"You are going to revenge yourself on your husband."
"But I don't want to," she replied, piteously.
"I do," said he. "Begin, _chere madame_. Every moment is precious."
In a state of stupefied terror the poor woman obeyed him. He saw her
start seriously on her task and then went downstairs, where he held a
violent and gesticulatory conversation with the landlord and with a man
in a green baize apron summoned from some dim lair of the hotel. After
that he lit a cigarette and smoked feverishly, walking up and down the
pavement. In ten minutes' time his luggage with that of Mrs. Ducksmith
was placed upon the cab. Mrs. Ducksmith appeared trembling and
tear-stained in the vestibule.
* * * * *
The man in the green baize apron knocked at Mr. Ducksmith's door and
entered the room.
"I have come for the baggage of monsieur," said he.
"Baggage? What baggage?" asked Mr. Ducksmith, sitting up.
"I have descended the baggage of Monsieur Pujol," said the porter in his
stumbling English, "and of madame, and put them in a cab, and I
naturally thought monsieur was going away, too."
"Going away!" He rubbed his eyes, glared at the porter, and dashed into
his wife's room. It was empty. He dashed into Aristide's room. It was
empty, too. Shrieking inarticulate anathema, he rushed downstairs, the
man in the green baize apron following at his heels.
Not a soul was in the vestibule. No cab was at the door. Mr. Ducksmith
turned upon his stupefied satellite.
"Where are they?"
"They must have gone already. I filled the cab. Perhaps Monsieur Pujol
and madame have gone before to make arrangements."
"Where have they gone to?"
"In Perigueux there is nowhere to go to with baggage but the railway
station."
A decrepit vehicle with a gaudy linen canopy hove in sight. Mr.
Ducksmith hailed it as the last victims of the Flood must have hailed
the Ark. He sprang into it and drove to the station.
There, in the _salle d'attente_, he found Aristide mounting guard over
his wife's luggage. He hurled his immense bulk at his betrayer.
"You blackguard! Where is my wife?"
"Monsieur," said Aristide, puffing a cigarette, sublimely impudent and
debonair, "I decline to answer any questions. Your wife is no longer
your wife. You offered me a thousand pounds to take her away. I am
taking her away. I did not deign to disturb you for such a trifle as a
thousand pounds, but, since you are here----"
He smiled engagingly and held out his curved palm. Mr. Ducksmith foamed
at the corners of the small mouth that disappeared into the bloodhound
jowls.
"My wife!" he shouted. "If you don't want me to throw you down and
trample on you."
A band of loungers, railway officials, peasants, and other travellers
awaiting their trains, gathered round. As the altercation was conducted
in English, which they did not understand, they could only hope for the
commencement of physical hostilities.
"My dear sir," said Aristide, "I do not understand you. For twenty years
you hold an innocent and virtuous woman under an infamous suspicion. She
meets a sympathetic soul, and you come across her pouring into his ear
the love and despair of a lifetime. You have more suspicion. You tell me
you will give me a thousand pounds to go away with her. I take you at
your word. And now you want to stamp on me. _Ma foi!_ it is not
reasonable."
Mr. Ducksmith seized him by the lapels of his coat. A gasp of
expectation went round the crowd. But Aristide recognized an agonized
appeal in the eyes now bloodshot.
"My wife!" he said hoarsely. "I want my wife. I can't live without her.
Give her back to me. Where is she?"
"You had better search the station," said Aristide.
The heavy man unconsciously shook him in his powerful grasp, as a child
might shake a doll.
"Give her to me! Give her to me, I say! She won't regret it."
[Illustration: MR. DUCKSMITH SEIZED HIM BY THE LAPELS OF HIS COAT]
"You swear that?" asked Aristide, with lightning quickness.
"I swear it, by God! Where is she?"
Aristide disengaged himself, waved his hand airily towards Perigueux,
and smiled blandly.
"In the salon of the hotel, waiting for you to prostrate yourself on
your knees before her."
Mr. Ducksmith gripped him by the arm.
"Come back with me. If you're lying I'll kill you."
"The luggage?" queried Aristide.
"Confound the luggage!" said Mr. Ducksmith, and dragged him out of the
station.
A cab brought them quickly to the hotel. Mr. Ducksmith bolted like an
obese rabbit into the salon. A few moments afterwards Aristide,
entering, found them locked in each other's arms.
They started alone for England that night, and Aristide returned to the
directorship of the Agence Pujol. But he took upon himself enormous
credit for having worked a miracle.
* * * * *
"One thing I can't understand," said I, after he had told me the story,
"is what put this sham elopement into your crazy head. What did you see
when you looked into Mr. Ducksmith's bedroom?"
"Ah, _mon vieux_, I did not tell you. If I had told you, you would not
have been surprised at what I did. I saw a sight that would have melted
the heart of a stone. I saw Ducksmith wallowing on his bed and sobbing
as if his heart would break. It filled my soul with pity. I said: 'If
that mountain of insensibility can weep and sob in such agony, it is
because he loves--and it is I, Aristide, who have reawakened that
love.'"
"Then," said I, "why on earth didn't you go and fetch Mrs. Ducksmith and
leave them together?"
He started from his chair and threw up both hands.
"_Mon Dieu!_" cried he. "You English! You are a charming people, but you
have no romance. You have no dramatic sense. I will help myself to a
whisky and soda."