Henri Graillot had made himself thoroughly comfortable. He was ensconced
in the largest of John's easy chairs, his pipe in his mouth, a recently
refilled teacup--Graillot was English in nothing except his predilection
for tea--on the small table by his side. Through a little cloud of
tobacco-smoke he was studying his host.
"So you call yourself a Londoner now, my young friend, I suppose," he
remarked, taking pensive note of John's fashionable clothes. "It is a
transformation, beyond a doubt! Is it, I wonder, upon the surface only,
or have you indeed become heart and soul a son of this corrupt city?"
"Whatever I may have become," John grumbled, "it's meant three months of
the hardest work I've ever done!"
Graillot held out his pipe in front of him and blew away a dense cloud
of smoke.
"Explain yourself," he insisted.
John stood on the hearth-rug, with his hands in his pockets. His morning
clothes were exceedingly well-cut, his tie and collar unexceptionable,
his hair closely cropped according to the fashion of the moment. He had
an extremely civilized air.
"Look here, Graillot," he said, "I'll tell you what I've done, although
I don't suppose you would understand what it means to me. I've visited
practically every theater in London."
"Alone?"
"Sometimes with Miss Maurel, sometimes with her little friend, Sophy
Gerard, and sometimes alone," John replied. "I have bought a Baedeker,
taken a taxicab by the day, and done all the sights. I've spent weeks in
the National Gallery, picture-gazing, and I've done all those more
modern shows up round Bond Street. I have bought a racing-car and
learned to drive it. I have been to dinner parties that have bored me
stiff. I have been introduced to crowds of people whom I never wish to
see again, and made one or two friends," he added, smiling at his guest,
"for whom I hope I am properly grateful."
"The prince has been showing you round a bit, hasn't he?" Graillot
grunted.
"The prince has been extraordinarily kind to me," John admitted slowly,
"for what reason I don't know. He has introduced me to a great many
pleasant and interesting people, and a great many whom I suppose a young
man in my position should be glad to know. He has shown me one side of
London life pretty thoroughly."
"And what about it all?" Graillot demanded. "You find yourself something
more of a citizen of the world, eh?"
"Not a bit," John answered simply. "The more I see of the life up here,
the smaller it seems to me. I mean, of course, the ordinary life of
pleasure, the life to be lived by a young man like myself, who hasn't
any profession or work upon which he can concentrate his thoughts."
"Then why do you stay?"
John made no immediate reply. Instead, he walked to the window of his
sitting room and stood looking out across the Thames with a
discontented frown upon his face. Between him and the Frenchman a
curious friendship had sprung up during the last few months.
"Tell me, then," Graillot continued, taking a bite from his piece of
cake and shaking the crumbs from his waistcoat, "what do you find in
London to compensate you for the things you miss? You are cooped up here
in this little flat--you, who are used to large rooms and open spaces;
you have given up your exercise, your sports--for what?"
"I get some exercise," John protested. "I play rackets at Ranelagh most
mornings, and I bought a couple of hacks and ride occasionally in the
park before you're out of bed."
"That's all right for exercise," Graillot observed. "What about
amusements?"
"Well, I've joined a couple of clubs. One's rather a swagger sort of
place--the prince got me in there; and then I belong to the Lambs, where
you yourself go sometimes. I generally look in at one or the other of
them during the evening."
"You see much of Miss Maurel?"
John shook his head gloomily.
"Not as much as I should like," he confessed. "She seems to think and
dream of nothing but this play of yours. I am hoping that when it is
once produced she will be more free."
"I gather," Graillot concluded, "that, to put it concisely and
truthfully, you are the most bored man in London. There is something
behind all this effort of yours, my friend, to fit yourself, the round
human being, into the square place. Speak the truth, now! Treat me as a
father confessor."
John swung round upon his heel. In the clear light it was obvious that
he was a little thinner in the face and that some of the tan had gone
from his complexion.
"I am staying up here, and going on with it," he announced doggedly,
"because of a woman."
Graillot stopped eating, placed the remains of his cake in the saucer of
his teacup, and laid it down. Then he leaned back in his chair and
balanced his finger-tips one against the other.
"A woman!" he murmured. "How you astonish me!"
"Why?"
"Candor is so good," Graillot continued, "so stimulating to the moral
system. It is absolute candor which has made friends of two people so
far apart in most ways as you and myself. You surprise me simply because
of your reputation."
"What about my reputation?"
Graillot smiled benignly.
"In France," he observed, "you would probably be offered your choice of
lunatic asylums. Here your weakness seems to have made you rather the
vogue."
"What weakness?"
"It is to a certain extent hearsay, I must admit," Graillot proceeded;
"but the report about you is that, although you have had some of the
most beautiful women in London almost offer themselves to you, you still
remain without a mistress."
"What in the world do you mean?" John demanded.
"I mean," Graillot explained frankly, "that for a young man of your age,
your wealth, and your appearance to remain free from any feminine
entanglement is a thing unheard of in my country, and, I should imagine,
rare in yours. It is not so that young men were made when I was young!"
"I don't happen to want a mistress," John remarked, lighting a
cigarette. "I want a wife."
"But meanwhile--"
"You can call me a fool, if you like," John interrupted. "I may be one,
I suppose, from your point of view. All I know is that I want to be able
to offer the woman whom I marry, and who I hope will be the mother of my
children, precisely what she offers me. I want a fair bargain, from her
point of view as well as mine."
Graillot, who had been refilling his pipe, stopped and glowered at his
host.
"What exactly do you mean?" he asked.
"Surely my meaning is plain enough," John replied. "We all have our
peculiar tastes and our eccentricities. One of mine has to do with the
other sex. I cannot make an amusement of them. It is against all my
prejudices."
Graillot carefully completed the refilling of his pipe and lit it
satisfactorily. Then he turned once more to John.
"Let us not be mistaken," he said. "You are a purist!"
"You can call me what you like," John retorted. "I do not believe in one
law for the woman and another for the man. If a man wants a woman, and
we all do more or less, it seems to me that he ought to wait until he
finds one whom he is content to make the mother of his children."
Graillot nodded ponderously.
"Something like this I suspected," he admitted. "I felt that there was
something extraordinary and unusual about you. If I dared, my young
friend, I would write a play about you; but then no one would believe
it. Now tell me something. I have heard your principles. We are face to
face--men, brothers, and friends. Do you live up to them?"
"I have always done so," John declared.
Graillot was silent for several moments. Then he opened his lips to
speak and abruptly closed them. His face suddenly underwent an
extraordinary change. A few seconds ago his attitude had been that of a
professor examining some favorite object of study; now a more personal
note had humanized his expression. Whatever thought or reflection it was
that had come into his mind, it had plainly startled him.
"Who is the woman?" he asked breathlessly.
"There is no secret about it, so far as I am concerned," John answered.
"It is Louise Maurel. I thought you must have guessed."
The two men looked at each other in silence for some moments. Out on the
river a little tug was hooting vigorously. The roar of the Strand came
faintly into the room. Upon the mantelpiece a very ornate French clock
was ticking lightly. All these sounds seemed suddenly accentuated. They
beat time to a silence almost tragical in its intensity.
Graillot took out his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. He had
written many plays, and the dramatic instinct was strongly developed in
him.
"Louise!" he muttered under his breath.
"She is very different, I know," John went on, after a moment's
hesitation. "She is very clever and a great artist, and she lives in an
atmosphere of which, a few months ago, I knew nothing. I have come up
here to try to understand, to try to get a little nearer to her."
There was another silence, this time almost an awkward one. Then
Graillot rose suddenly to his feet.
"I will respect your confidence," he promised, holding out his hand.
"Have no fear of that. I am due now at the theater. Your tea is
excellent, and such little cakes I never tasted before."
"You will wish me good luck?"
"No!"
"Why not?" John demanded, a little startled.
"Because," Graillot pronounced, "from what I have seen and know of you
both, there are no two people in this world less suitable for each
other."
"Look here," John expostulated, "I don't want you to go away thinking
so. You don't understand what this means to me."
"Perhaps not, my friend," Graillot replied, "but remember that it is at
least my trade to understand men and women. I have known Louise Maurel
since she was a child."
"Then it is I whom you don't understand."
"That may be so," Graillot confessed. "One makes mistakes. Let us leave
it at that. You are a young man of undeveloped temperament. You may be
capable of much which at present I do not find in you."
"Tell me the one quality in which you consider me most lacking," John
begged. "You think that I am narrow, too old-fashioned in my views?
Perhaps I am, but, on the other hand, I am very anxious to learn and
absorb all that is best in this wider life. You can't really call me
prejudiced. I hated the stage before I came to London, but during the
last few months no one has been a more assiduous theatergoer. I
understand better than I did, and my views are immensely modified. I
admit that Louise is a great artist, I admit that she has wonderful
talents. I am even willing, if she wished it, to allow her to remain for
a time upon the stage. What could I say more? I want you on my side,
Graillot."
"And I," Graillot replied, as he shook his friend's hand and hurried
off, "want only to be on the side that will mean happiness for you
both."
He left the room a little abruptly. John walked back to the window,
oppressed with a sense of something almost ominous in the Frenchman's
manner, something which he could not fathom, against which he struggled
in vain. Side by side with it, there surged into his memory the
disquietude which his present relations with Louise had developed. She
was always charming when she had any time to spare--sometimes almost
affectionate. On the other hand, he was profoundly conscious of her
desire to keep him at arm's length for the present.
He had accepted her decision without a murmur. He made but few efforts
to see her alone, and when they met he made no special claim upon her
notice. He was serving his apprenticeship doggedly and faithfully. Yet
there were times like the present when he found his task both hateful
and difficult.
He walked aimlessly backward and forward, chafing against the restraint
of the narrow walls and the low ceiling. A sudden desire had seized him
to fly back to the hills, wreathed in mist though they might be; to
struggle on his way through the blinding rain, to drink down long gulps
of his own purer, less civilized atmosphere.
The telephone-bell rang. He placed the receiver to his ear almost
mechanically.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Lady Hilda Mulloch is asking for you, sir," the hall-porter announced.
* * * * *
Lady Hilda peered around John's room through her lorgnette, and did not
hesitate to express her dissatisfaction.
"My dear man," she exclaimed, "what makes you live in a hotel? Why don't
you take rooms of your own and furnish them? Surroundings like these are
destructive to one's individuality."
"Well, you see," John explained, as he drew an easy chair up to the fire
for his guest, "my stay in London is only a temporary one, and it hasn't
seemed worth while to settle anywhere."
She stretched out her graceful body in front of the fire and raised her
veil. She was very smartly dressed, as usual. Her white-topped boots and
white silk stockings, which she seemed to have no objection to
displaying, were of the latest vogue. The chinchilla around her neck and
in her little toque was most becoming. She seemed to bring with her an
atmosphere indefinable, in its way, but distinctly attractive. Brisk in
her speech, a little commanding in her manner, she was still essentially
feminine.
John, at her direct invitation, had called upon her once or twice since
their meeting at the opera, and he had found her, from the first, more
attractive than any other society woman of his acquaintance. None the
less, he was a little taken aback at her present visit.
"Exactly why are you here, anyhow?" she demanded. "I feel sure that
Eugene told me the reason which had brought you from your wilds, but I
have forgotten it."
"For one thing," John replied, "I have come because I don't want to
appear prejudiced, and the fact that I had never spent a month in
London, or even a week, seemed a little narrow-minded."
"What's the real attraction?" Lady Hilda asked. "It is a woman, isn't
it?"
"I am very fond of a woman who is in London," John admitted. "Perhaps it
is true that I am here on her account."
Lady Hilda withdrew from her muff a gold cigarette-case and a little box
of matches.
"Order some mixed vermuth with lemon for me, please," she begged. "I
have been shopping, and I hate tea. I don't know why I came to see you.
I suddenly thought of it when I was in Bond Street."
"It was very kind of you," John said. "If I had known that you cared
about seeing me, I would have come to you with pleasure."
"What does it matter?" she answered. "You are thinking, perhaps, that I
risk my reputation in coming to a young man's rooms? Those things do not
count for me. Ever since I was a child I have done exactly as I liked,
and people have shrugged their shoulders and said, 'Ah, well, it is only
Lady Hilda!' I have been six months away from civilization, big-game
shooting, and haven't seen a white woman. It didn't matter, because it
was I. I traveled around the world with a most delightful man who was
writing a book, but it didn't affect my reputation in the slightest. I
am quite convinced that if I chose to take you off to Monte Carlo with
me next week and spend a month with you there, I should get my pass to
the royal enclosure at Ascot when I returned, and my invitation to the
next court ball, even in this era of starch. You see, they would say,
'It is only Lady Hilda!'"
The waiter brought the vermuth, which his visitor sipped contentedly.
"So there is a woman, is there?" she went on, looking across the room at
her companion. "Have you committed yourself already, then? Don't you
remember what I told you the first night we met after the opera--that it
is well to wait?"
"Yes, I remember," John admitted.
"I meant it."
He laughed good-humoredly, yet not without some trace of
self-consciousness.
"The mischief was done then," he said.
"Couldn't it be undone?" she asked lazily. "Or are you one of those
tedious people who are faithful forever? Fidelity," she continued,
knocking the ash from her cigarette, "is really, to my mind, the most
bourgeois of vices. It comes from a want of elasticity in the emotional
fibres. Nothing in life has bored me so much as the faithfulness of my
lovers."
"You ought to put all this into one of your books," John suggested.
"I probably shall, when I write my reminiscences," she replied. "Tell me
about this woman. And don't stand about in that restless way at the
other end of the room. Bring a chair close to me--there, close to my
side!"
John obeyed, and his visitor contemplated him thoughtfully through a
little cloud of tobacco-smoke.
"Yes," she decided, "there is no use denying it. You are hatefully
good-looking, and somehow or other I think your clothes have improved
you. You have a little more air than when you first came to town. Are
you quite sure that you haven't made up your mind about this woman in a
hurry?"
"Quite sure," John laughed. "I suppose I am rather an idiot, but I am
addicted to the vice of which you were speaking."
She nodded.
"I should imagine," she said, "that you were not an adept in the art of
flirtation. Is it true that the woman is Louise Maurel?"
"Quite true," John replied.
"But don't you know--"
She broke off abruptly. She saw the face of the man by her side suddenly
change, and her instinct warned her of the danger into which she was
rushing.
"You surprise me very much," she said. "Louise Maurel is a very
wonderful woman, but she seems to spend the whole of her time with my
cousin, the prince."
"They are, without doubt, very friendly," John assented. "They have a
good many interests in common, and the prince is connected with the
syndicate which finances the theater. I do not imagine, however, that
the prince wishes to marry her, or she him."
Lady Hilda began to laugh, softly, but as if genuinely amused. John sat
and watched her in ominous silence. Not the flicker of a smile parted
his set lips. His visitor, however, was undisturbed. She leaned over and
patted his hand.
"Simple Simon!" she murmured, leaning a little toward him. "If you go
looking like that, I shall pat your cheeks, too. You are really much too
nice-looking to wear such thunderclouds!"
"Perhaps if we chose some other subject of conversation--" John said
stiffly.
"Oh, dear me!" she interrupted. "Very well! You really are a most trying
person, you know. I put up with a great deal from you."
John was silent. Her face darkened a little, and an angry light flashed
in her eyes.
"Well, I'll leave you alone, if you like," she decided, tossing her
cigarette into the grate. "If my friendship isn't worth having, let it
go. It hasn't often been offered in vain. There are more men in London
than I could count who would go down on their knees for such a visit as
I am paying you. And you--you," she added, with a little tremble of real
anger in her tone, "you're too hatefully polite and priggish! Come and
ring the bell for the lift. I am going!"
She slid gracefully to her feet, shook the cigarette ash from her
clothes, and picked up her muff.
"You really are an egregious, thick-headed, obstinate countryman," she
declared, as she moved toward the door. "You haven't either manners or
sensibility. I am a perfect idiot to waste my time upon you. I wouldn't
have done it," she added, as he followed her dumbly down the corridor,
"if I hadn't rather liked you!"
"I am very sorry," he declared. "I don't know quite what I have done. I
do appreciate your friendship. You have been very kind to me indeed."
She hesitated as his finger touched the bell of the lift, and glanced at
the watch on her wrist.
"Well," she said, "if you want to be friends, I will give you one last
chance. I am doing what sounds rather a ghastly thing--I am having a
little week-end party down at my cottage at Bourne End. It will be
rather like camping out, but some interesting people are coming. Will
you motor down on Saturday evening and stay till Sunday night or
Monday?"
"I shall be very pleased indeed," John replied. "It is very good of you
to ask me. When I come, I'd like, if I may," he went on, "to tell you
about myself, and why I am here, and about Louise."
She sighed, and watched the top of the lift as it came up. Then she
dropped her veil.
"You will find me," she assured him, as she gave him the tips of her
fingers, "a most sympathetic listener."
* * * * *
Louise and Sophy came to dine that evening with John in the grill-room
at the Milan. They arrived a little late and were still in morning
clothes. Louise was looking pale and tired, and her greeting was almost
listless.
"We are dead beat," Sophy exclaimed. "We've been having a secret
rehearsal this afternoon without Graillot, and he came in just as we
were finishing. He was perfectly furious!"
"He was here to tea with me," John remarked, as he led the way to their
table.
"My dear man," Louise exclaimed, "if you could have kept him half an
hour longer you'd have earned our undying gratitude! You see, there are
several little things on which we shall never agree, he and myself and
the rest of the company; so we decided to run over certain passages in
the way we intend to do them, without him. Of course, he saw through it
all when he arrived, tore up his manuscript on the stage, and generally
behaved like a madman."
"I am sorry," John said, as they took their seats and he handed Louise
the menu of the dinner that he had ordered. "Won't the play be produced
to-morrow night, then?"
"Oh, it will be produced all right," Louise told him; "but you don't
know how we've all worn ourselves out, trying to make that old bear see
reason. We've had to give way on one scene, as it is. What a delightful
little dinner, John! You're spoiling us. You know how I love that big
white asparagus. And strawberries, too! Well, I think we've earned it
anyhow, Sophy!"
"You have," the latter declared. "You were the only one who could soothe
Graillot at all."
"I can get my way with most people," Louise remarked languidly; "but it
simply means that the more difficult they are, the more you have to
spend yourself in getting it. John," she went on, after a moment's
pause, "you are coming to-morrow night, I suppose?"
"Of course. Didn't I take my box two months ago?"
"And now that my part after the first act has been cut out, I am coming
with him," Sophy put in. "I may, mayn't I?"
"Of course," John assented.
Louise sighed dejectedly.
"I am not at all sure that I shall like having you there," she said. "I
shouldn't be at all surprised if it made me nervous."
He laughed incredulously.
"It's all very well," she went on, watching the champagne poured in to
her glass, "but you won't like the play, you know."
"Perhaps I sha'n't understand it altogether," John agreed. "It's very
subtle, and, as you know, I don't find problem plays of that sort
particularly attractive; but with you in it, you can't imagine that I
sha'n't find it interesting!"
"We were talking about it, coming up in the taxi," Louise continued,
"and we came to the conclusion that you'd hate it. We've had to give way
to Graillot with regard to the last act. Of course, there is really
nothing in it, but I don't know just what you will say."
"Well, you needn't be afraid that I shall stand up in my box and order
the performance to cease," John assured them, smiling. "Besides, I am
not quite such an idiot, Louise. I know very well that you may have to
say and do things on the stage which in private life would offend your
taste and your sense of dignity. I am quite reconciled to that. I am
prepared to accept everything you do and everything that you say. There!
I can't say more than that, can I?"
Louise smiled at him almost gratefully. She drew her hand over his,
caressingly.
"You are a dear!" she declared. "You've really made me feel much more
comfortable. Now please tell me what you have been doing all day."
"Well, Graillot came in and spent most of the afternoon," John answered.
"Since then, Lady Hilda Mulloch has been here."
Louise looked up quickly.
"What, here in your rooms?"
"I didn't ask her," John said. "I have been to see her once or twice,
and she has been very nice, but I never dreamed of her coming here."
"Shameless hussy!" Sophy exclaimed, as she set down her wine-glass.
"Didn't you tell her that Louise and I are the only two women in London
who have the entree to your rooms?"
"I am afraid it didn't occur to me to tell her that," John confessed,
smiling. "All the same, I was surprised to see her. It was just a whim,
I think."
"She is a clever woman," Louise sighed. "She won't know me--I can't
imagine why. She is a cousin of the prince, too, you know."
"She is very amusing," John agreed. "I have met some interesting people
at her house, too. She has asked me down to Bourne End for this next
week-end--the week-end you are spending with Mrs. Faraday," he
continued, glancing toward Louise.
Louise nodded. She looked at John critically.
"Quite a success in town, isn't he?" she remarked to Sophy. "People
tumble over one another to get invitations for her week-end parties in
the season. I must say I never heard of going down to Bourne End in
February, though."
"The idea seemed rather pleasant to me," John confessed. "So many of you
people know nothing of the country except just in the summer!"
"If John gets talking about the country," Louise said, "we shall not be
allowed our proper share in the conversation for the rest of the
evening. The question is, are we to allow him to go down to Bourne End?
Lady Hilda isn't exactly a Puritan where your sex is concerned, you
know, John."
"She'll expect you to flirt with her," Sophy insisted.
"She won't," John replied. "I have told her that I am in love with
Louise."
"Was there ever such a man in the world?" Louise exclaimed. "Tell me,
what did Lady Hilda say to that?"
"Not much," he answered. "She suggested that her cousin had a prior
claim on you."
Louise laid down her knife and fork. Her left hand clutched the piece of
toast which was lying by her side. She began to crumble it up into small
pieces.
"What did Lady Hilda say exactly?" she insisted.
"Nothing much," John replied. "She seemed surprised when I mentioned
your name. I asked her why, and she told me, or rather she hinted, that
you and the prince are very great friends."
"Anything more?"
"Nothing at all. I pointed out that the prince is interested in
theatrical affairs, and that he is the chief member of the syndicate
that runs the theaters. She seemed to understand."
There was a brief silence. Louise was once more looking a little tired.
She changed the subject abruptly, and only returned to it when John was
driving home with her.
"Do you know," she said, after a long silence, "I am not at all sure
that I want you to go to Lady Hilda's!"
"Then I won't," he promised with alacrity. "I'll do just as you say."
Louise sat quite still, thinking, looking through the rain-splashed
windows of the taxicab.
"You have only to say the word," John continued. "I should be flattered
to think that you cared."
"It isn't that. Lady Hilda is very clever, and she is used to having her
own way. I am afraid!"
"Afraid of what?"
"Of nothing," Louise declared suddenly. "Go, by all means, John. I am
simply a little idiot when I give way for a moment to such poisonous
thoughts. Lady Hilda can say what she likes about anybody or anything.
It really doesn't matter at all whether you go to Bourne End or not."
"I don't quite understand you," John confessed; "but if you mean that
you are afraid of anything Lady Hilda might say to me about you, why, I
feel inclined to laugh at you. Lady Hilda," he added, with a touch of
intuition, "is far too clever a woman to make such a mistake."
"I believe you are right," Louise agreed. "I shall pin my faith to Lady
Hilda's cleverness and to your--fidelity. Go and spend your week-end
there, by all means. I only wish I wasn't bound to go to the Faradays',
but that can't possibly be helped. Come and lunch with me on Monday,"
she added impulsively. "It seems a long time since we had a little talk
together."
He suddenly held her to him, and she met his lips unresistingly. It was
the first time he had even attempted anything of the sort for months.
"You are a dear, John," she said, a little wistfully. "I am terribly
divided in my thoughts about you. Just now I feel that I have only one
wish--that I could give you all that you want, all that you deserve!"
He was very loverlike. She was once more a slight, quivering thing in
his arms.
"Why need we wait any longer?" he begged. "If we told everyone
to-night--to-morrow--the Faradays would not expect you to keep your
engagement."
She shook herself free from him, but her smile was almost a
compensation. The taxicab had stopped opposite her door, and her servant
came hurrying out.
"Until Monday!" she murmured.