"Ah, my dear! It's you?" Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be
no use of denying it, so Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the
man to go on if he had more to say.
"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was
asleep and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your
mother instead."
"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I
left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be
glad to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"
"No," said Captain Stewart sadly, "no, nothing. I do not give up hope,
but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."
"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham briefly. She gave
him a little nod, and turned away into the drawing-room. Her uncle's
peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and she felt
that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason for
doubting that he was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him
because he bored her. Her mother bored her too--the poor woman bored
everybody--but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the
girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard
to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as
civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way.
She heard the heavy front door close and gave a little sigh of relief.
"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should
have screamed."
Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted,
cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long
distance--that is, looking backward upon it later he thought he must
have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a
chaotic whirl of things and emotions.
In the little flat in the Rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who,
having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had
sat comfortably down with a pipe and a stack of _Courriers Francais_ to
wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend
sat at ease. Hat, gloves and stick fell away from him in a sort of
shower. He extended his arms high in air. His face was, as it were,
luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said--
"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil
are you looking like that for?"
"_He!_" cried Ste. Marie in a great voice. "_He_, the world is mine!
Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there?
Embrace me!" He began to stride about the room, his head between his
hands. Speech lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter
of fireworks, but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a grey
bleak look came upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or
less used to these outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could;
but though seven times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of
pure joy of living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just
seen two beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner
voice told him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he
realised that he had been waiting for this, bracing himself against its
onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month.
Ste. Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.
"Dance, lump of flesh! dance, sacred English _rosbif_ that you are!
Sing, _gros polisson_! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed
from him, but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant.
"Ah, my old," said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the
top rungs of the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!" The Englishman
drew a long breath.
"I take it," said he, "that means that you're--that she has accepted
you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even
in pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said--
"I ought to want to murder you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're
an undeserving beggar, but so were the rest of us. It was an open
field, and you've won quite honestly. My best wishes!"
Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of
his face. He cried--
"Ah, _mon cher ami_! Pig that I am to forget. Pig! pig! animal!" The
other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly
embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.
"Yes! yes!" he said gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He
dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his
pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It
looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens with
their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their
flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth
in labourer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the
high palings, one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the
youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a
high, clear voice: "_Vous etes si jolie_," a song of abundant sentiment,
and the young woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they
strolled on and turned up into the Rue Vavin.
Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and
knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the
recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped
him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain?
He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his; and he
gave a little shiver. He knew that if that _bouleversement_ were
actually to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor
Hartley was now for his; but he knew also that the smile of
congratulation would be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he
knew what Hartley's black hour must be like.
"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why.
Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One
thinks of nothing but one's self--and one other. I--during this past
month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."
The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face
was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his hands
when he chose and lighted a cigarette were quite steady, and he
marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such
circumstances.
"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.
"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So
he told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been
agreed upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do.
"Apart from wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make
her happy," he said, "--and she will never be at peace again until she
knows the truth about her brother--apart from that, I'm purely selfish
in the thing. I've got to win her respect as well as--the rest. I want
her to respect me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So
are you, but you have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been
an idler because it suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I
have enough to eat without working for my living. I know how she has
felt about all that. Well, she shall feel it no longer."
"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.
"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or
never see her again. I've sworn that." The odd look of exaltation that
Miss Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly fervour, came
there again, and Hartley saw it and knew that the man was stirred by no
transient whim. Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the
day, of those elder Ste. Maries who had taken sword and lance and gone
out into a strange world, a place of unknown terrors, afire for the
Great Adventure. And this was one of their blood.
"I'm afraid you don't realise," he went on, "the difficulties you've got
to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."
"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie, and the other
said--
"Yes. Oh, yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course.
You might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and
lighted another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he
spoke. At last he said--
"I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to tell it comes a
little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss
Benham to marry me."
Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy.
"Ah!" said he. "I have sometimes thought--wondered. I have wondered if
it went as far as that. Of course I could see that you had known her
well, though you seldom go there nowadays."
"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther.
She--well, she didn't care for me--not in that way. So I stiffened my
back and shut my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for
was impossible.
"And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I want you to
let me help you in what you're going to do--if you think you can, that
is. Remember, I--cared for her too. I'd like to do something for her.
It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it,
but I should like very much to lend a hand, do some of the work. D'you
think you could let me in?"
Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant,
something like dismay.
"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd
hoped to do it all yourself. It's your game, I know. Well, it's your
game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run
errands, some one perhaps to take counsel with now and then. Look at it
on the practical side! Two heads are certainly better than one.
Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides--well, I want to do
something for her. I--cared too, you see. D'you think you could take me
in?"
It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could
appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had
hoped to work alone, to win or lose alone, to stand, in this matter,
quite on his own feet, but he could not deny the man who had loved her
and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.
"You love her too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have
a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn
something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."
But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.
*CHAPTER VII*
*CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER*
Ste. Marie scowled.
"A caller would come singularly malapropos, just now," said he. "I've
half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with
you."
"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that
you're at home. It may not be a caller anyhow. It may be a parcel or
something. You'd best go." So Ste. Marie went out into the little
passage, blaspheming fluently the while.
The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He heard him
exclaim in great surprise--
"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure. Come in! Come in!" And he
permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for the
visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and besides he
disliked Miss Benham's uncle.