Part 27

“Well?” demanded Elliott. “Well,” said Clifford, “his idea of the dangerous woman is probably a painted Jezabel.” “Probably,” replied the other. “He’s a trump!” said Clifford, “and if he swears the world is as good and pure as his own heart, I’ll swear he’s right.” Elliott rubbed his charcoal on his file to get a point and turned to his sketch saying, “He will never hear any pessimism from Richard Osborne E.” “He’s a lesson to me,” said Clifford. Then he unfolded a small perfumed note, written on rose-coloured paper, which had been lying on the table before him. He read it, smiled, whistled a bar or two from “Miss Helyett,” and sat down to answer it on his best cream-laid note-paper. When it was written and sealed, he picked up his stick and marched up and down the studio two or three times, whistling. “Going out?” inquired the other, without turning. “Yes,” he said, but lingered a moment over Elliott’s shoulder, watching him pick out the lights in his sketch with a bit of bread. “To-morrow is Sunday,” he observed after a moment’s silence. “Well?” inquired Elliott. “Have you seen Colette?” “No, I will to-night. She and Rowden and Jacqueline are coming to Boulant’s. I suppose you and Cécile will be there?” “Well, no,” replied Clifford. “Cécile dines at home to-night, and I—I had an idea of going to Mignon’s.” Elliott looked at him with disapproval. “You can make all the arrangements for La Roche without me,” he continued, avoiding Elliott’s eyes. “What are you up to now?” “Nothing,” protested Clifford. “Don’t tell me,” replied his chum, with scorn; “fellows don’t rush off to Mignon’s when the set dine at Boulant’s. Who is it now?—but no, I won’t ask that,—what’s the use!” Then he lifted up his voice in complaint and beat upon the table with his pipe. “What’s the use of ever trying to keep track of you? What will Cécile say,—oh, yes, what will she say? It’s a pity you can’t be constant two months, yes, by Jove! and the Quarter is indulgent, but you abuse its good nature and mine too!” Presently he arose, and jamming his hat on his head, marched to the door. “Heaven alone knows why any one puts up with your antics, but they all do and so do I. If I were Cécile or any of the other pretty fools after whom you have toddled and will, in all human probabilities, continue to toddle, I say, if I were Cécile I’d spank you! Now I’m going to Boulant’s, and as usual I shall make excuses for you and arrange the affair, and I don’t care a continental where you are going, but, by the skull of the studio skeleton! if you don’t turn up to-morrow with your sketching-kit under one arm and Cécile under the other,—if you don’t turn up in good shape, I’m done with you, and the rest can think what they please. Good-night.” Clifford said good-night with as pleasant a smile as he could muster, and then sat down with his eyes on the door. He took out his watch and gave Elliott ten minutes to vanish, then rang the concierge’s call, murmuring, “Oh dear, oh dear, why the devil do I do it?” “Alfred,” he said, as that gimlet-eyed person answered the call, “make yourself clean and proper, Alfred, and replace your sabots with a pair of shoes. Then put on your best hat and take this letter to the big white house in the Rue de Dragon. There is no answer, _mon petit_ Alfred.” The concierge departed with a snort in which unwillingness for the errand and affection for M. Clifford were blended. Then with great care the young fellow arrayed himself in all the beauties of his and Elliott’s wardrobe. He took his time about it, and occasionally interrupted his toilet to play his banjo or make pleasing diversion for the bull-dogs by gambling about on all fours. “I’ve got two hours before me,” he thought, and borrowed a pair of Elliott’s silken foot-gear, with which he and the dogs played ball until he decided to put them on. Then he lighted a cigarette and inspected his dress-coat. When he had emptied it of four handkerchiefs, a fan, and a pair of crumpled gloves as long as his arm, he decided it was not suited to add _éclat_ to his charms and cast about in his mind for a substitute. Elliott was too thin, and, anyway, his coats were now under lock and key. Rowden probably was as badly off as himself. Hastings! Hastings was the man! But when he threw on a smoking-jacket and sauntered over to Hastings’ house, he was informed that he had been gone over an hour. “Now, where in the name of all that’s reasonable could he have gone!” muttered Clifford, looking down the street. The maid didn’t know, so he bestowed upon her a fascinating smile and lounged back to the studio. Hastings was not far away. The Luxembourg is within five minutes’ walk of the rue Notre Dame des Champs, and there he sat under the shadow of a winged god, and there he had sat for an hour, poking holes in the dust and watching the steps which lead from the northern terrace to the fountain. The sun hung, a purple globe, above the misty hills of Meudon. Long streamers of clouds touched with rose swept low on the western sky, and the dome of the distant Invalides burned like an opal through the haze. Behind the Palace the smoke from a high chimney mounted straight into the air, purple until it crossed the sun, where it changed to a bar of smouldering fire. High above the darkening foliage of the chestnuts the twin towers of St. Sulpice rose, an ever-deepening silhouette. A sleepy blackbird was carolling in some near thicket, and pigeons passed and repassed with the whisper of soft winds in their wings. The light on the Palace windows had died away, and the dome of the Pantheon swam aglow above the northern terrace, a fiery Valhalla in the sky; while below in grim array, along the terrace ranged, the marble ranks of queens looked out into the west. From the end of the long walk by the northern façade of the Palace came the noise of omnibuses and the cries of the street. Hastings looked at the Palace clock. Six, and as his own watch agreed with it, he fell to poking holes in the gravel again. A constant stream of people passed between the Odéon and the fountain. Priests in black, with silver-buckled shoes; line soldiers, slouchy and rakish; neat girls without hats bearing milliners’ boxes, students with black portfolios and high hats, students with bérets and big canes, nervous, quick-stepping officers, symphonies in turquoise and silver; ponderous jangling cavalrymen all over dust, pastry cooks’ boys skipping along with utter disregard for the safety of the basket balanced on the impish head, and then the lean outcast, the shambling Paris tramp, slouching with shoulders bent and little eye furtively scanning the ground for smokers’ refuse;—all these moved in a steady stream across the fountain circle and out into the city by the Odeon, whose long arcades were now beginning to flicker with gas-jets. The melancholy bells of St Sulpice struck the hour and the clock-tower of the Palace lighted up. Then hurried steps sounded across the gravel and Hastings raised his head. “How late you are,” he said, but his voice was hoarse and only his flushed face told how long had seemed the waiting. She said, “I was kept—indeed, I was so much annoyed—and—and I may only stay a moment.” She sat down beside him, casting a furtive glance over her shoulder at the god upon his pedestal. “What a nuisance, that intruding cupid still there?” “Wings and arrows too,” said Hastings, unheeding her motion to be seated. “Wings,” she murmured, “oh, yes—to fly away with when he’s tired of his play. Of course it was a man who conceived the idea of wings, otherwise Cupid would have been insupportable.” “Do you think so?” “_Ma foi_, it’s what men think.” “And women?” “Oh,” she said, with a toss of her small head, “I really forget what we were speaking of.” “We were speaking of love,” said Hastings. “_I_ was not,” said the girl. Then looking up at the marble god, “I don’t care for this one at all. I don’t believe he knows how to shoot his arrows—no, indeed, he is a coward;—he creeps up like an assassin in the twilight. I don’t approve of cowardice,” she announced, and turned her back on the statue. “I think,” said Hastings quietly, “that he does shoot fairly—yes, and even gives one warning.” “Is it your experience, Monsieur Hastings?” He looked straight into her eyes and said, “He is warning me.” “Heed the warning then,” she cried, with a nervous laugh. As she spoke she stripped off her gloves, and then carefully proceeded to draw them on again. When this was accomplished she glanced at the Palace clock, saying, “Oh dear, how late it is!” furled her umbrella, then unfurled it, and finally looked at him. “No,” he said, “I shall not heed his warning.” “Oh dear,” she sighed again, “still talking about that tiresome statue!” Then stealing a glance at his face, “I suppose—I suppose you are in love.” “I don’t know,” he muttered, “I suppose I am.” She raised her head with a quick gesture. “You seem delighted at the idea,” she said, but bit her lip and trembled as his eyes met hers. Then sudden fear came over her and she sprang up, staring into the gathering shadows. “Are you cold?” he said. But she only answered, “Oh dear, oh dear, it is late—so late! I must go—good-night.” She gave him her gloved hand a moment and then withdrew it with a start. “What is it?” he insisted. “Are you frightened?” She looked at him strangely. “No—no—not frightened,—you are very good to me—” “By Jove!” he burst out, “what do you mean by saying I’m good to you? That’s at least the third time, and I don’t understand!” The sound of a drum from the guard-house at the palace cut him short. “Listen,” she whispered, “they are going to close. It’s late, oh, so late!” The rolling of the drum came nearer and nearer, and then the silhouette of the drummer cut the sky above the eastern terrace. The fading light lingered a moment on his belt and bayonet, then he passed into the shadows, drumming the echoes awake. The roll became fainter along the eastern terrace, then grew and grew and rattled with increasing sharpness when he passed the avenue by the bronze lion and turned down the western terrace walk. Louder and louder the drum sounded, and the echoes struck back the notes from the grey palace wall; and now the drummer loomed up before them—his red trousers a dull spot in the gathering gloom, the brass of his drum and bayonet touched with a pale spark, his epaulettes tossing on his shoulders. He passed leaving the crash of the drum in their ears, and far into the alley of trees they saw his little tin cup shining on his haversack. Then the sentinels began the monotonous cry: “On ferme! on ferme!” and the bugle blew from the barracks in the rue de Tournon. “On ferme! on ferme!” “Good-night,” she whispered, “I must return alone to-night.” He watched her until she reached the northern terrace, and then sat down on the marble seat until a hand on his shoulder and a glimmer of bayonets warned him away. She passed on through the grove, and turning into the rue de Medici, traversed it to the Boulevard. At the corner she bought a bunch of violets and walked on along the Boulevard to the rue des Écoles. A cab was drawn up before Boulant’s, and a pretty girl aided by Elliott jumped out. “Valentine!” cried the girl, “come with us!” “I can’t,” she said, stopping a moment—“I have a rendezvous at Mignon’s.” “Not Victor?” cried the girl, laughing, but she passed with a little shiver, nodding good-night, then turning into the Boulevard St. Germain, she walked a tittle faster to escape a gay party sitting before the Café Cluny who called to her to join them. At the door of the Restaurant Mignon stood a coal-black negro in buttons. He took off his peaked cap as she mounted the carpeted stairs. “Send Eugene to me,” she said at the office, and passing through the hallway to the right of the dining-room stopped before a row of panelled doors. A waiter passed and she repeated her demand for Eugene, who presently appeared, noiselessly skipping, and bowed murmuring, “Madame.”