Pacey sat back in a shabby old chair, in a shabby room. The
surroundings were poor and yet rich--the former applying to the
furniture, the latter to the many clever little gems presented to him by
his artist friends, many of whom were still poor as he, others high up
on the steps leading to the temple of fame.
Joseph Pacey's hair needed cutting, and his beard looked tangled and
wild; and as he sat back in his slippers, he looked the very opposite of
his _vis-a-vis_, the exquisitely neat, waxed-moustached, closely clipped
young Frenchman who assisted briskly in the formation of the cloud of
smoke which floated overhead by making and consuming cigarettes, what
time the tenant of the shabby rooms nursed a huge meerschaum pipe, which
he kept in a glow and replenished, as he would an ordinary fire, by
putting a pinch of fresh fuel on the top from time to time.
"Humph!" he ejaculated, frowning. "And so you think he has got the
feminine fever badly?"
"But you do say it funny, my friend," said Leronde. "Why, of course.
Toujours--always the same. As we say--`cherchez la femme.' Vive la
femme! But helas! How she do prove our ruin, and turn us as you say
round your turn."
There was silence for a few moments, during which, as he sat shaggy and
frowning in the smoke, Pacey looked as if some magician were gradually
turning his head into that of a lion.
"Seen him the last day or two?"
"Yes," said Leronde, putting out his tongue and running the edge of a
newly rolled cigarette paper along the moist tip. "I go to see him
yesterday."
"Well. What did he say?"
"And I ask him to come for an hour to the Vivarium to see the new
ballet."
"I asked you what he said."
"He say--`Go to the devil.'"
"Well, did you go?"
"Yes. I come on here at once."
Pacey glowered at him, but his French friend was innocent of any double
entendre; and at that moment there was a sharp knock at the outer door--
the well-worn oak on the staircase of Number 9 Bolt Inn.
"Aha! Vive la compagnie!" cried Leronde.
"Humph! Some one for money," muttered Pacey. "Who can it be? Well, it
doesn't matter: I've got none.--Here, dandy," he said aloud, "open the
door. Shut the other first, and tell whoever it is that I cannot see
him. Engaged--ill--anything you like."
"Yes, I see. I am a fly," said the young Frenchman, and, passing
through the inner door, he closed it after him and opened the outer, to
return in a minute with two cards.
"Who was it?" growled Pacey.
"A lady and gentleman. I told them you could not see any one, and they
are gone."
Pacey snatched the cards, glanced at them, uttered an ejaculation, and
springing up, he threw down his pipe, and nearly did the same by his
companion as he rushed to the door, passed out on to the landing, and
began to run down the stairs.
"My faith, but he is a droll of a man," muttered Leronde, pointing his
moustache; "but I love him. Aha! always the woman. How he run as soon
as he read the name. We are all alike, we men. What was it? Mees
Torpe and--faith of a man--she was pretty. Mees! I thought it was her
husband at first. H'm! The lover perhaps."
The door flew open again and Pacey returned, showing in Cornel Thorpe
and her brother.
"Here, Leronde," cried Pacey excitedly. "Excuse me--very particular
business, old fellow."
"You wish me to go?" said Leronde stiffly, as he waited for an
introduction.
"If you wouldn't mind, and--look here," continued Pacey, drawing him
outside. "Don't be hurt, old fellow--this is very particular. You saw
the names on the cards?"
"Oh yes."
"Not a word then to Armstrong."
"I do not tiddle-taddle," said Leronde stiffly. "That's right. I trust
you, old fellow. Come back at six, and we'll go and dine in Soho."
"But--the lady?"
"Bah! Nonsense, man! This is business. Au revoir--till six."
Pacey hurried back and closed both doors, to find his visitors standing
in the middle of the room, Cornel pale and anxious, and her brother
stern, distant, and angry of eye.
"I did not expect you, Miss Thorpe," cried Pacey warmly. "Pray sit
down."
"I think my sister and I can finish our interview without sitting down,
sir. You are Mr. Joseph Pacey?"
"I am," said the artist, as coldly now as the speaker.
"And you wrote to my sister--"
"Michael, dear, I will speak to Mr. Pacey, please," said Cornel, and she
turned to the artist and held out her hand. "Thank you for writing to
me, Mr. Pacey," she continued. "I thought it better, as my brother was
coming to England, to accompany him and see you myself."
She sank into the chair Pacey had placed for her, and after a
contemptuous look round at the shabby surroundings, the doctor followed
her example.
"My brother is angry, Mr. Pacey; he is indignant on my behalf. He
thinks me foolish and obstinate in coming here to see you, and that I am
lowering myself, and not displaying proper pride."
"I do," said the doctor firmly.
"Out of his tender love for me, Mr. Pacey," Cornel continued, with her
sweet pathetic voice seeming to ring and find an echo in the old
artist's heart; "but I felt it to be my duty to come to know the truth."
"You have done wisely, madam," said Pacey. "When I wrote you it was in
the hope that you would come and save a man whom I have liked--there,
call it sentimentality if you please--loved as a brother--I ought to
say, I suppose, as a son."
"Your letter, sir, suggested that my old schoolfellow--the man who was
betrothed to my sister--has in some way gone wrong."
Pacey bowed his head.
"Cornel, dear, you hear this. It is sufficient. We do not wish to pry
into Armstrong Dale's affairs. We know enough. Now, are you
satisfied?"
"No.--Mr. Pacey, your words have formed a bond between us greater than
existed before. I have heard of you so often from Armstrong, and come
to you as our friend, in obedience to your letter. I ask you then to
keep nothing back, but to speak to me plainly. Please remember that I
am an American girl. I think we are different from your ladies here.
Not bolder, but firm, plain-spoken, honest and true. We feel a true
shame as keenly as the proudest of your patrician maidens; but we crush
down false, and that is why I come to you instead of writing to and
making appeals to the man whom I have known from childhood--the man who
was betrothed to me, and who loved me dearly, as I loved him, only so
short a time ago. There, you see how simply and plainly I speak, the
more so that I know you have Armstrong Dale's welfare at heart."
"God knows I have," said Pacey fervently.
"Then tell me plainly, Mr. Pacey."
"Cornel!"
"I will speak, Michael," she said gently. "His happiness and mine
depend upon my knowing the truth.--Mr. Pacey, I am waiting."
Pacey gazed at her with his face full of reverence for the woman before
whom he stood, but no words left his lips.
"You are silent," she said calmly. "You fear to tell me the worst. He
is not ill: you said so. He cannot be in want of money. Then it is as
I gathered from your letter: he has been led into some terrible
temptation."
Pacey bowed his head gravely.
"Now, are you satisfied?" said Thorpe earnestly. "I knew that it was
so."
"And I clung so fondly to the hope that it was not," said Cornel, gazing
straight before her, and as if she were thinking aloud. Then, turning
to Pacey--"He was becoming famous, was he not?"
"Yes."
"Succeeding wonderfully with his art?"
"Grandly."
"And now this has all come like a cloud," sighed Cornel dreamily. Then
again to Pacey, in spite of her brother's frown, "Is she very
beautiful?"