She had forgotten him before the still pure air of the sick-room had
ceased to vibrate with her spoken words. She saw nothing but the
patient in need of her, and had passed her arm beneath the pillow
and was raising the gray head, and had reached a little vial and a
measuring-glass from a stand that was beside the bed, before Dunoisse
had gained the door. It might have been five minutes later, as he
contemplated a vista of grimy, leaded roofs, and cowled, smoke-vomiting
chimney-pots, from the staircase-window at the passage-end, that he
heard a light rustling of garments passing over the thick soft carpets,
and she came to him, moving with the upright graceful carriage and the
long, gliding step that had reminded him of the gait of the tall supple
Arab women, whose slender, perfect proportions lend their movements
such rhythmic grace. He said to her eagerly, as she stopped at a few
paces from him:
“Mademoiselle, you see one who is gravely to blame for forgetfulness of
your wise warning. I beg you, hide nothing from me!... Is my dear old
friend in danger? Her color was that of Death itself.”
“There is always danger in cases of heart-disease.”
“Heart-disease.... She said no word to me upon the subject. But it
is like her,” said Dunoisse, “to conceal her sufferings rather than
distress her friends.”
“She has needed friends, and the help that prosperous friendship could
have well afforded to bestow, believe me, sir, in these late years of
uncomplaining want and bitter privation.”
The voice that spoke was sweet; Dunoisse had already recognized in it
that quality. Barely raised above an undertone--presumably for the sake
of other sufferers within the neighboring rooms that opened on the
landing, from behind the shut doors of which came the murmur of voices,
or the clinking of cups and saucers, or the sound of fires being
poked,--this voice had in its clear distinctness the ring of crystal;
and the fine edge of scorn in it cut to the sensitive quick of the
listener. He started as he looked at her, meeting the calm and clear
and steady regard of eyes that were blue-gray as the waters of her own
English Channel, and seemed as cold....
For they condemned him and judged him, the rich man’s son, who had left
the old dependent to the charity of strangers. His shamed blood tingled
under his red-brown skin, as he said, with a resentful flash of his
black eyes:
“That this good woman, the faithful guardian of my motherless boyhood,
has suffered want, is to my bitter regret, to my abiding poignant
sorrow, but not to my shame. A thousand times--no!”
He was so vivid and emphatic, as he stood speaking with his back
to the window, that, with his foreign brilliancy of coloring, the
slightness of form that masked his great muscular strength, the supple
eloquence of gesture that accompanied and emphasized his clear and
cultivated utterance, he seemed to glow against the background of
rimy February fog, and London roofs and chimney-pots, as a flashing
ruby upon gray velvet; as a South American orchid seen in relief
against a neutral-tinted screen. His “No!” had a convincing ring; the
lightning-flash of his black eyes was genuine fire, not theatrical; the
woman who heard and saw had been born with the rare power of judging
and reading men. Her broad white forehead cleared between the silken
folds of her hair, pale nut-brown, with the gleam of autumn gold upon
the edges of its thick waved tresses; the lowered arches of her brown
eyebrows lifted and drew apart, smoothing out the fold between them;
the regard of her blue-gray eyes ceased to chill; the delicate stern
lines of her sensitive mouth relaxed. She knew he spoke the truth.
He saw a tall, slight, brown-haired woman in a plain and, according to
the voluminous fashion of the time, rather scanty gown of Quakerish
gray, protected by a bibbed white apron with pockets of accommodating
size. A little cape of stuff similar to that of the gown covered her
shoulders. Their beauty of line, like the beauty of the long rounded
throat that rose above her collar of unadorned white cambric, the
shapeliness of the arms that were covered by her plain tight sleeves,
the slender rounded hips and long graceful proportions of the lower
limbs, were enhanced rather than hidden by the simplicity of her
dress; as the admirable shape and poise of the small rounded head was
undesignedly set off by the simple, close-fitting, white muslin cap,
with its double frill and broad falling lappets.
* * * * *
Her calmness seemed immobility, her silence indifference to Dunoisse.
Her hands were folded upon her apron, her bosom rose and fell to the
time of her deep even breathing, her steady eyes regarded him as he
poured himself out in passionate denial, fierce repudiation of the
odious stigma of ingratitude, but she gave no sign of having heard.
She looked at him, and considered, that was all. He said, galled and
irritated by her unresponsiveness:
“I should ask pardon of you, Mademoiselle, for my vehemence,
incomprehensible to you and out of place here. What I seek is a
private audience of the lady who is Directress of this charitable
house. Would she favor me by granting it? I would promise not to detain
her. Could you graciously, Mademoiselle----”
She said, with her intent eyes still reading him:
“I should tell you it is the rule of this house that no attendant in it
should be addressed as ‘Mademoiselle,’ ‘Miss,’ or ‘Mrs.’ ... ‘_Nurse_’
is the name to which we all answer, and we try to deserve it well.”
Her smile wrought a radiant, lovely change in her that evoked his
unwilling admiration. The pearl-white teeth it revealed shone brilliant
in the light of it, and the dark blue-gray eyes flashed and gleamed
like sapphires between their narrowed lids. But the next moment she
stood before him as pale and grave as she had seemed to him before,
with her white hands folded on her white apron.
“You do deserve that title, I am sure,” said Dunoisse, “if you minister
to all your patients as kindly and as skillfully as to my poor friend
there.” He added: “Forgive me, that I detain you here, when you may be
needed by her bedside!”
He motioned towards the door of the room he had quitted, receiving
answer:
“Do not be alarmed. Another nurse is with her. She was in the adjoining
room; I called her to take charge before I came to you. And--you were
desirous of an interview with our Superintendent here.... She sees
few people, the nature of her responsibilities permitting little
leisure.... I cannot bring you any nearer to her than you are now.
But if you could trust me with the message you desire to send, or the
explanation you wish to make, I will give you my promise that your
exact words shall be conveyed to her. Will that do?”
Dunoisse bowed and thanked her, with some shadow of doubt upon his
square forehead, a lingering hesitation in his tone.
“If you were older, Mademoiselle----” he began, forgetful of her
injunction, as he hesitated before her. She looked at him, and her
lips curved into their lovely smile again, and her blue-gray eyes were
mirthful as she said:
“I am older than you are, M. Dunoisse. Does not that fact give you
confidence?”
“It should,” returned Dunoisse, “if it were possible of credence.”
“Compliments are a currency that does not pass within these doors,” she
answered, with a fine slight accent of irony and a tincture of sarcasm
in her smile. “Keep yours for Society small-change in the _salons_ of
Paris or the drawing-rooms of Belgravia. They are wasted here.”
“I know but little,” said Dunoisse, “of the _salons_ of London and
Paris. Circumstances have conspired to shut the doors of Society,
generally open to welcome rich men’s sons, as completely in my face as
in that of any other ineligible. You will learn why, since you are so
kind as to undertake to convey a message from me to the Superintendent
of this house. It shall be as brief as I can make it. I would not
willingly waste your time.”
She bent her head, and the high-bred grace perceptible in the slight
movement appealed to him as exquisite. But he was too earnest in his
desire for justification to be turned aside.
“Say to this lady whose charitable hand has lifted my dear old
friend--from what depths of penury I only now begin to realize--that if
she comprehends that I was a boy at a Military School, and ignorant,
thoughtless, and selfish as boys are wont to be, when my good old
governess was driven from the house that had been for years her home,
and that her dismissal was so brought about that she seemed but to be
leaving us upon a visit of condolence to a sick relative, she will
judge me less harshly, regard me with less contempt than it may seem to
her, now, I deserve!----”
His hearer stopped him:
“You should be told, M. Dunoisse, that all that can be said in your
favor has been already said by Miss Smithwick herself. It never
occurred to her to reproach you. Nor for her dismissal can you be
blamed at all. But it has seemed to me that where there was ability to
provide for one so tried and faithful, some effort should have been
made in her behalf by you as you grew more mature, and the ample means
that are placed at the disposal of a rich man’s son were yours to use.
She never told you of her cruel need, I can guess that. But oh! M.
Dunoisse! you might have read Hunger and Cold between the lines of the
poor thing’s letters.”
There were tears in the great sorrowful blue-gray eyes. Her calm voice
shook a little.
“If you had seen her as she was when I was sent to her,” she said, “you
would feel as I do. True, a letter with a remittance from you came when
she was nearly past needing any of the help it contained for her. But
long, long before, you might have read between the lines!”
“Ah!--in the Name of Heaven, Mademoiselle, I pray you hear me!” burst
out Dunoisse, catching at the carved knob of the baluster at the
stair-head, and wringing it in the energy of his earnestness. “All that
you suppose is true! Even before I came of age a large sum of money
was placed at my disposal by my father. Over a million of our francs,
forty-five thousand of your English sovereigns, lie to my credit in
the bank, have so lain for years. May the hour that sees me spend a
_sou_ of that accursed money be an hour of shame for me, and bitterness
and humiliation! And should ever a day draw near, that is to see me
trick myself in dignities and honors stolen by a charlatan’s device,
and usurp a power to which I have no more moral right than the meanest
peasant of the State it rules--before its dawning I pray that I may
die! and that those who come seeking a clod of mud to throw in the face
of a Catholic principality, may find it lying in a coffin!”
He had forgotten that he addressed himself to a stranger, so wholly had
his passion carried him away. He awakened to her now, seeing her recoil
from him as though repelled by his vehemence, and then conquer her
impulse and turn to him again.
“Pardon!” He held up his hand to check her as she was about to speak.
“I speak, in my forgetfulness, of things incomprehensible to you. I
employ names that are unmeaning. These have no part in the message I
entreat you of your goodness to bear to the Superintendent of this
house. Could it not be made clear to this lady, without baring to the
vision of a stranger the disgrace of one whom I am bound to respect,
and would that it were possible! Could it not be understood that this
money was gained in a discreditable, vile, and shameful way? Could it
not be understood that I shall never rest until it has been returned to
the original source whence it was unjustly plundered and wrung? Could
it not be made clear that while I was yet a boy I swore a solemn oath
before Almighty God, at the instance of a friend--who afterwards cast
me off and deserted me!--that this restitution should be made?... Might
it not be explained that I have had nothing, since I took that oath,
that was not earned by my own efforts? That I could take no holidays
from the Technical School where I was a cadet, because I could not
afford to buy civilian clothes, and that, until by good fortune I
earned rewards and prizes and a period of free tuition at the Training
Institute for Officers of the Staff--that many of my comrades deserved
better, I do not doubt!--I was very, very poor, Mademoiselle! Would it
not be possible?”
“Yes, yes!”--she answered him, and her pale cheeks had grown rosy as
apple-blossoms, and her great gray-blue eyes were full of kindness now.
“It shall all be explained. You shall be no longer blamed where you
are praiseworthy, and reproached where you should be honored. And--two
breaches of faith--a double perjury--are worse than one, though a lower
standard of honor than yours would have taken your false friend’s
desertion as a release. You have done well to keep your oath, M.
Dunoisse, though he may have broken his.”
“I deserve no praise,” said Dunoisse, “and I desire none. I ask for
justice--it is the right of every human soul; I beg you to repeat to
this benevolent lady what I have said, and to tell her that I will be
answerable for whatever charges she has been put to, for the medical
attendance and support of my dear old friend, from to-day. It is a
sacred duty which I will gladly take upon myself.”
“Forgive me,” said the listener, and her voice was very soft, “but
would not this be a heavy tax on your resources?--a heavy drain upon
your slender means?”
He listened, with his black eyes seeming to study an engraving that
hung upon the staircase wall. She ended, and he looked at her again.
“It would be a tax, and a drain under ordinary circumstances, but I
think I can insure a way to meet the difficulty.... Is it possible that
I may be permitted to say Adieu to my old friend before I leave this
house? It will be necessary--now!--that I should return to France by
the packet that sails to-night.”
He was more than ever like a slender ruddy flame as he glowed
there against the dull background of marble-papered wall and foggy
window-panes. His virile energy, the hard clear ring of his voice, the
keen flash of his black eyes won her rare approval, no less than his
reticence and his delicacy. Her own eyes were more than kind, though in
the respect of his seeing Miss Smithwick again that day her decision
was prohibitory. He bowed to the decision.
“Then you shall say _Adieu_ and _Au revoir_ to her for me,” he said,
and held out his hand with a smiling look and a quick, impulsive
gesture. “And for yourself, Mademoiselle, accept my thanks.”
He added, retaining the hand she had placed in his:
“You will not fail of your promise to repeat to Madame the
Superintendent all that I have confided to you?”
“You have my word,” she answered him. “But of one thing I must warn
you--if you send any money, she will send it back!”
“Name of Heaven!--why?” exclaimed Dunoisse.
“Because,” she said, with a slight fold between her arched brown
eyebrows, “your friend has been accepted by the Committee as a
permanent inmate here, and there is no lack of funds. I must really go
now if you will be so good as to release me!”
Dunoisse was still jailer of the hand she had given, and his grip,
unconsciously strenuous, was responsible for that fold of pain between
the nurse’s eyebrows. He released the hand with penitence and distress,
saying:
“I entreat you to forgive me if I have hurt this kind hand, that
has alleviated so much pain, and smoothed the pillows of so many
death-beds.” But his lips, only shaded by the little upward-brushed
black mustache, had barely touched her fingers before she drew them
gently from his, saying with a smile:
“There is no need for atonement, M. Dunoisse. As for this kiss upon my
hand, I will transfer it with your message of farewell to your dear old
governess. My good wishes will follow you with hers, wherever you may
go!”
She was gone, moving along the passage and vanishing into a room half
way down its length before a bell rang somewhere in the lower regions
of the house, a voice spoke to Dunoisse, and he brought back his eyes,
that had been questing in search of another, to see the capped and
caped and aproned elderly woman, who had a round, brown smiling face,
somewhat lined and wrinkled, smooth gray hair, and pleasant eyes of
soft dark hazel, waiting to lead him downstairs as she had guided him
up. To her he said, as she opened the street-door upon the foggy vista
of Cavendish Street:
“Be so good, Madame, as to tell me the name of the Lady Superintendent
here?”
The elderly attendant answered promptly:
“Merling, sir! Miss Ada Merling.”
Where had Dunoisse heard that name before? He racked his brain even as
he said, with the smile that showed his small, square white teeth and
made his black eyes gleam more brightly:
“I must be once more troublesome, if you will allow me. What is the
name of the lady to whom I was talking just now?”
The elderly attendant answered, in precisely the same form of words:
“Merling, sir: Miss Ada Merling.”