"Yes," said the youth.
"I thank you very much, my young friend," said Aristide, raising his
hat, "and here is something to buy a smile with," and, leaving a
sixpence on the table to shimmer before the youth's stupefied eyes,
Aristide strutted out of the office.
* * * * *
"You had much better have written," said I, when he came back and told
me of his experiences. "The post-office would have done all that for
you."
"You have no idea of business, _mon cher ami_"--(I--a successful
tea-broker of twenty-five years' standing!--the impudence of the
fellow!)--"If I had written to-day, the letter would have reached
Chislehurst on Monday morning. It would be redirected and reach
Hertfordshire on Tuesday. I should not get any news till Wednesday. I go
down to Beverly Stoke to-morrow, and then I find at once Miss Janet and
Miss Anne and my little Jean! The secret of business men, and I am a
business man, the accredited representative of Dulau et Compagnie--never
forget that--the secret of business is no delay."
He darted across the room to Bradshaw.
"For God's sake," said I, "put that nightmare of perpetual motion in
your pocket and go mad over it in the privacy of your own chamber."
"Very good," said he, tucking the brain-convulsing volume under his arm.
"I will put it on top of The Times and the family Bible and I will say
'Ha! now I am British. Now I am very respectable!' What else can I do?"
"Rent a pew in a Baptist chapel," said I.
* * * * *
After a three-mile trudge from St. Albans Aristide, following
directions, found himself on a high road running through the middle of a
straggy common decked here and there with great elms splendid in autumn
bravery, and populated chiefly by geese, who when he halted in some
perplexity--for on each side, beyond the green, were indications of a
human settlement--advanced in waddling flocks towards him and signified
their disapproval of his presence. A Sundayfied youth in a rainbow tie
rode past on a bicycle. Aristide took off his hat. The youth nearly fell
off the bicycle, but British doggedness saved him from disaster.
"Beverly Stoke? Will you have the courtesy----"
"Here," bawled the youth, with a circular twist of his head, and, eager
to escape from a madman, he rode on furiously.
Aristide looked to left and right at the little houses beyond the
green--some white and thatched and dilapidated, others horridly new and
perky--but all poor and insignificant. As his eyes became accustomed to
the scene they were aware of human forms dotted sparsely about the
common. He struck across and accosted one, an elderly woman with a
prayer-book. "Miss Honeywood? A lady from London?"
"That house over there--the third beyond the poplar."
"And little Jean--a beautiful child about four years old?"
"That I don't know, sir. I live at Wilmer's End, a good half mile from
here."
Aristide made for the third house past the poplar. First there was a
plank bridge across a grass-grown ditch; then a tiny patch of garden;
then a humble whitewashed cottage with a small leaded casement window on
each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all
the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was
woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither
knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and
there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, stood Miss Anne.
She regarded him for a moment in a bewildered way, then, recognizing
him, drew back into the stone flagged passage with a sharp cry.
"You? You--Mr. Pujol?"
"_Oui, Mademoiselle, c'est moi._ It is I, Aristide Pujol."
She put her hands on her bosom. "It is rather a shock seeing you--so
unexpectedly. Will you come in?"
She led the way into a tiny parlour, very clean, very simple with its
furniture of old oak and brass, and bade him sit. She looked a little
older than when he had seen her at Aix-en-Provence. A few lines had
marred the comely face and there was here and there a touch of grey in
the reddish hair, and, though still buxom, she had grown thinner. Care
had set its stamp upon her.
"Miss Honeywood," said Aristide. "It is on account of little Jean that I
have come----"