THE PARTING
At the breakfast-table the next morning, Rivière found a letter with an
official seal awaiting him. It was a call to Nîmes to give evidence in
the coming trial of the peasant Crau. He was asked to be there on a date
a few days later.
Olive was already waiting for him in the palm-lounge of the Quisisana
when he reached there at ten-o'clock. She was smilingly gracious--had
seemingly forgiven him his doubting of her word the evening before. They
took a taxi to the nursing home, and on the way Olive stopped at a
florist's to buy a bunch of tiger-lilies. Her choice of flower struck
Rivière as very characteristic of her own temperament.
They received permission to visit the patient, and were shown to her
room by a nurse.
"I have brought you a few flowers, dear," said Olive.
Elaine murmured some words of thanks and felt the flowers to see what
they might be. When she recognized them, they conveyed to her the same
impression as they had done to Rivière. She drew her vase of white lilac
nearer to her, and that trifling action seemed to Rivière as though she
were calling upon him for protection.
"We've come to talk matters over calmly and dispassionately," said
Olive, taking the reins of conversation into her own hands. "My husband
and myself are both anxious to make some arrangement which will be for
your happiness. Clifford feels, and I entirely agree with him, that he's
under a distinct obligation to you."
"There is no obligation," answered Elaine.
"It's very generous of you to say so, but both Clifford and I feel it
deeply. Your livelihood has been taken away from you, and it's our bare
duty to make you some form of compensation. The suggestion of letting it
come through me would be a very suitable way of solving a delicate
problem." She turned to her husband. "Don't you think so, Clifford?"
"I want to hear what Miss Verney has to say."
"Very well."
Elaine paused before she replied, so that her words might carry a fuller
significance. "Mrs Matheson," she said, "I don't wish to accept anything
from you."
"That means, I take it, that you are ready to accept from my husband?"
"Accept what?"
"Well, financial assistance."
"No."
"Then what are you going to do when you leave the home?"
"I shall return to my relations until I've learnt a new trade and can
manage to support myself."
"But surely you will let us help you with the expenses of the first few
months?"
"I prefer not."
"Clifford, can't you persuade Miss Verney?"
"I don't wish to persuade her."
Olive tried a fresh avenue of attack. "Very well, then, let's leave that
point. What I want to say now is still more delicate. I don't want to
wound your feelings, but now that all three of us are together the
matter ought to be discussed calmly and dispassionately and settled once
and for all."
Rivière interrupted. "You promised me that this matter should not be
mentioned."
"Promised?"
"In effect."
"But we _must_ discuss it!"
Elaine put in a word: "I'd sooner the whole situation were threshed out
now. Please!"
"As you will," answered Rivière. "But remember that you're perfectly
free to close the discussion at any moment."
Olive resumed: "Yesterday, when we had our chat together, I was forced
to draw certain inferences. And I had to tell Clifford that it would be
only right for him to avoid compromising you further."
"What inferences?"
"Must I speak more definitely?"
"I prefer plain speaking."
"Well, that people would begin to talk malicious gossip about yourself
and my husband."
Rivière interrupted again. "This discussion is an insult to Miss
Verney."
But Elaine answered: "I prefer to thresh it out.... What people say
matters nothing to me. In any case, nobody knows that Mr Rivière is your
husband."
"But they will."
"You mean that you'll tell them?"
"It must come out."
"You mean that you want Mr Rivière to return to you openly as your
husband?"
"Naturally."
"Then why did you tell me yesterday that you had cut definitely loose
from him? That you never wanted to see him again? That he was free to
live out his life as John Rivière?"
"Why did you say that you had lived with my husband at Nîmes?" retorted
Olive sharply. "That you'd let the divorce suit go undefended?"
It thundered upon Rivière what Elaine had done for him--how she had
wrought her miracle--and that moment cleared his mind of all doubt and
hesitancy.
"I've heard sufficient," he cut in.
"You've not heard all I've got to say!" pursued Olive vindictively, and
a torrent of words poured out from her: "It was a pretty scheme your
Miss Verney had planned! She was to egg me on to divorce you, so that
she could get a clutch on your feelings and marry you and your money!
Your money--that puts it in a nutshell! That's the kind of woman a man
like you falls in love with! A woman who's too shrewd and too cunning to
commit herself. Who provokes and tantalizes and lures on a man, and then
stops him short at the very last moment. The musical-comedy type. The
'mind the paint' girl. A hundred times worse than the frankly vicious. A
woman who knows that a week of living with a man would sicken him of
her. Who's shrewd enough to tantalize him into hand-and-feet marriage.
That's your Miss Verney. You're welcome to her as Miss Verney! So long
as I live, you'll never have her as your wife! That's my last word--my
absolute final last word!"
Olive rose from her chair, quivering in every limb, and swept out of the
room.
Elaine bowed her head in the shame of those bitter words.
Rivière came to her side and kissed her hand reverently.
"You did this for me. I understand all. Elaine, dear, I understand it
all. There's no need for you to explain."
"You don't believe----?"
"Not a word of it! You're the sweetest, bravest----" Words failed him,
and he could only take her hand tenderly in his and let his welter of
unspoken thoughts go silently to her.
"The things she said--you don't believe they're true?" she faltered.
"Don't speak of them.... You've piled up a debt on me more than I can
ever repay. You've freed my hands to fight down Larssen, but at what a
cost to yourself?"
"Then it's freed you?"
"Absolutely. The divorce was Larssen's trump-card. You've fought for me
far better than I could ever have fought for myself. To think of you
lying there helpless, and yet battling for me! My God, but at what a
cost to yourself!"
"If it's freed you, dear John, nothing else matters."
"It has. Now I can smash Larssen's scheme.... But what of you, what of
you?"
"We must part--now," she murmured.
"Why now?"
"Don't ask me to explain."
Rivière clenched his hand. "Yes, you're right," he said after a pause.
"We must part--for a time."
"It will be best for both of us. You must go back to your world."
"I'm wanted at Nîmes a few days hence, to give evidence at the trial."
"Then leave Wiesbaden to-day."
"Give me till to-morrow near you."
"No, you must go to-day.... We'll say good-bye now."
She held out her hand, but he took her in his arms and kissed her
passionately.
"No--don't!"
"Forgive me--I'm a brute!"
"Dear John, go now. Don't stay. Go back to your world and fight your
battle. I shall recover my sight--I feel that more strongly than ever. I
shall need it if only to read your letters. Go now, and take with you my
wishes for all happiness and all success in your life-work!"
Rivière tried to answer, but the words choked in his throat.
"Elaine!" was all he could utter.
* * * * *
That night he took train for Paris, to call on Barrèze the manager of
the Odéon Theatre.
There he fixed up an arrangement by which Barrèze would send to Elaine,
in the guise of payment for the uncompleted work she had done for him, a
substantial sum of money. It was a temporary expedient only, but it
would serve Rivière's purpose.
Then he proceeded to Nîmes to attend the trial of the youth Crau.