The Mountebank

by

William J. Locke

Chapter I

In the month of June, 1919, I received a long letter from Brigadier-GeneralAndrew Lackaday together with a bulky manuscript. 

The letter, addressed from an obscure hotel in Marseilles, ran asfollows:--

MY DEAR FRIEND, On the occasion of our last meeting when I kept you up to an ungodly hourof the morning with the story of my wretched affairs to which you patientlylistened without seeming bored, you were good enough to suggest that Imight write a book about myself, not for the sake of vulgar advertisement, but in order to interest, perhaps to encourage, at any rate to stimulatethe thoughts of many of my old comrades who have been placed in the samepredicament as myself. Well, I can't do it. You're a professional man ofletters and don't appreciate the extraordinary difficulty a layman has, notonly in writing a coherent narrative, but in composing the very sentenceswhich express the things that he wants to convey. Add to this that Englishis to me, if not a foreign, at any rate, a secondary language--I havethought all my life in French, so that to express myself clearly on anyexcept the humdrum affairs of life is always a conscious effort. Even thislittle prelude, in my best style, has taken me nearly two cigarettes towrite; so I gave up an impossible task. 

But I thought to myself that perhaps you might have the time or theinterest to put into shape a whole mass of raw material which I have slungtogether--from memory (I have a good one), and from my diary. It may seemodd that a homeless Bohemian like myself should have kept a diary; butI was born methodical. I believe my mastery of Army Forms gained me mypromotion! Anyhow you will find in it a pretty complete history of mycareer up to date. "I have cut out the war----"

Is there a _lusus naturæ_ of any nationality but English, whorising from Private to Brigadier-General, could write six hundred andseventy-three sprawling foolscap pages purporting to contain the storyof his life from eighteen-eighty something to June nineteen hundred andnineteen and deliberately omit, as if it were neither here nor there, itsfour and a half years' glorious and astounding episode?

"_I have cut out the war!_"

On looking through the MS. I found that he had cut out the war, in so faras his military experiences were concerned. In khaki he showed himself tobe as English and John Bull as you please; and how the deuce his meteoricpromotion occurred and what various splendid services compelled theexhibition on his breast of a rainbow row of ribbons, are matters knownonly to the War Office, Andrew Lackaday and his Maker. Well--that isperhaps an exaggeration of secrecy. The newspapers have publishedtheir official paragraphs. Officers who served under him have given meinteresting information. But from the spoken or written word of AndrewLackaday 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 theother hand, the private life that he led during the four and a half yearsof war, and that which he lived before and after, was revealed with arefreshing Gallic lack of reticence which could only proceed from hisFrench upbringing. 

To return to his letter:--

I have cut out the war. Thousands of brainy people will be spending thenext few years of their lives telling you all about it. But I should ratherlike to treat it as a blank, a period of penal servitude, a drugged sleepafflicted with nightmare, a bit of metempsychosis in the middle of normallife--you know what I mean. The thing that is _I_ is not GeneralLackaday. 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 theearth before the Bon Dieu came in and made His little arrangements. Do withit what you like. At the present moment I am between the Devil and the DeepSea. 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'tmatter. .. . If you are interested in the doings of a spent meteor, I shallbe delighted to write to you from time to time. As you said, you are theoldest friend I have. You are almost the only living creature who knows thereal identity of Andrew Lackaday. You have been charming enough to give menot only the benefit of your experience, riper than mine, of a man of theworld, but also such a very human sympathy that I shall always think of youwith sentiments of affectionate esteem. 

Yours sincerely, ANDREW LACKADAY

Well. There was the letter, curiously composed; half French, half Englishin 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. Ourcorrespondence thenceforward became intimate and regular. 

In his estimate of his manuscript from a literary point of view thepoor General did not exaggerate. Anything more hopeless as a continuousnarrative I have never read. But it supplied facts, hit off odds andends of character, and--what the autobiography seldom does--it gave the_ipsissima verba_ of conversations written in helter-skelter fashionwith flowing pen, sometimes in excellent French, sometimes in English, which beginning in the elaborate style of his letter broke down into queervernacular; it was charmingly devoid of self-consciousness, so that the manas he was, and not as he imagined himself to be or would like others toimagine him, stood ingenuously disclosed. 

If the manuscript had been that of a total stranger I could not haveundertaken the task of the Bon Dieu making His little arrangements to shapethe earth out of chaos. An elderly literary dilettante, who is not a rabidarchæologist, 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 tacklethe business. But knowing the man, knowing also Lady Auriol and havingin the meantime made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle Elodie Figasso andHoratio Bakkus, playing, in fact, a minor rôle, say, that of Charles, hisfriend, in the little drama of his life, I eventually decided to carry outmy good friend's wishes. The major part of my task has been a matterof arrangement, of joining up flats, as they say in the theatre, oftranslation, of editing, of winnowing, as far as my fallible judgment candecide, the chaff from the grain in his narrative, and of relating factswhich have come within the horizon of my own personal experience. 

I begin therefore at the very beginning. 

Many a year ago, when the world, myself included, was young, I knew acircus. This does not mean that I knew it from the wooden benches outsidethe ring. I knew it behind the scenes. I was on terms of intimacy with themost motley crowd it has been my good fortune to meet. It was a famousFrench circus of the classical type that has by now, I fear me, passedaway. Its _hautè école_ was its pride, and it demanded for its_première équestrienne_ the homage due to the great artists of theworld. Bernhardt of the Comédie Francaise--I think she was still there inthose far-off days, Patti of the Opera and Mlle Renée Saint-Maur of theCirque Rocambeau were three stars of equal magnitude. The circus touredthrough France from year's end to year's end. It pitched its tent--whatelse could it do, seeing that municipal ineptitude provided no buildingwherein could be run chariot races of six horses abreast? But the tent, inmy youthful eyes, confused by the naphtha glares and the violentshadows cast on the many tiers of pink faces, loomed as vast as a Romanamphitheatre. It was a noble tent, a palace of a tent, the auditorium beingbut 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 barmanbehind it who supplied your wants from the contents of a myriad bottlesranged in perfect order in some obscure nook beneath the counter. They didthings in the great manner in the Cirque Rocambeau. It visited none butfirst-class towns which had open spaces worthy of its magnificence. Itdespised one or two night stands. The Cirque Rocambeau had a way ofimposing itself upon a town as an illusory permanent institution, a weekbeing its shortest and almost contemptuous sojourn. The Cirque Rocambeaumaintained the stateliness of the old world. 

Now the Cirque Rocambeau fades out of this story almost as soon as itenters it. But it affords the coincidence which enables this story to bewritten. For if I had not known the Cirque Rocambeau, I should neverhave won the confidence of Andrew Lackaday and I should have remained asignorant, as you are, at the present moment, of the vicissitudes of thatworthy man's career. 

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 hislife, to the France of former days, to my own early wanderings aboutthat 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 bombinstead of a name at him. In fact the bomb would have startled him less. 

"The Cirque Rocambeau?"

"Yes. "

He looked at me narrowly. "What year was that?"

I told him. 

"Lord Almighty, " said he, with a gasp. "Lord Almighty!" He stared for along time in front of him without speaking. Then to my amazement he saiddeliberately: "I remember you! You were a sort of a young English god in astraw hat and beautiful clothes, and you used to take me for rides on theclown's pig. The clown was my foster father. And now I'm commanding abattalion in the British Army. By Gum! It's a damn funny world!"

Memory flashed back with almost a spasm of joy. 

"'By Gum!'" I repeated. "Why, that was what my old friend Ben Flint used tosay twenty times an hour!"

It was a shibboleth proving his story true. And I remembered the weedy, ugly, precocious infant who was the pride and spoiled darling of thatcircus crowd. 

Why I, a young gentleman of leisure, fresh from Cambridge, chose to goround France with a circus, is neither here nor there. For one thing, Iassure you it was not for the bright eyes of Mlle Renée Saint-Maur or herlesser sister luminaries. Ben Flint, the English clown, classically styled"Auguste" in the arena, and his performing pig, Billy, somehow heldthe secret of my fascination. Ben Flint mystified me. He was a man ofremarkable cultivation; save for a lapse here and there into North Countryidiom, and for a trace now and then of North Country burr, his Englishwas pure and refined. In ordinary life, too, he spoke excellent French, although in the ring he had to follow the classical tradition of theEnglish clown, and pronounce his patter with a nerve-rasping Britannicaccent. He never told me his history. But there he was, the principalclown, and as perfect a clown as clown could be, with every bit of hisbusiness at his fingers' ends, in a great and important circus. Like mostof 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 canvaswalls of the circus, and who differentiated their impressions of Singaporeand Moscow mainly in terms of climate and alcohol, Ben Flint had observedmen and things and had recorded and analysed his experiences, so that, meeting a more or less educated youth like myself--perhaps a rare birdin the circus world--standing on the brink of life, thirsting for theknowledge that is not supplied by lectures at the Universities, he musthave felt some kind of satisfaction in pouring out, for my benefit, thefull vintage of his wisdom. 

I see him now, squat, clean-shaven, with merry blue eyes in a mug of aface, sitting in a deck chair, on a scrap of ragged ground forming theangle between the row of canvas stables and the great tent, a cob pipe inhis humorous mouth, a thick half litre glass of beer with a handle to it onthe earth beside him, and I hear his shrewd talk of far-away andmysterious lands. His pretty French wife, who knows no English, charminglydishevelled, uncorseted, free, in a dubious _peignoir_ trimmedwith artificial lace--she who moulded in mirific tights, sea-green withreflections of mother-of-pearl, like Venus Anadyomene, does the tight ropeact every afternoon and evening--sits a little way apart, busy with needleand thread repairing a sorry handful of garments which to-night will betense with some portion of her shapely body. Between them sprawls on hisside Billy, the great brown pig whom Ben has trained to stand on his hindlegs, to jump through hoops, to die for his country. .. . 

"They don't applaud. They don't appreciate you, Billy, " the clown wouldsay, choosing his time when applause was scant. "Show them what you thinkof them. "

And then Billy would deliberately turn round and, moving in a semicircle, present his stern to the delighted audience. .. . 

There lies Billy, the pig, the most human pig that ever breathed, adoredby Ben Flint, who, not having given the beast one second's pain in all itsbeatific life, was, in his turn, loved by the pig as only a few men areloved by a dog--and there, sitting on the pig's powerful withers, his bluesmock full of wilted daisies, is little eight-year-old tow-headed AndrewLackaday making a daisy chain, which eventually he twines round theanimal's semi-protesting snout. 

Yes. There is the picture. It is full summer. We have lunched, Madameand Ben and Andrew and I, at the little café restaurant at the near-bystraggling end of the town. At other tables, other aristocratic members ofthe troupe. The humbler have cooked their food in the vague precincts ofthe circus. We have returned to all that Ben and his wife know as home. Itis one o'clock. At two, matinee. An hour of blissful ease. We are in theshade of the great tent; but the air is full of the heavy odour of the dustand the flowers and the herbs of the South, and of the pungent smell of thelong row of canvas stables. 

I call little Andrew. He dismounts from Billy the pig, and, insolent brat, screws an imaginary eyeglass into his eye, which he contrives to keepcontorted, and assuming a supercilious expression and a languid manner, struts leisurely towards us, with his hands in his pockets, therebygiving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in itsburlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw himacross knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle lustily till Madame criesout:

"But cease, André. You are making Monsieur too hot. "

And Andrew, docile, ceased at once; but standing in front of me, his backto Madame, he noiselessly mimicked Madame's speech with his lips, sodrolly, so exquisitely, that Ben Flint's hearty laugh broke out again. 

"Just look at the little devil! By Gum! He has a fortune in him. "

I learned in the circus as much about Andrew as he knew himself. Perhapsmore; for a child of eight has lost all recollection of parents who diedbefore he was two. They were circus folk, English, trapeze artists, come, they said, from a long tour in Australia, where Andrew was born, and theirfirst European engagement was in the Cirque Rocambeau. Their stay wasbrief; their end tragic. Lackaday _Père_ took to drink, which is thelast thing a trapeze artist should do. Brain and hand at rehearsal oneday lost co-ordination by the thousandth part of a second and Lackaday_Mère_, swinging from her feet upwards, missed the anticipated grip, and fell with a thud on the ground, breaking her spine. Whereupon Lackaday_Père_ went out and hanged himself from a cross-beam in an emptystable. 

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' modestluggage 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. Theycalled themselves professionally "The Lackadays. " Whether it was their realname or not, no one in the world which narrowed itself within the limits ofthe Cirque Rocambeau, could possibly tell. But it was the only name thatAndrew had, and as good as any other. It was part of his inheritance, theremainder being ninety-five francs in cash, some cheap trinkets, a coupleof boxes of fripperies which were sold for a song, a tattered copy ofLongfellow's Poems, and a brand new gilt-edged Bible, carefully covered inbrown paper, with "For Fanny from Jim" inscribed on the flyleaf. From whichAndrew Lackaday, as soon as his mind could grasp such things, deduced thathis mother's name was Fanny, and his father's James. But Ben Flint assuredme that Lackaday called his wife Myra, while she called him Alf, by whichnames they were familiarly known by their colleagues. So who were Fanny andJim, if not Andrew's parents, remained a mystery. 

Meanwhile there was the orphan Andrew Lackaday rich in his extreme youthand the fortune above specified, and violently asserting his right to liveand enjoy. Meanwhile, too, Ben Flint and his wife had lost their pigBob, Billy's predecessor. Bob had grown old and past his job and becomeafflicted with an obscure porcine disease, possibly senile decay, forwhich 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 Flintpaid, when Madame was mothering the tiny Andrew in her arms, and Ben stoodstaring, lost in yearning for the lost and beloved pig, she glanced up andsaid:

"_Tiens_, why should he not replace Bob, _ce petit cochon?_"

Ben Flint slapped his thigh. 

"By Gum!" said he, and the thing was done. The responsibility of selfdependence for life and enjoyment was removed from the shoulders of youngAndrew Lackaday for many years to come. 

In the course of time, when the child's _état civil_, as a residentin France, had to be declared, and this question of nationality became ofgreat importance in after years--Madame said:

"Since we have adopted him, why not give him our name?"

But Ben, with the romanticism of Bohemia, replied:

"No. His name belongs to him. If he keeps it, he may be able to find outsomething about his family. He might be the heir to great possessions. One never knows. It's a clue anyway. Besides, " he added, the sturdy Northcountryman asserting itself, "I'm not giving my name to any man savethe son of my loins. It's a name where I come from that has never beendishonoured for a couple of hundred years. "

"But it is just as you like, _mon chéri_, " said Madame, who was theplacidest thing in France. 

 * * * * *

For thirty years I had forgotten all this; but the "By Gum!" of ColonelLackaday wiped out the superscription over the palimpsest of memory andrevealed in startling clearness all these impressions of the past. 

"Of course we're fond of the kid, " said Ben Flint. "He's free from vice andas clever as paint. He's a born acrobat. Might as well try to teach a duckto swim. It comes natural. Heredity of course. There's nothing he won't beable to do when I'm finished with him. Yet there are some things which lickme altogether. He's an ugly son of a gun. His father and mother, by theway, were a damn good-looking pair. But their hands were the thick spreadmuscular hands of the acrobat. Where the deuce did he get his long, thindelicate fingers from? Already he can pass a coin from back to front----"he flicked an illustrative conjuror's hand--"at eight years old. To teachhim was as easy as falling off a log. Still, that's mechanical. What I wantto know is, where did he get his power of mimicry? That artistic sense ofexpressing personality? 'Pon my soul, he's damn well nearly as clever asBilly. "

During the talk which followed the discovery of our former meeting, Ireported to Colonel Lackaday these encomiums of years ago. He smiledwistfully. 

"Most of the dear old fellow's swans were geese, I'm afraid, " said he. "AndI was the awkwardest gosling of them all. They tried for years to teach methe acrobat's business; but it was no good. They might just as well havespent their pains on a rheumatic young giraffe. "

I looked at him and smiled. The simile was not inapposite. How, I askedmyself, could the man into which he had developed, ever have become anacrobat? He was the leanest, scraggiest long thing I have ever seen. Sixfoot four of stringy sinew and bone, with inordinately long legs, aroundwhich his khaki slacks flapped, as though they hid stilts instead of humanlimbs. His arms swung long and ungainly, the sleeves of his tunic far abovethe bony wrist, as though his tailor in cutting the garment had repudiatedas fantastic the evidence of his measurements. Yet, when one might haveexpected to find hands of a talon-like knottiness, to correspond with thesparse rugosity of his person, one found to one's astonishment the mostdelicately shaped hands in the world, with long, sensitive, nervousfingers, like those of the thousands of artists who have lived and diedwithout 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, shrewdobserver, said about his hands, as a child of eight. They were the samehands thirty years after. To me, elderly observer of human things, theyseemed, as he moved them so gracefully--the only touch of physical graceabout him--to confer an air of pathos on the ungainly man, to serve as anindex to a soul which otherwise could not be divined. 

From this lean length of body rose a long stringy neck carrying a smallhead surmounted by closely cropped carotty thatch. His skin was drawn tightover the framework of his face, as though his Maker had been forced toobserve the strictest economy in material. His complexion was brick redover a myriad freckles. His features preserved the irregular ugliness ofthe child I half remembered, but it was redeemed by light blue candid eyesset 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 thedisclosure of two rows of white teeth perfectly set in the healthy pinkstreaks 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 speculateon his social standing, as human frailty determined that one should do inthe case of so many splendid and gallant officers of the New Army. Hismanners were marked by shy simplicity and quiet reserve. It was a shock topreconceived ideas to find him bred in a circus, even in so magnificent acircus as the Cirque Rocambeau, and brought up by a clown, even by such asuperior clown as Ben Flint, "And my old friend?" I asked. For I had lost knowledge of Ben practicallyfrom the time I ended my happy vagabondage. _Maxima mea culpa_. 

"He died when I was about sixteen, " replied Colonel Lackaday, "and his wifea year or so later. "

"And then?" I queried, eager for autobiographical revelations. 

"Then, " said he, "I was a grown up man, able to fend for myself. "

That was all I could get out of him, without allowing natural curiosity tooutrun discretion. He changed the conversation to the war, to the Franceabout which I, a very elderly Captain--have I not confessed to earlytwenties thirty years before?--was travelling most uncomfortably, doingqueer odd jobs as a nominal liaison officer on the Quartermaster-General'sstaff. His intimacy with the country was amazing. Multiply Sam Weller'sextensive and peculiar knowledge of London by a thousand, and you shallform some idea of Colonel Lackaday's acquaintance with the inns ofprovincial France. He could even trot out the family skeletons of theinnkeepers. In this he became animated and amusing. His features assumed anactor's mobility foreign to their previous military sedateness, and he usedhis delicate hands in expressive gestures. In parenthesis I may say we hadleft the week-end party at their bridge or flirtation (according to age) inthe drawing-room, neither pursuits having for us great attraction, in spiteof Lady Auriol Dayne, of whom more hereafter, and we had found our way tocooling drinks and excellent cigars in our host's library. It was the firsttime we had exchanged more than a dozen words, for we had only arrivedthat Saturday afternoon. But after the amazing mutual recognition, we satluxuriously chaired, excellent friends, and I, for my part, enjoying hissociety. 

"Ah!" said he, "Montélimar. I know that hotel. _Infect_. And the_patron_, eh? You remember him. Forty stone. Phoo!"

The gaunt man sat up in his chair and by what mesmeric magic it happened Iknow not, but before my eyes grew the living image of the gross, shapelesscreature who had put me to bed in wringing wet sheets. 

"And when you complained, he looked like this--eh?"

He did look like that. Bleary-eyed, drooping-mouthed, vacant. I recollectedthat the fat miscreant had the middle of his upper lip curiously sunkeninto the space of two missing front teeth. The middle of Colonel Lackaday'supper lip was sucked in. 

"And he said: 'What would you have, Monsieur? _C'est la guerre?_'"

The horrible fat man, hundreds of miles away from the front, with everyconvenience for drying sheets, had said those identical words. And in thesame greasy, gasping tone. 

I gaped at the mimetic miracle. It was then that the memory of theeight-year-old child's travesty of myself flashed through my mind. 

"Pardon me, " said I, "but haven't you turned this marvellous gift of yoursto--well to practical use?"

He grinned in his honest, wide-mouthed way, showing his incomparable teeth. 

"Don't you think, " said he, "I'm the model of a Colonel of the Rifles?"

He grinned again at the cloud of puzzlement on my face, and rose holdingout his hand. 

"Time for turning in. Will you do me a favour? Don't give me away about thecircus. "

Somehow my esteem for him sank like thermometer mercury plunged into ice. Ihad thought him, with the blazing record of achievement across his chest, aman above such petty solicitude. His mild blue eyes searched my thoughts. 

"I don't care a damn, Captain Hylton, " said he, in a tone singularlydifferent from any that he had used in our pleasant talk--"if anybody knowsI 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, itwould be to the interest of my authority and therefore to that of the army, if no gossip led to the establishment of my identity. "

"I assure you, sir----" I began stiffly--I was only a Captain, he, but fora formality or two, a Brigadier-General. 

He clapped his hands on my shoulders--and I swear his ugly, smiling facewas that of an angel. 

"My dear fellow, " said he, "so long as you regard me as an honest cuss, nothing matters in the world. "

I went to bed with the conviction that he was as honest a cuss as I hadever met. 

Chapter II

Our hosts, the Verity-Stewarts, were pleasant people, old friends of mine, inhabiting a Somerset manor-house which had belonged to their family sincethe days of Charles the Second. They were proud of their descent; theStewart being hyphenated to the first name by a genealogically enthusiasticVerity of a hundred years ago; but the alternative to their motto suggestedby the son of the house, Captain Charles Verity-Stewart, "The King can dono wrong, " found no favour in the eyes of his parents, who had lived remotefrom the democratic humour of the officers of the New Army. 

It was to this irreverent Cavalier, convalescent at home from a machine-gunbullet through his shoulder, and hero-worshipper of his Colonel, thatAndrew Lackaday owed his shy appearance at Mansfield Court. He was proud ofthe boy, a gallant and efficient soldier; Lady Verity-Stewart had couchedher invitation in such cordial terms that a refusal would have beencurmudgeonly; and the Colonel was heartily tired of spending his hard-wonleave horribly alone in London. 

Perhaps I may seem to be explaining that which needs no explanation. It isnot so. In England Colonel Lackaday found himself in the position of manyan officer from the Dominions overseas. He had barely an acquaintance. Hitherto his leave had been spent in France. But one does not take aholiday in France when the War Officer commands attention at Whitehall. Hewas very glad to go to the War Office, suspecting the agreeable issue ofhis visit. Yet all the same he was a stranger in a strange land, livingon the sawdust and warmed-up soda-water of unutterable boredom. He hadspent--so he said--his happiest hours in London, at the Holborn Empire. Three evenings had he devoted to its excellent but not soul-enthrallingentertainment. 

"In the name of goodness, why?" I asked puzzled. 

"There was a troupe of Japanese acrobats, " said he. "In the course of aroving life one picks up picturesque acquaintances. Hosimura, the head ofthem, is a capital fellow. "

This he told me later, for our friendship, begun when he was eight yearsold, had leaped into sudden renewal; but without any idea of exciting mycommiseration. Yet it made me think. 

That a prospective Brigadier-General should find his sole relief fromsolitude in the fugitive companionship of a Japanese acrobat seemed to mepathetic. 

Meanwhile there he was at Mansfield Court, lean and unlovely, but, as Idivined, lovable in his unaffected simplicity, the very model of a Britishfield-officer. At dinner on Saturday evening, he had sat between hishostess and Lady Auriol Dayne. To the former he had talked of the thingsshe most loved to hear, the manifold virtues of her son. There werefallings away from the strict standards of military excellence, of course;but he touched upon them with his wide, charming smile, condoned them withthe indulgence of the man prematurely mellowed who has kept his hold onyouth, so that Lady Verity-Stewart felt herself in full sympathy withCharles's chief, and bored the good man considerably with accounts of theboy's earlier escapades. To Lady Auriol he talked mainly about the war, ofwhich she appeared to have more complete information than he himself. 

"I suppose you think, " she said at last with a swift side glance, "that I'mlaying down the law about things I'm quite ignorant of. "

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 themiddle of the horrid thing can't see it for the trees. "

It was this little speech so simple, so courteous and yet not lacking atouch of irony, that first made Lady Auriol, in the words which she usedwhen telling me of it afterwards, sit up and take notice. 

Bridge, the monomania which tainted Sir Julius Verity-Stewart's courtlysoul, pinned Lady Auriol down to the green-covered table for the rest ofthe evening. But the next day she set herself to satisfy her entirelyunreprehensible curiosity concerning Colonel Lackaday. 

Lady Auriol, born with even more curiosities than are the ordinarybirthright of a daughter of Eve, had spent most of her life in trying tosatisfy them. In most cases she had been successful. Here be it said thatLady Auriol was twenty-eight, unmarried, and almost beautiful when she tookthe trouble to do her hair and array herself in becoming costume. As tomaiden's greatest and shyest curiosity, well--as a child of her epoch--sheknew so much about the theory of it that it ceased to be a curiosity atall. Besides, love--she had preserved a girl's faith in beauty--was apsychological mystery not to be solved by the cold empirical methods whichcould be employed in the solution of other problems. I must ask you to bearthis in mind when judging Lady Auriol. She had once fancied herself in lovewith an Italian poet, an Antinous-like young man of impeccable manners, boasting an authentic pedigree which lost itself in the wolf that suckledRomulus and Remus. None of your vagabond ballad-mongers. A guest when shefirst met him of the Italian Ambassador. To him, Prince Charming, knightand 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 thatthese same verses were composed in a flat in Milan which he shared with anaughty little opera singer of no account, she dismissed Prince Charmingoffhand, and betook herself alone to the middle of Abyssinia to satisfy hercuriosity as to the existence there of dulcimer-playing maidens singing ofMount Abora to whom Coleridge in his poem assigns such haunting attributes. 

Lady Auriol, in fact, was a great traveller. She had not only gone all overthe 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 othergeographical exploits, her journey through Abyssinia was but a trip toMargate. She had wandered about Turkestan. She had crossed China. She hadfooled about Saghalien. .. . In her schooldays, hearing of the Sanjak of NoviBazar, 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 forherself. When she came back, she knew the Sanjak of Novi Bazar like herpocket. 

Needless to say that Lady Auriol had thrown all her curiosities, herillusions--they were hydra-headed--her enthusiasms and her splendidvitality into the war. She had organized and directed as Commandant a greathospital in the region of Boulogne. "I'm a woman of business, " she toldLackaday and myself, "not a ministering angel with open-worked stockingsand a Red Cross of rubies dangling in front of me. Most of the day I sitin a beastly office and work at potatoes and beef and army-forms. I can'tnurse, though I daresay I could if I tried; but I hate amateurs. Noamateurs 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, heada rabble of pack-carrying savages, without gaining some experience inorganization. In fact, when I'm not at my own hospital, which now runs onwheels, I'm employed as a sort of organizing expert--any old where theychoose to send me. Do you think I'm talking swollen-headedly, ColonelLackaday?"

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 capablemodernity, instinctively on the defensive. 

"It's only a fool who apologizes for doing a thing well, " said Lackaday. 

"He couldn't do it well if he was a fool, " Lady Auriol retorted. 

"You never know what a fool can do till you try him, " said Lackaday. 

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 onthe shady lawn in front of the red-brick, gabled manor house. The air wasfull of the scent of roses from border beds and of the song of thrushesand the busy chitter-chatter of starlings in the old walnut trees ofthe further garden. It was the restful England which the exiled and thewar-weary used so often to conjure up in their dreams. 

"You mean a fool can be egged on to do great things and still remain afool?" asked Lady Auriol lazily. 

Lackaday smiled--or grinned--it is all the same--a weaver of fairy nothingscould write a delicious thesis on the question; is Lackaday's smile a grinor is his grin a smile? Anyhow, whatever may be the definition of thespecial ear-to-ear white-teeth-revealing contortion of his visage, it hadin it something wistful, irresistible. You will find it in the face of atickled baby six months old. He touched his row of ribbons. 

"_Voilà_, " said he. 

"It's polite to say I don't believe it, " she said, regarding him beneathher long lashes. "But, supposing it true for the sake of argument, I shouldvery much like to know what kind of a fool you are. "

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 andshod, her auburn hair faultlessly dressed sweeping from the side parting intwo 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 hersilken ankles crossed on the nether chair support, her hands fingering along necklace of jade, she appealed to me as the most marvellous example Ihad ever come across of the woman's power of self-transmogrification. 

The last time I had seen her was in France, wet through in oldshort-skirted kit, with badly rolled muddy puttees, muddier heavy boots, abeast of a dripping hat pinned through rain-sodden strands of hair, streaksof 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 waswiped out. During our chance meeting, one of the many queer chance meetingsof the war, a meeting which lasted five minutes while I accompanied her toher destination, we spoke as man to man. She took a swig out of my brandyflask. She asked me for a cigarette--smoked out, she said. I was in nearlythe same predicament, having only, at the moment, for all tobacco, the pipeI was then smoking. "For God's sake, like a good chap, give me a puff ortwo, " she pleaded. And so we walked on through the rain and mud, she pipein mouth, her shoulders hunched, her hands, under the scornfully hitched upskirt, deep in her breeches pockets. And now, this summer morning, thereshe lay, all woman, insidiously, devilishly alluring woman, almostvoluptuous in her self-confident abandonment to the fundamental conceptionof feminine existence. 

Lackaday's eyes rested on her admiringly. He did not reply to her remark, until she added in a bantering tone:

"Tell me. "

Then he said, with an air of significance: "The most genuine brand you canimagine, I assure you. "

"A motley fool, " she suggested idly. 

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 giventhe divine-services a miss, carried me off to see a litter of Sealyhampuppies. That inspection over, we reviewed rabbits and fetched a compassround 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 fewmoth-eaten cabbages and a wilting tomato in a planted pot seemed to hangdegraded heads at our approach, and, lingering through the rose garden, weeventually emerged on the further side of the lawn. 

"I suppose you want to go and join them, " she said with a jerk of herbobbed head in the direction of Lady Auriol and Colonel Lackaday. 

"Perhaps we ought, " said I. 

"They don't want us--you can bet your boots, " said she. 

"How do you know that, young woman of wisdom?"

She sniffed. "Look at 'em. "

I looked at 'em; mole-visioned masculine fifty seeing through the eyes offeminine thirteen; and, seeing very distinctly indeed, I said:

"What would you like to do?"

"If you wouldn't mind very much, " she replied eagerly, her interest in, orher scorn of, elderly romance instantly vanishing, "let us go back to thepeaches. That's the beauty of Sundays. That silly old ass Jenkins"--Jenkinswas the head gardener--"is giving his family a treat, instead of comingdown on me. See?"

Evadne linked her arm in mine. Again I saw. She had already eaten twopeaches. Who was I to stand in the way of her eating a third or a fourth ora fifth? With the after consequences of her crime against Jenkins, physicaland otherwise, I had nothing to do. It was the affair of her parents, herdoctor, her Creator. But the sight of the rapturous enjoyment on her facewhen her white teeth bit into the velvet bloom of the fruit sped one backto one's own youth and procured a delight not the less intense because itwas vicarious. 

"Come along, " said I. 

"You're a perfect lamb, " said she. 

Before the perfect lamb was led to the peach slaughter, he looked againacross the lawn. Colonel Lackaday had moved his chair very close to LadyAuriol's wicker lounge, so that facing her, his head was but a coupleof 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 LadyAuriol's eyes wide, full of earnest interest, and compassionate admiration. I had no idea that her eyes could melt to such softness. It was arevelation. No woman ever looked at a man like that, unless she wasan accomplished syren, without some soul-betrayal. I am a _vieuxroutier_, an old campaigner in this world of men and women. Time waswhen--but that has nothing to do with this story. At any rate I think Iought to know something about women's eyes. 

"Did you ever see anything so idiotic?" asked Evadne, dragging me round. 

"I think I did once, " said I. 

"When was that?"

"Ah!" said I. 

"Do tell me, Uncle Tony. "

I, who have seen things far more idiotic a thousand times, racked my brainfor an answer that would satisfy the child. 

"Well, my dear, " I began, "your father and mother, when they wereengaged----"

She burst out: "But they were young. It isn't the same thing. Aunt Auriol'sas old as anything. And Colonel Lackaday's about sixty. "

"My dear Evadne, " said I. "I happen to know that Colonel Lackaday isthirty-eight. "

Thirteen shrugged its slim shoulders. "It's all the same, " it said. 

We went to the net-covered wall of ripe and beauteous temptation, tramplingover Jenkins's beds of I know not what, and ate forbidden fruit. At leastEvadne did, until, son of Adam, I fell. 

"Do have a bite. It's lovely. And I've left you the blushy side. "

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 allwall-fruit is death, bit into the side that blushed. She anxiously watchedmy expression. 

"Topping, isn't it?"

"Yum, yum, " said I. 

"Isn't it?" she said, taking back the peach. 

That's the beauty of childhood. It demands no elaborate expression. Simplicity is its only coinage. A rhapsody on the exquisiteness of thefruit's flavour would have bored Evadne stiff. Her soul yearned for theestablishment between us of a link of appreciation. "Yum, yum, " said I, andthe link was instantly supplied. 

She threw away a peach stone and sighed. 

"Let's go. "

"Why?" I asked. 

"I'm not looking for any more trouble, " she replied. 

We returned to the lawn and Lady Auriol and Colonel Lackaday. Not a holecould be picked in the perfect courtesy of their greeting; but it lackedpassionate enthusiasm. Evadne and I sat down, and our exceedingly dullconversation was soon interrupted by the advent of the church goers. 

Towards lunch time Lackaday and I, chance companions, strolled towards thehouse. 

"What a charming woman, " he remarked. 

"Lady Verity-Stewart, " said I, with a touch of malice--our hostess was thelast woman with whom he had spoken--"is a perfect dear. "

"So she is, but I meant Lady Auriol. "

"I've known her since she was that high, " I said spreading out a measuringhand. "Her development has been most interesting. "

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 forpsychological observation savoured of profanity. With a smile I added:

"She's one of the very best. "

His brow cleared and his teeth gleamed out my tribute. 

"I've met very few English ladies in the course of my life, " said he halfapologetically. "The other day, a brother officer finding me fooling aboutPall 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. "

"She is, " said I. "And she said, 'You must really come and have tea with meto-morrow. I've a crowd of most interesting people coming. '"

"She did, " cried Lackaday, regarding me with awestricken eyes, as Saul musthave looked at the Witch of Endor. "But I didn't go. I couldn't talk toher. I was as dumb as a fish. Oh, damned dumb! And the dumber I was themore she talked at me. I had risen from the ranks, hadn't I? She thoughtcareers 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 skeletonin her freak museum. If ever I see that woman coming towards me in thestreet, I'll turn tail and run like hell. "

I laughed. "You mustn't compare Mrs. Tankerville with Lady Auriol Dayne. "

"_Mon Dieu!_ I should think not!" he cried with a fervent gesture. "Lady Auriol----"

Our passage from the terrace across the threshold of the drawing-room cutshort a possible rhapsody. 

Later in the afternoon, in the panelled Elizabethan entrance hall, I cameacross 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. 

"Whither away?" I asked. 

"Colonel Lackaday and I are off for a tramp, over to Glastonbury. " Her lipsmoved ironically. "Like to come?"

"God forbid!" I cried. 

"Thought you wouldn't, " she said, drawing on a wash-leather gauntlet, "butwhen I'm in Society, I do try to be polite. "

"My teaching and example for the last twenty years, " said I, "have not beenwithout effect. "

"You're a master of deportment, my dear Tony. " I was old enough to be herfather, but she had always called me Tony, and had no more respect for mygrey hairs than her cousin Evadne. "Tell me, " she said, with a swift changeof manner, "do you know anything about Colonel Lackaday?"

"We met here as strangers, " said I, "and I can only say that he impressesme as being a very gallant gentleman. "

Her face beamed. She held out her hand. "I'm so glad you think so. " Sheglanced at the clock. 

"Good Lord! I'm a minute late. He's outside. I loathe unpunctuality. Solong, Tony. "

She waved a careless farewell and strode out. 

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 herselffree, as it appeared to my amused fancy, for any pleasanter eventuality. Ina few moments Colonel Lackaday was sitting by her side. I drew a chair toa bridge-table, and idly looked over my hostess's hand. Presently, beingdummy, she turned to me, with a little motion of her head towards the pairand whispered:

"Those two--Auriol and ---- don't you think it's rather rapid?"

"My dear Selina, " said I. "What would you have? '_C'est la guerre_. '"

Chapter III

It was rather rapid, this intimacy between the odd assorted pair--thehigh-bred woman of fervid action and the mild and gawky Colonel born in atravelling circus. Holding the key to his early life, and losing myself inconjecture as to his subsequent career until he found himself possessed ofthe qualities that make a successful soldier, I could not help noticing thelittle things, unperceived by a generous war society, which patheticallyproved that his world and that of Lady Auriol, for all her earth-wideBohemianism, were star distances apart. Little tiny things that onefeels ashamed to record. His swift glance round to assure himself of theparticular knife and fork he should use at a given stage of the meal--thesurreptitious pushing forward on the plate, of the knife which he hadleaned, French fashion, on the edge; his queer distress on entering thedrawing-room--his helplessness until the inevitable and unconscious rescue, for he was the honoured guest; the restraint, manifest to me, which heimposed on his speech and gestures. Everyone loved him for his simplicityof manners. In fact they were natural to the man. He might have savedhimself a world of worry. But his trained observation had made him awareof the existence of a thousand social solecisms, his sensitive charactershrank from their possible committal, and he employed his mimetic geniusas an instrument of salvation. And then his English--his drawing-roomEnglish--was not spontaneous. It was thought out, phrased, excellentacademic English, not the horrible ordinary lingo that we sling at eachother across a dinner-table; the English, though without a trace of foreignaccent, yet of one who has spent a lifetime in alien lands and has not methis own tongue save on the printed page; of one, therefore, who not beingsure of the shade of slang admissible in polite circles, carefully andalmost painfully avoids its use altogether. 

Yet all through that long weekend--we were pressed to stay till theWednesday morning--no one, so far as I know, suspected that ColonelLackaday found himself in an unfamiliar and puzzling environment. 

His appointment to the Brigade came on the Tuesday. He showed me theletter, during a morning stroll in the garden. 

"Don't tell anybody, please, " said he. 

"Of course not. " I could not repress an ironical glance, thinking of LadyAuriol. "If you would prefer to make the announcement your own way. "

He gasped, looking down upon me from his lean height. "My dear fellow--it'sthe very last thing I want to do. I've told you because I let the thing outa day or two ago--in peculiar circumstances--but it's in confidence. "

"Confidence be hanged, " said I. 

Heaven sent me Evadne--just escaped from morning lessons with hergoverness, and scuttling across the lawn to visit her Sealyhams. I whistledher to heel. She raced up. 

"If you were a soldier what would you do if you were made a General?"

She countered me with the incredulous scorn bred of our familiarity. 

"You haven't been made a General?"

"I haven't, " I replied serenely. "But Colonel Lackaday has. "

She looked wide-eyed up into Lackaday's face. 

"Is that true?"

I swear he blushed through his red sun-glaze. 

"Since Captain Hylton says so----"

She held out her hand with perfect manners and said:

"I'm so glad. My congratulations. " Then, before the bewildered Lackadaycould reply, she tossed his hand to the winds. 

"There'll be champagne for dinner and I'm coming down, " she cried and fledlike a doe to the house. At the threshold of the drawing-room she turned. 

"Does Cousin Auriol know?"

"Nobody knows, " I said. 

She shouted: "Good egg!" and disappeared. 

I turned to the frowning and embarrassed Lackaday. 

"Your modesty doesn't appreciate the pleasure that news will give all thosedear people. They've shown you in the most single-hearted way that they'reyour friends, haven't they?"

"They have, " he admitted. "But it's very extraordinary. I don't belong totheir world. I feel a sort of impostor. "

"With this--and all these?"

I flourished the letter which I still held, and with it touched the rainbowon his tunic. His features relaxed into his childish ear-to-ear grin. 

"It's all so incomprehensible--here--in this old place--among these Englisharistocrats--the social position I step into. I don't know whether you canquite follow me. "

"As a distinguished soldier, " said I, "apart from your charming personalqualities, you command that position. "

He screwed up his mobile face. "I can't understand it. It's like anightmare and a fairy-tale jumbled up together. On the outbreak of war Icame to England and joined up. In a few months I had a commission. I don'tknow. .. " he spread out his ungainly arm--"I fell into the métier--thebusiness of soldiering. It came easy to me. Except that it absorbed me bodyand soul, I can't see that I had any particular merit. Whatever I havedone, it would have been impossible, in the circumstances, not to do. Outthere I'm too busy to think of anything but my day's work. As for thesethings"--he touched his ribbons--"I put them up because I'm ordered to. Amatter of discipline. But away from the Army I feel as though I were madeup 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 likethis and planted here. To go about now disguised as a General only adds tothe feeling. "

"If you'll pardon me for saying so, " said I, "I think you'resuper-sensitive. You imagine yourself to be the same man that you were fiveyears ago. You're not. You're a different human being altogether. Men withcharacters like yours must suffer a sea-change in this universal tempest. "

"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. "

I laughed. "Don't you see how you must have changed? Here you are lookingregretfully to the end of the war. If it were only bloodless you would likeit to go on for ever. Who knows whether you wouldn't eventually wear twobatons instead of the baton and sword. "

"I'm not an ambitious man, if you mean that, " said he, soberly. "Besidesthis war business is far too serious for a man to think of his owninterests. Suppose a fellow schemed and intrigued to get high rank and thenproved inefficient--it would mean death to hundreds or thousands of hismen. As it is, I assure you I'm not cock-a-whoop about commanding abrigade. I was a jolly sight happier with a platoon. "

"At any rate, " said I, "other people are cock-a-whoop. Look at them. "

The household, turned out like a guard by Evadne, emerged in a body fromthe house. Sir Julius beamed urbanely. Lady Verity-Stewart almost fell onthe great man's neck. Young Charles broke into enthusiastic and profanecongratulations. From the point of view of eloquent compliment his speechwas disgraceful; but I loved the glisten in the boy's eyes as he gazed onhis hero. A light also gleamed in the eyes of Lady Auriol. She shook handswith him in her direct fashion. 

"I'm glad. So very very glad. " Perhaps I alone--except Lackaday--detected alittle tremor in her voice. "Why didn't you want us to know?"

Instinctively I caught Evadne's eye. She winked at me, acknowledgingthereby that she had divulged the General's secret. But by what feminineprocess of divination had she guessed it? Charles came to his chief'srescue. 

"The General couldn't go around shouting 'I'm to command a brigade mother, I'm to command a brigade, ' could he?"

"He might have stuck on his badges and walked in as if nothing hadhappened. It would have been such fun to see who would have spotted themfirst. "

Thus Evadne, immediately called to order by Sir Julius. The hero said verylittle. What in his modesty could the good fellow say? But it was obviousthat the sincere and spontaneous tributes pleased him. Sir Julius, afterthe suppression of Evadne, made him the little tiniest well-bred ghostof an oration. That the gallant soldier under whom his son had thedistinguished honour to serve should receive the news of his promotionunder his roof was a matter of intense gratification to the wholehousehold. 

It was a gracious scene--the little group, on the lawn in shade of the oldmanor house, so intimate, so kindly, so genuinely emotional, yet so restfulin its English restraint, surrounding the long, lank, khaki-clad figurewith the ugly face, who, after looking from one to the other of them in apuzzled sort of way, drew himself up and saluted. 

"You're very kind, " said he, in reply to Sir Julius. "If I have the sameloyalty in my brigade as I had in my old regiment, " he glanced at Charles, "I shall be a very proud man. "

That ended whatever there was of ceremony. Lady Auriol drew me aside. 

"Come for a stroll. "

"To see the Sealyhams and the rabbits?"

"No, Tony. To talk of our friend. He interests me tremendously. "

"I'm glad to hear it, " said I. 

We entered the rose garden heavy with the full August blooms. 

"Well, my dear, " said I. "Talk away. "

"If you have a bit of sense in you, it would be you who would talk. Ifyou were a bit _simpático_ you would at once set the key of theconversation. "

"All of which implied abuse means that you're dying to know, through themedium of subtle and psychological dialogue, which is entirely beyond mybrain power, whether you're not just on the verge of wondering if you'renot on the verge of falling in love with Colonel Lackaday. "

"You put it with your usual direct brutality----"

"Well, " said I. "Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Dying to know etcetera, etcetera--I am not addicted to vain repetition. "

She sighed, tried to pick a black crimson Victor Hugo, pricked her fingersand said "Damn!" With my penknife I cut the stalk and handed her the rose, which she pinned on her blouse. 

"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 byall accounts you've had a dreadful past. Do tell me if I'm making an ass ofmyself. 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 frillswith you. Since then I swore off that sort of thing. I've gone about inmaiden meditation and man's breeches, fancy free. I've loved lots of menjust as I've loved lots of women--as friends, comrades. I'm level-headedand, 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 mademyself too busy to worry about sex. It's no use talking tosh. Sex is theroot of the whole sentimental, maudlin----"

"But tremulous and bewildering and nerve-racking and delicious andmyriad-adjectived soul-condition, " I interrupted, "known generally as love. Ninety-nine point nine repeater per cent of the world's literature has beendevoted to its analysis. It's therefore of some importance. It's even thevital principle of the continuity of the human race. "

"I'm perfectly aware of it. "

"Then why, my dear, resent, as you seem to do, the inevitable reassertion, in your own case, of the vital principle?"

She laughed. "_Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop_. But that'sjust it. Is it a gallop or is it a crawl? I tell you, I thought myselfimmune for many years. But now, these last two or three days I'm beginningto feel a perfect idiot. A few minutes ago if the whole lot of you hadn'tbeen standing round, I think I should have cried. Just for silly gladness. After all there are thousands of Brigadier-Generals. "

"To be accurate, not more than a few hundreds. "

"Hundreds or thousands, what does it matter?" she cried impatiently. "What's Hecuba to me or I to Hecuba?" Few women have the literary senseof apposite quotation--but no matter. She went on. "What's oneBrigadier-General to me or I to one Brigadier-General? And yet--there itis. I'm beginning to fear lest this particular Brigadier-General may meana lot to me. So I come back to my original question. Am I making an ass ofmyself?"

"One can't answer that question, my dear Auriol, " said I, "without knowinghow far your fears, feelings and all the rest of it are reciprocated. "

"Suppose I think they are?"

"Then all I can say is: 'God bless you my children. ' But, " I added, after apause, "I must warn you that your budding idyll is not passing unnoticed. "

She snapped her fingers. "I've lived my private life in public too long tocare 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?"

"What would you like to do?"

She walked on for a few yards without replying. I glanced at her and sawthat the colour had come into her cheeks, and that her eyes were downcast. At last she said:

"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 tookmy arm and pressed it. "I could do it, Tony. "

"I know you could, " said I. 

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 havetaken us for lovers. Of course she wanted none of my advice. Her frank andgenerous nature felt the imperious need of expansion. I, to whom she couldtalk as to a sympathetic wooden idol, happened to be handy. I don't thinkshe could have talked in the same way to a woman, I don't think she wouldhave talked so even to me, who had taken her pick-a-back round about hernursery, if I had not with conviction qualified Lackaday as a gallantgentleman. 

Eventually we came down to the practical aspect of a situation, as old asRomance itself. The valorous and gentle knight of hidden lineage and theEarl's daughter. Not daring to aspire, and ignorant of the flame he haskindled in the high-born bosom, he rides away without betraying hispassion, leaving the fair owner of the bosom to pine in lonely ignorance. 

"At this time of day, it's all such damn nonsense, " said Lady Auriol. 

I pointed out to her that chivalrous souls still beautified God's earth andthat such damn nonsense could not be other than the essence of their being. To this knightly company Colonel Lackaday might well belong. On the otherhand, there was she, the same old proud Earl's daughter. For all hermodernity, her independence, her democratic sympathies, she remained agreat lady. She had little fortune; but she had position and an ancientname. Her father, the impoverished fourteenth Earl of Mountshire, and thethirtieth Baron of something else, refused to sit among the canaille of thepresent House of Peers. He bred shorthorns and Berkshire pigs, which hedisposed of profitably, and grew grapes and melons for Covent Garden, readthe lessons in church and wrote letters to the _Times_ about the waron which the late Guy Earl of Warwick would have rather prided himself whenhe took a fancy to make a King. 

"The dear old idiot, " said Lady Auriol. "He belongs to the time ofNebuchadnezzar. "

But, all the same, in spite of her flouting, her birth assured her a socialposition from which she could be thrown by nothing less than outrageousimmorality or a Bolshevist revolution. That Lackaday, to whom the BritishPeerage, in the ordinary way, was as closed a book as the Talmud, realized her high estate I was perfectly aware. Dear and garrulous LadyVerity-Stewart had given him at dinner the whole family history--sheherself was a Dayne--from the time of Henry I. I was sitting on the otherside of her and heard and amused myself by scanning the expressionless faceof Lackaday who listened as a strayed aviator might listen to the socialgossip of the inhabitants of Mars. Anyhow he left the table with theimpression that the Earl of Mountshire was the most powerful noble inEngland and that his hostess and her cousin, Lady Auriol, regarded theRoyal Family as upstarts and only visited Buckingham Palace in order to seta good example to the proletariat. 

"I'm sure he does, " said I, after summarizing Lady Verity-Stewart'smonologue. 

"The family has been the curse of my life, " said Auriol. "If I hadn'tanticipated them--or is it it?--by telling them to go to the devil, theywould have disowned me long ago. Now they're afraid of me, and I've got thewhip hand. A kind of blackmail; so they let me alone. "

"But if you made a _mésalliance_, as they call it, " said I, "they'd bedown upon you like a cartload of bricks. "

"Bricks?" she retorted, with a laugh. "A cartload of puff-balls. Thereisn't a real brick in the whole obsolete structure. I could marry a beggarman to-morrow and provided he was a decent sort and didn't get drunk andknock me about and pick his teeth with his fork, I should have them allaround me and the beggar man in a week's time, trying to save face. They'dmove heaven and earth to make the beggar man acceptable. They know that ifthey didn't, I'd be capable of going about with him like a raggle-tagglegipsy--and bring awful disgrace on them. "

"All that may be true, " said I, "but the modest Lackaday doesn't realizeit. "

"I'll put sense into him, " replied Lady Auriol. And that was the end, conclusive or not, of the conversation. 

In the afternoon they went off for a broiling walk together. What theyfound to say to each other, I don't know. Lady Auriol let me no furtherinto her confidence, and my then degree of intimacy with the General didnot warrant the betrayal of my pardonable curiosity as to the amount ofsense put into him by the independent lady. 

Now, from what I have related, it may seem that Lady Auriol had brought upall her storm troops for a frontal attack on the position in which the shyGeneral lay entrenched. This is not the case. There was no question ofattack or siege or any military operation whatever on either side. Theblessed pair just came together like two drops of quicksilver. Eachrecognized in the other a generous and somewhat lonely soul; anappreciation of the major experiences of life and, with that, a cravingfor something bigger even than the war, which would give life its greatermeaning. She, born on heights that looked contemptuously down upon athrone, he born almost in a wayside ditch, their intervening lives a mutualmystery, they met--so it seemed to me, then, as I mused on the romanticalsituation--on some common plane not only of adventurous sympathy but ofa humanity simple and sincere. From what I could gather afterwards, theynever exchanged a word, during this intercourse, of amorous significance. Nor did they steer the course so dear to modern intellectuals (and so deartoo to the antiquated wanderers through the Land of Tenderness) which ledthem into analytical discussions of their respective sentimental states ofbeing. They talked just concrete war, politics and travel. On their trampsthey scarcely talked at all. They kept in step which maintained the rhythmof their responsive souls. She would lay an arresting touch on his arm atthe instant in which he pointed his stick at some effect of beauty; andthey would both turn and smile at each other, intimately, conscious ofharmony. 

We left the next morning, Lackaday to take over his brigade in France, I tohang around the War Office for orders to proceed on my further unimportantemployment. Lady Auriol and Charles saw us off at the station. 

"It's all very well for your new brigade, sir, " said the latter whenthe train was just coming into the station. "They're in luck. But theregiment's in the soup. "

He wanted to discuss the matter, but with, elderly tact I drew the youngman aside, so that the romantic pair should have a decent leave-taking. Butall she said was:

"You'll write and tell me how you get on?"

And he; with a flash in his blue eyes and his two-year-old grin:

"May I really?"

"You may--if a General in the field has time to write to obscure females. "

She looked adorable, provoking, with the rich colour rising beneath herolive cheek--I almost fell in love with her myself and I was glad that theironical Charles had his back to her. An expression of shock overspreadLackaday's ingenuous features. He shot out both hands in protest, andmumbled something incoherent. She took the hands with a happy laugh, as thetrain lumbered noisily in. 

Lackaday was silent and preoccupied during the run to London. 

At the terminus we parted. I asked him to dinner at my club. He hesitatedfor a moment, then declined on the plea of military business. I did not seehim or the Verity-Stewarts or Lady Auriol till after the Armistice. 

Chapter IV

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 threehard and fast sections. And the men who have sojourned in the Valley of theShadow of Death have emerged, for all their phlegm, their philosophy, theirpassionate carelessness and according to their several temperaments, notthe same as when they entered. They have taken human life, they haveperformed deeds of steadfast and reckless heroism unimagined even in thewar-like daydreams of their early childhood. They have endured want andmisery and pain inconceivable. They have witnessed scenes of horror one ofwhich, in their former existence, would have provided months of shudderingnightmare. They have made instant decisions affecting the life or death oftheir fellows. They have conquered fear. They have seen the scale of valuesupon which their civilized life was so carefully based swept away andreplaced by another strange and grim to which their minds must rigidlyconform. They return to the world of rest where humanity is stillstruggling to maintain the old scale. The instinct born of generations oftradition compels a facile reacceptance. They think: "The blood and mud andthe hell's delight of the war are things of the past. We take up life wherewe 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 beencast on the world and we were awakening, at the kiss of the Fairy Prince ofpeace, to our suspended tasks. "

Are they right or are they wrong in their surmise, these millions ofmen, who have passed through the Valley of the Shadow, haunted by theirmemories, tempered by their plunge into the elemental, illumined by theself-knowledge gained in the fierce school of war?

Does the Captain V. C. Of Infantry, adored and trusted by his men, fromwhose ranks he rose by reason of latent qualities of initiative command andinspiration, contentedly return to the selling of women's stockings in hisold drapery establishment, to the vulgar tyranny of the oily shopwalker, tothe humiliating restrictions and conditions of the salesman's life? Returnhe 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 wagewar, he sells hosiery. But does he do it contentedly? If his soul, throughreaction, is contented at first, will it continue to be so through the longuneventful stocking-selling years? Will not the war change he has sufferedcause nostalgias, revolts? Will it bring into his resumed activities a newpurpose or more than the old lassitudes?

These questions were worrying me, as they were worrying most demobilizedmen, although I, an elderly man about town, had no personal causefor anxiety, when, one morning, my man brought me in the card ofBrigadier-General Lackaday. It was early March. I may mention incidentallythat I had broken down during the last wild weeks of the war, and that anunthinkingly beneficent War Office had flung me into Nice where they hadforgotten me until a few days before. 

During my stay in the South I led the lotus life of studiousself-indulgence. I lived entirely for myself and neglected mycorrespondence to such a point that folks ceased to write to me. As amatter of fact I was a very sick man, under the iron rule of doctors andnurses and such like oppressors; but, except to explain why I had losttouch with everybody, that is a matter of insignificant importance. The oneor two letters I did receive from Lady Auriol did not stimulate my interestin The Romance. I gathered that she was in continuous relations withGeneral Lackaday, who, it appeared, was in the best of health. But when aman of fifty has his heart and lungs and liver and lights all dislocated hemay be pardoned for his chilly enthusiasm over the vulgar robustness of avery young Brigadier. 

On this March morning, however, when I was beginning, in sober joyousness, to pick up the threads of English social life, the announcement of GeneralLackaday gave me a real thrill of pleasure. 

He came in, long, lean, khaki clad, red-tabbed, with, I swear, more rainbowlines on his breast, and a more pathetically childish grin on his facethan ever. We greeted each other like old friends long separated, and fellimmediately into intimate talk, exchanging our personal histories of sevenmonths. Mine differed only in brevity from an old wife's tale. His had thethrob of adventure and the sting of failure. In October his brigade hadfound immortal glory in heroic death. He had obeyed high orders. Theslaughter was no fault of his. But after the disaster--if the capture of animportant position can be so called--he had been summarily appointed to aHome Command, and now was demobilized. 

"Demobilized?" I cried, "what on earth do you mean?"

"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, butif I care to stay on, I must do so with the rank and pay of a Major. "

I flared up indignant. I presumed that he had consigned the War Office toflamboyant perdition. In his mild way he had. The War Office had lookedpained. By offering a permanent Major's commission in the Regular Army, with chance of promotion and pension, it thought it had dealt veryhandsomely by Lackaday. It hinted that though he had led his brigade tovictory, he might have employed a safer, a more Sunday school method. Oh!the hint was of the slightest, the subtlest, the most delicate. The WarOffice very pointedly addressed him as General, and, regarding his row ofribbons, implicitly declared him an ingrate. But for a certain stoninessof glance developed in places where Bureaucracy would have been veryfrightened, the War Office would have so proclaimed him in explicit speech. 

"I would have stayed on as a Brigadier, " said he. "But the Major's job'simpossible. I should have thought any soldier would have appreciated theposition--and it was a soldier, a colonel whom I saw--but it seems that ifyou stay long enough in that place you're at the mercy of the littlegirls who run you round, and eventually you arrive at their level ofintelligence. However, " he grinned and lit a cigarette, "it's all over. Ican call myself General Lackaday till the day of my death, but not a soudoes it put into my pocket. And, odd as it may appear, I've got to earn myliving. Well, I suppose something will turn up. "

Before I had time to question him as to his plans and prospects, he shiftedthe talk to our friends, the Verity-Stewarts. He had stayed with them twoor three times. Once Lady Auriol had again been a fellow guest. He had mether in London, dined at her tiny house in Charles Street, Mayfair--a littledinner party, doubtless in his honour--and he had called once or twice. Evidently the Romance was in the full idyllic stage. I asked somewhatmaliciously what Lady Auriol thought of it. He rose to my question like asimple fish. 

"She's far more indignant than I am, I've had to stop her writing to thenewspapers and sending the old Earl down to the House of Lords. "

"Lady Auriol ought to be able to pull some strings, " said I. 

"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 asa daddy-long-legs under a tumbler--and suddenly halted in front of me. "Doyou know why?"

I made a polite gesture of enquiring ignorance. 

"Because it's a damn sight too sacred. "

I bowed. I understood. 

"I can find it in my heart to owe many things to Lady Auriol, " hecontinued. "She's a great woman. But even to her I couldn't owe my positionin the British Army. "

"Did you tell her so?"

"I did. "

I pictured the scene, knowing my Auriol. I could see the pride in her darkeyes and masterful lips. His renunciation had in it that of the _beaugeste_ which she secretly adored. It put the final stamp on the man. 

Upon this little emotional outburst he left, promising to dine with me thenext 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 Officescissors severing the red tape that still bound him to the Army. 

Lady Auriol said to me: "I think the day he puts off khaki he'll cry. "

He stuck to it till the very last day possible. Then he appeared, gaunt andmiserable, in an ill-fitting blue serge suit which, in the wind, flappedabout his lean body. He had the pathetic air of a lost child. On thisoccasion--Lady Auriol and he were lunching with me--she adopted a motherlyattitude which afforded me both pleasure and amusement. She seemed benton assuring him that the gaudy vestments of a successful General went fornothing in her esteem; that, like Semele, she felt (had that unfortunatelady been given a second chance) more at ease with her Jupiter in thecommon guise of ordinary man. 

How the Romance had progressed I could not tell. Nothing of it wasperceptible from their talk, which was that of mutually understandingfriends. I hinted a question after the meal, when she and I were alone fora few moments. She shrugged her shoulders, and regarded me enigmatically. 

"I'm a little more mid-Victorian than I thought I was. "

"Which means?"

"Whatever you like it to. "

And that is all I had a chance of getting out of her. Well, the relationsbetween Lackaday and Lady Auriol were no business of mine. I had plenty todo and to think about, and anxiety over their tender affairs did not rob meof an hour's slumber. 

Then came a day when the offer of a humble mission in connection with thePeace Conference sent me to Paris. Before starting I had a last interviewwith Lackaday. He dined with me alone in my chambers. 

He looked ill and worried. His scraggy neck rising far above an eveningcollar too low for him seemed to betray by its stringy workings theperturbation of his spirit. His carroty thatch no longer crisp from thecareful military cut had grown into a kind of untamable towslement. Thelast month or two had aged him. He was the last person one would haveimagined to be a distinguished soldier in the Great War. 

We talked pleasantly of indifferent things till the cigars were lit--he wasalways a charming companion, possessing a gentle and somewhat plaintivehumour--and then he began, against his habit, to speak of himself. Likethousands of demobilized officers he was looking around for some opening incivil life. As to what particular round hole his square peg could fit hewas most vague. Perhaps a position in one of the far-away regions that wereto be administered by the League of Nations. Something in Syria or GermanEast Africa. 

"Look here, my dear fellow, " I said at last, "I presume I'm the very oldestsurviving acquaintance you have in the world. And you can't accuse me ofindiscreet curiosity. But surely you must have had some kind of professionbefore the war. "

"Of course I had. "

"Then why not go back to it?"

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 thesymbolism of his uniform and forbade impertinent questioning. As he hadkept the shutters pulled down over his pre-war career, having in all ourintercourse given me no hint of the avocations that had led him to know theInns of France with the accuracy of a Michelin guide, it was obvious thathe had done so for his own good and deliberate reasons. I had got it intomy stupid head that the qualities which had raised him from private toBrigadier-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 Frenchbusiness house. 

On my question he stared at his cigar, twisting it backwards and forwardsbetween his delicate thumb and two fingers, with the air of a manhesitating on a decision, until the inevitable happened; the long ash ofthe cigar fell over his trousers. He rose with a laugh and a damn andbrushed himself. Then he said:

"Did you ever hear of Les Petit Patou?"

"No, " said I, mystified. 

"Scarcely anyone in this country ever has. That's the advantage ofobscurity. " He reflected for a moment then he said: "I never realized, until I went very shyly among them, the exquisite delicacy of Englishgentlefolk. Not one of you, not even Lady Auriol who has given me theprivilege of her intimate friendship, has ever pressed me to give anaccount of myself. I'm not ashamed of Les Petit Patou. But it seemsso--so----" he snapped his fingers for the word--"so incongruous. Mymilitary rank demanded that I should preserve it from ridicule--you'llremember I asked you to say nothing of the circus. "

"Still, " said I, "the name Petit Patou conveys nothing to me. "

"I'm the original Petit Patou. When I took a partner we became plural. _Regardez un instant. _"

It was only later that I saw the significance of the instinctive Frenchphrase. 

He rose, glanced around him, pounced on a little silver match-box andan empty wire waste-paper basket, and contorting his mobile face into ahideous grimace of imbecility, began to juggle with these two objects andhis cigar, displaying the faultless technique of the professional. Aftera few throws, the cigar flew into his mouth, the matchbox fell into theopened pocket of his dinner jacket and the waste-paper basket descendedover his head. For a second he stood grinning through the wire cage, inthe attitude of one waiting for applause. Then swiftly he disembarrassedhimself of the basket and threw the insulted cigar into the fire. 

"Do you think that's a dignified way for General Andrew Lackaday, C. B. , tomake his living--in the green skin tights of Petit Patou?"

We talked far into the night. My sleep was haunted by the nightmare of thesix foot four of the stringy, bony emaciation of General Lackaday in greenskin tights. 

Chapter V

To realize Petit Patou in the British General of Brigade, we must turn tothe manuscript mentioned at the beginning of this story. 

We meet him, a raw youth, standing, one blazing summer day on the Bridgeof Avignon. He insists on this episode, because, says he, the bridge isassociated with important events in his life. It was not, needless toremark, the Pont d'Avignon of the gay old song, for the further arch ofthat was swept away by floods long ago, and it now remains a thing ofpathetic uselessness. Three-quarters of the way across the Rhone might yougo, and then you would come to abrupt nothingness, just the swirling riverfar below your arrested feet. It was the new suspension bridge, somethree hundred yards further up, sadly inharmonious with the macchiolatedbattlements of the city and the austere mass, rising above them, of thePalace of the Popes on the one side, and, on the other, the grey antiquityof the castle of Villeneuve brooding like an ancient mother over its agedoffspring, the clustering sun-baked town. The joyous generation of the OldBridge has long since passed away, but to the present generation the NewBridge 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 tosequestered spots where you may sit and forget the clatter of flagstonesand the stuffy apartment above them for which the rent is due; where theair of early June is perfumed by wild thyme and marjoram and the far-flungsweetness of new mown hay, and where the nightingales sing. So, whenever itcan, all Avignon turns out, as it has turned out for hundreds of years, onits to and fro adventure across the Bridge of Promise. 

It was on a Sunday afternoon when young Lackaday stood there, leaningmoodily over the parapet, regarding it not as a bridge of Promise, but asa Bridge of Despair. He had fled from the dressing-room of the littlemusic-hall just outside the city walls, which he shared with three othersof the troupe, from its horrible reek of escaping gas and drainage andgrease-paint and the hoarded human emanations of years, and had come hereinstinctively 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 himselfnoisily alone amid an unsympathetic multitude. 

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 fromapathetic of the manager and leader of the troupe. They were a company ofsix, Les Merveilleux, five jugglers, plate spinners, eccentric musicians, ventriloquists, and one low comedian. Lackaday was the low comedian, hisbusiness to repeat in burlesque most of the performance of his fellowartists. It was his first engagement, outside the Cirque Rocambeau, hisfirst day with the troupe. Everything had gone badly. His enormous leanlength put the show out of scale. The troupe, accustomed to the business ofa smaller man, whose sudden illness caused the gap which Lackaday came fromParis to fill, resented the change, and gave him little help. They demandedimpossibilities. Although they had rehearsed--and the rehearsals had beena sufficient nightmare of suffering--everybody had seemed to devote aferocious malice to his humiliation. Where the professional juggler isaccustomed to catch things at his hip, they threw them at his knees; theyappeared to decide that his head should be on the level of his breast. Theleading lady, Madame Coinçon, wife of the manager, a compact person of fivefoot two, roundly declared that she could not play with him, and in hisfunniest act, dependent on her co-operation, she left him to be helplesslyfunny by himself. The tradition of the troupe required the comedian to beattired in a loud check suit, green necktie and white felt bowler hat. Onthe podgy form of Lackaday's predecessor it produced its comic effect. Onthe lank Lackaday it was characterless. In consequence of all this, he hadbeen nervous, he had missed cues, he had fumbled when he ought to have beenclear, and been clear when he ought comically to have fumbled. He had goneabout his funny business with the air of a curate marrying his vicar to theobject of his hopeless affections. 

And Coinçon had devastatingly insulted him. What worm was in the headof Moignon (the Paris music-hall agent) that he should send him such amonstrosity? He wasn't, _nom de Dieu_, carrying about freaks at afair. He wanted a comedian and not a giant. No wonder the Cirque Rocambeauhad come to grief, if it depended on such canaries as Lackaday. Didn't heknow he was there to make the audience laugh?--not to give a representationof Monsieur Mounet-Sully elongated by the rack. 

"_Hop, man petit_, " said he at last. "_F---- moi le camp_, " whichis a very vulgar way of insisting on a person's immediate retirement. "Hereis your week's salary. I gain by the proceeding. The baggage-man will seeus through. He has done so before. As for Moignon--"

Although Lackaday regarded Moignon as a sort of god dispensing fame andriches, enthroned on unassailable heights of power, he trembled at theawful destiny that awaited him. He would be cast, like Lucifer from heaven. He would be stripped of authority. Coinçon's invective against him was soterrible that Lackaday pitied him even more than he pitied himself. Yetthere was himself to consider. As much use to apply to the fallen Moignonfor an engagement as to the Convent of the Daughters of Calvary. He andMoignon and their joint fortunes were sent hurtling down into the abyss. 

On the parapet of the Bridge of Despair leant young Lackaday, gazingunseeingly down into the Rhone. His sudden misfortune had been like thestunning blow of a sandbag. His brain still reeled. What had happened wasincomprehensible. He knew his business. He could conceive no other. He hadbeen trained to it since infancy. There was not a phase of clown's workwith which he was not familiar. He was a passable gymnast, an expertjuggler, a trick musician, an accomplished conjurer. All that theMerveilleux troupe act required from him he had been doing successfully foryears. Why then the failure? He blamed the check suit, the ill-will of thecompany, the unreason of Madame Coinçon. .. . 

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 therewas almost a generation's change of taste and critical demand. The CirqueRocambeau had gone round without perceiving that the world had gone roundtoo. It wondered why its triumphant glory had declined; and it couldnot take steps to adapt itself to the new conditions which it could notappreciate. Everyone grew old and tradition-bound in the Cirque Rocambeau, even the horses, until gradually it perished of senile decay. AndrewLackaday carrying on the traditions of his foster father, the clown BenFlint, had remained with it, principal clown, to the very end. Now andthen, rare passers through from the outer world, gymnasts down on theirluck, glad to take a makeshift engagement while waiting for better things, had counselled him to leave the antiquated concern. But the CirqueRocambeau had been the whole of his life, childhood, boyhood, youngmanhood; he was linked to it by the fibres of a generous nature. Allthose elderly anxious folk were his family. Many of the children, hiscontemporaries, trained in the circus, had flown heartlessly from thenest, and the elders had fatalistically lamented. Madame Rocambeau, bowed, wizened, of uncanny age, yet forceful and valiant to the last--carryingon for the old husband now lying paralysed in Paris who had inherited thecircus from his father misty years ago, would say to the young man, whenone of these defections occurred: "And you André, you are not going toleave us? You have a fine position, and if you are dissatisfied, perhaps wecan come to an arrangement. You are a child of the circus and I love youlike my own flesh and blood. We shall turn the corner yet. All that isnecessary is faith--and a little youth. " And Andrew, a simple soul, who hadbeen trained in the virtues of honour and loyalty by the brave Ben Flint, would repudiate with indignation the suggestion of any selfish desire to goabroad and seek adventure. 

At last, one afternoon, when the tent, a miserable gipsy thing comparedwith the proud pavilion of the days of the glory of Billy the pig, waspitched on the outskirts of a poor little town, they found Madame Rocambeaudead in the canvas box-office which she had occupied for fifty years, theheartbreaking receipts in front of her, counted out into little piles ofbronze and small silver. The end had come. The circus could not be sold asa going concern. It crumbled away. Somebody bought the old horses, Heavenknows for what purpose. Somebody bought the antiquated harness andmoth-eaten trappings. Somebody else bought the tents and fittings. Butnobody bought the old careworn human beings, riders and gymnasts and stablehands who crept away into the bright free air of France, dazed and lost, like the prisoners released from the Bastille. 

It was not so long ago; long enough ago, however, for young Andrew Lackadayto have come perilously near the end of his savings in Paris, before theAlmighty Moignon (now curse-withered), but then vast and unctuous, reekingof fat food and diamonds and great cigars, had found him this engagement atAvignon. He had journeyed thither full of the radiant confidence of twenty. He stood on the bridge overwhelmed by the despair whose Tartarean blacknessonly twenty can experience. 

Not a gleam anywhere of hope. His humiliation was absolute. The maniacalCoinçon had not even given him an opportunity of redeeming his failure. Hehad been paid to go away. The disgusting yet necessary price of his shamerattled in his pockets. To-night the baggage man would play his part--abeing once presumably trained, yet sunk so low in incompetence that he wasglad to earn his livelihood as baggage man. And he, Andrew Lackaday, wasjudged more incompetent even than this degraded outcast. Why? How could itbe? 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 theRhone. The ceaseless, laughing stream of citizens passed him by. Presentlyyouth'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 bridgetowards the Villeneuve bank. Girls bare-headed, arm-in-arm, looked upat him and laughed, he was so long and lean and comical with his uglylugubrious face and the little straw hat perched on top of his bushycarroty poll. He did not mind, being used to derision. In happier days hevalued it, for the laugh would be accompanied by a nudge and a "_VoilàAuguste!_" He took it as a tribute. It was fame. Now he was so deeplysunk in his black mood that he scarcely heeded. He walked on to the end ofthe bridge, and turned down the dusty pathway by the bank. 

Suddenly he became aware of sounds of music and revelry, and a few yardsfurther on he came to a broad dell shaded by plane trees and set out as arestaurant garden, with rude tables and benches, filled with good-humouredthirsty folk; on one side a weather-beaten wooden châlet, having the proudtitle of Restaurant du Rhône, served apparently but to house the supplyof drinks which nondescript men and sturdy bare-headed maidens carriedincessantly on trays to the waiting tables. On the dusty midway space--thegarden boasted no blade of grass--couples danced to the strains of awheezing hurdy-gurdy played by a white bearded ancient who at the end ofeach tune refreshed himself with a draught from a chope of beer on theground by his side, while a tiny anæmic girl went round gathering sous in ashell. When the music stopped you could hear the whir and the click of thebowls in an adjoining dusty and rugged alley and the harsh excited criesof the players. During these intervals the serving people in an absent waywould scatter an occasional carafe-full of water on the dancing floor tolay the dust. 

Young Lackaday hung hesitatingly on the outskirts under the wooden archwaythat was at once the entrance and the sign-board. The music had ended. Thetables were packed. He felt very thirsty and longed to enter and drink someof the beer which looked so cool in the long glasses surmounted by itshalf inch of white froth--inviting as sea-foam. Shyness held him. Theseprosperous, care-free bourgeois, almost indistinguishable one from theother by racial characteristics, and himself a tragic failure in life andphysically unique among men, were worlds apart. It had never occurred tohim before that he could find himself anywhere in France where the peoplewere not his people. He felt heart-brokenly alien. 

Presently the hurdy-gurdy started the ghostly tinkling of the _IlBacio_ waltz, and the ingenuous couples of Avignon rose and began todance. The thirst-driven Lackaday plucked up courage, and strode toa deserted wooden table. He ordered beer. It was brought. He sippedluxuriously. One tells one's thirst to be patient, when one has to think ofone's sous. He was half-way through when two girls, young and flushed fromdancing together, flung themselves down on the opposite bench--the tablebetween. 

"We don't disturb you, Monsieur?"

He raised his hat politely. "By no means, Mesdemoiselles. "

One of them with a quick gesture took up from the table a forgottennewspaper and began to fan herself and her companion, to the accompanimentof giggling and chatter about the heat. They were very young. They orderedgrenadine syrup and eau-de-seltz. Andrew Lackaday stared dismally beyondthem, at the dancers. In the happy, perspiring girls in front of him hetook no interest, for all their youth and comeliness and obviously frankapproachability. He saw nothing but the fury-enflamed face of Coinçon andheard nothing but the rasping voice telling him that it was cheaper to payhim his week's salary than to allow him to appear again. And "_f---- moile camp!_" Why hadn't he taken Coinçon by the neck then and there withhis long strong fingers and strangled him? Coinçon would have had thechance of a rabbit. He had the strength of a dozen Coinçons--he, trained toperfection, with muscle like dried bull's sinews. He could split an applebetween arm and forearm, in the hollow of his elbow. Why shouldn't he goback and break Coinçon's neck? No man alive had the right to tell him to_f---- le camp!_

"You don't seem very gay, " said a laughing voice. 

With a start he recovered consciousness of immediate surroundings. Insteadof two girls opposite, there was only one. Vaguely he remembered that a manhad come up. 

"_Un tour de valse, Mademoiselle?_"

"_Je vieux bien_. "

And one of the girls had gone, leaving her just sipped grenadine syrup andseltzer-water. But it had been like some flitting unreality of a dream. 

At his blinking recovery the remaining girl laughed again. 

"You look like a somnambulist. "

He replied: "I beg pardon, Mademoiselle, but I was absorbed in myreflections. "

"Black ones--_hein?_ They have made you little infidelities?"

He frowned. "They? Who do you mean--they?"

"_Un joli garçon is not absorbed in his reflections_"--she mimickedhis tone--"unless there is the finger of a _petite femme_ to stir themround and darken them. "

"Mademoiselle, " said he, seriously. "You are quite mistaken. There's not awoman in the world against whom I have the slightest grudge. "

He spoke truly. It was a matter of love, and Mme Coinçon's hostility didnot count. 

"Word of honour, " he added looking into the smiling ironical face. 

Love had entered very little into his serious scheme of life. He had hadhis entanglements of course. There was Francine Dumesnil, who had flutteredinto the Cirque Rocambeau as a slack wire artist, and after making him vowsof undying affection, had eloped a week afterwards with Hans Petersen, theonly man left who could stand on the bare back of a horse that was notthick with resin. But the heart of Andrew Lackaday had nothing to dowith the heart of Francine Dumesnil. He had agreed with the aged MadameRocambeau. _Sales types_, both of them. 

"If it had been _chagrin d'amour_--sorrow of love, Mademoiselle, "said he, "I should not have been so insensible to the presence of two suchcharming young ladies. "

"We are polite, all the same, " she remarked approvingly. 

She sipped her grenadine. Having nothing further to say he sipped his beer. Presently she said:

"I saw you this afternoon at the _boite_. " He looked at her with atouch of interest. No one would allude to the music-hall as the "box"except a fellow professional engaged there. 

"You too?" he asked. 

She nodded. She belonged to a troupe of dancing girls. As they were thefirst number, they got away early. She and her friend had gone for a walkand found this restaurant. It was gay, wasn't it? He said, soberly:

"You were dancing at rehearsal this morning. You've danced at themusic-hall this afternoon, you'll be dancing again this evening--why do youdance here?"

"One can only be young once, " she replied. 

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen. And you?"

"Twenty-two. "

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 veryyoung, slight, scarcely formed, yet her movements were lithe and completelike those of a young lizard. She had laughing, black eyes and a freshmouth 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'sbeauty of youth. A common type, one that would not arrest masculine eyes asshe passed by. Dozens of the girls there round about might have called hersister. She was dressed with cheap neatness, the soiled white wing of abird in her black hat being the only touch of bravura. She spoke with therich accent of the South. 

"You are of the _Midi?_" he said. 

Yes. She came from Marseilles. Ingenuously chattering she gave him herfamily history. In the meanwhile her companions and her partner havingfinished their dance had retired to a sequestered corner of the restaurant, leaving the pair here to themselves. Lackaday learned that her name wasElodie Figasso. Her father was dead. Her mother was a dressmaker, in whichbusiness she, too, had made her apprenticeship. But an elderly man, a_huissier_, one of those people who go about with a tricolour-rosettedcocked hat, and steel buttons and canvas trousers and a leather satchelchained to their waist, had lately diverted from Elodie the full tide ofmaternal affection. As she hated the _huissier_, a vulgar man whothought of nothing but the good things that the Veuve Figasso could putinto his stomach, and as her besotted mother starved them both in order tofulfil the _huissier's_ demands, and as she derived no compensatingjoy from her dressmaking, she had found, thanks to a friend, a positron as_figurante_ in a Marseilles Revue, and, _voilà_--there she wasfree, independent, and, since she had talent and application, was nowearning her six francs a day. 

She finished her grenadine. Then with a swift movement she caught a passingserving maid and slipped into her hand the money for her companion'sscarcely tasted drink and her own. Instantly Andrew protested--Mademoisellemust allow him to have the pleasure. 

But no--never in life, she had not intruded on his table to have freedrinks. As for the _consommation_ of the feather-headed Margot--fromMargot herself would she get reimbursement. 

"But yet, Mademoiselle, " said he, "you make me ashamed. You must still bethirsty--like myself. "

"_Ça ne vous gênera pas?_"

She asked the question with such a little air of serious solicitude thathe laughed, for the first time. Would it upset his budget, involve thesacrifice of a tram ride or a packet of tobacco, if he spent a few sous onmore syrup for her delectation? And yet the delicacy of her motive appealedto him. Here was a little creature very honest, very much of the people, very proud, very conscientious. 

"On the contrary, Mademoiselle, " said he, "I shall feel that you do me anhonour. "

"It is not to be refused, " said she politely, and the serving maid wasdespatched for more beer and syrup. 

"I waited to see your turn, " she said, after a while. 

"Ah!" he sighed. 

She glanced at him swiftly. "It does not please you that I should talkabout it?"

"Not very much, " said he. 

"But I found you admirable, " she declared. "Much better than that _espècede poule mouillée_--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 comedianfrom Paris was coming, I said: 'I must wait' and Margot and I waited in thewings--and we laughed. Oh yes, we laughed. "

"It's more than the audience did, " said the miserable Andrew. 

The audience! Of Avignon! She had never played to such an audience in herher life. They were notorious, these people, all over France. They were sostupid 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 beingdeceived. 

All of which, of course, is a libel on the hearty folk of Avignon. ButElodie was from Marseilles, which naturally has a poor opinion of the othertowns of Provence. She also lied for the comforting of Lackaday. 

"They are so unsympathetic, " said he, "that I shall not play any more. "

She knitted her young brow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I play neither to-night nor to-morrow night, nor ever again. To-morrow I return to Paris. "

She regarded him awe-stricken. "You throw up an engagement--just likethat--because the audience doesn't laugh?"

She had heard vague fairy-tales of pampered opera-singers acting with suchOlympian independence; but never a music-hall artist on tour. He must bevery rich and powerful. 

Lackaday read the thought behind the wide-open eyes. 

"Not quite like that, " he admitted honestly. "It did not altogether dependon myself. You see the _patron_ found that the audience didn't laughand the _patronne_ found that my long body spoiled her act--and so--Igo to Paris to-morrow. "

She rose from the depths of envying wonder to the heights of pity. Sheflashed indignation at the abominable treatment he had received fromthe Coinçons. She scorched them with her contempt. What right had that_tortoise_ of a Madame Coinçon to put on airs? She had seen betterjuggling in a booth at a fair. Her championship warmed Andrew's heart, andhe began to feel less lonely in a dismal and unappreciative world. Longingfor further healing of an artist's wounded vanity he said:

"Tell me frankly. You did see something to admire in my performance?"

"Haven't I always said so? _Tiens_, would you like me to tellyou something? All my life I have loved Auguste in a circus. You knowAuguste--the clown? Well, you reminded me of Auguste and I laughed. "

"Until lately I was Auguste--in the Cirque Rocambeau. "

She clapped her hands. 

"But I have seen you there--when I was quite little--three--four years agoat Marseilles. "

"Four years, " said Andrew looking into the dark backward and abysm of time. 

"Yes, I remember you well, now. We're old friends. "

"I hope you'll allow me to continue the friendship, " said Andrew. 

They talked after the way of youth. He narrated his uneventful history. Sheadded details to the previous sketch of her own career. The afternoondrew to a close. The restaurant garden emptied; the good folks of Avignonreturned dinnerwards across the bridge. They looked for Margot, but Margothad disappeared, presumably with her new acquaintance. Elodie sniffed in asuperior manner. If Margot didn't take care, she would be badly caught oneof these days. For herself, no, she had too much character. She wouldn'twalk about the streets with a young man she had only known for fiveminutes. She told Andrew so, very seriously, as they strolled over thebridge arm-in-arm. 

They parted, arranging to meet at 10 o'clock when she was free from themusic-hall, at the Café des Négociants or the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. 

Andrew, shrinking from the table d'hôte in the mangy hotel in a narrow backstreet where the Merveilleux troupe had their crowded being, dined at acheap restaurant near the railway station, and filled in the evening withaimless wandering up and and down the thronged Avenue de la Gare. Once heturned off into the quiet moonlit square dominated by the cathedral and thewalls and towers of the Palace of the Popes. The austere beauty of it saidnothing 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 thebroad, gay Avenue where all Avignon was taking the air. A girl's sympathyhad reconciled him with his kind. 

She came tripping up to him, almost on the stroke of ten, as he sat at theoutside edge of the café terrace, awaiting her. The reconciliation wascomplete. Like most of the young men there, he too had his maid. They metas if they had known each other for years. She was full of an evil fellow, _un gros type_, with a roll of fat at the back of his neck and a greatdiamond ring which flashed in the moonlight, who had waited for her at thestage door and walked by her side, pestering her with his attentions. 

"And do you know how I got rid of him? I said: 'Monsieur, I can't walk withyou through the streets on account of my comrades. But I swear to you thatyou will find me at the Café des Négotiants at a quarter past ten. ' And soI made my escape. Look, " said she excitedly, gripping Andrew's arm, "herehe is. "

She met the eyes of the _gros type_ with the roll of fat and thediamond ring, who halted somewhat uncertainly in front of the cafe. Whereupon Andrew rose to his long height of six foot four and, glaring atthe offender, put him to the flight of over-elaborated unconcern. Elodiewas delighted. 

"You could have eaten him up alive, _n'est-ce pas_, André?"

And Andrew felt the thrill of the successful Squire of Dames. For the restof the evening, there was no longer any 'Monsieur' or 'Mademoiselle. ' Itwas André and Elodie. 

Yes, he would write to her from Paris, telling her of his fortunes. Andshe too would write. The Agence Moignon would always find him. It isparenthetically to be noted how his afternoon fears of the impermanence ofthe Agence Moignon had vanished. Time flew pleasantly. She seemed to haveset herself, her youth and her femininity, to the task of evoking the widebaby smile on his good-natured though dismal face. It was only on theirhomeward way, after midnight, that she mentioned the '_boîle_. ' Therehad been discussions. Some had said this and some had said that. There hadbeen partisans of the Coinçons and partisans of André. There was subjectmatter for one of the pretty quarrels dear to music-hall folk. But Elodiesummed up the whole matter, with her air of precocious wisdom--a wisdomgained in the streets and sewing-rooms and cafés-concerts of Marseilles. 

"What you do is excellent, _mon cher_; but it is _vieux jeu_. Thecircus is not the music-hall. You must be original. "

As originality was banned from the circus tradition, he stood still in thenarrow, quiet street and gasped. 

"Original?"

"You are so long and thin, " she said. 

"That has always been against me; it was against me to-day. "

"But you could make it so droll, " she declared. "And there would be no oneelse like you. But you must be by yourself, not with a troupe like theMerveilleux. _Tiens_, " she caught him by the lapels of his jacket anda 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, _etpas du tout joli_. "

"I know, " said Andrew, "but he is a great artist. "

"And so are you, " she retorted. "But as this little man gets all theprofit he can out of his littleness--it was _la grosse_ Léonie--the_brune_, number three, you know--ah, but you haven't seen us--anyhowshe has been in London and was telling me about him this evening--all thatnature has endowed him with he exaggerates--_eh bien!_ Why couldn'tyou do the same?"

The street was badly lit with gas; but still he could see the flash inher dark eyes. He drew himself up and laid both his hands on her thinshoulders. 

"My little Elodie, " said he--and by the dim gaslight she could see theflash of his teeth revealed by his wide smile--"My little Elodie, you havegenius. You have given me an idea that may make my fortune. What can I giveyou in return?"

"If you want to show me that you are not ungrateful, you might kiss me, "said Elodie. 

Chapter VI

A kiss must mean either very much or very little. There are maidens to whomit signifies a life's consecration. There are men whose blood it fires withburning passion. There are couples of different sex who jointly considertheir first kiss a matter of supreme importance, and, the temporary raptureover, at once begin to discuss the possibilities of parental approbationand the ways and means of matrimony. A kiss may be the very devil of athing leading to two or three dozen honourably born grandchildren, or tosuicide, or to celebate addiction to cats, or to eugenic propaganda, or toperpetual 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 dueconsideration. And in some cases consideration only increases the fortuityof its results. Volumes could be written on it. 

If you think that the kiss exchanged between Andrew and Elodie had anysuch immediate sentimental or tragical or heroical consequences youare mistaken. Andrew responded with all the grace in the world to theinvitation. It was a pleasant and refreshing act. He was grateful for hercompanionship, her sympathy, and her inspired counsel. She carried off herfrank comradeship with such an air of virginal innocence, and at the sametime with such unconscious exposure of her half fulfilled womanhood, thathe suffered no temptations of an easy conquest. The kiss therefore evokedno baser range of emotion. As his head was whirling with an artist's suddenconception--and, mark you, an artist's conception need no more be a caseof parthenogenesis than that of the physical woman--it had no room for thehigher and subtler and more romantical idealizations of the owner of thekissed lips. You may put him down for an insensible young egoist. Put himdown for what you will. His embrace was but gratefully fraternal. 

As for Elodie, if it were not dangerous--she had the street child'sinstinct--what did a kiss or two matter? If one paid all that attention toa kiss one's life would be a complicated drama of a hundred threads. 

"A kiss is nothing"--so ran one of her _obiter dicta_ recordedsomewhere in the manuscript--"unless you feel it in your toes. Then lookout. "

Evidently this kiss Elodie did not feel in her toes, for she walked alongcarelessly beside him to the door of her hotel, a hostelry possibly a shademore poverty-stricken in a flag paved by-street, a trifle staler-smellingthan his own, and there put out a friendly hand of dismissal. 

"We will write to each other?"

"It is agreed. "

"Alors, au revoir. "

"Au revoir, Elodie, et merci. "

And that was the end of it. Andrew went back to Paris by the first train inthe morning, and Elodie continued to dance in Avignon. 

If they had maintained, as they vaguely promised, an intimatecorrespondence, it might have developed, according to the laws of theinterchange of sentiment between two young and candid souls, into areciprocal 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 haveeffected by hook or crook, a delirious meeting, and young Romance wouldhave had its triumphant way. But to the gods it seemed otherwise. Andrewwrote, 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 morediscouraging than a one-sided correspondence, he held his hand. He felt atouch of disappointment. She was such a warm, friendly little creature, with a sagacious little head on her--by no means the _tête de linotte_of so many of her sisters of song and dance. And she had forgotten him. Heshrugged philosophic shoulders. After all, why should she trouble herselffurther with so dull a dog? Man-like he did not realize the difficultiesthat beset even a sagacious-headed daughter of song and dance in the matterof literary composition, and the temptation to postpone from day to day thegrappling with them, until the original impulse has spent itself throughsheer procrastination. It is all very well to say that a letter is an easything to write, when letter-writing is a daily habit and you have writingmaterials and table all comfortably to hand. But when, like Elodie, youwould have to go into a shop and buy a bottle of ink and a pen and paperand envelopes and take them up to a tiny hotel bedroom shared with anuntidy, space-usurping colleague, or when you would have to sit at a cafétable and write under the eyes of a not the least little bit discreetcompanion--for even the emancipated daughters of song and dance cannot, inmodesty, show themselves at cafés alone; or when you have to stand up in apost office--and then there is the paper and envelope difficulty--with afurious person behind you who wants to send a telegram--Elodie's invariablehabit when she corresponded, on the back of a picture post card, withher mother; when, in fact, you have before you the unprecedented task ofwriting a letter--picture post cards being out of the question--and aletter whose flawlessness of expression is prescribed by your vanity, orbetter by your nice little self-esteem, and you are confronted by suchconditions as are above catalogued, human frailty may be pardoned forgiving it up in despair. 

With this apologia for Elodie's unresponsiveness, conscientiously recordedlater by Andrew Lackaday, we will now proceed. The fact remains that theyfaded pleasantly and even regretlessly from each other's lives. 

There now follow some years, in Lackaday's career, of high endeavourand fierce struggle. He has taken to heart Elodie's suggestion of theexploitation of his physical idiosyncracy. He seeks for a formula. In themeanwhile he gains his livelihood as he can. His powers of mimicry standhim in good stead. In the outlying café-concerts of Paris, unknown tofashion or the foreigner, he gives imitations of popular idols from LeBargy to Polin. But the Ambassadeurs, and the Alcazar d'Eté and the FoliesMarigny and Olympia and such-like stages where fame and fortune are to befound, will have none of him. Paris, too, gets on his vagabond nerves. But what is the good of presenting the unsophisticated public of Brest orBéziers with an imitation of Monsieur le Bargy? As well give them lectureson Thermodynamics. 

Sometimes he escapes from mimicry. He conjures, he juggles, he playsselections from Carmen and Cavaleria Rusticana on a fiddle made out ofa cigar box and a broom-handle. The Provinces accept him with mildapprobation. He tries Paris, the Paris of Menilmontant and the OuterBoulevards; but Paris, not being amused, prefers his mimicry. He is alone, mind you. No more Coinçon combinations. If he is to be insulted, let theaudience 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 justbelow his elbows, his trouser hems flick his calves; he wears, inveteratetradition of the circus clown, a ridiculously little hard felt hat on thetop of his shock of carroty hair. He paints his nose red and extends hisgrin from ear to ear. He racks his brain to invent novelties in manualdexterity. For hours a day in his modest _chambre garnie_ in theFaubourg Saint Denis he practises his tricks. On the dissolution of theCirque Rocambeau, where as "Auguste" he had been practically anonymous, hehad unimaginatively adopted the professional name of Andrew-André. He isstill Andrew-André. There is not much magic about it on a programme. But, _que voulez-vous?_ It is as effective as many another. 

During this period we see him a serious youth, absorbed in his profession, striving towards success, not for the sake of its rewards in luxuriousliving, but for the stamp that it gives to efficiency. The famousmountebank of Notre Dame did not juggle with greater fervour. Here andthere a woman crosses his path, lingers a little and goes her way. Notthat he is insensible to female charms, for he upbraids himself forover-susceptibility. But it seems that from the atavistic source whencehe inherited his beautiful hands, there survived in him an instinct whichcraved in woman the indefinable quality that he could never meet, thequality which was common to Melisande and Phèdre and Rosalind and Fédoraand the child-wife of David Copperfield. It is, as I have indicated, theladies who bid him _bonsoir_. 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 goodcomradeship; but he has scarcely an intimate. 

At last he makes a friend--an Englishman, Horatio Bakkus; and thisfriendship marks a turning-point in his history. 

They met at a café-concert in Montmartre, which, like many of its kind, hadan ephemeral existence--the nearest, incidentally, to the real Paris towhich Andrew Lackaday had attained. It tried to appeal to a catholicity oftastes; to outdo its rivals inscabrousness--did not Farandol and LizetteBlandy make their names there?--and at the same time to offer to thepurer-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 scaredthe virtuous, at the other the deboshed yawned. _La Boîte Blanche_perished of inanition. But during its continuance, Lackaday and Bakkus hada month's profitable engagement. 

They bumped into each other, on their first night, at the stage-door. Eachpolitely gave way to the other. They walked on together and turned down theRue Pigalle and, striking off, reached the Grands Boulevards. The BrasserieTourtel enticed them. They entered and sat down to a modest supper, sandwiches and brown beer. 

"I wish, " said Andrew, "you would do me the pleasure to speak English withme. "

"Why?" cried the other. "Is my French so villainous?"

"By no means, " said Andrew, "but I am an Englishman. "

"Then how the devil do you manage to talk both languages like a Frenchman?"

"Why? Is my English then so villainous?"

He mimicked him perfectly. Horatio Bakkus laughed. 

"Young man, " said he, "I wish I had your gift. "

"And I yours. "

"It's the rottenest gift a man can be born with, " cried Bakkus withstartling vindictiveness. "It turns him into an idle, sentimental, hypocritical and dissolute hound. If I hadn't been cursed young with avoice like a Cherub, I should possibly be on the same affable terms withthe Almighty as my brother, the Archdeacon, or profitably paralysing theintellects of the young like my brother, the preparatory schoolmaster. "

He was a lean and rusty man of forty, with long black hair brushed backover his forehead, and cadaverous cheeks and long upper lip which all theshaving in the world could not redeem for the blue shade of the strongblack beard which at midnight showed almost black. But for his black, mocking eyes, he might have been taken for the seedy provincial tragedianof the old school. 

"Young man----" said he. 

"My name, " said Andrew, "is Lackaday. "

"And you don't like people to be familiar and take liberties. "

Andrew met the ironical glance. "That is so, " said he quietly. 

"Then, Mr. Lackaday----"

"You can omit the 'Mr. , '" said Andrew, "if you care to do so. "

"You're more English than I thought, " smiled Horatio Bakkus. 

"I'm proud that you should say so, " replied Andrew. 

"I was about to remark, " said Bakkus, "when you interrupted me, that Iwondered why a young Englishman of obviously decent upbringing should bepursuing this contemptible form of livelihood. "

"I beg your pardon, " said Andrew, pausing in the act of conveying to hismouth a morsel of sandwich. He was puzzled; comrades down on their luck hadcursed the profession for a _sale métier_ and had wished they wereroad sweepers; but he had never heard it called contemptible. It was atotally new conception. 

Bakkus repeated his words and added: "It is below the dignity of one madein God's image. "

"I am afraid I do not agree with you, " replied Andrew, stiffly. "I was bornin the profession and honourably bred in it and I have known no other anddo not wish to know any other. "

"You were born an imitator? It seems rather a narrow scheme of life. "

"I was born in a circus, and whatever there could be learned in a circus Iwas taught. And it was, as you have guessed, a decent upbringing. By Gum, it was!" he added, with sudden heat. 

"And you're proud of it?"

"I don't see that I've got anything else to be proud of, " said Andrew. 

"And you must be proud of something?"

"If not you had better be dead, " said Andrew. 

"Ah!" said Bakkus, and went on with his supper. 

Andrew, who had hitherto held himself on the defensive againstimpertinence, and was disposed to dislike the cynical attitude of his newacquaintance, felt himself suddenly disarmed by this "Ah!" Perhaps he haddealt too cruel a blow at the disillusioned owner of the pretty littletenor voice in which he could not take very much pride. Bakkus broke asilence by remarking:

"I envy you your young enthusiasm. You don't think it better we were alldead?"

"I should think not!" cried Andrew. 

"You say you know all that a circus can teach you. What does that mean? Youcan ride bare back and jump through hoops?"

"I learned to do that--for Clown's business, " replied Andrew. "But that'sno good to me now. I am a professional juggler and conjurer and trickmusician. I'm also a bit of a gymnast and sufficient of a contortionist todo eccentric dancing. "

Bakkus took a sip of beer, and regarded him with his mocking eyes. 

"And you'd sooner keep on throwing up three balls in the air for the restof your natural life than just be comfortably dead? I should like to knowyour ideas on the point. What's the good of it all? Supposing you're themost wonderful expert that ever lived--supposing you could keep up fiftyballs 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?"

Andrew rubbed his head. Such problems had never occurred to him. Old BenFlint's philosophy pounded into him, at times literally with a solid andwell-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 thebeginning and end of his rule of life. He looked not, nor thought oflooking, further. And now came this Schopenhaurian with his question. "What's the good of it?"

"I suppose I'm an artist, in my way, " he replied, modestly. 

"Artist?" Bakkus laughed derisively. "Pardon me, but you don't know whatthe 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 tolive. I could prove to you, if I had time, that Michael Angelo and Danteand 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 thethroat of the grocer and his wife, am an artist. But you, my dearfellow--with your fifty billiard cues on top of your nose? There's a devilof a lot of skill about it of course--but nothing artistic. It meansnothing. "

"Yet if I could perform the feat, " said Andrew, "thousands and thousands ofpeople would come to see me; more likely a million. "

"No doubt. But what would be the good of it, when you had done it and theyhad seen it? Sheer waste of half your lifetime and a million hours on thepart of the public, which is over forty thousand days, which is over ahundred years. Fancy a century of the world's energy wasted in seeing youbalance billiard cues on the end of your nose!"

Andrew reflected for a long time, his elbow on the cafe table, his handcovering his eyes. There must surely be some fallacy in this remorselessargument which reduced his life's work to almost criminal futility. At lastlight reached him. He held out his other hand and raised his head. 

"_Attendez_. I must say in French what has come into my mind. SurelyI am an artist according to your definition. I interpret nature, themarvellous human mechanism in terms of emotion--the emotion of wonder. Thebalance of fifty billiard cues gives the million people the same catch atthe throat as the song or the picture, and they lose themselves for an hourin a new revelation of the possibilities of existence, and so I save theworld a hundred years of the sorrow and care of life. "

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 wantof use. I love talking for talking's sake--good talk--don't you?"

"I cannot say that I do, " replied Andrew honestly, "I have never thought ofit. '

"But you must, my dear Lackaday. You have no idea how it stimulates yourintellect. It crystallizes your own vague ideas and sends you away with thecomforting conviction of what a damned fool the other fellow is. It's thecheapest recreation in the world--when you can get it. And it doesn'tmatter whether you're in purple and fine linen or in rags or in the greasydress-suit of a café-concert singer. " He beckoned the waiter. "Shall wego?"

They parted outside and went their respective ways. The next night theyagain supped together, and the night after that, until it became a habit. In his long talks with the idle and cynical tenor, Andrew learned manythings. 

Now, parenthetically, certain facts in the previous career of AndrewLackaday have to be noted. 

Madame Flint had brought him up nominally in the Roman Catholic Faith, which owing to his peripatetic existence was a very nebulous affair withoutmuch real meaning; and Ben Flint, taking more pains, had reared him ina sturdy Lancashire Fear of God and Duty towards his Neighbour and Dutytowards himself, and had given him the Golden Rule above mentioned. Ben hadalso seen to his elementary education, so that the _régime du participepassé_ had no difficulties for him, and Racine and Bossuet were notempty names, seeing that he had learned by heart extracts from the writingsof these immortals in his school primer. That they conveyed little to himbut a sense of paralysing boredom is neither here nor there. And Ben Flint, most worthy and pertinacious of Britons, for the fourteen impressionableyears during which he was the arbiter of young Andrew's destiny, never foran hour allowed him to forget that he was an Englishman. That Andrew shouldtalk French, his stepmother tongue, to all the outside world was a matterof necessity. But if he addressed a word of French to him, Ben Flint, therewas the devil to pay. And if he picked up from the English stable handsvulgarisms and debased vowel sounds, Ben Flint had the genius to compeltheir rejection. 

"My father, " writes Lackaday--for as such he always regarded BenFlint--"was the most remarkable man I have ever known. That he loved mewith his whole nature I never doubted and I worshipped the ground on whichhe trod. But he was remorseless in his enforcement of obedience. Lookingback, I am lost in wonder at his achievement. "

Still, even Ben Flint could not do everything. The eternal precepts ofmorality, the colloquial practice of English speech, the ineradicableprinciples of English birth and patriotism, the elementary though thoroughFrench education, the intensive physical training in all phases of circuslife, took every hour that Ben Flint could spare from his strenuousprofessional career as a vagabond circus clown. I who knew Ben Flint, anddrank of his wisdom gained in many lands, have been disposed to wonder whyhe did not empty it to broaden the intellectual and æsthetic horizon of hisadopted son. But on thinking over the matter--how could he? He had spentall his time in filling up the boy with essentials. Just at that time whenAndrew might have profited by the strong, rough intellectuality that hadso greatly attracted me as a young man, Ben Flint died. In the realm ofgymnasts, jugglers, circus-riders, dancers in which Andrew had thence foundhis being, there was no one to replace the mellow old English clown, whotravelled around with Sterne and Montaigne and Shakespeare and Bunyan andthe Bible, as the only books of his permanent library. Such knowledge ashe possessed of the myriad activities of the great world outside hisprofessional circle he had picked up in aimless and desultory reading. 

In Horatio Bakkus, therefore, Andrew met for the first time a human beinginterested in the intellectual aspect of life; one who advanced outrageouspropositions just for the joy of supporting them and of refutingcounter-arguments; one, in fact, who, to his initial amazement, could juggle with ideas as he juggled with concrete objects. In thiscompanionship he found an unknown stimulus. He would bid his friend adieuand go away, his brain catching feverishly at elusive theories and newconceptions. Sometimes he went off thrilled with a sense of intellectualtriumph. He had beaten his adversary. He had maintained his simple moralfaith against ingenious sophistry. He realized himself as a thinking being, impelled by a new force to furnish himself with satisfying reasons forconduct. It was through Horatio Bakkus that he discovered The Venus of Miloand Marcus Aurelius and Longchamps races. .. . 

From the last he derived the most immediate benefit. 

"If you've never been to a race-meeting, " said Bakkus, "you've missed oneof the elementary opportunities of a liberal education. Nowhere else canyou have such a chance of studying human imbecility, knavery and greed. Youcan also glut your eyes with the spectacle of useless men, expensive women, and astounded, sensitive animals. "

"I prefer, " replied Andrew, with his wide grin, "to keep my faith inmankind and horses. "

"And I, " said Bakkus, "love to realize myself for what I really am, animbecile, a knave, and a useless craver of money for which I've not had theindignity of working. It soothes me to feel that for all my heritage ofculture I am nothing more or less than one of the rabble-rout. I've backedhorses ever since I was a boy and in my time I've had a pure delight inpawning my underwear in order to do so. "

"It seems to be the height of folly, " said sober Andrew. 

Bakkus regarded him with his melancholy mocking eyes. 

"To paraphrase a remark of yours on the occasion of our first meeting--if aman is not a fool in something he were better dead. At any rate let me showyou this fool's playground. "

So Andrew assented. They went to Longchamps, humbly, on foot, mingling withthe Paris crowd. Bakkus wore a sun-stained brown and white check suit andan old grey bowler hat and carried a pair of racing-glasses slung acrosshis shoulders, all of which transformed his aspect from that, in eveningdress, of the broken old tragedian to that of the bookmaker's tout rejectedof honest bookmaking men. As for Andrew, he made no change in his ordinarymodest ill-fitting tweeds, of which the sleeves were never long enough; andhis long red neck mounted high above the white of his collar and his strawhat was, as usual, clamped on the carroty thatch of his hair. For them notickets for stands, lawn or enclosure. The far off gaily dressed crowd inthese exclusive demesnes shimmered before Andrew's vision as remote as someradiant planetary choir. The stir on the field, however, excited him. Thesun shone through a clear air on this late meeting of the season, investingit with an air of innocent holiday gaiety which stultified Bakkus's bleakdescription. And Andrew's great height overtopping the crowd afforded him afair view of the course. 

Bakkus came steeped in horse-lore and confidently prophetic. To theadmiration of Andrew he ran through the entries for each race, analysingtheir histories, summarizing their form, and picking out dead certaintieswith an esoteric knowledge derived from dark and mysterious sources. Andrewfollowed him to the booths of the _Pari Mutuel_, and betting hismodest five franc piece, on each of the first two events, found Bakkusinfallible. But on looking down the list of entries for the great race ofthe day he was startled to find a name which he had only once met withbefore and which he had all but forgotten. It was "Elodie. "

"My friend, " said Bakkus, "now is the time to make a bold bid for a surefortune. There is a horse called Goffredo who is quoted in the sacred innerring of those that know at 8 to 1. I have information withheld from thisboor 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-fivebeautiful golden coins clinking into my hand. Come thou and do likewise. "

"I'm going to back Elodie, " said Andrew. 

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. " Hepulled Andrew as near the railings as they could get and soon picked herout of the eight or nine cantering down the straight--a sleek, mild, contented bay whose ambling gentleness was greeted with a murmur ofderision. "Did you ever see such a cow?"

"I like the look of her, " said Andrew. 

"Why--in the name of----"

"She looks as if she would be kind to children, " replied Andrew. 

They rushed quickly to the _Pari Mutuel_. Bakkus paid his five louisfor his Goffredo ticket. He turned to seek Andrew, but Andrew had gone. Ina moment or two they met among the scurrying swarm about the booths. 

"What have you done?"

"I've put a louis on Elodie, " said Andrew. 

"The next time I want to give you a happy day I'll take you to the YoungMen's Christian Association, " said Bakkus witheringly. 

"Let us see the race, " said Andrew. 

They paid a franc apiece for a stand on a bench and watched as much of therace 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 movingobjects and gaped in equally uncomprehensible bewilderment when the racingstreak flashed home up the straight. A strange cry, not of gladness butof wonder, burst from the great crowd. Andrew turned to Bakkus, who, withglasses lowered, was looking at him with hollow eyes from which the mockeryhad fled. 

"What's the matter?" asked Andrew. 

"The matter? Your running nightmare has won. Why the devil couldn't youhave given me the tip? You must have known something. No one could playsuch a game without knowing. It's damned unfriendly. "

"Believe me, I had no tip, " Andrew protested. "I never heard of the beastbefore. "

"Then why the blazes did you pick her out?"

"Ah!" said Andrew. Then realizing that his philosophical and paradoxicalfriend was in sordid earnest he said mildly:

"There was a girl of that name who once brought me good luck. "

The gambler, alive to superstitious intuitions, repented immediately of hisanger. 

"That's worth all the tips in the world. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't wear my heart upon my sleeve, " replied Andrew. 

So peace was made. They joined the thin crowd round their booth of the_Pari Mutuel_, mainly composed of place winners, and when the placardsof the odds went up, Bakkus gripped his companion's arm. 

"My God! A hundred and three to one. Why didn't you plank on your lastpenny. "

"I'm very well content with two thousand francs, " said Andrew. "It'ssomething against a rainy day. "

They reached the _guichet_ and Andrew drew his money. 

"Suppose the impossible animal hadn't won--you would have been rathersick. "

"No, " Andrew replied, after a moment's thought. "I should have regarded mylouis as a tribute to the memory of one who did me a great service. "

"I believe, " said Bakkus, "that if I could only turn sentimentalist, Ishould make my fortune. "

"Let us go and find a drink, " said Andrew. 

For the second time Elodie brought him luck. This time in the shape of ahundred and three louis, a goodly sum when one has to live from hand tomouth. And the time came, at the end of their engagement at _La BoîteBlanche_, when they lost even that precarious method of existence. For the first time in his life Andrew spent a month in vain search foremployment. Dead season Paris had more variety artists than it knew what todo with. The provinces, so the rehabilitated Moignon and his confrères, theother agents, declared, in terms varying from apologetic stupor to frankbrutality, had no use for Andrew-André and his unique entertainment. 

"But what shall I do?" asked the anxious André. 

"Wait, _mon cher_, we shall soon well arrange it, " said Moignon. 

"?" pantomimed the other agents, with shrugged shoulders and helplesslyoutspread hands. 

And it happened too that Bakkus, the sweet ballad-monger, found himself onthe same rocks of unemployment. 

"I have, " said he, one evening, when the stranded pair were sittingoutside a horrid little liquor retreat with a zinc bar in the FaubourgSaint-Denis--the luxury of _consommations_ at sixty centimes on theGrands Boulevards had faded from their dreams--"I have, my dear friend, just enough to carry me on for a fortnight. "

"And I too, " said Andrew. 

"But your hundred louis at Longchamps?"

"They're put away, " said Andrew. 

"Thank God, " said Bakkus. 

Andrew detected a lack of altruism in the pious note of praise. He did notlove Bakkus to such a pitch of brotherly affection as would warrant hisrelieving him of responsibility for self support. He had already fed Bakkusfor three days. 

"They're put away, " he repeated. 

"Bring them out of darkness into the light of day, " said Bakkus. "What aretalents in a napkin? You are a capitalist--I am a man with ideas. May Iorder another of this _mastroquet's_ bowel-gripping absinthes in orderto expound a scheme? Thank you, my dear Lackaday. _Oui, encore une_. Tell me have you ever been to England?"

"No, " said Lackaday. 

"Have you ever heard of Pierrots?"

"On the stage--masked balls--yes. "

"But real Pierrots who make money?"

"In England? What do you mean?"

"There is in England a blatant, vulgar, unimaginative, hideous institutionknown as the Seaside. "

"Well?" said Andrew. 

The dingy proprietor of the "Zingue" brought out the absinthe. Bakkusarranged the perforated spoon, carrying its lump of sugar over the glassand began to drop the water from the decanter. 

"If you will bear with me for a minute or two, until the sugar's melted, I'll tell you all about it. "

Chapter VII

It was a successful combination. Bakkus sang his ballads and an occasionalhumorous song of the moment to Andrew's accompaniment on mandolin orone-stringed violin, and Andrew conjured and juggled comically, usingBakkus as his dull-witted foil. A complete little performance, the patterand business artistically thought out and perfectly rehearsed. They worethe conventional Pierrot costume with whited faces and black skull caps. 

Bakkus, familiar with English customs, had undertaken to attend to thebusiness side of their establishment on the sands of the great West Coastresort, Andrew providing the capital out of his famous hundred louis. Butit came almost imperceptibly to pass that Andrew made all the arrangements, drove the bargains and kept an accurate account of their varying finances. 

"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 leatherbag containing the day's takings in order to supply himself lavishly withcomforting liquid. 

"It's the very last thing I want to be, " replied Andrew, hugging the bagtight under his long arm. 

"You're bourgeois to your finger-tips, your ideal of happiness is a meekfemale in a parlour and half a dozen food-sodden brats. "

Andrew hunched his shoulders good-naturedly at the taunt. A home, and wifeand offspring seemed rather desirable of attainment. 

"You've lots of money in your pocket to pay for a drink, " said he. "It'smere perversity that makes you want to touch the takings. We haven'tcounted them. "

"Perversity is the only thing that makes this rotten life worth living, "retorted Bakkus. 

It was his perversity, thus exemplified, which compelled Andrew toconstitute 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 thelank and youthful Andrew who saw to their rigid execution. 

"You've no more soul than a Prussian drill sergeant, " Bakkus would say. 

"And you've no more notion of business than a Swiss Admiral, " Andrew wouldreply. 

"Who invented this elegant and disgustingly humiliating entertainment?"

Andrew would laugh and give him all the credit. But when Bakkus, in themorning, clamouring against insane punctuality, and demanding anotherhour's sloth, refused to leave his bed, he came up against anincomprehensible force, and, entirely against his will, found himself onthe stroke of eleven ready to begin the performance on the sands. Sometimeshe 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 notone of the idiots whom people kicked with impunity. He lashed him, instead, with his tongue, which Andrew, within limits, did not mind a bit. ToBakkus, however, Andrew owed the conception of their adventure. He alsoowed to him the name of the combination, and also the name which was to beprofessionally his for the rest of his stage career. 

It all proceeded from the miraculous winning of the mare Elodie. Bakkus hadmade some indiscreet remark concerning her namesake. Andrew, quick in hisdignity, had made a curt answer. Ironical Bakkus began to hum the oldnursery song:

 _Il était une bergère Et ron, ron, ron, petit patapon_. 

Suddenly he stopped. 

"By George! I have it! The names that will _épater_ the Englishbourgeois. Ron-ron-ron and Petit Patapon. I'll be Ron-ron-ron and you'll bedear little Patapon. "

As the English seaside public, however, when he came to think of it, havenever heard of the shepherdess who guarded her muttons and still less ofthe refrain which illustrated her history, he realized that the names asthey stood would be ineffective. Ron-ron and Patapon therefore would theybe. But Andrew, remembering Elodie's wise counsel, stuck to the "petit. "His French instinct guiding him, he rejected Patapon. Bakkus found Ron-ronan unmeaning appellation. At last they settled it. They printed it out incapital letters. 

THE GREAT PATAPON AND LITTLE PATOU

So it came to pass that a board thus inscribed in front of their simpleinstallation on the sands advertised their presence. 

Now, Lackaday in his manuscript relates this English episode, not so muchas an appeal to pity for the straits to which he was reduced, although hewinces at its precarious mountebankery, and his sensitive and respectablesoul revolts at going round with the mendicant's hat and thanking old womenand children for pennies, as in order to correlate certain influences andcoincidences in his career. Elodie seems to haunt him. So he narrates whatseems to be another trivial incident. 

Andrew was a lusty swimmer. In the old circus summer days Ben Flint hadseen to that. Whenever the Cirque Rocambeau pitched its tent by sea orlake, 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 weekafter their arrival, did he, by some magnetic power, drag the protestingBakkus from his bed and march him down, from the modest lodgings in aby-street, to the sea front and the bathing-machines. Magnetic force maybring a man to the water, but it can't make him go in. Bakkus looked at thecold 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 windyshore. He smoked the pipe of disquiet on an empty stomach for the half-hourduring which Andrew expended unnecessary effort in progressing through manymiles in an element alien to man. In the cold and sickly wretchedness of acutting wind, he cursed Andrew with erudite elaboration. But when Andreweventually landed, his dripping bathing-suit clinging close to his giganticand bony figure, appearing to derisive eyes like the skin covered fossil ofa 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 backconvulsed with vulgar but inextinguishable laughter. 

"My God!" he cried later, when summoned by an angry Andrew to explain hisimpolite hilarity. "You're the funniest thing on the earth. Why hide thelight of your frame under a bushel of clothing? My dear boy, I'm talkingsense"--this was at a hitherto unfriendly breakfast-table--"You've gotan extraordinary physique. If I laughed, like a rude beast, for which Iapologize, the public would laugh. There's money in it. Skin tights andyour hair made use of, why--you've got 'em laughing before you even begina bit of business. Why the devil don't you take advantage of your physicalpeculiarities? Look here, don't get cross. This is what I mean. "

He pulled out a pencil and, pushing aside plates and dishes, began tosketch on the table-cloth with his superficial artistic facility. Andrewwatched 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 sagecounsel. Was this her mental conception which he had been striving foryears to realize? He did not find the ideal incongruous with his lingeringsense of romance. He could take a humorous view of anything but hisprofession. That was sacred. Everything did he devote to it, from his soulto his skinny legs and arms. So that, when Bakkus had finished, and leanedback to admire his work, Andrew drew a deep breath, and his eyes shone asif he had received an inspiration from on High. He saw himself as in anapotheosis. 

There he was, self-exaggeratingly true to life, inordinately high, inordinately thin, clad in tights that reached to a waistband beneath hisarmpits giving him miraculous length of leg, a low-cut collar accentuatinghis length of neck, his hair twisted up on end to a fine point. 

"And I could pad the feet of the tights and wear high heels that wouldgive me another couple of inches, " he cried excitedly. "By Gum!" said he, clutching Bakkus's shoulder, a rare act of demonstrativeness, "what a thingit is to have imagination. "

"Ah!" said Bakkus, "what a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! Howinfinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! inaction how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of theworld! the paragon of animals!"

"What the devil do you mean?" asked Andrew. 

Bakkus waved a hand towards the drawing. 

"If only I had your application, " said he, "I should make a great name asan illustrator of Hamlet. "

"One of these days, " said Andrew, the frown of anger returning to his brow, "I'll throw you out of the window. "

"Provided it is not, as now, on the ground floor, you would be committingan act of the loftiest altruism. "

Andrew returned to his forgotten breakfast, and poured out a cup of tepidtea. 

"What would you suggest--just plain black or red--Mephisto--or stripes?"

He was full of the realization of the Elodesque idea. His brain becamea gushing fount of inspiration. Hundreds of grotesque possibilities ofbusiness, hitherto rendered ineffective by flapping costume, appeared infascinating bubbles. He thought and spoke of nothing else. 

"Once I denied you the rank of artist, " said Bakkus. "I retract. Iapologize. No one but an artist would inflict on another human being suchintolerable boredom. "

"But it's your idea, bless you, which I'm carrying out, with all thegratitude in the world. "

"If you want to reap the tortures of the damned, " retorted Bakkus, "justyou be a benefactor. "

Andrew shrugged his shoulders. That was the way of Horatio Bakkus, perhapsthe first of his fellow-creatures whom he had deliberately set out tostudy, for hitherto he had met only simple folk, good men and true oruncomplicated fools and knaves, and the paradoxical humour of his friendhad been a puzzling novelty demanding comprehension; the first, therefore, who put him on the track of the observation of the twists of humancharacter and the knowledge of men. That was the way of Bakkus. An idea wasbut a toy which he tired of like a child and impatiently broke to bits. Only a week before he had come to Andrew:

"My dear fellow, I've got a song. I'm going to write it, set it and sing itmyself. It begins:--

 _I crept into the halls of sleep And watched the dreams go by. _

I'll give you the accompaniment in a day or two and we'll try it on thedog. It's a damned sight too good for them--but no matter. "

Andrew was interested. The lines had a little touch of poetry. He refrainedfor 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. 

"Song?" cried Bakkus. "What song? That meaningless bit of moonshineineptitude I quoted the other day? I have far more use for my intellectthan degrading it to such criminal prostitution. "

Yes, he was beginning to know his Bakkus. His absorption in his newcharacter was not entirely egotistic. Both his own intelligence and hisprofessional experience told him that here, as he had worked out-thebusiness in his mind, was an entirely novel attraction. In his youngenthusiasm he saw hundreds crowding round the pitch on the sands. It was asmuch 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, Bakkusprofessed intolerable boredom. He shrugged his shoulders. Bored or not, Bakkus should go through with it. So again under the younger man'sleadership Bakkus led the strenuous life of rehearsal. 

It took quite a day for their fame to spread. On the second day theyattracted crowds. Money poured in upon them. Little Patou, like adouble-tailed serpent rearing himself upright on his tail tips, appearedat first a creature remote, of some antediluvian race--until he talkeda familiar, disarming patter with his human, disarming grin. The GreatPatapon, contrary to jealous anticipation, saw himself welcomed as acontrast 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. 

The brilliant sunny season petered out in hopeless September, raw andchill. A week had passed without the possibility of an audience. SaidBakkus:

"Of all the loathsome spots in a noisome universe this is the mostpurulent. In order to keep up our rudimentary self-respect we have doneour best to veil our personal identity as images of the Almighty from thehigher promenades of the vulgar. Our sole associates have been the blatantfrequenters of evil smelling bars. We've not exchanged a word with acreature approaching our intellectual calibre. I am beginning to conceivefor you the bitter hatred that one of a pair of castaways has for theother; and you must regard me with feelings of equal abhorrence. "

"By no means, " replied Andrew. "You provide me with occupation, and thatamuses me. "

As the occupation for the dismal week had mainly consisted in dragging acursing Bakkus away from public-house whisky on damp and detested walks, and in imperturbably manoeuvring him out of an idle--and potentiallyvicious--intrigue with the landlady's pretty and rather silly daughter, hisreply brought a tragic scowl to Bakkus's face. 

"There are times when I lie awake, inventing lingering deaths for you. Youoccupy yourself too much with my affairs. It's time our partnership in thisdegrading mountebankery should cease. "

"Until it does, it's going to be efficient, " said Andrew. "It's a come downfor both of us to play on the sands and pass the hat round. I hate it asmuch as you do, but we've done it honourably and decently--and we'll end upin the same way. "

"We end now, " said Bakkus, staring out of their cheap lodging housesitting-room window at the dismal rain that veiled the row of cheap lodginghouses opposite. 

Andrew made a stride across the room, seized his shoulder and twisted himround. 

"What about our bookings next month?"

For their success had brought them an offer of a month certain from anorthern Palladium syndicate, with prospects of an extended tour. 

"Dust and ashes, " said Bakkus. 

"You may be dust, " cried Andrew hotly, "but I'm damned if I'm ashes. "

Bakkus bit and lighted a cheap cigar and threw himself on the dilapidatedsofa. "No, my dear fellow, if it comes to that, I'm the ashes. Dead! Withnever a recrudescent Phoenix to rise up out of them. You're the dust, themerry sport of the winds of heaven. "

"Don't talk foolishness, " said Andrew. 

"Was there ever a man living who used his breath for any other purpose?"

"Then, " said Andrew, "your talk about breaking up the partnership is merestupidity. "

"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 casesbetween man and wife. I love you, and I wish you well, my dear boy. Ishould like to see you Merry-Andrew yourself to the top of the Merry-Andrewtree. But for insisting on my accompanying you on that uncomfortable andstrenuous ascent, without very much glory to myself, I frankly detest you. "

"That doesn't matter a bit to me, " said Andrew. "You've got to carry outyour contract. "

Bakkus sighed. "Need I? What's a contract? I say I am willing to performvocal and other antics for so many shillings a week. When I come to thinkof it, my soul revolts at the sale of itself for so many shillings a weekto perform actions utterly at variance with its aspirations. As a matter offact I am tired. Thanks to my brain and your physical cooperation, I havemy 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, forthe 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 potentialmemories. "

"Oh that's it, is it?" cried Andrew, with a glare in his usually mildeyes and his ugly jaw set. They had had many passages at arms. Bakkus'ssophistical rhetoric against Andrew's steady common sense; and they hadsharpened Andrew's wit. But never before had they come to a seriousquarrel. Feeling his power he had hitherto exercised it with humorouseffectiveness. But now the situation appeared entirely devoid of humour. Hewas coldly and sternly angry. 

"That's the beginning and end of the whole thing? It all comes down to aworthless little Montmartroise? For a little thing of _rien du tout, _the artist, the philosopher, the English public school man will throw overhis friend, his partner, his signed word, his honour? _Mon Dieu!_ Wellgo--I can easily--No, I'll not say what I have in my mind. "

Bakkus turned over on his side, facing his adversary, his under armoutstretched, the cigar in his fingers. 

"I love to see youth perspiring--especially with noble rage. It does itgood, discharges the black humours of the body. If I could perspire morefreely I should be singing in Grand Opera. "

"You can break your contract and I'll do without you, " cried the furiousAndrew. 

"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? Weend the damp and dripping folly of the sands. "

"We don't, " said Andrew. 

"As you will, " said Bakkus. "Again I prophesy that you'll be drillingawkward squads in barrack yards before you've done. It's all you're fitfor. "

Andrew smiled or grinned with closed lips. It was his grim smile, manyyears afterwards to become familiar to larger bodies of men than awkwardsquads. Once more he had won his little victory. 

So peace was made. They finished up the miserable fag end of the seasonand with modest success carried out their month's contract in the northerntowns. But even Andrew's drastic leadership could not prevail on Bakkus'sindolence to sign an extension. Montmartre called him. An engagement. Healso spoke vaguely of singing lessons. Now that Parisians had returned toParis, he could not afford to lose his connections. With cynical franknesshe also confessed his disinclination to be recognized in a music-hall Punchand Judy show by his brother the Archdeacon. 

"Archdeacons, " said Andrew--he had a confused idea of their prelaticalstatus, "don't go to music-halls. "

"They do in this country, " said Bakkus. "They're everywhere. They infestthe air like microbes. You only have to open your mouth and you get yourlungs filled with them. It's a pestilential country and I've done with it. "

"All right, " replied Andrew, "I'll run the show on my own. "

But the Palladium syndicate, willing to book "The Great Patapon and LittlePatou" for a further term, declined to rebook Little Patou by himself. He returned to Paris, where he found Bakkus wallowing in absinthe andphilosophic sloth. 

"We might have made our fortune in England, " said he. 

Said Bakkus coolly sipping his absinthe, "I have no desire to make myfortune. Have you?"

"I should like to make my name and a big position, " replied Andrew. 

"And I, my young friend? As the fag end of the comet's tail should I havemade my name and a big position? Ah egotist! Egotist! Sublime egotist! Thetrue artist using human souls as the rungs of his ladder! Well, go yourways. I have no reproach against you. Now that I'm out of your barracksquare, my heart is overflowing with love for you. You have ever a friendin Horatio Bakkus. When you fall on evil days and you haven't a sou in yourpocket, come to me--and you'll always find an inspiration. "

"I wish you would give me one now, " said Andrew, who had spent a fruitlessmorning at the Agence Moignon. 

"You want a foil, an intelligent creature who will play up to you--acreature far more intelligent than I am. A dog. Buy a dog. A poodle. "

"By Gum!" cried Andrew, "I believe you're right again. "

"I'm never wrong, " said Bakkus. "Garcon!" He summoned the waiter and wavedhis hand towards the little accusing pile of saucers. "Monsieur always paysfor my inspirations. "

Chapter VIII

We behold Petit Patou now definitely launched on his career. Why theexecution of Bakkus's (literally) cynical suggestion should have met withinstant success, neither he nor Andrew nor Prépimpin, the poodle, noranyone under heaven had the faintest idea. Perhaps Prépimpin had somethingto do with it. He was young, excellently trained, and expensive. As to themethods of his training Andrew made no enquiries. Better not. But, broughtup in the merciful school of Ben Flint, in which Billy the pig had manysuccessors, both porcine and canine, he had expert knowledge of what kindfirmness on the part of the master and sheer love on that of the animalcould accomplish. 

Prépimpin went through his repertoire with the punctilio of the barracksquare deprecated by Bakkus. 

"I buy him, " said Andrew. "_Viens, mon ami_. "

Prépimpin cast an oblique glance at his old master. 

"_Va-t-en_, " said the latter. 

"_Allons_" said Andrew with a caressing touch on the dog's head. 

Prépimpin's topaz eyes gazed full into his new lord's. He wagged the tuftat the end of his shaven tail. Andrew knelt down, planted his fingers inthe lion shagginess of mane above his ears and said in the French whichPrépimpin understood:

"We're going to be good friends, eh? You're not going to play me any dirtytricks? You're going to be a good and very faithful colleague?"

"You mustn't spoil him, " said the vendor, foreseeing, according to hislights, possible future recriminations. 

Andrew, still kneeling, loosed his hold on the dog, who forthwith put bothpaws on his shoulder and tried to lick the averted human face. 

"I've trained animals since I was two years old, Monsieur Berguinan. Pleasetell me something that I don't know. " He rose. "_Alors_, Prépimpin, webelong to each other. _Viens_. "

The dog followed him joyously. The miracle beyond human explanation wasaccomplished, the love at first sight between man and dog. 

Now, in the manuscript there is much about Prépimpin. Lackaday, generallyso precise, has let himself go over the love and intelligence of this mosthuman of animals. To read him you would think that Prépimpin invented hisown stage business and rehearsed Petit Patou. As a record of dog and mansympathy it is of remarkable interest; it has indeed a touch of rarebeauty; but as it is a detailed history of Prépimpin rather than an accountof a phase in the career of Andrew Lackaday, I must wring my feelings anddo no more than make a passing reference to their long and, from my pointof view, somewhat monotonous partnership. It sheds, however, a light onthe young manhood of this earnest mountebank. It reveals a lonelinessill-becoming his years--a loneliness of soul and heart of which he appearsto be unconscious. Again, we have here and there the fleeting shadow of apetticoat. In Stockholm--during these years he went far afield--he fancieshimself in love with one Vera Karynska of vague Mid-European nationality, who belongs to a troupe of acrobats. Vera has blue eyes, a deeplysentimental nature, and, alas! an unsympathetic husband who, to Andrew'syoung disgust depends on her for material support, seeing that everyevening he and various other brutes of the tribe form an inverted pyramidwith Vera's amazonian shoulders as the apex. He is making up a besottedmind to say, "Fly with me, " when the Karinski troupe vanishes Moscow-wardsand an inexorable contract drives him to Dantzic. In that ancient town, looking into the faithful and ironical eyes of Prépimpin, he thanks God hedid not make a fool of himself. 

You see, he succeeds. If you credited his modesty, you would think thatPrépimpin made Petit Patou. _Quod est absurdum_. But the psychologicalfact remains that Andrew Lackaday needed some magnetic contact with anotherindividuality, animal or human, to exhibit his qualities. There, incounselling splendid isolation, Elodie Figasso, the little Marseillesgutter fairy was wrong. She saw, clearly enough, that, subordinated toothers, with no chance of developing his one personality he must fail. But she did not perceive--and poor child, how could she?--that given thedominating influence over any combination, even over one poodle dog, heheld the key of success. 

So we see him, the born leader, unconscious of his powers for lack ofopportunity, instinctively craving their exercise for his own spiritualand moral evolution, and employing them in the benign mastery of the dogPrépimpin. 

They were happy years of bourgeois vagabondage. At first he felt the youngartist'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 heartevery day, for a week, when the curtain went down in the thin applause thatis worse than silence. 

"Prépimpin felt it, " he writes, "even more than I did. He would follow meoff, with his head bowed down and his tail-tuft sweeping the floor, so thatI could have wept over his humiliation. "

Why the great capitals fail to be amused is a perpetual mystery to AndrewLackaday. Prépimpin and he give them the newest things they can think of. After weeks and weeks of patient rehearsal, they bring a new trick toperfection. It is the _clou_ of their performance for a week'sengagement at the Paris Folies-Bergère. After a conjuring act, he retires. Comes on again immediately, Petit Patou, apparently seven foot high, inthe green silk tights reaching to the arm-pit waist, a low frill round hisneck, his hair up to a point, a perpetual grin painted on his face. On theother side enters Prépimpin on hind legs, bearing an immense envelope. Petit Patou opens it--shows the audience an invitation to a ball. 

"Ah! dress me, Prépimpin. "

The dog pulls a hidden string and Petit Patou is clad in a bottle greendress-coat. Prépimpin barks and dances his delight. 

"But _nom d'un chien_, I can't go to a ball without a hat. "

Prepimpin bolts to the wings and returns with an opera hat. 

"And a stick. "

Prepimpin brings the stick. 

"And a cigar. "

Prépimpin rushes to a little table at the back of the stage and on his hindlegs 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 hishaunches and watches him. There is patter in which the audience is givento understand that Prépimpin, who glances from time to time over thefootlights, with a shake of his leonine mane, is bored to death by hismaster's idiocy. At last the hat descends on Petit Patou's head, thecrook-handled stick falls on his arm, and he looks about in a dazed way forthe cigar, and then he sees Prépimpin, who has caught it, swaggering off onhis hind legs, the still lighted cigar in his mouth. 

"No, " writes Lackaday, "it was a failure. Poor Prépimpin and I left Pariswith our tails between our legs. We were to start a tour at Bordeaux. '_Mon pauvre ami_, ' said I, on the journey--Prépimpin never sufferedthe indignity of a dog cage--'There is only one thing to be done. It is youwho will be going to the ball and will juggle with the three objects, andI who will catch the cigar in my mouth. ' But it was not to be. At Bordeauxand all through the tour we had a _succès fou_. "

Thus Andrew washed his hands of Paris and London and going where he wasappreciated roved the world in quiet contentment. He was young, ratherscrupulously efficient within his limits, than ambitious, and of modestwants, sober habits, and of a studious disposition which his friendshipwith Horatio Bakkus had both awakened and stimulated. Homeless from birthhe never knew the nostalgia which grips even the most deliberately vagrantof men. As his ultimate goal he had indeed a vague dream of a home withwife and children--one of these days in the future, when he had put byenough 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 andthe fire, a flaxen haired cherub by her side--for so did his ingenuousinexperience picture domestic happiness--he required the dominatingcharacteristic of angelic placidity. Perhaps his foster-mother and thecomfort Ben Flint found in her mild and phlegmatic devotion had somethingto do with it. 

In his manuscript he tries to explain--and flounders about in apsychological bog--that his ideal woman and his ideal wife are two totallydifferent conceptions. The woman who could satisfy all his romanticimaginings was the Princesse Lointaine--the Highest Common Factor of theladies I have already mentioned--Mélisande, Phèdre, Rosalind, Fédora, andDora Copperfield--it is at this stage that he mentions them by name, havingextended his literary horizon. Her he did not see sewing, in ox-eyedserenity, by a round table covered with a red cloth. With Her it was atotally different affair. It was a matter of spring and kisses and aperfect spiritual companionship. .. . As I have said, he gets into a terriblemuddle. Anyhow, between the two conflicting ideals, he does not fall to theground of vulgar amours. At the risk of tedium I feel bound to insist onthis aspect of his life. For in the errant cosmopolitan world in which he, irresponsible and now well salaried bachelor had his being, he was throwninto the free and easy comradeship of hundreds of attractive women, as freeand irresponsible as himself. He lived in a sea of temptation. On the otherhand, I should be doing as virile a creature as ever walked a great wrongif I presented him to you under the guise of a Joseph Andrews. He had hislaughter and his champagne and his kisses on the wing. But it was:

"We'll meet again one of these days. "

"One of these days when our paths cross again. "

And so--in effect--_Bon soir_. 

It is difficult to compress into a page or two the history of severalyears. But that is what I have to do. 

He is not wandering all the time over France, or flashing meteor-like aboutEurope. He has periods of repose, enforced and otherwise. But his positionbeing ensured, he has no anxieties. Paris is his headquarters. He livesstill in his old _hôtel meublé_ in the Faubourg Saint-Denis. Butinstead of one furnished room on the fifth floor, he can afford anapartment, salon, salle à manger, bedrooms, cabinet de toilette, on theprosperous second, which he retains all the year round. And Petit Patou cannow stride through the waiting crowd in Moignon's antechamber and enter thesacred office, cigar in mouth, and with a "look here, _mon vieux_, "put the fear of God into him. Petit Patou and Prépimpin, the idols of theProvinces, have arrived. 

In Paris, when their presences coincide, he continues to consort withBakkus, whose exquisite little tenor voice still affords him a meansof livelihood. In fact Bakkus has had a renewed lease of professionalactivity. He sings at watering places, at palace hotels; which involves thephysical activity which he abhors. 

"Bound to this Ixion wheel of perpetual motion, " says he, "I suffertortures unimagined even by the High Gods. Compared with it our degradingexperience on the sands seven years ago was a blissful idyll. "

"By Gum!" says Andrew, "seven years ago. Who would have thought it?"

"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. "

"To me it seems only yesterday, " says Andrew. 

"It's because you have no brain, " says Bakkus. 

But they are good friends. Away from Paris they carry on a fairly regularcorrespondence. Such of Bakkus's letters as Lackaday has kept and as I haveread, are literary gems with--always--a perverse and wilful flaw . .. Likethe man's life. 

 * * * * *

From Paris, after this particular meeting with Bakkus, Andrew once moregoes on tour with Prépimpin. But a Prépimpin grown old, and, thoughpathetically eager, already past effective work. Nine years of strenuoustoil are as much as any dog can stand. Rheumatism twinged the hind legsof Prépimpin. Desire for slumber stupefied his sense of duty. He could nolonger catch the lighted cigar and swagger off with it in his mouth, acrossthe stage. 

"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 beingcut down to an insignificant minimum. I could, of course, have got anotherdog. But it would have broken his heart altogether. And one doesn'tbreak the hearts of creatures like Prépimpin. I managed to arrange theperformance, at last, so that he should think he was doing a devil of alot. .. . "

Then the end came. It was on the Bridge of Avignon, which, if you willremember, Lackaday superstitiously regards as a spot fraught with hisdestiny. 

Fate had not taken him to the town since his last disastrous appearance. Noone recognized in the Petit Patou of provincial fame the lank failureof many years ago. Besides, this time, he played not at the wretchedmusic-hall without the walls, but at the splendid Palace of Varieties inthe Boulevard de la Gare. He was a star--_en vedette_, and he hada dressing-room to himself. He stayed at the Hôtel d'Europe, the famoushostelry by the great entrance gates. To avoid complication, he wenteverywhere now as Monsieur Patou. Folks passing by the open courtyard ofthe hotel where he might be taking the air, pointed him out to one another. "_Le voilà--Petit Patou_"

It was in the middle of his week's engagement--once more in summer time. Helunched, saw to Prépimpin's meal, smoked the cheap cigar of content, andthen, crossing the noisy little flagged square, went through the gates, Prépimpin at his heels, and made his way across the dusty road to thebridge. The work-a-day folk, on that week-day afternoon, had all returnedto their hives in the town, and the pathways of the bridge contained butfew pedestrians. 

In the roadway, too, there was but lazy life, an occasional omnibus, thequeer old diligence of Provence with its great covered hood in the midst ofwhich sat the driver amid a cluster of peasants, hidden like the queen beeby the swarm, a bullock cart bringing hay into the city, a tradesman'scart, a lumbering wine waggon, with its three great white horses and greatbarrels. Nothing hurried in the hot sunshine. The Rhone, very low, flowedsluggishly. Only now and then did a screeching, dust-whirling projectile ofa motor-car hurl itself across this bridge of drowsy leisure. 

Andrew leaned over the parapet, finding rest in a mild melancholy, histhoughts chiefly occupied with the decay of Prépimpin who sat by his heelsgazing at the roadway, occupied possibly by the same sere reflections. Presently the flea-catching antics of a ragged mongrel in the middle of theroadway disturbed Prépimpin's sense of the afternoon's decorum. He roseand with stiff dignity stalked towards him. He stood nose to nose with themongrel, his tufted tail in straight defiance up in the air. 

Then suddenly there was a rush and a roar and a yell of voices--and thescrunch of swiftly applied brakes. Andrew turned round and saw a greattouring car filled with men and women--and the men were jumping out. Andhe saw a mongrel dog racing away for dear life. And then at last he saw ablack mass stretched upon the ground. With horror in his heart he rushedand threw himself down by the dog's body. He was dead. He had solved theproblem--_solverat ambulando_. Andrew heard English voices around him;he raised a ghastly face. 

"You brutes, you have killed my dog. "

He scarcely heard the explanations, the apologies. The dog seeing the carfar off, had cleared himself. Then without warning he had flung himselfsuicidally 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, floridman, obviously well bred and greatly distressed, drew a card from hispocket-book. 

"I am staying a couple of days at the Hôtel Luxembourg at Nîmes--I knowthat nothing can pay for a dog one loves--but--"

"Oh, no, no, no, " said Andrew waving aside the card. 

"Can we take the dog anywhere for you?"

"You're very kind, " said Andrew, "but the kindest thing is to leave mealone. "

He bent down again and took Prépimpin in his arms and strode with himthrough the group of motorists and the little clamouring crowd that hadgathered round. One of the former, a girl in a blue motor veil, ran afterhim and touched his arm. Her eyes were full of tears. 

"It breaks my heart to see you like that. Oh can't I do anything for you?"

Andrew looked at her. Through all his stunning grief he had a dim vision ofthe Princesse Lointaine. He said in an uncertain voice:

"You have given me your very sweet sympathy. You can't do more. "

She made a little helpless gesture and turned and joined her companions, who went on their way to Nîmes. Andrew carried the bleeding body ofPrépimpin, and there was that in his face which forbade the idle to trailindiscreetly about his path. He strode on, staring ahead, and did notnotice a woman by the pylon of the bridge who, as he passed, gave abewildered gasp, and after a few undecided moments, followed him at adistance. He went, carrying the dog, up the dirty river bank outside thewalls, 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 yearsthe dog's life and his had been inextricably interwoven. Not only had theyshared bed and board as many a good man and dog have done, but they hadshared the serious affairs of life, its triumphs, its disillusions. AndPrépimpin was all that he had to love in the wide world. 

"_Pardon, monsieur_, " said a voice. 

He looked up and saw the woman who had followed him. She was dark, of theloose build of the woman predisposed to stoutness who had grown thin, andshe had kind eyes in which pain seemed to hold in check the promise oflaughter and only an animal wistfulness lingered. Her lips were pinchedand her face was thin and careworn. And yet she was young--obviously underthirty. Her movements retained all the lissomeness of youth. Althoughdressed 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 ofinterest--or pathetic incongruity; the coat and skirt too heavy for thesultry day; the cheap straw hat trimmed with uncared for roses; the soiledwhite gloves with an unmended finger tip. 

"Madame?" said he. 

And as he saw it, the woman's face and form became vaguely familiar. Hehad seen her somewhere. But in the last few years he had seen thousands ofwomen. 

"You have had a great misfortune, monsieur?"

"That is true, madame. "

She sat on the bench beside him. 

"_Vous pleurez_. You must have loved him very much. "

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 thedevil. She made no intrusion on his grief. Her voice fell with familiarcomfort on his ear. He was vaguely conscious of her right to offersympathy. He regarded her, grateful but perplexed. 

"You don't recognize me? _Enfin_, why should you?" She shruggedher shoulders. "We only met for a few hours many years ago--here inAvignon--but we were good friends. "

Then Andrew drew a deep breath and turned swiftly round on the bench andshot out both his hands. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ Elodie!"

She smiled sadly. 

"Ah, " said she, "I'm glad you remember. "

Chapter IX

They sat awhile and talked of the tragedy, the dead Prépimpin, at once alink and a barrier between them, lying at their feet. Her ready sympathybrought her near; but while the dog lay there, mangled and bloody, he couldthink of nothing else. It was Elodie who suggested immediate and decentburial. Why should he not go to the hotel for a workman and a spade?

He smiled. "You always seem to come to my help in time of trouble. Butwhile I am absent, what will happen to him?"

"I will guard him, my friend, " said Elodie. 

He marched off. In a few minutes he came back accompanied by one of thehotel baggage porters. The grave, on the waste land by the Rhone, wasquickly dug, and Prépimpin covered over for ever with the kindly earth. Assoon as the body was hidden, Andrew turned away, the tears in his eyes. 

"And now, " said he, "let us sit somewhere else and you shall tell me aboutyourself. I have been selfish. "

The tale she had to tell was very old and very sad. She did not beginit, however, until, drawing off her old gloves, for coolness' sake, shedisclosed a wedding ring on her finger. His eye caught it at once. 

"Why, you are married. "

"Yes, " she said, "I am married. "

"You don't speak in the tone of a happy woman. "

She shrugged hopeless shoulders. "A woman isn't happy with a _goujat_for a husband. "

Now a _goujat_ is a word for which scoundrel, and miscreant, are butweak translations. It denotes lowest depths of infamy. 

Andrew frowned terribly. "He ill-treats you?"

"He did. But that is past. Fortunately I am alone. He has deserted me. "

"Children?"

"Thank God, no, " replied Elodie. 

And then it all came out in the unrestrained torrent of the south. She hadbeen an honest girl, in spite of a thousand temptations. When André mether, she was as pure as any young girl in a convent. It wasn't that she wasignorant. Oh no. The girl who had gone through the workrooms of Marseillesand the music-halls of France and could retain virginal innocence wouldbe either a Blessed Saint or an idiot. It was knowledge that had kept herstraight; knowledge and pride. She was not for sale. _Grand Dieu_, no!And love? If a man's love fell short of the desire for marriage, well, itdidn't amount to a row of pins. Besides, even where there could be a lovequite true without the possibility of marriage, she had seen enough of theworld to know the unhappinesses that could happen to women. No. André mustnot 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 perfectlynatural. In her world it was somewhat of an eccentric feat. 

"_Et puis, enfin. _" And then, at last, came the conquering male, asinger in a light opera touring company in the chorus of which she wasengaged. He was young, handsome--played secondary parts; one of the greatones, in fact, in her limited theatrical hierarchy. He fell in love withher. She, flattered, responded. Of course, he suggested setting up housetogether, then and there. But she had her aforesaid little principles. His infatuation, however, was such that he consented to run the terrificgauntlet of French matrimonial procedure. Why people in France go to thenerve-racking trouble of getting married Heaven only knows. Camels cangallop much more easily through needles' eyes. Anybody can be born inFrance, anybody can die; against these phenomena the form-multiplying andream-writing _Ad-min-is-tra-tion_ is powerless. But when you come tothe intermediate business of world population, then bureaucracy steps inand 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 registryoffice, and the thing would have been over. But in France, Monsieur andMadame Marescaux, and Madame Figasso, and the _huissier_ Boudin, whoinsisted on coming forward although he was not legally united to Madame, and lawyers representing each family, were set all agog, and therewere meetings and quarrels, and delays--Elodie had not a cent to herdowry--which of course was the stumbling-block--with the final result thatnothing was done which might not have been done at once, namely, that thepair were doubly married--once by Monsieur le Maire and then by Monsieur leCuré. 

For a few months she was happy. Then the handsome Raoul became enamoured ofa fresh face. Then Elodie fell ill, oh, so ill, they thought she was goingto die. And during her illness and slow recovery Raoul became enamouredof every fresh face he saw. A procession. If it had been one, said Elodiephilosophically, she could perhaps have arranged matters. But they had beenendless. And what little beauty she had her illness had taken away, soher only weapon was gone; and Raoul jeered at her and openly flaunted hisinfidelities in her presence. When she used beyond a certain point theready tongue with which Providence had endowed her, she was soundly beaten. "_Le goujat!_" cried Andrew. Ah! It was a life of hell. But they hadkept nominally together, in the same companies, she singing in the chorus, he playing his second rôles. And then there came a day when he obtainedan engagement in the Opera at Buenos Ayres. She was to accompany him. Herberth was booked, her luggage packed. He said to her, "I have to go awayfor a day or two on business. Meet me at the boat train for Havre onWednesday. " She went to the Gare St. Lazare on Wednesday to find that theboat train had gone on Tuesday. _Un sale tour_--eh? Did ever anyonehear of such a dirty trick? And later she learned that her berth wasoccupied by a little modiste of the Place de la Madeleine with whom he hadrun away. 

That was two years ago. Since then she had not heard of him; and she wishednever to hear of him again. 

"And you have been supporting yourself all the time, on the stage?"

"Yes, I have lived. But it has been hard. My illness affected my voice. Noone wants me very much. But still"--she smiled wanly--"I can manage. Andnow, you. I saw you yesterday at the Palace. They know me there and give memy _entrée_. You have had a _beau succès_. You are famous. I amso glad. "

Modestly he depreciated the fame, but acknowledged the success which wasdue to her encouragement. He told her of the racehorse Elodie and his luckyinspiration. For the first time she laughed and clapped her hands. 

"Oh, I am flattered! Yes, and greatly touched. Now I know that you haveremembered me. But if the horse had lost wouldn't you have pested againstme? Say?"

Andrew replied soberly: "I could not possibly have lost. I knew it wouldwin, just as I know that five minutes hence the sun will continue to shine. I had faith in your star, Elodie. "

"My star--it's not worth very much, my star. "

"It has been to me, " said Andrew. 

They talked on. By dint of questioning she learned most of his notover-eventful history. He told her of Horatio Bakkus, and of the seasonon the sands, when first he realized her original idea of exploiting hisfigure; of Prépimpin in his prime and their wanderings about Europe. Andnow alas! there was no longer a Prépimpin. 

"But how will you give the performance this evening without him?" sheasked. 

He shrugged his shoulders. He had not given a thought to that yet. It wasthe loss of his friend that wrung his heart. 

"You are so gentle and sympathetic. Why is it that no woman has loved you?"

"Perhaps because I've not found a woman I could love, " said he. 

She did not pursue the subject, but sighed and looked somewhat drearily infront of her. It was then that he became aware of the cruel treatment thatthe 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 itsallow; her cheeks were drawn; haggard lines appeared beneath her eyes;her cheekbones and chin were prominent. It struck him that she might befighting a hard battle against poverty. She looked underfed. He asked her. 

"Have you an engagement here in Avignon?"

She shook her head. No, she was resting. 

"How long have you been out?"

She couldn't tell. Many weeks. And prospects for the immediate future? TheTournée Tardieu was coming next Monday to Avignon. She knew the manager. Possibly he would give her a short engagement. 

"And if he doesn't?"

"I will arrange, " said Elodie with a show of bravery. 

Andrew frowned again, and his mild blue eyes narrowed keenly. He stretchedout his arm and put his delicate fingers on her hand. 

"You have given me your help and sympathy. Do you refuse mine? Why doesyour pride forbid you to tell me that you are in great distress?"

"What would be the good?" she replied with averted face. "How could youhelp me? Money? Oh no. I would sooner fling myself in the river. "

"You're talking foolishness, " said he. "You know that you are in debt foryour little room, and that the _propriétaire_ won't let you stay muchlonger. You know that you have not sufficient food. You know that you havehad nothing to-day but a bit of bread and a cup of coffee, if you have hadthat. Confess!"

The corners of her mouth worked pathetically. In spite of heroic effort, asob came into her throat and tears into her eyes. Then she broke down andwept wretchedly. 

Yes, it was true. She had but a few sous in the world. No other clothes butthose she wore. Oh, she was ashamed, ashamed that he should guess. If shehad 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 hisguardian angel, at any rate his mascot, was down and out. While she wascrying, he slipped, unperceived, a hundred-franc note into the side pocketof her jacket. At all events she should have a roof over her head and foodto eat for the next few days, until he could devise some plan for herfuture welfare. Her future welfare! For all his generous impulses, it gavehim cause for cold thought. How the deuce could a wandering, even thoughsuccessful, young mountebank assure the future of a forlorn and untalentedyoung woman?

"_Voyons, chère amie_, " said he comfortingly, "all is not yet lost. Ifthe theatre does not give you a livelihood, we might try something else. Ihave my little savings. I could easily lend you enough to buy a _petitcommerce_, a little business. You could repay me, bit by bit, at yourconvenience. _Tiens!_ Didn't you tell me you were apprenticed to adressmaker?"

But Elodie was hopeless. All that she had learned as a child she hadforgotten. She was fit for nothing but posturing on the stage. If Andrécould get her a good engagement, that was all the aid she would accept. 

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 andrehearse the evening's performance with Prépimpin's part cut out. He darednot improvise before the public. He rose with the apologetic explanation--

"My little Elodie, " said he, as they walked along the battlemented citywalls towards the great gate, "have courage. Come to the Palace to-night. Iwill arrange that you shall have a loge. You only have to ask for it. Andafter my turn, you shall meet me, as long ago, at the Café des Négociants, and we shall sup together and talk of your affairs. "

She meekly consented. And when they parted at the entrance to the Hôteld'Europe, he said:

"If I do not ask you to dine, it is because I have to think and work. Youunderstand? But in your pocket you will find _de quoi bien dîner. Aurevoir, chère amie_. "

He put out his hand. She held it, while her eyes, tragically large anddark, searched his with painful intensity. 

"Tell me, " she said, "is it better that I should come and see you to-nightor that I should throw myself over the bridge into the Rhone?"

"If you meet me to-night, " said Andrew, "you will still be alive, which, after all, is a very good thing. "

"_Je viendrai, _" said Elodie. 

"The devil!" said Andrew, entering the courtyard of the hotel, and wiping aperspiring brow, "here am I faced with a pretty responsibility!"

Experience enabled him to give a satisfactory performance; and his managerprepared his path by announcing the unhappy end of Prépimpin and cravingthe indulgence of the audience. But Andrew passed a heartbroken hour at themusic-hall. In his dressing-room were neatly stored the dog's wardrobe andproperties--the gay ribbons, the harness, the little yellow silk hat whichhe wore with such a swaggering air, the little basket carried over hisfront paw into which he would sweep various objects when his master's backwas turned, the drinking dish labelled "Dog" . .. He suffered almost a humanbereavement. And then, the audience, for this night, was kind. But, asconscientious artist, he was sensitively aware of makeshift. A greatelement of his success lay in the fact that he had trained the dog toappear the more clever of the two, to score off his pretended clumsinessand to complete his tricks. For years he had left uncultivated the art ofbeing funny by himself. Without Prépimpin he felt lost, like a man in asculling 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 dogwithout much difficulty, and the special training would not take long;but he would have to love the animal in order to establish that perfectpartnership which was essential to his performance. And how could he loveany other dog than Prépimpin? He felt that he would hate the well-meaningbut pretentious hound. He went out filled with anxieties and repugnances. 

Elodie was waiting for him by the stage door. She said:

"You got out of the difficulty marvellously. "

"But it was nothing like the performance you saw yesterday. "

"_Ah non_" she replied frankly. 

"_Voilà_, " said he, dejectedly. 

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 citizensof Avignon, taking the air of the sultry summer evening. She told himafterwards that she felt absurdly small and insignificant trotting by theside of his gaunt height, a feeling which she had not experienced yearsbefore when their relative positions were reversed. But now she regardedhim as a kind of stricken god; and womanlike she was conscious of haggardface and shrunken bosom, whereas before, she had stepped beside him proudof the ripe fulness of her youth. 

Whither the commonplace adventure was leading them neither knew. For hispart pity compelled superstitious sentiment to the payment, in some vaguemanner, of a long-standing obligation. She had also given him very raresympathy that afternoon, and he was grateful. But things ended there, in asort of blind alley. 

For her part, she let herself go with the current of destiny into which, bystrange hazard, she had drifted. She had the humility which is the fiercestform of pride. Although she clung desperately to him, as to the spar thatalone could save her from drowning, although the feminine within her wasdrawn to his kind and simple manliness, and although her heart was touchedby his grief at the loss of the dog, yet never for a moment did she countupon the ordinary romantic _dénouement_ of such a situation. Theidea came involuntarily into her mind. Into the mind of what woman of herupbringing would not the idea come? But she banished it savagely. Who wasshe, waste rag of a woman, to attract a man? And even had she retained thevivid beauty and plenitude of her maidenhood, it would have been just thesame. Elodie Figasso had never sold herself. No. All that side of thingswas out of the question. She wished, however, that he was less of anenigmatic, though kindly, sphinx. 

Over their modest supper of sandwiches and Côtes du Rhône wine, in aninside corner of the Café des Négociants--it was all the café couldoffer, and besides she swore to a plentiful dinner--they discussed theirrespective forlorn positions. Adroitly she tacked away from her ownconcerns towards his particular dilemma. If he shrank from training anotherdog and yet distrusted a solo performance, what was he going to do? Take apartner like his friend--she forgot the name--yes, Bakkus, on whom perhapshe couldn't rely, and who naturally would demand half his salary?

"Never again, " Andrew declared, feeling better after a draught of oldHermitage. "The only thing I can think of is to engage a competentassistant. "

Then Elodie's swift brain conceived a daring idea. 

"You would have to train the assistant. "

"Of course. But, " he added in a dismal tone, "most of the assistants Ihave seen are abysmally stupid. They are dummies. They give nothing ofthemselves, for the performer to act up to. "

"In fact, " said Elodie, trying hard to steady her voice, "you want someoneentirely in sympathy with you, who can meet you half-way--like Prépimpin. "

"Precisely, " said Andrew. "But where can I find a human Prépimpin?"

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. Andso, womanlike, she conveyed the Idea from her brain to his. 

He said very thoughtfully, "I wonder--"

"What?"

"What have you done on the stage? What can you do? Tell me. Unfortunately Ihave never seen you. "

She could sing--not well now, because her voice had suffered--but still shesang true. She had a musical ear. She could accompany anyone on the piano, _pas trop mal_. She could dance. Oh, to that she owed her firstengagement. She had also learned to play the castagnettes and thetambourine, _à l'Espagnole_. And she was accustomed to discipline. .. . As she proceeded with the unexciting catalogue of her accomplishments shelost self-control, and her eyes burned and her lips quivered and her voiceshook in unison with the beatings of a desperately anxious heart. OurAndrew, although an artist dead set on perfection and a shrewd man ofbusiness, was young, pitiful and generous. The pleading dog's look inElodie's eyes was too much for him. He felt powerless to resist. His brainworked swiftly, devising all kinds of artistic possibilities. Besides, wasnot Fate accomplishing itself by presenting this solution of both theirdifficulties?

"I wonder whether you would care to try the experiment?"

With an effort of feminine duplicity she put on a puzzled and ingenuousexpression. 

"What experiment?"

He was somewhat taken aback: surely he must have misinterpreted herpleading. From the dispenser of fortune, he became the seeker of favours. 

"I know it's not much of a position to offer you, " said he, almostapologetically, "but if you care to accept it----"

"Of your assistant?" she asked, as though the idea had never entered herhead. 

"Why, yes. If you will consent to a month of very hard work. You wouldhave to learn a little elementary juggling. You would have to give meinstantaneous replies in act and speech. But if you would give yourself upto me I could teach you. "

"But, _mon pauvre André_, " she said, with an astonished air, "this isthe last thing I ever dreamed of. I am so ignorant. I should put you toshame. "

"Oh no, you wouldn't, " said he, confidently. "I know my business. Wait. _Les affaires sont les affaires_. I should have to give you a littlecontract. Let us see. For the remainder of my tour--ten weeks--ten francs aday with hotel _en pension_ and railway fares. "

To Elodie, independent waif in theatre-land, this was wealth beyond herdreams. She stretched both hands across the table. 

"Do you mean that? It is true? And, if I please you, you will keep mealways?"

"Why not?" said Andrew. "And, if you show talent, we may come to a betterarrangement for the next tour. "

"And if I show no talent at all?"

He made a deprecating gesture and grinned in his charming way. But Elodie'sintuition taught her that there was the stern purpose of a man behind thegrin. She had imposed her helplessness on him this once. But if she failedhim she would not have, professionally, a second chance. 

"I insist on your having talent, " said Andrew. 

The walk home to her dingy lodgings repeated itself. She felt very humbleyet triumphant. More than ever did she regard him as a god who had raisedher, by a touch, from despair and starvation to hope and plenty, and in herrevulsion of gratitude she could have taken both his hands and passionatelykissed them. And yet she was proudly conscious of something within her, unconquerably feminine, which had touched his godship and wrought themiracle. 

They halted in the narrow, squalid street, before the dark entry of thehouse where she lodged. Andrew eyed the poverty-stricken hole in disgust. Obviously she had touched the depths. 

"To-morrow you must move, " said he. "I shall arrange a room for you at thehotel. We shall have much business to discuss. Can you be there at teno'clock?"

"Whatever you say shall be done, " she replied humbly. 

He put out his hand. 

"Good-night, Elodie. Have courage and all will be well. "

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 didnot occur to him until he found himself alone and remembered the prettyidyll of their leave-taking long ago. He laughed, none too gaily. Betweenboy and girl and man and woman there was a vast difference. 

Chapter X

That was the beginning of the combination known a little while afterwardsas _Les Petit Patou_. Elodie, receptive, imitative, histrionic, showedherself from the start an apt pupil. To natural talent she added thedesire, born of infinite gratitude, to please her benefactor. She possessedthe rare faculty of perfect surrender. Andrew marvelled. Had he hypnotizedher she could not have more completely executed his will. And yet she wasno automaton. She was artist enough to divine when her personality shouldbe effaced and when it should count. She spoke her patter with intelligentpoint. She learned, thanks to Andrew's professional patience, and her ownvehement will, a few elementary juggling tricks. Andrew repeated the famousPrépimpin cigar-act. Open-mouthed, Elodie followed his manipulations. Whenhe threw away the cigar it seemed to enter her mouth quite naturally, against her will. She removed it with an expression of disgust and hurledit at Andrew, who caught it between his lips, smoked it for a second or twoand grinned his thanks. With a polite gesture he threw it, as the audiencethought, back to her; but by a sleight-of-hand trick the cigar vanished andshe caught, to her delighted astonishment, a pearl necklace, which, as sheclasped it round her neck, vanished likewise. After which he overwhelmedher with disappearing jewels. At once it became a popular item in theirentertainment. 

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 thegrotesque performance that made Les Petit Patou famous in provincialFrance, 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, anddoubled and trebled the salary which he enjoyed as Petit Patou all alonewith the dog. 

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 andbone, a short term of succulent nourishment and absence of worry, willsuffice to restore her to a natural condition. She had no beauty, save thatof her dark and luminous eyes and splendid teeth. Her features were coarseand irregular. Her uncared for skin gave signs of future puffiness. Butstill--after two or three happy months, she more or less regained thecommon attractiveness and the audacious self-confidence of the Marseilles_gamine_ who had asked him to kiss her long ago. 

Thus, imperceptibly, she became less an assistant than a partner, less apaid servant on the stage than a helpmeet in his daily life. Looking atthe traditions of their environment and at the enforced intimacy of theirvagabondage, 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, andElodie had spent most of her passionate illusions on the unspeakableRaoul. 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 todogmatise. .. . At any rate Les Petit Patou started off happily. If Elodiewas not the perfect housewife, you must remember her upbringing and herdevil-may-care kind of theatrical existence. Andrew knew that hers werenot the habits of the Far-away One, who like himself would be a tidy soul, bringing into commonplace tidiness an exquisitely harmonious sense oforder; but the Far-away One was a mythical being endowed with qualitieswhich it would be absurd to look for in Elodie. Besides, their yearbeing mainly spent in hotels, she had little opportunity of cultivatinghousewifely qualities. If she neglected the nice conduct of his underlinenafter the first few months of their partnership, he could not find it inhis heart to blame her. Professional work was tiring. Her own clothesneeded her attention. But still, the transient comfort had been veryagreeable. .. . In Paris, too, at first she had played at house-keeping inthe apartment of the Faubourg Saint-Denis. But Elodie did not understandthe _bonne_, and the _bonne_ refused to understand Elodie in thematter of catering, and they emphasized their mutual misunderstanding withthe unrestrained speech of children of the people. Once or twice Andrewwent hungry. In his sober and dignified way he drew Elodie's attention tohis unusual condition. It led to their first quarrel. After that they ate, very comfortably, at a little restaurant round the corner. 

It was not the home life of which Andrew had dreamed--not even thereincarnation of Madame Flint sitting by the round table darning socks bythe light of the shaded lamp. Elodie loathed domestic ideals. 

"_Mon vieux_, " she would declare, "I had enough sewing in my youngdays. My idea of happiness would be a world without needles and thread. "

He noted in her, too, a curious want of house-pride. Dust gave her no greatconcern. She rather loved a litter of periodicals, chiffons, broken packetsof cigarettes, tobacco and half-eaten fruit on the tables. A picture askewnever attracted her attention. To remain in the house, dressed in herout-of-door clothes, seemed to her vain extravagance and discomfort. Awrapper and slippers, the more soiled and shapeless the better, were theonly indoor wear. Andrew deplored her lack of literary interest. She wouldread the feuilletons of the _Petit Journal_ and the _Matin_ in adesultory fashion; but she could not concentrate her mind on the continuousperusal of a novel. She spent hours over a pack of greasy cards, tellingher fortune by intricate methods. The same with music; though in this caseshe had a love for it in the open air when a band was playing, and waspossessed of a natural ear, and could read easy pieces and accompanimentsat sight with some facility. But she would never try to learn anythingdifficult; would never do more than strum a popular air or two until swiftboredom paralysed her nerves. 

Yet, for all her domestic slatternness, the moment she emerged from privateinto professional life, her phlegmatic indolence was transformed into quickenergy. No rehearsal wearied her. Into every performance she concentratedthe whole of her being. If it were a question of mastering a grotesqueaccompaniment to a new air on Andrew's one-string fiddle, she would slavefor hours until it was perfect. She kept her stage costume in scrupulousrepair. Her make-up box was a model of tidiness. She would be late forlunch, late for dinner, late for any social engagement, but never once wasshe late for a professional appointment. On the stage her loyalty to Andrewnever wavered. No man could have a more ideal co-worker. She never lost herhead, demanded a more prominent position, or grudged him the lion's shareof the applause. In her praiseworthy lack of theatrical vanity, writesLackaday, by way of encomium, she was unique among women. A pearl of greatprice. 

Also, when they walked abroad, she dressed with neatness. Her hair, astringy bush at home, appeared a miracle of coiffure. Lips and eyesreceived punctilious attention. The perfection of her high-heeled shoes wasa matter of grave concern. Whatever may have been underneath, the outsideof her toilette received anxious care. She thought much of externals. Andrew came within her purview. She did her best to remodel his outer manmore in accordance with his prosperity; but what woman can have sartorialsuccess with the man who is the tailor's despair?

Lackaday is pathetically insistent on her manifold virtues. She retainsall through the years her street-child's swift intelligence. She has_flair_. She predicts instinctively the tastes of varying audiences. She has a vivid imagination curiously controlled by the most prosaic commonsense. He rarely errs in taking her advice. .. . To her further creditbalance, she is more saving than extravagant. Bits of jewellery please her, but she does not crave inordinate adornment. When he buys a touring-car forthe greater comfort of their vagrant life, she is appalled by the cost andupbraids him with more than a touch of shrewishness. Her tastes do not risewith her position. She would sooner have a _chou-croûte garnie_ thana fore-quarter of Paris lamb or a duck _à la presse_. She could neverunderstand 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 tourgaieties were things unthought of. But during periods of rest, in Paris, she cared little for excitement. With an income relieving her from thenecessity of work, she would have been content to lounge slipshod about thehouse till the day of her death. 

Once Andrew, having to entertain, for politic reasons, the director ofa Paris music-hall, took her to the Café de Paris. The guest, in amillionaire way, had suggested that resort of half-hungry wealth. ModestAndrew had never entered such a place in his life; nor, naturally, hadElodie. Knowing, however, that one went there in full dress, he disinterreda dress-suit which he had bought three years before in order to attendthe funeral of a distinguished brother artist, and sent Elodie with athousand-franc note to array herself in an adequate manner, at the GaleriesLa 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 lessthan half the money. 

Proud of her finery, secretly exulting also that she had a matter of twentypounds or so put away in her private stocking, she flaunted down thecrowded restaurant, followed by the little fat director, only remarkablefor a diamond flash-light in his shirt-front, and by Andrew, inordinatelylong and gawky, in his ill-fitting, short-sleeved evening suit, his readymade white tie already wandering in grievance towards a sympathetic ear. Women in dreams of diaphanous and exiguous raiment stared derisively atthe trio as they passed their tables. Elodie stared back at them. Now, Lackaday, honest soul, had, not the remotest notion of what was wrong withher attire. In his eyes she was dressed like a queen. She wore, says he, abeautiful emerald green dress, and a devil of a hat with a lot of dark bluefeathers in it. But, as she was surrendering her cloak to the white-cappedlady of the vestiare, there came from a merry adjoining table the clear-cutremark of a young woman, all bare arms, back and bosom, but otherwiseimpeccably vestured:

"They oughtn't to allow it, in a place like this--_des grues desBatignolles_. "

Unsuccessful ladies of easy virtue from Whitechapel, perhaps, is thenearest rendering of the phrase. 

Elodie had quick ears. She also had the quick temper and tongue ofMarseilles. She hung behind the two men, who proceeded to their tableunconscious of drama. 

"In these places, " she spat, "they pay naked women like you to come toattract men. You fear the competition of the modest, _ma fille_. "

The indiscreet young woman had no retort. She flushed crimson over neck andshoulders, while Elodie, triumphant, swept away. But the ensuing dinnerwas not an exhilarating meal. She burned with the insult, dilated upon it, repeated over and over again her repartee, offered her costume to the frankcriticism of Andrew and their guest. Did she look like a _grue?_Did her toilette in any way suggest the Batignolles? In vain did the fatdirector proclaim her ravishing. Andrew, at first indignant, assured herthat the insulter had been properly set down. If it had been a man, hewould have lifted the puppy from his chair and beaten him before the wholerestaurant. But a woman! She had met her match in Elodie. In vain heconfirmed the director's opinion. Elodie could not eat. Food stuck in herthroat; she could only talk interminably of the outrage. The little fatdirector made his escape as soon as he had eaten the last mouthful ofdinner. 

"_Eh bien_, " said Elodie, as they were driving home to the FaubourgSaint-Denis, "and is it all fixed up, the Paris contract?"

"My dear, " replied Andrew gently, "you gave us little chance to discussit. "

"I prevented you?" cried Elodie. "I? _Bon Dieu!_ Oh no. It is toomuch. You first take me to a place where I am insulted, and then reproachme for being an obstacle between you and your professional success. Nodoubt the naked woman would be a better partner for you. She could wheedleand coax that little horror of a manager. I, who am an honest woman, am adrag on you--"

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 ofElodie's acquaintance with the smart world. She hates it with a fiercejealousy, knowing that it is a sphere beyond her ken. Herein lay afundamental principle of her character. The courtesan, with her easyadaptability to the glittering environment which she craves, and Elodie, essentially child of the people, proud, and virtuous according to herlights, were worlds apart. A bit of a socialist, Elodie, she stuck fiercelyto 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 herborrowed plumes. At the stupid reference to her supposed morals she snappedher fingers. It was idiotic. It was the detection of the plumage thatrankled in her soul. From that moment she hated society and every woman init with an elaborate ostentation. The very next day she sold the emeraldgreen dress and the devil of a hat and, with a certain grim satisfaction, stuffed the proceeds into the stocking of economy. In spite of thedisastrous dinner, Andrew obtained the Paris engagement. He was not, however, greatly surprised--so far had his education advanced--when Elodieclaimed the credit. 

"At that dinner--what did you do? You sat silent as the obelisk in thePlace de la Concorde. It was I who made all the conversation. MonsieurWolff was very enchanted. "

Andrew grinned. 

"I don't know what I should do without you, Elodie, " said he. 

Now, in sketching the life of Andrew Lackaday and Elodie, I again labourunder the difficulty of having to compress into a few impressionisticstrokes the history of years. The task is in one way made easier, inthat these years of work and wandering scarcely show the development ofanything. What was true at the end of the first year of their partnershipseems to be true at the end of the second, third, fourth and fifth. After atime when their grotesque performance was a fixed and settled thing, therewas little need for the invention of novelty or for rehearsal. Week afterweek, month after month, year after year, they reproduced their almoststereotyped entertainment. Here and there, according to the idiosyncrasyof the audience, they introduced some variety. But the very variations, incourse of time, became stereotyped. Too violent a change proved disastrous. The public demanded the particular antics with which the name of LesPetit Patou was identified. Thus life was reduced to terms of beautifulsimplicity. 

Yet, perhaps, after all, their sentimental relations did undergo animperceptible development, as subtle as that which led in the first placeto their union. This union had its original promptings in a not unromanticchain of circumstances. Of vulgarity or sordidness it had nothing. HadElodie been free it would never have entered Andrew's head not to marryher, and she would have married him offhand. Lackaday insists on ourremembering this vital fact. Sincere affection drew them together. Then thefirst couple of years or so were devoted to mutual discoveries. There wasno question on either part of erring after strange fancies. Elodie carriedher air of propriety in the happy-go-lucky music-hall world almost to thepoint of the absurd. As for Andrew, he had ever shown himself the mostlagging Lothario of his profession. Indeed, for a period during which shesuffered an exaggeration of her own sentiments, she upbraided him for notbeing the perfect lover of her half-forgotten dreams. .. . 

"Why don't you love me any longer, André?"

"But I love you, surely. That goes without saying. "

"Then why do you go on reading, reading all the time instead of telling meso?"

She would be lying on a couch, dressed in her soiled wrapper and oldbedroom slippers, occupied with nothing but boredom, while Andrew devotedhimself to the unguided pursuit of knowledge, the precious pleasure ofhis life. He would put the book face downwards on his knee and pucker hisbrows. 

"_Mon Dieu, ma chérie_, what do you want me to say?"

"That you love me. "

"I've just said it. "

"Say it again. "

"_Je l'aime bien. Voilà!_"

"And that's all?"

"Of course it's all. What remains to be said?"

The honest fellow was mystified. He could not keep on repeating the formulafor the two or three hours of their repose. It would be the monotonousreiteration of the idiot. And he could no more have knelt by her side andpoured out his adoration in the terms, let us say, of Chastelard, than hecould have lectured her on Hittite inscriptions. What did she want?

She sighed. He cared for his old book much more than for her. 

"My dear, " said he, "if you would only read a bit you would find it a greatcomfort and delight. "

You see, at this rather critical period, each had their grievance--Elodieonly, of course, as far as their private lives were concerned. Elodie, somewhat romantically inclined, wanted she knew not what. Perhaps arecrudescence of the fine frenzy of the early days of her marriage withRaoul. Sober Andrew craved some kind of intellectual companionship. IfElodie grudged him the joy of books and he yielded to her resentment, hewas a lost mountebank. And the very devil of it was that, just at thistime, he had discovered the most fascinating branch of literatureimaginable. Creasy's _Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World_, pickedup in a cheap edition, had put him on the track. He procured Kinglake's_Crimea_. He was now deep in the study of Napier's _PeninsularWar_. He studied it, pencil in hand and notebook by his side, filledwith diagrams and contours of country and little parallelograms all askewdenoting Army Corps or divisions. Of course, he did not expect Elodie tointerest herself in military history, but he deplored her unconcealedhatred of his devotion to a darling pursuit. Why could not she findpleasure in some intelligent occupation? To spend one's leisure in untidysloth did not consort with the dignity of a human being. Why didn't she dothis or that? She rejected all suggestions. Retorted: Why couldn't he spenda few hours in relaxation like everybody else? If only he would go and playbilliards at the café. That he should amuse himself outside among men wasonly natural. Sitting at home, in her company, over a book, got on hernerves. 

Horatio Bakkus encouraged her maliciously. In Paris he made the flat in theFaubourg Saint-Denis his habitual resting-place, and ate his meals in theircompany at the café round the corner. 

"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. 

"_Voilà!_ You hear what Horace says! An educated man who knows what heis talking about. "

"It's a kind of disease, like chess or the study of the Railway Guide. Andwhen 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 anironical gleam in his dark eyes, "you're blind to the treasure the godshave given you. Any ass can write a text-book, but the art of conversationis a gift bestowed by Heaven upon the very few. "

Elodie, preening herself, asked:

"Is it true that I have that gift?"

"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 militaryscience the world has produced. "

Andrew saw her flattered to fluttering point. 

"Don't you know that he is the greatest _blagueur_ an existence?" heasked. 

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 itsgive-and-take, its opportunities for the flash of wit or jest. Bakkus couldtalk about an old boot. She too. He could analyse sentiment in his mordantway. She could analyse it in her own unsophisticated fashion. Now Andrew, though death on facts and serious argument, remained dumb and bewilderedin a passage-at-arms about apparently nothing at all; and while Bakkus andElodie enjoyed themselves prodigiously, he gaped at them, wondering whatthe deuce they found to laugh at. He was for ever warning Elodie not to puta too literal interpretation on Bakkus's sayings. 

The singer had gone grey, and that touch of venerability gave him an airof greater distinction, as a broken down tragedian, than he possessed whenAndrew had first met him ten years or so before. Elodie could bandy jestswith him, but when he spoke with authority she listened overawed. 

"My dear André, " she replied to his remark. "I am not a fool. I know whenHorace is talking nonsense and when he means what he says. "

"And I maintain, " said Bakkus, "that this most adorable woman is beingsacrificed on the altar of Cæsar's Commentaries and the latest Frenchhandbook on scientific slaughter. "

"I think, " said Andrew, who had imprudently sketched his course of readingto the cynic, "that _The Art of War_ by Colonel Foch is the mostmasterly thing ever written on the subject of warfare. "

"But who is going to war, these days, my good fellow?"

"They're at it now, " said Andrew. 

"The Balkans--Turkey--Bulgaria? Barbarians. What's that got to do withcivilized England and France?"

"What about Germany?"

"Germany's never going to sacrifice her commercial position by going towar. Among great powers war is a lunatic anachronism. "

"Oh, _mon Dieu_, " cried Elodie, "now you're talking politics. "

Bakkus took her hand which held a fork on which was prodded a gherkin--theywere at lunch--and raised it to his lips. 

"_Pardon, chère madame_. It was this maniac of an André. He is mad orworse. Years ago I told him he ought to be a sergeant in a barrack square. "

"Just so!" cried Elodie. "Look at him now. Here he is as soft as twopennyworth of butter. But in the theatre, if things do not go quite as hewants them--oh la la! It is Right turn--Quick march! Brr! And I who speakhave to do just the same as the others. "

"I know, " said Bakkus. "A Prussian without bowels. Ah, my poor Elodie! Myheart bleeds for you. "

"Where do you keep it--that organ?" asked Andrew. 

"He keeps it, " retorted Elodie, "where you haven't got it. Horaceunderstands me. You don't. Horace and I are going to talk. You smoke yourcigar and think of battles and don't interfere. "

It was said laughingly, so that Andrew had no cause for protest; butbeneath the remark ran a streak of significance. She resented the serioustone at which Andrew had led the conversation. He and his military studiesand his war of the future! They bored her to extinction. She glanced at himobliquely. A young man of thirty, he behaved himself like the senior ofthis youthful, flashing, elderly man who had the gift of laughter and couldpluck out for her all that she had of spontaneity in life. 

This conversation was typical of many which filled Elodie's head withan illusion of the brilliant genius of Horatio Bakkus. In spite of herpeevishness she had a wholesome respect for Andrew--for his honesty, hissingleness of purpose, his gentle masterfulness. But, all the same, theircommon detection of the drill-sergeant in his nature formed a sympatheticbond between Bakkus and herself. In the back of her mind, she set Andrewdown as a dull dog. For all his poring over books, Bakkus could defeat himany day in argument. The agreeable villain's mastery of phrase fascinatedher. And what he didn't know about the subtle delicacies of women'stemperament was not worth knowing. She could tell him any thing and counton sympathy; whereas Andrew knew less about women than about his poodledog. 

There was, I say, this mid-period of their union when they grew almostestranged. Andrew, in spite of his loyalty, began to regret. He rememberedthe young girl who had rushed to him so tearfully as he was bending overthe 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 withhim, their souls melting together in awe before the majesty of Chartres, in worship before the dreaming spires of Rheims, in joy before the smilingbeauty of Azay-le-Rideau. They would find a world of things to say of therugged 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 wouldlie at her feet as she read the poets that she loved. She would also takean affectionate interest in military strategy. She would be different, oh, so different from Elodie. To Elodie, save for the comfort of inns, theaccommodation of dressing-rooms and the appreciation of audiences, one townwas exactly the same as another. She found amusement in sitting at a caféwith 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 cathedralsand pictures for which boredom is the mildly polite euphemism. A busystreet gay with shop windows attracted her far more than any grandeur ofnatural scenery. She loved displays of cheap millinery and underwear. Andrew could not imagine the Other One requiring his responsive ecstasyover a fifteen-franc purple hat with a green feather, or a pile of silkstockings at four francs fifty a pair . .. The Other One, in a moment ofdelicious weakness, might stand enraptured before a dream of old lace orexquisite tissue or what not, and it would be his joy to take her by thehand, 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 whenhe took her in to buy the fifteen-franc hat, she put him to shame by tryingto bargain. 

So they lost touch with each other until a bird or two brought themtogether 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 witha set of performing birds, canaries, perroquets, love-birds, beauregards. Elodie came across him rehearsing on the stage. She watched the rehearsalfascinated. Then she approached the cages. 

_"Faites attention, Madame, "_ cried the old man in alarm. "You willscare them. They know no one but me. "

_"Mais non, mais non, "_ said Elodie. _"Voyons, ça me connaît. "_

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 inher pockets for chocolate--her only extravagant vice--and bird after birdpecked at the sweet from her mouth. The old man said:

"Truly the birds know you, Madame. It is a gift. No one can tell whenceit comes--and it comes to very few. There are also human beings for whomsnakes have a natural affinity. "

Elodie shuddered. "Snakes! I prefer birds. Ah, _le petit amour. Viensdonc!_"

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. 

Andrew, emerging suddenly from the wings, stood wonder-stricken. 

"But you are a bird-woman, " said he. "I have heard of such, but never seenone. "

From that moment, the town-bred, town-compelled woman who had thought ofbird-life only in terms of sparrows, set about to test her unsuspectedpowers. And what the old man and Andrew had said was true. .. . They wanderedto 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 fewcrumbs attracted a bird, it would hop nearer and nearer, and if she wasvery still it would light on her finger and eat out of the palm of herhand, and if she were very gentle, she could stroke the wild thing's headand plumage. 

A new and wonderful interest came into her life. To find birds, Elodie, whoby this time hated walking from hotel to music-hall, so had her indolencegrown accustomed to the luxurious car, tramped for miles through the woodsaccompanied 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. 

It must be remarked that the enthusiastic search for knowledge, involving, as it did, much physical exertion, lasted only a summer. But it sufficedto re-establish friendly relations between the drifting pair. She found aninterest in life apart from the professional routine. During the autumn andwinter she devoted herself to the training of birds, and Andrew gave herthe benefit of his life's experience in the science. They travelled aboutwith an aviary. And while Andrew, now unreproached, frowned, pencil in handand notebook by his side, over the strategics of the Franco-Prussian War, Elodie, always in her slatternly wrapper, spent enraptured hours in puttingher feathered troupe through their pretty tricks or in playing with themfoolishly as one plays with a dog. 

Thus their midway mutual grievances imperceptibly vanished. The positivewas eliminated from their relations. They had been beginning to hate eachother. Hatred ceased. Perhaps Elodie dreamed now and then of the PerfectLover. Andrew had ever at the back of his soul the Far-away Princess, theOther One, the Being who would enable him to formulate a mode of nebulousexistence and spiritual chaos, and then to live the wondrous life recalledby the magical formula. I must insist on this, so that you can recognizethat the young and successful mountebank, although dead set on theperfection of his mountebankery, and, in serious fact, never dreaming ofa work-a-day existence outside the walls of a Variety Theatre yet had thetentacles of his being spread gropingly, blindly, octopus-like, to themajor potentialities of life. Even when looking back upon himself, as hedoes in the crude manuscript, he cannot account for these unconscious, orsubconscious, feelings. He has no idea of the cause of the fascinationwrought on him by military technicalities. It might have been chess, itmight have been conchology, it might have been heraldry. Hobbies are moreor less unaccountable. In view of his later career it seems to me that hefound in the unalluring textbooks of Clausewitz and Foch and those bound inred covers for the use of the staff of the British Army, some expressionsof a man's work--which was absent from the sphere into which fate had sethim clad in green silk tights. The subject was instinct with the commandingbrain. If his lot had been cast in the theatre proper, instead of in themusic-hall, he might have become a great manager. However, all that is bythe way. The important thing, for the time we are dealing with, is hisrelations with Elodie for the remainder half of their union before the war. These, I have said, ceased to be positive. They accepted their united lifeas they accepted the rain and the sunshine and the long motor journeys fromtown to town. Spiritually they went each their respective ways, unmolestedby the other. But they each formed an integral part of the other'sexistence. They were bound by the indissoluble ties of habit. And asElodie, now that she had got her birds to amuse her, made no demands onAndrew, and as Andrew, who had schooled his tidy soul to toleration of herslovenliness, made no demands on Elodie, they were about as happy as anypair in France. 

When she passed thirty, her face coarsened and her uncared-for figure beganto spread. 

And then the war broke out. 

Chapter XI

The outbreak of war knocked the Petit Patou variety combination silly, asit knocked many thousands of other combinations in France. One day it was agoing concern worth a pretty sum of money; the next day it was gone. 

They happened to be in Paris, putting in a fortnight's rest after anexhausting four months on the road, and waiting for the beginning of abeautiful tour booked for Aix-les-Bains, for the race-weeks at Dieppe andDeauville, for Biarritz--the cream of August and September resorts of thewealthy. .. . Then, in a dazzling flash, mobilization. No more actors, no more stage hands, no more croupiers, no more punters, no moretheatre-goers. No more anything but all sorts and conditions of men gettinginto uniform and all sorts and conditions of women trying to smile butweeping inward blood. Contracts, such as Andrew's, were blown away likethistledown. 

Peremptory authorities required Andrew's papers. They had done so yearsbefore when he reached the age of military service. But now, as then, theyproved Andrew indisputably to be a British subject--he had to thank BenFlint for that--and the authorities went their growling way. 

"What luck!" cried Elodie, when she heard the result of the perquisition. "Otherwise you would have been taken and sent off to this _saleguerre. _"

"I'm not so sure, " replied Andrew, with a grim set of his ugly jaw, "thatI'm not going off to the _sale guerre, _ without being sent. "

"But it is idiotic, what you say!" cried Elodie, in consternation. "What doyou think, Horace?"

Bakkus threw a pair of Elodie's corsets which encumbered the other end ofthe sofa on which he was lounging on to the floor and put up his feet andsucked 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 forBakkus--and said:

"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 ledto the establishment of the formulas. They shrink into a kind of trainedanimal. Andrew here is just like a little dog ready to do his tricks. Somevoice 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, willstretch himself out dead on the floor. "

"Truth, " said Andrew, with a hard glint in his eyes, "does sometimes issuefrom the lips of a fool. "

Bakkus laughed, passing his hand over his silvering locks; but Elodielooked very serious. Absent-mindedly she picked up her corsets, and, theweather being sultry, she fanned herself with them. 

"You are going to enlist in the Legion?"

"I am an Englishman, and my duty is towards my own country. "

"Bingo is an English dog, " said Bakkus. 

Reaction from gladness made Elodie's heart grow cold, filled it with suddendread. It was hard. Most of the women of France were losing their men ofvile 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. Whenthe mild Andrew set his mug of a face like that--his long smiling lipsmerged into each other like two slugs, and his eyes narrowed to little pinpoints, she knew that neither she nor any woman nor any man nor the _bonDieu_ Himself could move him from his purpose. She could only smilerather miserably. 

"Isn't it a little bit mad, your idea?"

"Mad? Of course he is, " said Bakkus. "Much reading in military text-bookshas made him mad. A considerably less interesting fellow than Andrew, who, after all, has a modicum of brains, one Don Quixote, achieved immortalityby proceeding along the same lunatic lines. "

Then Elodie flashed out. She understood nothing of the allusion, but shesuspected a sneer. 

"If I were a man I should fight for France. If Andre thinks it is hisduty 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. _'Amoursacré de la Patrie. ' Eh bien!_ There are other countries besides France. Do you deny that the _amour sacré_ exists for the Englishman?"

Andrew rose and gravely took Elodie's face in his delicate hands and kissedher. 

"I never did you the wrong, my dear, of thinking you would feel otherwise. "

"Neither did I, my good Elodie, " said Bakkus, hurriedly opportunist. "IfI have had one ambition in my life it is to sun myself in the vicariousglamour of a hero. "

The corsets rolled off Elodie's lap as she turned swiftly. 

"You really think André if he enlists in the English Army will be a hero?"

"Without doubt, " replied Bakkus. 

"I am glad, " said Elodie. "You have such a habit of mocking all the worldthat when you are talking of serious things one doesn't know what youmean. "

So peace was made. In the agitated days that followed she saw that aprofound patriotism underlay Bakkus's cynicism, and she relied much on hiscounsel. Every man that England could put into the field was a soldierfighting for France. She glowed at the patriotic idea. Andrew, to his greatgladness, noted that no hint of the cry "What is to become of me?" passedher lips. She counted on his loyalty as he had counted on hers. When heinformed her of the arrangement he had made with her lawyer for her supportduring his absence, all she said was:

_"Mon cher, _ it is far too much! I can live on half. And as for thewill--let us not talk of it. It makes me shiver. "

Here came out all that was good in Elodie. She took the war and itsobligations, as she had taken her professional work. Through all herflabbiness ran the rod of steel. She suffered, looking forward with terrorto the unthinkable future. Already one of her friends, Jeanne Duval, comedienne, was a widow . .. What would life be without André? She trembledbefore the illimitable blankness. The habit of him was the habit of herlife, like eating and drinking; his direction her guiding principle. Yetshe dominated her fears and showed a brave face. 

Often a neighbour, meeting her in the quarter, would say:

"You are fortunate, Madame. You will not lose your husband. " To thequarter, as indeed to all the world, they were Monsieur and Madame Patou. "He is an Englishman and won't be called up. "

She would flash with proud retort:--

"In England men are not called up. They go voluntarily. Monsieur Patou goesto join the English army. "

She was not going to make her sacrifice for nothing. 

To Bakkus Andrew confided the general charge of Elodie. 

"My dear fellow, " said the cynic, "isn't it rather overdoing your saintlysimplicity? Do you remember the farce 'Occupe-toi d'Amélie?' Do I appeal toyou as a squire of deserted dames, grass-widows endowed with plenty? I--aman of such indefinite morals that so long as I have mutton cutlets Idon't in the least care who pays for them? Aren't you paying for this verymouthful now?"

"You are welcome, " replied Andrew with a grin, "to all the mutton thatElodie will give you. "

Elodie's only proclaimed grievance against Bakkus, whom otherwise shevastly admired, was his undisguised passion for free repasts. 

When it came to parting, Elodie wept and sobbed. He marvelled at heremotion. 

"You love me so much, my little Elodie?"

_"Mais tu es ma vie toute entière. _ Haven't you understood it?"

In that sense--no. He had not understood. They had arranged their lives somuch as business partners, friends, fate-linked humans dependent on eachother for the daily amenities of a joint existence. He had never suspected;never had cause to suspect, this hidden flood of sentiment. The simpleman's heart responded. For such love she must be repaid. In the packedtrain which sped him towards England he carried with him no small remorsefor past indifference. 

Now, what next happened to Andrew, is, as I have said before, omitted fromhis manuscript. Nor has he vouchsafed to me, in conversation, anythingbut the rudest sketch. All we know is that he enlisted straight into theregular Army, the Grenadier Guards. Millions of Tommies have passed throughhis earlier experiences. His gymnastic training, his professional habitsof accuracy and his serious yet alert mind bore him swiftly throughpreliminary stages to high efficiency. In November, 1914, he found himselfin Flanders. Wounded, a few months afterwards, he was sent home, patchedup, sent back again. Late in 1915, a sergeant, he had his first leave, which he spent in Paris. 

Elodie received him with open arms. She was impressed by the martialbearing of her ramrod of a man, and she proudly fingered the three stripeson his sleeve and the D. C. M. Ribbon on his breast. She took him forwalks, she who, in her later supineness, hated to put one foot before theother--by the Grands Boulevards, the Rue Royale, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysées, hanging on his arm, with a recrudescence of the defiantair of the Marseilles _gamine. _ She made valiant efforts to pleaseher hero who had bled in great battles and had returned to fight in greatbattles 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 thoughthey were revelations of Paradise. Yet, she had but existed idly day in andday out, in the eternal wrapper and slippers, with her cage of birds. Thelittle beasts kept her alive--it was true. One was dull in Paris withoutmen. And the women of her acquaintance, mostly professional, were inpoverty. They had the same cry, "My dear, lend me ten francs. " "My littleElodie, I am on the rocks, my man is killed. " _"Ma bien aimée, _ I amstarving. You who are at ease, let me come and eat with you"--and so on andso on. Her heart grieved for them; but _que veux-tu?_--one was not acharitable institution. So it was all very sad and heartrending. To saynothing of her hourly anxiety. If only the _sale guerre_ would ceaseand they could go on tour again! Ah, those happy days!

"Were they, after all, so very happy?" asked Andrew. 

"One was contented, free from care. "

"But now?"

"May they not come to tell me at any minute that you are killed?"

"That's true, " said Andrew gravely. 

"And besides--"

She paused. 

"Besides, what?"

"I love you more now, " replied Elodie. 

Which gave Andrew food for thought, whenever he had time at the front toconsider the appetite. 

When next he had a short leave it was as a Lieutenant; but Elodie had goneto Marseilles, braving the tedious third-class journey, to attend hermother's funeral. There Madame Figasso having died intestate, she battledwith authorities and lawyers and the _huissier_ Boudin who professedheartbreak at her unfilial insistence on claiming her little inheritance. With the energy which she always displayed in the serious things of lifeshe routed them all. She sold the furniture, the dressmaking business, wrested the greasy bag of savings from the hands of a felonious anddiscomfited Boudin, and returned to Paris with some few thousand francs inher pocket. Horatio Bakkus, meanwhile, had moved into the Saint-Denis flatto take care of the birds. Nobody in France craving the services of a lighttenor, 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 atticunder the roof, where he shivered in the coalless city. 

"I die of convention, " said he. "Behold, you have a spare room centrallyheated. You are virtue itself. I not only occupy the sacred position ofyour guardian, but am humiliatingly aware of my supreme lack of attraction. And yet--"

_"Fich'-moi le camp, "_ laughed Elodie. 

And Bakkus took up his old green valise and returned to his eyrie. Thereshould be no scandal in the Faubourg Saint-Denis if Elodie could help it. But a few days later--

"_Ah, je m'ennuie, je m'ennuie_, " she cried in an accent of boredom. 

Then Bakkus elaborated a Machiavellian idea. Why shouldn't she work? Atwhat? Why, hadn't she a troupe of trained birds? Madame Patou was notthe first comer in the variety world. She could get engagements in theprovinces. How did she know that the war would not last longer thanAndrew's savings?

"_Mon Dieu_, it is true, " she said. 

Forthwith she went to the agent Moignon. After a few weeks she startedon the road with her aviary, and Bakkus once more left his eyrie to takecharge of the flat in the Faubourg St. Denis. 

It came to pass that the next time Andrew and Elodie met in their Parishouse, he wore a Major's crown and the ribbons of the Distinguished ServiceOrder, the Military Cross and the Legion of Honour. From his letters shehad grasped but little of his career and growing distinction; but the sightof him drove her mad with pride. If she had loved to parade the Parisstreets with him as a Sergeant, now she could scarcely bear to exist withhim otherwise than in public places. Not only an officer, but almost aColonel. And decorated--he, an English officer, with the Legion of Honour!The British decorations she scarcely understood--but they made a finedisplay. The salutes from uniformed men of every nation almost turned herhead. The little restaurant round the corner, where they had eaten forso many years, suddenly appeared to her an inappropriate setting for hisexalted rank. She railed against its meanness. 

"Let us eat then, " laughed Andrew, who had not given the matter a thought, "on the Place de la Madeleine. "

But if the Restaurant Mangin in the Faubourg Saint-Denis was too lowly, the Restaurant Weber frightened her by its extravagance. She hit upon themiddle course of engaging a cook for the wonderful fortnight of his leaveand busying herself with collaborating in the preparation of succulentmeals. 

"My dear child, " said Andrew, sitting at his own table in the tiny andseldom-used _salle à manger_ for the first time since their earlydisastrous experience of housekeeping, "why in the world haven't we hadthis cosiness before?"

He seemed to have entered a new world of sacred domesticity. The outwardmaterial sign of the inward grace drew him nearer to her than allprotestations of affection. 

"Why have you waited all these years?" he asked. 

Elodie, expansive, rejoicing in the success of the well-cooked dinner, reproached herself generously. It was all her fault. Before the war she hadbeen ignorant, idle. But the war had taught her many things. Above all ithad taught her to value her _petit homme_. 

"Because you now see him in his true colours, " observed Bakkus, who tookfor granted a seat at the table as the payment for his guardianship. "Thedrill sergeant I always talked to you about. "

"Sergeant!" Elodie flung up her head in disdain. "He is _Commandant_. And see to it that you are not wanting in respect. "

"From which outburst of conjugal ferocity, my dear fellow, " said Bakkus, "you can gauge the conscientiousness of my guidance of Elodie during yourabsence. "

Andrew grinned happily. He was full of faith in both of them--loving woman, loyal friend. 

"It is true, " said he, "that I have found my vocation. "

"What are you going to do when the war is over and Othello's occupation isgone?"

"I don't think the war will ever be over, " he laughed. "It's no goodlooking ahead. For the present one has to regard soldiering as a permanentpursuit. "

"I thought so, " said Bakkus. "He'll cry when it's over and he can't movehis pretty soldiers about. "

"That is true?" asked Elodie, in the tone of one possessed of insight. 

Andrew shrugged his shoulders, a French trick out of harmony with hisBritish uniform. 

"Perhaps, " said he with a sigh. 

"I too, " said Elodie, "will be sorry when you become _Petit Patou_again. "

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 hefelt so close to her. 

"All the same, " added Elodie, "it is very dangerous _là-bas, monchéri_--and I don't want you to get killed. "

"All the glory and none of the death, " said Bakkus. "Conducted on thoseprinciples, warfare would be ideal employment for the young. But you wouldbe going back to the Middle Ages, when, if a knight were killed, he wasvastly surprised and annoyed. Personally I hate the war. It prevents mefrom earning a living, and insults me with the sense of my age, physicaldecay and incapacity. I haven't a good word to say for it. "

"If you only went among the wounded in the Paris hospitals, " repliedAndrew, with some asperity, "and sang to them--"

"My good fool, " said Bakkus, "I've been doing that for about four or fivehours a day since the war began, till I've no voice left. "

"Didn't you know?" cried Elodie. "Horace has never worked so hard in hislife. And for nothing. In his way he is a hero like you. "

"Why the devil didn't you tell me?" cried Andrew. 

Bakkus flung a hand. "If you hadn't to dress the part what should I haveknown of your rank and orders? Would you go about saying 'I'm a dam finefellow'?"

"I'm sorry, " said Andrew, filling his guest's glass. "I ought to have takenit for granted. "

"We give entertainments together, " said Elodie. "He sings and I take thebirds. Ah! the poilus. They are like children. When Riquiqui takes offPaulette's cap they twist themselves up with laughing. _Il faut voirça. "_

This was all news to Andrew, and it delighted him beyond measure. He couldtake away now to the trenches the picture of Elodie as ministering angelsurrounded by her birds--an exquisite, romantic, soul-satisfying picture. 

"But why, " he asked again, "didn't you tell me?"

_"Ah, tu sais_--letters--I am not very good at letters. _Fanted'éducation. _ I want so much to tell you what I feel that I forget totell you what I do. "

Bakkus smiled sardonically as he sipped his liqueur brandy. She had givenher bird performance on only two occasions. She had exaggerated it intothe gracious habit of months or years. Just like a woman! Anyhow, thedisillusionment of Andrew was none of his business. The dear old chap waseating lotus in his Fool's Paradise, thinking it genuine pre-war lotus andnot war _ersatz. _ It would be a crime to disabuse him. 

For Andrew the days of leave sped quickly. Not a domestic cloud darkenedhis relations with Elodie. Through indolent and careless living she hadgrown gross and coarse, too unshapely and unseemly for her age. When thenews of his speedy arrival in Paris reached her, she caught sight ofherself in her mirror and with a sudden pang realized her lack ofattraction. In a fever she corseted herself, creamed her face, seta coiffeur to work his will on her hair. But what retrieval of lostcomeliness could be effected in a day or two? The utmost thing of practicalvalue she could do was to buy a new, gay dressing-gown and a pair ofhigh-heeled slippers. And Andrew, conscious of waning beauty, overlooked itin the light of her new and unsuspected coquetry. Where once the slatternlolled about the little salon, now moved an attractively garbed and tidywoman. Instead of the sloven, he found a housewife who made up in zeal forlack of experience. The patriotic soldier's mate replaced the indifferentand 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 tointerest her in a scientific exposition, she would interrupt him, alove-bird on her finger and its beak at her lips, with: "Look, isn't hesweet?" thereby throwing him out of gear; it is true that she yawned andfrankly confessed her boredom, as she had done for many years when the talkof Andrew and Bakkus went beyond her intellectual horizon; but--_quevoulez-vous?_--even a great war cannot, in a few months, supplythe deficiencies of thirty uneducated years. The heart, the generousinstinct--these were the things that the war had awakened in Elodie--andthese 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 thegrand manner, like a daughter of France. 

So at least it seemed to Andrew. The depth of her feelings he did not tryto gauge. Into the part in her demonstrativeness played by vanity or bymomentary reaction from the dread of losing him, her means of support, itnever entered his head to enquire. That she should sun herself in reflectedsplendour 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 hismilitary rank, afforded him gentle amusement. He knew that, as soon as hisback was turned, she would relapse into slipshod ways. But her effortsdelighted him, proved her love and her loyalty. For the third time heparted from her to go off to the wars, more impressed than ever by thesense of his inappreciation of her virtues. He wrote her a long letter ofself-upbraiding for the past, and the contrast between the slimy dug-outwhere he was writing by the light of one guttering candle, and the cosysalon he had just quitted being productive of nostalgia, he expressedhimself, for once in his life, in the terms of an ardent lover. 

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 tothe faithful Bakkus, who read it aloud with a running commentary of ironichumour. This Andrew did not know till long afterwards. 

In a few weeks he got the command of his battalion. 

Bakkus wrote:--

"How you'll be able to put up with us now I know not. Elodie can scarcelyput up with herself. She gives orders in writing to tradesmen now andsubscribes herself 'Madame La Colonelle Patou. ' She has turned down a birdengagement offered by Moignon, as beneath her present dignity. You hadbetter come home as soon as you can. "

Andrew laughed and threw the letter away. He had far more serious things toattend to than Elodie's pretty foibles. And when you are commanding a crackregiment in a famous division in the line you no more think of leave thanof running away from the enemy. Months passed--of fierce fighting andincessant strain, and he covered himself with glory and completed therainbow row of ribbons on his breast, until Petit Patou and Elodie andBakkus and the apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Denis became things of afar-off dream. 

And before he saw Elodie again, he had met Lady Auriol Dayne. 

Chapter XII

That was the devil of it. He had met Lady Auriol Dayne. He had found inthat frank and capable young woman--or thought he had found, which comes tothe same thing--the Princesse Lointaine of his dreams. If she differed fromthat nebulous and characterless paragon, were less ethereal, more humannature's daily food, so much the better. She possessed that which he hadyearned for--_quality. _ She had style--like the prose of TheophileGautier, the Venus of Milo, the Petit Trainon. She suggested Diana, whomore than all goddesses displayed this gift of distinction; yet was she nottoo Diana-ish to be unapproachable. On the contrary, she blew about him asfree as the wind. .. . That, in a muddle-headed way, was his impression ofher: a subtle mingling of nature and artistry. On every side of her hebeheld perfection. Physically, she was as elemental as the primitive womansuperbly developed by daily conditions of hardship and danger; spiritually, as elemental as the elves and fairies; and over her mind played the wisdomof the world. 

Thus, in trying to account for her to himself, did the honest Lackadayflounder from trope to metaphor. "To love her, " he quotes from Steele, "isa liberal education. "

The last time he met her in England, was after my departure for Paris. Youwill remember that just before then he had confided to me his identityas Petit Patou and had kept me up half the night. It was a dismal Aprilafternoon, rain and mud outside, a hopeless negation of the spring. Theyhad 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 Lackadayregarded as the most exquisite room in the world. It had comfort of softchairs and bright fire and the smell of tea and cigarettes; but it also hadthe style, to him so precious, with which his fancy invested her. Thenote of the room was red lacquer partly inherited, partly collected, thehangings of a harmonious tone, and the only pictures on the distemperedwalls the colour-prints of the late eighteenth century. It had the glow ofsmiling austerity, the unseizable, paradoxical quality of herself. An oldSèvres tea-service rested on a Georgian silver tray, which gleamed in thefirelight. Wherever he looked, he beheld perfection. And pouring out thetea stood the divinity, a splendid contrast to the shrine, yet againparadoxically harmonious; full-bosomed, warm and olive, wearing blue sergecoat and skirt, her blouse open at her smooth throat, her cheeks flushedwith walking through the rain, her eyes kind. 

For a while, like a Knight in the Venusberg, he gave himself up to thedelight of her. Then suddenly he pulled himself together, and, putting downhis teacup, he said what he had come to say:--

"This is the last time that I shall ever see you. "

She started. 

"What on earth do you mean? Are you going off to the other end of theworld?"

"I'm going back to France. "

"When?"

"To-morrow morning. "

She twisted round in her chair, her elbow on the arm and her chin in herhand and looked at him. 

"That's sudden, isn't it?"

He smiled rather sadly. "When once you've made up your mind, it's best toact, instead of hanging on. "

"You're sure there's no hope in this country?"

"I know I'm as useful as a professional wine-taster will soon be in theUnited States. "

They laughed, resumed the discussion of many previous meetings. Had hetried this, that or the other opening? He had tried everything. No onewanted him. 

"So, " said he, "I'm making a clean cut and returning to France. "

"I'm sorry. " She sighed. "Very sorry. You know I am. I hoped you wouldremain in England and find some occupation worthy of you--but, afterall--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, "I did. "

"Why?"

"That would take a lot of telling, " said Andrew grimly. 

"We've got hours, if you choose, in front of us. "

"It's not a question of time, " said he. 

"Then, my good Andrew, what are you talking about?"

"Only that I must return to the place I came from, my dear friend. Let itrest at that. "

She lit a cigarette. "Rather fatalistic, isn't it?"

"Four years of fighting make one so. "

"You speak, " said she, after a little reflection occasioning knitting ofthe brows, "you speak like the Mysterious Unknown of the old legends--thebeing sent from Hell or Heaven or any other old place to the earth toaccomplish a mission. You know what I mean. He lives the life of the worldinto which he is thrown and finds it very much to his liking. But whenthe 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 tovanish. "

"You surely aren't jesting?" he asked. 

"No, " she said. "God forbid! I've too deep a regard for you. Besides, Ibelieve the parable is applicable. Otherwise how can I understand your 'forever'?"

"I'm glad you understand without my blundering into an explanation, " hereplied. "It's something, as you say. Only the legendary fellow goes backto cool his heels--or the reverse--in Shadow Land, whereas I'll stillcontinue to inhabit the comfortable earth. I'm as Earth-bound as can be. "

He paused for a moment, and continued:--

"Fate or what you will dragged me from obscurity into the limelight ofthe war to play my little part. It's over. I've nothing more to do on thestage. Fate rings down the curtain. I must go back into obscurity. _Lacommedia è finita_. "

"It's more like a tragedy, " said she. 

Andrew made a gesture with his delicate hands. 

"A comedy's not a farce. Let us stick to the comedy. "

"Less heroically--let us play the game, " she suggested. 

"If you like to put it that way. "

She regarded him searchingly out of frank eyes; her face had grown pale. 

"If you gave me the key to your material Shadow Land, it would not beplaying the game?"

"You are right, my dear, " said he. "It wouldn't. "

"I thought as much, " said Lady Auriol. 

He rose, mechanically adjusted his jacket, which always went awry on hisgaunt frame. "I want to say something, " he declared abruptly. "You're theonly lady--highly-bred woman--with whom I've been on terms of friendship inmy life. It has been an experience far more wonderful than you can possiblyrealize. I'll keep it as an imperishable memory"--he spoke bolt upright asthough he were addressing troops on parade before a battle--"it's rightthat you should know I'm not ungrateful for all you have done for me. I'veonly one ambition left--that you should remember me as a soldier--and--inmy own way--a gentleman. "

"A very gallant gentleman, " she said with quivering lips. 

He held out his hand, took hers, kissed it French fashion. 

"Good-bye and God bless you, " said he, and marched out of the room. 

She stood for a while, with her hand on her heart--suffering a pain thatwas almost physical. Then she rushed to the door and cried in a loud voiceover the balustrade of the landing:

"Andrew, come back. "

But the slam of the front door drowned her call. She returned to thedrawing-room and threw up the window. Andrew was already far away, tearingdown the rainswept street. 

Now, if Andrew had heard the cry, he would have heard that in it which noman can hear unmoved. He would have leaped up the stairs and there wouldhave 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 interviewwas she certain of his love. But then, although he said nothing, any foolof a woman could have seen it as clear as daylight. And she had beenplanted there like a stuck pig all the time--her _ipsissima verba_ (ODiana 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, mymodern Diana--or Andrew's, if you prefer it--had her own modern modeof telling an elderly outsider about her love affairs--the mode of thesubaltern from whom is dragged the story of his Victoria Cross. AndrewLackaday's quaintly formulated idealizations had their foundations in fact. This is by the way. What happened next was Lady Auriol's recovery of realcommon sense when she withdrew her head and her rained-upon hat from thewindow and drew down the sash. She flew to her bedroom, stamped about withclenched fists until she had dried up at their source the un-Auriol liketears that threatened to burst forth. Her fury at her weakness spent, shefelt better and strangled the temptation to write him then and there asummons to return that evening for a full explanation. My God! Hadn't theyhad their explanation? If he could in honour have said, "I am a free liveman as you are a free live woman, and I love you as you love me"--wouldn'the have said it? He was the last man in the world to make a mystery aboutnothing. Into the mystery she was too proud to enquire. Enough for her toknow in her heart that he was a gallant gentleman. She should have stoppedat her parable. .. . 

Meanwhile she let Andrew return to France unaware of the tumult he hadraised. That he had won her interest, her respect, her friendship--even heraffectionate friendship--he was perfectly aware. But that his divinity wasjust foolishly and humanly in love with him he had no notion. He consoledhimself with reflections on her impeccability, her wondrous intuition, herFar-away Princess-like delicacy. Who but she could have summed up in aparable the whole dismal situation?

Well, the poor Make-believe had to vanish. 

The last time he travelled to Boulogne it was in a military train. He hada batman who looked after his luggage. He wore a baton and sword on hisshoulder-straps. Only now, a civilian in a packed mass of civilians, did herecognize what a mighty personage he then was--a cock of the walk, saluted, "sired, " treated with deference. None of the old-fashionedpit-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 witha great car--no worry about Customs or luggage or anything--everything donefor him by eager young men without his bidding--and he had thought nothingof it. Indeed, if there had been a hitch in the machinery which conveyedhim to his brigade, he would have made it hot for the defaulter. Andnow--with a third share in a porter he struggled through the Customs in themidst of the perspiring civilian crowd, and, emerging on to the platform, found a comfortless middle seat in an old German first-class carriagebuilt for four. There were still many men in uniform, English, French andAmerican, doing Heaven knows what about the busy station. But none tooknotice of him, and he lounged disconsolately by the carriage door waitingfor the train to start. He scarcely knew which of his experiences, then ornow, was an illusion. 

In spite of the civilian horde, women, young girls, mufti-clad men, thestation still preserved a military aspect. A company of blue-clad poilussat some way off, in the middle of their packs, eating a scratch meal. Hereand there were bunches of British Tommies, with a sergeant and a desultoryofficer, obviously under discipline. It seemed impossible that the warshould be ended--that he, General Lackaday, should have finished with itfor ever. 

At last, a young subaltern passed him by, recognized him after a second, saluted and paused undecided. A few months ago, Andrew would have returnedhis salute with brass-hatted majesty, but now he smiled his broadear-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. Butall this Andrew forgot. 

"My dear boy, " he cried. "How glad I am to see you. "

It was as if a survivor from a real world had appeared before him in a landof dreams. He questioned him animatedly on his doings. The boy respondedwonderingly. At last:--

"When are you going to be demobilized?"

The subaltern smiled. "I hope never, sir. I'm a regular. "

"Lucky devil, " said Andrew. "Oh, you lucky devil! I'd give anything tochange places with you. "

"I'm on, sir, " laughed Smithson. "I'm all for being a Brigadier-General. "

"Not on the retired list--out of the service, " said Andrew. 

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 theinsignificant young man in the King's uniform. With all his soul heenvied him the privilege of wearing it. He cursed his stiff-neckednessin declining the Major's commission offered by the War Office. A line ofTennyson reminiscent of the days when Bakkus had guided his reading cameinto his head. Something about a man's own angry pride being cap and bellsfor a fool. He tried to find repose against the edge of the sharp doublecurve that divided the carriage side into two portions. The trivialdiscomfort irritated him. The German compartment might be a symbol ofvictory, but it was also a symbol of the end of the war, the end of theonly intense life full of meaning which he had ever known. 

As the train went on, he caught sight from the window of immense stores ofwar--German waggons with their military destinations still marked in chalk, painted guns of all calibres, drums of barbed wire, higgledy-piggledytruck-loads of scrap, all sorts of flotsam and jetsam of the greatconflict. All useless, done with, never to be thought of again, so theworld hoped, in the millennium that was to be brought about by the Leagueof Nations. Yet it seemed impossible. In wayside camps, at railwaystations, he saw troops of the three great countries. Now and thentrain-loads of them passed. It was impossible that the mighty hosts theyrepresented should soon melt away into the dull flood of civil life. Thewar had been such a mighty, such a gallant thing. Of course the genius ofmankind must now be bent to the reconstruction of a shattered world. Heknew that. He knew that regret at the ending of the universal slaughterwould be the sentiment of a homicidal lunatic. Yet deep down in his heartthere was some such regret, a gnawing nostalgia. 

After Amiens they passed by the battle-fields. A young American officersitting by the eastern window pointed them out to him. He explained toAndrew what places had been British gun emplacements, pointed to the whitechalk lines that had been British trenches. Told him what a trench lookedlike. 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 fromhis pocket his worn campaigning note-case and accidently dropped a letter. The young American politely picked it up, but the typewritten address onthe War Office envelope caught his eye. "Brigadier-General Lackaday, C. B. "He handed it to Andrew, flushing scarlet. 

"Is that your name, sir?"

"It is, " said Andrew. 

"Then I reckon, sir, I've been making a fool of myself. "

"Every man, " said Andrew, with his disarming smile, "is bound to do thatonce in his life. It's best to get it over as soon as possible. That's theway one learns. Especially in the army. "

But the young man's talk had rubbed in his complete civiliandom. 

As the train neared Paris, his heart sank lower and lower. The old pre-warlife claimed him mercilessly, and he was frozen with a dread which he hadnever felt on the fire-step in the cold dawn awaiting the lagging hour ofzero. On the entrance to the Gare du Nord he went into the corridor andlooked through the window. He saw Elodie afar off. Elodie, in a hat overher eyes, a fur round her neck, her skirt cut nearly up to her kneesshowing fat, white-stockinged calves. She had put on much flesh. The greattrain stopped and vomited forth its horde of scurrying humans. 

Elodie caught sight of him and rushed and threw herself into his arms, andembraced him rapturously. 

"Oh, my André, it is good to have you back. _O mon petit homme_--howI have been longing for this moment. Now the war is finished, you will notleave me again ever. _Et te voilà Général_. You must be proud, eh? Butyour uniform? I who had made certain I should see you in uniform. "

He smiled at her characteristic pounce on externals. 

"I no longer belong to the Army, my little Elodie, " he replied, walkingwith her, his porter in front, to the barrier. 

"_Mais tu es toujours Général?_" she asked anxiously. 

"I keep the rank, " said Andrew. 

"And the uniform? You can wear it? You will put it on sometimes to pleaseme?"

They drove home through twilight Paris, her arm passed through his, whileshe chattered gaily. Was it not good to smell Paris again after London withits fogs and ugliness and raw beefsteaks? To-night she would give him sucha dinner as he had never eaten in England--and not for two years. Did herealize that it was two years since he had seen her?

"_Mon Dieu_, " said he, "so it is. "

"And you are pleased to have me again?"

"Can you doubt it?" he smiled. 

"Ah, one never knows. What can't a man do in two years? Especially when hebecomes a high personage, a great General full of honours and decorations. "

"The gods of peace have arrived, my little Elodie, " said he with a touch ofbitterness, "and the little half-gods of war are eclipsed. If we go to arestaurant there's no reason why the waiter with his napkin under his armshouldn't be an ex-colonel of Zouaves. All the glory of the war has ended, my dear. A breath. Phew! Out goes the candle. "

But Elodie would have none of this pessimistic philosophy. 

"You are a General to the end of your days. "

They mounted to the flat in the Faubourg Saint-Denis. To Andrew, accustomedof late months to the greater spaciousness of English homes, it seemedsmall and confined and close. It smelt of birds--several cages of whichoccupied a side of the salon. Instinctively he threw open a window. 

Instinctively also: "The _courant d'air!_" cried Elodie. 

"Just for a minute, " said Andrew--and added diplomatically, "I want to seewhat changes there are in the street. "

"It's always the same, " said Elodie. "I will go and see about dinner. "

So till she returned he kept the window open and looked about the room. Itwas neat as a new pin, redded-up against his arrival. His books had beentaken from their cases and dusted; the wild displacement of volumes thatshould have gone in series betrayed the hand of the zealous though inexpertlibrarian. The old curtains had been cleaned, the antimacassars over thebacks of chairs and sofa had been freshly washed, the floor polished. Not agreasy 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 subservedno human purpose. A crazy whatnot, imitation lacquer and bamboo, the onlypiece of decorative furniture, was stacked with photographs of varietyartists, male and female, in all kinds of stage costumes, with sprawlingsignatures across, the collection of years of touring, --all scrupulouslydusted and accurately set out. The few cheap prints in maple frames thatadorned the walls (always askew, he remembered) had been adjusted to thehorizontal. On the chenille-covered table in the middle of the room stooda vase with artificial flowers. The straight-backed chairs upholsteredin yellow and brown silk stood close sentry under the prints, in theirantimacassar uniforms. Two yellow and brown arm-chairs guarded the whitefaience stove. The sofa against the wall frowned sternly at the whatnot onthe opposite side. Andrew's orderly soul felt aghast at this mathematicaltidiness. Even the old slovenly chaos was better. At least it expressedsomething human. And then the picture of that other room, so exquisite, so impregnated with the Far-away Princess spirit of its creator, rose upbefore him, and he sighed and rubbed his fingers through his red stubblyhair, and made a whimsical grimace, and said, "Oh Damn!" And Elodie thenbursting in, with a proud "Isn't it pretty, _ton petit chez-toi!_"What could he do but smile, and assure her that no soldier home from thewars could have a more beautifully regulated home?

"And you have looked enough at the street?"

Andrew shut the window. 

Chapter XIII

Through one of the little ironies of fate, my mission at the PeaceConference ended a day or two after Andrew's arrival in Paris, so that whenhe called at my hotel I had already returned to London. A brief note fromhim a day or two later informed me of his visit and his great regret atmissing me. Of his plans he said nothing. He gave as his address "c/o Cox'sBank. " You will remark that this was late April, and I did not receive hisfamous manuscript till June. Of his private history I knew nothing, savehis beginnings in the Cirque Rocambeau and his identity with a professionalmountebank known as Petit Patou. 

Soon afterwards I spent a week-end with the Verity-Stewarts. Before I couldhave a private word with Lady Auriol, whom I found as my fellow-guest, Evadne, as soon as she had finished an impatient though not unsubstantialtea, hurried me out into the garden. There were two litters of Sealyhams. 

Lady Verity-Stewart protested mildly. 

"Uncle Anthony doesn't want to see puppies. "

"It's the only thing he's interested in and the only thing he knowsanything about, " cried Evadne. "And he's the only one that's able to pickout the duds. Come on. "

So I went. Crossing the lawn, she took my arm. 

"We're all as sick as dogs, " she remarked confidentially. 

"Indeed? Why?"

"We asked----" Note the modern child. Not "Papa" or "Mamma, " as awell-conducted little girl of the Victorian epoch would have said, but"we, " _ego et parentes_--"we asked, " replied Evadne, "General Lackadaydown. And crossing our letter came one from Paris telling us he had leftEngland for good. Isn't it rotten?"

"The General's a very good fellow, " said I, "but I didn't know he was aflame of yours. "

"Oh, you stupid!" cried Evadne, with a protesting tug at my arm "It'snothing to do with me. It s Aunt Auriol. "

"Oh?" said I. 

She shook her fair bobbed head. "As if you didn't know!"

"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. "

"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 brightenedup again. "I've heard 'em talking it over--when they thought I wasn'tlistening. Father and mother and Charles. They're all potty over GeneralLackaday. And so's Aunt Auriol. I told you they had clicked ages ago. "

"Clicked?"

"Yes. Don't you know English?"

"To my sorrow, I do. They clicked. And father and mother and Charles andAunt Auriol are all potty. "

"And so am I, " she declared, "for he's a dear. And they all say it's timefor Aunt Auriol to settle down. So they wanted to get him here and fix him. Charles says he's a shy bird----"

"But, " I interrupted, "you're talking of the family. Your Aunt Auriol has afather, Lord Mountshire. "

"He's an old ass, " said Evadne. 

"He's a peer of the realm, " said I rebukingly, though I cordially agreedwith her. 

"He's not fit to be General Lackaday's ancient butler, " she retorted. 

"Is that your own?"

"No. It's Charles's. But I can repeat it if I like. "

"And all this goes to prove----" said I. 

"Well, don't you see? You are dense. The news that the General had gone toFrance knocked them all silly. Aunt Auriol's looking rotten. Charles saysshe's off her feed. You should have seen her last night at dinner, whenthey were talking about him. "

"Again, my dear Evadne, " said I, opening the gate of the kitchen garden forher to pass through, "this is none of my business. "

She took my arm again. "It doesn't matter. But oh, darling Uncle Tony, couldn't we fix it up?"

"Fix up what?" I asked aghast. 

"The wedding, " replied this amazing young person, looking up at me so thatI had only a vision of earnest grey eyes, and a foreshortened snub nose andchin. "He's only shy. You could bring him up to the scratch at once. "

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 AnthonyHylton might be a useful man to have about--but all the same she had herplan. Why shouldn't I go off to Paris and bring him back? I gasped. Ifought for air. But Evadne hurried me on, talking all the time. She wasdying for a wedding. She had never seen one in her life. She would be abridesmaid. She described her costume. And she had set her heart on awedding present--the best of the bunch of Sealyham puppies. Why, certainlythey were all hers. Tit and Tat, from whom the rather extensive kennels hadoriginally sprung, were her own private property. They had been given toher when she was six years old. Tat had died. But Tit. I knew Tit? DidI not? No one could spend an hour in Mansfield Court without making theacquaintance of the ancient thing on the hearthrug, with the shape of awoolly 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, _moi qui parle_, had beenthe donor of Tit and Tat. I reminded her. I was a stupid. As if she didn'tknow. But I was to confirm her right to dispose of the pups. I confirmedit solemnly. So we hastened to the stable yard and inspected the kennels, where the two mothers lay with their slithery tail-wagging broods. Wediscussed the points of each little beast and eventually decided on theone which should be Evadne's wedding present to General Lackaday and LadyAuriol Dayne. 

"Thanks ever so much, darling, " said Evadne. "You are _so_ helpful. "

I returned to the drawing-room fairly well primed with the familypreoccupations, so that when Lady Verity-Stewart carried me off to her ownlittle den on the pretext of showing me some new Bristol glass, and SirJulius came smoking casually in her wake, I knew what to expect. Theyled up to the subject, of course, very diplomatically--not rushing at itbrutally like Evadne, but nothing that the child said did they omit--withthe 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 herdon't-care-a-dam-for-anybody sort of way made no pretence of disguising hersentiments. Any fool could see she was in love with the man. And they had_affichéd_ themselves together all over the place. Other women coulddo it with impunity--if they didn't have an infatuated man in tow ata restaurant, they'd be stared at, people would ask whether they werequalifying for a nunnery--but Auriol was different. Aphrodite could do whatshe chose and no one worried; but an indiscretion of Artemis set tongueswagging. It was high time for something definite to happen. And now theonly thing definite was Lackaday's final exodus from the scene, andAuriol's inclination to go off and bury herself in some savage land. LadyVerity-Stewart thought Borneo. They were puzzled. General Lackaday was thebest of fellows---so simple, so sincere--such a damned fine soldier--sucha gentle, kindly creature--so scurvily treated by a disgraceful WarOffice--just the husband for Auriol--etcetera, etcetera in strophe andantistrophe of eulogy. 

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'saffections and thrown her off. I smiled at the conception of the lank andearnest Lackaday in the part of Don Juan. Besides, they added sagely, Auriol had been known to make short work of philanderers. It could only bea question of some misunderstanding that might easily be arranged by anintelligent 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. 

"Now, my dear Anthony, " said Sir Julius, "can't you do something?"

What the deuce was I to do? But first I asked:

"What does Auriol say about it?"

They hadn't broached the subject. They were afraid. I knew what Auriolwas. As likely as not she would tell them to go to the devil for theirimpertinence. 

"And she wouldn't be far wrong, " said I. 

"Of course it seems meddlesome, " said Sir Julius, tugging at his whitemoustache, "but we're fond of Auriol. I've been much more of a father toher than that damned old ass Mountshire"--Evadne, again; though for once inher life she had exercised restraint--"and I hate to see her unhappy. She'sa woman who ought to marry, hang it all, and bring fine children into theworld. And her twenties won't last for ever--to put it mildly. And here sheis 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?"

Oh yes. I saw perfectly. To soothe them, I promised to play the high-classPandarus to the best of my ability. At any rate, Lady Auriol, having takenme into her confidence months ago, couldn't very well tell me to go to thedevil, and, if she did, couldn't maintain the mandate with much show ofoutraged dignity. 

I did not meet her till dinner. She came down in a sort of low cut redand bronze frock without any sleeves--I had never seen so much of herbefore--and what I saw was exceedingly beautiful. A magnificent creature, with muscular, shapely arms and deep bosom and back like a Greek statuebecome dark and warm. Her auburn hair crowned her strong pleasant face. Asfar as appearances went I could trace no sign of the love-lorn maiden. Onlyfrom her talk did I diagnose a more than customary unrest. The war wasover. Hospitals were closed. Her occupation (like Lackaday's) was gone. England was no place for her. It was divided into two social kingdomsseparated by a vast gulf--one jazzing and feasting and otherwiseSodom-and-Gomorrah-izing its life away, and the other growling, envious, sinister, with the Bolshevic devil in its heart. What could a woman withbrains and energy do? The Society life of the moment made her sick. A danceto Perdition. The middle classes were dancing, too, in ape-like imitation, while the tradesman class were clinging for dear life on to their shortskirts, with legs dangling in the gulf. On the other side, seething masseshowling worship of the Goddess of Unreason. Cross the gulf--one wouldmetaphorically be torn to pieces. Remain--no outlet for energy but playingthe wild Cassandra. Her pessimism was Tartarean. 

"General Lackaday, the last time I saw him, agreed with me that the war wasa damned sight better than this. "

It was the first time she had mentioned him. Lady Verity-Stewart and Iexchanged glances. 

She went on. Not a monologue. We all made our comments, protests and whatnot. But in the theatre phrase we merely fed her, instinctively feeling forthe personal note. On ordinary occasions very subtly aware of such tactics, she seemed now to ignore them. She rose to every fly. Public life forwomen? 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 onesocial class which had the profoundest contempt for woman as an intelligentbeing it was the labouring population. 

For Heaven's sake remember, I am only giving you Lady Auriol's views, asexpressed over the dinner table. What mine are, I won't say. Anyhow theydon't amount to a row of pins. 

Lady Auriol continued her Jeremiad. Suppose she did stand for Parliament, and got in for a safe Conservative constituency. What would happen? Shewould be swept in to the muddiest and most soul-destroying game on God'searth. No, my dear friends, no. No politics for her. Well, what then? weasked. 

"Didn't you say something about--what was it, dear--Borneo?" asked LadyVerity-Stewart. 

"I don't care where it is, Aunt Selina, " cried Lady Auriol. "Anywhere outof this melting-pot of civilization. But you can't get anywhere. Therearen't any ships to take you. And there's nowhere worth going to. The wholeof this miserable little earth has been exploited. "

"Thibet has its lonely spots. "

"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 youall seem to take such an interest in me, what s a woman like me to do inthis welter? Oh, give me the good old war again!"

Lady Verity-Stewart lifted horrified hands. Sir Julius rebuked herunhumorously. Lady Auriol laughed again and the Jeremiad petered out. 

"She's got it rather badly, " Charles murmured to me when the ladies hadleft the dining-room. 

But I was not going to discuss Lady Auriol with Charles. I grunted andsipped my port and told a gratified host that I recognized the '81Cockburn. 

Sir Julius and Lady Verity-Stewart went to bed early after the sacramentalgame of bridge. Charles, obeying orders, followed soon afterwards. LadyAuriol and I had the field to ourselves. 

"Well?" said she. 

"Well?" said I. 

"You don't suppose these subtle diplomatists have left us alone to discussBolshevism or Infant Welfare?"

There was the ironical gleam in her eyes and twist in her lips that hadattracted me since her childhood. I have always liked intelligent women. 

"Have they been badgering you?"

"Good Lord, no. But a female baby in a pink sash would see what they'redriving at. Haven't they been discussing me and Andrew Lackaday?"

"They have, " said I, "and they're perfect dears. They've built up afairy-tale around you and have taken long leases in it and are terriblyanxious that the estate shan't be put into liquidation. "

"That's rather neat, " she said. 

"I thought so, myself, " said I. 

Stretched in an arm-chair she looked for some minutes into the glow of thewood fire. Then she turned her head quickly. 

"You haven't given me away?"

"My good girl!" I protested, "what do you take me for?"

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 fogabout myself then. I'm in clear weather now. I know my own mind. He's theonly man in the world for me. I suppose I've made it obvious. Hence thesolicitude of these pet lambs--and your appointment as Investigator. Well, my dear Tony, what do they want to know?"

"They're straining their dear simple ears to catch the strain of weddingbells and they can't do it. So they're worried. "

"Well, you can tell them not to worry any longer. There aren't going to beany wedding bells. They've made sentimental idiots of themselves. GeneralLackaday and I aren't marrying folks. The question hasn't arisen. We'regood intimate friends, nothing more. He's no more in love with me than I amwith him. Savvy?"

I savvied. But--

"That's for the pet lambs, " said I. "What for me?"

"I've already told you. "

"And that's the end of it?"

"As far as you are concerned--yes. "

"As you will, " I said. 

I put a log on the fire and took up a book. All this was none of mybusiness, as I had explained to Evadne. 

"I'm sorry you're not interested in my conversation, " she remarked after awhile. 

"You gave me to understand that it was over--as far as I was concerned. "

"Never mind. I want to tell you something. "

I laid down my book and lit a cigar. 

"Go ahead, " said I. 

It was then that she told me of her last interview with Lackaday. RememberI had not yet read his version. 

"It's all pretty hopeless, " she concluded. 

For myself I knew nothing of the reasons that bade him adopt the attitudeof the Mysterious Unknown--except his sensitiveness on the point of hisprofession. He would rather die than appear before her imagination in thegreen silk tights of Petit Patou. I asked tentatively whether he had spokenmuch of his civilian life. 

"Very little. Except of his knowledge of Europe. He has travelled a greatdeal. 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 thathe had no kith or kin in the world. If he had thought fit to tell me morehe would have done so. I, of course, asked no questions. "

"But all the same, " said I, "you're dying to know the word of the enigma. "

She laughed scornfully. "I know it, my friend. "

"The deuce you do!" said I, thinking of Petit Patou and wondering how shehad guessed. "What is it?"

"A woman of course. "

"Did he tell you?" I asked, startled, for that shed a new light on thematter. 

"No. " She boomed the word at me. "What on earth do you suppose was themeaning of our talk about playing the game?"

"Well, my dear, " said I, "if it comes to that, do you think it was playingthe game for him, a married man with possibly a string of children, to comedown here and make love to you?"

She flared up. "He never made love to me. You've no right to say such athing. If there was any love-making, it was I that made it. Ninety per centof 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 theleast. As soon as I set my eyes on him I said 'That's the man I want, ' andI soon saw that I could give him what he never had before--and I kept himto me, so that I could give it him. And I gloried in it. I don't carewhether he has ten wives or twenty children. I'm telling you because"--shestarted up and looked me full in the face--"upon my word I don't knowwhy--except that you're a comfortable sort of creature, and if you knoweverything you'll be able to deal with the pet lambs. " She rose, held outher hand. "You must be bored stiff. "

"On the contrary, " said I, "I'm vastly interested--and honoured, my dearAuriol. But tell me. As all this sad, mad, glad affair seems to have cometo a sudden stop, what do you propose to do?"

"I don't know, " she replied with a half laugh. "What I feel like doing isto set out for Hell by the most adventurous route. "

She laughed again, shook hands. "Good night, Tony. " And she passed outthrough the door I held open for her. 

I finished my cigar before the fire. It was the most unsatisfactory romanceI had come across in a not inexperienced career. Was it the green silktights or the possible woman in the background that restrained the gallantGeneral? Suppose it was only the former? Would my Lady Auriol jib atthem? She was a young woman with a majestic scorn for externals. In herunexpectedness she might cry "Motley's the only wear" and raise him everhigher in his mountebankic path. .. . I was sorry for both of them. They weretwo such out-of-the-way human beings--so vivid, so real. They seemed tohave a preordained right to each other. He, dry, stern, simple stick ofa man needed the flame-like quality that ran through her physicalmagnificence. She, piercing beneath the glamour of his soldierlyachievements, found in him the primitive virility she could fear combinedwith the spiritual helplessness to which she could come in her full womanlyand maternal aid. To her he was as a rock, but a living rock, vitalized bya myriad veins of sensitiveness. To him--well, I knew my Auriol--and couldquite understand what Auriol in love could be to any man. Auriol out oflove (and in her right mind) had always been good enough for me. 

So I mused for a considerable time. Then, becoming conscious of theflatness, staleness and unprofitableness of it all, as far as my elderlyselfishness was concerned, I threw my extinct cigar end into the fire, andthanking God that I had come to an age when all this storm and fuss overa creature of the opposite sex was a thing of the past, and yet with anunregenerate pang of regret for manifold what-might-have-beens, I put outthe lights and went to bed. 

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 LadyAuriol. 

"Good dog, " she said. 

I returned to London on Monday morning. When next I heard of her, shewas, I am thankful to say, not on the adventurous path to the brimstoneobjective of her predilection, but was fooling about, all by herself, ina five-ton yacht, somewhere around the Outer Hebrides, in the foulest ofweather. 

In the days of my youth I was the victim of a hopeless passion andmeditated suicide. A seafaring friend of mine suggested my accompanying himon his cargo steamer from the Port of London to Bordeaux. It was blazingsummer. But I was appallingly sea-sick all the way, and when I set foot onland I was cleansed of all human emotion save that of utter thankfulnessthat I existed as an entity with an un-queasy stomach. I was cured for goodand all. 

But a five-ton yacht off the Outer Hebrides in bleak tempests--No, it wastoo heroic. Even my dear old friend Burton for all his wit and imaginationhad never devised such a _remedia amoris_, such a remedy for LoveMelancholy. 

And then came June and with it the manuscript and all the flood ofinformation about the Agence Moignon and Bakkus and Petit Patou andPrépimpin and Elodie and various other things that I have yet to set down. 

Chapter XIV

While Lady Auriol Dayne was rocking about the Outer Hebrides, we findAndrew Lackaday in Paris confronted with the grim necessity of earning alivelihood. His pre-war savings had amounted to no fortune, and in spiteof Elodie's economy and occasional earnings with her birds, they werewell-nigh spent. The dearness of everything! Elodie wrung her hands. Whereonce you had change out of a franc, now you had none out of a five-francnote. He could still carry on comfortably for a year, but that would be theend of it. 

When he propounded the financial situation, Elodie did not understand. 

"I must work, " said he. 

"But Generals don't work, " she protested incredulously. 

Even the war had developed little of the Marseilles _gamine's_conceptions of life. A General--she knew no grades--a modest Brigadierranking second only to a Field Marshal--was a General. He commanded anarmy. A military demigod invested with a glamour and glory which, _ipsofacto_, of its own essence, provided him with ample wealth. And once aGeneral, always a General. The mere fact of no longer being employed in thecommand of armies did not matter. The rank remained and with the rank thegolden stream to maintain it. According to popular legend the Orientalascetic who concentrates his gaze on the centre of his body and histhoughts on the syllable "Om" arrives at a peculiar mental condition. Sothe magic word on which she had so long meditated, had its hypnotic effecton Elodie. 

And when he had patiently explained--

"They give you nothing at all for being a General?" she almost screamed. 

"Nothing at all, " said Andrew. 

"Then what's the good of being a General?"

"None that I can see, " he replied with his grim smile. 

Elodie's illusions fell clattering round about her ears. Not her illusionsas to Generals, but her illusions as to Andrew and British militaryprestige. It was a strange army that no longer acknowledged its highcommanders--a strange country that could scrap them. Were British Generalsreal, like French Generals, Lyautey and Manoury and Foch before he became_Maréchal?_ She was bitterly disappointed. She had lived for nearly ayear in Andrew's glory. Now there seemed to be no shine in it whatever. Hewore no uniform. He received no pay. He was a mere civilian. He had to workfor his living like any demobilized poilu who returned to his counter orhis conductor's step on the tramway. And she had made such a flourish amongall her acquaintance over _son mari le général_. She went off byherself and wept. 

The cook whom she had engaged, coming to lay the cloth in the tinydining-room found her sobbing with her arms on the table. What was thematter with Madame?

"_Ah, ma pauvre Ernestine, je suis bien malheureuse_. "

Ernestine could think of only one cause for a lady's unhappiness. HadMonsieur le Général then been making her infidelities? All allowancesshould be made for the war. On every side she had heard tales of theeffects of such long separations. But, on the other hand, she had heard ofmany reconciliations. Apply a little goodwill--that was all. Monsieur leGénéral was a man, _comme tout le monde_. She was certain that theobject of his warrior fancy was not worth Madame--and he would quicklyrealize the fact. She only had to make much of him and give him everythinghe liked to eat. As soon as the stream of words ceased Elodie vehementlydenounced the disgusting state of her mind. She must have a foul characterto think such things. She bade her haughtily to mind her own business. Whythen, asked the outraged Ernestine, did Madame declare she was miserable?To invite sympathy and then reject it did not argue a fine character on thepart of Madame. Also when a woman sits down and weeps like a cow, _monDieu_, there must be a reason. Perhaps if Monsieur was not at fault, then--

"I order you to be silent, " stormed Elodie, interrupting the intolerablesuggestion. "My reasons you couldn't possibly understand. Get on with yourwork and set the table. "

She made a dignified exit and returned to the _salon_ where Andrew waswriting. 

"Ah, these servants--since the war! The insolence of them!"

"What have they been doing now?" he asked sympathetically. 

She would not say. Why worry him with such vulgarities? But thehousekeeper's life, these days, was not an easy one. "_Tiens_, " shecried, with a swift resolve, "I'll tell you all. What you said aboutyourself, a general only in name, rejected and cast on the world withoutmoney made me very unhappy. I didn't want you to see me cry. So I went intothe _salle à manger_--"

And then a dramatic reproduction of the scene. The insolence of the woman!Andrew rose and drew out his pocket-book. 

"She shall go at once. What's her wages?"

But Elodie looked at him aghast. What? Dismiss Ernestine? He must be mad. Ernestine, a treasure dropped from Heaven? Didn't he know that servantsdid not grow like the leaves on the trees in the Champs Elysées? Andcooks--they were worth their weight in gold. In the army he could say to anorderly "_Fiche-moi le camp_, " because there were plenty ofothers. But in civil life--no. She forbade him to interfere in domesticarrangements, the nice conduct of which she had proved herself perfectlycapable of determining. And then, in her queer, twisted logic, she said, clutching the lapels of his coat and looking up into his face:

"And it's not true what she said? You have never made me infidelities?"

He passed his delicate hand over her forehead, and smiled somewhat wearily. 

"You may be sure, my dear, I have been faithful to you. "

She glanced away from him, somewhat abashed. Now and then his bigsimplicity frightened her. She became dimly aware that the report of thecook's chatter had offended the never comprehended delicacies of his soul. She murmured:

"_Je te demande bien pardon, André_. "

"There's no reason for that, my dear, " said he. 

She went over to her birds. Andrew resumed his writing. But after a minuteor two his pen hung idle in his hand. Yes. He had spoken truly. He had beenfaithful to her in that he had fled from divine temptation. For her sake hehad 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 hisheart, a dead-weight, maybe, but one which he could not in honour or commonhumanity 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 asLady Auriol Dayne knew, as far as anyone on this earth knew, his feelingstowards her were nothing more than those of a devoted and grateful friend. So does the well-intentioned ostrich, you may say, bury its head andimagine itself invisible. But the ostrich is desperately sincere--and sowas Andrew. 

Presently he turned. 

"If that woman says such vulgarities again, she must go at once. "

"I shall see that she has no opportunity, " said Elodie. 

 * * * * *

For a time Andrew sought in France that which he had failed to find inEngland; but with even less chance of success. The gates to employment inEngland had been crowded with demobilized officers. Only the fortunate, theyoung content with modest beginnings, those with money enough to start newavocations, had pushed through. These had been adventurers like himself. The others had returned to the office or counting-house or broad acres fromwhich they had sprung. In France he found no employment at all; the gatesround which the demobilized wistfully gathered, led no whither. As at theWar Office, so at military head-quarters in Paris. Brass-hatted friendswrung him warmly by the hand, condoled with his lot, and genially gave himto 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 wereplenty going, but as to their nature they confessed vagueness. He had putin for several, said he, but had always been turned down. The friends shooktheir heads. In Paris nothing doing. Andrew walked away sadly. Perhapsa spirit proof against rebuffs, a thick-skinned persistence, might haveeventually prevailed in London to set him on some career in the socialreconstruction of the world. His record stood, and needed only unblushingflaunting before the eyes of Authority for it to be recognized. But AndrewLackaday, proud and sensitive, was a poor seeker after favour. All hispromotion and his honour had come unsought. He had hated the braggadocio ofthe rainbow row of ribbons on his khaki tunic, which Army discipline aloneforced him to wear. It was Elodie, too, who had fixed into his buttonholesthe little red rosette of the Officer of the Legion. That at least he coulddo for her. .. . Success, such as it was, before the war, he had attainedhe knew not how. The big drum of the showman had ever been an engine ofabhorrence. Others had put him on the track of things, Elodie, Bakkus. .. . He had sternly suppressed vulgarity in posters. He had never intrigued likemost of his craft for press advertisement. Over and over again had Bakkussaid:

"Raise a thousand or two and give it to me or Moignon to play with andwe'll boom you into all the capitals of the earth. There's a fortune inyou. "

But Andrew, to whom publicity was the essence of his calling, would havenone of it. He did his work and conducted his life in his own way, earnestand efficient. 

In the war, of course, he found his real vocation. But he passed out ofthe war as unknown to the general public as any elderly Tommy in a Labourbattalion. Never a photograph of him had appeared in the illustratedpapers. The head of a great Government department, to whom Lady Auriol hadmentioned his name, had never heard of it. And when she suggested that theState should hasten to secure the services of such men, he had repliedeasily:

"Men of his distinction are as thick as blackberries. That's how we won thewar. "

Unknown to Lackaday she had tried to see what influence she could command. Socially, as the rather wild-headed daughter of an impoverished and obscureEarl, she could do but little. She too was a poor intriguer. She could onlydemand with blatant vividness. Once on a flying visit to Lord Mountshire, she tried to interest him in the man whom, to her indignation, he persistedin styling her protégé. He still, she urged, had friends in high places, even in the dreadful Government at which he railed. 

"Never heard of the man, " he growled. "Lackaday--Lackaday--" he shook hiswhite head. "Who was his father?"

She confessed that she didn't know. He was alone in the world. He hadsprung from Nowhere. The old Earl refused to take any interest in him. Suchfellows always fell on their feet. Besides, he had tried to put in a wordfor young Ponsonby--and had got snubbed for his pains. He wasn't going tointerfere any more. 

She learned that the appointment of a soldier would be made to a vacantcolonial governorship. A certain general's recommendation would carryweight. She passed the information on to Andrew. This she could do withoutoffending his pride. 

"Very sorry, my dear fellow, " said the General. "You're the very man forthe job. But you know what these Colonial office people are. They will havean old regular. "

As a matter of fact they appointed another Brigadier who had started thewar with a new Yeomanry commission, a member of a well-known family with awife who had seen to it that neither his light nor hers should be hiddenunder a bushel. 

In the frantic scramble for place, the inexperienced in the methods ofthe scrum were as much left out in the cold as a timid old maid at whatAmericans call a bargain counter. He stood lost behind the throng and hisonly adviser Lady Auriol stood by his side in similar noble bewilderment. 

On his appointment to a Brigade, Bakkus had written:

"I'm almost tempted to make your fortune in spite of yourself. What asensation! What headlines! 'Famous Variety Artist becomes a General. 'Companion pictures in the _Daily Mail_, Petit Patou and Brigadier-General Lackaday. Everybody who had heard of Petit Patou would be mad tohear of General Lackaday, and all who had heard of soldier Andrew wouldbe crazy to know about Petit Patou. You'd wake up in the morning likeByron and find yourself famous. You'd be the darling hero of the BritishEmpire. But you always were a wooden-headed idiot. .. . "

To which Andrew had replied in raging fury, to the vast entertainment ofHoratio Bakkus. 

All of this to show that, notwithstanding his supreme qualities of personalcourage, command and military intuition, Andrew Lackaday as a would-besoldier of fortune proved a complete failure. For him, as he presentedhimself, the tired world, in its nebulous schemes of reconstruction, had noplace. 

Every day, when he got home, Elodie would ask:

"_Eh bien?_ Have you found anything?"

And he would say, gaunt and worried, but smiling: "Not yet. "

As the days passed her voice grew sharper, until it seemed to carry thereproach of the wife of the labourer out of work. But she never pressed himfurther. She knew his moods and his queer silences and the inadvisabilityof forcing his confidence. In spite of her disappointment and disillusion, some of the glamour still invested him. A man of mystery, inspiringa 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 wasthe kind and courteous ghost of the Sergeant and the Major with whom shehad made high festival during the war. 

At last, one afternoon, he cast the bomb calmly at her feet. 

"I've just been to see Moignon, " said he. 

"_Eh bien?_"

"He says there will be no difficulty. "

She turned on him her coarse puzzled face. "No difficulty in what?"

"In going back to the stage. "

She sank upon the yellow and brown striped sofa by the wall and regardedhim open-mouthed. 

"_Tu dis?_"

"I must do like all other demobilized men--return to my trade. "

Elodie nearly fainted. 

For months the prospect had hung over them like a doom; ever since thebrigade which he commanded in England had dissolved through demobilization, and he, left in the air, had applied disastrously to the War Office forfurther employment. He had seen others, almost his equal in rank, sweptrelentlessly back to their old uninspiring avocations. A Bayard of aColonel of a glorious battalion of a famous regiment, a fellow withdecorations barred two or three times over, was now cooped up in hissolicitor's office in Lothbury, E. C. , breaking his heart over thepettifoggery of conveyances. A gallant boy, adjutant at twenty-two in thecompany 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 aPublic School. One of his old seconds in command was resuming his awfulfrock-coated walk down the aisles of a suburban drapery store. The flabby, soulless octopus of civil life reached out its tentacles and draggedall these heroic creatures into its maw of oblivion. Then another, adistinguished actor, and a more distinguished soldier, a man with alegendary record of fearlessness, had sloughed his armour and returned tothe theatre. That, thought he, was his own case. But no. The actor tookup the high place of histrionic fame which he had abandoned. He was theexponent 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 hishard-gained knowledge of life rejected the sophistry. To hold an audiencespell-bound by the interpretation of great human emotion was a differentmatter from making a zany of oneself and, upside down, playing aone-stringed fiddle behind one's head, and uttering degraded sounds throughpainted grinning lips in order to appeal to the inane sense of humour ofthe grocer and his wife. No. There was all the difference in the world. Thecomparison filled him less with consolation than with despair. The actor, mocking the octopus below, had calmly stepped from one rock pinnacle toanother. He himself, Andrew Lackaday, in the depths, felt the irresistiblegrip of the horror twining round his middle. 

Put him in the midst of a seething mass of soldiery, he could command, straighten out chaos into mechanical perfection of order, guide willing menunquestioned into the jaws of Hell; put him on the stage of a music-halland he could keep six plates in the air at a time. Outside these twospheres he could, as far as the world would try him, do nothing. He hadto live. He was young, under forty. The sap of life still ran rich in hisveins. And not only must he live, but the woman bound to him by a hundredties, the woman woven by an almost superstitious weft into his earlycareer, the woman whose impeccable loyalty as professional partner hadenabled him to make his tiny fortune, the woman whose faithful affectionhad persisted through the long years of the war's enforced neglect, the woman who without his support--unthinkable idea--would perish frominanition--he knew her--Elodie must live, in the comfort and freedom fromanxiety to which the years of unquestioning dependence had accustomed her. Cap and bells again; there was no other way out. 

After all, perhaps it was the best and most honest. Even if he had found asemi-military or administrative career abroad, what would become of Elodie?Not in a material sense, of course. The same provision would be made forher welfare as during the last five years. But the abnormal state of warhad made normal their separation. In altered circumstances would she nothave the right to cry out against his absence? Would she not be justifiedin the eyes of every right-thinking man? Yet the very conditions of such anappointment would prevent her accompanying him. The problem had appearedinsoluble. Desperately he had put off the solution till the crisis shouldcome. But he had felt unhappy, shrinking from the possibility of baseaction. The thought of Elodie had often paralysed his energy in seekingwork. Now, however, he could face the world with a clear conscience. He hadcut himself adrift from Lady Auriol and her world. Fate linked him for everto Elodie. All that remained was to hide his honours and his name under thecloak of Petit Patou. 

It took him some time to convince Elodie of the necessity of returning tothe old life. She repeated her cry that Generals do not perform on themusic-hall stage. The decision outraged her sense of the fitness of things. She yielded as to an irresistible and unreasoning force. 

"And I then? Must I tour with you, as before?" she asked in dismay, for shewas conscious of increased coarseness of body and sluggishness of habit. 

He frowned. "It is true I might find another assistant. "

But she quickly interrupted the implied reproach. She could not fail him inher duty. 

"No, no, I will go. But you will have to teach me all over again. I onlyasked for information. "

"We'll begin rehearsals then as soon as possible, " he replied with a smile. 

A few days afterwards, Bakkus, who had been absent from Paris, enteredthe _salon_, with his usual unceremoniousness, and beheld an oddspectacle. The prim chairs had been piled on the couch by the wall, thetable pushed into a corner, and on the vacant space, Elodie, in her olddancer's practising kit, bodice and knickerbockers, once loose but now skintight to grotesqueness, and Andrew in under vest and old grey flannels, were perspiringly engaged with pith balls in the elementary art of thejuggler. Elodie, on beholding him, clutched a bursting corsage with bothhands, uttered a little squeak and bolted like an overfed rabbit. Bakkuslaughed out loud. 

"What the devil----? Is this the relaxation of the great or the aberrationsof the asylum?"

Andrew grinned and shook hands. "My dear old chap. I'm so glad you've comeback. Sit down. " He shifted the table which blocked the way to the twoarm-chairs by the stove. "Elodie and I are getting into training for thenext campaign. " He mopped his forehead, wiped his hands and, with the oldacrobat instinct, jerked the handkerchief across the room. "You're lookingvery well, " said he. 

"I'm splendid, " said Bakkus. 

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 comfortableliving. His hair, now quite white, brushed back over the forehead, wasneatly trimmed. His sallow cheeks had lost their gaunt hollows, his darkeyes, though preserving their ironical glitter, had lost the hunger-litgleam of wolfishness. 

"Have you signed a Caruso contract for Covent Garden?" laughed Andrew. 

"I've done better. At Covent Garden you've got to work like the devilfor your money. I've made a contract with my family--no work atall. Agreement--just to bury the hatchet. Theophilus--that's theArchdeacon--performed the Funeral Service. He has had a stroke, poor chap. They sent for me. "

"Elodie told me, " said Andrew. 

"He has been very good to me during the war. Otherwise I should havebeen reduced to picking up cigar ends with a pointed stick on theBoulevards--and a damn precarious livelihood too, considering the shortageof tobacco in this benighted country. He took it into his venerable headthat he was going to die and desired to see me. Voltaire remorse on hisdeath-bed, you know. "

"I fail to follow, " said the literal Andrew. 

"All his life he had lived an unbeliever in ME. Now your militaryintelligence grasps it. My brother Ronald, the runner of the Pawnee Indian, head-flattening system of education, and his wife, especially his wife, thedaughter of a lay brother of a bishop who has got a baronetcy for makingan enormous fortune out of the war, wouldn't have me at any price. ButTheophilus must have muttered some incantation which frightened them, sothey surrendered. Poor old Theophilus and I had a touching meeting. He'sabout as lonely a thing as you could wish to meet. He married an Americanheiress, who died about eight years ago, and he's as rich as Croesus. We'rebosom friends now. As for Mrs. Ronald I sang her songs of Araby includingGounod's 'Ave Maria' with lots of tremolo and convinced her that I'm asaintly personage. It's my proud boast that, on my account, Ronald andherself never spoke for three days. I spent a month in the wilds ofWestmorland with them, and as soon as Theophilus got on the mend--he'salready performing semi-Archidiaconal functions--I put my hands over myeyes and fled. My God, what a crowd! Give me a drink. I've got four weeks'arrears to make up. "

Andrew went into the _salle à manger_ and returned with brandy, syphonand glasses. Helping Bakkus he asked:

"And now, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing, my friend, absolutely nothing. I wallow in the ill-gottenmatrimonial 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 myhogs. It is the Art of Life. "

"Well, here's to you, " said Andrew, lifting up his glass. 

"And to you. "

Bakkus emptied his glass at a draught, breathed a sigh of infinite contentand held it out to be refilled. 

"And now that I've told you the story of my life, what about you? What'sthe meaning of this--" he waved a hand--"this reversion to type?"

"You behold Petit Patou redivivus, " said Andrew. 

Bakkus regarded him in astonishment. 

"But, my dear fellow, Generals can't do things like that. "

"That's the cry of Elodie. "

"She's a woman with whom I'm in perfect sympathy, " said Bakkus. 

Elodie entered, cooler, less dishevelled, in her eternal wrapper. Sherushed up to Bakkus and wrung both his hands, overjoyed to see him. He mustpardon her flight, but really--she was in a costume--and not even till shetook it off did she know that it was split--Oh, _mon Dieu!_ Rightacross. With a sweep of the hand she frankly indicated the locality of thedisaster. She laughed. Well, it was good that he had arrived at last. Hewould be able to put some sense into André. He a General, to go back to thestage. It was crazy! He would give André advice, good counsel, that waswhat he needed! How André could win battles when he was so helpless inother things, she could not understand. She seized him by the shoulders andsmiled into his face. 

"_Mais toi qui es si intelligent, dis quelque chose_. "

"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 saythis. It is time for _déjeuner_. I am intoxicated with the sense ofpecuniary plenitude, I invite you both to eat with me on the Boulevardswhere we can discuss these high matters. "

"But it is you that are crazy, " cried Elodie, gasping at the unprecedentedproposal which in itself shook, like an earthquake, her intimatelyconstructed conception of Horatio Bakkus. And on the Boulevards, too!Her soul rose up in alarm. "You are wanting in your wits. One can't eatanywhere--even at a restaurant of the second class--under a hundred francsfor three persons. "

Bakkus, with an air Louis Seize, implied that one, two or three hundredfrancs were as dirt in his fingers. But Elodie would have none of it. Shewould be ashamed to put so much money in her stomach. 

"I have, " said she, "for us two, eggs _au beurre noir_ and a_blanquette de veau_, and what is enough for two is enough for three. And you must stay and eat with us as always. "

"I wonder, " said Bakkus, "whether Andrew realizes what a pearl you are. "

So he stayed to lunch and repeated the story of his good fortune, to whichElodie listened enraptured as to a tale of hidden treasure of which hewas the hero, but never a word could he find in criticism of Andrew'sdetermination. The quips and causticities that a couple of years ago wouldhave flowed from his thin, ironical lips, were arrested unformulated at theback of his brain. He became aware, not so much of a change as of a swiftdevelopment of the sterner side of Andrew's character. Of himself he couldtalk sardonically enough. He could twit Elodie with her foibles in his oldway. 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, yetpreoccupied, strangely aloof, the easy cynic felt curiously afraid. Andwhen Elodie taxed him with pusillanimity he glanced at Andrew. 

"He has made up his mind, " he replied. "Some people's minds are made up ofsand and water. Others of stuff composed of builders' weird materialsthat harden into concrete. Others again have iron bars run through themass--reinforced concrete. That's Andrew. It's a beast of a mind to dealwith, as we have often found, my dear. But what would you have? The animalis built that way. "

"You flatter me, " grinned Andrew, "but I don't see what the necessity ofearning bread and butter has to do with a reinforced-concrete mind. "

"It's such an undignified way of earning it, " protested Elodie. 

"I think, " said Bakkus, "it will take as much courage for our poor friendto re-become Petit Patou, as it took for him to become General Lackaday. "

Andrew's face suddenly glowed and he shot out his long arm with his bonywrists many inches from his cuff and put his delicate hand on Bakkus'sshoulder. 

"My dear fellow, why can't you always talk like that?"

"I'm going to, " replied Bakkus, pausing in the act of lighting one ofElodie's special reserve of pre-war cigars. "Don't you realize I'm justtransplanted from a forcing bed of High Anglican platitude?"

But Elodie shrugged her fat shoulders in some petulance. 

"You men always stick together, " she said. 

Chapter XV

The unventilated dressing-room of the Olympia Music-Hall in Marseillesreeked of grease paint, stale human exhalations, the acrid odour, creepingup the iron stairs, of a mangy performing lion, and all manner ofunmentionable things. The month of June is not the ideal month to visitMarseilles, even if one is free to pass the evening at a café table onthe Cannebière, and there is a breeze coming in from over the sea; but incopper-skied thundery weather, the sirocco conditions of more southerlylatitudes, especially when one is cooped up in a confined and airlessspace, Marseilles in June can be a gasping inferno. Andrew, in spite ofhard physical training, was wet through. His little white-jacketed dresser, says he, perspired audibly. There was not so much air in the dressing-roomas tangible swelter. 

He sat by the wooden table, in front of a cracked and steaming mirror, thecontents of his make-up box laid out before him, and (save for one privatedress rehearsal carried out in surroundings of greater coolness andcomfort) transformed himself, for the first time, from General Lackadayinto the mountebank clown, Petit Patou. The electric lights that shouldhave illuminated the mirror were not working--he had found, to hisdiscomfort, that manifold things in post-war France refused to work--andtwo candles fainting into hopeless curves took their place. Anxiously overa wet skin he painted the transfiguring lines, from lip corner to ear, fromnostril to eye, from eye to brow, once the mechanical hand-twist of a fewmoments--now the painfully concentrated effort of all his faculties. 

He finished at last. The swart and perspiring dresser dried his limbs, heldout the green silk high-heeled tights which reached to his armpits. Thenthe grotesque short-sleeved jacket. Then the blazing crimson wig rising tothe point of its extravagant foot height. He felt confined within a red-hottorture-skin, a Nessus garment specially adapted to the use of discardedBrigadier-Generals. He sat on the straight-backed chair and looked roundthe nine foot square flyblown room, with its peeling paper and itsstrained, sooty skylight, which all the efforts of himself and thedresser had failed to open. It was Mademoiselle Chose, the latter atlast 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 brokencords. 

"Tell the manager that if it is not unnailed tomorrow, I shall smash a holein it, " said Andrew. 

It did not matter now. In a few moments he would be summoned from thesuffocating den, and then, his turn over, he would dress quickly and emergeinto the open air. Meanwhile, however, he gasped in the heat and the heavyodour of the place; his head ached with an intolerable pain round histemples and at the back of his eyeballs; and acute nervousness gripped hisvitals. 

Presently the call-boy put his head in the doorway. Andrew rose, descendedthe iron stairs to the wings. Instinctively he went to the waiting table, covered with green velvet and gold, on which lay piled the once familiarproperties--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 thejuggler's apparatus, and methodically checked them. In the visible shaftof brilliantly lit stage he could see the back of the head and the plumpshoulders and tournure of a singer rendering in bravura fashion the JewelSong from "Faust. " The stillness whence arose this single flood of soundseemed almost uncanny. The superheated air thickened with hot human breathand tobacco smoke stood stagnant like a miasma in the unventilated wingsand back of the stage. The wild beast smell of the lion, although his cagehad been hurriedly wheeled out through the scenery door, still persistedand 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 tiptoedabout like perspiring ghosts. One of the latter approached Andrew. MonsieurPatou need have no fear, he whispered. Everything was arranged--thebeautiful ballroom interior--the men who were to set the stage had theirorders, also the lime-light operators. Andrew nodded, already having givenexplicit instructions. The singer vanished from the quivering streak ofstage, 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 "_bis, bis!_" She reappeared, glowing vaporously in her triumph, and spread outher arms before the pallid man in the hard felt hat. 

"Well! What did I say? You made difficulties about offering me anengagement. 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--"Theyare mad about me. I go on again. "

"_Mais non, madame_. Three songs. That is your contract. The programmeis long. "

So spake the assistant manager. But the lady snapped her fingers, heardlike 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. "

The assistant manager released himself from responsibility, yielded towoman's unreason, and the lady, who had arranged the matter with the leaderof the orchestra, returned in contemptuous triumph to the stage. 

Elodie, meanwhile, had descended and stood by Andrew's side. She wore avery low-cut and short-skirted red evening frock, so tight that she seemedto ooze distressingly from every aperture. A red rose drooped in her thickblack hair. Like the lank green-clad Andrew, she betrayed anxiety beneathher heavy make-up. The delay to their turn, prolonging her suspense, causedher to stamp her foot with annoyance. 

"The _sale grue!_ and she sings like a duck. "

"She pleases the audience, " whispered Andrew. 

"And ruins our reception. It is the last straw. "

"It can't be helped, " said Andrew. 

The singer gave as her encore a song from "La Traviata. " She certainly hadthe mechanical technique so beloved by French audiences. That of Olympialistened spell-bound to her trills and when she had finished broke oncemore into enthusiastic cheering, calling and recalling her two or threetimes. At last the curtain came finally down and she disappeared up theiron staircase. 

The interior backcloth and wings provided for Les Petit Patou were letdown, stage hands set the table and properties, Andrew and Elodie anxiouslysupervising, and when all was clear the curtain went up. Andrew went onalone and grinned familiarly, his old tradition, before the sea of faces. Afew faint hand-claps instead of the old expectant laughter welcomed him. Ageneration had apparently risen that knew not Petit Patou. His heart sank. The heat of the footlights shimmered like a furnace and smote him withsudden lassitude. He began his tricks. Took his tiny one-stringedbroomstick handled fiddle and played it with his hands encased ingrotesquely long cotton gloves. Presently, with simulated impatience, hedrew off the gloves, threw them, conjurer fashion, vanishing into the air, and then resumed his violin to find himself impeded now and then by variousarticles cunningly fixed to his attire, one after another of which hedisposed of like the gloves. Finally in his perplexity he made as if toundo 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, wherethey were caught by the waiting Elodie. The act, once arousing merriment, fell flat. Andrew's heart sank lower. In itself the performance, which hehad 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 idioticself-satisfaction when each impediment was discovered and discarded. Hadhe lost that personal touch, merely gone through his conjuring with themechanical precision of a soldier on parade? Heavens, how he hated himselfand his aching head and the audience and the lay out of futile properties!Elodie appeared. The performance must continue. He threw into it all hisenergy. Elodie gave him her old loyal support. They did their famous cigartrick, developed from the act of Prépimpin. He had elaborated much of thecomic business. The new patter, with up-to-date allusions, had resultedfrom serious conclave with Horatio Bakkus, whose mordant wit supplied manya line that should have convulsed the house. But the house refused to beconvulsed. His look of vacant imbecility when one after another of a setof plates with which he juggled, disappeared, being fastened to an elasticcontrivance to his back, and his expression of reproach when, turningElodie round, he discovered her wearing the plates as a sort of basque, which once excited, on no matter what stage, rolling guffaws of mirth, nowpassed by unappreciated. 

The final item in the programme was one invented and brought to mechanicalperfection just before the war broke out. He insisted on playing his cigarbox and broom-handle fiddle in spite of Elodie's remonstrances. There wasa pretty squabble. He pulled and she pulled, with the result that bothbow and handle, by a tubular device, aided by a ratchet apparatus for thestrings, assumed gigantic proportions. Petit Patou prevailing, after analmost disastrous fall, perched his great height on chair superimposed ontable, and, with his long lean legs and arms, looking like a monstrous andhorrible spider, began to work the heavy bow across the long strings. Hehad rehearsed it to perfection. In performance, something happened. Hisartist's nerve had gone. His fingers fumbled impotently for the stops. Hisprofessional experience saved a calamitous situation. With an acrobat'sstride he reached the stage, telescoped fiddle and bow to normalproportions, and after a lightning nod to the _chef d'orchestre_, played the Marseillaise. At the end there was half-hearted perfunctoryapplause. A light hearted section of every audience applauds anything. Butmingled with it there came from another section a horrible sibilant sound, the stage death warrant of many an artist's dreams, the modern down-turnedthumb of the Roman populace demanding a gladiator's doom. 

The curtain fell. Blank silence now from its further side. A man swiftlybundled together the properties and drew them off. A tired looking man inevening 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 uponthe stage. Andrew and Elodie moved clear and at the bottom of the ironstaircase he motioned to her to ascend first. She clutched him by the armand gulped down a sob. 

"Mon pauvre vieux!"

He tried to smile. "Want of habit. We'll get it all back soon. _Voyons_"--he took her fat chin in his hand and turned up her face, onwhich make-up, perspiration and tears melted into one piteous paste. "Thisis not the way that battles are won. "

On the landing they separated. Andrew entered his sweltering dressing-roomand gave himself over to the little dresser who had just turned out thedog-trainer in his shabby evening suit. 

"Monsieur had a good reception?"

"Good enough, " said Andrew, stretching himself out for the slipping off ofhis tights. 

"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 Olympiawouldn'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 mansighed--"it was heart-breaking. "

Andrew let him talk; obviously the hisses had mounted from the wings to thedressing-room corridors; the man meant well and kindly. When he had dressedand appeared in his own Lackaday image, he put a twenty-franc note into thedresser's hand with a "Thank you, my friend, " and marched out and away intothe comparatively fresh air of the sulphurous night. He lit a cigarette andsat down at the corner of a little obscure café, commanding a view of thestage-door and waited for Elodie. His nervousness, even his headache, hadgone. He felt cold and grim and passionless, like a man measuring himselfagainst fate. 

When Elodie came out, a while later, he sat her down at the table, andinsisted on her drinking a _Grog Américain_ to restore her balance. But iced rum and water could not medicine an overwrought soul. In hernative air, nothing could check her irrepressibility of expression. Shehad to spend her fury with the audience. In all her life never had sheencountered such imbecility--such bestial stupidity. Like the dresser, sheupbraided the war. It had changed everything. It had changed the heartof France. She, Marseillaise of the Marseillais, was ashamed of being ofMarseilles. Once the South was warm and generous and responsive. Now it wascolder than Paris. She had never imagined that the war could press like adead hand on the heart of the people of Provence. Now she knew it was truewhat Bakkus had once said--she had been very angry, but he wasright--that through the sunny nature of every child of the Midi swept the_mistral_. 

She was not very consecutive or coherent or logical. She sought clamorouslyfor every evil influence, postwar, racial, political, that could accountfor the frozen failure of the evening's performance. No thought disloyalto André hovered on the outskirts of her mind. He perceived it, greatlytouched. 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 wristheld up as a signal of arrest:

"The fault is not that of France, or Marseilles, my dear Elodie. Perhapsthe war may have something to do with it. But the fault is mine. "

She waved away so insane a suggestion. Went into details. How could it behis fault when the night's tricks were as identical with the tricks whichused to command applause as two reproductions of the same cinema film? Asfor the breakdown of the new trick with the elongated violin and bow, shehad seen where the mechanism had not worked properly. A joint had stuck;the audience had seen it too; an accident which could happen anywhere; thathad nothing to do with the failure of the entertainment. The failure lay inthe mental and moral condition of the degraded post-war audience. For allher championing, Andrew shook his head sadly. 

"No. Your cinema analogy won't hold. The fault's in me, and I'm sorry, mydear. "'

He tried to explain. She tried to understand. It was hopeless. He knew thathe had lost, and had not yet recovered, that spiritual or magnetic contactwith his audience which is the first element in artistic success, be theartistry never so primitive. The audience, he realized full well, hadregarded him as a mechanical figure executing mechanical antics which inthemselves had no particular claim on absorbing human interest. The eternalappeal, the "held me with his eye" of the Ancient Mariner, was wanting. Andthe man trained in the school of war saw why. 

They walked to their modest hostelry. He had shrunk from the great hotelswhere the lounges were still full of men in khaki going or coming fromoverseas--among whom he would surely find acquaintances. But he no longerdesired to meet them. He had cut himself clean adrift from the oldassociations. He told me that Bakkus and I were his only correspondents. Henceforth he would exist solely as Petit Patou, flinging General Lackadaydead among the dead things of war. .. . Besides, the great hotels ofMarseilles cost the eyes of your head. The good old days of the comfortablecar and inexpensive lodging had gone apparently for ever, and he had tofall back on the travel and accommodation of his early struggling days. 

Elodie continued the discussion of the disaster. His face wore its wry grinof discomfiture; but he said little. They must go on as they had begun. Perhaps things would right themselves. He would lose his loathing of hismountebank trade and thus win back the sympathy of his audience. 

Before they separated for the night she flung her arm protectingly roundhim and kissed him. 

"They shall applaud you, _mon vieux_, I promise you. "

He laughed. Again her faith touched him deeply. 

"You have not changed since our first meeting in the Restaurant Garden atAvignon. You are always my mascot, Elodie!"

The menacing thunder broke in the night, and all the next day it rainedpitilessly. Two or three morning hours they spent at the music-hall, rehearsing, so that no physical imperfection should mar the eveningperformance. The giant violin worked with the precision of a Stradivarius. All that human care could do was done. They drove back to the hotel tolunch. Elodie lounged for the rest of the afternoon in her room, with acouple of love-birds for company--the rest of the aviary in the Saint-Denisflat being under the guardianship of Bakkus; and Andrew, with his cleareddressing-table for a desk, brought up-to-date the autobiographicalmanuscript which for the past few months had solaced so many hours ofenforced leisure. Then they dined and proceeded to the music-hall, Elodiedefiant, with a flush on her cheek, Andrew with his jaw set in a sort ofhopeless determination. 

The preparations of the preceding evening repeated themselves. The rain hadslightly cooled the air, but the smell of drains and humanity and leakygas-pipes and the mangy lion, still caught at Andrew's throat. The littledresser, while investing him in the hated motley, pointed proudly to theopen skylight. He himself had mounted, at great personal peril, to theroof. One was not a Chasseur Alpin for nothing. O yes, he had gone allthrough the war. He had the military medal, and four chevrons. Had MonsieurPatou seen any service? Like everybody else, said Andrew. It was good toget back to civil life and one's ordinary tasks, said the dresser whomthe change in the weather perhaps had rendered more optimistic. Was notMonsieur Patou glad to return to the stage? A man's work, what? The war wasfor 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. Hestood up, once more, in his zany garb, and, looking in the mirror, lostsight of himself for a poignant second while the dressing-room changed intoan evil-smelling dug-out, dark save for one guttering candle stuck in abottle, and in the shadows he saw half a dozen lean, stern faces lit withthe eyes of men whom he was sending forth to defy death. And every one ofthem hung upon his words as though they were a god's. The transient visionfaded, and he became aware again of the grotesque and painted clowngibbering meaninglessly out of the glass. 

He strode down the iron stairs. There was the table of properties waitingin the wings. There came Elodie to join him. There, in the fiercely lightedstrip of stage, the back, cut by the wing, of the singer with the voiceof the duck, ending the "Jewel Song. " Then came the applause, the nowundisputed encore, the weary nervous wait. .. . Such had been his life nightafter night in unconsidered, undreamed-of monotony--before the war. .. Suchwould be his life henceforward--changeless, deadly, appalling. 

At last, he went on. Through the mysterious psychological influence whichone audience has on another, his reception was even more frigid thanbefore. Elodie made her entrance. The house grew restless, inattentive, Andrew flogged his soul until he seemed to sweat his heart's blood. Hereand there loud talking and hoarse laughter rose above the buzz and rustleof an unappreciative audience. Elodie's breast heaved and her face grewpallid beneath its heavy paint, but her eyes were bright. 

"_Allons toujours_, " Andrew whispered. 

But in the famous cigar act he missed, for the first time since the far offrehearsals after the death of Prépimpin, when the fault was due to Elodie'slack of skill. But now, she threw it fair. It was he who missed. Thelighted cigar smote him on the cheek. The impossibility of the occurrencestaggered him for a second. But a second on the stage is an appreciablespace of time, sufficient for the audience to pounce on his clumsiness, toburst into a roar of jeering laughter, to take up the cruelty of the hiss. 

But before he could do anything Elodie, coarse and bulging out of her shortred bodice and skirt, her features contorted with anger, was in front ofthe footlights, defying the house. 

"_Lâches!_" she cried. 

The word which no Frenchman can hear unperturbed cut the clamour like atrumpet call. There was sudden silence. 

"Yes. Cowards. You make me ashamed that I am of Marseilles. To you ademobilized hero is nothing. But instead of practising his tricks duringthe war to amuse you, he has been fighting for his country. And he hasearned this. " She flashed from her bosom a white-enamelled cross dependingfrom a red ribbon. "_Voilà!_ Not _Chevalier_--but _Officier dela Légion d'Honneur!_" With both pudgy arms outstretched she held theaudience for the tense moment. "And from simple soldier to General ofBrigade. And that is the Petit Patou whom you insult. " She threatened themwith the cross. "You insult France!"

Reaction followed swift on her lightning speech. The French audience, sensitive to the dramatic and the patriotic, burst into tumultuousacclamation. Elodie smiled at them triumphantly and turned to Andrew, whostood at the back of the stage, petrified, his chin in the air, at the fullstretch of his inordinate height, his eyes gleaming, his long thin lipstightened so that they broke the painted grin, his hands on his hips. 

Now if Elodie had carried out the plan developed during the night she couldthen and there have died happily. Exulting in her success, she tripped upthe stage to Andrew, the clasp of the decoration between finger and thumb, hoping to pin it on his breast. The applause dropped, the house hoveringfor an instant on the verge of anti-climax. But Andrew, with a flash ofrage and hatred, waved her away, and strode down to the footlights, tearingoff his grotesque wig and revealing his shock of carroty hair. His soul wassick with horror. Only the swift silence made him realize that he was boundto address the audience. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, " said he, "I thank you for your generosity to me asa soldier. But I am here to try to merit your approbation as an artist. Forwhat has just happened I must ask you to pardon a woman's heart. "

He remaned for a while glaring at them. Then, when the applause came to anend, he bowed, half ironically and gave a quick, imperious order, at whichthe curtain was rung down amid an uproar of excitement. He strode into thewings followed by Elodie starry-eyed, and stood panting. The curtain roseas if automatically. The manager thrust him towards the stage. 

"They want you, " he cried. 

"They can go to the devil, " said Andrew. 

Regardless of the clamour, he stalked with Elodie to the foot of the ironstairs. On their way they passed the waxed moustachioed trainer of theperforming dogs. 

"A good _coup de théâtre_, Madame, " he remarked jealously. 

Andrew glowered down on him. 

"You say, Monsieur----?"

But the dog trainer meeting the eyes burning in the painttd face, thoughtit best to say nothing, and Andrew mounted the stairs. Elodie followedhim into his dressing-room palpitating with excitement and perplexity andclutching both his arms looked wildly into his face. 

"You are not pleased with me?"

For a moment or two he regarded her with stupid hostility; then, getting agrip on himself, he saw things from her point of view and realized her witand her courage and her devotion. It was no fault of hers that she had nonotion of his abhorrence of the scene. 

He smiled. 

"It is only you who could have dared, " he said. 

"I told you last night they should applaud you. "

"And last night I told you you are always my mascot. "

"If it only weren't true that you love me no longer, " said Elodie. 

The dresser entered. Elodie slipped out. Andrew made a step, after her tothe threshold. 

"What the devil did she mean by that?" said he, after the manner of men. 

Chapter XVI

She did not repeat the reproach, nor did Andrew put to her the questionwhich he had asked himself. The amicable placidity unruffled by quarrel, which marked their relations, was far too precious to be disturbed by anunnecessary plumbing of emotional depths. As far as he could grapple withpsychological complexities, there had been nothing between them, throughall the years, of the divine passion. She had come to him disillusioned andweary. He had come to her with a queer superstitious gratitude for help inthe past and a full recognition of present sympathy and service. As theFrench say, they had made together _un bon ménage_. Save for a fewhalf-hysterical days during the war--and in that incomprehensible pre-warperiod at the end of which the birds came to her rescue, there had beenlittle talk of love and dreams of delight and the rest of the vaporousparadise of the mutually infatuated. He could not manifest, nor did shedemand, a lover's ardour. It had all been as comfortable and satisfactoryas you please. And now, at the most irrelevant moment, according to hismasculine mind, came this cry of the heart. 

But was it of the heart? Did it not rather proceed from childishdisappointment at his lack of enthusiastic praise of her splendid exploit?As I say, he judged it prudent to leave the problem unsolved. Of theexploit itself, needless to remark, she talked interminably. Generous andkind-hearted, he agreed with her arguments. Of the humiliation she hadwrought for him, he allowed her to have no notion. 

He shivered all night at the degradation of his proudest honour. It hadbeen gained, not as one of a batch of crosses handed over to the Britishmilitary authorities for distribution, but on the field. He had come, witha handful of men, to the relief of a sorely pressed village held by theFrench; somehow he had rallied the composite force, wiped out two or threenests of machine guns and driven out the Germans; as officer in commandhe had consolidated the village, so that, when the French came up, he hadhanded it over to them as a victor. A French general had pinned the crosson his breast on a day of wind and rain and bursting shell, on a vastplain of unutterable devastation. The upholding of it before the mob ofMarseilles had been a profanation. In these moments of anguished amazementhe had suffered as he had never suffered in his life before. And he hadbeen helpless. Before he realized what was being done, Elodie, in hertempestuous swiftness, had done it. It was only when she came to fix thecross on his breast that his soul sprang to irresistible revolt. He couldhave taken her by the throat and wrung it, and flung her away dead. 

Thus, they were infinite leagues asunder. She met what amounted to wearilyindulgent forgiveness when she had fully expected to reap the golden meedof heroism. 

The next morning, she went about silent, perplexed, unhappy. By her strokeof genius she had secured for him a real success. If he had allowed her tocrown the dramatic situation by pinning on the cross, his triumph had beensuch as the stage had never seen. 

"Why didn't you let me do it?" she asked. 

"To complete a work of art, " said he, "is always a mistake. You must leavesomething to the imagination. "

"But I did right. Tell me I did right. "

Denial would have been a dagger thrust through a loyal heart. 

"You acted, my dear, " said he, "like a noble woman. "

And she was aware of a shell which she could not pierce. From their firstintimate days, she had always felt him aloof from her; as a soldier duringthe war she had found him the counterpart of the millions of men who hadheroically fought; as an officer of high rank, as a General, she had stood, in her attitude towards him, in uneducated awe; as a General demobilizedand a reincarnation of Petit Patou, he had inspired her with a familiaritybred not of contempt--that was absurd--but of disillusion. And now, toher primitive intelligence, he loomed again as an incomprehensible beingactuated by a moral network of motives of which she had no conception. 

He escaped early from the little hotel and wandered along the quaysencumbered with mountains of goods awaiting transport, mighty crates offoodstuffs, bales of hay, barrels of wine from Algiers. Troops and sailorsof all nations mingled with the dock employees who tried to restore orderout of chaos. Calm goods trains whistled idly by the side of ships or onsidings, the engine drivers lounging high above the crowd in Olympianindifference. 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 andother sea-faring things reeking shorewards under the blazing sun, Andrewcould hide himself from the reputable population of the town. In theconfusion of a strange world he could think. His life's unmeaningnessoverwhelmed him; he moved under the burden of its irony. In that she hadhurled insulting defiance at a vast, rough audience, Elodie had done avaliant thing. She had done it for love of him. His failure to respond hadevoked her reproach. But the very act for which she claimed due reward wasa stab to the heart of any lingering love. 

And yet, he must go on. There was no way out. He had faced facts ever sincethe days of Ben Flint--and Elodie was a fact, the principal fact in hislife. Curious that she should have faded into comparative insignificanceduring the war--especially during the last two years of it when he had notseen her. She seemed to have undergone a vehement resurrection. The shadowof the war had developed into the insistent flesh and blood of peace. 

He wandered far over the quay, where the ancient Algiers boat was on thepoint of departure, crammed with red-tarbooshed troops, zouaves, colonials, swarthy Turcos and Spahis, grinning blacks with faces like polishedboots, all exultant in the approaching demobilization. The grey-blue massglistened with medals. The blacks were eating--with the contented merrimentof children at a Sunday School treat. Andrew smiled at many memories. Black troops seemed always to be eating. As he stood watching, porters andpack-laden blue helmeted poilus jostled him, until he found a small oasisof quiet near the bows. Here a hand was clapped on his shoulder and a voicesaid:

"Surely you're Lackaday?"

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 streetsof the town, he had found in the wilderness--an acquaintance. It was oneArbuthnot, an Australian colonel of artillery who, through the chances ofwar, had rendered his battalion great service. A keen, sparely built manmade of leather and whipcord, with the Australian's shrewd blue eyes. 

They exchanged the commonplaces of greeting. 

"Demobilized?" said Andrew. 

"Thank Heaven. "

"You seem glad. "

"Good Lord! I should think so. Aren't you glad it's all over?"

"I don't quite know, " said Andrew, smiling wistfully. 

"Well, I am, " declared Arbuthnot. "It was a beastly mess that had tobe cleared up, and now it's done as far as my little responsibility isconcerned. I'm delighted. I want to get back to my wife and family and leadthe life of a human being. War's a dog's life. It has nothing to recommendit. It's as stupid and senseless as a typhoon. " He laughed. "What are youdoing here?"

Andrew waved a hand. "Putting in time. "

"So am I. Till my boat sails. I thought before I left I'd look at a merrierend of France. By Gosh! They're a happy crowd"--he pointed to the packedmass on board the ancient tub of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. 

"You share their feelings, " said Andrew. 

Arbuthnot glanced at him keenly. 

"I heard they made you a Brigadier. Yes? And you've chucked it?"

"I'm a civilian, even as you are, " said Andrew. 

Arbuthnot pushed back his hat and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. 

"For goodness' sake let us get out of this and sit down somewhere and havea talk. "

He moved away, Andrew following, and hailed a broken down cab, a victoriawhich had just deposited a passenger by the steamer's side. 

"To the Cannebière, " said he, and they drove off. "If you have anything todo, please tell me. But I know nobody in this furnace of a town. You're agodsend. "

A while afterwards they were seated beneath the awning of a crowded café onthe Cannebière. Ceaseless thousands of the globe's population passed by, from the bare-headed, impudent work girls of Marseilles, as like each otherand the child Elodie as peas in a pod, to the daintily costumed maiden;from the feathered, flashing quean of the streets to the crape encumberedfigure of the French war-widow; from the abject shuffler clad in flappingrags and frowsy beard to the stout merchant dressed English fashion, ingrey flannels and straw hat, with two rolls of comfortable fat above hissilk collar; from the stray British or American private perspiring in khakito splendid officers, French, Italian, Roumanian, Serbian, Czecho-Slovak, be-medalled like the advertisements of patent foods; from the middleaged, leaden pipe laden Marseilles plumber, in his blue smock, to theblue-uniformed Senegalese private, staring with his childish grin, atthe multitudinous hurrying sights of an unfamiliar crowd. Backwards andforwards they passed in two thick unending streams. And the roadway clashedwith trams following each other, up and down, at fraction of a secondintervals, and with a congestion of waggons, carts, cabs, automobiles, waiting patiently on the pleasure of these relentless, strident symbols ofdemocracy. 

In his troubled mood, Andrew found Arbuthnot also a godsend. It was good totalk once more with a man of his own calibre about the things that hadonce so intensely mattered. He lost his shyness and forgot for a time hisanxieties. The rushing life before him had in its way a soothing charmto one resting, as it were, on the quiet bank. It was good, too, totalk English--or listen to it; for much of the talking was done by hiscompanion. 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 homenear Sydney. Of the Solomon Islands, where he spent the few healthy monthsof the year growing coco-nuts for copra and developing a pearl fishery. A glorious, free existence, said he. And real men to work with. Everyable-bodied white in the Solomon Islands had joined up--some hundred andsixty 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. Buthe was looking forward to seeing some of the old hard-bitten faces in thoseisles of enchantment. 

"I thought, " said Andrew, "that it rained all the year round on the SolomonIslands; that they were so depressing, in fact, that the natives ate eachother to keep up their spirits. "

Arbuthnot protested vehemently. It was the loveliest climate in the worldduring the time that white folk stayed there. Of course, there was a rainyseason, but then everybody went back to Australia. As for cannibals--helaughed. 

"If you're at a loose end, " said he, "come out with me and have a lookround. It will clear the war out of your system. "

Andrew held a cigarette between the tips of his fingers and looked at thecurling smoke. The picture of the reefs and surfs and white sands andpalm-trees of these far off islands rose, fascinating, before his eyes. Andthen he remembered that he had once a father and mother--and a birth-place. 

"Curiously enough, " said he, "I am Australian born. "

He had scarcely ever realized the fact. 

"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. "

He offered boundless hospitality. Andrew grew more wistful. He thankedArbuthnot. But----

"I'm a poor man, " said he, "and have to earn my living at my old job. "

"And what's that?"

"I'm a music-hall artist, " said Andrew. 

"You? Good Lord! I thought you had been a soldier all your life. One of theold contemptibles. "

"I enlisted as a private in the Grenadier Guards, " smiled Andrew. 

"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?"

Andrew winched at the intimate question of the frank and direct Australian. Last night's scene swept across his vision, hateful and humiliating. 

"I have no choice, " said he. 

As before, on the quay, Arbuthnot looked at him, keenly. 

"I don't think you do like it. I've met hundreds of fellows who feel justthe same as you. I'm different, as I told you. But I can understand theother point of view. Perhaps I should kick if I had to go back to a pokyoffice, instead of a free, open-air life. After all, we're creatures ofcircumstance. "

He paused to light a cigar. Andrew made no reply, and the conversationaltopic died a natural death. They talked of other things--went back toArras, the Somme, Saint Quentin. Presently Arbuthnot, pulling out hiswatch, suggested lunch. Andrew rose, pleading an engagement--his dailyengagement with Elodie at the stuffy little hotel table d'hôte. But theother 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 thefree air of Flanders and Picardy. He went indoors to the telephone. Elodie, eventually found, responded. Of course, her poor André must have his littlepleasure. He deserved it, _mon Dieu!_ It was _gentil_ of him toconsult her. And it had fallen out quite well, for she herself could noteat. The stopping had dislodged itself from one of her teeth which wasdriving 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 realisticdetails of the wreck of the gold stopping on the praline stuffing of achocolate. Then an anguished "_Ne me coupez pas, Mademoiselle_. "But Mademoiselle of the Exchange cut ruthlessly, and Andrew returned toArbuthnot. 

"I'm at your service, " said he. 

Arbuthnot put himself into Lackaday's hands. The best place. The bestfood. It was not often he had the honour of entertaining a British Generalunawares. Andrew protested. The other insisted. The General was his guest. Where should they go? Somewhere characteristic. He was sick of the foodat grand hotels. It was the same all the world over--Stockholm, Tokio, Scarborough, Melbourne, Marseilles. 

"Marseilles has nothing to boast of in the way of cookery, " said Andrew, "save its bouillabaisse. "

"Now what's that?" cried Arbuthnot. "I've sort of heard of it. "

"My dear fellow, " said Andrew, with his ear-to-ear grin. "To live inMarseilles and be innocent of bouillabaisse is like having gone through thewar without tasting bully beef. "

He was for dragging him to the little restaurant up a side street in theheart of the town which is the true shrine of bouillabaisse. But Arbuthnothad heard vaguely of another place, celebrated for the dish, where onecould fill one's lungs as well as one's stomach. 

"The Reserve. "

"That's it. Taxi!" cried Arbuthnot. 

So they drove out and sat in the cool gallery of the Reserve, by a windowtable, and looked on the blue Mediterranean, and the wonderous dish wasset before them and piously served by the maître d'hôtel. Rascasse, Loup-de-mer, mostelle, langouste . .. A studied helping of each in a soupplate, then the sodden toast from the tureen and the ladles of clear, rich, yellow liquid flavoured with saffron and with an artist's inspiration ofgarlic, the essence of the dozen kinds of fish that had yielded up theirbeing to the making of the bouillabaisse. The perfect serving of it is aceremonial in the grand manner. 

Arbuthnot, regarding his swimming plate, looked embarrassed. 

"Knife, fork and spoon, " said Andrew. 

They ate for a while in silence. Then Arbuthnot said:

"Do you remember that wonderful chapter in Meredith's _Egoist_ whenSir Willoughby Patterne offers the second bottle of the Patterne Port toDoctor Middleton, Clara's father--and the old fellow says: 'I have but agirl to give?' Well, I feel like that. This is the most wonderful eatingthat humanity has ever devised. I'm not a glutton. If I were I should havesampled this before. I'm just an uncivilized man from the bush overwhelmedby a new sensation. I'm your debtor, General, to all eternity. And yourgenius in recommending this wine"--he filled Andrew's glass with Cinzano'sAsti Spumante--"is worthy of the man who saw us out at Bourdon Wood. By theway, " he added, after a pause, "what really happened afterwards? I knew yougot through. But we poor devils of gunners--we do our job--and away we goto loose off Hell at another section and we never get a clear knowledge ofthe results. "

"I'll tell you in a minute, " said Andrew, emptying the salt cellars andrunning a trench-making finger through the salt, and disposing pepper pots, knives and spoons and supplementing these material objects with lead pencillines on the table-cloth--all vestiges of the bouillabaisse had beencleared away--"You see, here were the German lines. Here were theirmachine-guns. "

"And my little lot, " said Arbuthnot, tapping a remote corner, "wassomewhere over here. "

They worked out the taking of Bourdon Wood. A médallion de veauperigourdine, a superimposition of toast, foie gras, veal and truffles, interrupted operations. They concluded them, more languidly, before thecheese. The mild mellow Asti softened their hearts, so that at the end ofthe exquisite meal, in the mingled aroma of coffee, a cigarette, and thehaunting saltness of the sea, they spoke (with Andrew's eternal reserve)like brothers. 

"My dear fellow, " said Arbuthnot, "the more I talk to you the moreimpossible 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?"

"I have no capital, " said Andrew. 

"You don't need much--a few thousands. "

He might have said a few millions for all Andrew's power to command such asum. The other continued his fairy-tale of the islands. They were going toboom one of these near days. Fortune lay to the hand of the man who came infirst. Labour was cheap, the world was shrieking for copra, the transportdifficulty would soon adjust itself---and then a dazzling reward. It wasquite possible, he suggested with some delicacy, to find financial aid, andin the meantime to do management work on a salary, so as to keep himselfgoing. The qualities which made him a General were just those which outthere would command success. And, Australian born, as he was, he couldclaim a welcome among his own people. 

"I can guarantee you a living, anyhow, " said the enthusiast. "Think itover, and let me know before the Osway sails. "

It was a great temptation. If he were a free man, he would have cast offthe garb of Petit Patou for ever and gone to seek fortune in a new worldwhere he could unashamedly use his own name and military rank among men whodid men's work and thought all the better of a man for doing the same. Andalso he became conscious of a longing to leave France for a season. Francewas passing through a post-war stage of disgruntlement and suspicion, drawing tight around her feet her tri-coloured skirts so that they shouldnot be touched by the passing foreigner. France was bleeding from herwounds--weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. TheEnglishman in Andrew stood hurt and helpless before this morbid, convulsivenationalism. Like a woman in certain emotional states she were better leftalone for awhile, till she recovered and smiled her benevolent graciousnessagain. 

Yet if he remained Petit Patou he must stay in France, the land of hisprofessional adoption. From appearing on the English stage he shrank, withmorbid sensitiveness. There was America, where he was unknown. .. . AlreadyMoignon was in touch, on his behalf, with powerful American agencies. Justbefore he left Paris Moignon had said: "They are nibbling for the winter. "But it was all vague. France alone appeared solid--in spite of thedisasters of these first two nights. 

"I wish to God, " he cried suddenly, after a long silence, "I wish to God Icould cut everything and come with you. "

"What prevents you?" asked Arbuthnot. 

"I have ties, " said he. 

Arbuthnot met the grim look on his face which forbade further questioning. 

"Ah!" said he. "Still, " he added with a laugh, "I'm at the Hôtel deNoailles till Friday. That is to say----"

He explained that he was going the next day to Monte Carlo, which he hadnever seen, to spend a night or two, but would return in good time for thesailing of the Osway and the hearing of General Lackaday's final decision. 

On their drive back to Marseilles, Arbuthnot, during a pause in their talk, said:

"What I can't understand is this. If you're on the music-hall stage, whatthe deuce are you doing in Marseilles?"

"I'm here on business with my partner, " Andrew replied curtly. "If itweren't for that--a business engagement--I would ask you to spend theevening with me, " he added. "What are you going to do?"

"I went to the theatre last night. What else is there?"

"They have an excellent Revue at the El Dorado. Go there. "

"I will, " said Arbuthnot. 

Andrew breathed freely, relieved from the dread lest this genial andunsuspecting brother in arms should wander into Olympia and behold--what?What kind of a performance? What kind of a reception? All apart frombeholding him in his green silk tights and painted face. 

They parted at the Hôtel de Noailles. The Australian shook him warmly bythe hand. 

"This has been one of the great days of my life, " said he, with his franksmile. "The day when I return and you tell me you're coming with me, willbe a greater. "

Andrew walked away in a glow. Here was a man of proved worth, proved in thefurnace 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 agenerosity acceptable under the unwritten law of that 'Brotherhood'sFreemasonry, had opened his way to freedom and a man's hie. Whether hecould follow the way or not was another matter. The fact of the generousopening remained; a heartening thing for all time. 

You may perhaps remember that, in the introductory letter which accompaniedthe manuscript and is quoted at the beginning of this record of the doingsof Andrew Lackaday, he remarks:

"At the present moment I am between the devil and the deep sea. I am hopingthat the latter will be the solution of my difficulties. "

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 bedroomwith closed windows and drawn shutters. He was between the Devil of PetitPatou-ism and the Deep Sea beyond which lay the Fortunate Isles where menwere men and coco-nuts were gold and where the sweat could roll down yourleather skin undefiled with greasepaint. 

When he had finished writing, he dined with a curiously preoccupied thoughpain-relieved Elodie. He attributed her unusual mood either to anxiety asto their reception at Olympia, after the previous night's performance, orto realization of the significance of her indiscretion. She ate little, drank less, and scarcely spoke at all. 

They reached the music-hall. Andrew changed into his tights. The littledresser retailed the gossip of the place. Elodie had undoubtedly causeda sensation. The dresser loudly acclaimed Madame's action as a _beaugeste_. 

"In these days of advertisement one can't afford to be so modest, _mongénéral_, " said he. "And I, for example, who committed the stupidityof asking whether you had served in the war! To-night we are going to seesomething quite different. "

Andrew laughed. Haunted by the great seas and the Solomon Islands and thepalm trees, he found himself scarcely interested in his reception. Theaudience could talk and cough and hiss as much as they liked. He hadpractically told them to go to the devil last night. He was quite ready, ifneed be, to do it again. He was buoyed up by a sublime indifference. 

The singer was ending her encore from "La Traviata" when he went down theiron stairs. Elodie met him punctually, for they had agreed to avoid thedreary wait. As soon as the stage was set and the curtain up, he went onand was greeted by a round of applause. Somehow the word had been passedround the populace that formed the Olympia clientèle. Thenceforward theperformance went without a hitch, to the attentive gratification of theaudience. There was no uproarious demonstration; but they laughed in theright places and acclaimed satisfactorily his finale on the giant violin. They gave him a call, to which he responded, leading Elodie by the hand. 

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. 

"Now all goes well. Confess I was right. "

He turned at the bottom of the stairs. 

"Yes. I confess. You did what was right to make it go well. "

She scanned his face to read his meaning. Of late he had grown soremote and difficult to understand. He put his arm round her kindly andsmiled--and near by his smile, painted to the upper tip of each ear, wasgrotesquely horrible. 

"Why yes, little goose. Now everything will go on wheels. "

"That is true?" she asked anxiously. 

"I swear it, " said he. 

When they reached the hotel, she swiftly discarded the walking clothes andslipped on her wrapper in which only was she the real Elodie, and went tohis room and sat on the little narrow bed. 

"_Mon ami_, " said she, "I have something to tell you. I would notspeak this afternoon because it was necessary that nothing should disturbyour performance. "

Andrew lit a pipe and sat down in the straight-backed arm-chair. 

"What's the matter?"

"I had to wait an hour at the dentist's. Why those people say one o'clockwhen they mean two, except to make you think they are so busy that they doyou a favour to look inside your mouth, and can charge you whatever theylike--thirty francs, the monster charged me--you ought to go and tell himit was a robbery--"

"My dear, " he interrupted, thus cutting out the predicate of her rhetoricalsentence, "you surely couldn't have thought a dentist's fee of thirtyfrancs would have put me off my work?"

She threw up her arms. "Mon Dieu! Men are stupid! No. Listen. I had towait an hour. I had to distract myself--well--you know the supplement to_L'Illustration_ that has appeared every week during the war--thepages of photographs of the heroes of France. I found them all collectedin a portfolio on the table. Ah! Some living, but mostly dead. It washeart-breaking. And do you know what I found? I found this. I stole it. "

She drew from her pocket peignoir a crumpled page covered with vignettephotographs of soldiers, a legend underneath each one, and handed it toAndrew, her thumb indicating a particular portrait. 

"There! Look!"

And Andrew looked and beheld the photograph of a handsome, vastmustachioed, rake-helly officer of Zouaves, labelled as Captain RaoulMarescaux, who had died gloriously for France on the twenty-sixth of March, 1917. 

For a second or two he groped for some association with a far distant past. 

"But don't you see?" cried Elodie. "It is my husband. He has been dead forover two years. "

Chapter XVII

The real discussion between them of the change that the death of RaoulMarescaux might bring about in their relations, did not take place tillthe next day. Each felt it as a sudden shock which, as in two chemicalshitherto mingling in placid fluidity, might cause crystallization. Up tothis point, the errant husband, vanishing years before across the seas incompany with a little modiste of the Place de la Madeleine, had been but ashadow, less a human being than a legal technicality which stood in way oftheir marriage. 

Occasionally during the war each had contemplated the possibility of thehusband being killed. A mere fleeting speculation. As Elodie had receivedno official news of his death--which is astonishing in view of the FrenchRepublic's accuracy in tracing the _état civil_ of even her obscurestcitizens--she presumed that he was still alive somewhere in the Shadow Landin which exist monks and Papuans and swell-mobsmen and other members of thehuman race with whom she had no concern. And Andrew had been far too busyto give the fellow whose name he had all but forgotten, more than a passingthought. But now, there he was, dead, officially reported, with picture anddescription and distinction and place and date all complete. The shadow hadmelted into the definite Eternity of Shadows. 

Andrew rose early, dressed, and, according to his athletic custom, took hisswinging hour's walk through the streets still fresh with the lingeringcoolness of the night, and then, after breakfast, entered Elodie's room. But she was still fast asleep. She seldom rose till near midday. It wasonly after lunch, a preoccupied meal, that they found the opportunity fordiscussion, in the little stuffy courtyard of the hotel, set round withdusty tubs of aloes and screened with a trellis of discontented vine. Theysat on a rustic bench by a door and then coffee was served on a blisterediron table once painted yellow. There were many flies which disturbed theslumbers of an old mongrel Newfoundland sprawling on the cobbles. 

And there he put to her the proposition which he had formulated during thenight. 

"My dear, " said he, "I have something very important to say to you. Youwill listen--eh? You won't interrupt?"

Coffee-cup in hand, she glanced at him swiftly before she sipped. 

"As you will. "

"Yesterday, " said he, "I met a comrade of the war, a Colonel of Australianartillery. I lunched with him, as you know. "

"_Bien_, " said Elodie. 

"I had a long talk with him. He made certain propositions. "

He repeated his conversation with Arbuthnot, described at second hand theSolomon Islands, the beauties of reef and palm, the delights of a new, free life and laid before her the guarantee of a competence and thepossibilities of a fortune. As he talked, Elodie's dark face grew sullenand her eyes hardened. When he paused, she said:

"You are master of your affairs. If you wish to go, you are free. I have noright to say anything. "

"You don't allow me to finish, " said he, smiling patiently. "I would not gothere without you. "

"_Moi?_" She shifted round on her seat with Southern excitability andpointed her finger at her bosom. "I go to the other end of the world andlive among savages and Australians who don't talk French--and I who knowno word of English or any other savage tongue? No, my friend. Ask anythingelse of me--I give it freely, as I have given it all these years. But notthat. "

"You would go with me as my wife, Elodie. We will get married. "

"_Pouf!_" said Elodie, contemptuously. 

Without any knowledge of the terminal values so precious to women, Andrewfelt a vague apprehension lest he had begun at the wrong end. 

"Surely, " said he, by way of reparation. "The death of your husband makes agreat difference. Now there is nothing to prevent our marriage. "

"There is everything to prevent it, " she replied. "You no longer love me. "

"The same affection exists, " said he, "that has always been between us. "

"Then we go on leading the life that we always have led. "

"I don't think it very satisfactory, " said Andrew. 

"I do, if it pleases us to remain together, we remain. If we want to say'Good-bye' we are free to do so. "

He noticed that she wrung her hands nervously together. 

"You don't wish to say 'good-bye, ' Elodie?" he asked gently. 

"Oh, no. It is only not to put ourselves into the impossibility of sayingit. "

"While you live, my dear, " he replied, "I could never say it to you. "

"If you went away to the Antipodes, you would have to say good-bye, my dearAndré, for I could not accompany you--never in life. I have heard of thesecountries. They may be good for men, but for women--no. Unless one isarchimillionaire, one has no servants. The woman has to keep the house andwash the floor and cook the meals. And that--you know well--I can't do. Itmay be selfish and a little unworthy but _mon Dieu!_--I have alwaysbeen frank--that's how I am. And except on tour abroad where we have livedin 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 anoccupation. '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 youtoo much. But now it is necessary for me to tell you what I have in myheart. You are free to go to what wild island you like--that is why itwould be absurd for us to marry--but it would be all finished between us. "

"That couldn't be, " said Andrew. "What would become of you?"

She averted her head and said abruptly, "Don't think of it. "

"But I must think of it. During the war----"

"During the war, it was different. _A la guerre comme à la guerre. _We knew it could not last for ever. You loved me. It was natural for me toaccept the support of _mon homme_, like all other women. But now, ifyou leave me--no. _N-i-n-i, nini, c'est fini. _"

So all Andrew's beautiful dreams faded into mist. He rose and crossedthe little cobbled courtyard and looked out for a while into the shabbyby-street in which the hotel was situated. That Elodie should accompany himwas the only feasible way, from the pecuniary point of view, of carryingout the vague scheme. 

It would be a life, at first, of some roughness and privation. Arbuthnothad laid the financial side quite clearly before him. He could not expectto land on the Solomon Islands without capital (and even a borrowedcapital) and expect an income of a thousand pounds a year to drop into hismouth. If Elodie, although refusing to accompany him, would accept hisallowance, that allowance, would, of arithmetical necessity, be far, farless than she had enjoyed during the war. Besides, although he was boundtentatively to suggest it, he knew the odd pride, the rod of steel throughher nature, which he had come up against, to his own great advantage, time after time during their partnership, and he would have been the mostastonished man in the world had she answered otherwise. 

Yes, the dream of coco-nuts and pearls had melted. She was right. Even hadshe consented, she would have been a ghastly failure in pioneer Coloniallife. 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 earna precarious livelihood with her birds, on this post-war music-hall stageavid for novelty of sensation, were an act as dastardly as that of the lateRaoul 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 dela Madeleine. 

He turned to find her dabbing her eyes with a couple of square inches ofchiffon which, in spite of its exiguity, had smeared the powder on herface. He sat down beside her, with his patient smile, and took her hand andpatted it. 

"Come, come, my little Elodie. I am not going to leave you. It was only anidea. If it had attracted you, well and good. But as it doesn't, let us sayno more about it. "

"I don't want to hinder you in your life, André, " she said brokenly. "_Çame donne beaucoup de peine_. But you see, don't you, that I couldn't doit?"

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?

She looked at him searchingly. "You desire it as much as that?"

"I desire earnestly, " said he, "to do what is right. "

"Are you sure that it doesn't come from the respectability of an EnglishGeneral?"

"I don't know how it comes, " he replied, hiding the sting of the shrewdthrust with a laugh, "but it's there, all the same. "

"Well, I'll think of it, " said Elodie, "but give me time. _Ne m'embêtepas. _"

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 thatphotograph?"

Elodie let her hand fall on her lap and regarded him with pityingastonishment. "_Mon Dieu!_ What do you expect a woman to be when shelearns that her husband, whom she thinks alive, has been killed two yearsago?"

Andrew gave it up. 

On the morning of the sailing of the Osway from Marseilles, he called onArbuthnot at the Hôtel de Noailles, and told him of his decision. 

"I'm sorry, " said Arbuthnot, "as sorry as I can be. But in case you care tochange your mind, here's my card. "

"And here's mine, " said Andrew, and he handed him his card thus inscribed

 MONSIEUR PATOU (_Combinaison des Petit Patou_) 3 rue Falda Faubourg Saint-Denis Paris

Arbuthnot looked from the card to Andrew and from Andrew to the card, insome perplexity. 

"Why, " said he, "I've seen your bills about the town. You're playing here!Why the deuce didn't you let me know?"

"I gave a better performance at Bourdon Wood, " said Andrew. 

Now hereabouts, I ought to say, the famous manuscript ends. Indeed, thislate Marseilles part of it was very hurried and sketchy. The main objectwhich 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, perhapsencourage, at any rate to stimulate the thoughts of many of my old comradeswho have been placed in the same predicament as myself" (as he says in theletter which accompanied the manuscript) he had abandoned as hopeless. Hehad merely jotted things down helter-skelter, diary fashion. I have had tosupplement these notes from his letters and from the confidential talkswhich we had, not very long after he had left Marseilles. 

From these letters and these talks also, it appears that the tour booked byMoignon did not prove the disastrous failure prognosticated by the firsttwo nights at Marseilles. Nowhere did he meet a prewar enthusiasm; but, onthe other hand, nowhere did he encounter the hostility of the Marseillesaudience. At Lyons, owing to certain broad effects, which he knew of old tobe acceptable to that unique, hard-headed, full-bellied, tradition-boundbourgeoisie, he had an encouraging success. He felt the old power return tohim--the power of playing on the audience as on a musical instrument. But at Saint-Etienne--a town of operatives--the performance wentdisappointingly flat. Before a dull or discontented audience he stoodhelpless. No, the old magnetic power had gone. 

However, he had recovered the faculty of making his livelihood somehow orother as Petit Patou, which, he began desperately to feel, was all thatmattered. His soul revolted, but his will prevailed. Elodie accompanied himin serene content, more flaccid and slatternly than ever in her hotel room, keenly efficient on the stage. 

Now it happened that, a while later, during a visit to some friends inShropshire 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 ofaction the elderly crock that is Anthony Hylton. Doctors drew undertakers'faces between the tubes of their stethoscopes as they jabbed about myheart, and raised their eyebrows over my blood pressure. 

Just at this time I had a letter from Lackaday. Incidentally he mentionedthat he was appearing in August at Clermont-Ferrand and that Horatio Bakkus(who, in his new prosperity, could afford to choose times and seasons) hadarranged to accept a synchronous engagement at the Casino of Royat. 

So while my medical advisers were wringing their hands over the practicalinaccessibility and the lack of amenity of Nauheim, whither they haddespatched me unwilling in dreary summers before the war, and while theywere suggesting even more depressing health resorts in the British Isles, it occurred to me to ask them whether Royat-les-Bains did not containbroken-down heart repairing works of the first order. They brightened up. 

"The place of all places, ' said they. 

"Write me a chit to a doctor there, " said I, "and I'm off at once. "

I did not care much about my heart. It has always been playing me tricksfrom the day I fell in love with my elder sister's French governess. ButI did care about seeing my friend Lackaday in his reincarnation as PetitPatou, and I was most curious to make the acquaintance of Elodie andHoratio Bakkus. 

Soon afterwards, therefore, behold me on my way to Clermont-Ferrand, ofwhich manufacturing town Royat is a suburb. 

Chapter XVIII

Without desiring to interfere with the sale of guide-books, I may say thatClermont-Ferrand is a great big town, the principal city of Auvergne, anddevotes itself to turning out all sorts of things from its factories suchas Michelin and Berguignan tyres, and all sorts of young lawyers, doctorsand schoolmasters from its university. It proudly claims Blaise Pascal asits distinguished son. It has gardens and broad walks and terraces alongthe old ramparts, whence one can see the round-backed pride (with itslittle 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 fineold seventeenth-century mansions hidden in mouldering court-yards behinddilapidated portes cochères; it has a beautiful romanesque Church in ahollow, and, on an eminence, an uninteresting restored cathedral whose twinspires dominate the town for miles around. By way of a main entrance, ithas a great open square, the Place de Jaude, the clanging ganglion of itstramway system, about which are situated the municipal theatre and thechief cafés, and from which radiate the main arteries of the city. On theentrance side rises a vast mass of sculpture surmounted by a statue ofVercingetorix, the hero of those parts, the gentleman over whose name wehave all broken our teeth when learning to construe Cæsar "_De BelloGallico_. " Passing him by for the first time, I should have liked toshake hands with him for old times' sake, to show my lack of ill feeling. 

Now that you all know about Clermont-Ferrand, as the ancient writers say, Iwill tell you about Royat. You take a tram from Vercingetorix and aftera straight mile you are landed at the foot of a cup of the aforesaidencircling mountains, and, looking around, when the tram refuses to goany further owing to lack of rails, you perceive that you are inRoyat-les-Bains. It consists, on the ground floor, as it were, of a whiteEtablissement des Bains surrounded by a little park, which is fringed onthe further side by an open-air concert platform and a theatre, of a fewrows of shops, and a couple of cafés. You could play catch with a cricketball 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 whirledupwards in a lift to the main floor, whence you look down on the green andtidy miniature place. 

From my room in the Royat Palace Hotel I had a view across the Park, beyondwhich I could see the black crowds pouring out of the Clermont-Ferrandtrams. The reason for this frenzied going and coming of human beingsbetween Clermont-Ferrand and Royat, I could never understand. I believetram-riding is a hideous vice. Just connect up by tramlines a place no oneever wants to go to with another no one ever wants to go from, and in aweek you will have the inhabitants of those respective Sleepy Hollowsrunning to and fro with the strenuous aimlessness of ants. Progressivepoliticians will talk to you of the wonders of transport. Well, transportor madness, what does it matter? I mean what does it matter to the courseof this narrative?

I had a pleasant room, I say, with a good view blocked above the tramterminus by a vine-clad mountain. I called on a learned gentleman who knewall about hearts and blood pressures, he prescribed baths and unpleasantwaters, and my cure began. All this by way of preamble to the statementthat I had comfortably settled down in Royat a week before Les Petit Patouwere billed to appear in Clermont-Ferrand. Having nothing in the world todo 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 indifferentsuccess) being at first my main practical pursuit. Then a natural curiosityleading me to enquire the whereabouts of the chief music-halls and vacantignorance manifesting itself on the faces of the policemen and waiterswhom I interrogated, I abandoned matches for the chase of music-halls. Eventually I became aware that I was pursuing a phantom. There were nomusic-halls. All had been perverted into picture palaces. I read Lackaday'sletter again. There it was as clear as print. 

"So we proceed on our pilgrimage; we are booked for Clermont-Ferrand forthe third week in August. I hate it--because I hate it. But I'm lookingforward to it because my now prosperous friend Bakkus has arranged to singduring my stay there, at the Casino of Royat. "

And sure enough the next day, they stuck up bills by the park gatesannouncing the coming of the celebrated tenor, Monsieur Horatio Bakkus. 

It was only later that the great flaming poster of a circus--TheCirque Vendramin--which had pitched its tent for a fortnight past atClermont-Ferrand, caught my eye. There it was, amid announcements of allsorts of clowns and trapezists and Japanese acrobats:

"Special engagement of the world famed eccentrics, Les Petit Patou. "

If I uttered profane words, I am sure the Recording Angel followed animmortal precedent. 

In order to spy out the land, I went then and there to the afternoonperformance. The circus was pitched in a disgruntled field somewhere nearthe dismally remote railway station. The tent was crowded with the goodinhabitants of Clermont-Ferrand who, since they could not buy sugar ormatches or coal for cooking, must spend their money somewhere. I scarcelyhad entered a circus since the good old days of the Cirque Rocambeau. And what a difference! They had a few uninspiring horses and riders forconvention sake. But the _haute école_ had vanished. Not even a rougedand painted ghost of Mademoiselle Renée Saint-Maur remained. It was aragged, old-fashioned acrobatic entertainment, with the mildewed humour ofantiquated clowns. But they had a star turn--a juggler of the school ofCinquevallis--an amazing fellow. And then I remembered having seen the nameon the last week's bill, printed in the great eighteen inch letters whichwere now devoted to Les Petit Patou. 

Next week Lackaday would be the star turn. But still. .. 

I went back to Royat feeling miserable. I was not elated by finding aletter from Lady Auriol which had been forwarded from my St. James's Streetchambers. She was in Paris organising something in connection with thedevastated districts. She reproached me for not having answered a letterwritten a month ago, written at her ancestral home where she had beensummoned to her father's gouty chair side. I might, she said, have had thepoliteness to send a line of condolence. .. . Well, I might: but whether toher or to Lord Mountshire, whose gout was famous in the early nineties, Idid 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 wereworrying me: and I could not have answered without lying about AndrewLackaday who, leaving her without news of himself, had apparently vanishedfrom her ken. She had asked me all sorts of pointed questions aboutLackaday which I, having by that time read his manuscript, found veryembarrassing to answer. Of course I intended to write. One always does, in such cases. There was nothing for it now but to make immediate andhonourable amends. 

I explained my lack of courtesy, as best I could, bewailed her father'sgout and her dreary ministrations on that afflicted nobleman, regrettedincidentally her lack of news of the gallant General and spread myself overmy own sufferings and my boredom in a little hole of a place, where no onewas to be seen under the age of seventy-three--drew, I flattered myself, rather a smart picture of the useless and gasping ancients flockingpathetically to the futile _Fons Juventutis_ (and what businesshad they to be alive anyhow during this world food shortage?) and then, commending her devotion to the distressed and homeless, expressed the warmhope that I should meet her in Paris on my way back to England. 

It was the letter of a friend and a man of the world. It put me into abetter 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 instructivegastronomical discussion with a comfortable old Bordeaux merchant with whomI had picked acquaintance, went to bed in a selfishly contented frame ofmind. 

Two or three mornings later, going by tram into Clermont-Ferrand andpassing by the great cafe on the east side of the Place de Jaude oppositethe statue of Vercingetorix, I ran literally, stumbling over long legsoutstretched from his chair to the public danger, into Andrew Lackaday. Itwas only at the instant of disentanglement and mutual apologies that wewere aware of each other. He sprang to his great height and held out-bothhis long arms, and grinned happily. 

"My dear fellow, what a delight. Fancy seeing you here! Elodie----"

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 hadpictured. She had a coarse, dark face, with the good humour written on itthat loose features and kind soft eyes are able so often to express--andwhite teeth rather too much emphasized by carmined lips above which grewthe faint black down of many women of the South. She was dressed quitetastefully: white felt hat, white skirt, and a silken knitted yellow_chandail_. 

"Elodie--I present Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton, of whom you have heard mespeak so much. " To me--"Madame Patou, " said he. 

"Madame, " said I. We shook hands. I professed enchantment. 

"I have spoken much about you to Captain Hylton, " said Lackaday quickly. 

"So it seems, " said I, following the good fellow's lead, "as if I wererenewing an old acquaintance. "

"But you speak French like a Frenchman, " cried Elodie. 

"It is my sole claim, Madame, " said I, "to your consideration. "

She laughed, obviously pleased, and invited me to sit. The waiter came up. What would I have? I murmured "Amer Picon--Curaçoa, " the most delectableante-meal beverage left in France now that absinthe is as extinct as thestuff wherewith the good Vercingetorix used to gladden his captains aftera successful bout with Cæsar. Elodie laughed again and called me a trueParisian. I made the regulation reply to the compliment. I could see thatwe became instant friends. 

"_Mais, mon cher ami_, " said Lackaday, "you haven't answered myquestion. What are you doing here in Clermont-Ferrand?"

"Didn't I write to you?"

"No----"

I hadn't. I had meant to--just as I had meant to write to Auriol Dayne. 

I wonder whether, in that Final Court from which I have not heard of anytheologian suggesting the possibility of Appeal, they will bring up againstme all the unanswered letters of my life? If they do, then certainly shallI be a Condemned Spirit. 

I explained airily--just as I have explained to you. 

"Coincidences of the heart, Madame, " said I. 

She turned to Andrew. "He has said that just like Horace. "

I realized the compliment. I liked Elodie. Dress her at whatever Rue dela Paix rag-swindler's that you pleased, you would never metamorphose thedaughter of the people that she was into the lady at ease in all company. She was a bit _mannièrée_--on her best behaviour. But she had theFrenchwoman's instinctive knowledge of conduct. She conveyed, verycharmingly, her welcome to me as a friend of Andrew's. 

"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. "

"I'm looking forward, " said I, "to the opportunity. "

We talked on indifferent subjects; and in the meanwhile I observed Lackadayclosely. He seemed tired and careworn. The bush of carroty hair over hisears had gone a yellowish grey and more lines seamed his ugly and ruggedface. He was neatly enough dressed in grey flannels, but he wore on hishead the latest model of a French straw hat--the French hatter, left to hisown devices, has ever been the maddest of his tribe--a high, coarsely wovencrown surrounded by a quarter inch brim which related him much more nearlyto Petit Patou than to the British General of Brigade. His delicate fingersnervously played with cigarette or glass stem. He gave me the impression ofa man holding insecurely on to intelligible life. 

Mild hunger translating itself into a conception of the brain, I looked atmy watch. I waved a hand to the row of waiting cabs with linen canopies onthe other side of the blazing square. 

"Madame, " said I, "let me have the pleasure of driving you to Royat andoffering you _déjeuner_. "

"My dear chap, " said Andrew, "impossible. We play this afternoon. Twice aday, worse luck. We have all sorts of things to arrange. "

Elodie broke in. They had arranged everything already that morning. Theirturn 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 dayshe might perhaps, with my permission, have the pleasure. But to-day sheinsisted on Andre lunching with me alone. We must have a thousand things tosay to each other. 

"_Tenez_, " she smiled, rising. "I leave you. There's not a word to besaid. Monsieur le Capitaine, see that the General eats instead of talkingtoo much. " She beamed. "_Au grand plaisir de vous revoir. _"

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 atme. 

"A charming woman, " said I. 

Lackaday smiled in his sad babyish way. 

"Indeed she is, " said he. 

We drove into Royat in one of the cool, white canopied victorias. 

"You know we are playing in a circus, " he said, indicating a huge play billon the side of a wall. 

"Yes, " said I. "_On revient toujours à ses premières amours. _"

"It's not that, God knows, " he replied soberly. "But we were out for thesetwo weeks of our tour. One can't pick and choose nowadays. The eccentriccomedian will soon be as dead as his ancestor, the Court Jester. The warhas almost wiped us out. Those music-halls--of the Variety type--that havenot been turned, through lack of artists, into picture palaces, are nowgiven over to Revue. I have been here at Clermont-Ferrand many times--butnow, " he shrugged his shoulders. "I had an engagement--at my ordinarymusic-hall terms--offered me at the Cirque Vendramin to fill in the blankweeks, and I couldn't afford to refuse. That's why, my friend, you see menow, where you first met me, in a circus. "

"And Madame Patou?" said I. 

"I'm afraid, " he sighed, "it is rather a come down for Elodie. "

We reached the hotel and lunched on the terrace, and I did my best, withthe aid of the maître d'hôtel, to carry out the lady's injunctions. As amatter of fact, she need not have feared that he should miss sustenancethrough excessive garrulity. He seemed ill at ease during the meal and Idid most of the talking. It was only after coffee and the last drop of thelast bottle in the hotel--one of the last, alas! in France--of the realancient Chartreuse of the Grand Chartreux, that he made some sort of avowalor explanation. After beating about the bush a bit, he came to the heart ofthe matter. 

"I thought the whole war was axed out of my life--with everyone I knew init or through it. I wrote all that stuff about myself because I couldn'thelp it. It enabled me to find my balance, to keep myself sane. I had tobridge over--connect somehow--the Andrew Lackaday of 1914 with the AndrewLackaday 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. Youcame bang into the middle of my most intimate life. I knew in what honourand affection you were held among those whom I--to whom I--am infinitelydevoted. I. .. " He paused a moment, and tugged hard at his cigar andregarded me with bent brows and compressed lips of his parade manner. "I ama man of few friendships. I gave you my unreserved friendship--it may notbe worth much--but there it is. " He glared at me as though he were defyingme to mortal combat, and when I tried to get in a timid word he wiped itout of my mouth with a gesture. "I wanted you to know the whole truth aboutme. Once I never thought about myself. I wasn't worth thinking about. Butthe war came. And the war ended. And I'm so upside down that I'm bound tothink about myself and clear up myself, in the eyes of the only human beingthat could understand--namely you--or go mad. But I never reckoned to seeyou again in the flesh. Our lives were apart as the poles. It was in myhead to write to you something to that effect, when I should receive ananswer to my last letter. I never dreamed that you should meet me now, as Iam. "

"It never occurred to you that I might value your friendship and take alittle trouble to seek you out?"

"I must confess, " said he, "that I did not suspect that anyone, even you, would have thought it worth while. "

I laughed. He was such a delicious simpleton. So long as he could regardme as someone on the other side of the grave, he could reveal to me theintimacies of his emotional life; but as soon as he realized his confidantin the flesh, embarrassment and confusion overwhelmed him. And, ostrichagain, thinking that, once his head was hidden in the sands of PetitPatouism, he would be invisible to mortal eye, he had persuaded himselfthat his friends would concur in his supposed invisibility. 

"My dear fellow, " I said, "why all this apologia? As to your having evertold 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 withPetit Patou. No, " I repeated, meeting his eyes under his bent brows, "not ahuman being knows even of our first meeting in the Cirque Rocambeau--and asfor Madame Patou, whom you have made me think of always as Elodie--well--mydiscretion goes without saying. And as for putting into shape yourreminiscences--I shouldn't dream of letting anyone see my manuscript beforeit had passed through your hands. If you like I'll tear the whole thing upand it will all be buried in that vast oblivion of human affairs of which Iam only too temperamentally capable. "

He threw his cigar over the balustrade of the terrace and stretched out hislong legs, his hands in his pockets and grinned. 

"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 tokeep things to yourself although I laid down no conditions of secrecy. Imight have known it. " He stared at the hill-side opposite, with its zigzagpath through the vines marked by the figures of zealous pedestrians, andthen he said suddenly: "If I asked you not to come and see our show youwould set me down as a fantastical coward. "

I protested. "How could I, after all you have told me?"

"I want you to come. Not to-day. Things might be in a muddle. One neverknows. But to-morrow. It will do me good. "

I promised. We chatted a little longer and then he rose to go. Iaccompanied him to the tram, his long lean body overwhelming my somewhatfleshy insignificance. And while I walked with him I thought: "Why is itthat I can't tell a man who confides to me his inmost secrets, to buy, forGod's sake, another hat?"

The following afternoon, I went to the Cirque Vendramin. I sat in a frontseat. I saw the performance. It was much as I have already described toyou. Except perhaps for his height and ungainliness no one could haverecognized Andrew Lackaday in the painted clown Petit Patou. Hisgrotesquery of appearance was terrific. From the tip of his red pointedwig to the bottom of his high heels he must have been eight feet. I shouldimagine him to have been out of scale on the music-hall stage. But inthe ring he was perfect. The mastery of his craft, the cleanness of hisjugglery, 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_Chapeau de Tabarin:_ the ex-Kaiser, Foch, Clemenceau, Lloyd George, President Wilson--a Boche prisoner, a helmeted Tommy, a Poilu--which wasmarvellous, considering the painted Petit Patou face. For all assistance, Elodie held up a cheap bedroom wall-mirror. He played his one-stringedfiddle. I admired the technical perfection of the famous cigar-act. I notedthe stupid bewilderment with which he received a typhoon of hoops thrown byElodie, and his waggish leer when, clown-wise, he had caught them all. Ifthe audience packed within the canvas amphitheatre had gone mad in applauseover this exhibition of exquisite skill interlarded with witty patter, Imight have been carried away into enthusiastic appreciation of a great art. But the audience, as far as applause could be the criterion, missed theexquisiteness of it, guffawed only at the broadest clowning and applaudedfinally just enough to keep up the heart of the management and Les PetitPatou. I have seen many harrowing things in the course of a complicatedlife; but this I reckon was one of the chief among them. 

I thought of the scene a year ago, at Mansfield Park. The distinguishedsoldier with his rainbow row of ribbons modestly confused by Evadne'ssummons to the household on his appointment to the Brigade; the Englishsetting; the old red gabled Manor house; the green lawn; the bright Englishfaces 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 ofthe scarred and proven English leader of men. .. . 

The scene shimmered before me and then I realized the same man in hisabominable travesty of God's image, bowing before the tepid plaudits of analien bourgeoisie in a filthy, smelly canvas circus, and I tell you I feltthe agony that comes when time has dried up within one the fount of tears. 

Chapter XIX

Soon afterwards I met Horatio Bakkus. With his white hair, ascetic, clean-shaved face and deep dark eyes he looked like an Italianecclesiastic. One's glance instinctively sought the tonsure. He would comeforward on to the open-air platform beneath the thick foliage of the parkwith the detached mien of a hierophant; and there he would sing like anangel, one of those who quire to the youngest-eyed cherubim so as not towake them. When I made him my modest compliment he said:

"Trick, my dear sir. Trick and laziness. I might have had the _belcanto_, if I had toiled interminably; but, thank God, I've managed tocarry through on self-indulgent sloth. "

As he lived at Royat I saw much of him alone, Royat being such a wee placethat if two sojourners venture simultaneously abroad they must of necessitymeet. I found him as Lackaday had described him, a widely read scholarand an amiable and cynical companion. But in addition to these casualencounters, I was thrown daily into his society with Lackaday and Elodie. We arranged always to lunch together, Lackaday, Bakkus and myself taking itin turns to be hosts at our respective hotels. Now and then Elodieinsisted on breaking the routine and acting as hostess at a restaurant inClermont-Ferrand. It was all very pleasant. The only woman to three men, Elodie preened herself with amusing obviousness and set out to make herselfagreeable. She did it with a Frenchwoman's natural grace. But as soon asthe talk drifted into anything allusive to war or books or art or politics, she manifested an ignorance abysmal in its profundity. I was amazed thata woman should have been for years the intimate companion of two men likeLackaday and Bakkus without picking up some superficial knowledge of thematters they discussed. And I was interested, even to the pitch of myamazement, to behold the deference of both men, when her polite and vacantsmile proclaimed her inability to follow the conversation. Invariably oneof them would leave me to the other and turn to Elodie. It was Bakkus moreoften who thus broke away. He had the quick impish faculty, one of therarest of social gifts, of suddenly arresting a woman's attention by aphrase, apparently irrelevant, yet to her woman's jumping mind relevant tothe matter under dispute and of carrying it off into a pleasant femininesphere. It was impish, and I believe deliberately so, for on such occasionsone could catch the ironic gleam in his eyes. The man's sincere devotion toboth of them was obvious. 

"Madame Patou. .. " I began one day, at lunch--we were talking of the tyrannyof fashion, even in the idyllic lands where ladies are fully dressed inteeth necklaces and yellow ochre--"Madame Patou. .. "

She threw up her hands. We were lunching very well--the _petit vin_of Auvergne is delicious--"_Mais voyons donc_--why all this ceremonyamong friends? Here we are, we three, and it is André, Horace, Elodie--andhere we are, we four, and it is Monsieur Bakkus, and Lackaday--never will Ibe able to pronounce that word--and Madame Patou and Monsieur le CapitaineHylton. Look. To my friends I am Elodie _tout court_--and you?"

It was an embarrassing moment. Andrew's mug of a face was as expressionlessas that of a sphinx. He would no more have dreamed of addressing me by myChristian name than of hailing Field-Marshal Haig as Douglas. White-haired, thin-lipped Bakkus smiled sardonically. But there was no help for it. 

"My very intimate friends call me Tony, " said I. 

"To-ny, " she echoed. "But it is charming, To-ny. A _votre santé_, To-ny. "

She held put her glass--I was sitting next to her. I clinked mine politely. 

"To the health of the charming Elodie. "

She was delighted. Made us all clink glasses. Bakkus said, in English:

"To the abolition of Misters, in obedience to the Lady. "

"And now, " cried Elodie, "what were you going to say about fashions innecklaces made of dogs' teeth?"

We pursued our frivolous talk. Bakkus said:

"The whole of the Fall of Man arose from Eve pestering Adam for arusset-brown fig-leaf in spring time. "

"It was after the fall that they made themselves aprons, " said Lackaday. 

"She had her eye on those fig-leaves long before, " retorted Bakkus. 

We laughed. There was no great provocation to mirth. But we were attuned togaiety. My three friends were lunching with me on the terrace of the RoyatPalace Hotel. It is a long, wide terrace, reaching the whole width of thefaçade of the building, and doors lead on to it from all the public rooms. Only half of it, directly accessible from the _salle à manger_ isgiven over to restaurant tables. Ours was on the outskirts. I like to befree, 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, withgrass-plots and flowers and a fountain and gaily awned garden seats andumbrella-shaded chairs. And there over the parapet the vine-clad hillquivered in the sunshine against the blue summer sky, and around us werecheerful folk at lunch forgetful of hearts and blood-pressure in thewarm beauty of the day. Perhaps now and then a stern and elderly Frenchcouple--he stolid, strongly bearded and decorated, she thin and brown, over-coiffured and over-ringed--with an elderly angular daughter, hard tomarry, regarded us with eyes of disapproval. Elodie in happy mood threw offrestraint, as, in more private and intimate surroundings, she would havethrown off her corset. But we cared not for the disapproval of the correctFrench profiteers. .. . 

"If they tried to smile, " said Elodie, incidentally, "they would burst andall the gold would drop out. "

Lackaday threw back his head and laughed--the first real, hearty laugh Ihad seen him exhibit since I had met him in France. You see the day, thefood, the wine, the silly talk, the dancing wit of Bakkus, the delightfulcomradeship, had brought the four of us into a little atmosphere ofjoyousness. There was nothing very intellectual about it. In the hideousrealm of pure intellectuality there could not exist even the hardiest ghostof a smile. Laughter, like love, is an expression of man's vehement revoltagainst reason. So Andrew Lackaday threw himself back in his chair andlaughed at Elodie's quip. 

But suddenly, as if some blasting hand had smitten him, his laughterceased. His jaw dropped for a second and then snapped like a vice. Hewas sitting on my left hand, his back to the balustrade, and facing thedining-room. At the sight of him we all instinctively sobered and bentforward in questioning astonishment. He recovered himself quickly and triedto smile as if nothing had happened--but, seeing his eyes had been fixed onsomething behind me, I turned round. 

And there, calmly walking up the long terrace towards us, was Lady AuriolDayne. 

I sprang from my chair and strode swiftly to meet her. From a grating soundbehind me I knew that Lackaday had also risen. I stretched out my handmechanically and, regardless of manners, I said:

"What the devil are you doing here?"

She withdrew the hand that she too had put forward. 

"That's a nice sort of welcome. "

"I'm sorry, " said I. "Please consider the question put more politely. "

"Well, I'm here, " she replied, "because it happens to be my good pleasure. "

"Then I hope you'll find lots of pleasure, my dear Auriol. "

She laughed, standing as cool as you please, very grateful to the eye intussore coat and skirt, with open-necked blouse, and some kind of rakishhat displaying her thick auburn hair in defiance of the fashion whichdecreed concealment even of eyebrows with flower-pot head gear. She laughedeasily, mockingly, although she saw plainly the pikestaff of a Lackadayupright a few yards away from her, in a rigid attitude of parade. 

"Anyhow, " she said, "I must go and say how d'ye do to the General. "

I gave way to her. We walked side by side to the table. She advanced to himin the most unconcerned manner. Bakkus rose politely. 

"My dear General, fancy seeing you here! How delightful. "

I have never seen a man's eyes devour a woman with such idioticobviousness. 

"Lady Auriol, " said he, "you are the last person I ever thought ofmeeting. " He paused for a second. Then, "May I have the pleasure ofintroducing--Madame Patou--Lady Auriol Dayne--Mr. Bakkus--"

"Do sit down, please, everybody, " said Auriol, after the introductions. "I feel like a common nuisance. But I came by the night train and wentto sleep and only woke up to find myself just in time for the fag-end oflunch. "

"I am host, " said I. "Won't you join us?"

What else was there to do? She glanced at me with smiling inscrutability. 

"You're awfully kind, Tony. But I'm disturbing you. "

The maitre d'hôtel and waiter with a twist of legerdemain set her placebetween myself and Lackaday. 

"This is a charming spot, isn't it, Madame Patou?" she remarked. 

Elodie, who had regarded her wonderingly as though she had bean a creatureof another world, bowed and smiled. 

"We all talk French, my dear Auriol, " said I, "because Madame Patou knowsno English. "

"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 ofit. But if people are kind and patient I can make myself understood. "

"Mademoiselle speaks French very well, " replied Elodie politely. 

"You are very good to say so, Madame. "

I caught questioning, challenging glances flashing across the table, eachwoman hostilely striving to place the other. You see, we originally sat:Elodie on my right hand, then Bakkus facing straight down the terrace, thenLackaday, then myself. It occurred to me at once that, with her knowledgeof 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, tonobody. But on the latter hypothesis, what was she doing in this galley? Iswear I saw the wrinkle on Lady Auriol's brow betokening the dilemma. Shehad known me from childhood's days of lapsed memory. I had always been. Romantically she knew Lackaday. Horatio Bakkus, with his sacerdotal air andwell-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 herselfwith her napkin and breathed a "_Mon Dieu, qu'ilfait chaud_" andcontributed nothing intelligent to the conversation, she could not acceptas the detached lady invited by me to charm my two male guests. She wasthen driven to the former hypothesis. Madame Patou belonged in some way tothe man by whose side she was not seated. 

Of course, there was another alternative. I might have been responsible forthe poor lady. But she was as artless as a poor lady could be. Addressingmy two friends it was always André and Horace, and instinctively she usedthe familiar "_tu_. " Addressing me she had affrightedly forgotten thepact of Christian names, and it was "Monsieur le Capitaine" and, of course, the "_vous_" which she had never dreamed of changing. Even so poor aFrench scholar as Lady Auriol could not be misled into such absurd paths ofconjecture. 

She belonged therefore, in some sort of fashion, to General Lackaday. Anelderly man of the world, with his nerves on edge, has no need of wizardryto divine the psychology of such a situation. 

Mistress of social forms, Lady Auriol, after sweeping Elodie into her net, caught Horatio Bakkus and through reference to her own hospital experiencesduring the war, wrung from him the avowal of his concerts for the woundedin Paris. 

"How splendid of you! By the way, how do you spell your name? It's anuncommon one. "

"With two k's. "

"I wonder if you have anything to do with an old friend of my fattier, Archdeacon Bakkus?"

"My eldest brother. "

"No, really? One of my earliest recollections is his buying a prize boarfrom my father. "

"Just like the dear fellow's prodigality, " said Bakkus. "He had a wholeArchdeaconry to his hand for nothing. I've lately spent a couple of monthswith him in Westmorland, so I know. "

"How small the world is, " said Lady Auriol to Lackaday. 

"Too small, " said he. 

"Oh, " said Auriol blankly. 

"Have you seen our good friends, the Verity-Stewarts lately?"

She had. They were in perfect health. They were wondering what had becomeof him. 

"And indeed, General, " she flashed, "what _has_ become of you?"

"It is not good, " said Elodie, in quick anticipation, "that the Generalshould neglect his English friends. "

There sounded the note of proprietorship, audible to anybody. Auriol's eyesdwelt for a second on Elodie; then she turned to Lackaday. 

"Madame Patou is quite right. "

Said he, with one of his rare flights into imagery, "I was but a shootingstar across the English firmament. "

 "Encore une étoile qui file, File, file et disparait!"

"Oh no, my dear friend, " laughed Bakkus. "He can't persuade us, LadyAuriol, that he is afflicted with the morbidezza of 1830. "

"_Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela?_" asked Elodie, sharply. 

"It was a fashion long ago, my dear, for poets to assume the gaiety of afuneral. Even Béranger who wrote _Le Roi d'Yvetot_--you know it--"

"Naturally, '_Il était un roi d'Yvetot!_'"--cried Elodie, who hadlearned it at school. 

"Well--of course. Even Béranger could not escape the malady ofhis generation. Do you remember"--his swift glance embraced usall--"Longfellow's criticism of European poets of that epoch, in his prosemasterpiece, _Hyperion?_ He refers to Salis and Matthisson, butLamartine and people of his kidney come in--'Melancholy gentlemen' pardon, my dear Elodie, if I quote it in English--'Melancholy gentlemen to whomlife was only a dismal swamp, upon whose margin they walked with cambrichandkerchiefs in their hands, sobbing and sighing and making signals toDeath to come and ferry them over the lake. ' _Cela veut dire_, " hemade a marvellous French paraphrase for Elodie's benefit. 

"_Comprends pas_, " 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. "

"You will be doing them a great service, Madame, " replied Auriol. 

There was a stiff silence. If Bakkus had stuck to his intention of drivingthe conversation away from embarrassing personal questions, instead ofbeing polite to Elodie, we should have been spared this freezing moment ofself-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 mealthe conversation halted. It was a relief to rise and fall into groups as westrolled down the terrace to coffee. I manoeuvred Elodie and Bakkus to thefront leaving Auriol and Lackaday to follow. I sought a table at the farend, for coffee; but when I turned round, I discovered that the pair haddescended by the mid-way flight of three or four steps to the grass-plottedand fountained terrace below. 

We sat down. Elodie asked:

"Who is that lady?"

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 ofwork during the war, work of hospital organization in France, and now sheis still working for France. I have known her since she was three yearsold; so she is a very great friend of mine. "

Her eyes wandered to the bit of red thatched head and the gleam of thecrown of a white hat just visible over the balustrade. 

"She appears also to be a great friend of André. "

"The General met many charming ladies during his stay in England, " I liedcheerfully. 

"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 lovedwomen so much? _Ah oui_--like a real Don Juan. " She wagged her plumpforefinger. "Oh no, I know my André. "

"I could tell you stories--" said I. 

"Which would not be true. "

She laughed in a forced way--and her eyes again sought the tops of thecouple promenading in the sunshine. She resumed her catechism. 

"How old is she?"

"I don't know exactly. "

"But since you have known her since she was three years old?"

"If I began to count years at my time of life, " said I, "I should die offright. "

"She looks about thirty. Wouldn't you say so, Horace? It is droll that shehas not married. Why?"

"Before the war she was a great traveller. She has been by herself all overthe world in all sorts of places among wild tribes and savages. She hasbeen far too busy to think of marriage. "

Elodie looked incredulous. "One has always one's _moments perdus. _"

"One doesn't marry in odd moments, " said I. 

"You and Horace are old bachelors who know nothing at all about it. Tellme. Is she very rich?"

"None of our old families are very rich nowadays, " I replied, rather ata loss to account, save on the score of feminine curiosity, for thisexamination. If it had not been for her mother who left her a small fortuneof a thousand or so a year, Auriol would have been as penniless as her twomarried sisters. Her brother, Lord Vintrey, once a wastrel subaltern ofHousehold Cavalry, and, after a dashing, redeeming war record, now anexpensive Lieutenant-Colonel, ate up all the ready money that LordMountshire could screw out of his estates. With Elodie I could not enterinto these explanations. 

"All the same she is passably rich, " Elodie persisted. "One does not buy acostume like that under five hundred francs. "

The crimson vested and sashed and tarbooshed Algerian negro brought thecoffee, and poured out the five cups. We sipped. I noticed Elodie's handshake. 

"If their coffee gets cold, so much the worse. "

Bakkus, who had maintained a discreet silence hitherto, remarked:--

"Unless Andrew's head is particularly thick, he'll get a sunstroke in thisblazing sun. "

"That's true, " cried Elodie and, rising with a great scraping of chair, sherushed to the balustrade and addressed him shrilly. 

"_Mais dis donc André, tu veux attraper un coup de soleil?_"

We heard his voice in reply: "_Nous rentrons_. "

A few moments afterwards they mounted from the lower terrace andcame towards us. Lackaday's face was set in one of its tight-lippedexpressionless moods. Lady Auriol's cheek was flushed, and though shesmiled conventional greeting, her eyes were very serious. 

"I am sorry to have put into danger the General's health, madame, " said shein her clear and British French. "But when two comrades of the Great Warmeet for the first time, one is forgetful. "

She gave me a little sign rejecting the offered coffee. Lackaday took hiscup and drank it off at one gulp. He looked at his wrist watch, the onlyremaining insignia of the British soldier. 

"Time for our tram, Elodie. "

"_C'est vrai?_" He held his wrist towards her. "_Oui, mon Dieu!Miladi--_" She funked the difficult "Lady Auriol. "

"_Au revoir, Madame, _" said Auriol shaking hands. 

"_Trop honorée, _" said Elodie, somewhat defiantly. "_Au revoir, Miladi. _" She made an awkward little bow. "_Et toi, _" she extendeda careless left hand to Bakkus. 

"I will see you to the lift, " said I. 

We walked down the terrace in silence to the _salon_ door just insidewhich was the lift which took one down some four stories to the street. Two things were obvious: the perturbation of the simple Lackaday and thejealousy of Elodie. 

"_Au revoir, monsieur, et merci, _" she said, with over emphasizedpoliteness, as we stood at the lift gates. 

"Good-bye, old chap, " said Lackaday and gripped my hand hard. 

As soon as I returned to the end of the terrace, Bakkus rose and took hisleave. Auriol and I were alone. Of course other humans were clusteringround tables all the length of the terrace. But we had our little endcorner to ourselves. I sat down next to her. 

"Well?" said I. 

She bent forward, and her face was that of the woman whom I had met in therain and mud and stark reality of the war. 

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Chapter XX

If a glance could destroy, if Lady Auriol had been a Gorgon or a basiliskor a cockatrice, then had I been a slain Anthony Hylton. 

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The far-flung gesture of her arm ending in outspread fingers might havebeen that of Elodie. 

"Tell you what, my dear?" said I. 

"The whole wretched tragedy. I came to you a year ago with my heart inmy hand--the only human creature living who I thought could help me. Andyou've let me down like this. It's damnable!"

"An honourable man, " said I, nettled, "doesn't betray confidences. "

"An honourable man! I like that! I gave you my confidences. Haven't youbetrayed them?"

"Not a bit, " said I. "Not the faintest hint of what you have said to mehave I whispered into the ear of man or woman. "

She fumed. "If you had, you would be--unmentionable. "

"Precisely. And I should have been equally undeserving of mention, if I hadtold you of the secret, or double, or ex-war--however you like to describeit--life of our friend. "

"The thing is not on all fours, " she said with a snap of her fingers. "Youcould have given me the key to the mystery--such as it is. You could haveprevented me from making a fool of myself. You could, Tony. From the verystart. "

"At the very start, I knew little more than you did. Nothing save that hewas bred in a circus, where I met him thirty years ago. I knew nothing moreof his history till this April, when he told me he was Petit Patpu of themusic-halls. His confidence has been given me bit by bit. The last timeI saw you I had never heard of Madame Patou. It was you that guessed thewoman in his life. I had no idea whether you were right or wrong. "

"Yet you could have given me a hint--the merest hint--without betrayingconfidences--as you call it, " she mouthed my phrase ironically. "It was notplaying the game. "

"I gathered, " said I, "that playing the game was what both of you haddecided to do, in view of the obviously implied lady in the background. "

"Well?" she challenged. 

"If it's a question of playing the game"--I had carried the war into theenemy's quarters--"may I repeat my original rude question this morning?What the devil are you doing here?"

She turned on me in a fury. "How dare you insinuate such a thing?"

"You've not come to Royat for the sake of my beautiful eyes. "

"I'm under no obligation to tell you why I've come to Royat. Let us say myliver's out of order. "

"Then my dear, " said I, "you have come to the wrong place to cure it. "

She glanced at me wrathfully, took out a cigarette, waved away with anunfriendly gesture the briquette I had drawn from my pocket, and struck oneof her own matches. There fell a silence, during which I sat back in mychair, my arms on the elbow and my fingers' tips joined together, andassumed an air of philosophic meditation. 

Presently she said: "There are times, Tony, when I should like to killyou. "

"I am glad, " said I, "to note the resumption of human relations. "

"You are always so pragmatically and priggishly correct, " she said. 

"My dear, " said I, "if you want me to sympathize with you in thisimpossible situation, I'll do it with all my heart. But don't round on mefor either bringing it about or not preventing it. "

"I was anxious to know something about Andrew Lackaday--I don't carewhether you think me a fool or not"--she was still angry and defiant--"Iwrote you pointedly. You did not answer my letter. I wrote again remindingyou of your lack of courtesy. You replied like a pretty fellow in a morningcoat at the Foreign Office and urbanely ignored my point. "

She puffed indignantly. The terrace began to be deserted. There was agap of half a dozen tables between us and the next group. The flamboyantAlgerian removed the coffee cups. When we were alone again, I reiteratedmy explanation. At every stage of my knowledge I was held in the bond ofsecrecy. Lackaday's sensitive soul dreaded, more than all the concentratedhigh-explosive bombardment of the whole of the late German Army, thepossibility of Lady Auriol knowing him as the second-rate music-hallartist. 

"You are the woman of his dreams, " said I. "You're an unapproachable starin mid ether, or whatever fanciful lover's image you like to credit himwith. The only thing for his salvation was to make a clean cut. Don't yousee?"

"That's all very pretty, " said Auriol. "But what about me? A clean cut youcall it? A man cuts a woman in half and goes off to his own life and thinkshe has committed an act of heroic self-sacrifice!"

I put my hand on hers. "My dear child, " said I, "if Andrew Lackaday thoughtyou were eating out your heart for him he would be the most flabbergastedcreature in the world. "

She bent her capable eyes on me. "That's a bit dogmatic, isn't it? May Iask if you have any warrant for what you're saying?"

"In his own handwriting. "

I gave a brief account of the manuscript. 

"Where is it?" she asked eagerly. 

"In my safe in London--I'm sorry----"

In indignation she flashed: "I wouldn't read a word of it. "

"Of course not, " said I. "Nor would I put it into your hands withoutLackaday's consent. Anyhow, that's my authority and warrant. "

She threw the stub of her cigarette across the terrace and went back to theoriginal cry:

"Oh Tony, if you had only given me some kind of notion!"

"I've tried to prove to you that I couldn't. "

"I suppose not, " she admitted wearily. 

"Men have their standards. Forgive me if I've been unreasonable. "

When a woman employs her last weapon, her confession of unreason, anddemands forgiveness, what can a man do but proclaim himself the worm thathe is? We went through a pretty scene of reconciliation. 

"And now, " said I, "what did Lackaday, in terms of plain fact, tell youdown there?"

She told me. Apparently he had given her a précis of his life's historyamazingly on the lines of a concentrated military despatch. 

"Lady Auriol, " said he, as soon as they were out of earshot, "you are hereby some extraordinary coincidence. In a few hours you will be bound to hearall about me which I desired you never to know. It is best that I shouldtell you myself, at once. "

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 aparade, which I knew so well, putting before her the dry yet vital facts ofhis existence. 

"I knew there was a woman--wife and children--what does it matter? I toldyou, " she said. "But--oh God!" She smote her hands together hopelessly, fist into palm. "I never dreamed of anything like this. "

"I am in a position to give you chapter and verse for it all, " said I. 

"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 adrought-withered hybiscus--her colour had faded, the sweeping fulnessof her drooped, her twenties caught the threatening facial lines of herforties--what can I say more? The wilting of a tropical bloom--that was herattitude--the sap and the life all gone. 

"Oh I know. There's nothing vulgar about it. It goes back into the years. But still . .. "

"Yes, yes, my dear, " said I, quickly. "I understand. "

We were alone now on the terrace. Far away, a waiter hung over thebalustrade, listening to the band playing in the Park below. But for thenoise of the music, all was still on the breathless August air. Presentlyshe drew her palms over her face. 

"I'm dog-tired. "

"That abominable night journey, " said I, sympathetically. 

"I sat on a _strapontin_ in the corridor, all night, " she said. 

"But, my dear, what madness!" I cried horrified, although in the war shehad performed journeys compared with which this would be the luxury oftravel. "Why didn't you book a _coupé-lit_, even a seat, beforehand?"

She smiled dismally. "I only made up my mind yesterday morning. I got itinto my head that you knew everything there was to be known about AndrewLackaday. "

"But how did you get it?"

My question was one of amazement. No man had more out-rivalled an oyster inincommunicativeness. 

It appeared that I suffered from the defects of my qualities. I had beenover-diplomatic. My innocence had been too bland for my worldly years. Myevasions had proclaimed me suspect. My criticism of Royat made my fear of achance visit from her so obvious. My polite hope that I should see her inParis 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-knownselfishness, when I heard she was at a loose end in August Paris, havesummoned her with a "Do for Heaven's sake come and save me from theseselected candidates for burial?" I had done it before, in analogouscircumstances, 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 bymisfortune you happen to be there. "

"My dear, " said I, "didn't it occur to you that your astuteness might beoverreaching itself and that you might find me here--well--in the notinfrequent position of a bachelor man who desires to withdraw himself fromthe scrutiny of his acquaintance?"

She broke into disconcerting laughter. 

"You? Tony?"

"Hang it all!" I cried angrily, "I'm not eighty yet!"

However virtuous a man may be, he resents the contemptuous denial to hisclaim to be a potential libertine. 

She laughed again; then sobered down and spoke soothingly to me. Perhapsshe did me injustice, but such a thing had never entered her mind engagedas it was with puzzlement over Lackaday. When people are afflicted withfixed ideas, they grow perhaps telepathic. Otherwise she could not accountfor her certainty that I could give her some information. She knew that Iwould not write. What was a flying visit--a night's journey to Royat? Inher wander years, she had travelled twelve hours to a place and twelve backin order to buy a cabbage. Her raid on me was nothing so wonderful. 

"So certain was I, " she said, "that you were hiding things from me, thatwhen I saw him this morning at your table, I was scarcely surprised. "

"My dear Auriol, " said I, when she had finished the psychological sketch ofher flight from Paris, "I think the man who unlearned most about women asthe years went on, was Methuselah. "

"A woman only puts two and two together and makes it five. It's as simpleas that. "

"No, " said I, "the damnable complex mystery of it, to a man's mind, is thatfive should be the right answer. "

She dismissed the general proposition with a shrug. 

"Well, there it is. I was miserable--I've been miserable for months--I washung up in Paris. I had this impulse, intuition--call it what you like. Icame--I saw--and I wish to goodness I hadn't!"

"I wasn't so wrong after all, then, " I suggested mildly. 

She laughed, this time mirthlessly. "I should have taken it for a warning. Blue Beard's chamber. .. . "

We were silent for a while. The waiters came scurrying down with trays andcloths and cups to set the little tables for tea. The western sun had burstbelow the awning and flooded half the length of the terrace with lightleaving us by the wall just a strip of shade. 

I said as gently as I could: "When you two parted in April, I thought yourecognized it as final. "

"It would have been, if only I had known, " she said. 

"Known what?"

She answered me with weary impatience. 

"Anything definite. If he had gone to his death I could have borne it. Ifhe 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 wasa man whom any woman would be proud to love--a strong thing of flesh andblood--disappearing into the mist. I said something heroical to him aboutthe creatures of the old legends. One talks high-falutin' nonsense attimes. But I didn't realize the truth of it till afterwards. A woman, eventhough 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 humanrelation with you. You grind your teeth and say that it's all in the day'swork. You know where you are. But when a man fades out of your life likea wraith--well--you don't know where you are. It has been maddening--theghastly seriousness of it. I've done my best to keep sane. I'm a woman witha lot of physical energy--I've run it for all it's worth. But this uncannybusiness got on my nerves. If the man had not cared for me, I would havekicked myself into sense. But--oh, it's no use talking about that--it goeswithout 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 anddisappears, like the shooting star he talked about, into space. I've doneall sorts of fool things to get on his track, just to know. At last I cameto you. But I had no notion of running him down in the flesh. You're sureof that, Tony, aren't you?"

The Diana in her flashed from candid eyes. 

"Naturally, " I answered. How could she know that Lackaday was here?I asked, in order to get to the bottom of this complicated emotionalcondition:

"But didn't you ever think of writing--oh, as a friend of course--toLackaday, care of War Office, Cox's. .. ?"

She retorted: "I'm not a sloppy school-girl, my friend. "

"Quite so, " said I. I paused, while the waiter brought tea. "And now thatthere's no longer any mystery?"

Her bosom rose with a sigh. 

"I mourn my mystery, Tony. "

She poured out tea. I passed the uninspiring food that accompanied it. Weconversed in a lower key of tension. At last she said:

"If I don't walk, I'll break something. "

A few moments afterwards we were in the street. She drew the breath of onesuffering from exhausted air. 

"Let us go up a hill. "

Why the ordinary human being should ever desire to walk up hill I havenever been able to discover. For me, the comfortable places. But with LadyAuriol the craving was symbolical of character. I agreed. 

"Choose the least inaccessible, " I pleaded. 

We mounted the paths through the vines. At the top, we sat down. I wipeda perspiring brow. She filled her lungs with the air stirred by a faintbreeze. 

"Whereabouts is this circus?" she asked suddenly. 

I told her, waving a hand in the direction of Clermont-Ferrand. 

"How far?"

"About two or three miles. "

"I'll go there this evening, " she announced calmly. 

"What?"

I nearly jumped off the wooden bench. 

"My dear Auriol, " said I, "my heart's dicky. You oughtn't to spring thingslike that on me. "

"I don't see where the shock comes in. Why shouldn't I go to a circus if Iwant to?"

"It's your wanting to go that astonishes me. "

"You're very easily surprised, " she remarked. "You ought to take somethingfor it. "

"Possibly, " said I. "But why on earth do you want to see the wretchedLackaday make a fool of himself?"

"If you take it that way, " she said icily, "I'm sorry I mentioned it. Icould have gone without your being a whit the wiser. "

I lifted my shoulders. "After all, it's entirely your affair. You talkeda while ago about mourning your mystery--which suggested a not altogetherunpoetical frame of mind. "

"There s no poetry at all about it, " she declared. "That's all gone. We'vecome 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. "

When a woman of Auriol's worth talks like this, one feels ashamed tocounter her with platitudes of worldly wisdom. She was going to the CirqueVendramin. Nothing short of an Act of God could prevent her. I sat helplessfor a few moments. At last, taking advantage of a gleam of common sense, Isaid:

"It's all very well for you to try to get to the bedrock of things. Butwhat about Lackaday?"

"He's not to know. "

"He'll have to know, " I insisted warmly. "The circus tent is but a smallaffair. You'll be there under his nose. " I followed the swift change on herface. "Of course--if you don't care if he sees you. .. "

She flashed: "You don't suppose I'm capable of such cruelty!"

"Of course not, " said I. 

She looked over at the twin spires of the cathedral beneath which the townslumbered in the blue mist of the late afternoon. 

"Thanks, Tony, " she said presently. "I didn't think of it. I shouldnaturally have gone to the best seats, which would have been fatal. ButI've been in many circuses. There's always the top row at the back, nextthe canvas. .. . "

"My dear good child, " I cried, "you couldn't go up there among the lowestrabble of Clermont-Ferrand!"

She glanced at me in pity and sighed indulgently. 

"You talk as if you had been born a hundred years ago, and had never heardof--still less gone through--the late war. What the----" she paused, thenthrust her face into mine, so that when she spoke I felt her breath onmy cheek, "What the _Hell_ do you think I care about the rabble ofClermont-Ferrand?"

That she would walk undismayed into a den of hyenas or Bolsheviks orTemperance 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 mostof their misfortunes to the grasping astuteness of England, we were notpeculiarly beloved. 

This I explained to her, while she continued to smile pityingly. It was allthe more incentive to adventure. If I had assured her that she would betorn limb from limb, like an inconvincible aristocrat flaunting abroadduring the early days of the French Revolution, she would have grownenthusiastic. Finally, in desperation because, in my own way, I was fond ofAuriol, I put down a masculine and protecting foot. 

"You're not going there without me, anyhow, " said I. 

"I've been waiting for that polite offer for the last half hour, " shereplied. 

What I said, I said to myself--to the midmost self of my inmost being. Iam not going to tell you what it was. This isn't the secret history of mylife. 

A cloud came up over the shoulder of the hills. We descended to theminiature valley of Royat. 

"It's going to rain, " I said. 

"Let it, " said Auriol unconcerned. 

Then began as dreary an evening as I ever have spent. 

We dined, long before anybody else, in a tempest of rain which sent downthe thermometer Heaven knows how many degrees. Half-way through dinner wewere washed from the terrace into the empty dining-room. There was thunderand lightning _ad libitum. _

"A night like this--it's absurd, " said I. 

"The absurder the better, " she replied. "You stay at home, Tony dear. You're a valetudinarian. I'll look after myself. "

But this could not be done. I have my obstinacies as mulish as otherpeople's. 

"If you go, I go. "

"As you have, according to your pampered habit, bought a car from now tillmidnight, I don't see how we can fail to keep dry and warm. "

I had no argument left. Of course, I hate to swallow an early and rapiddinner. One did such things in the war, gladly dislocating an elderlydigestion in the service of one's country. In peace time one demandsa compensating leisure. But this would be comprehensible only to awell-trained married woman. My misery would have been outside Auriol'sken. I meekly said nothing. The world of young women knows nothing of itsgreatest martyrs. 

When it starts thundering and lightening in Royat, it goes on forhours. The surrounding mountains play an interminable game of which thethunderbolt is the football. They make an infernal noise about it, and thedenser the deluge the more they exult. 

Amid the futile flashes and silly thunderings--no man who has been under anintensive bombardment can have any respect left for the pitiful foolery ofa thunderstorm--and a drenching downpour of rain (which is solid businesson the part of Nature) we scuttled from the hired car to the pay-desk ofthe circus. We were disguised in caps and burberrys, and Lady Auriol hadprocured a black veil from some shop in Royat. We paid our fifty centimesand entered the vast emptiness of the tent. We were far too early, findingonly half a dozen predecessors. We climbed to the remotest Alpine height ofbenches. The wet, cold canvas radiated rheumatism into our backs. A steadydrip from the super-saturated tent above us descended on our heads and downour necks. Auriol buttoned the collar of her burberry and smiled throughher veil. 

"It's like old times. "

"Old times be anythinged, " said I, vainly trying to find comfort on sixinches of rough boarding. 

"It's awfully good of you to come, Tony, " she said after a while. "Youcan't think what a help it is to have you with me. "

"If you think to mollify me with honeyed words, " said I, "you have struckthe wrong animal. "

It is well to show a woman, now and then, that you are not entirely herdupe. 

She laid her hand on mine. "I mean it, dear. Really. Do you suppose I'mhaving an evening out?"

We continued the intimate sparring bout for a while longer. Then we lapsedinto silence and watched the place gradually fill with the populace ofClermont-Ferrand. The three top tiers soon became crowded. The rest werebut thinly peopled. But there was a sufficient multitude of garlic-eating, unwashed humanity, to say nothing of the natural circus smell, to fillunaccustomed nostrils with violent sensations. A private soldier is agallant fellow, and ordinarily you feel a comfortable sense of security inhis neighbourhood; but when he is wet through and steaming, the fastidiouswould prefer the chance of perils. And there were many steaming warriorsaround us. 

There we sat, at any rate, wedged in a mass as vague and cohesive aschocolate creams running into one another. I had beside me a fat, damp ladywhose wet umbrella dripped into my shoes. Lady Auriol was flanked by alean, collarless man in a cloth-cap who made sarcastic remarks to soldierfriends on the tier below on the capitalist occupiers of the three-francseats. The dreadful circus band began to blare. The sudden and otherwiseunheralded entrance of a lady on a white horse followed by the ring mastermade us realize that the performance had begun. The show ran its course. The clowns went through their antiquated antics to the delight of thesimple folk by whom we were surrounded. A child did a slack wire act, waving a Japanese umbrella over her head. Some acrobats played about onhorizontal bars. We both sat forward on our narrow bench, elbows on kneesand face in hands, saying nothing, practically seeing nothing, awareonly of a far off, deep down, infernal pit in which was being played theOrcagnesque prelude to a bizarre tragedy. I, who had gone through theprogramme before, yet suffered the spell of Auriol's suspense. Long beforeshe had thrown aside the useless veil. In these dim altitudes no one couldbe recognized from the ring. Her knuckles were bent into her cheeks and hereyes were staring down into that pit of despair. We had no programme; I hadnot retained in my head the sequence of turns. Now it was all confused. Thepervasive clowns alone seemed to give what was happening below a grotesquecoherence. 

Suddenly the ring was empty for a second. Then with exaggerated stridesmarched in a lean high-heeled monster in green silk tights reaching to hisarmpits, topped with a scarlet wig ending in a foot high point. He worewhite cotton gloves dropping an inch from the finger tips, and he carrieda fiddle apparently made out of a cigar box and a broom handle. His facepainted red and white was made up into an idiot grin. He opened his mouthat the audience, who applauded mildly. 

Lady Auriol still sat in her bemused attitude of suspense. I watched herperplexedly for a second or two, and then I saw she had not recognized him. I said:

"That's Lackaday. "

She gasped. Sat bolt upright, and uttered an "Oh-h!" a horrible littlemoan, not quite human, almost that of a wounded animal, and her face wasstricken into tense ugliness. Her hand, stretched out instinctively, foundmine and held it in an iron grip. She said in a quavering voice:

"I wish I hadn't come. "

"I wish I could get you out, " said I. 

She shook her head. 

"No, no. It would be giving myself away. I must see it through. "

She drew a deep breath, relinquished my hand, turned to me with an attemptat a smile. 

"I'm all right now. Don't worry. "

She sat like a statue during the performance. It was quite a differentperformance from the one I had seen a few days before. It seemed to failnot only in the magnetic contact between artist and audience, but intechnical perfection. And Elodie, whom I had admired as a vital element inthis combination, so alive, so smiling, so reponsive, appeared a merelymechanical figure, an exactly regulated automaton. 

My heart sank into my shoes, already chilled with the drippings of my fatneighbour's umbrella. If Lackaday had burst out on Lady Auriol as thetriumphant, exquisite artist, there might, in spite of the unheroictravesty of a man in which he was invested, have been some cause for pridein extraordinary, crowd-compelling achievement. The touch of genius isa miraculous solvent. But here was something second-rate, third-rate, half-hearted--though I, who knew, saw that the man was sweating bloodto exceed his limitations. Here was merely an undistinguished turn in atravelling circus which folk like Lady Auriol Dayne only visited in idlemoods of good-humoured derision. 

He went through it not quite to the bitter end, for I noted that he cutout the finale of the elongated violin. There was perfunctory applause, aperfunctory call. After he had made his bow, hand in hand with Elodie, heretired in careless silence and was nearly knocked down by the reappearinglady on the broad white horse. 

"Let us go, " said Auriol. 

We threaded our way down the break-neck tiers of seats and eventuallyemerged into the open air. Our hired car was waiting. The full moon shonedown in a clear sky in the amiable way that the moon has--as though shesaid with an intimate smile--"My dear fellow--clouds? Rain? I never heardof such a thing. You must be suffering from some delusion. I've beenshining on you like this for centuries. " I made a casual reference to thebeauty of the night. 

"It ought to be still raining, " said Lady Auriol. 

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 uncomfortingcommonplaces. 

Well, it was her affair entirely. If she had given me some opening I mighthave 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 ironhad entered into her soul. She was a dead woman. 

The car stopped at the hotel door. We entered. A few yards down the hallthe lift waited. We went up together. I shall never forget the look on herface. I shall always associate it with the picture of Mrs. Siddons as theTragic Muse. The lift stopped at my floor. Her room was higher. 

I bade her good night. 

She wrung my hand. "Good night, Tony, and my very grateful thanks. "

I slipped out and watched her whisked, an inscrutable mystery, upwards. 

Chapter XXI

The first sign of commotion in the morning was a note from Bakkus, whoseturn it was to act as luncheon host. Our friends at Clermont-Ferrand, saidhe, had cried off. They had also asked him to go over and see them. WouldI be so kind as to regard this as a _dies non_ in the rota of ourpleasant gatherings?

I dressed and bought some flowers, which I sent up to Lady Auriol with apolite message. The chasseur returned saying that Miladi had gone out abouthalf an hour before. 

"You don't mean that she has left the hotel with her luggage?"

The boy smiled reassurance. She had only gone for a walk. I breathedfreely. It would have been just like her to go off by the first train. 

I suffered my treatment, drank my glasses of horrible water and againenquired at the hotel for Lady Auriol. She had not yet returned. Havingnothing to do, I took my _Moniteur du Puy de Dôme_, which I had notread, to the café which commands a view of the park gates and the generalgoing and coming of Royat. Presently, from the tram terminus I sawadvancing the familiar gaunt figure of Lackaday. I was glad, I scarcelyknew why, to note that he wore a grey soft felt instead of the awful strawhat. I rose to greet him, and invited him to my table. 

"I would join you with pleasure, " said he, "but I am thinking of paying myrespects to Lady Auriol. "

When I told him that he would not find her, he sat down. We could keep aneye on the hotel entrance, I remarked. 

"Our lunch with Bakkus is off, " said I. 

"Yes. I'm sorry. I rang him up early this morning. Elodie isn't quiteherself to-day. "

"The thunder last night, perhaps. "

He nodded. "Women have nerves. "

That something had happened was obvious. I remembered last night'shalf-hearted performance. 

"By the way, " said I, "Bakkus mentioned in his note that he was going overto Clermont-Ferrand to see you. "

"Yes, " said Lackaday, "I left him there. He has marvellous tact andinfluence when he chooses to exert them. A man thrown away on thetrivialities of life. He was born to be a Cardinal. I'm so glad you havetaken to him. "

I murmured mild eulogy of Bakkus. We spoke idly of his beautiful voice. Conversation languished, Lackaday's eyes being turned to the entrance ofthe hotel some fifty yards away up the sloping street. 

"I'm anxious not to miss Lady Auriol, " he said at last. "It will be my onlychance of seeing her. We're off to-morrow. "

"To-morrow?"

"Our engagement ends to-night. We're due at Vichy next week. "

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. 

"I have ended the engagement of my own accord, " said he. "The managementhad engaged another star turn for to-day--overlapping mine. A breach ofcontract which gave me the excuse for terminating it. I don't often standon the vain dignity of the so-called artist, but this time I've been gladto do so. "

"The atmosphere of the circus is scarcely congenial, " said I. 

"That's it. I'm too big for my boots, or my head's too big for my hat. Andthe management are not sorry to save a few days' salary. "

"But during these few days----?"

"We wait at Vichy. "

He spoke woodenly, his lined face set hard. 

"I shall miss you tremendously, my dear fellow, " said I. 

"I shall miss your company even more, " said he. 

"We won't, at any rate, say good-bye to-day, " I ventured. "There are carsto be hired, and Vichy from the car point of view is close by. "

"You, my dear Hylton, I shall be delighted to see. "

The emphasis on the pronoun would have rendered his meaning clear to even amore obtuse man than myself. No Lady Auriols flaunting over to Vichy. 

"May I ask when you came to this decision?" I enquired. "Bakkus's notesuggested only a postponement of our meeting. "

"Last night, " said he. "That's one reason why I sent for Bakkus. "

"I see, " said I. But I did not tell him what I saw. It looked as though thegallant fellow were simply running away. 

Soon afterwards, to my great relief, there came Lady Auriol swinging alongon 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 streetleading to the post office and then dwindling away vaguely up the hill. Itwas along this street that Lady Auriol came, short-skirted, flushed withexercise, rather dusty and dishevelled. I stood and waved an arrestinghand. She hesitated for a second and then crossed the road and met usoutside the café. I offered a seat at our table within. She declined with agesture. We all stood for a while and then went diagonally over to the parkentrance. 

"I've been such a walk, " she declared. "Miles and miles--through beautifulcountry and picturesque villages. You ought to explore. It's worth it. "

"I know the district of old, " said Lackaday. 

"I'm tremendously struck with the beauty of the women of Auvergne. "

"They're the pure type of old Gaul, " said Lackaday. 

She put up a hand to straying hair. "I'm falling to pieces. I have but twodesires in the world--a cold bath and food. Perhaps I shall see you later. "

He stood unflinching, like a soldier condemned for crime. I wondered at herindifference. He said:

"Unfortunately I can't have that pleasure. My engagements take up the restof the day, and tomorrow I leave Clermont-Ferrand. I shan't have anotheropportunity of seeing you. "

Their eyes met and his, calm yet full of pain, dominated. She thrust herhand through my arm. 

"Very well then, let us get into the shade. "

We entered the park, found an empty bench beneath the trees and sat down, Auriol between us. She said:

"Do you mean at Royat or in the world in general?"

"Perhaps the latter. "

She laughed queerly. "As chance has thrown us together here, it willpossibly do the same somewhere else. "

"My sphere isn't yours, " said he. "If it hadn't been for the accident ofHylton being here, we should not have met now. "

"Captain Hylton had nothing to do with it, " she said warmly. "I had nonotion that you were at Clermont-Ferrand. "

"I'm quite aware of that, Lady Auriol. "

She flushed, vexed at having said a foolish thing. 

"And Captain Hylton had no notion that I was coming. "

"Perfectly, " said Lackaday. 

"Well?" she said after a pause. 

"I came over to Royat, this morning, " said Lackaday, "to call on you andbid you good-bye. "

"Why?" she asked in a low voice. 

"It appeared to be ordinary courtesy. "

"Was there anything particular you wanted to say to me?"

"Perhaps to supplement just the little I could tell you yesterdayafternoon. "

"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 youhad been frank with me from the beginning, there would have been no needof it. As it was, I had to clear everything up. If I had known exactly. Ishould not have gone to the circus last night. "

His eyelids fluttered like those of a man who has received a bullet throughhim, and his mouth set grimly. 

"You might have spared me that, " said he. He bent forward. "Hylton, why didyou let her do it?"

"I might just as well have tried to stop the thunder, " said I, seeing noreason why this young woman should not bear the blame for her folly. 

"A circus is a comfortless place of entertainment, " he said, in thefamiliar, even voice. "I wish it had been a proper theatre. What did youthink of the performance?"

She straightened herself upright, turned and looked at him; then lookedaway in front of her: a sharp breath or two caused a little convulsiveheave of her bosom; to my astonishment I saw great tears run down hercheeks on to her hands tightly clasped on her lap. As soon as she realizedit, she dashed her hands roughly over her eyes. Lackaday ventured the tipof his finger on her sleeve. 

"It's a sorry show, isn't it? I'm not very proud of myself. But perhaps youunderstand now why I left you in ignorance. "

"Yet you told Anthony. Why not me?"

I was about to rise, this being surely a matter for them to battle outbetween themselves, but I at once felt her powerful grip on my arm. Whethershe was afraid of herself or of Lackaday, I did not know. Anyway, I seemedto represent to her some kind of human dummy which could be used, at need, as a sentimental buffer. 

"I presume, " she continued, "I was quite as intimate a friend as Anthony?"

"Quite, " said he. "But Hylton's a man and you're a woman. There can be nocomparison. You are on different planes of sentiment. For instance, Hylton, loyal friend as he is, has not to my knowledge done me the honour ofshedding tears over Petit Patou. "

I felt horribly out of place on the bench in this public leafy park, besidethese two warring lovers. But it was most humanly interesting. Lackadayseemed to be reinvested with the dignity of the man as I had first met him, a year ago. 

"Anthony--" I could not help feeling that her repeated change of her termof reference to me, from the formal Captain Hylton to my Christian name, sprang from an instinctive desire to put herself on more intimate termswith Lackaday--"Anthony, " she said in her defiant way, "would have cried, if he could. "

Lackaday's features relaxed into his childlike smile. 

"Ah, " said he, "'The little more and how much it is. The little less andhow far away. '"

She was silent. Although the situation was painful, I could not helpfeeling the ironical satisfaction that she was getting the worst of theencounter. I was glad, because I thought she had treated him cruelly. Theunprecedented tears, however, were signs of grace. Yet the devil in hersuggested a _riposte_. 

"I hope Madame Patou is quite well. "

Lackaday's smile faded into the mask. 

"Last night's thunderstorm upset her a little--but otherwise--yes--she isquite well. "

He rose. Lady Auriol cried:

"You're not going already?"

His ear caught a new tone, for he smiled again. 

"I must get back to Clermont-Ferrand. Goodbye, Hylton. "

We shook hands. 

"Good-bye, old chap, " said I. "We'll meet soon. "

Auriol rose and turned on me an ignoring back. As I did not seem to existany longer, I faded shadow-like away to the park gate, where I hung aboutuntil Auriol should join me. 

As to what happened between them then, I must rely on her own report, which, as you shall learn, she gave me later. 

They stood for a while after I had gone. Then he held out his hand. 

"Good-bye, Lady Auriol, " said he. 

"No, " she said. "There are things which we really ought to say to eachother. You do believe I wish I had never come?"

"I can quite understand, " said he, stiffly. 

"It hurts, " she said. 

"Why should it matter so much?" he asked. 

"I don't know--but it does. "

He drew himself up and his face grew stern. 

"I don't cease to be an honourable man because of my profession; or to beworthy of respect because I am loyal to sacred obligations. "

"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 tobe condemned to a fife like this. And you suffer too. It all hurts. "

"Remember, " said he, "it was the life to which I was bred. "

She felt hopeless. "It's my own fault for coming, " she said. "I should haveleft things as they were when we parted in April. There was beauty--youmade it quite clear that our parting was final. You couldn't have actedotherwise. Forgive me for all I've said. I pride myself on being apractical woman; but--for that reason perhaps--I'm unused to grappling withemotional situations. If I've been unkind, it's because I've been stabbingmyself and forgetting I'm stabbing you at the same time. "

He walked a pace or two further with her. For the first time he seemed torecognize what he, Andrew Lackaday, had meant to her. 

"I'm sorry, " he said gravely. "I never dreamed that it was a matter of suchconcern to you. If I had, I shouldn't have left you in any doubt. To me youwere the everything that man can conceive in woman. I wanted to remain inyour memory as the man the war had made me. Vanity or pride, I don'tknow. We all have our failings. I worshipped you as the _PrincesseLoinlaine_. I never told you that I am a man who has learned to keephimself under control. Perhaps under too much control. I shouldn't tell younow, if----"

"You don't suppose I'm a fool, " she interrupted. "I knew. And theVerity-Stewarts knew. And even my little cousin Evadne knew. "

They still strolled along the path under the trees. He said after a while:

"I'm afraid I have made things very difficult for you. "

She was pierced with remorse. "Oh, how like you! Any other man would haveput it the other way round and accused me of making things difficult forhim. And he would have been right. For I did come here to get news of youfrom Anthony Hylton. He was so discreet that I felt that he could tell mesomething. And I came and found you and have made things difficult foryou. "

He said in his sober way: "Perhaps it is for the best that we have met andhad this talk. We ought to have had it months ago, but--" he turned hisface wistfully on her--"we couldn't, because I didn't know. Anyhow, it'sall over. "

"Yes, " she sighed. "It's all over. We're up against the stone wall ofpractical life. "

"Quite so, " said he. "I am Petit Patou, the mountebank; my partner isMadame Patou, whom I have known since I was a boy of twenty, to whom I ambound by indissoluble ties of mutual fidelity, loyalty and gratitude; andyou are the Lady Auriol Dayne. We live, as I said before, in differentspheres. "

"That's quite true, " she said. "We have had our queer romance. It won'thurt us. It will sweeten our lives. But, as you say, it's over. It has tobe over. "

"There's no way out, " said he. "It's doubly locked. Good-bye. "

He bent and kissed her hand. To the casual French valetudinarians sittingand strolling in the park, it was nothing but a social formality. But toAuriol the touch of his lips meant the final parting of their lives, theconsecrated burial of their love. 

She lingered for a few moments watching his long, straight back disappearround the corner of the path, and then turned and joined me by the parkgate. On our way to the hotel the only thing she said was:

"I don't seem to have much chance, do I, Tony?"

It was after lunch, while we sat, as the day before, at the end of theterrace, that she told me of what had taken place between Lackaday andherself, while I had been hanging about the gate. I must confessto pressing her confidence. Since I was lugged, even as a sort of_raisonneur_, into their little drama, I may be pardoned for somecuriosity as to development. I did not seem, however, to get much further. They had parted for ever, last April, in a not unpoetic atmosphere. Theyhad parted for ever now in circumstances devoid of poetry. The only bit ofdramatic progress was the mutual avowal, apparently dragged out of them. It was almost an anticlimax. And then dead stop. I put these points beforeher. She agreed dismally. Bitterly reproached herself for giving way inParis to womanish folly; also for deliberately bringing about the morning'sexplanation. 

"You were cruel--which is utterly unlike you, " I said, judicially. 

"That horrible green, white and red thing haunted me all night--and thatfat woman bursting out of her clothes. I felt shrivelled up. If only I hadleft things as they were!" She harped always on that note. "I thought Icould walk myself out of my morbid frame of mind. Oh yes--you're quiteright--morbid--unlike me. I walked miles and miles. I made up my mind toreturn to Paris by the night train. I should never see him again. The wholething was dead. Killed. Washed out. I had got back some sense when I raninto 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--tofind the man again. That's why I told him about going to the circus lastnight. "

She went on in this strain. Presently she said: "I could shed tears ofblood over him. Don't think I'm filled merely with selfish disgust. AsI told him--the pity of it--all that he must have suffered--for he hassuffered, hasn't he?"

"He has gone through Hell, " said I. 

She was silent for a few moments. Then she said: "What's the good of goinground and round in a circle? You either understand or you don't. "

By way of consolation I mendaciously assured her that I understood. Idon't think I understand now. I doubt whether she understood herself. Her emotions were literally going round and round in a circle, a hideousmerry-go-round with fixed staring features, to be passed and repassed inthe eternal gyration. Horror of Petit Patou. Her love for Lackaday. MadamePatou. Hatred of Lacka-day. Scorching self-contempt for seeking him out. Petit Patou and Madame Patou. Lackaday crucified. Infinite pity forLackaday. General Lackaday. Old dreams. The lost illusion. The tomb oflove. Horror of Petit Patou--and so _da capo_, endlessly round andround. 

At least, this figure gave me the only clue to her frame of mind. If shewent on gyrating in this way indefinitely, she must go mad. No humanconsciousness could stand it. For sanity she must stop at some point. Theonly rational halting-place was at the Tomb. If I knew my Auriol, she woulddrop a flower and a tear on it, and then would start on a bee-line forCentral Tartary, or whatever expanse of the world's surface offered asatisfactory field for her energies. 

She swallowed the stone-cold, half-remaining coffee in her cup and rose andstretched herself, arms and back and bust, like a magnificent animal, thedark green, silken knitted jumper that she wore revealing all her great andcareless curves, and drew a long breath and smiled at me. 

"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. "Youcan have it at a Christian hour this evening. "

"The one bright gleam in a hopeless day, " said I. 

She laughed again, blew me a kiss and went her way to necessary repose. 

I remained on the terrace a while longer, in order to finish a longcorona-corona, forbidden by my doctors. But I reflected that as the showmanmakes up on the swings what he loses on the roundabouts, so I made up onthe filthy water what I lost on the cigars. How I provided myself withexcellent corona-coronas in Royat, under the Paris price, I presume, often francs apiece, wild reporters will never drag out of me. I mused, therefore, over the last smokable half-inch, and at last, discarding itreluctantly, I sought well-earned slumber in my room. But I could notsleep. All this imbroglio kept me awake. Also the infernal band began toplay. I had not thought--indeed, I had had no time to think of the notefrom Bakkus which I had received the first thing in the morning, and ofLackaday's confirmation of the summons to the ailing Elodie. Women, saidhe, had nerves. The thunder, of course. But, thought I, with elderlysagacity, was it all thunder?

As far as I could gather, from Lackaday's confessions he had never givenElodie cause for jealousy from the time they had become Les Petit Patou. Her rout of the suggestive Ernestine proved her belief in his insensibilityto woman's attractions during the war. She had never heard of Lady Auriol. Lady Auriol, therefore, must have bounded like a tiger into the placidcompound of her life. Reason enough for a _crise des nerfs_. Even I, who had nothing to do with it, found my equilibrium disturbed. 

Lady Auriol and I dined together. She declared herself rested and in herright and prosaic mind. 

"I have no desire to lose your company, " said I, "so I hope there's no moretalk of an unbooked _strapontin_ on the midnight train. "

"No need, " she replied. "He's leaving Clermont-Ferrand tomorrow. I'll keepto my original programme and enjoy fresh air until a wire summons me backto Paris. That's to say if you can do with me. "

"If you keep on looking as alluring as you are this evening, " said I, "perhaps I mayn't be able to do without you. "

"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 meanhundreds 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 beenirreproachable, you've got a heart beneath a cynical exterior, you've gotbrains, you're as clean as a new pin, you're an agreeable companion, youcan turn a compliment in a way that even a savage like me can appreciate, and yet----"

"And yet, " I interrupted, "when you're presented with a whole paper, row onrow, of new pins, you're left cold because choice is impossible. " I smiledsadly and sipped my wine. "Now I know what I am, one of a row of nice, clean, English-made pins. "

"It's you that are being rude to yourself, not I, " she laughed. "But youare of a type typical, and in your heart you're very proud of it. Youwouldn't be different from what you are for anything in the world. "

"I would give a good deal, " said I, "to be different from what Iam--but--from the ideal of myself--no. "

She was quite right. Although I may not have sound convictions, thankHeaven I've sacred prejudices. They have kept me more or less straight inmy unimaginative British fashion during a respectable lifetime. So far amI from being a Pharisee, that I exclaim: "Thank God I am as other decentfellows are. "

We circled pleasantly round the point until she returned to her originalproposition--her wonder that she had never been able to fall in love with aman of my type. 

"It's very simple, " said I. "You distrust us. You know that if you suddenlysaid to one of us, 'Let us go to Greenland and wear bearskins and eatblubber'; or, 'Let us fit up the drawing-room with incubators for East-endbabies doomed otherwise to die, ' he would vehemently object. And therewould be rows and the married life of cat and dog. "

She said: "Am I really as bad as that, Tony?"

"You are, " said I. 

She shook her head. "No, " she replied, after a pause. "In the depths ofmyself I'm as conventional as you are. That's why I said I was puzzled toknow why I had never fallen in love with any one of you. I had my deepreasons, 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. Lastnight showed me that I'm not. "

"And that's final, my dear?" said I. 

She helped herself to salad with an air of bravura. She helped herself, tomy surprise, to a prodigious amount of salad. 

"As final as death, " she replied. 

 * * * * *

There had been billed about the place a Grand Concert du Soir in the Casinode Royat. The celebrated tenor, M. Horatio Bakkus. The Casino having beenburned down in 1918, the concerts took place under the bandstand in thepark. 

After dinner we found places, among the multitude, on the Casino CafeTerrace overlooking the bandstand, and listened to Bakkus sing. I explainedBakkus, more or less, to Auriol. Although she could not accept Lackadayas Petit Patou, she seemed to accept Bakkus, without question, as aprofessional singer. The concert over, he joined us at our little japannediron table, and acknowledged her well-merited compliments--I tell you, hesang like a minor Canon in an angelic choir--with, well, with the well-bredair of a minor Canon in an angelic choir. With easy grace he dismissedhimself and talked knowledgeably and informatively of the antiquities andthe beauties of Auvergne. To most English folk it was an undiscoveredcountry. 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_charmille_--the towering maze-like walks of trees kept clippedin scrupulous formality by an old gardener during the war--the_charmille_ designed by no less a genius than Le Nôtre, who plannedthe wonders of Versailles and the exquisite miniature of the garden ofNîmes? To-morrow must we go. 

This white-haired, luminous-eyed ascetic--he drank but an orangeade throughpost-war straws--had kept us spellbound with his talk. I glanced at Aurioland read compliance in her eye. 

"Will you accompany us ignorant people and act as cicerone?"

"With all the pleasure in life, " said Bakkus. 

"What time shall we start?"

"Would ten be too early?"

"Lady Auriol and I are old campaigners. "

"I call for you at ten. It is agreed?"

We made the compact. I lifted my glass. He sputtered response through thepost-war straws resting in the remains of his orangeade. He rose togo, pleading much correspondence before going to bed. We rose too. Heaccompanied us to the entrance to our hotel. At the lift, he said:

"Can you give me a minute?"

"As many as you like, " said I, for it was still early. 

We sped Lady Auriol upwards to her repose, and walked out through the hallinto the soft August moonlight. 

"May I tread, " said he, "on the most delicate of grounds?"

"It all depends, " said I, "on how delicately you do it. "

He made a courteous movement of his hand and smiled. "I'll do my best. Itake it that you're very fully admitted into Andrew Lackaday's confidence. "

"To a great extent, " I admitted. 

"And--forgive me if I am impertinent--you have also that of the lady whomwe have just left?"

"Really, my dear Bakkus----" I began. 

"It is indeed a matter of some importance, " he interposed quickly. "Itconcerns Madame Patou--Elodie. Rightly or wrongly, she received a certainimpression from your charming luncheon party of yesterday. Andrew, as youare aware, is not the man with whom a woman can easily make a scene. Therewas 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 willcancel our engagement and go to Vichy. ' This morning, as I wrote, Iwas called to Clermont-Ferrand. Madame Patou, you understand, has thetemperament of the South. Its generosity is apt to step across theboundaries of exaggeration. In my capacity of friend of the family, I had along interview with her. You have doubtless seen many such on the stage. I must say that Andrew, to whom the whole affair appeared exceedinglydistasteful, had announced his intention of obeying the rules of commongood manners and leaving his farewell card on Lady Auriol. Towards the endof 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 thehead of a Marseillaise is an obstinate one. She dressed, put on her besthat--there is much that is symbolical in a woman's best hat, as doubtless aman of the world like yourself has observed--and took the tram with me toRoyat. We alighted at the further entrance to the park, and came plumpupon a leave-taking between Lackaday and Lady Auriol. You know there is aturn--some masking shrubs--we couldn't help seeing through them. She wasfor rushing forward. I restrained her. A second afterwards, Andrew ran intous. For me, at any rate, it was a most unhappy situation. If he had falleninto a rage, like ninety-nine men out of a hundred, and accused us ofspying, I should have known how to reply. But that's where you can neverget hold of Andrew Lackaday. He scorns such things. He said in his ramrodfashion: 'It's good of you to come to meet me, Elodie. I was kept longerthan I anticipated. ' He stopped the Clermont-Ferrand tram, nodded to me, and, with his hand under Elodie's elbow, helped her in. "

"May I ask why you tell me all this?" I asked. 

"Certainly, " said he, and his dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. "I givethe information for what it may be worth to you as a friend, perhaps asadviser, of both parties. "

"You are assuming, Mr. Bakkus, " I answered rather stiffly, "that MadamePatou's unfortunate impressions are in some way justified. "

It was a most unpleasant conversation. I very much resented discussing LadyAuriol with Horatio Bakkus. 

"Not at all, " said he. "But Fate has thrown you and me into analogouspositions--we are both elderly men--me as between Lackaday and MadamePatou, you as between Lady Auriol and Lackaday. "

"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 ordinaryfriendship of a distinguished soldier and an English lady?"

"If you can only assure me that there is nothing but that ordinaryfriendship, you will take a weight off my mind and relieve me of a greatresponsibility. "

"I can absolutely assure you, " I cried hotly, "that by no remotepossibility can there be anything else between Lady Auriol Dayne and PetitPatou. "

He thrust out both his hands and fervently grasped the one I instinctivelyput forward. 

"Thank you, thank you, my dear Hylton. That's exactly what I wanted toknow. _Au revoir_. I think we said ten o'clock. "

He marched away briskly. With his white hair gleaming between hislittle black felt hat cocked at an angle and the collar of his flappingold-fashioned opera-cloak, he looked like some weird bird of the night. 

I entered the hotel feeling the hot and cold of the man who has said adamnable thing. Through the action of what kinky cell of the brain I hadcalled the dear gallant fellow "Petit Patou, " instead of "Lackaday, " I wasunable to conjecture. 

I hated myself. I could have kicked myself. I wallowed in the unreason of aman vainly seeking to justify himself. The last thing in the world I wantedto do was to see Horatio Bakkus again. I went to bed loathing the idea ofour appointment. 

Chapter XXII

Lady Auriol, myself and the car met punctually at the hotel door at teno'clock. There was also a _chasseur_ with Lady Auriol's dust-coatand binoculars, and a _concierge_ with advice. We waited for Bakkus. Auriol, suddenly bethinking herself of plain chocolate, to the consumptionof which she was addicted on the grounds of its hunger-satisfyingqualities, although I guaranteed her a hearty midday meal on the occasionof the present adventure, we went down the street to the _Marquise deSévigné_ shop and bought some. This took time, because she lingered overseveral varieties devastating to the appetite. I paid gladly. If we allhad the same ideas as to the employment of a happy day, it would be a dullworld. We went back to the car. Still no Bakkus. We waited again. I railedat the artistic temperament. Pure, sheer bone idleness, said I. 

"But what can he be doing?" asked Auriol. 

I, who had received through Lackaday many lights on Bakkus's character, wasat no loss to reply. 

"Doing? Why, snoring. He'll awake at midday, stroll round here and expectto find us smiling on the pavement. We give him five more minutes. "

At the end of the five minutes I sent the _concierge_ off for aguide-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 slothof Bakkus, I rejoiced in his absence. My over-night impression had not beendissipated by slumber. 

"I'm not sorry, " said I, as we drove along. "Our friend is rather too muchof a professed conversationalist. "

"You also have a comfortable seat which possibly you would have had to giveup to your guest, " said Auriol. 

"How you know me, my dear, " said I, and we rolled along very happily. 

I think it was one of the pleasantest days I have ever passed in the courseof a carefully spent life. Auriol was at her best. She had thrown off theharried woman of affairs. She had put a nice little tombstone over thegrave of her romance, thus apparently reducing to beautiful simplicity herprevious complicated frame of mind. For aught I could have guessed, not acloud had ever dimmed the Diana serenity of her soul. If I said thatshe laid herself out to be the most charming of companions, I should beaccusing her of self-consciousness. Rather, let me declare her to have beenso instinctively. Vanity apart, I stood for something tangible in herlife. 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 acentury had lapsed. As far as a young woman can know a middle-aged man, sheknew me outside in. If she came to me for my sympathy, she knew that shehad the right. If she twitted me on my foibles, she knew that I granted herthe privilege, with affectionate indulgence. 

Now, perhaps you may wonder why I, not yet decrepit, did not glide ever soimperceptibly in love with Lady Auriol, who was no longer a dew-besprinkledbud 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 ofmy 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 joyand delight of my attitude towards Auriol was its placid and benignantavuncularity. We were the best and frankest friends in the world. 

And the day was an August hazy dream of a day. We wound along the mountainroads, first under overhanging greenery and then, almost suddenly, remote, in blue ether. We hung on precipices overlooking the rock-filled valleys ofold volcanic desolation. Basaltic cliffs rose up from their bed of yellowcornfields, bare and stark, yet, in the noontide shimmer, hesitating intheir eternal defiance of God and man. We ascended to vast tablelands ofinfinite scrub and yellow broom, and the stern peaks of the Puy de Dômemountains, a while ago seen like giants, appeared like rolling hillocks;but here and there a little white streak showed that the snow stilllingered and would linger on until the frosts of autumn bound it in chainsto await the universal winding-sheet of winter. Climate varied with thevarying 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 solitarypeasant ploughed with his team of oxen. Everywhere on the declivitouswaysides, tow-haired, blue-eyed children guarded herds of goats, as theirforbears had done in the days of Vercingetorix, the Gaul. Nowhere, save inthe dimly seen remotenesses of the valleys, where vestiges of red-roofedvillages emerged through the fertile summer green, was there sign ofhabitation. Whence came they, these patient humans, wresting their lifefrom these lonely spots of volcanic wildernesses?

Now and then, on a lower hump of mountain, appeared the ruined tower ofa stronghold fierce and dominating long ago. There the lord had all therights of the _seigneur_, as far as his eye could reach. He hadmen-at-arms in plenty, and could ride down to the valley and couldprovision himself with what corn and meat he chose, and could return andhold high revel. But when the winter came, how cold must he have been, forall the wood with its stifling smoke that he burned in his crude stonehall. And Madame the Countess, his wife, and her train of highborn youngwomen--imagine the cracking chilblains on the hands of the whole faircommunity. 

"Does the guide-book say that?" asked Auriol, on my development of thispleasant thesis. 

"Is a guide-book human?"

"It doesn't unweave rainbows. As a _cicerone_ you're impossible. Iregret Horatio Bakkus. "

Still, in spite of my prosaic vision, we progressed on an enjoyablepilgrimage. I am not giving you an itinerary. I merely mention features ofa day's whirl which memory has recaptured. We lunched in that little oasisof expensive civilization, Mont Dore. Incidentally we visited Orcival, withits Romanesque church and château, the objective of our expedition, andfound it much as Bakkus's glowing eloquence had described. From elderlyladies at stalls under the lee of the church we bought picture post cards. We wandered through the deeply shaded walks of the _charmille_, astrimly kept as the maze of Hampton Court and three times the height. We didall sorts of other things. We stopped at wild mountain gorges alive withthe rustle of water and aglow with wild-flowers. We went on foot throughone-streeted, tumble-down villages and passed the time of day with thekindly inhabitants. And the August sun shone all the time. 

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 themthe apology from Bakkus which I had expected, I came across a telephonememorandum asking me to ring up Monsieur Patou at the Hôtel Moderne, Vichy, as soon as I returned. 

After glancing through my correspondence, I descended to the bureau andthere found Auriol in talk with the _concierge_. She broke off andwaved a telegram at me. 

"The end of my lotus-eating. The arrangements are put through and I'm nolonger hung up. So"--she made a little grimace--"it's the midnight train toParis. "

"Surely to-morrow will do, " I protested. 

"To-morrow never does, " she retorted. 

"As you will, " said I, knowing argument was hopeless. 

Meanwhile the _concierge_ was 'allo'-ing lustily into the telephone. 

"I ought to have stuck to head-quarters, " she said, moving away into thelounge. "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. "

"Arras?"

"Roundabout. " She waved vaguely. "I'll know my exact address to-morrow. "

"Please let me have it. "

"What's the good unless you promise to write to me?"

"I swear, " said I. 

"Pardon, Miladi, " called the _concierge_, receiver in hand. "The_gare de Clermont-Ferrand_ says there is no _place salon-lit_ or_coupé-lit_ free in the train to-night. But there is _one place demilieu_, _premiere_, not yet taken. "

"Reserve it then and tell them you're sending a _chasseur_ at oncewith the money. " She turned to me. "My luck's in. "

"Luck!" I cried. "To get a middle seat in a crowded carriage, for anall-night journey, with the windows shut?"

She laughed. "Why is it, my dear Tony, you always seem to pretend there hasnever been anything like a war?"

She went upstairs to cleanse herself and pack. I remained master of thetelephone. 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:

"I wonder whether it would be trespassing too far on your friendship to askyou to pay your promised visit to Vichy to-morrow?"

The formality of his English, which one forgot when talking to him face toface, was oddly accentuated by the impersonal tones of the telephone. 

"I'll motor over with pleasure, " said I. The prospect pleased me. It wasonly sixty kilometres. I was wondering what the deuce I should do withmyself all alone. 

"You're sure it wouldn't be inconvenient? You have no other engagement?"

I informed him that, my early morning treatment over, I was free as air. 

"Besides, " said I, "I shall be at a loose end. Lady Auriol's taking themidnight train to Paris. "

"Oh!" said he. 

There was a pause. 

"'Allo!" said I. 

His voice responded: "In that case, I'll come to Clermont-Ferrand by thefirst train and see you. "

"Nonsense, " said I. 

But he would have it his own way. Evidently the absence of Lady Auriol madeall the difference. I yielded. 

"What's the trouble?" I asked. 

"I'll tell you when I see you, " said he. "I don't know the trains, but I'llcome by the first. Your _concierge_ will look it up for you. Thanksvery much. Good-bye. "'

"But, my dear fellow----" I began. 

But I spoke into nothingness. He had rung off. 

Auriol and I spent a comfortable evening together. There was no question ofLackaday. For her part, she raised none. For mine--why should I disturb hersuperbly regained balance with idle chatter about our morrow's meeting?We talked of the past glories of the day; of an almost forgotten day ofdisastrous picnic in the mountains of North Wales, when her twelve-year-oldsense of humour detected the artificial politeness with which I sought tocloak my sodden misery; of all sorts of pleasant far-off things; of thewar; of what may be called the war-continuation-work in the devastateddistricts in which she was at present engaged. I reminded her of ourfortuitous meetings, when she trudged by my side through the welter of rainand liquid mud, smoking the fag-end of my last pipe of tobacco. 

"One lived in those days, " she said with a full-bosomed sigh. 

"By the dispensation of a merciful Providence, " I said, "one hung on to astrand of existence. "

"It was fine!" she declared. 

"It was--for the appropriate adjective, " said I, "consult any humble memberof the British Army. "

We had a whole, long evening's talk, which did not end until I left her inthe train at Clermont-Ferrand. 

On our midnight way thither, she said:

"Now I know you love me, Tony. "

"Why now?" I asked. 

"How many people are there in the world whom you would see off by amidnight train, three or four miles from your comfortable bed?"

"Not many, " I admitted. 

"That's why I want you to feel I'm grateful. " She sought my hand and pattedit. "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 hadto 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. "

At the station I packed her into the dark and already suffocatingcompartment. She announced her intention to sleep all night like a dog. Shewent off, in the best of spirits, to the work in front of her, which afterall was a more reasonable cure than tossing about the Outer Hebrides in afive-ton yacht. 

I drove home to bed and slept the sleep of the perfect altruist. 

I was reading the _Moniteur du Puy de Dôme_ on the hotel terrace nextmorning, when Lackaday was announced. He looked grimmer and more carewornthan ever, and did not even smile as he greeted me. He only said gravelythat it was good of me to let him come over. I offered him refreshment, which he declined. 

"You may be wondering, " said he, "why I have asked for this interview. Butafter all I have told you about myself, it did not seem right to leave youin ignorance of certain things. Besides, you've so often given me yourkind sympathy, that, as a lonely man, I've ventured to trespass on it oncemore. "

"My dear Lackaday, you know that I value your friendship, " said I, notwishing to be outdone in courteous phrase, "and that my services areentirely at your disposal. "

"I had better tell you in a few words what has happened, " said he. 

He told me. 

Elodie had gone, disappeared, vanished into space, like the pearl necklaceswhich Petit Patou used to throw at her across the stage. 

"But how? When?" I asked, in bewilderment; for Lackaday and Elodie, as LesPetit Patou, seemed as indissoluble as William and Mary or Pommery andGreno. 

He had gone to her room at ten o'clock the previous morning, her breakfasthour, and found it wide open and empty save for the _femme de chambre_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 didnot start till the afternoon. His eye quickly caught the uninhabitedbareness of the apartment. Not a garment straggled about the room. Thetoilet table, usually strewn with a myriad promiscuously ill-assortedarticles, stared nakedly. There were no boxes. The cage of love-birds, Elodie's inseparable companions, had gone. 

"Madame----?"

He questioned the _femme de chambre_. 

"But Madame has departed. Did not Monsieur know?"

Monsieur obviously did not know. The girl gave him the information of whichshe was possessed. Madame had gone in an automobile at six o'clock. She hadrung the bell. The _femme de chambre_ had answered it. The staff wereup early on account of the seven o'clock train for Paris. 

"Then Madame has gone to Paris, " cried Lackaday. 

But the girl demurred at the proposition. One does not hire an automobilefrom a garage, _a voiture de luxe, quoi?_ to go to the railwaystation, when the hotel omnibus would take one there for a franc or two. Asshe was saying, Madame rang her bell and gave orders for her luggage to betaken down. It was not much, said Lackaday; they travelled light, theirprofessional paraphernalia having to be considered. Well, the luggage wastaken down to the automobile that was waiting at the door, and Madame haddriven off. That is all she knew. 

Lackaday strode over to the bureau and assailed the manager. Why had he notbeen informed of the departure of Madame? It apparently never entered themanager's polite head that Monsieur Patou was ignorant of Madame Patou'smovements. Monsieur had given notice that they were leaving. Artists likeMonsieur and Madame Patou were bound to make special arrangements for theirtours, particularly nowadays when railway travelling was difficult. SoMadame's departure had occasioned no surprise. 

"Who took her luggage down?" he demanded. 

The dingy waistcoated, alpaca-sleeved porter, wearing the ribbon of theMédaille Militaire on his breast, came forward. At six o'clock, while hewas sweeping the hall, an automobile drew up outside. He said: "Whom areyou come to fetch? The Queen of Spain?" And the chauffeur told him tomind his own business. At that moment the bell rang. He went up to the_étage_ indicated. The _femme de chambre_ beckoned him to theroom and he took the luggage and Madame took the bird-cage, and he putMadame and the luggage and the birdcage into the auto, and Madame gave himtwo francs, and the car drove off, whither the porter knew not. 

Although he put it to me very delicately, as he had always conveyed hiscriticism of Elodie, the fact that struck a clear and astounding notethrough his general bewilderment, was the unprecedented recklessextravagance of the economical Elodie. There was the omnibus. There was thetrain. 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'sreturn journey?

"And Madame was all alone in the automobile, " said the porter, by way ofreassurance. "Pardon, Monsieur, " he added, fading away under Lackaday'sglare. 

"I cut the indignity of it all as short as I could, " said Lackaday, "andwent up to my room to size things up. It was a knock-down blow to me inmany ways, as you no doubt can understand. And then came the _femmede chambre_ with a letter addressed to me. It had fallen between thelooking-glass and the wall. "

He drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to me. 

"You had better read it. "

I fitted my glasses on my nose and read. In the sprawling, strong, illiterate hand I saw and felt Elodie. 

_Mon petit André_----

But I must translate inadequately, for the grammar and phrasing wereElodesque. 

As you no longer love me, if ever you have loved me, which I doubt, forwe have made _un drôle de ménage_ ever since we joined ourselvestogether, and as our life in common is giving you unhappiness, which itdoes me also, for since you have returned from England as a General youhave 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 notwish to be a burden to you, but desire that you should feel yourself freeto lead whatever life you like, I have taken the decision to leave you forever--_pour tout jamais_. It is the best means to regain happiness. 

For the things that are still at the Cirque Vendramin, do with them whatyou will. I shall write to Ernestine to send me my clothes and all thelittle birds I love so much. Your noble heart will not grudge them to me, _mon petit André_. 

Praying God for your happiness, I am always

Your devoted

ELODIE

I handed him back the letter without a word. What could one say?

"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 thematter. "

"Bakkus--why, he cut his engagement with us yesterday. "

"The damned scoundrel, " said Lackaday, "was running away with Elodie. "

Chapter XXIII

He banged his hand on the little iron table in front of us and started tohis feet, exploding at last with his suppressed fury. 

"The infernal villain!"

I gasped for a few seconds. Then I accomplished my life's effort inself-control. My whole being clamoured for an explosion equally violent ofcompressed mirth. I ached to lie back in my chair and shriek with laughter. The _dénouement_ of the little drama was so amazingly unexpected, sounexpectedly ludicrous. A glimmer of responsive humour in his eyes wouldhave 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. 

Worked up, he told me the whole of the astonishing business, as far as heknew it. They had eloped at dawn, like any pair of young lovers. Ofthat there was no doubt. The car had picked up Bakkus at his hotel inRoyat--Lackaday had the landlord's word for it--and had carried the pairaway, Heaven knew whither. The proprietor of the Royat garage deposed thatMr. Bakkus had hired the car for the day, mentioning no objective. Therunaways had the whole of France before them. Pursuit was hopeless. AsLackaday had planned to go to Vichy, he went to Vichy. There seemed nothingelse to do. 

"But why elope at dawn?" I cried. "Why all the fellow's unnecessaryduplicity? Why, in the name of Macchiavelli, did he seize upon my teno'clock invitation with such enthusiasm? Why his private conversation withme? Why throw dust into my sleepy eyes? What did he gain by it?"

Lackaday shrugged his shoulders. That part of the matter scarcelyinterested him. He was concerned mainly with the sting of the viper Bakkus, whom he had nourished in his bosom. 

"But, my dear fellow, " said I at last, after a tiring march up and down thehot terrace, "you don't seem to realize that Bakkus has solved all yourdifficulties, _ambulando_, by walking off, or motoring off, with yourgreat responsibility. "

"You mean, " said he, coming to a halt, "that this has removed the reasonfor my remaining on the stage?"

"It seems so, " said I. 

He frowned. "I wish it could have happened differently. No man can bear tobe tricked and fooled and made a mock of. "

"But it does give you your freedom, " said I. 

He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. "I suppose it does, " headmitted savagely. "But there's a price for everything. Even freedom can bepurchased too highly. "

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 believeit, because it was incredible, as Tertullian cheerily remarked ofecclesiastical dogma. But short of the Archbishop of Canterbury elopingwith the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour nothing could seem lesspossible. If Bakkus had nurtured nefarious designs, Good Heavens! he couldhave executed them years before. Well, perhaps not. When one hasn't a pennyin one's pocket even the most cynical pauses ere he proposes romanticflight with a lady equally penniless. But since April, Bakkus had beenbattening on the good Archdeacon, his brother's substantial allowance. Whyhad he tarried?

"His diabolical cunning lay in wait for a weak moment, " growled Lackaday. 

All through this discussion, I came up against a paradox of human nature. Although it was obvious that the unprincipled Bakkus had rendered my goodfriend the service of ridding him of the responsibility of a woman whom hehad ceased to love, if ever he had loved her at all, a woman, who, for allher loyal devotion through loveless years, had stood implacably between himand 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 hishappiness. 

"But after all, man, can't you see, " he cried in protest at my worldly andsophistical arguments, "that I've lost one of the most precious things inthe world? My implicit faith in a fellow-man. I gave Bakkus a brother'strust. He has betrayed it. Where am I? His thousand faults have beenfamiliar to me for years. I discounted them for the good in him. I thoughtI 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------?"

The _concierge_ with a dusty chauffeur in tow providentially cut shortthis embarrassing apostrophe. 

"Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton?" asked the chauffeur. 

"_C'est moi_. "

He handed me a letter. I glanced at the writing on the envelope. 

"From Bakkus!" I said. "Tell me"--to the chauffeur--"how did you come byit?"

"Monsieur charged me to deliver it into the hands of Monsieur le Capitaine. I have this moment returned to Royat. "

"Ah, " said I. "You drove the automobile? Where is Monsieur Bakkus?"

"That, " said he, "I have pledged my honour not to divulge. "

I fished in my pocket for some greasy rags of paper money which I pressedinto his honourable hand. He bowed and departed. I tore open the envelope. 

"You will excuse me?"

"Oh, of course, " said Lackaday curtly. He lit a cigarette and stalked tothe end of the terrace. 

The letter bore neither date nor address. I read:

MY DEAR HYLTON, You have heard of Touchstone. You have heard of Audrey. Shakespeare hasdoubtless convinced you of the inevitability of their mating. I have alwaysprided myself of a certain Touchstone element in my nature. There is muchthat is Audrey-esque in the lady whose disappearance from Clermont-Ferrandmay be causing perturbation. As my Shakespearian preincarnation scorneddishonourable designs, so do even I. The marriage of Veuve Elodie Marescauxand Horatio Bakkus will take place at the earliest opportunity allowedby French law. If that delays too long, we shall fly to England where anArchbishop's special licence will induce a family Archdeacon to marry usstraight away. 

My flippancy, my dear Hylton, is but a motley coat. 

If there is one being in this world whom I love and honour, it is AndrewLackaday. 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 sheetanchor in my life. He has fed me when I have been hungry, he has lashed mewhen I have been craven-hearted, he has raised me when I have fallen. Therecan be only three beings in the Cosmos who know how I have been saved timesout of number from the nethermost abyss--I and Andrew Lackaday and God. 

I passed my hand over my eyes when I read this remarkable outburst ofdevoted affection on the part of the seducer and betrayer for the man hehad wronged. I thought of the old couplet about the dissembling of loveand the kicking downstairs. I read on, however, and found the mysteryexplained. 

 The time has come for me to pay him, in part, my infinite debt of gratitude. 

 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. "

"Damn the fellow, " I muttered. "Now he's calmly shifting the responsibilityon to me. "

And I swore a deep oath that nevermore would I interfere in anybody else'saffairs, not even if Bolshevist butchers were playing with him before myvery eyes. 

 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. 

 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, _en lout bien et tout honneur_, 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:

 "Necessité fait gens mesprendre Et faim sortir le loup des boys. "

 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?

 Which brings me back, although I'm aware of glaring psychological flaws, to my Touchstone and Audrey prelude. 

 Writing, as I am doing, in a devil of a hurry, I don't pretend to Meredithean analysis. 

 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, _relevé_ (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. 

 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 _coup de théâtre_ by which alone I was able to induce Elodie to co-operate in the part payment of my infinite debt of gratitude. 

 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?

 Yours sincerely, Horatio Bakkus

 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. 

I had to read over this preposterous epistle again before I fully graspedits significance. On the first reading it seemed incredible that the mancould be sincere in his professions; on the second, his perfect good faithmanifested 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 beginningto shimmer about his head. 

I walked up to Lackaday at the end of the terrace and handed him theletter. It was the simplest thing to do. He also read it twice, thefirst time with scowling brow, the second with a milder expression ofincredulity. He looked down on me--I don't stand when a handy chair invitesme to sit. 

"This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard of. "

I nodded. He walked a few yards away and attacked the letter for the thirdtime. Then he gave it back to me with a smile. 

"I don't believe he's such an infernal scoundrel after all. "

"Ah!" said I. 

He leaned over the balustrade and plunged into deep reflection. 

"If it's genuine, it's an unheard of piece of Quixotism. "

"I'm sure it's genuine. "

"By Gum!" said he. He gazed at the vine-clad hill in the silence ofwondering admiration. 

At last I tapped him on the shoulder. 

"Let us lunch, " said I. 

We strolled to the upper terrace. 

"It is wonderful, " he remarked on the way thither, "how much sheer goodnessthere is in humanity. "

"Pure selfishness on my part. I hate lunching alone, " said I. 

He turned on me a pained look. 

"I wasn't referring to you. "

Then meeting something quizzical in my eye, he grinned his broad ear-to-eargrin of a child of six. 

We lunched. We smoked and talked. At every moment a line seemed to fadefrom his care-worn face. At any rate, everything was not for the worst inthe worst possible of worlds. I think he felt his sense of freedom stealover him in his gradual glow. At last I had him laughing and mimicking, inhis inimitable way--a thing which he had not done for my benefit since thefirst night of our acquaintance--the elderly and outraged Moignon whom heproposed to visit in Paris, for the purpose of cancelling his contracts. As for Vichy--Vichy could go hang. There were ravening multitudes ofdemobilized variety artists besieging every stage-door in France. He wasletting down nobody; neither the managements nor the public. Moignon wouldfind means of consolation. 

"My dear Hylton, " said he, "now that my faith in Bakkus is not onlyrestored but infinitely strengthened, and my mind is at rest concerningElodie, I feel as though ten years were lifted from my life. I'm no longerPetit Patou. The blessed relief of it! Perhaps, " he added, after a pause, "the discipline has been good for my soul. "

"In what way?"

"Well, you see, " he replied thoughtfully, "in my profession I always was asecond-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 hadto go back, not only to second-rate, but to third-rate, having lost a lotin five years. It was humiliating. But all the same I've no doubt it hasbeen the best thing in the world for me. The old hats will still fit. "

"If I had a quarter of your vicious modesty, " said I, "I would see that Iturned it into a dazzling virtue. What are your plans?"

"You remember my telling you of a man I met in Marseilles calledArbuthnot?"

"Yes, " said I, "the fellow who shies at coco-nuts in the Solomon Islands. "

He grinned, and with singular aptness he replied:

"I'll cable him this afternoon and see whether I can still have three shiesfor a penny. "

We discussed the proposal. Presently he rose. He must go to Vichy, where hehad to wind up certain affairs of Les Petit Patou. To-morrow he would startfor Paris and await Arbuthnot's reply. 

"And possibly you'll see Lady Auriol, " I hazarded, this being the firsttime her name was mentioned. 

His brow clouded and he shook his head sadly. 

"I think not, " said he. And, as I was about to protest, he checked me witha gesture. "That's all done with. "

"My dear, distinguished idiot, " said I. 

"It can never be, " he declared with an air of finality. 

"You'll break Bakkus's heart. "

"Sorry, " said he. 

"You'll break mine. "

"Sorrier still. No, no, my dear friend, " he said gently, "don't let us talkabout that any more. "

After he had gone I experienced a severe attack of anticlimax, and feelinglonely 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-classdescriptive writing. I gave her a beautiful account of the elopement and, as an interesting human document, I enclosed a copy of Bakkus's letter. AsI had to wait a day or two for her promised address--her letter conveyingit gave me no particular news of herself--I did not receive her answeruntil I reached London. 

It was characteristic:

 My Dear Tony, 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. 

 Yours, Auriol

I wrote back in a fury: something about never wanting to see her or herinfernal dog as long as I lived. I was angry and depressed. I don't knowwhy. It was none of my business. But I felt that I had been scandalouslytreated by this young woman. I felt that I had subscribed to their futileromance an enormous fund of interest and sympathy. This chilly end of itleft me with a sense of bleak disappointment. I was not rendered merrier ashort while afterwards by an airy letter from Horatio Bakkus enclosing aflourishing announcement in French of his marriage with the Veuve ElodieMarescaux, née Figasso. "Behold me, " said the fellow, "cooing with contentin the plenitude of perfect connubiality. " I did not desire to behold himat all. His cooing left me cold. I bore on my shoulders the burden of thetragio-comedy of Auriol and Lackaday. 

If she had never seen him as Petit Patou, all might have been well, inspite of Elodie who had been somewhat destructive of romantic glamour. Butthe visit to the circus, I concluded, finished the business. Beneath thepainted monster in green silk tights the dignified soldier whom she lovedwas eclipsed for ever. And then a thousand commonplace social realitiesarose and stood stonily in her path. And Lackaday--well! I suppose he wasfaced with the same unscalable stone wall of convention. 

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, andwent to an elder brother's place in Inverness-shire for rest andshooting and rain and family criticism and such-like amenities. Among myfellow-guests I found young Charles Verity-Stewart and Evadne nominallyunder 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 littlebirds. And then--I suppose I am growing old--the sport, in which I oncerejoiced, involved such hours of wet and weary walking that I renouncedit without too many sighs. But I had nothing to do. My pre-war dilettanteexcursions into the literary world had long since come to an end. I wasobsessed by the story of Lackaday; and so, out of sheer _tædium vitæ_, and at the risk of a family quarrel, I shut myself up with the famousmanuscript and my own reminiscences, and began to reduce things to suchcoherence as you now have had an opportunity of judging. 

It was at breakfast, one morning in November, that the butler handed me atelegram. I opened the orange envelope. The missive, reply paid, ran:

 Will you swear that there are real live cannibals in the Solomon Islands? If not, it will be the final disillusion of my life. --AURIOL

I passed the paper to my neighbour Evadne, healthily deep in porridge. Sheglanced at it, glass of milk in one hand, poised spoon in the other. Withthe diabolical intuition of eternal woman and the ironical imperturbabilityof the modern maiden, she raised her candid eyes to mine and declared:

"She's quite mad. But I told you all about it years ago. "

This lofty calmness I could not share. I suddenly found myself unable tostand another minute of Scotland. Righteous indignation sped me to London. 

I found the pair together in Lady Auriol's drawing-room. Without formalgreeting I apostrophized them. 

"You two have behaved disgracefully. Here have I been utterly miserableabout you, and all the time you've left me in the dark. "

"Where we were ourselves, my dear Hylton, I assure you, " said Lackaday. 

"I shed light as soon as I could, " said Auriol. "We bumped into each otherlast Monday evening in Bond Street and found it was us. "

"I told her I was going to the Solomon Islands. "

"And I thought I wanted to go there too. "

"From which I gather, " said I, "that you are going to get married. "

Lady Auriol smiled and shook her head. 

"Oh dear no. "

I was really angry. "Then what on earth made you drag me all the way fromthe North of Scotland?"

"To congratulate us, my dear friend, " said Lackaday. "We were married thismorning. "

"I think you're a pair of fools, " said I later, not yet quite mollified. 

"Why--for getting married?" asked Auriol. 

"No, " said I. "For putting it off to a fortuitous bump in Bond Street. "

The End