had already returned to London. A brief note from +him a day or two later informed me of his visit and his great regret at +missing me. Of his plans he said nothing. He gave as his address "c/o Cox's +Bank." You will remark that this was late April, and I did not receive his +famous manuscript till June. Of his private history I knew nothing, save +his beginnings in the Cirque Rocambeau and his identity with a professional +mountebank known as Petit Patou.</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards I spent a week-end with the Verity-Stewarts. Before I could +have a private word with Lady Auriol, whom I found as my fellow-guest, +Evadne, as soon as she had finished an impatient though not unsubstantial +tea, hurried me out into the garden. There were two litters of Sealyhams.</p> + +<p>Lady Verity-Stewart protested mildly.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Anthony doesn't want to see puppies."</p> + +<p>"It's the only thing he's interested in and the only thing he knows +anything about," cried Evadne. "And he's the only one that's able to pick +out the duds. Come on."</p> + +<p>So I went. Crossing the lawn, she took my arm.</p> + +<p>"We're all as sick as dogs," she remarked confidentially.</p> + +<p>"Indeed? Why?"</p> + +<p>"We asked----" Note the modern child. Not "Papa" or "Mamma," as a +well-conducted little girl of the Victorian epoch would have said, but +"we," <i>ego et parentes</i>--"we asked," replied Evadne, "General Lackaday +down. And crossing our letter came one from Paris telling us he had left +England for good. Isn't it rotten?"</p> + +<p>"The General's a very good fellow," said I, "but I didn't know he was a +flame of yours."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you stupid!" cried Evadne, with a protesting tug at my arm "It's +nothing to do with me. It s Aunt Auriol."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said I.</p> + +<p>She shook her fair bobbed head. "As if you didn't know!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not so senile," said I, "as not to grasp your insinuation, my dear. +But I fail to see what business it is of ours."</p> + +<p>"It's a family affair--oh, I forgot, you're not real family--only adopted." +I felt humiliated. "Anyhow you're as near as doesn't matter." I brightened +up again. "I've heard 'em talking it over--when they thought I wasn't +listening. Father and mother and Charles. They're all potty over General +Lackaday. And so's Aunt Auriol. I told you they had clicked ages ago."</p> + +<p>"Clicked?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Don't you know English?"</p> + +<p>"To my sorrow, I do. They clicked. And father and mother and Charles and +Aunt Auriol are all potty."</p> + +<p>"And so am I," she declared, "for he's a dear. And they all say it's time +for Aunt Auriol to settle down. So they wanted to get him here and fix him. +Charles says he's a shy bird----"</p> + +<p>"But," I interrupted, "you're talking of the family. Your Aunt Auriol has a +father, Lord Mountshire."</p> + +<p>"He's an old ass," said Evadne.</p> + +<p>"He's a peer of the realm," said I rebukingly, though I cordially agreed +with her.</p> + +<p>"He's not fit to be General Lackaday's ancient butler," she retorted.</p> + +<p>"Is that your own?"</p> + +<p>"No. It's Charles's. But I can repeat it if I like."</p> + +<p>"And all this goes to prove----" said I.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you see? You are dense. The news that the General had gone to +France knocked them all silly. Aunt Auriol's looking rotten. Charles says +she's off her feed. You should have seen her last night at dinner, when +they were talking about him."</p> + +<p>"Again, my dear Evadne," said I, opening the gate of the kitchen garden for +her to pass through, "this is none of my business."</p> + +<p>She took my arm again. "It doesn't matter. But oh, darling Uncle Tony, +couldn't we fix it up?"</p> + +<p>"Fix up what?" I asked aghast.</p> + +<p>"The wedding," replied this amazing young person, looking up at me so that +I had only a vision of earnest grey eyes, and a foreshortened snub nose and +chin. "He's only shy. You could bring him up to the scratch at once."</p> + +<p>She went on in a whirl of words of which I preserve but a confused memory. +Of course it was her own idea. She had heard her mother hint that Anthony +Hylton might be a useful man to have about--but all the same she had her +plan. Why shouldn't I go off to Paris and bring him back? I gasped. I +fought for air. But Evadne hurried me on, talking all the time. She was +dying for a wedding. She had never seen one in her life. She would be a +bridesmaid. She described her costume. And she had set her heart on a +wedding present--the best of the bunch of Sealyham puppies. Why, certainly +they were all hers. Tit and Tat, from whom the rather extensive kennels had +originally sprung, were her own private property. They had been given to +her when she was six years old. Tat had died. But Tit. I knew Tit? Did +I not? No one could spend an hour in Mansfield Court without making the +acquaintance of the ancient thing on the hearthrug, with the shape of a +woolly lamb and the eye of a hawk and the smile of a Court jester. Besides, +I had known him since he was a puppy. I, <i>moi qui parle</i>, had been +the donor of Tit and Tat. I reminded her. I was a stupid. As if she didn't +know. But I was to confirm her right to dispose of the pups. I confirmed +it solemnly. So we hastened to the stable yard and inspected the kennels, +where the two mothers lay with their slithery tail-wagging broods. We +discussed the points of each little beast and eventually decided on the +one which should be Evadne's wedding present to General Lackaday and Lady +Auriol Dayne.</p> + +<p>"Thanks ever so much, darling," said Evadne. "You are <i>so</i> helpful."</p> + +<p>I returned to the drawing-room fairly well primed with the family +preoccupations, so that when Lady Verity-Stewart carried me off to her own +little den on the pretext of showing me some new Bristol glass, and Sir +Julius came smoking casually in her wake, I knew what to expect. They +led up to the subject, of course, very diplomatically--not rushing at it +brutally like Evadne, but nothing that the child said did they omit--with +the natural exception of the bridesmaid's dress and the wedding present. +And they added little more. They were greatly concerned, dear elderly folk, +about Auriol. She and General Lackaday had been hand in glove for months. +He evidently more than admired her. Auriol, said Sir Julius, in her +don't-care-a-dam-for-anybody sort of way made no pretence of disguising her +sentiments. Any fool could see she was in love with the man. And they had +<i>affichéd</i> themselves together all over the place. Other women could +do it with impunity--if they didn't have an infatuated man in tow at +a restaurant, they'd be stared at, people would ask whether they were +qualifying for a nunnery--but Auriol was different. Aphrodite could do what +she chose and no one worried; but an indiscretion of Artemis set tongues +wagging. It was high time for something definite to happen. And now the +only thing definite was Lackaday's final exodus from the scene, and +Auriol's inclination to go off and bury herself in some savage land. Lady +Verity-Stewart thought Borneo. They were puzzled. General Lackaday was the +best of fellows---so simple, so sincere--such a damned fine soldier--such +a gentle, kindly creature--so scurvily treated by a disgraceful War +Office--just the husband for Auriol--etcetera, etcetera in strophe and +antistrophe of eulogy.</p> + +<p>All this was by way of beginning. Then came the point of the conclave. +It was obvious that General Lackaday couldn't have trifled with Auriol's +affections and thrown her off. I smiled at the conception of the lank and +earnest Lackaday in the part of Don Juan. Besides, they added sagely, +Auriol had been known to make short work of philanderers. It could only be +a question of some misunderstanding that might easily be arranged by an +intelligent person in the confidence of both parties. That, it appeared, +was where I came in. I, as Evadne had said, was a useful man to have about.</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear Anthony," said Sir Julius, "can't you do something?"</p> + +<p>What the deuce was I to do? But first I asked:</p> + +<p>"What does Auriol say about it?"</p> + +<p>They hadn't broached the subject. They were afraid. I knew what Auriol +was. As likely as not she would tell them to go to the devil for their +impertinence.</p> + +<p>"And she wouldn't be far wrong," said I.</p> + +<p>"Of course it seems meddlesome," said Sir Julius, tugging at his white +moustache, "but we're fond of Auriol. I've been much more of a father to +her than that damned old ass Mountshire"--Evadne, again; though for once in +her life she had exercised restraint--"and I hate to see her unhappy. She's +a woman who ought to marry, hang it all, and bring fine children into the +world. And her twenties won't last for ever--to put it mildly. And here she +is in love with a fine fellow who's in love with her or I'll eat my hat, +and--well--don't you see what I mean?"</p> + +<p>Oh yes. I saw perfectly. To soothe them, I promised to play the high-class +Pandarus to the best of my ability. At any rate, Lady Auriol, having taken +me into her confidence months ago, couldn't very well tell me to go to the +devil, and, if she did, couldn't maintain the mandate with much show of +outraged dignity.</p> + +<p>I did not meet her till dinner. She came down in a sort of low cut red +and bronze frock without any sleeves--I had never seen so much of her +before--and what I saw was exceedingly beautiful. A magnificent creature, +with muscular, shapely arms and deep bosom and back like a Greek statue +become dark and warm. Her auburn hair crowned her strong pleasant face. As +far as appearances went I could trace no sign of the love-lorn maiden. Only +from her talk did I diagnose a more than customary unrest. The war was +over. Hospitals were closed. Her occupation (like Lackaday's) was gone. +England was no place for her. It was divided into two social kingdoms +separated by a vast gulf--one jazzing and feasting and otherwise +Sodom-and-Gomorrah-izing its life away, and the other growling, envious, +sinister, with the Bolshevic devil in its heart. What could a woman with +brains and energy do? The Society life of the moment made her sick. A dance +to Perdition. The middle classes were dancing, too, in ape-like imitation, +while the tradesman class were clinging for dear life on to their short +skirts, with legs dangling in the gulf. On the other side, seething masses +howling worship of the Goddess of Unreason. Cross the gulf--one would +metaphorically be torn to pieces. Remain--no outlet for energy but playing +the wild Cassandra. Her pessimism was Tartarean.</p> + +<p>"General Lackaday, the last time I saw him, agreed with me that the war was +a damned sight better than this."</p> + +<p>It was the first time she had mentioned him. Lady Verity-Stewart and I +exchanged glances.</p> + +<p>She went on. Not a monologue. We all made our comments, protests and what +not. But in the theatre phrase we merely fed her, instinctively feeling for +the personal note. On ordinary occasions very subtly aware of such tactics, +she seemed now to ignore them. She rose to every fly. Public life for +women? Parliament? The next election would result in a Labour Government. +Women would stand no chance. Labour counted on cajoling the woman's vote. +But it would have no truck with women as legislators. If there was one +social class which had the profoundest contempt for woman as an intelligent +being it was the labouring population.</p> + +<p>For Heaven's sake remember, I am only giving you Lady Auriol's views, as +expressed over the dinner table. What mine are, I won't say. Anyhow they +don't amount to a row of pins.</p> + +<p>Lady Auriol continued her Jeremiad. Suppose she did stand for Parliament, +and got in for a safe Conservative constituency. What would happen? She +would be swept in to the muddiest and most soul-destroying game on God's +earth. No, my dear friends, no. No politics for her. Well, what then? we +asked.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you say something about--what was it, dear--Borneo?" asked Lady +Verity-Stewart.</p> + +<p>"I don't care where it is, Aunt Selina," cried Lady Auriol. "Anywhere out +of this melting-pot of civilization. But you can't get anywhere. There +aren't any ships to take you. And there's nowhere worth going to. The whole +of this miserable little earth has been exploited."</p> + +<p>"Thibet has its lonely spots."</p> + +<p>"And it's polyandrous--so a woman ought to have a good time--" she laughed. +"Thanks for the hint. But I'm not taking any. Seriously, however, as you +all seem to take such an interest in me, what s a woman like me to do in +this welter? Oh, give me the good old war again!"</p> + +<p>Lady Verity-Stewart lifted horrified hands. Sir Julius rebuked her +unhumorously. Lady Auriol laughed again and the Jeremiad petered out.</p> + +<p>"She's got it rather badly," Charles murmured to me when the ladies had +left the dining-room.</p> + +<p>But I was not going to discuss Lady Auriol with Charles. I grunted and +sipped my port and told a gratified host that I recognized the '81 +Cockburn.</p> + +<p>Sir Julius and Lady Verity-Stewart went to bed early after the sacramental +game of bridge. Charles, obeying orders, followed soon afterwards. Lady +Auriol and I had the field to ourselves.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said I.</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose these subtle diplomatists have left us alone to discuss +Bolshevism or Infant Welfare?"</p> + +<p>There was the ironical gleam in her eyes and twist in her lips that had +attracted me since her childhood. I have always liked intelligent women.</p> + +<p>"Have they been badgering you?"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, no. But a female baby in a pink sash would see what they're +driving at. Haven't they been discussing me and Andrew Lackaday?"</p> + +<p>"They have," said I, "and they're perfect dears. They've built up a +fairy-tale around you and have taken long leases in it and are terribly +anxious that the estate shan't be put into liquidation."</p> + +<p>"That's rather neat," she said.</p> + +<p>"I thought so, myself," said I.</p> + +<p>Stretched in an arm-chair she looked for some minutes into the glow of the +wood fire. Then she turned her head quickly.</p> + +<p>"You haven't given me away?"</p> + +<p>"My good girl!" I protested, "what do you take me for?"</p> + +<p>She laughed. "That's all right. I opened out to you last year about Andrew. +You remember? You were very sympathetic. I was in an unholy sort of fog +about myself then. I'm in clear weather now. I know my own mind. He's the +only man in the world for me. I suppose I've made it obvious. Hence the +solicitude of these pet lambs--and your appointment as Investigator. Well, +my dear Tony, what do they want to know?"</p> + +<p>"They're straining their dear simple ears to catch the strain of wedding +bells and they can't do it. So they're worried."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can tell them not to worry any longer. There aren't going to be +any wedding bells. They've made sentimental idiots of themselves. General +Lackaday and I aren't marrying folks. The question hasn't arisen. We're +good intimate friends, nothing more. He's no more in love with me than I am +with him. Savvy?"</p> + +<p>I savvied. But--</p> + +<p>"That's for the pet lambs," said I. "What for me?"</p> + +<p>"I've already told you."</p> + +<p>"And that's the end of it?"</p> + +<p>"As far as you are concerned--yes."</p> + +<p>"As you will," I said.</p> + +<p>I put a log on the fire and took up a book. All this was none of my +business, as I had explained to Evadne.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry you're not interested in my conversation," she remarked after a +while.</p> + +<p>"You gave me to understand that it was over--as far as I was concerned."</p> + +<p>"Never mind. I want to tell you something."</p> + +<p>I laid down my book and lit a cigar.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," said I.</p> + +<p>It was then that she told me of her last interview with Lackaday. Remember +I had not yet read his version.</p> + +<p>"It's all pretty hopeless," she concluded.</p> + +<p>For myself I knew nothing of the reasons that bade him adopt the attitude +of the Mysterious Unknown--except his sensitiveness on the point of his +profession. He would rather die than appear before her imagination in the +green silk tights of Petit Patou. I asked tentatively whether he had spoken +much of his civilian life.</p> + +<p>"Very little. Except of his knowledge of Europe. He has travelled a great +deal. But of his occupation, family and the rest, I know nothing. Oh yes, +he did once say that his father and mother died when he was a baby and that +he had no kith or kin in the world. If he had thought fit to tell me more +he would have done so. I, of course, asked no questions."</p> + +<p>"But all the same," said I, "you're dying to know the word of the enigma."</p> + +<p>She laughed scornfully. "I know it, my friend."</p> + +<p>"The deuce you do!" said I, thinking of Petit Patou and wondering how she +had guessed. "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"A woman of course."</p> + +<p>"Did he tell you?" I asked, startled, for that shed a new light on the +matter.</p> + +<p>"No." She boomed the word at me. "What on earth do you suppose was the +meaning of our talk about playing the game?"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," said I, "if it comes to that, do you think it was playing +the game for him, a married man with possibly a string of children, to come +down here and make love to you?"</p> + +<p>She flared up. "He never made love to me. You've no right to say such a +thing. If there was any love-making, it was I that made it. Ninety per cent +of the love-making in the world is the work of women. And you know it, +although you pretend to be shocked. And I'm not ashamed of myself in the +least. As soon as I set my eyes on him I said 'That's the man I want,' and +I soon saw that I could give him what he never had before--and I kept him +to me, so that I could give it him. And I gloried in it. I don't care +whether he has ten wives or twenty children. I'm telling you because"--she +started up and looked me full in the face--"upon my word I don't know +why--except that you're a comfortable sort of creature, and if you know +everything you'll be able to deal with the pet lambs." She rose, held out +her hand. "You must be bored stiff."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said I, "I'm vastly interested--and honoured, my dear +Auriol. But tell me. As all this sad, mad, glad affair seems to have come +to a sudden stop, what do you propose to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she replied with a half laugh. "What I feel like doing is +to set out for Hell by the most adventurous route."</p> + +<p>She laughed again, shook hands. "Good night, Tony." And she passed out +through the door I held open for her.</p> + +<p>I finished my cigar before the fire. It was the most unsatisfactory romance +I had come across in a not inexperienced career. Was it the green silk +tights or the possible woman in the background that restrained the gallant +General? Suppose it was only the former? Would my Lady Auriol jib at +them? She was a young woman with a majestic scorn for externals. In her +unexpectedness she might cry "Motley's the only wear" and raise him ever +higher in his mountebankic path.... I was sorry for both of them. They were +two such out-of-the-way human beings--so vivid, so real. They seemed to +have a preordained right to each other. He, dry, stern, simple stick of +a man needed the flame-like quality that ran through her physical +magnificence. She, piercing beneath the glamour of his soldierly +achievements, found in him the primitive virility she could fear combined +with the spiritual helplessness to which she could come in her full womanly +and maternal aid. To her he was as a rock, but a living rock, vitalized by +a myriad veins of sensitiveness. To him--well, I knew my Auriol--and could +quite understand what Auriol in love could be to any man. Auriol out of +love (and in her right mind) had always been good enough for me.</p> + +<p>So I mused for a considerable time. Then, becoming conscious of the +flatness, staleness and unprofitableness of it all, as far as my elderly +selfishness was concerned, I threw my extinct cigar end into the fire, and +thanking God that I had come to an age when all this storm and fuss over +a creature of the opposite sex was a thing of the past, and yet with an +unregenerate pang of regret for manifold what-might-have-beens, I put out +the lights and went to bed.</p> + +<p>The next day I succeeded by hook or by crook in guiding the pet lambs, +Evadne included, in the way they should go. I reported progress to Lady +Auriol.</p> + +<p>"Good dog," she said.</p> + +<p>I returned to London on Monday morning. When next I heard of her, she +was, I am thankful to say, not on the adventurous path to the brimstone +objective of her predilection, but was fooling about, all by herself, in +a five-ton yacht, somewhere around the Outer Hebrides, in the foulest of +weather.</p> + +<p>In the days of my youth I was the victim of a hopeless passion and +meditated suicide. A seafaring friend of mine suggested my accompanying him +on his cargo steamer from the Port of London to Bordeaux. It was blazing +summer. But I was appallingly sea-sick all the way, and when I set foot on +land I was cleansed of all human emotion save that of utter thankfulness +that I existed as an entity with an un-queasy stomach. I was cured for good +and all.</p> + +<p>But a five-ton yacht off the Outer Hebrides in bleak tempests--No, it was +too heroic. Even my dear old friend Burton for all his wit and imagination +had never devised such a <i>remedia amoris</i>, such a remedy for Love +Melancholy.</p> + +<p>And then came June and with it the manuscript and all the flood of +information about the Agence Moignon and Bakkus and Petit Patou and +Prépimpin and Elodie and various other things that I have yet to set down.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XIV</h1> + + + +<p>While Lady Auriol Dayne was rocking about the Outer Hebrides, we find +Andrew Lackaday in Paris confronted with the grim necessity of earning a +livelihood. His pre-war savings had amounted to no fortune, and in spite +of Elodie's economy and occasional earnings with her birds, they were +well-nigh spent. The dearness of everything! Elodie wrung her hands. Where +once you had change out of a franc, now you had none out of a five-franc +note. He could still carry on comfortably for a year, but that would be the +end of it.</p> + +<p>When he propounded the financial situation, Elodie did not understand.</p> + +<p>"I must work," said he.</p> + +<p>"But Generals don't work," she protested incredulously.</p> + +<p>Even the war had developed little of the Marseilles <i>gamine's</i> +conceptions of life. A General--she knew no grades--a modest Brigadier +ranking second only to a Field Marshal--was a General. He commanded an +army. A military demigod invested with a glamour and glory which, <i>ipso +facto</i>, of its own essence, provided him with ample wealth. And once a +General, always a General. The mere fact of no longer being employed in the +command of armies did not matter. The rank remained and with the rank the +golden stream to maintain it. According to popular legend the Oriental +ascetic who concentrates his gaze on the centre of his body and his +thoughts on the syllable "Om" arrives at a peculiar mental condition. So +the magic word on which she had so long meditated, had its hypnotic effect +on Elodie.</p> + +<p>And when he had patiently explained--</p> + +<p>"They give you nothing at all for being a General?" she almost screamed.</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"Then what's the good of being a General?"</p> + +<p>"None that I can see," he replied with his grim smile.</p> + +<p>Elodie's illusions fell clattering round about her ears. Not her illusions +as to Generals, but her illusions as to Andrew and British military +prestige. It was a strange army that no longer acknowledged its high +commanders--a strange country that could scrap them. Were British Generals +real, like French Generals, Lyautey and Manoury and Foch before he became +<i>Maréchal?</i> She was bitterly disappointed. She had lived for nearly a +year in Andrew's glory. Now there seemed to be no shine in it whatever. He +wore no uniform. He received no pay. He was a mere civilian. He had to work +for his living like any demobilized poilu who returned to his counter or +his conductor's step on the tramway. And she had made such a flourish among +all her acquaintance over <i>son mari le général</i>. She went off by +herself and wept.</p> + +<p>The cook whom she had engaged, coming to lay the cloth in the tiny +dining-room found her sobbing with her arms on the table. What was the +matter with Madame?</p> + +<p>"<i>Ah, ma pauvre Ernestine, je suis bien malheureuse</i>."</p> + +<p>Ernestine could think of only one cause for a lady's unhappiness. Had +Monsieur le Général then been making her infidelities? All allowances +should be made for the war. On every side she had heard tales of the +effects of such long separations. But, on the other hand, she had heard of +many reconciliations. Apply a little goodwill--that was all. Monsieur le +Général was a man, <i>comme tout le monde</i>. She was certain that the +object of his warrior fancy was not worth Madame--and he would quickly +realize the fact. She only had to make much of him and give him everything +he liked to eat. As soon as the stream of words ceased Elodie vehemently +denounced the disgusting state of her mind. She must have a foul character +to think such things. She bade her haughtily to mind her own business. Why +then, asked the outraged Ernestine, did Madame declare she was miserable? +To invite sympathy and then reject it did not argue a fine character on the +part of Madame. Also when a woman sits down and weeps like a cow, <i>mon +Dieu</i>, there must be a reason. Perhaps if Monsieur was not at fault, +then--</p> + +<p>"I order you to be silent," stormed Elodie, interrupting the intolerable +suggestion. "My reasons you couldn't possibly understand. Get on with your +work and set the table."</p> + +<p>She made a dignified exit and returned to the <i>salon</i> where Andrew was +writing.</p> + +<p>"Ah, these servants--since the war! The insolence of them!"</p> + +<p>"What have they been doing now?" he asked sympathetically.</p> + +<p>She would not say. Why worry him with such vulgarities? But the +housekeeper's life, these days, was not an easy one. "<i>Tiens</i>," she +cried, with a swift resolve, "I'll tell you all. What you said about +yourself, a general only in name, rejected and cast on the world without +money made me very unhappy. I didn't want you to see me cry. So I went into +the <i>salle à manger</i>--"</p> + +<p>And then a dramatic reproduction of the scene. The insolence of the woman! +Andrew rose and drew out his pocket-book.</p> + +<p>"She shall go at once. What's her wages?"</p> + +<p>But Elodie looked at him aghast. What? Dismiss Ernestine? He must be mad. +Ernestine, a treasure dropped from Heaven? Didn't he know that servants +did not grow like the leaves on the trees in the Champs Elysées? And +cooks--they were worth their weight in gold. In the army he could say to an +orderly "<i>Fiche-moi le camp</i>," because there were plenty of +others. But in civil life--no. She forbade him to interfere in domestic +arrangements, the nice conduct of which she had proved herself perfectly +capable of determining. And then, in her queer, twisted logic, she said, +clutching the lapels of his coat and looking up into his face:</p> + +<p>"And it's not true what she said? You have never made me infidelities?"</p> + +<p>He passed his delicate hand over her forehead, and smiled somewhat wearily.</p> + +<p>"You may be sure, my dear, I have been faithful to you."</p> + +<p>She glanced away from him, somewhat abashed. Now and then his big +simplicity frightened her. She became dimly aware that the report of the +cook's chatter had offended the never comprehended delicacies of his soul. +She murmured:</p> + +<p>"<i>Je te demande bien pardon, André</i>."</p> + +<p>"There's no reason for that, my dear," said he.</p> + +<p>She went over to her birds. Andrew resumed his writing. But after a minute +or two his pen hung idle in his hand. Yes. He had spoken truly. He had been +faithful to her in that he had fled from divine temptation. For her sake he +had put the other woman and the glory that she signified out of his life. +All through the delicious intercourse, Elodie had hung at the bottom of his +heart, a dead-weight, maybe, but one which he could not in honour or common +humanity cut off. For Elodie's sake he had held himself in stern restraint, +had uttered no word that might be interpreted as that of a lover. As far as +Lady Auriol Dayne knew, as far as anyone on this earth knew, his feelings +towards her were nothing more than those of a devoted and grateful friend. +So does the well-intentioned ostrich, you may say, bury its head and +imagine itself invisible. But the ostrich is desperately sincere--and so +was Andrew.</p> + +<p>Presently he turned.</p> + +<p>"If that woman says such vulgarities again, she must go at once."</p> + +<p>"I shall see that she has no opportunity," said Elodie.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>For a time Andrew sought in France that which he had failed to find in +England; but with even less chance of success. The gates to employment in +England had been crowded with demobilized officers. Only the fortunate, the +young content with modest beginnings, those with money enough to start new +avocations, had pushed through. These had been adventurers like himself. +The others had returned to the office or counting-house or broad acres from +which they had sprung. In France he found no employment at all; the gates +round which the demobilized wistfully gathered, led no whither. As at the +War Office, so at military head-quarters in Paris. Brass-hatted friends +wrung him warmly by the hand, condoled with his lot, and genially gave him +to understand that he stood not a dog's chance of getting in anywhere. +Why hadn't he worried the people at home for a foreign billet? There were +plenty going, but as to their nature they confessed vagueness. He had put +in for several, said he, but had always been turned down. The friends shook +their heads. In Paris nothing doing. Andrew walked away sadly. Perhaps +a spirit proof against rebuffs, a thick-skinned persistence, might have +eventually prevailed in London to set him on some career in the social +reconstruction of the world. His record stood, and needed only unblushing +flaunting before the eyes of Authority for it to be recognized. But Andrew +Lackaday, proud and sensitive, was a poor seeker after favour. All his +promotion and his honour had come unsought. He had hated the braggadocio of +the rainbow row of ribbons on his khaki tunic, which Army discipline alone +forced him to wear. It was Elodie, too, who had fixed into his buttonholes +the little red rosette of the Officer of the Legion. That at least he could +do for her.... Success, such as it was, before the war, he had attained +he knew not how. The big drum of the showman had ever been an engine of +abhorrence. Others had put him on the track of things, Elodie, Bakkus.... +He had sternly suppressed vulgarity in posters. He had never intrigued like +most of his craft for press advertisement. Over and over again had Bakkus +said:</p> + +<p>"Raise a thousand or two and give it to me or Moignon to play with and +we'll boom you into all the capitals of the earth. There's a fortune in +you."</p> + +<p>But Andrew, to whom publicity was the essence of his calling, would have +none of it. He did his work and conducted his life in his own way, earnest +and efficient.</p> + +<p>In the war, of course, he found his real vocation. But he passed out of +the war as unknown to the general public as any elderly Tommy in a Labour +battalion. Never a photograph of him had appeared in the illustrated +papers. The head of a great Government department, to whom Lady Auriol had +mentioned his name, had never heard of it. And when she suggested that the +State should hasten to secure the services of such men, he had replied +easily:</p> + +<p>"Men of his distinction are as thick as blackberries. That's how we won the +war."</p> + +<p>Unknown to Lackaday she had tried to see what influence she could command. +Socially, as the rather wild-headed daughter of an impoverished and obscure +Earl, she could do but little. She too was a poor intriguer. She could only +demand with blatant vividness. Once on a flying visit to Lord Mountshire, +she tried to interest him in the man whom, to her indignation, he persisted +in styling her protégé. He still, she urged, had friends in high places, +even in the dreadful Government at which he railed.</p> + +<p>"Never heard of the man," he growled. "Lackaday--Lackaday--" he shook his +white head. "Who was his father?"</p> + +<p>She confessed that she didn't know. He was alone in the world. He had +sprung from Nowhere. The old Earl refused to take any interest in him. Such +fellows always fell on their feet. Besides, he had tried to put in a word +for young Ponsonby--and had got snubbed for his pains. He wasn't going to +interfere any more.</p> + +<p>She learned that the appointment of a soldier would be made to a vacant +colonial governorship. A certain general's recommendation would carry +weight. She passed the information on to Andrew. This she could do without +offending his pride.</p> + +<p>"Very sorry, my dear fellow," said the General. "You're the very man for +the job. But you know what these Colonial office people are. They will have +an old regular."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact they appointed another Brigadier who had started the +war with a new Yeomanry commission, a member of a well-known family with a +wife who had seen to it that neither his light nor hers should be hidden +under a bushel.</p> + +<p>In the frantic scramble for place, the inexperienced in the methods of +the scrum were as much left out in the cold as a timid old maid at what +Americans call a bargain counter. He stood lost behind the throng and his +only adviser Lady Auriol stood by his side in similar noble bewilderment.</p> + +<p>On his appointment to a Brigade, Bakkus had written:</p> + +<p>"I'm almost tempted to make your fortune in spite of yourself. What a +sensation! What headlines! 'Famous Variety Artist becomes a General.' +Companion pictures in the <i>Daily Mail</i>, Petit Patou and Brigadier-General +Lackaday. Everybody who had heard of Petit Patou would be mad to +hear of General Lackaday, and all who had heard of soldier Andrew would +be crazy to know about Petit Patou. You'd wake up in the morning like +Byron and find yourself famous. You'd be the darling hero of the British +Empire. But you always were a wooden-headed idiot...."</p> + +<p>To which Andrew had replied in raging fury, to the vast entertainment of +Horatio Bakkus.</p> + +<p>All of this to show that, notwithstanding his supreme qualities of personal +courage, command and military intuition, Andrew Lackaday as a would-be +soldier of fortune proved a complete failure. For him, as he presented +himself, the tired world, in its nebulous schemes of reconstruction, had no +place.</p> + +<p>Every day, when he got home, Elodie would ask:</p> + +<p>"<i>Eh bien?</i> Have you found anything?"</p> + +<p>And he would say, gaunt and worried, but smiling: "Not yet."</p> + +<p>As the days passed her voice grew sharper, until it seemed to carry the +reproach of the wife of the labourer out of work. But she never pressed him +further. She knew his moods and his queer silences and the inadvisability +of forcing his confidence. In spite of her disappointment and disillusion, +some of the glamour still invested him. A man of mystery, inspiring +a certain awe, he frightened her a little. A No Man's Land, unknown, +terrifying, on which she dared not venture a foot, lay between them. He was +the kind and courteous ghost of the Sergeant and the Major with whom she +had made high festival during the war.</p> + +<p>At last, one afternoon, he cast the bomb calmly at her feet.</p> + +<p>"I've just been to see Moignon," said he.</p> + +<p>"<i>Eh bien?</i>"</p> + +<p>"He says there will be no difficulty."</p> + +<p>She turned on him her coarse puzzled face. "No difficulty in what?"</p> + +<p>"In going back to the stage."</p> + +<p>She sank upon the yellow and brown striped sofa by the wall and regarded +him open-mouthed.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tu dis?</i>"</p> + +<p>"I must do like all other demobilized men--return to my trade."</p> + +<p>Elodie nearly fainted.</p> + +<p>For months the prospect had hung over them like a doom; ever since the +brigade which he commanded in England had dissolved through demobilization, +and he, left in the air, had applied disastrously to the War Office for +further employment. He had seen others, almost his equal in rank, swept +relentlessly back to their old uninspiring avocations. A Bayard of a +Colonel of a glorious battalion of a famous regiment, a fellow with +decorations barred two or three times over, was now cooped up in his +solicitor's office in Lothbury, E.C., breaking his heart over the +pettifoggery of conveyances. A gallant boy, adjutant at twenty-two in the +company of which he was captain, a V.C. and God knows what else besides, +was back again in the close atmosphere of the junior department of a +Public School. One of his old seconds in command was resuming his awful +frock-coated walk down the aisles of a suburban drapery store. The flabby, +soulless octopus of civil life reached out its tentacles and dragged +all these heroic creatures into its maw of oblivion. Then another, a +distinguished actor, and a more distinguished soldier, a man with a +legendary record of fearlessness, had sloughed his armour and returned to +the theatre. That, thought he, was his own case. But no. The actor took +up the high place of histrionic fame which he had abandoned. He was the +exponent of a great art. The dual supremacy brought the public to his feet. +His appearance was the triumph both of the artist and the soldier. No. He, +Lackaday, held no such position. He recalled his first talk with Bakkus, +in which he had insisted that his mountebanking was an art, and with his +hard-gained knowledge of life rejected the sophistry. To hold an audience +spell-bound by the interpretation of great human emotion was a different +matter from making a zany of oneself and, upside down, playing a +one-stringed fiddle behind one's head, and uttering degraded sounds through +painted grinning lips in order to appeal to the inane sense of humour of +the grocer and his wife. No. There was all the difference in the world. The +comparison filled him less with consolation than with despair. The actor, +mocking the octopus below, had calmly stepped from one rock pinnacle to +another. He himself, Andrew Lackaday, in the depths, felt the irresistible +grip of the horror twining round his middle.</p> + +<p>Put him in the midst of a seething mass of soldiery, he could command, +straighten out chaos into mechanical perfection of order, guide willing men +unquestioned into the jaws of Hell; put him on the stage of a music-hall +and he could keep six plates in the air at a time. Outside these two +spheres he could, as far as the world would try him, do nothing. He had +to live. He was young, under forty. The sap of life still ran rich in his +veins. And not only must he live, but the woman bound to him by a hundred +ties, the woman woven by an almost superstitious weft into his early +career, the woman whose impeccable loyalty as professional partner had +enabled him to make his tiny fortune, the woman whose faithful affection +had persisted through the long years of the war's enforced neglect, +the woman who without his support--unthinkable idea--would perish from +inanition--he knew her--Elodie must live, in the comfort and freedom from +anxiety to which the years of unquestioning dependence had accustomed her. +Cap and bells again; there was no other way out.</p> + +<p>After all, perhaps it was the best and most honest. Even if he had found a +semi-military or administrative career abroad, what would become of Elodie? +Not in a material sense, of course. The same provision would be made for +her welfare as during the last five years. But the abnormal state of war +had made normal their separation. In altered circumstances would she not +have the right to cry out against his absence? Would she not be justified +in the eyes of every right-thinking man? Yet the very conditions of such an +appointment would prevent her accompanying him. The problem had appeared +insoluble. Desperately he had put off the solution till the crisis should +come. But he had felt unhappy, shrinking from the possibility of base +action. The thought of Elodie had often paralysed his energy in seeking +work. Now, however, he could face the world with a clear conscience. He had +cut himself adrift from Lady Auriol and her world. Fate linked him for ever +to Elodie. All that remained was to hide his honours and his name under the +cloak of Petit Patou.</p> + +<p>It took him some time to convince Elodie of the necessity of returning to +the old life. She repeated her cry that Generals do not perform on the +music-hall stage. The decision outraged her sense of the fitness of things. +She yielded as to an irresistible and unreasoning force.</p> + +<p>"And I then? Must I tour with you, as before?" she asked in dismay, for she +was conscious of increased coarseness of body and sluggishness of habit.</p> + +<p>He frowned. "It is true I might find another assistant."</p> + +<p>But she quickly interrupted the implied reproach. She could not fail him in +her duty.</p> + +<p>"No, no, I will go. But you will have to teach me all over again. I only +asked for information."</p> + +<p>"We'll begin rehearsals then as soon as possible," he replied with a smile.</p> + +<p>A few days afterwards, Bakkus, who had been absent from Paris, entered +the <i>salon</i>, with his usual unceremoniousness, and beheld an odd +spectacle. The prim chairs had been piled on the couch by the wall, the +table pushed into a corner, and on the vacant space, Elodie, in her old +dancer's practising kit, bodice and knickerbockers, once loose but now skin +tight to grotesqueness, and Andrew in under vest and old grey flannels, +were perspiringly engaged with pith balls in the elementary art of the +juggler. Elodie, on beholding him, clutched a bursting corsage with both +hands, uttered a little squeak and bolted like an overfed rabbit. Bakkus +laughed out loud.</p> + +<p>"What the devil----? Is this the relaxation of the great or the aberrations +of the asylum?"</p> + +<p>Andrew grinned and shook hands. "My dear old chap. I'm so glad you've come +back. Sit down." He shifted the table which blocked the way to the two +arm-chairs by the stove. "Elodie and I are getting into training for the +next campaign." He mopped his forehead, wiped his hands and, with the old +acrobat instinct, jerked the handkerchief across the room. "You're looking +very well," said he.</p> + +<p>"I'm splendid," said Bakkus.</p> + +<p>The singer indeed had a curiously prosperous and distinguished appearance, +due not only to a new brown suit and clean linen and well-fitting boots, +but also to a sleekness of face and person which suggested comfortable +living. His hair, now quite white, brushed back over the forehead, was +neatly trimmed. His sallow cheeks had lost their gaunt hollows, his dark +eyes, though preserving their ironical glitter, had lost the hunger-lit +gleam of wolfishness.</p> + +<p>"Have you signed a Caruso contract for Covent Garden?" laughed Andrew.</p> + +<p>"I've done better. At Covent Garden you've got to work like the devil +for your money. I've made a contract with my family--no work at +all. Agreement--just to bury the hatchet. Theophilus--that's the +Archdeacon--performed the Funeral Service. He has had a stroke, poor chap. +They sent for me."</p> + +<p>"Elodie told me," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"He has been very good to me during the war. Otherwise I should have +been reduced to picking up cigar ends with a pointed stick on the +Boulevards--and a damn precarious livelihood too, considering the shortage +of tobacco in this benighted country. He took it into his venerable head +that he was going to die and desired to see me. Voltaire remorse on his +death-bed, you know."</p> + +<p>"I fail to follow," said the literal Andrew.</p> + +<p>"All his life he had lived an unbeliever in ME. Now your military +intelligence grasps it. My brother Ronald, the runner of the Pawnee Indian, +head-flattening system of education, and his wife, especially his wife, the +daughter of a lay brother of a bishop who has got a baronetcy for making +an enormous fortune out of the war, wouldn't have me at any price. But +Theophilus must have muttered some incantation which frightened them, so +they surrendered. Poor old Theophilus and I had a touching meeting. He's +about as lonely a thing as you could wish to meet. He married an American +heiress, who died about eight years ago, and he's as rich as Croesus. We're +bosom friends now. As for Mrs. Ronald I sang her songs of Araby including +Gounod's 'Ave Maria' with lots of tremolo and convinced her that I'm a +saintly personage. It's my proud boast that, on my account, Ronald and +herself never spoke for three days. I spent a month in the wilds of +Westmorland with them, and as soon as Theophilus got on the mend--he's +already performing semi-Archidiaconal functions--I put my hands over my +eyes and fled. My God, what a crowd! Give me a drink. I've got four weeks' +arrears to make up."</p> + +<p>Andrew went into the <i>salle à manger</i> and returned with brandy, syphon +and glasses. Helping Bakkus he asked:</p> + +<p>"And now, what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, my friend, absolutely nothing. I wallow in the ill-gotten +matrimonial gains of Theophilus and Ronald. I wallow modestly, it is true. +The richer strata of mire I leave to hogs with whom I'm out of sympathy. +You'll have observed that I'm a man of nice discrimination. I choose my +hogs. It is the Art of Life."</p> + +<p>"Well, here's to you," said Andrew, lifting up his glass.</p> + +<p>"And to you."</p> + +<p>Bakkus emptied his glass at a draught, breathed a sigh of infinite content +and held it out to be refilled.</p> + +<p>"And now that I've told you the story of my life, what about you? What's +the meaning of this--" he waved a hand--"this reversion to type?"</p> + +<p>"You behold Petit Patou redivivus," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>Bakkus regarded him in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear fellow, Generals can't do things like that."</p> + +<p>"That's the cry of Elodie."</p> + +<p>"She's a woman with whom I'm in perfect sympathy," said Bakkus.</p> + +<p>Elodie entered, cooler, less dishevelled, in her eternal wrapper. She +rushed up to Bakkus and wrung both his hands, overjoyed to see him. He must +pardon her flight, but really--she was in a costume--and not even till she +took it off did she know that it was split--Oh, <i>mon Dieu!</i> Right +across. With a sweep of the hand she frankly indicated the locality of the +disaster. She laughed. Well, it was good that he had arrived at last. He +would be able to put some sense into André. He a General, to go back to the +stage. It was crazy! He would give André advice, good counsel, that was +what he needed! How André could win battles when he was so helpless in +other things, she could not understand. She seized him by the shoulders and +smiled into his face.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais toi qui es si intelligent, dis quelque chose</i>."</p> + +<p>"To say anything, my dear Elodie, while you are speaking," remarked Bakkus, +"is beyond the power of mortal man. But now that you are silent I will say +this. It is time for <i>déjeuner</i>. I am intoxicated with the sense of +pecuniary plenitude, I invite you both to eat with me on the Boulevards +where we can discuss these high matters."</p> + +<p>"But it is you that are crazy," cried Elodie, gasping at the unprecedented +proposal which in itself shook, like an earthquake, her intimately +constructed conception of Horatio Bakkus. And on the Boulevards, too! +Her soul rose up in alarm. "You are wanting in your wits. One can't eat +anywhere--even at a restaurant of the second class--under a hundred francs +for three persons."</p> + +<p>Bakkus, with an air Louis Seize, implied that one, two or three hundred +francs were as dirt in his fingers. But Elodie would have none of it. She +would be ashamed to put so much money in her stomach.</p> + +<p>"I have," said she, "for us two, eggs <i>au beurre noir</i> and a +<i>blanquette de veau</i>, and what is enough for two is enough for three. +And you must stay and eat with us as always."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Bakkus, "whether Andrew realizes what a pearl you are."</p> + +<p>So he stayed to lunch and repeated the story of his good fortune, to which +Elodie listened enraptured as to a tale of hidden treasure of which he +was the hero, but never a word could he find in criticism of Andrew's +determination. The quips and causticities that a couple of years ago would +have flowed from his thin, ironical lips, were arrested unformulated at the +back of his brain. He became aware, not so much of a change as of a swift +development of the sterner side of Andrew's character. Of himself he could +talk sardonically enough. He could twit Elodie with her foibles in his old +way. But of Andrew with his weather-beaten mug of a face marked with new, +deep lines of thought and pain, sitting there courteous and simple, yet +preoccupied, strangely aloof, the easy cynic felt curiously afraid. And +when Elodie taxed him with pusillanimity he glanced at Andrew.</p> + +<p>"He has made up his mind," he replied. "Some people's minds are made up of +sand and water. Others of stuff composed of builders' weird materials +that harden into concrete. Others again have iron bars run through the +mass--reinforced concrete. That's Andrew. It's a beast of a mind to deal +with, as we have often found, my dear. But what would you have? The animal +is built that way."</p> + +<p>"You flatter me," grinned Andrew, "but I don't see what the necessity of +earning bread and butter has to do with a reinforced-concrete mind."</p> + +<p>"It's such an undignified way of earning it," protested Elodie.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Bakkus, "it will take as much courage for our poor friend +to re-become Petit Patou, as it took for him to become General Lackaday."</p> + +<p>Andrew's face suddenly glowed and he shot out his long arm with his bony +wrists many inches from his cuff and put his delicate hand on Bakkus's +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, why can't you always talk like that?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to," replied Bakkus, pausing in the act of lighting one of +Elodie's special reserve of pre-war cigars. "Don't you realize I'm just +transplanted from a forcing bed of High Anglican platitude?"</p> + +<p>But Elodie shrugged her fat shoulders in some petulance.</p> + +<p>"You men always stick together," she said.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XV</h1> + + + +<p>The unventilated dressing-room of the Olympia Music-Hall in Marseilles +reeked of grease paint, stale human exhalations, the acrid odour, creeping +up the iron stairs, of a mangy performing lion, and all manner of +unmentionable things. The month of June is not the ideal month to visit +Marseilles, even if one is free to pass the evening at a café table on +the Cannebière, and there is a breeze coming in from over the sea; but in +copper-skied thundery weather, the sirocco conditions of more southerly +latitudes, especially when one is cooped up in a confined and airless +space, Marseilles in June can be a gasping inferno. Andrew, in spite of +hard physical training, was wet through. His little white-jacketed dresser, +says he, perspired audibly. There was not so much air in the dressing-room +as tangible swelter.</p> + +<p>He sat by the wooden table, in front of a cracked and steaming mirror, the +contents of his make-up box laid out before him, and (save for one private +dress rehearsal carried out in surroundings of greater coolness and +comfort) transformed himself, for the first time, from General Lackaday +into the mountebank clown, Petit Patou. The electric lights that should +have illuminated the mirror were not working--he had found, to his +discomfort, that manifold things in post-war France refused to work--and +two candles fainting into hopeless curves took their place. Anxiously over +a wet skin he painted the transfiguring lines, from lip corner to ear, from +nostril to eye, from eye to brow, once the mechanical hand-twist of a few +moments--now the painfully concentrated effort of all his faculties.</p> + +<p>He finished at last. The swart and perspiring dresser dried his limbs, held +out the green silk high-heeled tights which reached to his armpits. Then +the grotesque short-sleeved jacket. Then the blazing crimson wig rising to +the point of its extravagant foot height. He felt confined within a red-hot +torture-skin, a Nessus garment specially adapted to the use of discarded +Brigadier-Generals. He sat on the straight-backed chair and looked round +the nine foot square flyblown room, with its peeling paper and its +strained, sooty skylight, which all the efforts of himself and the +dresser had failed to open. It was Mademoiselle Chose, the latter at +last remembered, an imperious lady with a horror of draughts and the ear +(and--who knows?--perhaps the heart of the management) who had ordered it, +in the winter, to be nailed down from the outside. As proof, the broken +cords.</p> + +<p>"Tell the manager that if it is not unnailed tomorrow, I shall smash a hole +in it," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>It did not matter now. In a few moments he would be summoned from the +suffocating den, and then, his turn over, he would dress quickly and emerge +into the open air. Meanwhile, however, he gasped in the heat and the heavy +odour of the place; his head ached with an intolerable pain round his +temples and at the back of his eyeballs; and acute nervousness gripped his +vitals.</p> + +<p>Presently the call-boy put his head in the doorway. Andrew rose, descended +the iron stairs to the wings. Instinctively he went to the waiting table, +covered with green velvet and gold, on which lay piled the once familiar +properties--the one-stringed fiddle, the pith balls, the rings, the cigar, +the matches, the trick silk hat, the cards, the coins, and the rest of the +juggler's apparatus, and methodically checked them. In the visible shaft +of brilliantly lit stage he could see the back of the head and the plump +shoulders and tournure of a singer rendering in bravura fashion the Jewel +Song from "Faust." The stillness whence arose this single flood of sound +seemed almost uncanny. The superheated air thickened with hot human breath +and tobacco smoke stood stagnant like a miasma in the unventilated wings +and back of the stage. The wild beast smell of the lion, although his cage +had been hurriedly wheeled out through the scenery door, still persisted +and caught the throat, and in the dim white-washed bareness, a few figures, +stagehands in shirt-sleeves, and vague pale men in hard felt hats tiptoed +about like perspiring ghosts. One of the latter approached Andrew. Monsieur +Patou need have no fear, he whispered. Everything was arranged--the +beautiful ballroom interior--the men who were to set the stage had their +orders, also the lime-light operators. Andrew nodded, already having given +explicit instructions. The singer vanished from the quivering streak of +stage, in order to give her finale close to the footlights. She ceased. +Rapturous applause. She appeared panting, perspiring, beaming in the wings; +went on again to bow her acknowledgments, amid hoarse cries of "<i>bis, +bis!</i>" She reappeared, glowing vaporously in her triumph, and spread out +her arms before the pallid man in the hard felt hat.</p> + +<p>"Well! What did I say? You made difficulties about offering me an +engagement. I told you I could make these little birds eat out of my hand. +You hear?"--the clamour would have been perceptible to a deaf mute--"They +are mad about me. I go on again."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais non, madame</i>. Three songs. That is your contract. The programme +is long."</p> + +<p>So spake the assistant manager. But the lady snapped her fingers, heard +like a pistol shot amid the uproar, and made a vast gesture with her arms. + +"If I am not allowed to have my encore, I tear up my contract."</p> + +<p>The assistant manager released himself from responsibility, yielded to +woman's unreason, and the lady, who had arranged the matter with the leader +of the orchestra, returned in contemptuous triumph to the stage.</p> + +<p>Elodie, meanwhile, had descended and stood by Andrew's side. She wore a +very low-cut and short-skirted red evening frock, so tight that she seemed +to ooze distressingly from every aperture. A red rose drooped in her thick +black hair. Like the lank green-clad Andrew, she betrayed anxiety beneath +her heavy make-up. The delay to their turn, prolonging her suspense, caused +her to stamp her foot with annoyance.</p> + +<p>"The <i>sale grue!</i> and she sings like a duck."</p> + +<p>"She pleases the audience," whispered Andrew.</p> + +<p>"And ruins our reception. It is the last straw."</p> + +<p>"It can't be helped," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>The singer gave as her encore a song from "La Traviata." She certainly had +the mechanical technique so beloved by French audiences. That of Olympia +listened spell-bound to her trills and when she had finished broke once +more into enthusiastic cheering, calling and recalling her two or three +times. At last the curtain came finally down and she disappeared up the +iron staircase.</p> + +<p>The interior backcloth and wings provided for Les Petit Patou were let +down, stage hands set the table and properties, Andrew and Elodie anxiously +supervising, and when all was clear the curtain went up. Andrew went on +alone and grinned familiarly, his old tradition, before the sea of faces. A +few faint hand-claps instead of the old expectant laughter welcomed him. A +generation had apparently risen that knew not Petit Patou. His heart sank. +The heat of the footlights shimmered like a furnace and smote him with +sudden lassitude. He began his tricks. Took his tiny one-stringed +broomstick handled fiddle and played it with his hands encased in +grotesquely long cotton gloves. Presently, with simulated impatience, he +drew off the gloves, threw them, conjurer fashion, vanishing into the air, +and then resumed his violin to find himself impeded now and then by various +articles cunningly fixed to his attire, one after another of which he +disposed of like the gloves. Finally in his perplexity he made as if to +undo his tights (a certain laugh in former days) but thinking better of it, +threw fiddle and bow as in disgust across the stage into the wings, where +they were caught by the waiting Elodie. The act, once arousing merriment, +fell flat. Andrew's heart sank lower. In itself the performance, which he +had carried through with skilful cleanness, contained nothing risible; +for laughter it depended solely on a personal note of grotesquerie, +of exaggerated bewilderment and impatience and of appealingly idiotic +self-satisfaction when each impediment was discovered and discarded. Had +he lost that personal touch, merely gone through his conjuring with the +mechanical precision of a soldier on parade? Heavens, how he hated himself +and his aching head and the audience and the lay out of futile properties! +Elodie appeared. The performance must continue. He threw into it all his +energy. Elodie gave him her old loyal support. They did their famous cigar +trick, developed from the act of Prépimpin. He had elaborated much of the +comic business. The new patter, with up-to-date allusions, had resulted +from serious conclave with Horatio Bakkus, whose mordant wit supplied many +a line that should have convulsed the house. But the house refused to be +convulsed. His look of vacant imbecility when one after another of a set +of plates with which he juggled, disappeared, being fastened to an elastic +contrivance to his back, and his expression of reproach when, turning +Elodie round, he discovered her wearing the plates as a sort of basque, +which once excited, on no matter what stage, rolling guffaws of mirth, now +passed by unappreciated.</p> + +<p>The final item in the programme was one invented and brought to mechanical +perfection just before the war broke out. He insisted on playing his cigar +box and broom-handle fiddle in spite of Elodie's remonstrances. There was +a pretty squabble. He pulled and she pulled, with the result that both +bow and handle, by a tubular device, aided by a ratchet apparatus for the +strings, assumed gigantic proportions. Petit Patou prevailing, after an +almost disastrous fall, perched his great height on chair superimposed on +table, and, with his long lean legs and arms, looking like a monstrous and +horrible spider, began to work the heavy bow across the long strings. He +had rehearsed it to perfection. In performance, something happened. His +artist's nerve had gone. His fingers fumbled impotently for the stops. His +professional experience saved a calamitous situation. With an acrobat's +stride he reached the stage, telescoped fiddle and bow to normal +proportions, and after a lightning nod to the <i>chef d'orchestre</i>, +played the Marseillaise. At the end there was half-hearted perfunctory +applause. A light hearted section of every audience applauds anything. But +mingled with it there came from another section a horrible sibilant sound, +the stage death warrant of many an artist's dreams, the modern down-turned +thumb of the Roman populace demanding a gladiator's doom.</p> + +<p>The curtain fell. Blank silence now from its further side. A man swiftly +bundled together the properties and drew them off. A tired looking man in +evening dress, with a hideously painted face and long waxed moustaches, +stood in the wings amid performing dogs, some free, some in basket cages, +and amid the waiting clutter of apparatus that at once was rushed upon +the stage. Andrew and Elodie moved clear and at the bottom of the iron +staircase he motioned to her to ascend first. She clutched him by the arm +and gulped down a sob.</p> + +<p>"Mon pauvre vieux!"</p> + +<p>He tried to smile. "Want of habit. We'll get it all back soon. +<i>Voyons</i>"--he took her fat chin in his hand and turned up her face, on +which make-up, perspiration and tears melted into one piteous paste. "This +is not the way that battles are won."</p> + +<p>On the landing they separated. Andrew entered his sweltering dressing-room +and gave himself over to the little dresser who had just turned out the +dog-trainer in his shabby evening suit.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur had a good reception?"</p> + +<p>"Good enough," said Andrew, stretching himself out for the slipping off of +his tights.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said the intuitive little man in the white jacket. "It is the war. +Audiences are no longer the same. They no longer care for subtlety. +Monsieur heard the singer before his turn? Well. Before the war Olympia +wouldn't have listened to her. One didn't pay to hear a bad gramophone. +And, on the other hand, a performance really artistic"--the little man +sighed--"it was heart-breaking."</p> + +<p>Andrew let him talk; obviously the hisses had mounted from the wings to the +dressing-room corridors; the man meant well and kindly. When he had dressed +and appeared in his own Lackaday image, he put a twenty-franc note into the +dresser's hand with a "Thank you, my friend," and marched out and away into +the comparatively fresh air of the sulphurous night. He lit a cigarette and +sat down at the corner of a little obscure café, commanding a view of the +stage-door and waited for Elodie. His nervousness, even his headache, had +gone. He felt cold and grim and passionless, like a man measuring himself +against fate.</p> + +<p>When Elodie came out, a while later, he sat her down at the table, and +insisted on her drinking a <i>Grog Américain</i> to restore her balance. +But iced rum and water could not medicine an overwrought soul. In her +native air, nothing could check her irrepressibility of expression. She +had to spend her fury with the audience. In all her life never had she +encountered such imbecility--such bestial stupidity. Like the dresser, she +upbraided the war. It had changed everything. It had changed the heart +of France. She, Marseillaise of the Marseillais, was ashamed of being of +Marseilles. Once the South was warm and generous and responsive. Now it was +colder than Paris. She had never imagined that the war could press like a +dead hand on the heart of the people of Provence. Now she knew it was true +what Bakkus had once said--she had been very angry, but he was +right--that through the sunny nature of every child of the Midi swept the +<i>mistral</i>.</p> + +<p>She was not very consecutive or coherent or logical. She sought clamorously +for every evil influence, postwar, racial, political, that could account +for the frozen failure of the evening's performance. No thought disloyal +to André hovered on the outskirts of her mind. He perceived it, greatly +touched. When she paused in her vehement outburst, he leaned towards her, +elbow on table, and his delicate hand at the end of his long bony wrist +held up as a signal of arrest:</p> + +<p>"The fault is not that of France, or Marseilles, my dear Elodie. Perhaps +the war may have something to do with it. But the fault is mine."</p> + +<p>She waved away so insane a suggestion. Went into details. How could it be +his fault when the night's tricks were as identical with the tricks which +used to command applause as two reproductions of the same cinema film? As +for the breakdown of the new trick with the elongated violin and bow, she +had seen where the mechanism had not worked properly. A joint had stuck; +the audience had seen it too; an accident which could happen anywhere; that +had nothing to do with the failure of the entertainment. The failure lay in +the mental and moral condition of the degraded post-war audience. For all +her championing, Andrew shook his head sadly.</p> + +<p>"No. Your cinema analogy won't hold. The fault's in me, and I'm sorry, my +dear."'</p> + +<p>He tried to explain. She tried to understand. It was hopeless. He knew that +he had lost, and had not yet recovered, that spiritual or magnetic contact +with his audience which is the first element in artistic success, be the +artistry never so primitive. The audience, he realized full well, had +regarded him as a mechanical figure executing mechanical antics which in +themselves had no particular claim on absorbing human interest. The eternal +appeal, the "held me with his eye" of the Ancient Mariner, was wanting. And +the man trained in the school of war saw why.</p> + +<p>They walked to their modest hostelry. He had shrunk from the great hotels +where the lounges were still full of men in khaki going or coming from +overseas--among whom he would surely find acquaintances. But he no longer +desired to meet them. He had cut himself clean adrift from the old +associations. He told me that Bakkus and I were his only correspondents. +Henceforth he would exist solely as Petit Patou, flinging General Lackaday +dead among the dead things of war.... Besides, the great hotels of +Marseilles cost the eyes of your head. The good old days of the comfortable +car and inexpensive lodging had gone apparently for ever, and he had to +fall back on the travel and accommodation of his early struggling days.</p> + +<p>Elodie continued the discussion of the disaster. His face wore its wry grin +of discomfiture; but he said little. They must go on as they had begun. +Perhaps things would right themselves. He would lose his loathing of his +mountebank trade and thus win back the sympathy of his audience.</p> + +<p>Before they separated for the night she flung her arm protectingly round +him and kissed him.</p> + +<p>"They shall applaud you, <i>mon vieux</i>, I promise you."</p> + +<p>He laughed. Again her faith touched him deeply.</p> + +<p>"You have not changed since our first meeting in the Restaurant Garden at +Avignon. You are always my mascot, Elodie!"</p> + +<p>The menacing thunder broke in the night, and all the next day it rained +pitilessly. Two or three morning hours they spent at the music-hall, +rehearsing, so that no physical imperfection should mar the evening +performance. The giant violin worked with the precision of a Stradivarius. +All that human care could do was done. They drove back to the hotel to +lunch. Elodie lounged for the rest of the afternoon in her room, with a +couple of love-birds for company--the rest of the aviary in the Saint-Denis +flat being under the guardianship of Bakkus; and Andrew, with his cleared +dressing-table for a desk, brought up-to-date the autobiographical +manuscript which for the past few months had solaced so many hours of +enforced leisure. Then they dined and proceeded to the music-hall, Elodie +defiant, with a flush on her cheek, Andrew with his jaw set in a sort of +hopeless determination.</p> + +<p>The preparations of the preceding evening repeated themselves. The rain had +slightly cooled the air, but the smell of drains and humanity and leaky +gas-pipes and the mangy lion, still caught at Andrew's throat. The little +dresser, while investing him in the hated motley, pointed proudly to the +open skylight. He himself had mounted, at great personal peril, to the +roof. One was not a Chasseur Alpin for nothing. O yes, he had gone all +through the war. He had the military medal, and four chevrons. Had Monsieur +Patou seen any service? Like everybody else, said Andrew. It was good to +get back to civil life and one's ordinary tasks, said the dresser whom +the change in the weather perhaps had rendered more optimistic. Was not +Monsieur Patou glad to return to the stage? A man's work, what? The war was +for savages and wild beasts--not for human beings. Andrew let him talk on, +wondering idly how he had sloughed his soldier's life without a regret. He +stood up, once more, in his zany garb, and, looking in the mirror, lost +sight of himself for a poignant second while the dressing-room changed into +an evil-smelling dug-out, dark save for one guttering candle stuck in a +bottle, and in the shadows he saw half a dozen lean, stern faces lit with +the eyes of men whom he was sending forth to defy death. And every one of +them hung upon his words as though they were a god's. The transient vision +faded, and he became aware again of the grotesque and painted clown +gibbering meaninglessly out of the glass.</p> + +<p>He strode down the iron stairs. There was the table of properties waiting +in the wings. There came Elodie to join him. There, in the fiercely lighted +strip of stage, the back, cut by the wing, of the singer with the voice +of the duck, ending the "Jewel Song." Then came the applause, the now +undisputed encore, the weary nervous wait.... Such had been his life night +after night in unconsidered, undreamed-of monotony--before the war...such +would be his life henceforward--changeless, deadly, appalling.</p> + +<p>At last, he went on. Through the mysterious psychological influence which +one audience has on another, his reception was even more frigid than +before. Elodie made her entrance. The house grew restless, inattentive, +Andrew flogged his soul until he seemed to sweat his heart's blood. Here +and there loud talking and hoarse laughter rose above the buzz and rustle +of an unappreciative audience. Elodie's breast heaved and her face grew +pallid beneath its heavy paint, but her eyes were bright.</p> + +<p>"<i>Allons toujours</i>," Andrew whispered.</p> + +<p>But in the famous cigar act he missed, for the first time since the far off +rehearsals after the death of Prépimpin, when the fault was due to Elodie's +lack of skill. But now, she threw it fair. It was he who missed. The +lighted cigar smote him on the cheek. The impossibility of the occurrence +staggered him for a second. But a second on the stage is an appreciable +space of time, sufficient for the audience to pounce on his clumsiness, to +burst into a roar of jeering laughter, to take up the cruelty of the hiss.</p> + +<p>But before he could do anything Elodie, coarse and bulging out of her short +red bodice and skirt, her features contorted with anger, was in front of +the footlights, defying the house.</p> + +<p>"<i>Lâches!</i>" she cried.</p> + +<p>The word which no Frenchman can hear unperturbed cut the clamour like a +trumpet call. There was sudden silence.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Cowards. You make me ashamed that I am of Marseilles. To you a +demobilized hero is nothing. But instead of practising his tricks during +the war to amuse you, he has been fighting for his country. And he has +earned this." She flashed from her bosom a white-enamelled cross depending +from a red ribbon. "<i>Voilà!</i> Not <i>Chevalier</i>--but <i>Officier de +la Légion d'Honneur!</i>" With both pudgy arms outstretched she held the +audience for the tense moment. "And from simple soldier to General of +Brigade. And that is the Petit Patou whom you insult." She threatened them +with the cross. "You insult France!"</p> + +<p>Reaction followed swift on her lightning speech. The French audience, +sensitive to the dramatic and the patriotic, burst into tumultuous +acclamation. Elodie smiled at them triumphantly and turned to Andrew, who +stood at the back of the stage, petrified, his chin in the air, at the full +stretch of his inordinate height, his eyes gleaming, his long thin lips +tightened so that they broke the painted grin, his hands on his hips.</p> + +<p>Now if Elodie had carried out the plan developed during the night she could +then and there have died happily. Exulting in her success, she tripped up +the stage to Andrew, the clasp of the decoration between finger and thumb, +hoping to pin it on his breast. The applause dropped, the house hovering +for an instant on the verge of anti-climax. But Andrew, with a flash of +rage and hatred, waved her away, and strode down to the footlights, tearing +off his grotesque wig and revealing his shock of carroty hair. His soul was +sick with horror. Only the swift silence made him realize that he was bound +to address the audience.</p> + +<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "I thank you for your generosity to me as +a soldier. But I am here to try to merit your approbation as an artist. For +what has just happened I must ask you to pardon a woman's heart."</p> + +<p>He remaned for a while glaring at them. Then, when the applause came to an +end, he bowed, half ironically and gave a quick, imperious order, at which +the curtain was rung down amid an uproar of excitement. He strode into the +wings followed by Elodie starry-eyed, and stood panting. The curtain rose +as if automatically. The manager thrust him towards the stage.</p> + +<p>"They want you," he cried.</p> + +<p>"They can go to the devil," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>Regardless of the clamour, he stalked with Elodie to the foot of the iron +stairs. On their way they passed the waxed moustachioed trainer of the +performing dogs.</p> + +<p>"A good <i>coup de théâtre</i>, Madame," he remarked jealously.</p> + +<p>Andrew glowered down on him.</p> + +<p>"You say, Monsieur----?"</p> + +<p>But the dog trainer meeting the eyes burning in the painttd face, thought +it best to say nothing, and Andrew mounted the stairs. Elodie followed +him into his dressing-room palpitating with excitement and perplexity and +clutching both his arms looked wildly into his face.</p> + +<p>"You are not pleased with me?"</p> + +<p>For a moment or two he regarded her with stupid hostility; then, getting a +grip on himself, he saw things from her point of view and realized her wit +and her courage and her devotion. It was no fault of hers that she had no +notion of his abhorrence of the scene.</p> + +<p>He smiled.</p> + +<p>"It is only you who could have dared," he said.</p> + +<p>"I told you last night they should applaud you."</p> + +<p>"And last night I told you you are always my mascot."</p> + +<p>"If it only weren't true that you love me no longer," said Elodie.</p> + +<p>The dresser entered. Elodie slipped out. Andrew made a step, after her to +the threshold.</p> + +<p>"What the devil did she mean by that?" said he, after the manner of men.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XVI</h1> + + + +<p>She did not repeat the reproach, nor did Andrew put to her the question +which he had asked himself. The amicable placidity unruffled by quarrel, +which marked their relations, was far too precious to be disturbed by an +unnecessary plumbing of emotional depths. As far as he could grapple with +psychological complexities, there had been nothing between them, through +all the years, of the divine passion. She had come to him disillusioned and +weary. He had come to her with a queer superstitious gratitude for help in +the past and a full recognition of present sympathy and service. As the +French say, they had made together <i>un bon ménage</i>. Save for a few +half-hysterical days during the war--and in that incomprehensible pre-war +period at the end of which the birds came to her rescue, there had been +little talk of love and dreams of delight and the rest of the vaporous +paradise of the mutually infatuated. He could not manifest, nor did she +demand, a lover's ardour. It had all been as comfortable and satisfactory +as you please. And now, at the most irrelevant moment, according to his +masculine mind, came this cry of the heart.</p> + +<p>But was it of the heart? Did it not rather proceed from childish +disappointment at his lack of enthusiastic praise of her splendid exploit? +As I say, he judged it prudent to leave the problem unsolved. Of the +exploit itself, needless to remark, she talked interminably. Generous and +kind-hearted, he agreed with her arguments. Of the humiliation she had +wrought for him, he allowed her to have no notion.</p> + +<p>He shivered all night at the degradation of his proudest honour. It had +been gained, not as one of a batch of crosses handed over to the British +military authorities for distribution, but on the field. He had come, with +a handful of men, to the relief of a sorely pressed village held by the +French; somehow he had rallied the composite force, wiped out two or three +nests of machine guns and driven out the Germans; as officer in command +he had consolidated the village, so that, when the French came up, he had +handed it over to them as a victor. A French general had pinned the cross +on his breast on a day of wind and rain and bursting shell, on a vast +plain of unutterable devastation. The upholding of it before the mob of +Marseilles had been a profanation. In these moments of anguished amazement +he had suffered as he had never suffered in his life before. And he had +been helpless. Before he realized what was being done, Elodie, in her +tempestuous swiftness, had done it. It was only when she came to fix the +cross on his breast that his soul sprang to irresistible revolt. He could +have taken her by the throat and wrung it, and flung her away dead.</p> + +<p>Thus, they were infinite leagues asunder. She met what amounted to wearily +indulgent forgiveness when she had fully expected to reap the golden meed +of heroism.</p> + +<p>The next morning, she went about silent, perplexed, unhappy. By her stroke +of genius she had secured for him a real success. If he had allowed her to +crown the dramatic situation by pinning on the cross, his triumph had been +such as the stage had never seen.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you let me do it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"To complete a work of art," said he, "is always a mistake. You must leave +something to the imagination."</p> + +<p>"But I did right. Tell me I did right."</p> + +<p>Denial would have been a dagger thrust through a loyal heart.</p> + +<p>"You acted, my dear," said he, "like a noble woman."</p> + +<p>And she was aware of a shell which she could not pierce. From their first +intimate days, she had always felt him aloof from her; as a soldier during +the war she had found him the counterpart of the millions of men who had +heroically fought; as an officer of high rank, as a General, she had stood, +in her attitude towards him, in uneducated awe; as a General demobilized +and a reincarnation of Petit Patou, he had inspired her with a familiarity +bred not of contempt--that was absurd--but of disillusion. And now, to +her primitive intelligence, he loomed again as an incomprehensible being +actuated by a moral network of motives of which she had no conception.</p> + +<p>He escaped early from the little hotel and wandered along the quays +encumbered with mountains of goods awaiting transport, mighty crates of +foodstuffs, bales of hay, barrels of wine from Algiers. Troops and sailors +of all nations mingled with the dock employees who tried to restore order +out of chaos. Calm goods trains whistled idly by the side of ships or on +sidings, the engine drivers lounging high above the crowd in Olympian +indifference. The broken down organization had nothing to do with them. +Here, in the din and the clatter and the dust and the smell of tar and +other sea-faring things reeking shorewards under the blazing sun, Andrew +could hide himself from the reputable population of the town. In the +confusion of a strange world he could think. His life's unmeaningness +overwhelmed him; he moved under the burden of its irony. In that she had +hurled insulting defiance at a vast, rough audience, Elodie had done a +valiant thing. She had done it for love of him. His failure to respond had +evoked her reproach. But the very act for which she claimed due reward was +a stab to the heart of any lingering love.</p> + +<p>And yet, he must go on. There was no way out. He had faced facts ever since +the days of Ben Flint--and Elodie was a fact, the principal fact in his +life. Curious that she should have faded into comparative insignificance +during the war--especially during the last two years of it when he had not +seen her. She seemed to have undergone a vehement resurrection. The shadow +of the war had developed into the insistent flesh and blood of peace.</p> + +<p>He wandered far over the quay, where the ancient Algiers boat was on the +point of departure, crammed with red-tarbooshed troops, zouaves, colonials, +swarthy Turcos and Spahis, grinning blacks with faces like polished +boots, all exultant in the approaching demobilization. The grey-blue mass +glistened with medals. The blacks were eating--with the contented merriment +of children at a Sunday School treat. Andrew smiled at many memories. +Black troops seemed always to be eating. As he stood watching, porters and +pack-laden blue helmeted poilus jostled him, until he found a small oasis +of quiet near the bows. Here a hand was clapped on his shoulder and a voice +said:</p> + +<p>"Surely you're Lackaday?"</p> + +<p>He turned and beheld the clean-cut bronzed face of a man in civilian dress. +As often happens, what he had sought to avoid in the streaming streets +of the town, he had found in the wilderness--an acquaintance. It was one +Arbuthnot, an Australian colonel of artillery who, through the chances of +war, had rendered his battalion great service. A keen, sparely built man +made of leather and whipcord, with the Australian's shrewd blue eyes.</p> + +<p>They exchanged the commonplaces of greeting.</p> + +<p>"Demobilized?" said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"Thank Heaven."</p> + +<p>"You seem glad."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord! I should think so. Aren't you glad it's all over?"</p> + +<p>"I don't quite know," said Andrew, smiling wistfully.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am," declared Arbuthnot. "It was a beastly mess that had to +be cleared up, and now it's done as far as my little responsibility is +concerned. I'm delighted. I want to get back to my wife and family and lead +the life of a human being. War's a dog's life. It has nothing to recommend +it. It's as stupid and senseless as a typhoon." He laughed. "What are you +doing here?"</p> + +<p>Andrew waved a hand. "Putting in time."</p> + +<p>"So am I. Till my boat sails. I thought before I left I'd look at a merrier +end of France. By Gosh! They're a happy crowd"--he pointed to the packed +mass on board the ancient tub of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique.</p> + +<p>"You share their feelings," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>Arbuthnot glanced at him keenly.</p> + +<p>"I heard they made you a Brigadier. Yes? And you've chucked it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm a civilian, even as you are," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>Arbuthnot pushed back his hat and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake let us get out of this and sit down somewhere and have +a talk."</p> + +<p>He moved away, Andrew following, and hailed a broken down cab, a victoria +which had just deposited a passenger by the steamer's side.</p> + +<p>"To the Cannebière," said he, and they drove off. "If you have anything to +do, please tell me. But I know nobody in this furnace of a town. You're a +godsend."</p> + +<p>A while afterwards they were seated beneath the awning of a crowded café on +the Cannebière. Ceaseless thousands of the globe's population passed by, +from the bare-headed, impudent work girls of Marseilles, as like each other +and the child Elodie as peas in a pod, to the daintily costumed maiden; +from the feathered, flashing quean of the streets to the crape encumbered +figure of the French war-widow; from the abject shuffler clad in flapping +rags and frowsy beard to the stout merchant dressed English fashion, in +grey flannels and straw hat, with two rolls of comfortable fat above his +silk collar; from the stray British or American private perspiring in khaki +to splendid officers, French, Italian, Roumanian, Serbian, Czecho-Slovak, +be-medalled like the advertisements of patent foods; from the middle +aged, leaden pipe laden Marseilles plumber, in his blue smock, to the +blue-uniformed Senegalese private, staring with his childish grin, at +the multitudinous hurrying sights of an unfamiliar crowd. Backwards and +forwards they passed in two thick unending streams. And the roadway clashed +with trams following each other, up and down, at fraction of a second +intervals, and with a congestion of waggons, carts, cabs, automobiles, +waiting patiently on the pleasure of these relentless, strident symbols of +democracy.</p> + +<p>In his troubled mood, Andrew found Arbuthnot also a godsend. It was good to +talk once more with a man of his own calibre about the things that had +once so intensely mattered. He lost his shyness and forgot for a time his +anxieties. The rushing life before him had in its way a soothing charm +to one resting, as it were, on the quiet bank. It was good, too, to +talk English--or listen to it; for much of the talking was done by his +companion. Arbuthnot was full of the big, beloved life that lay before him. +Of the wife and children whom he had not seen for four years. Of his home +near Sydney. Of the Solomon Islands, where he spent the few healthy months +of the year growing coco-nuts for copra and developing a pearl fishery. +A glorious, free existence, said he. And real men to work with. Every +able-bodied white in the Solomon Islands had joined up--some hundred and +sixty of them. How many would be going back, alas! he did not yet know. +They had been distributed among so many units of the Australian Forces. But +he was looking forward to seeing some of the old hard-bitten faces in those +isles of enchantment.</p> + +<p>"I thought," said Andrew, "that it rained all the year round on the Solomon +Islands; that they were so depressing, in fact, that the natives ate each +other to keep up their spirits."</p> + +<p>Arbuthnot protested vehemently. It was the loveliest climate in the world +during the time that white folk stayed there. Of course, there was a rainy +season, but then everybody went back to Australia. As for cannibals--he +laughed.</p> + +<p>"If you're at a loose end," said he, "come out with me and have a look +round. It will clear the war out of your system."</p> + +<p>Andrew held a cigarette between the tips of his fingers and looked at the +curling smoke. The picture of the reefs and surfs and white sands and +palm-trees of these far off islands rose, fascinating, before his eyes. And +then he remembered that he had once a father and mother--and a birth-place.</p> + +<p>"Curiously enough," said he, "I am Australian born."</p> + +<p>He had scarcely ever realized the fact.</p> + +<p>"All the more reason," said Arbuthnot heartily. "Come with me on the Osway. +The captain's a pal of mine. He'll fix up a bunk for you somewhere."</p> + +<p>He offered boundless hospitality. Andrew grew more wistful. He thanked +Arbuthnot. But----</p> + +<p>"I'm a poor man," said he, "and have to earn my living at my old job."</p> + +<p>"And what's that?"</p> + +<p>"I'm a music-hall artist," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"You? Good Lord! I thought you had been a soldier all your life. One of the +old contemptibles."</p> + +<p>"I enlisted as a private in the Grenadier Guards," smiled Andrew.</p> + +<p>"And came to be a General in a brass hat--and now you're back on the stage. +Somehow it doesn't fit. Do you like it?"</p> + +<p>Andrew winched at the intimate question of the frank and direct Australian. +Last night's scene swept across his vision, hateful and humiliating.</p> + +<p>"I have no choice," said he.</p> + +<p>As before, on the quay, Arbuthnot looked at him, keenly.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you do like it. I've met hundreds of fellows who feel just +the same as you. I'm different, as I told you. But I can understand the +other point of view. Perhaps I should kick if I had to go back to a poky +office, instead of a free, open-air life. After all, we're creatures of +circumstance."</p> + +<p>He paused to light a cigar. Andrew made no reply, and the conversational +topic died a natural death. They talked of other things--went back to +Arras, the Somme, Saint Quentin. Presently Arbuthnot, pulling out his +watch, suggested lunch. Andrew rose, pleading an engagement--his daily +engagement with Elodie at the stuffy little hotel table d'hôte. But the +other begged him for God's sake not to desert him in this lonely multitude. +It would not be the act of a Christian and a comrade. Andrew was tempted, +feeling the charm and breeziness of the Australian like a breath of the +free air of Flanders and Picardy. He went indoors to the telephone. Elodie, +eventually found, responded. Of course, her poor André must have his little +pleasure. He deserved it, <i>mon Dieu!</i> It was <i>gentil</i> of him to +consult her. And it had fallen out quite well, for she herself could not +eat. The stopping had dislodged itself from one of her teeth which was +driving her mad with pain and she was going to a dentist at one o'clock. +He commiserated with her on her misadventure. Elodie went into realistic +details of the wreck of the gold stopping on the praline stuffing of a +chocolate. Then an anguished "<i>Ne me coupez pas, Mademoiselle</i>." +But Mademoiselle of the Exchange cut ruthlessly, and Andrew returned to +Arbuthnot.</p> + +<p>"I'm at your service," said he.</p> + +<p>Arbuthnot put himself into Lackaday's hands. The best place. The best +food. It was not often he had the honour of entertaining a British General +unawares. Andrew protested. The other insisted. The General was his guest. +Where should they go? Somewhere characteristic. He was sick of the food +at grand hotels. It was the same all the world over--Stockholm, Tokio, +Scarborough, Melbourne, Marseilles.</p> + +<p>"Marseilles has nothing to boast of in the way of cookery," said Andrew, +"save its bouillabaisse."</p> + +<p>"Now what's that?" cried Arbuthnot. "I've sort of heard of it."</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said Andrew, with his ear-to-ear grin. "To live in +Marseilles and be innocent of bouillabaisse is like having gone through the +war without tasting bully beef."</p> + +<p>He was for dragging him to the little restaurant up a side street in the +heart of the town which is the true shrine of bouillabaisse. But Arbuthnot +had heard vaguely of another place, celebrated for the dish, where one +could fill one's lungs as well as one's stomach.</p> + +<p>"The Reserve."</p> + +<p>"That's it. Taxi!" cried Arbuthnot.</p> + +<p>So they drove out and sat in the cool gallery of the Reserve, by a window +table, and looked on the blue Mediterranean, and the wonderous dish was +set before them and piously served by the maître d'hôtel. Rascasse, +Loup-de-mer, mostelle, langouste ... a studied helping of each in a soup +plate, then the sodden toast from the tureen and the ladles of clear, rich, +yellow liquid flavoured with saffron and with an artist's inspiration of +garlic, the essence of the dozen kinds of fish that had yielded up their +being to the making of the bouillabaisse. The perfect serving of it is a +ceremonial in the grand manner.</p> + +<p>Arbuthnot, regarding his swimming plate, looked embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Knife, fork and spoon," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>They ate for a while in silence. Then Arbuthnot said:</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that wonderful chapter in Meredith's <i>Egoist</i> when +Sir Willoughby Patterne offers the second bottle of the Patterne Port to +Doctor Middleton, Clara's father--and the old fellow says: 'I have but a +girl to give?' Well, I feel like that. This is the most wonderful eating +that humanity has ever devised. I'm not a glutton. If I were I should have +sampled this before. I'm just an uncivilized man from the bush overwhelmed +by a new sensation. I'm your debtor, General, to all eternity. And your +genius in recommending this wine"--he filled Andrew's glass with Cinzano's +Asti Spumante--"is worthy of the man who saw us out at Bourdon Wood. By the +way," he added, after a pause, "what really happened afterwards? I knew you +got through. But we poor devils of gunners--we do our job--and away we go +to loose off Hell at another section and we never get a clear knowledge of +the results."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you in a minute," said Andrew, emptying the salt cellars and +running a trench-making finger through the salt, and disposing pepper pots, +knives and spoons and supplementing these material objects with lead pencil +lines on the table-cloth--all vestiges of the bouillabaisse had been +cleared away--"You see, here were the German lines. Here were their +machine-guns."</p> + +<p>"And my little lot," said Arbuthnot, tapping a remote corner, "was +somewhere over here."</p> + +<p>They worked out the taking of Bourdon Wood. A médallion de veau +perigourdine, a superimposition of toast, foie gras, veal and truffles, +interrupted operations. They concluded them, more languidly, before the +cheese. The mild mellow Asti softened their hearts, so that at the end of +the exquisite meal, in the mingled aroma of coffee, a cigarette, and the +haunting saltness of the sea, they spoke (with Andrew's eternal reserve) +like brothers.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said Arbuthnot, "the more I talk to you the more +impossible does it seem that you should settle down to your pre-war job. +Why don't you chuck it and come out with me on a business footing?"</p> + +<p>"I have no capital," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"You don't need much--a few thousands."</p> + +<p>He might have said a few millions for all Andrew's power to command such a +sum. The other continued his fairy-tale of the islands. They were going to +boom one of these near days. Fortune lay to the hand of the man who came in +first. Labour was cheap, the world was shrieking for copra, the transport +difficulty would soon adjust itself---and then a dazzling reward. It was +quite possible, he suggested with some delicacy, to find financial aid, and +in the meantime to do management work on a salary, so as to keep himself +going. The qualities which made him a General were just those which out +there would command success. And, Australian born, as he was, he could +claim a welcome among his own people.</p> + +<p>"I can guarantee you a living, anyhow," said the enthusiast. "Think it +over, and let me know before the Osway sails."</p> + +<p>It was a great temptation. If he were a free man, he would have cast off +the garb of Petit Patou for ever and gone to seek fortune in a new world +where he could unashamedly use his own name and military rank among men who +did men's work and thought all the better of a man for doing the same. And +also he became conscious of a longing to leave France for a season. France +was passing through a post-war stage of disgruntlement and suspicion, +drawing tight around her feet her tri-coloured skirts so that they should +not be touched by the passing foreigner. France was bleeding from her +wounds--weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. The +Englishman in Andrew stood hurt and helpless before this morbid, convulsive +nationalism. Like a woman in certain emotional states she were better left +alone for awhile, till she recovered and smiled her benevolent graciousness +again.</p> + +<p>Yet if he remained Petit Patou he must stay in France, the land of his +professional adoption. From appearing on the English stage he shrank, with +morbid sensitiveness. There was America, where he was unknown.... Already +Moignon was in touch, on his behalf, with powerful American agencies. Just +before he left Paris Moignon had said: "They are nibbling for the winter." +But it was all vague. France alone appeared solid--in spite of the +disasters of these first two nights.</p> + +<p>"I wish to God," he cried suddenly, after a long silence, "I wish to God I +could cut everything and come with you."</p> + +<p>"What prevents you?" asked Arbuthnot.</p> + +<p>"I have ties," said he.</p> + +<p>Arbuthnot met the grim look on his face which forbade further questioning.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said he. "Still," he added with a laugh, "I'm at the Hôtel de +Noailles till Friday. That is to say----"</p> + +<p>He explained that he was going the next day to Monte Carlo, which he had +never seen, to spend a night or two, but would return in good time for the +sailing of the Osway and the hearing of General Lackaday's final decision.</p> + +<p>On their drive back to Marseilles, Arbuthnot, during a pause in their talk, +said:</p> + +<p>"What I can't understand is this. If you're on the music-hall stage, what +the deuce are you doing in Marseilles?"</p> + +<p>"I'm here on business with my partner," Andrew replied curtly. "If it +weren't for that--a business engagement--I would ask you to spend the +evening with me," he added. "What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I went to the theatre last night. What else is there?"</p> + +<p>"They have an excellent Revue at the El Dorado. Go there."</p> + +<p>"I will," said Arbuthnot.</p> + +<p>Andrew breathed freely, relieved from the dread lest this genial and +unsuspecting brother in arms should wander into Olympia and behold--what? +What kind of a performance? What kind of a reception? All apart from +beholding him in his green silk tights and painted face.</p> + +<p>They parted at the Hôtel de Noailles. The Australian shook him warmly by +the hand.</p> + +<p>"This has been one of the great days of my life," said he, with his frank +smile. "The day when I return and you tell me you're coming with me, will +be a greater."</p> + +<p>Andrew walked away in a glow. Here was a man of proved worth, proved in the +furnace in which they had met, straight as his eyes, sincere to his soul, +who had claimed him as a leader of the Great Brotherhood, who, with a +generosity acceptable under the unwritten law of that 'Brotherhood's +Freemasonry, had opened his way to freedom and a man's hie. Whether he +could follow the way or not was another matter. The fact of the generous +opening remained; a heartening thing for all time.</p> + +<p>You may perhaps remember that, in the introductory letter which accompanied +the manuscript and is quoted at the beginning of this record of the doings +of Andrew Lackaday, he remarks:</p> + +<p>"At the present moment I am between the devil and the deep sea. I am hoping +that the latter will be the solution of my difficulties."</p> + +<p>This was written in his hotel room, as soon as he returned. Elodie, +unnerved by an over-driven dentist's torture, lay resting in her bedroom +with closed windows and drawn shutters. He was between the Devil of Petit +Patou-ism and the Deep Sea beyond which lay the Fortunate Isles where men +were men and coco-nuts were gold and where the sweat could roll down your +leather skin undefiled with greasepaint.</p> + +<p>When he had finished writing, he dined with a curiously preoccupied though +pain-relieved Elodie. He attributed her unusual mood either to anxiety as +to their reception at Olympia, after the previous night's performance, or +to realization of the significance of her indiscretion. She ate little, +drank less, and scarcely spoke at all.</p> + +<p>They reached the music-hall. Andrew changed into his tights. The little +dresser retailed the gossip of the place. Elodie had undoubtedly caused +a sensation. The dresser loudly acclaimed Madame's action as a <i>beau +geste</i>.</p> + +<p>"In these days of advertisement one can't afford to be so modest, <i>mon +général</i>," said he. "And I, for example, who committed the stupidity +of asking whether you had served in the war! To-night we are going to see +something quite different."</p> + +<p>Andrew laughed. Haunted by the great seas and the Solomon Islands and the +palm trees, he found himself scarcely interested in his reception. The +audience could talk and cough and hiss as much as they liked. He had +practically told them to go to the devil last night. He was quite ready, if +need be, to do it again. He was buoyed up by a sublime indifference.</p> + +<p>The singer was ending her encore from "La Traviata" when he went down the +iron stairs. Elodie met him punctually, for they had agreed to avoid the +dreary wait. As soon as the stage was set and the curtain up, he went on +and was greeted by a round of applause. Somehow the word had been passed +round the populace that formed the Olympia clientèle. Thenceforward the +performance went without a hitch, to the attentive gratification of the +audience. There was no uproarious demonstration; but they laughed in the +right places and acclaimed satisfactorily his finale on the giant violin. +They gave him a call, to which he responded, leading Elodie by the hand.</p> + +<p>For himself, he hardly knew whether to feel relief or contempt, but Elodie, +blindly stumbling through the cages of the performing dogs in the wings, +almost broke down.</p> + +<p>"Now all goes well. Confess I was right."</p> + +<p>He turned at the bottom of the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I confess. You did what was right to make it go well."</p> + +<p>She scanned his face to read his meaning. Of late he had grown so +remote and difficult to understand. He put his arm round her kindly and +smiled--and near by his smile, painted to the upper tip of each ear, was +grotesquely horrible.</p> + +<p>"Why yes, little goose. Now everything will go on wheels."</p> + +<p>"That is true?" she asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I swear it," said he.</p> + +<p>When they reached the hotel, she swiftly discarded the walking clothes and +slipped on her wrapper in which only was she the real Elodie, and went to +his room and sat on the little narrow bed.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon ami</i>," said she, "I have something to tell you. I would not +speak this afternoon because it was necessary that nothing should disturb +your performance."</p> + +<p>Andrew lit a pipe and sat down in the straight-backed arm-chair.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I had to wait an hour at the dentist's. Why those people say one o'clock +when they mean two, except to make you think they are so busy that they do +you a favour to look inside your mouth, and can charge you whatever they +like--thirty francs, the monster charged me--you ought to go and tell him +it was a robbery--"</p> + +<p>"My dear," he interrupted, thus cutting out the predicate of her rhetorical +sentence, "you surely couldn't have thought a dentist's fee of thirty +francs would have put me off my work?"</p> + +<p>She threw up her arms. "Mon Dieu! Men are stupid! No. Listen. I had to +wait an hour. I had to distract myself--well--you know the supplement to +<i>L'Illustration</i> that has appeared every week during the war--the +pages of photographs of the heroes of France. I found them all collected +in a portfolio on the table. Ah! Some living, but mostly dead. It was +heart-breaking. And do you know what I found? I found this. I stole it."</p> + +<p>She drew from her pocket peignoir a crumpled page covered with vignette +photographs of soldiers, a legend underneath each one, and handed it to +Andrew, her thumb indicating a particular portrait.</p> + +<p>"There! Look!"</p> + +<p>And Andrew looked and beheld the photograph of a handsome, vast +mustachioed, rake-helly officer of Zouaves, labelled as Captain Raoul +Marescaux, who had died gloriously for France on the twenty-sixth of March, +1917.</p> + +<p>For a second or two he groped for some association with a far distant past.</p> + +<p>"But don't you see?" cried Elodie. "It is my husband. He has been dead for +over two years."</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XVII</h1> + + + +<p>The real discussion between them of the change that the death of Raoul +Marescaux might bring about in their relations, did not take place till +the next day. Each felt it as a sudden shock which, as in two chemicals +hitherto mingling in placid fluidity, might cause crystallization. Up to +this point, the errant husband, vanishing years before across the seas in +company with a little modiste of the Place de la Madeleine, had been but a +shadow, less a human being than a legal technicality which stood in way of +their marriage.</p> + +<p>Occasionally during the war each had contemplated the possibility of the +husband being killed. A mere fleeting speculation. As Elodie had received +no official news of his death--which is astonishing in view of the French +Republic's accuracy in tracing the <i>état civil</i> of even her obscurest +citizens--she presumed that he was still alive somewhere in the Shadow Land +in which exist monks and Papuans and swell-mobsmen and other members of the +human race with whom she had no concern. And Andrew had been far too busy +to give the fellow whose name he had all but forgotten, more than a passing +thought. But now, there he was, dead, officially reported, with picture and +description and distinction and place and date all complete. The shadow had +melted into the definite Eternity of Shadows.</p> + +<p>Andrew rose early, dressed, and, according to his athletic custom, took his +swinging hour's walk through the streets still fresh with the lingering +coolness of the night, and then, after breakfast, entered Elodie's room. +But she was still fast asleep. She seldom rose till near midday. It was +only after lunch, a preoccupied meal, that they found the opportunity for +discussion, in the little stuffy courtyard of the hotel, set round with +dusty tubs of aloes and screened with a trellis of discontented vine. They +sat on a rustic bench by a door and then coffee was served on a blistered +iron table once painted yellow. There were many flies which disturbed the +slumbers of an old mongrel Newfoundland sprawling on the cobbles.</p> + +<p>And there he put to her the proposition which he had formulated during the +night.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said he, "I have something very important to say to you. You +will listen--eh? You won't interrupt?"</p> + +<p>Coffee-cup in hand, she glanced at him swiftly before she sipped.</p> + +<p>"As you will."</p> + +<p>"Yesterday," said he, "I met a comrade of the war, a Colonel of Australian +artillery. I lunched with him, as you know."</p> + +<p>"<i>Bien</i>," said Elodie.</p> + +<p>"I had a long talk with him. He made certain propositions."</p> + +<p>He repeated his conversation with Arbuthnot, described at second hand the +Solomon Islands, the beauties of reef and palm, the delights of a new, +free life and laid before her the guarantee of a competence and the +possibilities of a fortune. As he talked, Elodie's dark face grew sullen +and her eyes hardened. When he paused, she said:</p> + +<p>"You are master of your affairs. If you wish to go, you are free. I have no +right to say anything."</p> + +<p>"You don't allow me to finish," said he, smiling patiently. "I would not go +there without you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Moi?</i>" She shifted round on her seat with Southern excitability and +pointed her finger at her bosom. "I go to the other end of the world and +live among savages and Australians who don't talk French--and I who know +no word of English or any other savage tongue? No, my friend. Ask anything +else of me--I give it freely, as I have given it all these years. But not +that."</p> + +<p>"You would go with me as my wife, Elodie. We will get married."</p> + +<p>"<i>Pouf!</i>" said Elodie, contemptuously.</p> + +<p>Without any knowledge of the terminal values so precious to women, Andrew +felt a vague apprehension lest he had begun at the wrong end.</p> + +<p>"Surely," said he, by way of reparation. "The death of your husband makes a +great difference. Now there is nothing to prevent our marriage."</p> + +<p>"There is everything to prevent it," she replied. "You no longer love me."</p> + +<p>"The same affection exists," said he, "that has always been between us."</p> + +<p>"Then we go on leading the life that we always have led."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it very satisfactory," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>"I do, if it pleases us to remain together, we remain. If we want to say +'Good-bye' we are free to do so."</p> + +<p>He noticed that she wrung her hands nervously together.</p> + +<p>"You don't wish to say 'good-bye,' Elodie?" he asked gently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. It is only not to put ourselves into the impossibility of saying +it."</p> + +<p>"While you live, my dear," he replied, "I could never say it to you."</p> + +<p>"If you went away to the Antipodes, you would have to say good-bye, my dear +André, for I could not accompany you--never in life. I have heard of these +countries. They may be good for men, but for women--no. Unless one is +archimillionaire, one has no servants. The woman has to keep the house and +wash the floor and cook the meals. And that--you know well--I can't do. It +may be selfish and a little unworthy but <i>mon Dieu!</i>--I have always +been frank--that's how I am. And except on tour abroad where we have lived +in hotels where everybody spoke French I have never lived out of France. +That is what I was always saying to myself when you were seeking an +occupation. 'What will happen to me if he does get a foreign appointment?' +I was afraid, oh, terribly afraid. But I said nothing to you. I loved you +too much. But now it is necessary for me to tell you what I have in my +heart. You are free to go to what wild island you like--that is why it +would be absurd for us to marry--but it would be all finished between us."</p> + +<p>"That couldn't be," said Andrew. "What would become of you?"</p> + +<p>She averted her head and said abruptly, "Don't think of it."</p> + +<p>"But I must think of it. During the war----"</p> + +<p>"During the war, it was different. <i>A la guerre comme à la guerre.</i> +We knew it could not last for ever. You loved me. It was natural for me to +accept the support of <i>mon homme</i>, like all other women. But now, if +you leave me--no. <i>N-i-n-i, nini, c'est fini.</i>"</p> + +<p>So all Andrew's beautiful dreams faded into mist. He rose and crossed +the little cobbled courtyard and looked out for a while into the shabby +by-street in which the hotel was situated. That Elodie should accompany him +was the only feasible way, from the pecuniary point of view, of carrying +out the vague scheme.</p> + +<p>It would be a life, at first, of some roughness and privation. Arbuthnot +had laid the financial side quite clearly before him. He could not expect +to land on the Solomon Islands without capital (and even a borrowed +capital) and expect an income of a thousand pounds a year to drop into his +mouth. If Elodie, although refusing to accompany him, would accept his +allowance, that allowance, would, of arithmetical necessity, be far, far +less than she had enjoyed during the war. Besides, although he was bound +tentatively to suggest it, he knew the odd pride, the rod of steel through +her nature, which he had come up against, to his own great advantage, +time after time during their partnership, and he would have been the most +astonished man in the world had she answered otherwise.</p> + +<p>Yes, the dream of coco-nuts and pearls had melted. She was right. Even had +she consented, she would have been a ghastly failure in pioneer Colonial +life. Their existence would have been mildewed and moth-eaten with misery. +She knew herself and her limitations. To go and leave her to starve or earn +a precarious livelihood with her birds, on this post-war music-hall stage +avid for novelty of sensation, were an act as dastardly as that of the late +Raoul Mares-caux who planted her there on the platform of the Gare St. +Lazare while he was on his ways overseas with the modiste of the Place de +la Madeleine.</p> + +<p>He turned to find her dabbing her eyes with a couple of square inches of +chiffon which, in spite of its exiguity, had smeared the powder on her +face. He sat down beside her, with his patient smile, and took her hand and +patted it.</p> + +<p>"Come, come, my little Elodie. I am not going to leave you. It was only an +idea. If it had attracted you, well and good. But as it doesn't, let us say +no more about it."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to hinder you in your life, André," she said brokenly. "<i>ça +me donne beaucoup de peine</i>. But you see, don't you, that I couldn't do +it?"</p> + +<p>He soothed her as best he could. Les Petit Patou would invent new business, +of a comicality that would once more make their fortunes. That being so, +why should they not be married?</p> + +<p>She looked at him searchingly. "You desire it as much as that?"</p> + +<p>"I desire earnestly," said he, "to do what is right."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure that it doesn't come from the respectability of an English +General?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how it comes," he replied, hiding the sting of the shrewd +thrust with a laugh, "but it's there, all the same."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll think of it," said Elodie, "but give me time. <i>Ne m'embête +pas.</i>"</p> + +<p>He promised not to worry her. "But tell me," he said, after a few moments' +perplexity, "why were you so agitated all yesterday after you had seen that +photograph?"</p> + +<p>Elodie let her hand fall on her lap and regarded him with pitying +astonishment. "<i>Mon Dieu!</i> What do you expect a woman to be when she +learns that her husband, whom she thinks alive, has been killed two years +ago?"</p> + +<p>Andrew gave it up.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the sailing of the Osway from Marseilles, he called on +Arbuthnot at the Hôtel de Noailles, and told him of his decision.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said Arbuthnot, "as sorry as I can be. But in case you care to +change your mind, here's my card."</p> + +<p>"And here's mine," said Andrew, and he handed him his card thus inscribed</p> + +<p align="center"> MONSIEUR PATOU<br /> + (<i>Combinaison des Petit Patou</i>)<br /> + 3 rue Falda<br /> + Faubourg Saint-Denis<br /> + Paris</p> + +<p>Arbuthnot looked from the card to Andrew and from Andrew to the card, in +some perplexity.</p> + +<p>"Why," said he, "I've seen your bills about the town. You're playing here! +Why the deuce didn't you let me know?"</p> + +<p>"I gave a better performance at Bourdon Wood," said Andrew.</p> + +<p>Now hereabouts, I ought to say, the famous manuscript ends. Indeed, this +late Marseilles part of it was very hurried and sketchy. The main object +which he had in view--or rather which, in the first inception of the idea, +I had suggested he should have in view--namely, "to interest, perhaps +encourage, at any rate to stimulate the thoughts of many of my old comrades +who have been placed in the same predicament as myself" (as he says in the +letter which accompanied the manuscript) he had abandoned as hopeless. He +had merely jotted things down helter-skelter, diary fashion. I have had to +supplement these notes from his letters and from the confidential talks +which we had, not very long after he had left Marseilles.</p> + +<p>From these letters and these talks also, it appears that the tour booked by +Moignon did not prove the disastrous failure prognosticated by the first +two nights at Marseilles. Nowhere did he meet a prewar enthusiasm; but, on +the other hand, nowhere did he encounter the hostility of the Marseilles +audience. At Lyons, owing to certain broad effects, which he knew of old to +be acceptable to that unique, hard-headed, full-bellied, tradition-bound +bourgeoisie, he had an encouraging success. He felt the old power return to +him--the power of playing on the audience as on a musical instrument. +But at Saint-Etienne--a town of operatives--the performance went +disappointingly flat. Before a dull or discontented audience he stood +helpless. No, the old magnetic power had gone.</p> + +<p>However, he had recovered the faculty of making his livelihood somehow or +other as Petit Patou, which, he began desperately to feel, was all that +mattered. His soul revolted, but his will prevailed. Elodie accompanied him +in serene content, more flaccid and slatternly than ever in her hotel room, +keenly efficient on the stage.</p> + +<p>Now it happened that, a while later, during a visit to some friends in +Shropshire who have nothing to do with this story, I broke down in health. +I have told you before, that liaison work during the war had put out of +action the elderly crock that is Anthony Hylton. Doctors drew undertakers' +faces between the tubes of their stethoscopes as they jabbed about my +heart, and raised their eyebrows over my blood pressure.</p> + +<p>Just at this time I had a letter from Lackaday. Incidentally he mentioned +that he was appearing in August at Clermont-Ferrand and that Horatio Bakkus +(who, in his new prosperity, could afford to choose times and seasons) had +arranged to accept a synchronous engagement at the Casino of Royat.</p> + +<p>So while my medical advisers were wringing their hands over the practical +inaccessibility and the lack of amenity of Nauheim, whither they had +despatched me unwilling in dreary summers before the war, and while they +were suggesting even more depressing health resorts in the British Isles, +it occurred to me to ask them whether Royat-les-Bains did not contain +broken-down heart repairing works of the first order. They brightened up.</p> + +<p>"The place of all places,' said they.</p> + +<p>"Write me a chit to a doctor there," said I, "and I'm off at once."</p> + +<p>I did not care much about my heart. It has always been playing me tricks +from the day I fell in love with my elder sister's French governess. But +I did care about seeing my friend Lackaday in his reincarnation as Petit +Patou, and I was most curious to make the acquaintance of Elodie and +Horatio Bakkus.</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards, therefore, behold me on my way to Clermont-Ferrand, of +which manufacturing town Royat is a suburb.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XVIII</h1> + + + +<p>Without desiring to interfere with the sale of guide-books, I may say that +Clermont-Ferrand is a great big town, the principal city of Auvergne, and +devotes itself to turning out all sorts of things from its factories such +as Michelin and Berguignan tyres, and all sorts of young lawyers, doctors +and schoolmasters from its university. It proudly claims Blaise Pascal as +its distinguished son. It has gardens and broad walks and terraces along +the old ramparts, whence one can see the round-backed pride (with its +little pip on the top) of the encircling mountain range, the Puy de Dôme; +and it also has a wilderness of smelly, narrow little streets with fine +old seventeenth-century mansions hidden in mouldering court-yards behind +dilapidated portes cochères; it has a beautiful romanesque Church in a +hollow, and, on an eminence, an uninteresting restored cathedral whose twin +spires dominate the town for miles around. By way of a main entrance, it +has a great open square, the Place de Jaude, the clanging ganglion of its +tramway system, about which are situated the municipal theatre and the +chief cafés, and from which radiate the main arteries of the city. On the +entrance side rises a vast mass of sculpture surmounted by a statue of +Vercingetorix, the hero of those parts, the gentleman over whose name we +have all broken our teeth when learning to construe Cæsar "<i>De Bello +Gallico</i>." Passing him by for the first time, I should have liked to +shake hands with him for old times' sake, to show my lack of ill feeling.</p> + +<p>Now that you all know about Clermont-Ferrand, as the ancient writers say, I +will tell you about Royat. You take a tram from Vercingetorix and after +a straight mile you are landed at the foot of a cup of the aforesaid +encircling mountains, and, looking around, when the tram refuses to go +any further owing to lack of rails, you perceive that you are in +Royat-les-Bains. It consists, on the ground floor, as it were, of a white +Etablissement des Bains surrounded by a little park, which is fringed on +the further side by an open-air concert platform and a theatre, of a few +rows of shops, and a couple of cafés. You could play catch with a cricket +ball across it. The hotels are perched around on the slopes of the hills, +so that you may enter stately portals among the shops, but shall be whirled +upwards in a lift to the main floor, whence you look down on the green and +tidy miniature place.</p> + +<p>From my room in the Royat Palace Hotel I had a view across the Park, beyond +which I could see the black crowds pouring out of the Clermont-Ferrand +trams. The reason for this frenzied going and coming of human beings +between Clermont-Ferrand and Royat, I could never understand. I believe +tram-riding is a hideous vice. Just connect up by tramlines a place no one +ever wants to go to with another no one ever wants to go from, and in a +week you will have the inhabitants of those respective Sleepy Hollows +running to and fro with the strenuous aimlessness of ants. Progressive +politicians will talk to you of the wonders of transport. Well, transport +or madness, what does it matter? I mean what does it matter to the course +of this narrative?</p> + +<p>I had a pleasant room, I say, with a good view blocked above the tram +terminus by a vine-clad mountain. I called on a learned gentleman who knew +all about hearts and blood pressures, he prescribed baths and unpleasant +waters, and my cure began. All this by way of preamble to the statement +that I had comfortably settled down in Royat a week before Les Petit Patou +were billed to appear in Clermont-Ferrand. Having nothing in the world to +do save attend to my internal organs, I spent much time in the old town, +which I had not visited for many years, match-hunting (with indifferent +success) being at first my main practical pursuit. Then a natural curiosity +leading me to enquire the whereabouts of the chief music-halls and vacant +ignorance manifesting itself on the faces of the policemen and waiters +whom I interrogated, I abandoned matches for the chase of music-halls. +Eventually I became aware that I was pursuing a phantom. There were no +music-halls. All had been perverted into picture palaces. I read Lackaday's +letter again. There it was as clear as print.</p> + +<p>"So we proceed on our pilgrimage; we are booked for Clermont-Ferrand for +the third week in August. I hate it--because I hate it. But I'm looking +forward to it because my now prosperous friend Bakkus has arranged to sing +during my stay there, at the Casino of Royat."</p> + +<p>And sure enough the next day, they stuck up bills by the park gates +announcing the coming of the celebrated tenor, Monsieur Horatio Bakkus.</p> + +<p>It was only later that the great flaming poster of a circus--The +Cirque Vendramin--which had pitched its tent for a fortnight past at +Clermont-Ferrand, caught my eye. There it was, amid announcements of all +sorts of clowns and trapezists and Japanese acrobats:</p> + +<p>"Special engagement of the world famed eccentrics, Les Petit Patou."</p> + +<p>If I uttered profane words, I am sure the Recording Angel followed an +immortal precedent.</p> + +<p>In order to spy out the land, I went then and there to the afternoon +performance. The circus was pitched in a disgruntled field somewhere near +the dismally remote railway station. The tent was crowded with the good +inhabitants of Clermont-Ferrand who, since they could not buy sugar or +matches or coal for cooking, must spend their money somewhere. I scarcely +had entered a circus since the good old days of the Cirque Rocambeau. +And what a difference! They had a few uninspiring horses and riders for +convention sake. But the <i>haute école</i> had vanished. Not even a rouged +and painted ghost of Mademoiselle Renée Saint-Maur remained. It was a +ragged, old-fashioned acrobatic entertainment, with the mildewed humour of +antiquated clowns. But they had a star turn--a juggler of the school of +Cinquevallis--an amazing fellow. And then I remembered having seen the name +on the last week's bill, printed in the great eighteen inch letters which +were now devoted to Les Petit Patou.</p> + +<p>Next week Lackaday would be the star turn. But still...</p> + +<p>I went back to Royat feeling miserable. I was not elated by finding a +letter from Lady Auriol which had been forwarded from my St. James's Street +chambers. She was in Paris organising something in connection with the +devastated districts. She reproached me for not having answered a letter +written a month ago, written at her ancestral home where she had been +summoned to her father's gouty chair side. I might, she said, have had the +politeness to send a line of condolence.... Well, I might: but whether to +her or to Lord Mountshire, whose gout was famous in the early nineties, I +did not know. Yes, I ought to have answered her letter. But then, you see, +I am a villainous correspondent: I was running about, and doctors were +worrying me: and I could not have answered without lying about Andrew +Lackaday who, leaving her without news of himself, had apparently vanished +from her ken. She had asked me all sorts of pointed questions about +Lackaday which I, having by that time read his manuscript, found very +embarrassing to answer. Of course I intended to write. One always does, +in such cases. There was nothing for it now but to make immediate and +honourable amends.</p> + +<p>I explained my lack of courtesy, as best I could, bewailed her father's +gout and her dreary ministrations on that afflicted nobleman, regretted +incidentally her lack of news of the gallant General and spread myself over +my own sufferings and my boredom in a little hole of a place, where no one +was to be seen under the age of seventy-three--drew, I flattered myself, +rather a smart picture of the useless and gasping ancients flocking +pathetically to the futile <i>Fons Juventutis</i> (and what business +had they to be alive anyhow during this world food shortage?) and then, +commending her devotion to the distressed and homeless, expressed the warm +hope that I should meet her in Paris on my way back to England.</p> + +<p>It was the letter of a friend and a man of the world. It put me into a +better humour with myself. I dined well on the broad terrace of the hotel, +smoked a cigar in defiance of doctor's orders, and after an instructive +gastronomical discussion with a comfortable old Bordeaux merchant with whom +I had picked acquaintance, went to bed in a selfishly contented frame of +mind.</p> + +<p>Two or three mornings later, going by tram into Clermont-Ferrand and +passing by the great cafe on the east side of the Place de Jaude opposite +the statue of Vercingetorix, I ran literally, stumbling over long legs +outstretched from his chair to the public danger, into Andrew Lackaday. It +was only at the instant of disentanglement and mutual apologies that we +were aware of each other. He sprang to his great height and held out-both +his long arms, and grinned happily.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, what a delight. Fancy seeing you here! Elodie----"</p> + +<p>If he had given me time, I should have recognized her before he spoke. +There she was in the flesh--in a great deal of flesh--more even than I had +pictured. She had a coarse, dark face, with the good humour written on it +that loose features and kind soft eyes are able so often to express--and +white teeth rather too much emphasized by carmined lips above which grew +the faint black down of many women of the South. She was dressed quite +tastefully: white felt hat, white skirt, and a silken knitted yellow +<i>chandail</i>.</p> + +<p>"Elodie--I present Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton, of whom you have heard me +speak so much." To me--"Madame Patou," said he.</p> + +<p>"Madame," said I. We shook hands. I professed enchantment.</p> + +<p>"I have spoken much about you to Captain Hylton," said Lackaday quickly.</p> + +<p>"So it seems," said I, following the good fellow's lead, "as if I were +renewing an old acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"But you speak French like a Frenchman," cried Elodie.</p> + +<p>"It is my sole claim, Madame," said I, "to your consideration."</p> + +<p>She laughed, obviously pleased, and invited me to sit. The waiter came up. +What would I have? I murmured "Amer Picon--Curaçoa," the most delectable +ante-meal beverage left in France now that absinthe is as extinct as the +stuff wherewith the good Vercingetorix used to gladden his captains after +a successful bout with Cæsar. Elodie laughed again and called me a true +Parisian. I made the regulation reply to the compliment. I could see that +we became instant friends.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais, mon cher ami</i>," said Lackaday, "you haven't answered my +question. What are you doing here in Clermont-Ferrand?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't I write to you?"</p> + +<p>"No----"</p> + +<p>I hadn't. I had meant to--just as I had meant to write to Auriol Dayne.</p> + +<p>I wonder whether, in that Final Court from which I have not heard of any +theologian suggesting the possibility of Appeal, they will bring up against +me all the unanswered letters of my life? If they do, then certainly shall +I be a Condemned Spirit.</p> + +<p>I explained airily--just as I have explained to you.</p> + +<p>"Coincidences of the heart, Madame," said I.</p> + +<p>She turned to Andrew. "He has said that just like Horace."</p> + +<p>I realized the compliment. I liked Elodie. Dress her at whatever Rue de +la Paix rag-swindler's that you pleased, you would never metamorphose the +daughter of the people that she was into the lady at ease in all company. +She was a bit <i>mannièrée</i>--on her best behaviour. But she had the +Frenchwoman's instinctive knowledge of conduct. She conveyed, very +charmingly, her welcome to me as a friend of Andrew's.</p> + +<p>"Horace--that's my friend Bakkus I've told you about," said Lackaday. +"He'll be here to-morrow. I should so much like you to meet him."</p> + +<p>"I'm looking forward," said I, "to the opportunity."</p> + +<p>We talked on indifferent subjects; and in the meanwhile I observed Lackaday +closely. He seemed tired and careworn. The bush of carroty hair over his +ears had gone a yellowish grey and more lines seamed his ugly and rugged +face. He was neatly enough dressed in grey flannels, but he wore on his +head the latest model of a French straw hat--the French hatter, left to his +own devices, has ever been the maddest of his tribe--a high, coarsely woven +crown surrounded by a quarter inch brim which related him much more nearly +to Petit Patou than to the British General of Brigade. His delicate fingers +nervously played with cigarette or glass stem. He gave me the impression of +a man holding insecurely on to intelligible life.</p> + +<p>Mild hunger translating itself into a conception of the brain, I looked at +my watch. I waved a hand to the row of waiting cabs with linen canopies on +the other side of the blazing square.</p> + +<p>"Madame," said I, "let me have the pleasure of driving you to Royat and +offering you <i>déjeuner</i>."</p> + +<p>"My dear chap," said Andrew, "impossible. We play this afternoon. Twice a +day, worse luck. We have all sorts of things to arrange."</p> + +<p>Elodie broke in. They had arranged everything already that morning. Their +turn did not arrive till three-forty. There was time for a dozen lunches; +especially since she would go early and see that everything was prepared. +She excused herself to me in the charmingest way possible. Another day +she might perhaps, with my permission, have the pleasure. But to-day she +insisted on Andre lunching with me alone. We must have a thousand things to +say to each other.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tenez</i>," she smiled, rising. "I leave you. There's not a word to be +said. Monsieur le Capitaine, see that the General eats instead of talking +too much." She beamed. "<i>Au grand plaisir de vous revoir.</i>"</p> + +<p>We stood bare-headed and shook hands and watched her make a gracious exit. +As soon as she crossed the tram-lines, she turned and waved her fingers at +me.</p> + +<p>"A charming woman," said I.</p> + +<p>Lackaday smiled in his sad babyish way.</p> + +<p>"Indeed she is," said he.</p> + +<p>We drove into Royat in one of the cool, white canopied victorias.</p> + +<p>"You know we are playing in a circus," he said, indicating a huge play bill +on the side of a wall.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said I. "<i>On revient toujours à ses premières amours.</i>"</p> + +<p>"It's not that, God knows," he replied soberly. "But we were out for these +two weeks of our tour. One can't pick and choose nowadays. The eccentric +comedian will soon be as dead as his ancestor, the Court Jester. The war +has almost wiped us out. Those music-halls--of the Variety type--that have +not been turned, through lack of artists, into picture palaces, are now +given over to Revue. I have been here at Clermont-Ferrand many times--but +now," he shrugged his shoulders. "I had an engagement--at my ordinary +music-hall terms--offered me at the Cirque Vendramin to fill in the blank +weeks, and I couldn't afford to refuse. That's why, my friend, you see me +now, where you first met me, in a circus."</p> + +<p>"And Madame Patou?" said I.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," he sighed, "it is rather a come down for Elodie."</p> + +<p>We reached the hotel and lunched on the terrace, and I did my best, with +the aid of the maître d'hôtel, to carry out the lady's injunctions. As a +matter of fact, she need not have feared that he should miss sustenance +through excessive garrulity. He seemed ill at ease during the meal and I +did most of the talking. It was only after coffee and the last drop of the +last bottle in the hotel--one of the last, alas! in France--of the real +ancient Chartreuse of the Grand Chartreux, that he made some sort of avowal +or explanation. After beating about the bush a bit, he came to the heart of +the matter.</p> + +<p>"I thought the whole war was axed out of my life--with everyone I knew in +it or through it. I wrote all that stuff about myself because I couldn't +help it. It enabled me to find my balance, to keep myself sane. I had to +bridge over--connect somehow--the Andrew Lackaday of 1914 with the Andrew +Lackaday of 1919. A couple of months ago, I thought of sending it to you. +You know my beginnings and my dear old father Ben Flint and so forth. You +came bang into the middle of my most intimate life. I knew in what honour +and affection you were held among those whom I--to whom I--am infinitely +devoted. I..." He paused a moment, and tugged hard at his cigar and +regarded me with bent brows and compressed lips of his parade manner. "I am +a man of few friendships. I gave you my unreserved friendship--it may not +be worth much--but there it is." He glared at me as though he were defying +me to mortal combat, and when I tried to get in a timid word he wiped it +out of my mouth with a gesture. "I wanted you to know the whole truth about +me. Once I never thought about myself. I wasn't worth thinking about. But +the war came. And the war ended. And I'm so upside down that I'm bound to +think about myself and clear up myself, in the eyes of the only human being +that could understand--namely you--or go mad. But I never reckoned to see +you again in the flesh. Our lives were apart as the poles. It was in my +head to write to you something to that effect, when I should receive an +answer to my last letter. I never dreamed that you should meet me now, as I +am."</p> + +<p>"It never occurred to you that I might value your friendship and take a +little trouble to seek you out?"</p> + +<p>"I must confess," said he, "that I did not suspect that anyone, even you, +would have thought it worth while."</p> + +<p>I laughed. He was such a delicious simpleton. So long as he could regard +me as someone on the other side of the grave, he could reveal to me the +intimacies of his emotional life; but as soon as he realized his confidant +in the flesh, embarrassment and confusion overwhelmed him. And, ostrich +again, thinking that, once his head was hidden in the sands of Petit +Patouism, he would be invisible to mortal eye, he had persuaded himself +that his friends would concur in his supposed invisibility.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," I said, "why all this apologia? As to your having ever +told me or written to me about yourself I have kept the closest secrecy. +Not a human soul knows through me the identity of General Lackaday with +Petit Patou. No," I repeated, meeting his eyes under his bent brows, "not a +human being knows even of our first meeting in the Cirque Rocambeau--and as +for Madame Patou, whom you have made me think of always as Elodie--well--my +discretion goes without saying. And as for putting into shape your +reminiscences--I shouldn't dream of letting anyone see my manuscript before +it had passed through your hands. If you like I'll tear the whole thing up +and it will all be buried in that vast oblivion of human affairs of which I +am only too temperamentally capable."</p> + +<p>He threw his cigar over the balustrade of the terrace and stretched out his +long legs, his hands in his pockets and grinned.</p> + +<p>"No, don't do that. One of these days I might be amused to read it. +Besides, it took me such a devil of a time to write. It was good of you to +keep things to yourself although I laid down no conditions of secrecy. I +might have known it." He stared at the hill-side opposite, with its zigzag +path through the vines marked by the figures of zealous pedestrians, and +then he said suddenly: "If I asked you not to come and see our show you +would set me down as a fantastical coward."</p> + +<p>I protested. "How could I, after all you have told me?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to come. Not to-day. Things might be in a muddle. One never +knows. But to-morrow. It will do me good."</p> + +<p>I promised. We chatted a little longer and then he rose to go. I +accompanied him to the tram, his long lean body overwhelming my somewhat +fleshy insignificance. And while I walked with him I thought: "Why is it +that I can't tell a man who confides to me his inmost secrets, to buy, for +God's sake, another hat?"</p> + +<p>The following afternoon, I went to the Cirque Vendramin. I sat in a front +seat. I saw the performance. It was much as I have already described to +you. Except perhaps for his height and ungainliness no one could have +recognized Andrew Lackaday in the painted clown Petit Patou. His +grotesquery of appearance was terrific. From the tip of his red pointed +wig to the bottom of his high heels he must have been eight feet. I should +imagine him to have been out of scale on the music-hall stage. But in +the ring he was perfect. The mastery of his craft, the cleanness of his +jugglery, amazed me. He divested himself of his wig and did a five minutes' +act of lightning impersonation with a trick felt hat, the descendant of the +<i>Chapeau de Tabarin:</i> the ex-Kaiser, Foch, Clemenceau, Lloyd George, +President Wilson--a Boche prisoner, a helmeted Tommy, a Poilu--which was +marvellous, considering the painted Petit Patou face. For all assistance, +Elodie held up a cheap bedroom wall-mirror. He played his one-stringed +fiddle. I admired the technical perfection of the famous cigar-act. I noted +the stupid bewilderment with which he received a typhoon of hoops thrown by +Elodie, and his waggish leer when, clown-wise, he had caught them all. If +the audience packed within the canvas amphitheatre had gone mad in applause +over this exhibition of exquisite skill interlarded with witty patter, I +might have been carried away into enthusiastic appreciation of a great art. +But the audience, as far as applause could be the criterion, missed the +exquisiteness of it, guffawed only at the broadest clowning and applauded +finally just enough to keep up the heart of the management and Les Petit +Patou. I have seen many harrowing things in the course of a complicated +life; but this I reckon was one of the chief among them.</p> + +<p>I thought of the scene a year ago, at Mansfield Park. The distinguished +soldier with his rainbow row of ribbons modestly confused by Evadne's +summons to the household on his appointment to the Brigade; the English +setting; the old red gabled Manor house; the green lawn; the bright English +faces of old Sir Julian and his wife, of young Charles the hero worshipper; +the light in Auriol's eyes; the funny little half-ashamed English ceremony; +again the gaunt, grim, yet childishly smiling figure in khaki, the ideal of +the scarred and proven English leader of men....</p> + +<p>The scene shimmered before me and then I realized the same man in his +abominable travesty of God's image, bowing before the tepid plaudits of an +alien bourgeoisie in a filthy, smelly canvas circus, and I tell you I felt +the agony that comes when time has dried up within one the fount of tears.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XIX</h1> + + + +<p>Soon afterwards I met Horatio Bakkus. With his white hair, ascetic, +clean-shaved face and deep dark eyes he looked like an Italian +ecclesiastic. One's glance instinctively sought the tonsure. He would come +forward on to the open-air platform beneath the thick foliage of the park +with the detached mien of a hierophant; and there he would sing like an +angel, one of those who quire to the youngest-eyed cherubim so as not to +wake them. When I made him my modest compliment he said:</p> + +<p>"Trick, my dear sir. Trick and laziness. I might have had the <i>bel +canto</i>, if I had toiled interminably; but, thank God, I've managed to +carry through on self-indulgent sloth."</p> + +<p>As he lived at Royat I saw much of him alone, Royat being such a wee place +that if two sojourners venture simultaneously abroad they must of necessity +meet. I found him as Lackaday had described him, a widely read scholar +and an amiable and cynical companion. But in addition to these casual +encounters, I was thrown daily into his society with Lackaday and Elodie. +We arranged always to lunch together, Lackaday, Bakkus and myself taking it +in turns to be hosts at our respective hotels. Now and then Elodie +insisted on breaking the routine and acting as hostess at a restaurant in +Clermont-Ferrand. It was all very pleasant. The only woman to three men, +Elodie preened herself with amusing obviousness and set out to make herself +agreeable. She did it with a Frenchwoman's natural grace. But as soon as +the talk drifted into anything allusive to war or books or art or politics, +she manifested an ignorance abysmal in its profundity. I was amazed that +a woman should have been for years the intimate companion of two men like +Lackaday and Bakkus without picking up some superficial knowledge of the +matters they discussed. And I was interested, even to the pitch of my +amazement, to behold the deference of both men, when her polite and vacant +smile proclaimed her inability to follow the conversation. Invariably one +of them would leave me to the other and turn to Elodie. It was Bakkus more +often who thus broke away. He had the quick impish faculty, one of the +rarest of social gifts, of suddenly arresting a woman's attention by a +phrase, apparently irrelevant, yet to her woman's jumping mind relevant to +the matter under dispute and of carrying it off into a pleasant feminine +sphere. It was impish, and I believe deliberately so, for on such occasions +one could catch the ironic gleam in his eyes. The man's sincere devotion to +both of them was obvious.</p> + +<p>"Madame Patou..." I began one day, at lunch--we were talking of the tyranny +of fashion, even in the idyllic lands where ladies are fully dressed in +teeth necklaces and yellow ochre--"Madame Patou..."</p> + +<p>She threw up her hands. We were lunching very well--the <i>petit vin</i> +of Auvergne is delicious--"<i>Mais voyons donc</i>--why all this ceremony +among friends? Here we are, we three, and it is André, Horace, Elodie--and +here we are, we four, and it is Monsieur Bakkus, and Lackaday--never will I +be able to pronounce that word--and Madame Patou and Monsieur le Capitaine +Hylton. Look. To my friends I am Elodie <i>tout court</i>--and you?"</p> + +<p>It was an embarrassing moment. Andrew's mug of a face was as expressionless +as that of a sphinx. He would no more have dreamed of addressing me by my +Christian name than of hailing Field-Marshal Haig as Douglas. White-haired, +thin-lipped Bakkus smiled sardonically. But there was no help for it.</p> + +<p>"My very intimate friends call me Tony," said I.</p> + +<p>"To-ny," she echoed. "But it is charming, To-ny. A <i>votre santé</i>, +To-ny."</p> + +<p>She held put her glass--I was sitting next to her. I clinked mine politely.</p> + +<p>"To the health of the charming Elodie."</p> + +<p>She was delighted. Made us all clink glasses. Bakkus said, in English:</p> + +<p>"To the abolition of Misters, in obedience to the Lady."</p> + +<p>"And now," cried Elodie, "what were you going to say about fashions in +necklaces made of dogs' teeth?"</p> + +<p>We pursued our frivolous talk. Bakkus said:</p> + +<p>"The whole of the Fall of Man arose from Eve pestering Adam for a +russet-brown fig-leaf in spring time."</p> + +<p>"It was after the fall that they made themselves aprons," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"She had her eye on those fig-leaves long before," retorted Bakkus.</p> + +<p>We laughed. There was no great provocation to mirth. But we were attuned to +gaiety. My three friends were lunching with me on the terrace of the Royat +Palace Hotel. It is a long, wide terrace, reaching the whole width of the +façade of the building, and doors lead on to it from all the public rooms. +Only half of it, directly accessible from the <i>salle à manger</i> is +given over to restaurant tables. Ours was on the outskirts. I like to be +free, to have plenty of room and air; especially on a broiling August day. +We were in cool shade. A few feet below us stretched a lower terrace, with +grass-plots and flowers and a fountain and gaily awned garden seats and +umbrella-shaded chairs. And there over the parapet the vine-clad hill +quivered in the sunshine against the blue summer sky, and around us were +cheerful folk at lunch forgetful of hearts and blood-pressure in the +warm beauty of the day. Perhaps now and then a stern and elderly French +couple--he stolid, strongly bearded and decorated, she thin and brown, +over-coiffured and over-ringed--with an elderly angular daughter, hard to +marry, regarded us with eyes of disapproval. Elodie in happy mood threw off +restraint, as, in more private and intimate surroundings, she would have +thrown off her corset. But we cared not for the disapproval of the correct +French profiteers....</p> + +<p>"If they tried to smile," said Elodie, incidentally, "they would burst and +all the gold would drop out."</p> + +<p>Lackaday threw back his head and laughed--the first real, hearty laugh I +had seen him exhibit since I had met him in France. You see the day, the +food, the wine, the silly talk, the dancing wit of Bakkus, the delightful +comradeship, had brought the four of us into a little atmosphere of +joyousness. There was nothing very intellectual about it. In the hideous +realm of pure intellectuality there could not exist even the hardiest ghost +of a smile. Laughter, like love, is an expression of man's vehement revolt +against reason. So Andrew Lackaday threw himself back in his chair and +laughed at Elodie's quip.</p> + +<p>But suddenly, as if some blasting hand had smitten him, his laughter +ceased. His jaw dropped for a second and then snapped like a vice. He +was sitting on my left hand, his back to the balustrade, and facing the +dining-room. At the sight of him we all instinctively sobered and bent +forward in questioning astonishment. He recovered himself quickly and tried +to smile as if nothing had happened--but, seeing his eyes had been fixed on +something behind me, I turned round.</p> + +<p>And there, calmly walking up the long terrace towards us, was Lady Auriol +Dayne.</p> + +<p>I sprang from my chair and strode swiftly to meet her. From a grating sound +behind me I knew that Lackaday had also risen. I stretched out my hand +mechanically and, regardless of manners, I said:</p> + +<p>"What the devil are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>She withdrew the hand that she too had put forward.</p> + +<p>"That's a nice sort of welcome."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said I. "Please consider the question put more politely."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm here," she replied, "because it happens to be my good pleasure."</p> + +<p>"Then I hope you'll find lots of pleasure, my dear Auriol."</p> + +<p>She laughed, standing as cool as you please, very grateful to the eye in +tussore coat and skirt, with open-necked blouse, and some kind of rakish +hat displaying her thick auburn hair in defiance of the fashion which +decreed concealment even of eyebrows with flower-pot head gear. She laughed +easily, mockingly, although she saw plainly the pikestaff of a Lackaday +upright a few yards away from her, in a rigid attitude of parade.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," she said, "I must go and say how d'ye do to the General."</p> + +<p>I gave way to her. We walked side by side to the table. She advanced to him +in the most unconcerned manner. Bakkus rose politely.</p> + +<p>"My dear General, fancy seeing you here! How delightful."</p> + +<p>I have never seen a man's eyes devour a woman with such idiotic +obviousness.</p> + +<p>"Lady Auriol," said he, "you are the last person I ever thought of +meeting." He paused for a second. Then, "May I have the pleasure of +introducing--Madame Patou--Lady Auriol Dayne--Mr. Bakkus--"</p> + +<p>"Do sit down, please, everybody," said Auriol, after the introductions. +"I feel like a common nuisance. But I came by the night train and went +to sleep and only woke up to find myself just in time for the fag-end of +lunch."</p> + +<p>"I am host," said I. "Won't you join us?"</p> + +<p>What else was there to do? She glanced at me with smiling inscrutability.</p> + +<p>"You're awfully kind, Tony. But I'm disturbing you."</p> + +<p>The maitre d'hôtel and waiter with a twist of legerdemain set her place +between myself and Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"This is a charming spot, isn't it, Madame Patou?" she remarked.</p> + +<p>Elodie, who had regarded her wonderingly as though she had bean a creature +of another world, bowed and smiled.</p> + +<p>"We all talk French, my dear Auriol," said I, "because Madame Patou knows +no English."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Lady Auriol. "I never thought of it." She translated her remark. +"I'm afraid my French is that of the British Army, where I learned most of +it. But if people are kind and patient I can make myself understood."</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle speaks French very well," replied Elodie politely.</p> + +<p>"You are very good to say so, Madame."</p> + +<p>I caught questioning, challenging glances flashing across the table, each +woman hostilely striving to place the other. You see, we originally sat: +Elodie on my right hand, then Bakkus facing straight down the terrace, then +Lackaday, then myself. It occurred to me at once that, with her knowledge +of my convention-trained habits, she would argue that, at a luncheon party, +either I would not have placed the lady next the man to whom she belonged, +or that she was a perfectly independent guest, belonging, so to speak, to +nobody. But on the latter hypothesis, what was she doing in this galley? I +swear I saw the wrinkle on Lady Auriol's brow betokening the dilemma. She +had known me from childhood's days of lapsed memory. I had always been. +Romantically she knew Lackaday. Horatio Bakkus, with his sacerdotal air and +well-bred speech and manner, evidently belonged to our own social class. +But Madame Patou, who mopped up the sauce on her plate with a bit of bread, +and made broad use of a toothpick, and leaned back and fanned herself +with her napkin and breathed a "<i>Mon Dieu, qu'ilfait chaud</i>" and +contributed nothing intelligent to the conversation, she could not accept +as the detached lady invited by me to charm my two male guests. She was +then driven to the former hypothesis. Madame Patou belonged in some way to +the man by whose side she was not seated.</p> + +<p>Of course, there was another alternative. I might have been responsible for +the poor lady. But she was as artless as a poor lady could be. Addressing +my two friends it was always André and Horace, and instinctively she used +the familiar "<i>tu</i>." Addressing me she had affrightedly forgotten the +pact of Christian names, and it was "Monsieur le Capitaine" and, of course, +the "<i>vous</i>" which she had never dreamed of changing. Even so poor a +French scholar as Lady Auriol could not be misled into such absurd paths of +conjecture.</p> + +<p>She belonged therefore, in some sort of fashion, to General Lackaday. An +elderly man of the world, with his nerves on edge, has no need of wizardry +to divine the psychology of such a situation.</p> + +<p>Mistress of social forms, Lady Auriol, after sweeping Elodie into her net, +caught Horatio Bakkus and through reference to her own hospital experiences +during the war, wrung from him the avowal of his concerts for the wounded +in Paris.</p> + +<p>"How splendid of you! By the way, how do you spell your name? It's an +uncommon one."</p> + +<p>"With two k's."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if you have anything to do with an old friend of my fattier, +Archdeacon Bakkus?"</p> + +<p>"My eldest brother."</p> + +<p>"No, really? One of my earliest recollections is his buying a prize boar +from my father."</p> + +<p>"Just like the dear fellow's prodigality," said Bakkus. "He had a whole +Archdeaconry to his hand for nothing. I've lately spent a couple of months +with him in Westmorland, so I know."</p> + +<p>"How small the world is," said Lady Auriol to Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"Too small," said he.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Auriol blankly.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen our good friends, the Verity-Stewarts lately?"</p> + +<p>She had. They were in perfect health. They were wondering what had become +of him.</p> + +<p>"And indeed, General," she flashed, "what <i>has</i> become of you?"</p> + +<p>"It is not good," said Elodie, in quick anticipation, "that the General +should neglect his English friends."</p> + +<p>There sounded the note of proprietorship, audible to anybody. Auriol's eyes +dwelt for a second on Elodie; then she turned to Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"Madame Patou is quite right."</p> + +<p>Said he, with one of his rare flights into imagery, "I was but a shooting +star across the English firmament."</p> + +<blockquote> "Encore une étoile qui file,<br /> + File, file et disparait!"</blockquote> + +<p>"Oh no, my dear friend," laughed Bakkus. "He can't persuade us, Lady +Auriol, that he is afflicted with the morbidezza of 1830."</p> + +<p>"<i>Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela?</i>" asked Elodie, sharply.</p> + +<p>"It was a fashion long ago, my dear, for poets to assume the gaiety of a +funeral. Even Béranger who wrote <i>Le Roi d'Yvetot</i>--you know it--"</p> + +<p>"Naturally, '<i>Il était un roi d'Yvetot!</i>'"--cried Elodie, who had +learned it at school.</p> + +<p>"Well--of course. Even Béranger could not escape the malady of +his generation. Do you remember"--his swift glance embraced us +all--"Longfellow's criticism of European poets of that epoch, in his prose +masterpiece, <i>Hyperion?</i> He refers to Salis and Matthisson, but +Lamartine and people of his kidney come in--'Melancholy gentlemen' pardon, +my dear Elodie, if I quote it in English--'Melancholy gentlemen to whom +life was only a dismal swamp, upon whose margin they walked with cambric +handkerchiefs in their hands, sobbing and sighing and making signals to +Death to come and ferry them over the lake.' <i>Cela veut dire</i>," he +made a marvellous French paraphrase for Elodie's benefit.</p> + +<p>"<i>Comprends pas</i>," she shrugged at the boredom of literary allusion. +"I don't see what all that has to do with André. I shall see, Mademoiselle, +that he writes to his friends."</p> + +<p>"You will be doing them a great service, Madame," replied Auriol.</p> + +<p>There was a stiff silence. If Bakkus had stuck to his intention of driving +the conversation away from embarrassing personal questions, instead of +being polite to Elodie, we should have been spared this freezing moment of +self-consciousness. I asked Auriol whether she had had a pleasant journey, +and we discussed the discomfort of trains. From then to the end of the meal +the conversation halted. It was a relief to rise and fall into groups as we +strolled down the terrace to coffee. I manoeuvred Elodie and Bakkus to the +front leaving Auriol and Lackaday to follow. I sought a table at the far +end, for coffee; but when I turned round, I discovered that the pair had +descended by the mid-way flight of three or four steps to the grass-plotted +and fountained terrace below.</p> + +<p>We sat down. Elodie asked:</p> + +<p>"Who is that lady?"</p> + +<p>I explained as best I could. "She is the daughter of an English nobleman, +whence her title. The way to address her is 'Lady Auriol.' She did lots of +work during the war, work of hospital organization in France, and now she +is still working for France. I have known her since she was three years +old; so she is a very great friend of mine."</p> + +<p>Her eyes wandered to the bit of red thatched head and the gleam of the +crown of a white hat just visible over the balustrade.</p> + +<p>"She appears also to be a great friend of André."</p> + +<p>"The General met many charming ladies during his stay in England," I lied +cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Which means," she said with a toss of her head and an ironical smile, +"that the General behaved like a real--who was it, Horace, who loved +women so much? <i>Ah oui</i>--like a real Don Juan." She wagged her plump +forefinger. "Oh no, I know my André."</p> + +<p>"I could tell you stories--" said I.</p> + +<p>"Which would not be true."</p> + +<p>She laughed in a forced way--and her eyes again sought the tops of the +couple promenading in the sunshine. She resumed her catechism.</p> + +<p>"How old is she?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know exactly."</p> + +<p>"But since you have known her since she was three years old?"</p> + +<p>"If I began to count years at my time of life," said I, "I should die of +fright."</p> + +<p>"She looks about thirty. Wouldn't you say so, Horace? It is droll that she +has not married. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Before the war she was a great traveller. She has been by herself all over +the world in all sorts of places among wild tribes and savages. She has +been far too busy to think of marriage."</p> + +<p>Elodie looked incredulous. "One has always one's <i>moments perdus.</i>"</p> + +<p>"One doesn't marry in odd moments," said I.</p> + +<p>"You and Horace are old bachelors who know nothing at all about it. Tell +me. Is she very rich?"</p> + +<p>"None of our old families are very rich nowadays," I replied, rather at +a loss to account, save on the score of feminine curiosity, for this +examination. If it had not been for her mother who left her a small fortune +of a thousand or so a year, Auriol would have been as penniless as her two +married sisters. Her brother, Lord Vintrey, once a wastrel subaltern of +Household Cavalry, and, after a dashing, redeeming war record, now an +expensive Lieutenant-Colonel, ate up all the ready money that Lord +Mountshire could screw out of his estates. With Elodie I could not enter +into these explanations.</p> + +<p>"All the same she is passably rich," Elodie persisted. "One does not buy a +costume like that under five hundred francs."</p> + +<p>The crimson vested and sashed and tarbooshed Algerian negro brought the +coffee, and poured out the five cups. We sipped. I noticed Elodie's hand +shake.</p> + +<p>"If their coffee gets cold, so much the worse."</p> + +<p>Bakkus, who had maintained a discreet silence hitherto, remarked:--</p> + +<p>"Unless Andrew's head is particularly thick, he'll get a sunstroke in this +blazing sun."</p> + +<p>"That's true," cried Elodie and, rising with a great scraping of chair, she +rushed to the balustrade and addressed him shrilly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais dis donc André, tu veux attraper un coup de soleil?</i>"</p> + +<p>We heard his voice in reply: "<i>Nous rentrons</i>."</p> + +<p>A few moments afterwards they mounted from the lower terrace and +came towards us. Lackaday's face was set in one of its tight-lipped +expressionless moods. Lady Auriol's cheek was flushed, and though she +smiled conventional greeting, her eyes were very serious.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to have put into danger the General's health, madame," said she +in her clear and British French. "But when two comrades of the Great War +meet for the first time, one is forgetful."</p> + +<p>She gave me a little sign rejecting the offered coffee. Lackaday took his +cup and drank it off at one gulp. He looked at his wrist watch, the only +remaining insignia of the British soldier.</p> + +<p>"Time for our tram, Elodie."</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est vrai?</i>" He held his wrist towards her. "<i>Oui, mon Dieu! +Miladi--</i>" She funked the difficult "Lady Auriol."</p> + +<p>"<i>Au revoir, Madame,</i>" said Auriol shaking hands.</p> + +<p>"<i>Trop honorée,</i>" said Elodie, somewhat defiantly. "<i>Au revoir, +Miladi.</i>" She made an awkward little bow. "<i>Et toi,</i>" she extended +a careless left hand to Bakkus.</p> + +<p>"I will see you to the lift," said I.</p> + +<p>We walked down the terrace in silence to the <i>salon</i> door just inside +which was the lift which took one down some four stories to the street. +Two things were obvious: the perturbation of the simple Lackaday and the +jealousy of Elodie.</p> + +<p>"<i>Au revoir, monsieur, et merci,</i>" she said, with over emphasized +politeness, as we stood at the lift gates.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, old chap," said Lackaday and gripped my hand hard.</p> + +<p>As soon as I returned to the end of the terrace, Bakkus rose and took his +leave. Auriol and I were alone. Of course other humans were clustering +round tables all the length of the terrace. But we had our little end +corner to ourselves. I sat down next to her.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said I.</p> + +<p>She bent forward, and her face was that of the woman whom I had met in the +rain and mud and stark reality of the war.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me?"</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XX</h1> + + + +<p>If a glance could destroy, if Lady Auriol had been a Gorgon or a basilisk +or a cockatrice, then had I been a slain Anthony Hylton.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>The far-flung gesture of her arm ending in outspread fingers might have +been that of Elodie.</p> + +<p>"Tell you what, my dear?" said I.</p> + +<p>"The whole wretched tragedy. I came to you a year ago with my heart in +my hand--the only human creature living who I thought could help me. And +you've let me down like this. It's damnable!"</p> + +<p>"An honourable man," said I, nettled, "doesn't betray confidences."</p> + +<p>"An honourable man! I like that! I gave you my confidences. Haven't you +betrayed them?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," said I. "Not the faintest hint of what you have said to me +have I whispered into the ear of man or woman."</p> + +<p>She fumed. "If you had, you would be--unmentionable."</p> + +<p>"Precisely. And I should have been equally undeserving of mention, if I had +told you of the secret, or double, or ex-war--however you like to describe +it--life of our friend."</p> + +<p>"The thing is not on all fours," she said with a snap of her fingers. "You +could have given me the key to the mystery--such as it is. You could have +prevented me from making a fool of myself. You could, Tony. From the very +start."</p> + +<p>"At the very start, I knew little more than you did. Nothing save that he +was bred in a circus, where I met him thirty years ago. I knew nothing more +of his history till this April, when he told me he was Petit Patpu of the +music-halls. His confidence has been given me bit by bit. The last time +I saw you I had never heard of Madame Patou. It was you that guessed the +woman in his life. I had no idea whether you were right or wrong."</p> + +<p>"Yet you could have given me a hint--the merest hint--without betraying +confidences--as you call it," she mouthed my phrase ironically. "It was not +playing the game."</p> + +<p>"I gathered," said I, "that playing the game was what both of you had +decided to do, in view of the obviously implied lady in the background."</p> + +<p>"Well?" she challenged.</p> + +<p>"If it's a question of playing the game"--I had carried the war into the +enemy's quarters--"may I repeat my original rude question this morning? +What the devil are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>She turned on me in a fury. "How dare you insinuate such a thing?"</p> + +<p>"You've not come to Royat for the sake of my beautiful eyes."</p> + +<p>"I'm under no obligation to tell you why I've come to Royat. Let us say my +liver's out of order."</p> + +<p>"Then my dear," said I, "you have come to the wrong place to cure it."</p> + +<p>She glanced at me wrathfully, took out a cigarette, waved away with an +unfriendly gesture the briquette I had drawn from my pocket, and struck one +of her own matches. There fell a silence, during which I sat back in my +chair, my arms on the elbow and my fingers' tips joined together, and +assumed an air of philosophic meditation.</p> + +<p>Presently she said: "There are times, Tony, when I should like to kill +you."</p> + +<p>"I am glad," said I, "to note the resumption of human relations."</p> + +<p>"You are always so pragmatically and priggishly correct," she said.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said I, "if you want me to sympathize with you in this +impossible situation, I'll do it with all my heart. But don't round on me +for either bringing it about or not preventing it."</p> + +<p>"I was anxious to know something about Andrew Lackaday--I don't care +whether you think me a fool or not"--she was still angry and defiant--"I +wrote you pointedly. You did not answer my letter. I wrote again reminding +you of your lack of courtesy. You replied like a pretty fellow in a morning +coat at the Foreign Office and urbanely ignored my point."</p> + +<p>She puffed indignantly. The terrace began to be deserted. There was a +gap of half a dozen tables between us and the next group. The flamboyant +Algerian removed the coffee cups. When we were alone again, I reiterated +my explanation. At every stage of my knowledge I was held in the bond of +secrecy. Lackaday's sensitive soul dreaded, more than all the concentrated +high-explosive bombardment of the whole of the late German Army, the +possibility of Lady Auriol knowing him as the second-rate music-hall +artist.</p> + +<p>"You are the woman of his dreams," said I. "You're an unapproachable star +in mid ether, or whatever fanciful lover's image you like to credit him +with. The only thing for his salvation was to make a clean cut. Don't you +see?"</p> + +<p>"That's all very pretty," said Auriol. "But what about me? A clean cut you +call it? A man cuts a woman in half and goes off to his own life and thinks +he has committed an act of heroic self-sacrifice!"</p> + +<p>I put my hand on hers. "My dear child," said I, "if Andrew Lackaday thought +you were eating out your heart for him he would be the most flabbergasted +creature in the world."</p> + +<p>She bent her capable eyes on me. "That's a bit dogmatic, isn't it? May I +ask if you have any warrant for what you're saying?"</p> + +<p>"In his own handwriting."</p> + +<p>I gave a brief account of the manuscript.</p> + +<p>"Where is it?" she asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"In my safe in London--I'm sorry----"</p> + +<p>In indignation she flashed: "I wouldn't read a word of it."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," said I. "Nor would I put it into your hands without +Lackaday's consent. Anyhow, that's my authority and warrant."</p> + +<p>She threw the stub of her cigarette across the terrace and went back to the +original cry:</p> + +<p>"Oh Tony, if you had only given me some kind of notion!" + +"I've tried to prove to you that I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," she admitted wearily.</p> + +<p>"Men have their standards. Forgive me if I've been unreasonable."</p> + +<p>When a woman employs her last weapon, her confession of unreason, and +demands forgiveness, what can a man do but proclaim himself the worm that +he is? We went through a pretty scene of reconciliation.</p> + +<p>"And now," said I, "what did Lackaday, in terms of plain fact, tell you +down there?"</p> + +<p>She told me. Apparently he had given her a précis of his life's history +amazingly on the lines of a concentrated military despatch.</p> + +<p>"Lady Auriol," said he, as soon as they were out of earshot, "you are here +by some extraordinary coincidence. In a few hours you will be bound to hear +all about me which I desired you never to know. It is best that I should +tell you myself, at once."</p> + +<p>It was extraordinary what she had learned from him in those few minutes. +He had gone on remorselessly, in his staccato manner, as if addressing a +parade, which I knew so well, putting before her the dry yet vital facts of +his existence.</p> + +<p>"I knew there was a woman--wife and children--what does it matter? I told +you," she said. "But--oh God!" She smote her hands together hopelessly, +fist into palm. "I never dreamed of anything like this."</p> + +<p>"I am in a position to give you chapter and verse for it all," said I.</p> + +<p>"Oh I know," she said, dejectedly, and the vivid flower that was Auriol, +in a mood of dejection, suggested nothing more in the world than a +drought-withered hybiscus--her colour had faded, the sweeping fulness +of her drooped, her twenties caught the threatening facial lines of her +forties--what can I say more? The wilting of a tropical bloom--that was her +attitude--the sap and the life all gone.</p> + +<p>"Oh I know. There's nothing vulgar about it. It goes back into the years. +But still ..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, my dear," said I, quickly. "I understand."</p> + +<p>We were alone now on the terrace. Far away, a waiter hung over the +balustrade, listening to the band playing in the Park below. But for the +noise of the music, all was still on the breathless August air. Presently +she drew her palms over her face.</p> + +<p>"I'm dog-tired."</p> + +<p>"That abominable night journey," said I, sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"I sat on a <i>strapontin</i> in the corridor, all night," she said.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, what madness!" I cried horrified, although in the war she +had performed journeys compared with which this would be the luxury of +travel. "Why didn't you book a <i>coupé-lit</i>, even a seat, beforehand?"</p> + +<p>She smiled dismally. "I only made up my mind yesterday morning. I got it +into my head that you knew everything there was to be known about Andrew +Lackaday."</p> + +<p>"But how did you get it?"</p> + +<p>My question was one of amazement. No man had more out-rivalled an oyster in +incommunicativeness.</p> + +<p>It appeared that I suffered from the defects of my qualities. I had been +over-diplomatic. My innocence had been too bland for my worldly years. My +evasions had proclaimed me suspect. My criticism of Royat made my fear of a +chance visit from her so obvious. My polite hope that I should see her in +Paris on my way back, rubbed in it. If there had been no bogies about, +and Royat had been the Golgotha of my picture, would not my well-known +selfishness, when I heard she was at a loose end in August Paris, have +summoned her with a "Do for Heaven's sake come and save me from these +selected candidates for burial?" I had done it before, in analogous +circumstances, I at Nauheim, she at Nuremberg. No. It was, on the contrary: +"For Heaven's sake don't come near me. I'll see you in Paris if by +misfortune you happen to be there."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said I, "didn't it occur to you that your astuteness might be +overreaching itself and that you might find me here--well--in the not +infrequent position of a bachelor man who desires to withdraw himself from +the scrutiny of his acquaintance?"</p> + +<p>She broke into disconcerting laughter.</p> + +<p>"You? Tony?"</p> + +<p>"Hang it all!" I cried angrily, "I'm not eighty yet!"</p> + +<p>However virtuous a man may be, he resents the contemptuous denial to his +claim to be a potential libertine.</p> + +<p>She laughed again; then sobered down and spoke soothingly to me. Perhaps +she did me injustice, but such a thing had never entered her mind engaged +as it was with puzzlement over Lackaday. When people are afflicted with +fixed ideas, they grow perhaps telepathic. Otherwise she could not account +for her certainty that I could give her some information. She knew that I +would not write. What was a flying visit--a night's journey to Royat? In +her wander years, she had travelled twelve hours to a place and twelve back +in order to buy a cabbage. Her raid on me was nothing so wonderful.</p> + +<p>"So certain was I," she said, "that you were hiding things from me, that +when I saw him this morning at your table, I was scarcely surprised."</p> + +<p>"My dear Auriol," said I, when she had finished the psychological sketch of +her flight from Paris, "I think the man who unlearned most about women as +the years went on, was Methuselah."</p> + +<p>"A woman only puts two and two together and makes it five. It's as simple +as that."</p> + +<p>"No," said I, "the damnable complex mystery of it, to a man's mind, is that +five should be the right answer."</p> + +<p>She dismissed the general proposition with a shrug.</p> + +<p>"Well, there it is. I was miserable--I've been miserable for months--I was +hung up in Paris. I had this impulse, intuition--call it what you like. I +came--I saw--and I wish to goodness I hadn't!"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't so wrong after all, then," I suggested mildly.</p> + +<p>She laughed, this time mirthlessly. "I should have taken it for a warning. +Blue Beard's chamber...."</p> + +<p>We were silent for a while. The waiters came scurrying down with trays and +cloths and cups to set the little tables for tea. The western sun had burst +below the awning and flooded half the length of the terrace with light +leaving us by the wall just a strip of shade.</p> + +<p>I said as gently as I could: "When you two parted in April, I thought you +recognized it as final."</p> + +<p>"It would have been, if only I had known," she said.</p> + +<p>"Known what?"</p> + +<p>She answered me with weary impatience.</p> + +<p>"Anything definite. If he had gone to his death I could have borne it. If +he had gone to any existence to which I had a clue, I could have borne it. +But don't you see?" she cried, with a swift return of vitality. "Here was +a man whom any woman would be proud to love--a strong thing of flesh and +blood--disappearing into the mist. I said something heroical to him about +the creatures of the old legends. One talks high-falutin' nonsense at +times. But I didn't realize the truth of it till afterwards. A woman, even +though it hurts her like the devil, prefers to keep a mental grip of a man. +He's there--in Paris, Bombay, Omaha, with his wife and family, doing this, +that and the other. He's still alive. He's still in some kind of human +relation with you. You grind your teeth and say that it's all in the day's +work. You know where you are. But when a man fades out of your life like +a wraith--well--you don't know where you are. It has been maddening--the +ghastly seriousness of it. I've done my best to keep sane. I'm a woman with +a lot of physical energy--I've run it for all it's worth. But this uncanny +business got on my nerves. If the man had not cared for me, I would have +kicked myself into sense. But--oh, it's no use talking about that--it goes +without saying. Besides you know as well as I do. You've already told me. +Well then, you have it. The man I loved, the man who loved me, goes and +disappears, like the shooting star he talked about, into space. I've done +all sorts of fool things to get on his track, just to know. At last I came +to you. But I had no notion of running him down in the flesh. You're sure +of that, Tony, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>The Diana in her flashed from candid eyes.</p> + +<p>"Naturally," I answered. How could she know that Lackaday was here? +I asked, in order to get to the bottom of this complicated emotional +condition:</p> + +<p>"But didn't you ever think of writing--oh, as a friend of course--to +Lackaday, care of War Office, Cox's...?"</p> + +<p>She retorted: "I'm not a sloppy school-girl, my friend."</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said I. I paused, while the waiter brought tea. "And now that +there's no longer any mystery?"</p> + +<p>Her bosom rose with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"I mourn my mystery, Tony."</p> + +<p>She poured out tea. I passed the uninspiring food that accompanied it. We +conversed in a lower key of tension. At last she said:</p> + +<p>"If I don't walk, I'll break something."</p> + +<p>A few moments afterwards we were in the street. She drew the breath of one +suffering from exhausted air.</p> + +<p>"Let us go up a hill."</p> + +<p>Why the ordinary human being should ever desire to walk up hill I have +never been able to discover. For me, the comfortable places. But with Lady +Auriol the craving was symbolical of character. I agreed.</p> + +<p>"Choose the least inaccessible," I pleaded.</p> + +<p>We mounted the paths through the vines. At the top, we sat down. I wiped +a perspiring brow. She filled her lungs with the air stirred by a faint +breeze.</p> + +<p>"Whereabouts is this circus?" she asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>I told her, waving a hand in the direction of Clermont-Ferrand.</p> + +<p>"How far?"</p> + +<p>"About two or three miles."</p> + +<p>"I'll go there this evening," she announced calmly.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>I nearly jumped off the wooden bench.</p> + +<p>"My dear Auriol," said I, "my heart's dicky. You oughtn't to spring things +like that on me."</p> + +<p>"I don't see where the shock comes in. Why shouldn't I go to a circus if I +want to?"</p> + +<p>"It's your wanting to go that astonishes me."</p> + +<p>"You're very easily surprised," she remarked. "You ought to take something +for it."</p> + +<p>"Possibly," said I. "But why on earth do you want to see the wretched +Lackaday make a fool of himself?"</p> + +<p>"If you take it that way," she said icily, "I'm sorry I mentioned it. I +could have gone without your being a whit the wiser."</p> + +<p>I lifted my shoulders. "After all, it's entirely your affair. You talked +a while ago about mourning your mystery--which suggested a not altogether +unpoetical frame of mind."</p> + +<p>"There s no poetry at all about it," she declared. "That's all gone. We've +come to facts. I'm going to get all the facts. Crucify myself with facts, +if you like. That's the only way to get at Truth."</p> + +<p>When a woman of Auriol's worth talks like this, one feels ashamed to +counter her with platitudes of worldly wisdom. She was going to the Cirque +Vendramin. Nothing short of an Act of God could prevent her. I sat helpless +for a few moments. At last, taking advantage of a gleam of common sense, I +said:</p> + +<p>"It's all very well for you to try to get to the bedrock of things. But +what about Lackaday?"</p> + +<p>"He's not to know."</p> + +<p>"He'll have to know," I insisted warmly. "The circus tent is but a small +affair. You'll be there under his nose." I followed the swift change on her +face. "Of course--if you don't care if he sees you..."</p> + +<p>She flashed: "You don't suppose I'm capable of such cruelty!"</p> + +<p>"Of course not," said I.</p> + +<p>She looked over at the twin spires of the cathedral beneath which the town +slumbered in the blue mist of the late afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, Tony," she said presently. "I didn't think of it. I should +naturally have gone to the best seats, which would have been fatal. But +I've been in many circuses. There's always the top row at the back, next +the canvas...."</p> + +<p>"My dear good child," I cried, "you couldn't go up there among the lowest +rabble of Clermont-Ferrand!"</p> + +<p>She glanced at me in pity and sighed indulgently.</p> + +<p>"You talk as if you had been born a hundred years ago, and had never heard +of--still less gone through--the late war. What the----" she paused, then +thrust her face into mine, so that when she spoke I felt her breath on +my cheek, "What the <i>Hell</i> do you think I care about the rabble of +Clermont-Ferrand?"</p> + +<p>That she would walk undismayed into a den of hyenas or Bolsheviks or +Temperance Reformers or any other benighted savages I was perfectly aware. +That she would be perfectly able to fend for herself I have no doubt. +But still, among the uneducated dregs of the sugar-less, match-less, +tobacco-less populace of a French provincial town who attributed most +of their misfortunes to the grasping astuteness of England, we were not +peculiarly beloved.</p> + +<p>This I explained to her, while she continued to smile pityingly. It was all +the more incentive to adventure. If I had assured her that she would be +torn limb from limb, like an inconvincible aristocrat flaunting abroad +during the early days of the French Revolution, she would have grown +enthusiastic. Finally, in desperation because, in my own way, I was fond of +Auriol, I put down a masculine and protecting foot.</p> + +<p>"You're not going there without me, anyhow," said I.</p> + +<p>"I've been waiting for that polite offer for the last half hour," she +replied.</p> + +<p>What I said, I said to myself--to the midmost self of my inmost being. I +am not going to tell you what it was. This isn't the secret history of my +life.</p> + +<p>A cloud came up over the shoulder of the hills. We descended to the +miniature valley of Royat.</p> + +<p>"It's going to rain," I said.</p> + +<p>"Let it," said Auriol unconcerned.</p> + +<p>Then began as dreary an evening as I ever have spent.</p> + +<p>We dined, long before anybody else, in a tempest of rain which sent down +the thermometer Heaven knows how many degrees. Half-way through dinner we +were washed from the terrace into the empty dining-room. There was thunder +and lightning <i>ad libitum.</i></p> + +<p>"A night like this--it's absurd," said I.</p> + +<p>"The absurder the better," she replied. "You stay at home, Tony dear. +You're a valetudinarian. I'll look after myself."</p> + +<p>But this could not be done. I have my obstinacies as mulish as other +people's.</p> + +<p>"If you go, I go."</p> + +<p>"As you have, according to your pampered habit, bought a car from now till +midnight, I don't see how we can fail to keep dry and warm."</p> + +<p>I had no argument left. Of course, I hate to swallow an early and rapid +dinner. One did such things in the war, gladly dislocating an elderly +digestion in the service of one's country. In peace time one demands +a compensating leisure. But this would be comprehensible only to a +well-trained married woman. My misery would have been outside Auriol's +ken. I meekly said nothing. The world of young women knows nothing of its +greatest martyrs.</p> + +<p>When it starts thundering and lightening in Royat, it goes on for +hours. The surrounding mountains play an interminable game of which the +thunderbolt is the football. They make an infernal noise about it, and the +denser the deluge the more they exult.</p> + +<p>Amid the futile flashes and silly thunderings--no man who has been under an +intensive bombardment can have any respect left for the pitiful foolery of +a thunderstorm--and a drenching downpour of rain (which is solid business +on the part of Nature) we scuttled from the hired car to the pay-desk of +the circus. We were disguised in caps and burberrys, and Lady Auriol had +procured a black veil from some shop in Royat. We paid our fifty centimes +and entered the vast emptiness of the tent. We were far too early, finding +only half a dozen predecessors. We climbed to the remotest Alpine height of +benches. The wet, cold canvas radiated rheumatism into our backs. A steady +drip from the super-saturated tent above us descended on our heads and down +our necks. Auriol buttoned the collar of her burberry and smiled through +her veil.</p> + +<p>"It's like old times."</p> + +<p>"Old times be anythinged," said I, vainly trying to find comfort on six +inches of rough boarding.</p> + +<p>"It's awfully good of you to come, Tony," she said after a while. "You +can't think what a help it is to have you with me."</p> + +<p>"If you think to mollify me with honeyed words," said I, "you have struck +the wrong animal."</p> + +<p>It is well to show a woman, now and then, that you are not entirely her +dupe.</p> + +<p>She laid her hand on mine. "I mean it, dear. Really. Do you suppose I'm +having an evening out?"</p> + +<p>We continued the intimate sparring bout for a while longer. Then we lapsed +into silence and watched the place gradually fill with the populace of +Clermont-Ferrand. The three top tiers soon became crowded. The rest were +but thinly peopled. But there was a sufficient multitude of garlic-eating, +unwashed humanity, to say nothing of the natural circus smell, to fill +unaccustomed nostrils with violent sensations. A private soldier is a +gallant fellow, and ordinarily you feel a comfortable sense of security in +his neighbourhood; but when he is wet through and steaming, the fastidious +would prefer the chance of perils. And there were many steaming warriors +around us.</p> + +<p>There we sat, at any rate, wedged in a mass as vague and cohesive as +chocolate creams running into one another. I had beside me a fat, damp lady +whose wet umbrella dripped into my shoes. Lady Auriol was flanked by a +lean, collarless man in a cloth-cap who made sarcastic remarks to soldier +friends on the tier below on the capitalist occupiers of the three-franc +seats. The dreadful circus band began to blare. The sudden and otherwise +unheralded entrance of a lady on a white horse followed by the ring master +made us realize that the performance had begun. The show ran its course. +The clowns went through their antiquated antics to the delight of the +simple folk by whom we were surrounded. A child did a slack wire act, +waving a Japanese umbrella over her head. Some acrobats played about on +horizontal bars. We both sat forward on our narrow bench, elbows on knees +and face in hands, saying nothing, practically seeing nothing, aware +only of a far off, deep down, infernal pit in which was being played the +Orcagnesque prelude to a bizarre tragedy. I, who had gone through the +programme before, yet suffered the spell of Auriol's suspense. Long before +she had thrown aside the useless veil. In these dim altitudes no one could +be recognized from the ring. Her knuckles were bent into her cheeks and her +eyes were staring down into that pit of despair. We had no programme; I had +not retained in my head the sequence of turns. Now it was all confused. The +pervasive clowns alone seemed to give what was happening below a grotesque +coherence.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the ring was empty for a second. Then with exaggerated strides +marched in a lean high-heeled monster in green silk tights reaching to his +armpits, topped with a scarlet wig ending in a foot high point. He wore +white cotton gloves dropping an inch from the finger tips, and he carried +a fiddle apparently made out of a cigar box and a broom handle. His face +painted red and white was made up into an idiot grin. He opened his mouth +at the audience, who applauded mildly.</p> + +<p>Lady Auriol still sat in her bemused attitude of suspense. I watched her +perplexedly for a second or two, and then I saw she had not recognized him. +I said:</p> + +<p>"That's Lackaday."</p> + +<p>She gasped. Sat bolt upright, and uttered an "Oh-h!" a horrible little +moan, not quite human, almost that of a wounded animal, and her face was +stricken into tense ugliness. Her hand, stretched out instinctively, found +mine and held it in an iron grip. She said in a quavering voice:</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't come."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could get you out," said I.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"No, no. It would be giving myself away. I must see it through."</p> + +<p>She drew a deep breath, relinquished my hand, turned to me with an attempt +at a smile.</p> + +<p>"I'm all right now. Don't worry."</p> + +<p>She sat like a statue during the performance. It was quite a different +performance from the one I had seen a few days before. It seemed to fail +not only in the magnetic contact between artist and audience, but in +technical perfection. And Elodie, whom I had admired as a vital element in +this combination, so alive, so smiling, so reponsive, appeared a merely +mechanical figure, an exactly regulated automaton.</p> + +<p>My heart sank into my shoes, already chilled with the drippings of my fat +neighbour's umbrella. If Lackaday had burst out on Lady Auriol as the +triumphant, exquisite artist, there might, in spite of the unheroic +travesty of a man in which he was invested, have been some cause for pride +in extraordinary, crowd-compelling achievement. The touch of genius is +a miraculous solvent. But here was something second-rate, third-rate, +half-hearted--though I, who knew, saw that the man was sweating blood +to exceed his limitations. Here was merely an undistinguished turn in a +travelling circus which folk like Lady Auriol Dayne only visited in idle +moods of good-humoured derision.</p> + +<p>He went through it not quite to the bitter end, for I noted that he cut +out the finale of the elongated violin. There was perfunctory applause, a +perfunctory call. After he had made his bow, hand in hand with Elodie, he +retired in careless silence and was nearly knocked down by the reappearing +lady on the broad white horse.</p> + +<p>"Let us go," said Auriol.</p> + +<p>We threaded our way down the break-neck tiers of seats and eventually +emerged into the open air. Our hired car was waiting. The full moon shone +down in a clear sky in the amiable way that the moon has--as though she +said with an intimate smile--"My dear fellow--clouds? Rain? I never heard +of such a thing. You must be suffering from some delusion. I've been +shining on you like this for centuries." I made a casual reference to the +beauty of the night.</p> + +<p>"It ought to be still raining," said Lady Auriol.</p> + +<p>We drove back to Royat in silence. I racked my brains for something to say, +but everything that occurred to me seemed the flattest of uncomforting +commonplaces.</p> + +<p>Well, it was her affair entirely. If she had given me some opening I might +have responded sympathetically. But there she sat by my side in the car, +rigid and dank. For all that I could gather from her attitude, some iron +had entered into her soul. She was a dead woman.</p> + +<p>The car stopped at the hotel door. We entered. A few yards down the hall +the lift waited. We went up together. I shall never forget the look on her +face. I shall always associate it with the picture of Mrs. Siddons as the +Tragic Muse. The lift stopped at my floor. Her room was higher.</p> + +<p>I bade her good night.</p> + +<p>She wrung my hand. "Good night, Tony, and my very grateful thanks."</p> + +<p>I slipped out and watched her whisked, an inscrutable mystery, upwards.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XXI</h1> + + + +<p>The first sign of commotion in the morning was a note from Bakkus, whose +turn it was to act as luncheon host. Our friends at Clermont-Ferrand, said +he, had cried off. They had also asked him to go over and see them. Would +I be so kind as to regard this as a <i>dies non</i> in the rota of our +pleasant gatherings?</p> + +<p>I dressed and bought some flowers, which I sent up to Lady Auriol with a +polite message. The chasseur returned saying that Miladi had gone out about +half an hour before.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that she has left the hotel with her luggage?"</p> + +<p>The boy smiled reassurance. She had only gone for a walk. I breathed +freely. It would have been just like her to go off by the first train.</p> + +<p>I suffered my treatment, drank my glasses of horrible water and again +enquired at the hotel for Lady Auriol. She had not yet returned. Having +nothing to do, I took my <i>Moniteur du Puy de Dôme</i>, which I had not +read, to the café which commands a view of the park gates and the general +going and coming of Royat. Presently, from the tram terminus I saw +advancing the familiar gaunt figure of Lackaday. I was glad, I scarcely +knew why, to note that he wore a grey soft felt instead of the awful straw +hat. I rose to greet him, and invited him to my table.</p> + +<p>"I would join you with pleasure," said he, "but I am thinking of paying my +respects to Lady Auriol."</p> + +<p>When I told him that he would not find her, he sat down. We could keep an +eye on the hotel entrance, I remarked.</p> + +<p>"Our lunch with Bakkus is off," said I.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm sorry. I rang him up early this morning. Elodie isn't quite +herself to-day."</p> + +<p>"The thunder last night, perhaps."</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Women have nerves."</p> + +<p>That something had happened was obvious. I remembered last night's +half-hearted performance.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said I, "Bakkus mentioned in his note that he was going over +to Clermont-Ferrand to see you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lackaday, "I left him there. He has marvellous tact and +influence when he chooses to exert them. A man thrown away on the +trivialities of life. He was born to be a Cardinal. I'm so glad you have +taken to him."</p> + +<p>I murmured mild eulogy of Bakkus. We spoke idly of his beautiful voice. +Conversation languished, Lackaday's eyes being turned to the entrance of +the hotel some fifty yards away up the sloping street.</p> + +<p>"I'm anxious not to miss Lady Auriol," he said at last. "It will be my only +chance of seeing her. We're off to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Our engagement ends to-night. We're due at Vichy next week."</p> + +<p>I had not realized the flight of the pleasant days. But yet--I was puzzled. +Yesterday there had been no talk of departure. I mentioned my surprise.</p> + +<p>"I have ended the engagement of my own accord," said he. "The management +had engaged another star turn for to-day--overlapping mine. A breach of +contract which gave me the excuse for terminating it. I don't often stand +on the vain dignity of the so-called artist, but this time I've been glad +to do so."</p> + +<p>"The atmosphere of the circus is scarcely congenial," said I.</p> + +<p>"That's it. I'm too big for my boots, or my head's too big for my hat. And +the management are not sorry to save a few days' salary."</p> + +<p>"But during these few days----?"</p> + +<p>"We wait at Vichy."</p> + +<p>He spoke woodenly, his lined face set hard.</p> + +<p>"I shall miss you tremendously, my dear fellow," said I.</p> + +<p>"I shall miss your company even more," said he.</p> + +<p>"We won't, at any rate, say good-bye to-day," I ventured. "There are cars +to be hired, and Vichy from the car point of view is close by."</p> + +<p>"You, my dear Hylton, I shall be delighted to see."</p> + +<p>The emphasis on the pronoun would have rendered his meaning clear to even a +more obtuse man than myself. No Lady Auriols flaunting over to Vichy.</p> + +<p>"May I ask when you came to this decision?" I enquired. "Bakkus's note +suggested only a postponement of our meeting."</p> + +<p>"Last night," said he. "That's one reason why I sent for Bakkus."</p> + +<p>"I see," said I. But I did not tell him what I saw. It looked as though the +gallant fellow were simply running away.</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards, to my great relief, there came Lady Auriol swinging along +on the other side of the pavement. The café, you must know, forms a corner. +To the left, the park and the tram terminus; to the right, the street +leading to the post office and then dwindling away vaguely up the hill. It +was along this street that Lady Auriol came, short-skirted, flushed with +exercise, rather dusty and dishevelled. I stood and waved an arresting +hand. She hesitated for a second and then crossed the road and met us +outside the café. I offered a seat at our table within. She declined with a +gesture. We all stood for a while and then went diagonally over to the park +entrance.</p> + +<p>"I've been such a walk," she declared. "Miles and miles--through beautiful +country and picturesque villages. You ought to explore. It's worth it."</p> + +<p>"I know the district of old," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"I'm tremendously struck with the beauty of the women of Auvergne."</p> + +<p>"They're the pure type of old Gaul," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>She put up a hand to straying hair. "I'm falling to pieces. I have but two +desires in the world--a cold bath and food. Perhaps I shall see you later."</p> + +<p>He stood unflinching, like a soldier condemned for crime. I wondered at her +indifference. He said:</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately I can't have that pleasure. My engagements take up the rest +of the day, and tomorrow I leave Clermont-Ferrand. I shan't have another +opportunity of seeing you."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met and his, calm yet full of pain, dominated. She thrust her +hand through my arm.</p> + +<p>"Very well then, let us get into the shade."</p> + +<p>We entered the park, found an empty bench beneath the trees and sat down, +Auriol between us. She said:</p> + +<p>"Do you mean at Royat or in the world in general?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the latter."</p> + +<p>She laughed queerly. "As chance has thrown us together here, it will +possibly do the same somewhere else."</p> + +<p>"My sphere isn't yours," said he. "If it hadn't been for the accident of +Hylton being here, we should not have met now."</p> + +<p>"Captain Hylton had nothing to do with it," she said warmly. "I had no +notion that you were at Clermont-Ferrand."</p> + +<p>"I'm quite aware of that, Lady Auriol."</p> + +<p>She flushed, vexed at having said a foolish thing.</p> + +<p>"And Captain Hylton had no notion that I was coming."</p> + +<p>"Perfectly," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she said after a pause.</p> + +<p>"I came over to Royat, this morning," said Lackaday, "to call on you and +bid you good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Why?" she asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"It appeared to be ordinary courtesy."</p> + +<p>"Was there anything particular you wanted to say to me?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps to supplement just the little I could tell you yesterday +afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Captain Hylton supplemented it after you left. Oh, he was very discreet. +But there were a few odds and ends that needed straightening out. If you +had been frank with me from the beginning, there would have been no need +of it. As it was, I had to clear everything up. If I had known exactly. I +should not have gone to the circus last night."</p> + +<p>His eyelids fluttered like those of a man who has received a bullet through +him, and his mouth set grimly.</p> + +<p>"You might have spared me that," said he. He bent forward. "Hylton, why did +you let her do it?"</p> + +<p>"I might just as well have tried to stop the thunder," said I, seeing no +reason why this young woman should not bear the blame for her folly.</p> + +<p>"A circus is a comfortless place of entertainment," he said, in the +familiar, even voice. "I wish it had been a proper theatre. What did you +think of the performance?"</p> + +<p>She straightened herself upright, turned and looked at him; then looked +away in front of her: a sharp breath or two caused a little convulsive +heave of her bosom; to my astonishment I saw great tears run down her +cheeks on to her hands tightly clasped on her lap. As soon as she realized +it, she dashed her hands roughly over her eyes. Lackaday ventured the tip +of his finger on her sleeve.</p> + +<p>"It's a sorry show, isn't it? I'm not very proud of myself. But perhaps you +understand now why I left you in ignorance."</p> + +<p>"Yet you told Anthony. Why not me?"</p> + +<p>I was about to rise, this being surely a matter for them to battle out +between themselves, but I at once felt her powerful grip on my arm. Whether +she was afraid of herself or of Lackaday, I did not know. Anyway, I seemed +to represent to her some kind of human dummy which could be used, at need, +as a sentimental buffer.</p> + +<p>"I presume," she continued, "I was quite as intimate a friend as Anthony?"</p> + +<p>"Quite," said he. "But Hylton's a man and you're a woman. There can be no +comparison. You are on different planes of sentiment. For instance, Hylton, +loyal friend as he is, has not to my knowledge done me the honour of +shedding tears over Petit Patou."</p> + +<p>I felt horribly out of place on the bench in this public leafy park, beside +these two warring lovers. But it was most humanly interesting. Lackaday +seemed to be reinvested with the dignity of the man as I had first met him, +a year ago.</p> + +<p>"Anthony--" I could not help feeling that her repeated change of her term +of reference to me, from the formal Captain Hylton to my Christian name, +sprang from an instinctive desire to put herself on more intimate terms +with Lackaday--"Anthony," she said in her defiant way, "would have cried, +if he could."</p> + +<p>Lackaday's features relaxed into his childlike smile.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said he, "'The little more and how much it is. The little less and +how far away.'"</p> + +<p>She was silent. Although the situation was painful, I could not help +feeling the ironical satisfaction that she was getting the worst of the +encounter. I was glad, because I thought she had treated him cruelly. The +unprecedented tears, however, were signs of grace. Yet the devil in her +suggested a <i>riposte</i>.</p> + +<p>"I hope Madame Patou is quite well."</p> + +<p>Lackaday's smile faded into the mask.</p> + +<p>"Last night's thunderstorm upset her a little--but otherwise--yes--she is +quite well."</p> + +<p>He rose. Lady Auriol cried:</p> + +<p>"You're not going already?"</p> + +<p>His ear caught a new tone, for he smiled again.</p> + +<p>"I must get back to Clermont-Ferrand. Goodbye, Hylton."</p> + +<p>We shook hands.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, old chap," said I. "We'll meet soon."</p> + +<p>Auriol rose and turned on me an ignoring back. As I did not seem to exist +any longer, I faded shadow-like away to the park gate, where I hung about +until Auriol should join me.</p> + +<p>As to what happened between them then, I must rely on her own report, +which, as you shall learn, she gave me later.</p> + +<p>They stood for a while after I had gone. Then he held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Lady Auriol," said he.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "There are things which we really ought to say to each +other. You do believe I wish I had never come?"</p> + +<p>"I can quite understand," said he, stiffly.</p> + +<p>"It hurts," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why should it matter so much?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know--but it does."</p> + +<p>He drew himself up and his face grew stern.</p> + +<p>"I don't cease to be an honourable man because of my profession; or to be +worthy of respect because I am loyal to sacred obligations."</p> + +<p>"You put me in the wrong," she said. "And I deserve it. But it all hurts. +It hurts dreadfully. Can't you see? The awful pity of it? You of all men to +be condemned to a fife like this. And you suffer too. It all hurts."</p> + +<p>"Remember," said he, "it was the life to which I was bred."</p> + +<p>She felt hopeless. "It's my own fault for coming," she said. "I should have +left things as they were when we parted in April. There was beauty--you +made it quite clear that our parting was final. You couldn't have acted +otherwise. Forgive me for all I've said. I pride myself on being a +practical woman; but--for that reason perhaps--I'm unused to grappling with +emotional situations. If I've been unkind, it's because I've been stabbing +myself and forgetting I'm stabbing you at the same time."</p> + +<p>He walked a pace or two further with her. For the first time he seemed to +recognize what he, Andrew Lackaday, had meant to her.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said gravely. "I never dreamed that it was a matter of such +concern to you. If I had, I shouldn't have left you in any doubt. To me you +were the everything that man can conceive in woman. I wanted to remain in +your memory as the man the war had made me. Vanity or pride, I don't +know. We all have our failings. I worshipped you as the <i>Princesse +Loinlaine</i>. I never told you that I am a man who has learned to keep +himself under control. Perhaps under too much control. I shouldn't tell you +now, if----"</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose I'm a fool," she interrupted. "I knew. And the +Verity-Stewarts knew. And even my little cousin Evadne knew."</p> + +<p>They still strolled along the path under the trees. He said after a while:</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I have made things very difficult for you."</p> + +<p>She was pierced with remorse. "Oh, how like you! Any other man would have +put it the other way round and accused me of making things difficult for +him. And he would have been right. For I did come here to get news of you +from Anthony Hylton. He was so discreet that I felt that he could tell me +something. And I came and found you and have made things difficult for +you."</p> + +<p>He said in his sober way: "Perhaps it is for the best that we have met and +had this talk. We ought to have had it months ago, but--" he turned his +face wistfully on her--"we couldn't, because I didn't know. Anyhow, it's +all over."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she sighed. "It's all over. We're up against the stone wall of +practical life."</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said he. "I am Petit Patou, the mountebank; my partner is +Madame Patou, whom I have known since I was a boy of twenty, to whom I am +bound by indissoluble ties of mutual fidelity, loyalty and gratitude; and +you are the Lady Auriol Dayne. We live, as I said before, in different +spheres."</p> + +<p>"That's quite true," she said. "We have had our queer romance. It won't +hurt us. It will sweeten our lives. But, as you say, it's over. It has to +be over."</p> + +<p>"There's no way out," said he. "It's doubly locked. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>He bent and kissed her hand. To the casual French valetudinarians sitting +and strolling in the park, it was nothing but a social formality. But to +Auriol the touch of his lips meant the final parting of their lives, the +consecrated burial of their love.</p> + +<p>She lingered for a few moments watching his long, straight back disappear +round the corner of the path, and then turned and joined me by the park +gate. On our way to the hotel the only thing she said was:</p> + +<p>"I don't seem to have much chance, do I, Tony?"</p> + +<p>It was after lunch, while we sat, as the day before, at the end of the +terrace, that she told me of what had taken place between Lackaday and +herself, while I had been hanging about the gate. I must confess +to pressing her confidence. Since I was lugged, even as a sort of +<i>raisonneur</i>, into their little drama, I may be pardoned for some +curiosity as to development. I did not seem, however, to get much further. +They had parted for ever, last April, in a not unpoetic atmosphere. They +had parted for ever now in circumstances devoid of poetry. The only bit of +dramatic progress was the mutual avowal, apparently dragged out of them. +It was almost an anticlimax. And then dead stop. I put these points before +her. She agreed dismally. Bitterly reproached herself for giving way in +Paris to womanish folly; also for deliberately bringing about the morning's +explanation.</p> + +<p>"You were cruel--which is utterly unlike you," I said, judicially.</p> + +<p>"That horrible green, white and red thing haunted me all night--and that +fat woman bursting out of her clothes. I felt shrivelled up. If only I had +left things as they were!" She harped always on that note. "I thought I +could walk myself out of my morbid frame of mind. Oh yes--you're quite +right--morbid--unlike me. I walked miles and miles. I made up my mind to +return to Paris by the night train. I should never see him again. The whole +thing was dead. Killed. Washed out. I had got back some sense when I ran +into the two of you. It seemed so ghastly to go on talking in that cold, +dry way. I longed to goad him into some sort of expression of himself--to +find the man again. That's why I told him about going to the circus last +night."</p> + +<p>She went on in this strain. Presently she said: "I could shed tears of +blood over him. Don't think I'm filled merely with selfish disgust. As +I told him--the pity of it--all that he must have suffered--for he has +suffered, hasn't he?"</p> + +<p>"He has gone through Hell," said I.</p> + +<p>She was silent for a few moments. Then she said: "What's the good of going +round and round in a circle? You either understand or you don't."</p> + +<p>By way of consolation I mendaciously assured her that I understood. I +don't think I understand now. I doubt whether she understood herself. +Her emotions were literally going round and round in a circle, a hideous +merry-go-round with fixed staring features, to be passed and repassed in +the eternal gyration. Horror of Petit Patou. Her love for Lackaday. Madame +Patou. Hatred of Lacka-day. Scorching self-contempt for seeking him out. +Petit Patou and Madame Patou. Lackaday crucified. Infinite pity for +Lackaday. General Lackaday. Old dreams. The lost illusion. The tomb of +love. Horror of Petit Patou--and so <i>da capo</i>, endlessly round and +round.</p> + +<p>At least, this figure gave me the only clue to her frame of mind. If she +went on gyrating in this way indefinitely, she must go mad. No human +consciousness could stand it. For sanity she must stop at some point. The +only rational halting-place was at the Tomb. If I knew my Auriol, she would +drop a flower and a tear on it, and then would start on a bee-line for +Central Tartary, or whatever expanse of the world's surface offered a +satisfactory field for her energies.</p> + +<p>She swallowed the stone-cold, half-remaining coffee in her cup and rose and +stretched herself, arms and back and bust, like a magnificent animal, the +dark green, silken knitted jumper that she wore revealing all her great and +careless curves, and drew a long breath and smiled at me.</p> + +<p>"I've not slept for two nights and I've walked twelve miles this morning. +I'll turn in till dinner." She yawned. "Poor old Tony," she laughed. "You +can have it at a Christian hour this evening."</p> + +<p>"The one bright gleam in a hopeless day," said I.</p> + +<p>She laughed again, blew me a kiss and went her way to necessary repose.</p> + +<p>I remained on the terrace a while longer, in order to finish a long +corona-corona, forbidden by my doctors. But I reflected that as the showman +makes up on the swings what he loses on the roundabouts, so I made up on +the filthy water what I lost on the cigars. How I provided myself with +excellent corona-coronas in Royat, under the Paris price, I presume, of +ten francs apiece, wild reporters will never drag out of me. I mused, +therefore, over the last smokable half-inch, and at last, discarding it +reluctantly, I sought well-earned slumber in my room. But I could not +sleep. All this imbroglio kept me awake. Also the infernal band began to +play. I had not thought--indeed, I had had no time to think of the note +from Bakkus which I had received the first thing in the morning, and of +Lackaday's confirmation of the summons to the ailing Elodie. Women, said +he, had nerves. The thunder, of course. But, thought I, with elderly +sagacity, was it all thunder?</p> + +<p>As far as I could gather, from Lackaday's confessions he had never given +Elodie cause for jealousy from the time they had become Les Petit Patou. +Her rout of the suggestive Ernestine proved her belief in his insensibility +to woman's attractions during the war. She had never heard of Lady Auriol. +Lady Auriol, therefore, must have bounded like a tiger into the placid +compound of her life. Reason enough for a <i>crise des nerfs</i>. Even I, +who had nothing to do with it, found my equilibrium disturbed.</p> + +<p>Lady Auriol and I dined together. She declared herself rested and in her +right and prosaic mind.</p> + +<p>"I have no desire to lose your company," said I, "so I hope there's no more +talk of an unbooked <i>strapontin</i> on the midnight train."</p> + +<p>"No need," she replied. "He's leaving Clermont-Ferrand tomorrow. I'll keep +to my original programme and enjoy fresh air until a wire summons me back +to Paris. That's to say if you can do with me."</p> + +<p>"If you keep on looking as alluring as you are this evening," said I, +"perhaps I mayn't be able to do without you."</p> + +<p>"I wonder why I've never been able to fall in love with a man of your type, +Tony," she remarked in her frank, detached way. "You--by which I mean +hundreds of men like you, much younger, of course--you are of my world, +you understand the half-said thing, your conduct during the war has been +irreproachable, you've got a heart beneath a cynical exterior, you've got +brains, you're as clean as a new pin, you're an agreeable companion, you +can turn a compliment in a way that even a savage like me can appreciate, +and yet----"</p> + +<p>"And yet," I interrupted, "when you're presented with a whole paper, row on +row, of new pins, you're left cold because choice is impossible." I smiled +sadly and sipped my wine. "Now I know what I am, one of a row of nice, +clean, English-made pins."</p> + +<p>"It's you that are being rude to yourself, not I," she laughed. "But you +are of a type typical, and in your heart you're very proud of it. You +wouldn't be different from what you are for anything in the world."</p> + +<p>"I would give a good deal," said I, "to be different from what I +am--but--from the ideal of myself--no."</p> + +<p>She was quite right. Although I may not have sound convictions, thank +Heaven I've sacred prejudices. They have kept me more or less straight in +my unimaginative British fashion during a respectable lifetime. So far am +I from being a Pharisee, that I exclaim: "Thank God I am as other decent +fellows are."</p> + +<p>We circled pleasantly round the point until she returned to her original +proposition--her wonder that she had never been able to fall in love with a +man of my type.</p> + +<p>"It's very simple," said I. "You distrust us. You know that if you suddenly +said to one of us, 'Let us go to Greenland and wear bearskins and eat +blubber'; or, 'Let us fit up the drawing-room with incubators for East-end +babies doomed otherwise to die,' he would vehemently object. And there +would be rows and the married life of cat and dog."</p> + +<p>She said: "Am I really as bad as that, Tony?"</p> + +<p>"You are," said I.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No," she replied, after a pause. "In the depths of +myself I'm as conventional as you are. That's why I said I was puzzled to +know why I had never fallen in love with any one of you. I had my deep +reasons, my dear Tony, for saying it. I'm bound to my type and my order. +God knows I've seen enough and know enough to be free. But I'm not. Last +night showed me that I'm not."</p> + +<p>"And that's final, my dear?" said I.</p> + +<p>She helped herself to salad with an air of bravura. She helped herself, to +my surprise, to a prodigious amount of salad.</p> + +<p>"As final as death," she replied.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>There had been billed about the place a Grand Concert du Soir in the Casino +de Royat. The celebrated tenor, M. Horatio Bakkus. The Casino having been +burned down in 1918, the concerts took place under the bandstand in the +park.</p> + +<p>After dinner we found places, among the multitude, on the Casino Cafe +Terrace overlooking the bandstand, and listened to Bakkus sing. I explained +Bakkus, more or less, to Auriol. Although she could not accept Lackaday +as Petit Patou, she seemed to accept Bakkus, without question, as a +professional singer. The concert over, he joined us at our little japanned +iron table, and acknowledged her well-merited compliments--I tell you, he +sang like a minor Canon in an angelic choir--with, well, with the well-bred +air of a minor Canon in an angelic choir. With easy grace he dismissed +himself and talked knowledgeably and informatively of the antiquities and +the beauties of Auvergne. To most English folk it was an undiscovered +country. We must steal a car and visit Orcival. Hadn't I heard of it? +France's gem of Romanesque churches? And the Château--ages old---with its +<i>charmille</i>--the towering maze-like walks of trees kept clipped +in scrupulous formality by an old gardener during the war--the +<i>charmille</i> designed by no less a genius than Le Nôtre, who planned +the wonders of Versailles and the exquisite miniature of the garden of +Nîmes? To-morrow must we go.</p> + +<p>This white-haired, luminous-eyed ascetic--he drank but an orangeade through +post-war straws--had kept us spellbound with his talk. I glanced at Auriol +and read compliance in her eye.</p> + +<p>"Will you accompany us ignorant people and act as cicerone?"</p> + +<p>"With all the pleasure in life," said Bakkus.</p> + +<p>"What time shall we start?"</p> + +<p>"Would ten be too early?"</p> + +<p>"Lady Auriol and I are old campaigners."</p> + +<p>"I call for you at ten. It is agreed?"</p> + +<p>We made the compact. I lifted my glass. He sputtered response through the +post-war straws resting in the remains of his orangeade. He rose to +go, pleading much correspondence before going to bed. We rose too. He +accompanied us to the entrance to our hotel. At the lift, he said:</p> + +<p>"Can you give me a minute?"</p> + +<p>"As many as you like," said I, for it was still early.</p> + +<p>We sped Lady Auriol upwards to her repose, and walked out through the hall +into the soft August moonlight.</p> + +<p>"May I tread," said he, "on the most delicate of grounds?"</p> + +<p>"It all depends," said I, "on how delicately you do it."</p> + +<p>He made a courteous movement of his hand and smiled. "I'll do my best. I +take it that you're very fully admitted into Andrew Lackaday's confidence."</p> + +<p>"To a great extent," I admitted.</p> + +<p>"And--forgive me if I am impertinent--you have also that of the lady whom +we have just left?"</p> + +<p>"Really, my dear Bakkus----" I began.</p> + +<p>"It is indeed a matter of some importance," he interposed quickly. "It +concerns Madame Patou--Elodie. Rightly or wrongly, she received a certain +impression from your charming luncheon party of yesterday. Andrew, as you +are aware, is not the man with whom a woman can easily make a scene. There +was no scene. A hint. With that rat-trap air of finality with which I am, +for my many failings, much more familiar than yourself, he said: 'We will +cancel our engagement and go to Vichy.' This morning, as I wrote, I +was called to Clermont-Ferrand. Madame Patou, you understand, has the +temperament of the South. Its generosity is apt to step across the +boundaries of exaggeration. In my capacity of friend of the family, I had a +long interview with her. You have doubtless seen many such on the stage. +I must say that Andrew, to whom the whole affair appeared exceedingly +distasteful, had announced his intention of obeying the rules of common +good manners and leaving his farewell card on Lady Auriol. Towards the end +of our talk it entered the head of Madame Patou that she would do the same. +I pointed out the anomaly of the interval between the two visits. But the +head of a Marseillaise is an obstinate one. She dressed, put on her best +hat--there is much that is symbolical in a woman's best hat, as doubtless a +man of the world like yourself has observed--and took the tram with me to +Royat. We alighted at the further entrance to the park, and came plump +upon a leave-taking between Lackaday and Lady Auriol. You know there is a +turn--some masking shrubs--we couldn't help seeing through them. She was +for rushing forward. I restrained her. A second afterwards, Andrew ran into +us. For me, at any rate, it was a most unhappy situation. If he had fallen +into a rage, like ninety-nine men out of a hundred, and accused us of +spying, I should have known how to reply. But that's where you can never +get hold of Andrew Lackaday. He scorns such things. He said in his ramrod +fashion: 'It's good of you to come to meet me, Elodie. I was kept longer +than I anticipated.' He stopped the Clermont-Ferrand tram, nodded to me, +and, with his hand under Elodie's elbow, helped her in."</p> + +<p>"May I ask why you tell me all this?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said he, and his dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. "I give +the information for what it may be worth to you as a friend, perhaps as +adviser, of both parties."</p> + +<p>"You are assuming, Mr. Bakkus," I answered rather stiffly, "that Madame +Patou's unfortunate impressions are in some way justified."</p> + +<p>It was a most unpleasant conversation. I very much resented discussing Lady +Auriol with Horatio Bakkus.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said he. "But Fate has thrown you and me into analogous +positions--we are both elderly men--me as between Lackaday and Madame +Patou, you as between Lady Auriol and Lackaday."</p> + +<p>"But, damn it all, man," I cried angrily, "what have I just been saying? +How dare you assume there's anything between them save the ordinary +friendship of a distinguished soldier and an English lady?"</p> + +<p>"If you can only assure me that there is nothing but that ordinary +friendship, you will take a weight off my mind and relieve me of a great +responsibility."</p> + +<p>"I can absolutely assure you," I cried hotly, "that by no remote +possibility can there be anything else between Lady Auriol Dayne and Petit +Patou."</p> + +<p>He thrust out both his hands and fervently grasped the one I instinctively +put forward.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, thank you, my dear Hylton. That's exactly what I wanted to +know. <i>Au revoir</i>. I think we said ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>He marched away briskly. With his white hair gleaming between his +little black felt hat cocked at an angle and the collar of his flapping +old-fashioned opera-cloak, he looked like some weird bird of the night.</p> + +<p>I entered the hotel feeling the hot and cold of the man who has said a +damnable thing. Through the action of what kinky cell of the brain I had +called the dear gallant fellow "Petit Patou," instead of "Lackaday," I was +unable to conjecture.</p> + +<p>I hated myself. I could have kicked myself. I wallowed in the unreason of a +man vainly seeking to justify himself. The last thing in the world I wanted +to do was to see Horatio Bakkus again. I went to bed loathing the idea of +our appointment.</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XXII</h1> + + + +<p>Lady Auriol, myself and the car met punctually at the hotel door at ten +o'clock. There was also a <i>chasseur</i> with Lady Auriol's dust-coat +and binoculars, and a <i>concierge</i> with advice. We waited for Bakkus. +Auriol, suddenly bethinking herself of plain chocolate, to the consumption +of which she was addicted on the grounds of its hunger-satisfying +qualities, although I guaranteed her a hearty midday meal on the occasion +of the present adventure, we went down the street to the <i>Marquise de +Sévigné</i> shop and bought some. This took time, because she lingered over +several varieties devastating to the appetite. I paid gladly. If we all +had the same ideas as to the employment of a happy day, it would be a dull +world. We went back to the car. Still no Bakkus. We waited again. I railed +at the artistic temperament. Pure, sheer bone idleness, said I.</p> + +<p>"But what can he be doing?" asked Auriol.</p> + +<p>I, who had received through Lackaday many lights on Bakkus's character, was +at no loss to reply.</p> + +<p>"Doing? Why, snoring. He'll awake at midday, stroll round here and expect +to find us smiling on the pavement. We give him five more minutes."</p> + +<p>At the end of the five minutes I sent the <i>concierge</i> off for a +guide-book; much more accurate, I declared, than Bakkus was likely to be, +and at half-past ten by my watch we started. Although I railed at the sloth +of Bakkus, I rejoiced in his absence. My over-night impression had not been +dissipated by slumber.</p> + +<p>"I'm not sorry," said I, as we drove along. "Our friend is rather too much +of a professed conversationalist."</p> + +<p>"You also have a comfortable seat which possibly you would have had to give +up to your guest," said Auriol.</p> + +<p>"How you know me, my dear," said I, and we rolled along very happily.</p> + +<p>I think it was one of the pleasantest days I have ever passed in the course +of a carefully spent life. Auriol was at her best. She had thrown off the +harried woman of affairs. She had put a nice little tombstone over the +grave of her romance, thus apparently reducing to beautiful simplicity her +previous complicated frame of mind. For aught I could have guessed, not a +cloud had ever dimmed the Diana serenity of her soul. If I said that +she laid herself out to be the most charming of companions, I should be +accusing her of self-consciousness. Rather, let me declare her to have been +so instinctively. Vanity apart, I stood for something tangible in her +life. She could not remember the time when I had not been her firm friend. +Between my first offering of chocolates and my last over a quarter of a +century had lapsed. As far as a young woman can know a middle-aged man, she +knew me outside in. If she came to me for my sympathy, she knew that she +had the right. If she twitted me on my foibles, she knew that I granted her +the privilege, with affectionate indulgence.</p> + +<p>Now, perhaps you may wonder why I, not yet decrepit, did not glide ever so +imperceptibly in love with Lady Auriol, who was no longer a dew-besprinkled +bud of a girl and therefore beyond the pale of my sentimental inclinations. +Well, just as she had avowed that she could not fall in love with a man of +my type, so was it impossible for me to fall in love with a woman of hers. +Perhaps some dark-eyed devil may yet lure me to destruction, or some mild, +fair-haired, comfortable widow may entice me to domesticity. But the joy +and delight of my attitude towards Auriol was its placid and benignant +avuncularity. We were the best and frankest friends in the world.</p> + +<p>And the day was an August hazy dream of a day. We wound along the mountain +roads, first under overhanging greenery and then, almost suddenly, remote, +in blue ether. We hung on precipices overlooking the rock-filled valleys of +old volcanic desolation. Basaltic cliffs rose up from their bed of yellow +cornfields, bare and stark, yet, in the noontide shimmer, hesitating in +their eternal defiance of God and man. We ascended to vast tablelands of +infinite scrub and yellow broom, and the stern peaks of the Puy de Dôme +mountains, a while ago seen like giants, appeared like rolling hillocks; +but here and there a little white streak showed that the snow still +lingered and would linger on until the frosts of autumn bound it in chains +to await the universal winding-sheet of winter. Climate varied with the +varying altitude of the route. Here, on a last patch of mountain ground, +were a man or two and a woman or two and odd children, reaping and binding; +there, after a few minutes' ascent, on another sloping patch, a solitary +peasant ploughed with his team of oxen. Everywhere on the declivitous +waysides, tow-haired, blue-eyed children guarded herds of goats, as their +forbears had done in the days of Vercingetorix, the Gaul. Nowhere, save in +the dimly seen remotenesses of the valleys, where vestiges of red-roofed +villages emerged through the fertile summer green, was there sign of +habitation. Whence came they, these patient humans, wresting their life +from these lonely spots of volcanic wildernesses?</p> + +<p>Now and then, on a lower hump of mountain, appeared the ruined tower of +a stronghold fierce and dominating long ago. There the lord had all the +rights of the <i>seigneur</i>, as far as his eye could reach. He had +men-at-arms in plenty, and could ride down to the valley and could +provision himself with what corn and meat he chose, and could return and +hold high revel. But when the winter came, how cold must he have been, for +all the wood with its stifling smoke that he burned in his crude stone +hall. And Madame the Countess, his wife, and her train of highborn young +women--imagine the cracking chilblains on the hands of the whole fair +community.</p> + +<p>"Does the guide-book say that?" asked Auriol, on my development of this +pleasant thesis.</p> + +<p>"Is a guide-book human?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't unweave rainbows. As a <i>cicerone</i> you're impossible. I +regret Horatio Bakkus."</p> + +<p>Still, in spite of my prosaic vision, we progressed on an enjoyable +pilgrimage. I am not giving you an itinerary. I merely mention features of +a day's whirl which memory has recaptured. We lunched in that little oasis +of expensive civilization, Mont Dore. Incidentally we visited Orcival, with +its Romanesque church and château, the objective of our expedition, and +found it much as Bakkus's glowing eloquence had described. From elderly +ladies at stalls under the lee of the church we bought picture post cards. +We wandered through the deeply shaded walks of the <i>charmille</i>, as +trimly kept as the maze of Hampton Court and three times the height. We did +all sorts of other things. We stopped at wild mountain gorges alive with +the rustle of water and aglow with wild-flowers. We went on foot through +one-streeted, tumble-down villages and passed the time of day with the +kindly inhabitants. And the August sun shone all the time.</p> + +<p>We reached Royat at about six o'clock and went straight up to our rooms. +On my table some letters awaited me; but instead of finding among them +the apology from Bakkus which I had expected, I came across a telephone +memorandum asking me to ring up Monsieur Patou at the Hôtel Moderne, Vichy, +as soon as I returned.</p> + +<p>After glancing through my correspondence, I descended to the bureau and +there found Auriol in talk with the <i>concierge</i>. She broke off and +waved a telegram at me.</p> + +<p>"The end of my lotus-eating. The arrangements are put through and I'm no +longer hung up. So"--she made a little grimace--"it's the midnight train to +Paris."</p> + +<p>"Surely to-morrow will do," I protested.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow never does," she retorted.</p> + +<p>"As you will," said I, knowing argument was hopeless.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the <i>concierge</i> was 'allo'-ing lustily into the telephone.</p> + +<p>"I ought to have stuck to head-quarters," she said, moving away into the +lounge. "It's the first time I've ever mixed up business and--other things. +Anyhow," she smiled, "I've had an adorable day. I'll remember it in Arras."</p> + +<p>"Arras?"</p> + +<p>"Roundabout." She waved vaguely. "I'll know my exact address to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Please let me have it."</p> + +<p>"What's the good unless you promise to write to me?"</p> + +<p>"I swear," said I.</p> + +<p>"Pardon, Miladi," called the <i>concierge</i>, receiver in hand. "The +<i>gare de Clermont-Ferrand</i> says there is no <i>place salon-lit</i> or +<i>coupé-lit</i> free in the train to-night. But there is <i>one place de +milieu</i>, <i>premiere</i>, not yet taken."</p> + +<p>"Reserve it then and tell them you're sending a <i>chasseur</i> at once +with the money." She turned to me. "My luck's in."</p> + +<p>"Luck!" I cried. "To get a middle seat in a crowded carriage, for an +all-night journey, with the windows shut?"</p> + +<p>She laughed. "Why is it, my dear Tony, you always seem to pretend there has +never been anything like a war?"</p> + +<p>She went upstairs to cleanse herself and pack. I remained master of the +telephone. In the course of time I got on to the Hôtel Moderne, Vichy. +Eventually I recognized Lackaday's voice. The preliminaries of fence over, +he said:</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether it would be trespassing too far on your friendship to ask +you to pay your promised visit to Vichy to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>The formality of his English, which one forgot when talking to him face to +face, was oddly accentuated by the impersonal tones of the telephone.</p> + +<p>"I'll motor over with pleasure," said I. The prospect pleased me. It was +only sixty kilometres. I was wondering what the deuce I should do with +myself all alone.</p> + +<p>"You're sure it wouldn't be inconvenient? You have no other engagement?"</p> + +<p>I informed him that, my early morning treatment over, I was free as air.</p> + +<p>"Besides," said I, "I shall be at a loose end. Lady Auriol's taking the +midnight train to Paris."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said he.</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>"'Allo!" said I.</p> + +<p>His voice responded: "In that case, I'll come to Clermont-Ferrand by the +first train and see you."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said I.</p> + +<p>But he would have it his own way. Evidently the absence of Lady Auriol made +all the difference. I yielded.</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you when I see you," said he. "I don't know the trains, but I'll +come by the first. Your <i>concierge</i> will look it up for you. Thanks +very much. Good-bye."'</p> + +<p>"But, my dear fellow----" I began.</p> + +<p>But I spoke into nothingness. He had rung off.</p> + +<p>Auriol and I spent a comfortable evening together. There was no question of +Lackaday. For her part, she raised none. For mine--why should I disturb her +superbly regained balance with idle chatter about our morrow's meeting? +We talked of the past glories of the day; of an almost forgotten day of +disastrous picnic in the mountains of North Wales, when her twelve-year-old +sense of humour detected the artificial politeness with which I sought to +cloak my sodden misery; of all sorts of pleasant far-off things; of the +war; of what may be called the war-continuation-work in the devastated +districts in which she was at present engaged. I reminded her of our +fortuitous meetings, when she trudged by my side through the welter of rain +and liquid mud, smoking the fag-end of my last pipe of tobacco.</p> + +<p>"One lived in those days," she said with a full-bosomed sigh.</p> + +<p>"By the dispensation of a merciful Providence," I said, "one hung on to a +strand of existence."</p> + +<p>"It was fine!" she declared.</p> + +<p>"It was--for the appropriate adjective," said I, "consult any humble member +of the British Army."</p> + +<p>We had a whole, long evening's talk, which did not end until I left her in +the train at Clermont-Ferrand.</p> + +<p>On our midnight way thither, she said:</p> + +<p>"Now I know you love me, Tony."</p> + +<p>"Why now?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"How many people are there in the world whom you would see off by a +midnight train, three or four miles from your comfortable bed?"</p> + +<p>"Not many," I admitted.</p> + +<p>"That's why I want you to feel I'm grateful." She sought my hand and patted +it. "I've been a dreadful worry to you. I've been through a hard time." +This was her first and only reference during the day to the romance. "I had +to cut something out of my living self, and I couldn't help groaning a bit. +But the operation's over--and I'll never worry you again."</p> + +<p>At the station I packed her into the dark and already suffocating +compartment. She announced her intention to sleep all night like a dog. She +went off, in the best of spirits, to the work in front of her, which after +all was a more reasonable cure than tossing about the Outer Hebrides in a +five-ton yacht.</p> + +<p>I drove home to bed and slept the sleep of the perfect altruist.</p> + +<p>I was reading the <i>Moniteur du Puy de Dôme</i> on the hotel terrace next +morning, when Lackaday was announced. He looked grimmer and more careworn +than ever, and did not even smile as he greeted me. He only said gravely +that it was good of me to let him come over. I offered him refreshment, +which he declined.</p> + +<p>"You may be wondering," said he, "why I have asked for this interview. But +after all I have told you about myself, it did not seem right to leave you +in ignorance of certain things. Besides, you've so often given me your +kind sympathy, that, as a lonely man, I've ventured to trespass on it once +more."</p> + +<p>"My dear Lackaday, you know that I value your friendship," said I, not +wishing to be outdone in courteous phrase, "and that my services are +entirely at your disposal."</p> + +<p>"I had better tell you in a few words what has happened," said he.</p> + +<p>He told me.</p> + +<p>Elodie had gone, disappeared, vanished into space, like the pearl necklaces +which Petit Patou used to throw at her across the stage.</p> + +<p>"But how? When?" I asked, in bewilderment; for Lackaday and Elodie, as Les +Petit Patou, seemed as indissoluble as William and Mary or Pommery and +Greno.</p> + +<p>He had gone to her room at ten o'clock the previous morning, her breakfast +hour, and found it wide open and empty save for the <i>femme de chambre</i> +making great clatter of sweeping. He stood open-mouthed on the threshold. +To be abroad at such an hour was not in Elodie's habits. Their train did +not start till the afternoon. His eye quickly caught the uninhabited +bareness of the apartment. Not a garment straggled about the room. The +toilet table, usually strewn with a myriad promiscuously ill-assorted +articles, stared nakedly. There were no boxes. The cage of love-birds, +Elodie's inseparable companions, had gone.</p> + +<p>"Madame----?"</p> + +<p>He questioned the <i>femme de chambre</i>.</p> + +<p>"But Madame has departed. Did not Monsieur know?"</p> + +<p>Monsieur obviously did not know. The girl gave him the information of which +she was possessed. Madame had gone in an automobile at six o'clock. She had +rung the bell. The <i>femme de chambre</i> had answered it. The staff were +up early on account of the seven o'clock train for Paris.</p> + +<p>"Then Madame has gone to Paris," cried Lackaday.</p> + +<p>But the girl demurred at the proposition. One does not hire an automobile +from a garage, <i>a voiture de luxe, quoi?</i> to go to the railway +station, when the hotel omnibus would take one there for a franc or two. As +she was saying, Madame rang her bell and gave orders for her luggage to be +taken down. It was not much, said Lackaday; they travelled light, their +professional paraphernalia having to be considered. Well, the luggage was +taken down to the automobile that was waiting at the door, and Madame had +driven off. That is all she knew.</p> + +<p>Lackaday strode over to the bureau and assailed the manager. Why had he not +been informed of the departure of Madame? It apparently never entered the +manager's polite head that Monsieur Patou was ignorant of Madame Patou's +movements. Monsieur had given notice that they were leaving. Artists like +Monsieur and Madame Patou were bound to make special arrangements for their +tours, particularly nowadays when railway travelling was difficult. So +Madame's departure had occasioned no surprise.</p> + +<p>"Who took her luggage down?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>The dingy waistcoated, alpaca-sleeved porter, wearing the ribbon of the +Médaille Militaire on his breast, came forward. At six o'clock, while he +was sweeping the hall, an automobile drew up outside. He said: "Whom are +you come to fetch? The Queen of Spain?" And the chauffeur told him to +mind his own business. At that moment the bell rang. He went up to the +<i>étage</i> indicated. The <i>femme de chambre</i> beckoned him to the +room and he took the luggage and Madame took the bird-cage, and he put +Madame and the luggage and the birdcage into the auto, and Madame gave him +two francs, and the car drove off, whither the porter knew not.</p> + +<p>Although he put it to me very delicately, as he had always conveyed his +criticism of Elodie, the fact that struck a clear and astounding note +through his general bewilderment, was the unprecedented reckless +extravagance of the economical Elodie. There was the omnibus. There was the +train. Why the car at the fantastic rate of one franc fifty per kilometre, +to say nothing of the one franc fifty per kilometre for the empty car's +return journey?</p> + +<p>"And Madame was all alone in the automobile," said the porter, by way of +reassurance. "Pardon, Monsieur," he added, fading away under Lackaday's +glare.</p> + +<p>"I cut the indignity of it all as short as I could," said Lackaday, "and +went up to my room to size things up. It was a knock-down blow to me in +many ways, as you no doubt can understand. And then came the <i>femme +de chambre</i> with a letter addressed to me. It had fallen between the +looking-glass and the wall."</p> + +<p>He drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to me.</p> + +<p>"You had better read it."</p> + +<p>I fitted my glasses on my nose and read. In the sprawling, strong, +illiterate hand I saw and felt Elodie.</p> + +<p><i>Mon petit André</i>----</p> + +<p>But I must translate inadequately, for the grammar and phrasing were +Elodesque.</p> + +<p>As you no longer love me, if ever you have loved me, which I doubt, for +we have made <i>un drôle de ménage</i> ever since we joined ourselves +together, and as our life in common is giving you unhappiness, which it +does me also, for since you have returned from England as a General you +have not been the same, and indeed I have never understood how a General +[and then followed a couple of lines vehemently erased]. And as I do not +wish to be a burden to you, but desire that you should feel yourself free +to lead whatever life you like, I have taken the decision to leave you for +ever--<i>pour tout jamais</i>. It is the best means to regain happiness.</p> + +<p>For the things that are still at the Cirque Vendramin, do with them what +you will. I shall write to Ernestine to send me my clothes and all the +little birds I love so much. Your noble heart will not grudge them to me, +<i>mon petit André</i>.</p> + +<p>Praying God for your happiness, I am always</p> + +<p>Your devoted</p> + +<p>ELODIE</p> + +<p>I handed him back the letter without a word. What could one say?</p> + +<p>"The first thing I did," he said, putting the letter back in his pocket, +"was to ring up Bakkus, to see whether he could throw any light on the +matter."</p> + +<p>"Bakkus--why, he cut his engagement with us yesterday."</p> + +<p>"The damned scoundrel," said Lackaday, "was running away with Elodie."</p> + + + + +<h1>Chapter XXIII</h1> + + + +<p>He banged his hand on the little iron table in front of us and started to +his feet, exploding at last with his suppressed fury.</p> + +<p>"The infernal villain!"</p> + +<p>I gasped for a few seconds. Then I accomplished my life's effort in +self-control. My whole being clamoured for an explosion equally violent of +compressed mirth. I ached to lie back in my chair and shriek with laughter. +The <i>dénouement</i> of the little drama was so amazingly unexpected, so +unexpectedly ludicrous. A glimmer of responsive humour in his eyes would +have sent me off. But there he stood, with his grimmest battle-field face, +denouncing his betrayer. Even a smile on my part would have been insulting.</p> + +<p>Worked up, he told me the whole of the astonishing business, as far as he +knew it. They had eloped at dawn, like any pair of young lovers. Of +that there was no doubt. The car had picked up Bakkus at his hotel in +Royat--Lackaday had the landlord's word for it--and had carried the pair +away, Heaven knew whither. The proprietor of the Royat garage deposed that +Mr. Bakkus had hired the car for the day, mentioning no objective. The +runaways had the whole of France before them. Pursuit was hopeless. As +Lackaday had planned to go to Vichy, he went to Vichy. There seemed nothing +else to do.</p> + +<p>"But why elope at dawn?" I cried. "Why all the fellow's unnecessary +duplicity? Why, in the name of Macchiavelli, did he seize upon my ten +o'clock invitation with such enthusiasm? Why his private conversation with +me? Why throw dust into my sleepy eyes? What did he gain by it?"</p> + +<p>Lackaday shrugged his shoulders. That part of the matter scarcely +interested him. He was concerned mainly with the sting of the viper Bakkus, +whom he had nourished in his bosom.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear fellow," said I at last, after a tiring march up and down the +hot terrace, "you don't seem to realize that Bakkus has solved all your +difficulties, <i>ambulando</i>, by walking off, or motoring off, with your +great responsibility."</p> + +<p>"You mean," said he, coming to a halt, "that this has removed the reason +for my remaining on the stage?"</p> + +<p>"It seems so," said I.</p> + +<p>He frowned. "I wish it could have happened differently. No man can bear to +be tricked and fooled and made a mock of."</p> + +<p>"But it does give you your freedom," said I.</p> + +<p>He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. "I suppose it does," he +admitted savagely. "But there's a price for everything. Even freedom can be +purchased too highly."</p> + +<p>He strode on. I had to accompany him, perspiringly. It was a very hot day. +We talked and talked; came back to the startling event. We had to believe +it, because it was incredible, as Tertullian cheerily remarked of +ecclesiastical dogma. But short of the Archbishop of Canterbury eloping +with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour nothing could seem less +possible. If Bakkus had nurtured nefarious designs, Good Heavens! he could +have executed them years before. Well, perhaps not. When one hasn't a penny +in one's pocket even the most cynical pauses ere he proposes romantic +flight with a lady equally penniless. But since April, Bakkus had been +battening on the good Archdeacon, his brother's substantial allowance. Why +had he tarried?</p> + +<p>"His diabolical cunning lay in wait for a weak moment," growled Lackaday.</p> + +<p>All through this discussion, I came up against a paradox of human nature. +Although it was obvious that the unprincipled Bakkus had rendered my good +friend the service of ridding him of the responsibility of a woman whom he +had ceased to love, if ever he had loved her at all, a woman, who, for all +her loyal devotion through loveless years, had stood implacably between him +and the realization of his dreams, yet he rampaged against his benefactor, +as though he had struck a fatal blow at the roots of his honour and his +happiness.</p> + +<p>"But after all, man, can't you see," he cried in protest at my worldly and +sophistical arguments, "that I've lost one of the most precious things in +the world? My implicit faith in a fellow-man. I gave Bakkus a brother's +trust. He has betrayed it. Where am I? His thousand faults have been +familiar to me for years. I discounted them for the good in him. I thought +I had grasped it." He clenched his delicate hand in a passionate gesture. +"But now"--he opened it--"nothing. I'm at sea. How can I know that you, +whom I have trusted more than any other man with my heart's secrets------?"</p> + +<p>The <i>concierge</i> with a dusty chauffeur in tow providentially cut short +this embarrassing apostrophe.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton?" asked the chauffeur.</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est moi</i>."</p> + +<p>He handed me a letter. I glanced at the writing on the envelope.</p> + +<p>"From Bakkus!" I said. "Tell me"--to the chauffeur--"how did you come by +it?"</p> + +<p>"Monsieur charged me to deliver it into the hands of Monsieur le Capitaine. +I have this moment returned to Royat."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said I. "You drove the automobile? Where is Monsieur Bakkus?"</p> + +<p>"That," said he, "I have pledged my honour not to divulge."</p> + +<p>I fished in my pocket for some greasy rags of paper money which I pressed +into his honourable hand. He bowed and departed. I tore open the envelope.</p> + +<p>"You will excuse me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course," said Lackaday curtly. He lit a cigarette and stalked to +the end of the terrace.</p> + +<p>The letter bore neither date nor address. I read:</p> + +<p>MY DEAR HYLTON,</p> + +<p>You have heard of Touchstone. You have heard of Audrey. Shakespeare has +doubtless convinced you of the inevitability of their mating. I have always +prided myself of a certain Touchstone element in my nature. There is much +that is Audrey-esque in the lady whose disappearance from Clermont-Ferrand +may be causing perturbation. As my Shakespearian preincarnation scorned +dishonourable designs, so do even I. The marriage of Veuve Elodie Marescaux +and Horatio Bakkus will take place at the earliest opportunity allowed +by French law. If that delays too long, we shall fly to England where an +Archbishop's special licence will induce a family Archdeacon to marry us +straight away.</p> + +<p>My flippancy, my dear Hylton, is but a motley coat.</p> + +<p>If there is one being in this world whom I love and honour, it is Andrew +Lackaday. From the first day I met him, I, a cynical disillusioned wastrel, +he a raw yet uncompromising lad, I felt that here, somehow, was a sheet +anchor in my life. He has fed me when I have been hungry, he has lashed me +when I have been craven-hearted, he has raised me when I have fallen. There +can be only three beings in the Cosmos who know how I have been saved times +out of number from the nethermost abyss--I and Andrew Lackaday and God.</p> + +<p>I passed my hand over my eyes when I read this remarkable outburst of +devoted affection on the part of the seducer and betrayer for the man he +had wronged. I thought of the old couplet about the dissembling of love +and the kicking downstairs. I read on, however, and found the mystery +explained.</p> + +<blockquote> The time has come for me to pay him, in part, my infinite debt of + gratitude. </blockquote> + +<blockquote> You may have been surprised when I wrung your hand warmly before + parting. Your words removed every hesitating scruple. Had you said, + "there is nothing between a certain lady and Andrew Lackaday," I should + have been to some extent nonplussed. I should have doubted my judgment. + I should have pressed you further. If you had convinced me that the + whole basis of my projected action was illusory, I should have found + means to cancel the arrangements. But remember what you said. "There + can't by any possibility be anything between Lady Auriol Dayne and + Petit Patou."</blockquote> + +<p>"Damn the fellow," I muttered. "Now he's calmly shifting the responsibility +on to me."</p> + +<p>And I swore a deep oath that nevermore would I interfere in anybody else's +affairs, not even if Bolshevist butchers were playing with him before my +very eyes.</p> + +<blockquote> There, my dear Hylton (the letter went on), you gave away the key of + the situation. My judgment had been unerring. As Petit Patou, our + friend stood beyond the pale. As General Lackaday, he stepped into all + the privileges of the Enclosure. Bound by such ties to Madame Patou as + an honourable and upright gentleman like our friend could not d + of severing, he was likewise bound to his vain and heart-breaking + existence as Petit Patou. A free man, he could cast off his mountebank + trappings and go forth into the world, once more as General Lackaday, + the social equal of the gracious lady whom he loved and whose feelings + towards him, as eyes far less careless than ours could see at a glance, + were not those of placid indifference. </blockquote> + +<blockquote> The solution of the problem dawned on me like an inspiration. Why not + sacrifice my not over-valued celibacy on the altar of friendship? For + years Elodie and I have been, <i>en lout bien et tout honneur</i>, the + most intimate of comrades. I don't say that, for all the gold in the + Indies, I would not marry a woman out of my brother's Archdeaco + If she asked me, I probably should. But I should most certainly, such + being my unregenerate nature, run away with the gold and leave the + lady. For respectability to have attraction you must be bred in + You must regard the dog collar and chain as the great and God-given + blessing of your life. The old fable of the dog and the wolf. But I've + lived my life, till past fifty, as the disreputable wolf--and so, + please God, will I remain till I die. But, after all, being human, I'm + quite a kind sort of wolf. Thanks to my brother--no longer will hunger + drive the wolf abroad. You remember Villon's lines: </blockquote> + +<blockquote> "Necessité fait gens mesprendre<br /> + Et faim sortir le loup des boys." </blockquote> + +<blockquote> I shall live in plethoric ease my elderly vulpine life. But the elderly + wolf needs a mate for his old age, who is at one with him in his + (entirely unsinful) habits of disrepute. Where in this universe, then, + could I find a fitter mate than Elodie? </blockquote> + +<blockquote> Which brings me back, although I'm aware of glaring psychological + flaws, to my Touchstone and Audrey prelude. </blockquote> + +<blockquote> Writing, as I am doing, in a devil of a hurry, I don't pretend to + Meredithean analysis. </blockquote> + +<blockquote> Elodie's refusal to marry Andrew Lackaday had something to do + a woman's illusions. She is going to marry me because there's no + possibility of any kind of illusion whatsoever. My good brother whom, I + grieve to say, is in the very worst of health, informs me that he has + made a will in my favour. Heaven knows, I am contented enough as I am. + But, the fact remains, which no doubt will ease our dear frie + mind, that Elodie's future is assured. In the meanwhile we will devote + ourselves to the cultivation of that peculiarly disreputable sloth + which is conducive to longevity, <i>relevé</i> (according to the + gastronomic idiom) on my part, with the study of French Heraldry which + in the present world upheaval, is the most futile pursuit conceivable + by a Diogenic philosopher. </blockquote> + +<blockquote> I can't write this to Lackaday, who no doubt is saying all the dreadful + things that he learned with our armies in Flanders. He would not + understand. He would not understand the magic of romance, the secrecy, + the thrill of the dawn elopement, the romance of the <i>coup de + théâtre</i> by which alone I was able to induce Elodie to co-operate in + the part payment of my infinite debt of gratitude. </blockquote> + +<blockquote> I therefore write to you, confident that, as an urbane citizen of the + world you will be able to convey to the man I love most on earth, the + real essence of this, the apologia of Elodie and myself. What more can + a man do than lay down his bachelor life for a friend? </blockquote> + +<blockquote> Yours sincerely, </blockquote> + +<blockquote> Horatio Bakkus</blockquote> + +<blockquote> P.S.--If you had convinced me that I was staring hypnotically at a + mare's nest, I should have had much pleasure in joining you on your + excursion. I hope you went and enjoyed it and found Orcival exceeding + my poor dithyrambic.</blockquote> + +<p>I had to read over this preposterous epistle again before I fully grasped +its significance. On the first reading it seemed incredible that the man +could be sincere in his professions; on the second, his perfect good faith +manifested itself in every line. Had I read it a third time, I, no doubt, +should have regarded him as an heroic figure, with a halo already beginning +to shimmer about his head.</p> + +<p>I walked up to Lackaday at the end of the terrace and handed him the +letter. It was the simplest thing to do. He also read it twice, the +first time with scowling brow, the second with a milder expression of +incredulity. He looked down on me--I don't stand when a handy chair invites +me to sit.</p> + +<p>"This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard of."</p> + +<p>I nodded. He walked a few yards away and attacked the letter for the third +time. Then he gave it back to me with a smile.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he's such an infernal scoundrel after all."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said I.</p> + +<p>He leaned over the balustrade and plunged into deep reflection.</p> + +<p>"If it's genuine, it's an unheard of piece of Quixotism."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure it's genuine."</p> + +<p>"By Gum!" said he. He gazed at the vine-clad hill in the silence of +wondering admiration.</p> + +<p>At last I tapped him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Let us lunch," said I.</p> + +<p>We strolled to the upper terrace.</p> + +<p>"It is wonderful," he remarked on the way thither, "how much sheer goodness +there is in humanity."</p> + +<p>"Pure selfishness on my part. I hate lunching alone," said I.</p> + +<p>He turned on me a pained look.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't referring to you."</p> + +<p>Then meeting something quizzical in my eye, he grinned his broad ear-to-ear +grin of a child of six.</p> + +<p>We lunched. We smoked and talked. At every moment a line seemed to fade +from his care-worn face. At any rate, everything was not for the worst in +the worst possible of worlds. I think he felt his sense of freedom steal +over him in his gradual glow. At last I had him laughing and mimicking, in +his inimitable way--a thing which he had not done for my benefit since the +first night of our acquaintance--the elderly and outraged Moignon whom he +proposed to visit in Paris, for the purpose of cancelling his contracts. +As for Vichy--Vichy could go hang. There were ravening multitudes of +demobilized variety artists besieging every stage-door in France. He was +letting down nobody; neither the managements nor the public. Moignon would +find means of consolation.</p> + +<p>"My dear Hylton," said he, "now that my faith in Bakkus is not only +restored but infinitely strengthened, and my mind is at rest concerning +Elodie, I feel as though ten years were lifted from my life. I'm no longer +Petit Patou. The blessed relief of it! Perhaps," he added, after a pause, +"the discipline has been good for my soul."</p> + +<p>"In what way?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see," he replied thoughtfully, "in my profession I always was a +second-rater. I was aware of it; but I was content, because I did my best. +In the Army my vanity leads me to believe I was a first-rater. Then I had +to go back, not only to second-rate, but to third-rate, having lost a lot +in five years. It was humiliating. But all the same I've no doubt it has +been the best thing in the world for me. The old hats will still fit."</p> + +<p>"If I had a quarter of your vicious modesty," said I, "I would see that I +turned it into a dazzling virtue. What are your plans?"</p> + +<p>"You remember my telling you of a man I met in Marseilles called +Arbuthnot?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said I, "the fellow who shies at coco-nuts in the Solomon Islands."</p> + +<p>He grinned, and with singular aptness he replied:</p> + +<p>"I'll cable him this afternoon and see whether I can still have three shies +for a penny."</p> + +<p>We discussed the proposal. Presently he rose. He must go to Vichy, where he +had to wind up certain affairs of Les Petit Patou. To-morrow he would start +for Paris and await Arbuthnot's reply.</p> + +<p>"And possibly you'll see Lady Auriol," I hazarded, this being the first +time her name was mentioned.</p> + +<p>His brow clouded and he shook his head sadly.</p> + +<p>"I think not," said he. And, as I was about to protest, he checked me with +a gesture. "That's all done with."</p> + +<p>"My dear, distinguished idiot," said I.</p> + +<p>"It can never be," he declared with an air of finality.</p> + +<p>"You'll break Bakkus's heart."</p> + +<p>"Sorry," said he.</p> + +<p>"You'll break mine."</p> + +<p>"Sorrier still. No, no, my dear friend," he said gently, "don't let us talk +about that any more."</p> + +<p>After he had gone I experienced a severe attack of anticlimax, and feeling +lonely I wrote to Lady Auriol. In the coarse phraseology of the day, +I spread myself out over that letter. It was a piece of high-class +descriptive writing. I gave her a beautiful account of the elopement and, +as an interesting human document, I enclosed a copy of Bakkus's letter. As +I had to wait a day or two for her promised address--her letter conveying +it gave me no particular news of herself--I did not receive her answer +until I reached London.</p> + +<p>It was characteristic:</p> + +<blockquote> My Dear Tony,</blockquote> + +<blockquote> Thanks for your interesting letter. I've adopted a mongrel Irish + Terrier--the most fascinating skinful of sin the world has ever + produced. I'll show him to you some day. </blockquote> + +<blockquote> Yours, </blockquote> + +<blockquote> Auriol</blockquote> + +<p>I wrote back in a fury: something about never wanting to see her or her +infernal dog as long as I lived. I was angry and depressed. I don't know +why. It was none of my business. But I felt that I had been scandalously +treated by this young woman. I felt that I had subscribed to their futile +romance an enormous fund of interest and sympathy. This chilly end of it +left me with a sense of bleak disappointment. I was not rendered merrier a +short while afterwards by an airy letter from Horatio Bakkus enclosing a +flourishing announcement in French of his marriage with the Veuve Elodie +Marescaux, née Figasso. "Behold me," said the fellow, "cooing with content +in the plenitude of perfect connubiality." I did not desire to behold him +at all. His cooing left me cold. I bore on my shoulders the burden of the +tragio-comedy of Auriol and Lackaday.</p> + +<p>If she had never seen him as Petit Patou, all might have been well, in +spite of Elodie who had been somewhat destructive of romantic glamour. But +the visit to the circus, I concluded, finished the business. Beneath the +painted monster in green silk tights the dignified soldier whom she loved +was eclipsed for ever. And then a thousand commonplace social realities +arose and stood stonily in her path. And Lackaday--well! I suppose he was +faced with the same unscalable stone wall of convention.</p> + +<p>Lackaday's letters were brief, and, such as they were, full of Arbuthnot. +He was sailing as soon as he could find a berth. I gave the pair up, and +went to an elder brother's place in Inverness-shire for rest and +shooting and rain and family criticism and such-like amenities. Among my +fellow-guests I found young Charles Verity-Stewart and Evadne nominally +under governess tutelage. The child kept me sane during a dreadful month. +Having been sick of the sound of guns going off during the war, I found, +to my dismay, scant pleasure in explosions followed by the death of little +birds. And then--I suppose I am growing old--the sport, in which I once +rejoiced, involved such hours of wet and weary walking that I renounced +it without too many sighs. But I had nothing to do. My pre-war dilettante +excursions into the literary world had long since come to an end. I was +obsessed by the story of Lackaday; and so, out of sheer <i>tædium vitæ</i>, +and at the risk of a family quarrel, I shut myself up with the famous +manuscript and my own reminiscences, and began to reduce things to such +coherence as you now have had an opportunity of judging.</p> + +<p>It was at breakfast, one morning in November, that the butler handed me a +telegram. I opened the orange envelope. The missive, reply paid, ran:</p> + +<blockquote> Will you swear that there are real live cannibals in the Solomon<br /> + Islands? If not, it will be the final disillusion of my life.--<span class="smallcaps">Auriol</span></blockquote> + +<p>I passed the paper to my neighbour Evadne, healthily deep in porridge. She +glanced at it, glass of milk in one hand, poised spoon in the other. With +the diabolical intuition of eternal woman and the ironical imperturbability +of the modern maiden, she raised her candid eyes to mine and declared:</p> + +<p>"She's quite mad. But I told you all about it years ago."</p> + +<p>This lofty calmness I could not share. I suddenly found myself unable to +stand another minute of Scotland. Righteous indignation sped me to London.</p> + +<p>I found the pair together in Lady Auriol's drawing-room. Without formal +greeting I apostrophized them.</p> + +<p>"You two have behaved disgracefully. Here have I been utterly miserable +about you, and all the time you've left me in the dark."</p> + +<p>"Where we were ourselves, my dear Hylton, I assure you," said Lackaday.</p> + +<p>"I shed light as soon as I could," said Auriol. "We bumped into each other +last Monday evening in Bond Street and found it was us."</p> + +<p>"I told her I was going to the Solomon Islands."</p> + +<p>"And I thought I wanted to go there too."</p> + +<p>"From which I gather," said I, "that you are going to get married."</p> + +<p>Lady Auriol smiled and shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear no."</p> + +<p>I was really angry. "Then what on earth made you drag me all the way from +the North of Scotland?"</p> + +<p>"To congratulate us, my dear friend," said Lackaday. "We were married this +morning."</p> + +<p>"I think you're a pair of fools," said I later, not yet quite mollified.</p> + +<p>"Why--for getting married?" asked Auriol.</p> + +<p>"No," said I. "For putting it off to a fortuitous bump in Bond Street."</p> + + + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">The End</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mountebank, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOUNTEBANK *** + +This file should be named 8mbnk10h.htm or 8mbnk10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8mbnk11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8mbnk10ah.htm + +Produced by Curtis A. 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