— VIII —
FLIGHT
Madame Garneau's hair straggled untidily about her head, her hands were red, calloused, inclined indeed to be grimy, she had passed even that poets'-consolation-prize age of forty, and she had no figure; but Madame Garneau was possessed of a heart. She pushed open the door of Marie-Louise's room, and dangled in her hand a yellow paper bag that was grease specked on the bottom.
"Voilà, my little lodger!" she cried gaily. "I have this for you, and you will never guess what it is; and, besides, I have something else—a message for you from Father Anton. Now which will you have first?"
Marie-Louise, from her chair by the window, rose quickly to her feet, with a little exclamation of pleased surprise.
Madame Garneau immediately pushed her back into the chair.
"But you are to remain quiet—eh, ma petite!" She wagged her finger severely in front of Marie-Louise's nose. "Now sit still, or you shall have neither one nor the other!"
"What nonsense!" laughed Marie-Louise, as she stood up once more. "I am quite well again—and I am even to go out this morning."
The paper bag banged belligerently on Madame Garneau's hip, as she placed her arms akimbo.
"You are to go out! And who said you are to go out?"
"But, who else—the doctor," Marie-Louise answered with a smile.
"Ah, the doctor!" sniffed Madame Garneau disdainfully. "I have my opinion of doctors! In two or three days it will be time enough!" She wagged her forefinger again, and held up the bag. "Eh, bien—can you guess?"
"Never!" admitted Marie-Louise, shaking her head prettily.
"Cream-puffs!" announced Madame Garneau triumphantly. It was perhaps the most indigestible edible with which she could have outraged a diet list, but in that quarter of Paris, where sous were scarce, cream-puffs were the delicacy par excellence, and therefore a delicacy for all occasions, rare enough in any event, when they could be obtained. And besides, as Madame Garneau had said, she had her opinion of doctors—Madame Garneau, even if unconsciously so, was consistent! "Cream-puffs, ma petite! From the patisserie around the corner—I sent the gamin, who brought the message from Father Anton, for them. And now what do you say?"
Marie-Louise had neither heart nor appetite for cream-puffs, but she must needs peek excitedly in through the top of the bag, and thank Madame Garneau effusively, while she protested earnestly at the extravagance.
"It is nothing!" declared Madame Garneau, her honest face flushed with pleasure. She placed the bag on the foot of the bed. "It is nothing—ma foi! And now about Father Anton. He was to have come this afternoon, eh?"
"Yes," said Marie-Louise.
"Well, then," said Madame Garneau, "he is not coming."
"Not coming!"
"It is his poor!" Madame Garneau exclaimed tartly. "Your Father Anton has no sense! I would teach him a lesson if I had anything to do with him! Fancy! The idea! And at his age! He will kill himself! The gamin's mother was sick, and Father Anton must sit up the night, and stay there all this day! And it is not once, but all the time he does that! Bah, I have no patience with him! His heart is too soft! It is well for his poor that I am not Father Anton!" There was finality in the shrug of Madame Garneau's shoulders. She glanced at Marie-Louise, and then her eyes fell upon the paper bag. "Oh, I forgot to tell you!" she said anxiously. "There is a cream-puff gone from the quarter-dozen. I gave one to the gamin, he made such eyes at the bag." She tucked in a refractory wisp of hair that was straying over her ear. "Well, then, as I was saying, he is not coming this afternoon, but he will come this evening; and he said you were not to worry at all, because what he was talking to you about yesterday—whatever that is!—is all arranged."
All arranged! It came as a sudden shock. Marie-Louise turned her head quickly away, and, with her back to Madame Garneau, stood looking out of the window. All arranged! Then what should she do—what should she do? She put her hands wearily to her eyes.
"Mais, là, là!" soothed Madame Garneau. "You must not be disappointed. It is only for a few hours. He will come this evening."
Marie-Louise forced a laugh.
"But I am not disappointed," she answered. "I do not mind at all." She was still staring down into the street. If Madame Garneau would only go so that she could think what to do, and—no! She knew what she must do, she had thought it all out before; it was only that the moment when she must act upon her decision was thrust so suddenly upon her. "Oh, Madame Garneau, I was almost forgetting!" she cried—and, turning from the window, ran to the dilapidated and wobbly bureau, pulled open a drawer, and took out her purse. "It is a week since I have paid for my room—a week to-day, isn't it?"
Madame Garneau promptly retreated toward the door.
"Mais, non! Mais, non!" she protested. "When one is sick, one does not earn the sous! Next week, the week after, when you are at work again, you shall—"
Marie-Louise laughingly caught Madame Garneau's hand, and began to count the franc pieces into it; while Madame Garneau, still protesting, kept up her retreat for the door.
"There!"—Marie-Louise triumphantly closed the other's fingers over the money.
"But, no!" Madame Garneau expostulated vigorously. "But I will not hear of it! What do you imagine! I—"
And then Marie-Louise pushed the other playfully through the door, and closed the door, and placed her back against it, and laughed as she heard Madame Garneau grumbling outside and finally go grumbling away—but the laugh was all for Madame Garneau. When she could no longer hear Madame Garneau, she clasped her hands tightly to her bosom, and caught her breath. That was done! She had both paid and got Madame Garneau from the room.
She stood still by the door, her shoulders drooped; her hands dropped to her sides, and her fingers began to pluck nervously at the folds of her dress, as she stared unseeingly before her. Father Anton had it all arranged—the words brought so much, meant so much, and seemed to embody in themselves all that had happened in the week that had passed since the night when Jean and Monsieur Valmain had fought in the studio. She had wandered blindly and like one dazed all the rest of that night through the streets of Paris; and it must only have been the bon Dieu who had led her at last to where, lying unconscious on the floor outside the door of his room, Father Anton had found her in the morning. And then—how good they had all been to her!—Father Anton, and Madame Garneau, and Doctor Maurier, the grey-haired, kindly doctor who had been with Jean that night, and who would take not a sou for his visits to her, but only fill the room with sunshine through his good news of Jean.
She remembered that she had asked Father Anton for Jean's doctor because then she would always have word of Jean—and she remembered Father Anton's dismay at the request. "But, Marie-Louise," Father Anton had said anxiously, "you do not know what you are asking! He is the most famous man in Paris, and—" "And he will come," she had told Father Anton. And she had been right, for Doctor Maurier had come; and so each day she had had news of Jean, and now Jean was so well that he was walking about the studio again.
But most of all how good Father Anton had been! She had told him all—everything—and he had not been angry with her; though she knew, from little things he had said inadvertently, that Mademoiselle Bliss had been very angry with him. Dear old Father Anton! He had tried to take all the blame upon himself, because he said he had been deceitful—though she could not understand that, no matter how hard he tried to make her believe it, for he had only helped her to see Jean and to be near Jean, and that was what she herself had pleaded with him to do.
And then, as she had grown stronger and had begun to talk of going away, Father Anton had agreed with her, but he had insisted that she should go back to Bernay-sur-Mer. And he had become so earnest and determined that it must be Bernay-sur-Mer, and because she knew that it was his love for her that made him so anxious about her future, she could not bring herself to tell him what she really meant to do, what, in the long hours through the nights as she had lain awake, she had made up her mind to do—to go somewhere, she did not know where, but somewhere far away where there would be nothing to remind her of Jean—not that she could forget, no matter where she went, but that scenes and associations, as they had done in the past two years, might not again prove too strong for her. And so, rather than pain Father Anton by an absolute refusal, or the admission that even he was to go out of her life, she had told him only that she did not want to go back to Bernay-sur-Mer, that her house was sold, and that every one there would think it very strange that she had gone away like that only to return again so soon.
But he was not to be shaken in his determination. "Ah, even if that were true," Father Anton had said to her only yesterday, "nevertheless, my little Marie-Louise, it is the thing you must do. I cannot let you do anything else; and in a little while—who knows!—you will be very happy there again. But it is not true, for there is a way that I have been thinking about as I came here. As for the house, it is as well that it is sold; you have the money, and besides it is much better that you should not live there alone—you will live for a while with those honest Fregeaus, who will be overjoyed. And as for the rest—see, Marie-Louise, this is what we will do! I will speak to Monsieur Bliss and tell him that I wish to go back for a little visit, and we will go together—and the good people of Bernay-sur-Mer will not think it strange at all then, for I will tell them that you have been with me here in Paris, and that it is I who have persuaded you that it is best for you to go back and live in Bernay-sur-Mer. Tiens, could anything be better? And I will speak to Monsieur Bliss at once."
She knew quite well what was in Father Anton's mind. If she were in Bernay-sur-Mer he would feel that she was quite safe, that no harm could come to her; and he had mentioned, so innocently as he believed, Amidé Dubois once or twice, and he was perhaps imagining that some day she would marry there. But he did not understand! She shook her head slowly; and then, suddenly rousing herself, she walked across the room to the little bureau, and took out her things, and laid them upon the bed, and began to make them up into a little bundle—the same bundle she had carried with her from Bernay-sur-Mer. He did not understand!
It was all arranged! Father Anton had seen Monsieur Bliss then—and perhaps it would be to-morrow, or maybe even to-night that Father Anton would want her to go with him. But she could not go back to Bernay-sur-Mer! For nothing in the world would she go back there! If there were no other reasons, there was one that alone made it impossible—some day Jean might return there himself for a visit. And she must go somewhere where there was no possibility that she and Jean should ever see each other—and she must go now while she had the chance. There was nothing to keep her any longer; she was quite well and strong again, and she knew that Jean was getting well, and—and she had seen Jean and his work, and she could picture his splendid life stretching out before him in which even his marriage with Mademoiselle Bliss, who was very rich and of the grand monde, would help to make him even greater, and—and so there remained nothing more to hold her there. It was very wonderful that it should be her lips that Jean had fashioned—unconsciously, as Father Anton said—into his clay. It was very wonderful! It was something that the bon Dieu had given her to make her glad; to make the sadness and remorse for the tragedy she had brought about less terrible; to make her know that, after all, her share in Jean's career had not just ended with that day, so long ago in Bernay-sur-Mer, when she had given him to France.
She tied the bundle neatly. She was ready to go now, and she picked it up, took a step toward the door—and, holding the bundle in her hand, paused hesitantly. She could not go like that—Father Anton would be in a state of frenzy over her. She—she could write him a little note. Yes; she would do that. She set the bundle down, and hurriedly untied it. She remembered that when she had written down Father Anton's address before leaving Bernay-sur-Mer she had put the pencil in the pocket of her apron. Yes; here it was, but—she looked around her in sudden anxiety—there was nothing, no paper to write on. Her eyes rested upon the bed. Madame Garneau's cream-puffs! She picked up the bag, tore a piece from it, and, taking it to the window sill, wrote a few hurried sentences. It was just to say that she could never go to Bernay-sur-Mer; just to say that she was going away, very far away somewhere, and that he must not be sad about her, or try to find her for she did not know where she was going herself; just to say that she loved him, and that he had been so good, so very, very good to her, and that she would pray always to the bon Dieu for him.
There was a mist in her eyes as she folded the yellow, grease-spotted paper—she could buy an envelope and a stamp and mail it to Father Anton. She took up her bundle again, and went to the door; and, making sure that Madame Garneau was not in sight, hurried out of the house to the street. Here, she ran until she had turned the first corner and could no longer be seen from the house, then walked quietly along.
Blocks away, she stepped into a little store.
"Monsieur," she said to the man who served her with her envelope and stamp, "monsieur, will you be kind enough to tell me the way to the railway station?"
"To which one, mademoiselle?" he inquired politely. "The Gare de l'Est, the Gare du Nord, the Gare St. Lazare, the—"
She had not thought that there might be more than one, but one would take her away equally as well as another—it made no difference. Only he would think it very strange that she did not know which one she wanted.
"The Gare St. Lazare, if you please, monsieur," she ventured quickly—and thanked him when he had told her, and went out on the street again.
— IX —
MYRNA'S STRATEGY
"Two months—three months in America! And to be married there!" ejaculated Henry Bliss, as he stared at his daughter in utter bewilderment.
Myrna, from the depths of her father's favourite lounging chair, which she had appropriated on entering the library after dinner that evening, nodded her head in a quite matter-of-fact way.
"Isn't this rather—rather sudden?" inquired Henry Bliss, mustering a facetious irony to his rescue.
"Oh, no!" said Myrna demurely. "I decided upon it almost a week ago."
"Oh, you did!"—a wry smile flickered on her father's lips. "A week ago, eh? And what does Jean say?"
"Jean doesn't say anything," replied Myrna complacently. "He doesn't know anything about it—it wasn't necessary until the time came. I haven't said anything to any one—until now."
"Well, upon my soul!" exclaimed her father. "You are beginning early with your future husband, Myrna! So then, we are both to be twisted around your finger—eh? I shall have to speak to Jean—warn him. For myself, of course, it's quite hopeless, I've given it up years ago; but as for Jean, that's quite another matter—it's all in starting right, with a firm hand, you know!" His eyes twinkled. "I'll have a little confidential talk with Jean."
"Don't be ridiculous, father!" she laughed. She rose from her chair. "Well, that's settled; and now I—"
"Eh—what? Settled! Nothing is settled! What's settled?" he spluttered anxiously.
"That we are going to America, of course," said Myrna sweetly. "You, and Jean, and I."
"Now, see here, Myrna," protested her father, with what he meant for severity, "a trip to America is all very well, but it isn't the sort of thing one decides on the spur of the moment."
"Of course it isn't!"—Myrna's eyebrows went up archly. "Didn't I tell you that I have been arranging it for a whole week? I was only waiting for cable replies to some of my letters before speaking to you, and—"
"And of course as you have not overlooked minor details, I suppose we sail sometime next week!" her father interrupted with mild sarcasm.
"No," said Myrna placidly. "From Havre, the day after to-morrow, by the Lorraine."
Henry Bliss sat down weakly in a chair. He removed his cigar from his lips, and made one or two helpless passes with it in the air.
"Impossible!" he finally exploded. "Absolutely impossible! Utterly out of the question!"
"I don't see why," observed Myrna, quite undisturbed.
"You don't see why? No, of course, you don't see why"—Henry Bliss was still waving his cigar. "Well, I can't run away at a moment's notice, can I? Good heavens! The day after to-morrow! There's a thousand and one affairs that would have to be attended to before I could even think of it!"
"Which, of course, isn't true at all"—Myrna's laugh rippled merrily through the room. "There are perhaps a dozen social engagements, and two or three other affairs for which you will have to send 'regrets,' and"—she perched herself cosily on the arm of her father's chair—"and your secretary will do that for you. In fact, I told him he was to do it to-morrow morning."
"You—what? Well, I'll be damned!" gasped Henry Bliss.
"Father!"
"Well, it was excusable!" muttered Henry Bliss. "I—I am half inclined to repeat it."
Myrna's arm slipped around her father's neck. He was quite manageable, of course—but still he had to be managed. For, if what had come within so narrow a margin of being a tragedy with a fatal ending had forced her hand and forced the inevitable, as it were, upon her, she could at least see to it that the adjustment of the new order of things was of her own arranging. It was inevitable that she would marry Jean, she had decided that long ago; it was only the "day" itself which, until all this had introduced a new factor into her plans, had been at all vague in her mind. But with Paul Valmain eliminated, and her quarrel with Jean made up as he had lain there dangerously hurt that night of the duel, everything had taken on a totally different aspect. Perhaps she had yielded a little weakly under sick-bed influences, but however that might be, she was now Jean's fiancée, though it was not publicly announced; as, coming upon the heels of Jean's mysterious accident and Paul Valmain's sudden departure from Paris, it would to a certainty have caused talk and gossip, which for very good reasons she was most anxious to avoid; for, a wheel within a wheel, if talk went too far the truth might come out, and the truth at all hazards was the one thing that Jean must not know. This was one reason why, almost from the moment that she had grasped the situation that night in Jean's studio, she had determined to get Jean away from Paris the instant he was able to go. But there was a still stronger and more potent reason. The marriage of Jean Laparde, the world-famous sculptor, and Myrna Bliss, heiress to millions, a society leader in both Paris and New York, was not an affair to be consummated in a moment, nor to have its preparations go unmarked. It would be the most brilliant function that society had ever known on either side of the water—to that she had quite definitely made up her mind! But all that would take time; and meanwhile, more to be feared than any talk, was the possibility of Jean seeing Marie-Louise—and the possibility, or rather, perhaps, the opportunity that would be afforded to Marie-Louise herself, whom she, Myrna, was by no means inclined to trust! She was quite convinced that Jean had not seen the girl since he had left Bernay-sur-Mer, that to a certain extent the girl had told the truth, but that made it all the more imperative that he should not see her now; for if, though unconsciously so, Marie-Louise was so intimate a part of his life that the girl took form constantly in his work, it would be, to put it mildly, just as well if they did not meet—until after Jean was married. After that—well, after that, she was quite capable of looking after a husband! In the meantime she would take good care that the possibility of such a contretemps was entirely obviated by going to America, spending the few months necessary for the marriage preparations there, months in which Jean would be the recipient of even greater honours than Paris had accorded him, be married, and—well, that was all! It was very simple! What this impertinent little peasant girl had attempted once, even if Father Anton did intend to take her back to Bernay-sur-Mer, she was quite capable of attempting again—if she had the chance!
Myrna nestled her arm snugly around her father's neck, and held up two daintily extended fingers before his eyes.
"Now, listen, father," she said, puckering up her forehead prettily. "Now I am going to be very serious. There are two very good reasons why we will go. First, now that Jean is able to be up again, a sea trip is the one thing above all others that he needs. Doctor Maurier prescribes it."
"Insists on it, I suppose!" observed Henry Bliss dryly.
"He will," said Myrna, laughing, "if I ask him to."
"H'm!" commented Henry Bliss, the wrinkles around his eyes beginning to nest into a smile. "Well—and the other reason?"
"The other one," said Myrna, and laid her head down against her father's cheek; "the other one is—I must whisper it—now, listen—is because I've set my heart on it, and I want to go."
"Which settles it!" groaned Henry Bliss, with mock lugubriousness. "Well"—he got up from his chair, and brushed vigorously at the cigar ash which, incident to Myrna's embrace, bedecked his waistcoat—"well, I'll see what Jean says about it."
"Why, of course!" agreed Myrna innocently. "It all depends upon Jean. We'll leave it that way, father."
Henry Bliss looked at her, gasped once—and grinned in spite of himself.
"There isn't any other trifling matter you'd like to call my attention to this evening, is there?" he hazarded, pinching his daughter's cheek playfully. "Because, if there is, I'm—" He paused, as a footman coughed discreetly from the doorway. "Well?" he demanded.
"It is Monsieur le Curé, Monsieur Bliss," said the man.
"Show him in," instructed Henry Bliss—and, as the man retired, glanced quickly at his daughter. "I hope, Myrna, that—"
"That we've made up our differences!" she supplied, with sudden impatience. "That I quite understand that the gentle old soul in an endeavour to set the world right meant well, and was actuated by the loftiest of motives! Oh, yes, I think Father Anton and I understand each other perfectly, and—"
"Monsieur le Curé!" announced the footman.
Myrna calmly turned her back—but only to whirl suddenly around again, as, with a sharp exclamation, her father stepped quickly toward the door.
"Good heavens, my dear man, what is the matter with you?" Henry Bliss cried out in consternation.
Father Anton's white hair was unbrushed; he was unshaved; and his face already haggard, his eyes already deep-set and blue-circled from his twenty-four hours of bedside vigil, now bore added and unmistakable signs of violent mental agitation and distraction. His hand, that held a piece of torn yellow paper, trembled as though with the ague.
"Ah, Monsieur Bliss—ah, pardon, mademoiselle!" he stammered, and attempted a bow. "I—I have run very fast—and—I—I—"
"Is anything the matter?" inquired Myrna coolly, joining the two at the door.
Father Anton looked at her piteously.
"She is gone!" he said, his lips quivering.
"Gone!" repeated Henry Bliss bewilderedly. "Who is gone?"
"Our charming little Marie-Louise of Bernay-sur-Mer, of course! Who else?"—Myrna laughed sharply. "Well, mon cher Monsieur le Curé, will you tell us how it happened? I had an idea you were very shortly to return with her to Bernay-sur-Mer. It seems I was mistaken!"
"But I do not know how it happened!"—Father Anton shook his head distractedly. "I was away last night and to-day. This evening when I returned to my rooms I found this letter from her"—he stared at the torn yellow paper in his hand, and the tears began to well into his eyes. "She said that she was going away—that she could not go back to Bernay-sur-Mer—that I was not to look for her—that she did not know where she was going herself. I waited for nothing. I ran at once to Madame Garneau's. Madame Garneau had seen nothing of Marie-Louise since this morning. We looked in Marie-Louise's room. Her clothes were gone. And then—and then I ran here to get help to find her."
"And so," said Myrna icily, "are we never to hear the last of her? The trouble in the first place is of your own making, Father Anton—it is unfortunate that others have to suffer for it! Well, what does it mean? She did not want to go back to Bernay-sur-Mer—she has run away from you—from everybody that could keep track of her. Why? That she can go to Jean again without being found out?" She shrugged her shoulders. "However, under the circumstances, if that is so, it will do her little good, since Jean himself is going away to—"
"No, no!" Father Anton cried out brokenly. "You do not know Marie-Louise! You do not know Marie-Louise to say that! She, more than any one else, would not let Jean know. It is because her heart is broken that she has gone. And it is true, I am to blame." The tears were running down his cheeks; he held out his hands to them imploringly. "She is not well—she is only just recovered from her illness, my little Marie-Louise, and—and—" the words died away in a sort of frightened sob, at a quick, warning touch upon his arm from Myrna.
Steps came running across the hall—and the next moment Jean himself was standing in the doorway.
"Tiens!" he cried out gaily. "It is the first time I have left the studio. I would not let the man announce me. Me voici! Here I am! It is a surprise—eh? But—eh!—what is the matter?" He stared at the three—at Henry Bliss, who was evidencing palpable confusion; at Myrna, who seemed suddenly to have lost her colour; at Father Anton, who had tears trickling down his face, and acted as though he were gazing at a ghost.
"It—it is Jean!" faltered Father Anton nervously, the letter fluttering from his hand to the floor.
"But, yes, of course, it is Jean! Who else?" Jean laughed—and stepped forward mechanically to pick up the paper. "Permit me. I—"
A dainty satin-slippered toe was covering the letter. Myrna was smiling reprovingly.
"It is quite time enough for you to be gallant, Jean, when you can do so without the danger of reopening your wound!" she said sweetly. "Have you not been told often enough that you are not to stoop down like that? Father Anton is much better able than you to pick it up!"
"Yes, yes," said Father Anton hurriedly, reaching for the paper and tucking it into the breast of his soutane. "Yes, you—you must be careful of yourself, Jean."
"Nonsense!" declared Jean. "I am perfectly recovered!" He stared at the three in turn again for a moment. "But—but perhaps I am intruding—de trop?"
"Not at all!" Myrna answered composedly. "It is a matter that concerns only father and Monsieur le Curé; and they"—she glanced brightly at her father—"I am sure, will be only too glad to get away to father's den where they can discuss it by themselves."
"Yes—er—yes, of course," coughed Henry Bliss. "It's—er—good to see you out again, Jean, my boy." Then jocularly, in an attempt to disguise his self-consciousness: "Come along, Father Anton"—he caught the other's arm, and led the curé out of the room—"there are perhaps others who prefer to be by themselves."
A slightly puzzled expression on his face, Jean watched them out of sight across the hall; then turned inquiringly to Myrna.
Myrna's shoulders lifted daintily.
"If it isn't one thing, it's another," she said, as though the subject bored her. "There has always been something or other ever since father started that fund of his; and the curé trots to father with everything. This time, it seems that one of Father Anton's protégées has run away from him; and, as you saw, the curé is beside himself." Again the shoulders lifted "But you, Jean"—infusing a sudden note of perturbed anxiety into her voice—"are you sure you were wise in coming out to-night? What brought you?"
And then Jean threw back his head, and laughed, and closed the door—and caught her in his arms.
"Mon Dieu!" he cried, holding her close to him, and trying to kiss the suddenly averted face. "Do you ask what brought me? Well, then, I will tell you! Did you not say that you would come this afternoon, and did you not promise that we would settle about our marriage? And you did not come, and all the afternoon I was waiting, and now"—his face fell a little, as she slipped away from him—"and now that I am here you run away from me."
"You are too impulsive, Jean! You are destruction on gowns!" she laughed, and backed merrily away from him to sink down gracefully in a chair.
"Gowns!" he echoed, a sudden flush of anger coming to his cheeks, as he followed her. "What does it matter, a gown, when—"
"Now, don't be cross!" she commanded teasingly; and, gaily regal, extended her hand. "See, here is my hand to kiss."
He hesitated; and then, as, a little sullenly, he bent and touched her fingers with his lips, she laughed again. She loved to excite and watch moods in Jean—as now for instance, when the tall, strong figure was drawn up haughtily, and the emotions, that he would never learn to hide, were so apparent in his face, as he bit his lips and pulled at his short, pointed beard. Jean was as readable as a book at all times, and always would be—which was not a bad trait for a husband to possess! And this was Jean Laparde, the man of genius, unquestionably at that moment the most famous man in France! She smiled at him through half veiled eyes. To be Madame Laparde! Socially, it meant an incomparable triumph; intimately, it meant—well, at least, it was obvious enough that the marriage need hold no terror of tyranny in store for her! Jean, for all his greatness, and save for his occasional passionate outbursts, was as plastic as his own clay. Her eyelids lifted, and in the grey eyes was laughter.
"Well, and why the brown study? What are you thinking about?" she demanded pertly.
"I was thinking of Paul Valmain," he answered abruptly.
"Paul Valmain!" she repeated—and sat suddenly upright in her chair.
"Yes," said Jean, a little bitterly. "That he would have small reason to be jealous, even now that we are engaged."
"Don't be absurd!" she retorted sharply.
Jean shrugged his shoulders.
"And speaking of Paul Valmain," he went on, a menacing note creeping into his tones, "I have been talking to Hector again this afternoon about that night—the night that Valmain said he saw you enter the house."
She looked at him quickly. Surely, after what she had said to Hector, Hector had not dared to speak of the girl to whom he had given—reprehensibly, she had taken pains to make Hector understand—a key to Jean's studio. She believed she had frightened Hector and Madame Mi-mi too thoroughly for that, and yet—if he had!
"Well?"—serenely, as her eyebrows went up.
"Nothing! He knows nothing! He heard nothing!" Jean flung out impatiently. "But Hector is a fool, and Valmain said he saw you go in."
"Well, was I there?" she inquired frigidly.
"No, you were not there—naturally!" he asserted with wrathful finality. "But—I have been thinking—if it were some one else!"
"Ah!" Myrna's smile was cold, as she rose with a curiously ominous air from her chair. "Ah! Some one else! Well, since you bring up the subject again, do you imagine I am so stupid that such a possibility has not also occurred to me? Your conscience seems to trouble you, Monsieur Jean! If there was some one else—a woman in your rooms from two o'clock at night until daylight—you should know better who it was, I imagine, than either Hector or Madame Mi-mi! And since I am your fiancée, Monsieur Jean—perhaps you will explain!"
"But, sacre nom d'un diable!" Jean shouted in angry amazement. "I know of no woman!"
"If there was a woman there it is inconceivable that you should not know it"—Myrna's voice was monotonous, relentless.
"But, I tell you—no!"—Jean's hands went up in the air, as he raged in exasperation. "Do you understand, that I tell you—no? It is not so! There was no woman there!"
"Well, then?"—still monotonously.
"Well, then?" Jean stormed furiously, clenching his fists, "it can be nothing but that cursed Valmain and his damned jealousy! It can be nothing but a lie, all of it, that he has made up! It is all a lie then—nothing but a lie! And so I am not through with him! He will answer for it! I am not through with him! It will not be with swords this time—we will fight with pistols, and I will kill him! He thinks he has no longer any reason to hide and stay away—but, nom de Dieu, he will see! I promise you that! Vinailles told me that Valmain would be back the day after to-morrow, and"—he laughed out harshly—"the day after to-morrow—"
"You are going to America," said Myrna calmly.
Jean's clenched fist, raised, remained motionless in mid-air. He stared at her open-mouthed.
"To—to America!" he gasped.
"To be married there," supplemented Myrna composedly.
"To be married there!"—he repeated the words in his bewilderment like a parrot.
"And to receive an ovation, to be accorded a triumph such as you have never dreamed of." Her laugh trilled out deliciously. "You will see how they do things in America!"
He was still staring at her in dumfounded amazement.
"To America—to be married—a triumph!" he mumbled dazedly. "But—but who—"
"I did," said Myrna, laughing at him again. "Did you not remind me that I had promised to tell you about our marriage to-day? Well, we are to be married in America. Are you not delighted?"
"But—but, yes! Mon Dieu! But—but, yes!" stammered Jean helplessly.
"Well, then," said Myrna, puckering up her brows in prettily affected deliberation, "I think, Monsieur Jean, you may kiss me—once."
— X —
THROUGH THE FOG
With an angry tightening of his lips, as he caught sight of Myrna still the centre of the same masculine entourage, Jean turned from the window where he had paused for an instant to glance into the ship's main saloon, transformed for the moment into a ballroom, and resumed his moody pacing up and down the deck. He pulled his ulster more closely about him, for the night was cold, lighted a cigarette and puffed at it irritably, as he was forced to acknowledge the, for the most part effusive, salutes that his fellow passengers went out of their way to accord him, as in couples and groups they constantly came and went between the saloon and the deck. Then, after another turn or two, he tossed away his cigarette with a vicious jerk, sought out the most secluded portion of the deck—a recess near the ship's funnels—and, appropriating a steamer chair, flung himself into it.
He had barely ensconced himself there, however, when, with a muttered oath, he sat angrily upright in the chair again. Was there no place on the cursed ship where he could be alone for five minutes with his own thoughts? He had left the dance after a heated, if short, altercation with Myrna, been annoyed by the advances of those on deck, and now two women had elected to halt within earshot of him around the corner to discuss him!
"Well," murmured a voice sweetly, "have you met the famous Monsieur Laparde yet?"
"No"—eagerly. "Have you?"
"No—not exactly, my dear"—patronisingly. "But I'll promise to introduce you in the morning."
"Oh, will you? How perfectly gorgeous! You are a dear! But how have you managed it? Tell me all about it! I'm simply dying to know how you succeeded!"
"It wasn't at all difficult"—in naïve self-disparagement. "I met Mr. Bliss. He's simply charming, and so unaffected! He is going to tell me all about the art schools in Paris—of course, I'm terribly interested! There are three in their party, you know—Mr. Bliss and his daughter, and Monsieur Laparde."
"Do you think she's pretty? I don't see what all the men are raving about! And did you notice her dress to-night—those black velvet shoulder straps are actually startling!"
"Yes—aren't they? I've heard so many remarks about them! But I suppose she is pretty—in a way. It's being whispered around that she is going to marry Monsieur Laparde. I wonder if it's true?"
"Huh!"—with a sniff. "Well, if it is true, Monsieur Laparde does not do what I would do if I were a man in his place. It's simply outrageous the way she carries on, if she's engaged. I wouldn't stand it for a moment! She must have the wool pretty thoroughly pulled over his eyes, if he imagines she is in love with him!"
"In love with his name, my dear"—in cooing amendment. "I don't suppose she does care for anything else. She doesn't appeal to me as that kind of a woman. I'm sure I think just as you do about her. I wouldn't care to trust her very far from what I've seen of her—she's the sort that always strikes me as being capable of saying anything behind one's back! She flirts mercilessly!"
"Yes; and fancy a man like Monsieur Laparde permitting himself to be made ridiculous! Did you notice this morning, when everybody wanted to walk, that the deck was utterly impassable with her court spreading their chairs two or three deep all around her? Of course, one can't say anything! And all the time she had Monsieur Laparde trotting back and forth like an overgrown errand boy, carrying books and wraps and—"
"No, my dear, you are quite wrong there. She couldn't make a man like Monsieur Laparde ridiculous—she could only make one feel sorry for him."
"Well, anyway, it's quite evident that she—oh, isn't that Lord Mornely just going inside? Gracious, I had no idea I was getting so cold! Do come! I'm nearly perished! We'll catch our deaths out here!"
The arms of the steamer chair creaked as Jean's hands clenched upon them. His face was crimson with passion. What right had these cursed and banale women to meddle in his affairs, and to discuss him? His hands gripped harder on the chair and it creaked again. So, then, this was the talk and gossip of the ship—and everybody knew it! If it were idle talk he could have laughed at it, and gone and bowed before them sardonically, and taken his revenge in their confusion; but it was true, and it only made his fury the greater. They had but voiced his own thoughts of five minutes ago, and his thoughts of yesterday, and of the day before, and of the days before that, since almost from the moment indeed that Myrna had promised to be his wife—the moment that once, like a poor, deluded fool, he had thought would be counted the greatest in his life! A hundred little things during his convalescence had been like signposts of bitter disappointment. She cared nothing for Jean Laparde the man; she was marrying Jean Laparde the sculptor-genius, whose name was on every tongue! She did not know the meaning of love! She loved only what his name might bring her. There was no tenderness, no intimacy. She put up with him—sacré nom!—that was all! He had refused to believe it in those few days in Paris. He had shut his eyes to it then. He could not shut his eyes to it here on board ship—where everybody's eyes, even those damned cats'! were open. And now she seemed to assume that, since he was her property, her possession, and that the whole matter, as far as it concerned her, was quite and entirely settled to her satisfaction, she could devote herself to a new affair every half-hour, while he, he, Jean Laparde, the great Laparde, looked on—and grinned!
He rose savagely from his chair, and, turning up the collar of his ulster and pulling his cap far down over his eyes, went along to the extreme end of the deck. Here, unprotected by the canvas weather-cloths such as those along the ship's side that closed in the promenade, sheltering the passengers from the damp, driving mist of a North Atlantic fog, it was wet and uninviting enough to guarantee him immunity from any intrusion. Below him, as he looked over the rail, the steerage deck, dim, dismal, forbidding, was deserted save for a few people, who, probably choosing the lesser of two evils, braving the night in preference to sharing the fetid atmosphere below with many hundred others, were huddled about in miserable discomfort. He stared at this sight for a moment; then turned around, and leaned with his back against the rail to face the gay, brilliantly-lighted scene far down at the other end of the promenade deck. He watched this sullenly—the extravagantly gowned women and their escorts coming and going like hiving bees from the deck to the saloon ... clustering around the entrance ... retailing the ship's gossip ... a breath of air ... a cigarette ... and back to the dance again. Who cared what the night was like? Who cared if, far up above on the mighty liner's bridge, oil-skinned figures peered out anxiously into the night? Who cared or thought of those huddled forms on the steerage deck? Who cared—the sea was smooth, and one could dance?
Jean dug his hands deep down into his pockets and closed them fiercely. The long, hoarse-throated cry of the fog siren boomed out and vibrated through the ship—and died away; and, sharp in contrast, came again the calm, steady pulse and throb of the engines, and laughter, and the dreamy, sobbing notes of a waltz.
And now a depression, utter and profound, a more grievous thing than the fury that had preceded it, was settling upon him. It was not only Myrna, the knowledge forced home upon him that he was but a vehicle for her ambitions, that their marriage was to be a hollow thing, a form, a husk covering the semblance of love—it was the sea! Until this trip he had not seen it since he had left Bernay-sur-Mer. It held a thousand memories. He had fought them back angrily, defiantly ever since he had come on board—but they had been present almost from the hour that the shores of the France he loved had faded from sight, and at unexpected moments this thing and that had flashed suddenly upon him, striking with quick, stabbing passes under his guard. But now, his spirits at a low ebb, reckless of combating even poignant memories—those memories were surging overwhelmingly upon him. It seemed to mirror his life like some strange kaleidoscope, the sea that he had always known; it seemed to stir something within him that was soul-deep in his life—the smell of it in his nostrils, the feel of it upon his cheeks was flinging wide apart now the floodgates of the past.
Living, vivid before him was the sparkling, wonderful blue of that southern sea, fringed with the little white cottages of Bernay-sur-Mer that had been his home; and beneath bare feet he felt again the smooth, fine, yielding sand upon the beach where as a baby he had crawled, where still a baby he had taken his first step, where as a man he had struggled for his place among men and once had played a man's part. The cheery voices of the fishermen as they launched their boats were in his ears; they called to him; and laughed; and, because all were his friends, twitted him good-naturedly, twitted him and teased him about—about Marie-Louise. Marie-Louise! A low, sharp, involuntary cry of pain rose to his lips. With a violent effort he tried to shake himself free from his thoughts—but it was as though he were in the grip of some strange, immutable power that held him bound and shackled, while with lightning-like rapidity, whether he would or no, upon him rushed the ever-changing scenes. The face of Madame Fregeau, his foster-mother, coarse-featured perhaps, but beautiful because it was a sweet and wholesome face, came before him; and her arms that were rough, and red, and shapeless were around his neck in an old-time embrace. She had loved him, the good Mother Fregeau! Came the faces of Pierre Lachance, of Papa Fregeau, of little Ninon, of a score of toddling mites clapping their hands in childish ecstasy over the clay poupées he had made for them—and all these had been his friends. And all these were gone now, all were gone, and in their place was—what? He raised his head. Hoarse-tongued, the siren cried again. It seemed like the wail of a lost soul out-flung into the night, into the vastness, calling, calling where there was none to answer—echoing the loneliness that was filling his heart that night.
He had forgotten all these things in Paris; he had made himself forget—and besides there had been Myrna. He had fought for her, striven for her tempestuously, fiercely, as a prize that nor heaven nor hell could hold back from him—and, ghastly in its mocking irony, it was only when the prize was won that, like some wondrously beautiful, iridescent bubble, glorious in its colours as the sunlight played upon it, it burst and nothing but the dregs of it remained as he reached out and grasped it in his hands. He had looked for the love, the passion that he could give in return; he had found only a cold-blooded strategical move on the checkerboard of social aspirations. He was not blind any more—nor angry. It was only a profound and bitter loneliness that he knew. It would be a dreary thing, that marriage—and dreary years. Once, when he had no right, he had forced his kisses upon her; he had no more inclination now to force from her what should be so freely offered—and was withheld!
Who cared for Jean Laparde? Not Myrna! He had bought her as he had sworn he would buy her, and his own words had come true—with fame. He was the great Laparde! But who cared for Jean Laparde? None that he knew now! All that was in the past; all that was in the little village on the Mediterranean shore in the days when he had made the clay poupées on the banks of the creek, and dreamed of that wondrous dream statue that had been so real a thing to him—and now even that was gone—and he was alone.
Ah, they were back again, those scenes of Bernay-sur-Mer! Whose face was that? Gaston Bernier! Old Gaston! And what was this that he was living again, that was so cruel in its realism? That night on the Perigeau ... that night when old Gaston died ... that day when he had made the beacon for Marie-Louise, the beacon with its arms outstretched that—he covered his face suddenly with his hands. If he could only strangle these thoughts—God, the loneliness and the pain they brought!
How the strains of that waltz seemed to sob out like some broken-hearted, lost and wandering thing! He shivered a little. How cold the night was, how wet and damp! How the engines throbbed, throbbed, throbbed, and seemed to catch the tempo of the distant music, and like muffled drums beat time to it as to a dirge!
His hands dropped to his sides. From far down the deck came Myrna's rippling, silvery peal of laughter; and, through the group around her, he caught the sparkle of the magnificent diamond necklace at her throat, the white, fluffy wrap of fur thrown across her shoulders—and heard her laugh again. And at her laugh, he turned bitterly around to the rail to face the night as the ship drove into it, to let the wind and the wet mist blow into his face, to look down on the steerage deck below him. What a contrast! There, just beneath where he stood, in the filmy light that shone out from an open alleyway, alone, unsheltered, a pathetic figure in the drifting mist, her clothes damp around her, a woman leaned with bowed head against the ship's side. A wave of pity, but a pity that knew bitterness and irony, came upon him. What would he read in the face of this poor immigrant if he could but see it? Misery? She looked miserable enough! Loneliness? Was she lonely, too? Was she as lonely as he? And then, as though in answer to his thoughts, she turned suddenly, lifting her face, and with a gesture of infinite yearning, of infinite longing, stretched out her arms toward the land, toward France, so far behind.
He did not move. He uttered no sound. In that moment, as she made that gesture, he was living only subconsciously. It was his beacon with outstretched arms, with those pure, perfect lips, with that sweet, gentle face, beautiful even with the pallor that was upon it. It was Marie-Louise!
The voices, the waltz strains, the throb of the engine, the sounds about him, the lift and fall of the liner's deck, the blackness of the night, all were blotted from him. He was conscious only of that figure on the deck below. There she stood, her arms outstretched—outstretched as he had modelled her in that figure that first had brought him fame, and his own words of the days gone by were ringing in his ears again. "See, it is a beacon—the welcome of the fisherman home from the sea. And are you not that, Marie-Louise, and will you not stand on the shore at evening and hold out your arms for me as I pull home in the boat? Are you not the beacon, Marie-Louise—for me?" A welcome he had called it then, that posture of outstretched arms, that now symbolised, mute in its anguish, the tearing away from her of all that life had ever held to make it glad and joyous, the love of cherished France, her native country, her home, the friends that made home dear, those that loved her, those she loved. Those she loved! And of them all, she had loved him, Jean Laparde—the most! It seemed to sound the depths of some abysmal treason in his soul. Whom or what had she to welcome now? It seemed to sum up all the tragedy that life could hold, and sweep upon him and engulf him. It was Marie-Louise standing there on the steerage deck! It was Marie-Louise! He did not need to ask why—the answer was in his own soul.
And now a moan broke from his lips; and condemnation, stripped of mercy, naked, bare in its remorseless arraignment, surged upon him. Honour, and glory, and wealth, and power, and fame, and luxury were his—and what had she, alone here in the cold, wet misery of the steerage, driven to the deck perhaps for a breath of pure air from where below a thousand, babel-tongued, were cattle-herded? What had she—where he had all? If the memories of that little white-cottaged haven on the sun-kissed shores of the Mediterranean had brought him a bitter loneliness—what must those memories be bringing to her? There, in Bernay-sur-Mer, was the only life that she had ever known; there were the simple folk who loved her; there were her friends, her associations; there was her little world; there was her all—and he had driven her from it! As surely as though by brutal physical force, he had driven her from it! Yes; he had done that! That was why she was here!
His face, grey as the mist around him, went down on his arms upon the rail, and a sob shook the great shoulders. Where were the dreams that she and he had dreamed of life there together in the love that had known its birth in childhood? Where were they? Who had shattered them, that she was no longer there, but stood an outcast, friendless and alone, here in the steerage of the ship that was taking her from France? Where was the oath that he had sworn to Gaston as the brave old fisherman had died? "There is a crucifix there; swear that you will guard her and that you will let no harm come to her." Forsworn! A traitor! He had chosen fame, and power, and position—and she, in her pure, unselfish love, had stood aside for him!
Again the sullen boom of the siren mourned out into the night, held, quavered, died away. Silence, intense, absolute! Then, stealing again upon the senses, the slap and wash of water against the liner's hull, the medley of a thousand ship sounds.
"God!"—the soul-torn cry fluttered from Jean's lips.
He had chosen wealth, and power, and fame, and position, and they had been Marie-Louise's gift to him—and his gift to her in return had been the bitterest dregs of life! And now wealth, and power, and fame, and position were his to-day, his beyond that of any other man's, he knew them all; they were his; he knew the adulation and the fawning of the great; but out of it all, out of the pomp and pageantry and the glitter, the tinsel and the gleam of gold, where was the one supreme, undying, immortal truth of life—who cared for Jean Laparde?
And then, as he raised his head and looked at her again, a strange, glad wonder crept upon him. Who cared for Jean Laparde? Out of all the world, who cared for Jean Laparde? In the figure there, wind-swept, the damp, thin clothing clinging closely about her form, in the face, half-veiled by the night and mist, he saw again that figure on the Perigeau Reef that once he had been man enough to risk his all, his life to save; and the kiss that had been his, the kiss that pledged them to each other in the fury of that storm, seemed warm again upon his lips—a pledge again—his answer! Who cared for Jean Laparde?
He strained toward her over the rail. It seemed as though some flame of glory were lighting up her face, and, reflected back, was lighting up his own soul with understanding. Those lips, the face, the throat, everything, all—he knew it now!—it was she that he had been modelling there in Paris! It was she who was the womanhood of France to him because her soul and his were one, she who had been living in his heart, she that he loved—she who cared for Jean Laparde!
He lifted his head, bared now, far back on the massive shoulders. There was one way, and one way only, that he could claim her now. To be the Jean Laparde of old again! To slough from him the trappings that had stood a barrier between them! To be the Jean Laparde again of the world she knew!
He leaned further over the rail. She was moving away. He watched her, his face aglow—watched her until she was lost in the darkness along the deck.
"Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise!" he whispered, and reached out his arms. "I am coming to you, Marie-Louise—my beacon—to you, Marie-Louise."