The door was shut, and cobwebbed too.
Across the dusty panels grew
Thick tendrils of Regret and Pain,
When Love unbarred, and glancing through,
Smiled sadly once, then closed it to,
And footfalls died away again.
It was a wonderful morning, all aglow with sunbeams as yet
unchequered by shadows, for the trees of the Bois and the
Champs-Élysées were but just beginning to star their naked
branches with gauze-like shreds of tiniest leaf. Even the famous
“Marronier-du-vingt-Mars” had scarcely disenveloped its fan-shaped
foliage, and its burgeons for the most part still glistened in their
smart brown rubber corselets. The sky was blue as forget-me-nots, and
some venturesome white butterflies flitted by on gossamer wings as
Basil turned his horses’ noses toward the left bank of the Seine,
after some hours spent in the Bois de Vincennes, alone, as it were,
with awakening Nature.
“I shall go and see how they are,” he mused, flicking a disgracefully
inexperienced baby fly from his off leader’s ear with the end of
his long four-in-hand whip. “Surely there can be no harm in that, I
trust!” He smiled a little bitterly, and, gathering the ribbons more
firmly into his hands, slowed down to take a difficult turning with
his customary skill.
The river glittered bravely as he crossed the bridge, clothing itself
all over with steel and silver when a fleecy little flock of
cloudlets that had followed him from the “Arc-de-Triomphe” interposed
their diaphanousness between him and the sun; but as soon as they had
sailed on resuming its gallant armor of golden scales again; and when
at last he reached the Noble Faubourg he found that the clouds had
let themselves be distanced and that Spring reigned supreme.
Topping the garden walls of the Hôtel de Plenhöel the dainty trails
of centenarian ivies were overtoned by the first shoots of snugly
protected climbing rose-vines, that formed a triumphant garland of
crimson-tipped green along the ancient granite coping.
With a curious beating of the heart Basil drove into the stone-paved
courtyard and stopped his beautiful team of bays at the foot of the
steps.
“Yes, Monsieur le Marquis and mademoiselle were within,” the _Suisse_
admitted, with as near an approach to a welcoming smile as his
dignified functions would allow (for Basil was cherished by
inferiors, whether they belonged to his household or to those of
other people), and with no decorum at all he ran into the hall,
smiling gaily at that splendid official.
“How do you do?” he was calling a second later from the foot of the
great stairs, where he stood beside the servant who had taken his
coat. Holding lightly to the banisters, Marguerite was coming down
almost at a run, and there was a freshness, a delicacy, a something
pure and untouched about her, that made his heart, his very soul,
warm with infinite tenderness. Contrary to her habit, she was not in
white, but wore a linen frock of clear azure, and on her bright hair
a floppy garden-hat woven of pliant straw, around which a wide
loose-knotted _bleu-de-ciel_ ribbon made her eyes bluer yet by
sympathy.
“How are you, you rarity!” she cried, taking the two last steps at a
bound and stretching out both hands to him.
The footman had disappeared, and, still holding his hands playfully,
she drew him into a little salon opening straight from the hall.
“Sit down, monseigneur!” she laughed, pointing to an arm-chair beside
the sofa, on the edge of which she settled herself like a bird, her
fingers interlaced, her delicious head cocked on one side,
sparrow-wise.
On a tabouret near by, and also between the two windows giving on the
garden, stood big “buckets” of blue Sèvres, filled with blue
hortensias--the exact blue of that negligently tied ribbon that
seemed somehow to fascinate him. A ray of mote-laden sunshine gilded
the Mazarine carpet about her tiny feet incased in silver-buckled
white suède, and he smiled appreciatively.
“New shoes?” he queried, glancing down at them.
“Yes--isn’t that strange?” she smiled. “Old ones would scarcely
suit this glorious weather. But how nice of you to come.... It has
been an age....”
Her lips were smiling, but her eyes had an unusual under-depth of
seriousness, and he came to earth rather flatly.
“Yes,” he said, brusquely, resuming the queer stiffness of attitude
that had so deeply puzzled her when he had first adopted it. “It is
quite a while since I came.” And for the second time he said, “How
are you?”
“So-so,” she answered, all liveliness of tone and gesture momentarily
eclipsed. “One is always so-so, is one not, in this good old Paris?”
“You should be far better than so-so, even here,” he stated, with
astonishing severity, “you, whom the gods have showered with all
blessings.”
“Have a cigarette!” she shrugged, pushing from beneath the hortensias
a silver box and match-stand.
“No, thanks. I don’t care to smoke here. Your father says it
oxidizes the ermines.”
“Papa? Nonsense! He never dreamt of caring for the ermines’
health. Besides, they are old enough to look after themselves. They
are pretty, though!” she added, pointing to the heraldic ermines of
Brittany embroidered in silver relief all over the pale satin of
walls and hangings. “Pretty and antique,” she concluded,
meditatively.
“Like most of your ideas,” he stated, leaning back and contemplating
the intenseness of the hortensias.
She glanced at him between half-closed lashes, an imperceptible frown
wrinkling her eyebrows.
“You find me too old-fashioned?” she questioned, drumming softly on
the lid of the cigarette-box with the fingers of her left hand.
“N-no--yes. I don’t know; and, moreover, it’s none of my
business.”
“None of your--business?” She stared. “None of your--” Her fingers
abruptly ceased drumming, and she turned toward him a face of real
bewilderment. “Aren’t we friends--relatives?”
He stirred uneasily, his eyes fixed on the carpet, as if desirous of
counting the convolutions of its intricate pattern.
“Friends? Why, certainly friends! Of course ... we are friends! But
what’s that got to do with it? You have other friends, and so--so
have I, of course.”
Marguerite’s little ears were getting pink. What ailed the man,
anyhow? Quick-tempered as she was soft-hearted, she felt oddly angry
all at once.
“Other friends!” she exclaimed. “Friends like me? You mean to tell me
that you have lots of friends like me?”
“Well,” Basil murmured, lamely, “not precisely like you. Nobody’s
quite like you, but, nevertheless....”
“But--nothing at all!” she cried, truculently. “What has come over
you lately, Basil Palitzin? You did not use to pose and posture in
the old days. You were such a good comrade, such a trump. Tell me,
_what--is--the--matter--with--you_?”
Again Basil twisted as if on pins and needles, twice he clasped and
unclasped his hands, and the string of derogatory epithets he
inwardly applied to himself would have made a trooper blush.
“You women are incredible,” he attempted to explain. “Young, old, or
very young, you are all the same with your extraordinary imaginings.
What _should_ be the matter with me, pray? Do you notice any signs of
incipient decrepitude?”
“I notice,” Marguerite cut in, “that you are changed, and in no way
to your advantage, _Cousin_ Basil. Once you used to be pleased at my
liking you so much, but now you have become as repellant as possible.
You pull faces a yard long; you are always in a bad humor, and if it
were not so preposterous I would almost begin to think that you do
not care for us any more, and that you have made up your mind to see
as little of us as you decently can.”
“Oh, Innocence!” Basil thought, sadly. “Thank God she does not know
what tortures she puts me through!” Aloud he said: “You are talking
rank heresy, my dear Marguerite. Your father and--yourself are among
those I am most attached to--you can never doubt that!”
“Thank you!” she scoffed, with a derisive inclination of her big
floppy hat. “That’s kind of you to mention it _en passant_, but let
me urge you to realize that you give no sign of it.”
“You cannot expect to have a monopoly of my affections!” muttered
Basil, driven to desperation.
Marguerite bent forward and looked straight at him. “What did you say
... a monopoly?” Her voice was now very cool and nonchalant. Basil
caught the look and his breath at one and the same time. Where had
this child learned to speak like that? Atavism? The Marquise of the
bird-suite at Plenhöel could not have done better if talking to the
canaille at the foot of the guillotine; and not for the life of him
could he utter a word in self-defense.
“A monopoly!” the “Gamin” repeated. “You use funny expressions
sometimes, my cousin, and I must say that you amuse me very much.”
“You don’t amuse me!” he interposed, hotly. “I don’t know,
moreover, why you take my words so greatly amiss. What I am trying to
make you understand is that if I do not come here as--well, as often
as I could wish, it is because I have other calls upon--er--my time;
imperative demands upon--my attention. My duty--you understand, is
to--”
She did not let him finish. “You are the best judge of your conduct
and the employment of your time, and I regret having--twitted you
about it. I am afraid it was very silly of me, but you see I am still
very much the mere child you used to laugh with at Plenhöel. You may
remember, perhaps, our last little encounter on that subject?”
She laughed, rose, and in a slightly constrained tone added:
“Hadn’t you better go and see papa? He is at the top of the house,
grubbing in the dust of a wonderful garret, full of delightful
_vieilleries_, together with some workmen who are supposed to repair
pipes, or leaders--I don’t exactly know which. Papa is extremely
proud of his fifteenth-century garrets, let me tell you! One never
knows where vanity is going to take root!”
Basil had risen slowly, and was gazing at her as she made her way to
the bay leading through to the next salon, and his lips were not very
steady when he spoke again:
“You are not angry, Marguerite?” This timidly, almost in a whisper.
She turned back with a queer little laugh.
“Angry?” she asked. “Not a bit of it. It isn’t worth while. But
hark you, Cousin Basil, don’t make any mistake. The ‘Gamin’ is
a better friend of yours than you think. I may not yet be a young
lady with grand manners. I am a good little chap, however--a tomboy,
if you like; but try me if you ever need a real, genuine, bona-fide,
faithful-to-the-end friend, and you’ll see!”
She pirouetted and, beckoning to him to follow, raced up the long
flight of secondary stairs which led to the very roof.
Half-way to the top she suddenly paused on the threshold of a domed
and glassed-in gallery that projected from the side of the house over
the inclosed garden. It was filled with palms and plants and
blossoming creepers, with here and there the fairy plume of a bamboo
aspiring to the transparent curves above. The upper end of this
miniature Vale of Kashmir was crossed by a broad span of almost
invisible wire, behind which birds of a tropical splendor of feather
flitted hither and yon. The liquid counterpart of this delightful
unstill life was afforded by a long crystal panel revealing the
musical spirt of a fountain, and a background of gorgeous aquatic
plants, crisscrossed by the alert dartings of the prettiest
collection of highly painted fishes possible to imagine. Moving
jewels they seemed, as they quadrilled in the dear element of their
birth, and not unhappy at all, as most aquarium-dwellers seem to be,
for their perfect comfort had been studiously considered, and they
appeared very much in love with existence as it was made for them
there.
Basil had come to a standstill behind the ‘Gamin,’ and as she
turned to speak he thought: “Her breath is as meadowsweet, her face
like a flower, her hair was assuredly spun by elves, and her eyes--”
Here comparison failed him, and with bent head he listened to the end
of a sentence he had not been conscious of her beginning.
“--you might as well tell me, after all,” the low, dear voice was
saying, and he looked helplessly at her.
“Didn’t you hear what I asked?” she petulantly exclaimed. “I am
speaking plain French, am I not?”
Plain French! Could anything be plain that was connected with her?
“What were you asking?” he found himself forced to answer to those
indignant eyes.
“Oh, you don’t even listen any more!” she reproached.
“I am an idiot!” he humbly confessed. “An idiot and a boor!”
Her soft, ringing laugh suddenly rippled out beneath the opulent
foliage.
“My poor Basil!” she sympathized. “That’s what comes of being in
love! Hortense Gervex used to tell me, when I was a baby, that Cupid
is the silliest of all the gods, because he takes a malicious
pleasure in stupefying all his subjects.”
“Comes from being in love?” Basil said, slowly. “Oh, of course that
would be an explanation.”
“It is!” she triumphed. “Why, ever since you met Laurence you have
been so different, so unlike your old self. Still, you should not
carry your absence-of-mind too far; it is dreadfully impolite, you
know.”
“I know,” he assented, apparently quite absorbed in the fantastic
beauty of a bird-of-paradise blossom he had disengaged from amid its
long, lance-like leaves.
“Well, if you know, and are properly contrite for your sins, do you
mind if I now repeat my question?”
“Mind? Repeat it by all means, if you find me still worthy of the
slightest attention.”
She had walked farther into the perfumed bower, and was now standing
in the searching noonday light that was powerless to reveal a single
flaw in her loveliness. She looked like one of the faintly-rose
camellias on a near-by bush--surely made from the same cool velvet as
her little face.
She inclined her head graciously--the “Gamin” was certainly growing
up in the social amenities.
“You will not think me altogether indiscreet--I hope,” she
questioned, in a suddenly crisp-cut voice he had never heard her use
before, and there was a quaint little assumption of solicitude as she
went on, “if I reask where you intend to spend the summer?”
Basil’s spirit was by this time in sad confusion, but he must
answer her, and yet he could not bring himself to admit that it would
be in a place far removed from their beloved haunts. An automatic
second-self, doubtless summoned by the puzzling emergency, spoke for
him.
“I think,” he said, slowly, “I might safely assert that I do not know
as yet.”
She gave a light little laugh, and appeared to ponder for a moment.
“I”--there was the briefest suspension--“I am very glad you do not
know as yet. Because it may turn out to be in Brittany!”
“That was a near thing,” Basil thought, drawing a profound but silent
sigh of momentary relief.
“Still, are you _quite_ sure that you do not know--as yet?” she
resumed, taking a step in the direction of a sort of Dresden-china
hod hanging between two pomegranate-bushes, that grew luxuriantly
from old Spanish oil-jars of that green earthenware which makes
one’s mouth water to look at, and plunging her hand into one of its
cunningly devised compartments, extracted therefrom a little fistful
of bird-seed.
“This is the pantry,” she explained, holding a fold of her skirt up
to catch the surplus filtering through her fingers. “Would you like
to feed them?”
“Whom?”
“Again?” she laughed. “Wool-gathering again! Why, naturally, I meant
the elephants in the _Jardin des Plantes_. How did you fail to guess
that?”
“I am sorry.... I was trying to solve ... a problem ... concerning
the ... er ... social question.”
“Dear me! Poor old Basil! If you keep such lofty ideals always before
you you’ll soon cease being a social success. Besides,” she glibly
continued, “it is not in your line to ponder and reflect like a fuzzy
old owl; you are a man of action, _par excellence_, and when one
tries to force one’s talents one does nothing with grace.”
“Are you turning philosopher?” he tried to taunt her.
“Philosophy is becoming part of my day’s work,” she airily replied.
“But now do look at Bolingbroke; he is awfully jealous!”
“Bolingbroke! May I be pardoned for hazarding another question? Who
is Bolingbroke?”
Marguerite looked at Basil, and again her glance held a subtle
mixture of mirth and gravity.
“You--as I remarked before--are getting into the sad habit of
forgetting your most faithful friends and honest admirers. Why this
is Bolingbroke!” And she pointed with an upward toss of her obstinate
little chin to a gilded swing whereon reposed, in magnificent
dignity, a great white cockatoo, crested and tailed with brilliant
orange. Some subterranean disturbance was agitating his snowy breast
feathers, and his round eyes, dilated with greed, watched
Marguerite’s every move as she fed the lesser luminaries below.
“Oh, you wretched usurper!” She addressed him grandiloquently. “This
form of food would neither suit nor please you, and yet you covet it!
Isn’t that very human?” she tragically demanded of Basil, who had
at last managed to summon an apology for a laugh to his assistance.
“Remind yourself,” she went on flippantly, “that, unlike some others
of his kind, he cannot express his desires by word of beak. Repressed
inclinations are hard to bear, but the impossibility of ever giving
them voice, excepting by shrieks of distress, must be awful indeed!”
Basil was watching her intently, trying in vain to discover whether
she was quite as joyful as she seemed.
“Would you oblige me by making a long arm--you are so agreeably
tall--and presenting this token of our joint regard to yonder
regicide?” she resumed, indicating a majolica wooden shoe on a table
close by. “No, not the whole thing; _one_ of the therein-contained
biscuits ... _please_!”
And while complying with her request Basil was thinking, thinking,
thinking! “What a coward I am! Why not tell her the truth? What’s
the use of shirking the task because it hurts me to do the right
thing? And what would she really care, this heavenly baby, with her
toys, her exquisite amusements, her deadly simplicity? She will not
miss me a moment of all those years to come.”
“_Poverino!_” Marguerite was meanwhile apostrophizing the
ill-tempered bird. “Here, you! Accept this offering gently if you
can. It is well meant, and the biscuit is good and sweet! _Mille
grazie, eccellenze_,” she added to Basil. “I am in an Italian mood
to-day, as you may perceive. This gracious retreat looks Italian, I
think; so do the camellias, and the blue sky over our crystalline
dome; so do these little pet vassals of mine; feeding from the hand,
as all properly self-respecting vassals should do.”
She tossed the rest of her fistful of seeds to the Bengalis, the gold
and green finches, the slim Holland canaries, the redcaps, and twenty
other chiefs of tribe whirling around on the sanded floor of their
palatial abode to snatch the tempting breakfast from one another.
“They _are_ human,” he harshly commented while following their airy
gyrations, “hence quarrelsome and envious, just like Bolingbroke. Too
bad that such innocent-looking creatures should have such beastly
faults!”
Marguerite seemed suddenly troubled. “Why are you bitter even about
trifles?” she queried. “Is that yet another departure from the old
state of affairs?”
“Perhaps,” he replied, in a tone that strove in vain to be light. “I
must be unlearning fast the art of life as it should be lived. I
suppose that with the years one passes from disenchantment to
disenchantment. Isn’t that the rule of all down-slope walkers?”
With a quick intake of breath Marguerite swung round toward him, and
his heart contracted horribly as he saw that her eyes were wet.
“There _is_ something amiss,” she whispered, bending ever so slightly
forward, and stretching her little palms downward as if in swift
renunciation of all that she had ever held. “There _is_ something. I
knew it. I felt it.... Tell me, Basil ... tell me!”
He had not bargained for this, and he was now dully doubting his own
ears. Could this be Marguerite speaking?
“Something amiss?” he repeated after her with would-be emphasis. “Oh,
now look here, my dear child, be reasonable, please, and do cease to
imagine that I am trying to conceal some catastrophe from you.”
But Marguerite would no longer accept equivocation of any sort.
“Reasonable?” she said, more calmly. “I am reasonable enough--at
least for my age. And if you only reflect you will admit that I have
some small reason to ask what I do--some infinitesimal right, _as a
friend_, if you prefer it so.”
“Oh yes--she too has rights!” flashed keenly through his mind. “And
better ones than any other human being, if she but knew it.”
“Certainly,” he said aloud, “you have all possible rights as my
friend--as any of my friends have--to know what concerns me; but
there is nothing--nothing worth telling, I assure you.”
“Nothing?” she exclaimed. “When you are as dull as ditch-water--when
you seem as blue as--” Her eyes went to the transparent vaulting
scarcely veiling the sky, as if searching for a fitting comparison,
and he grasped at his last chance of repairing his previous mistake.
“I am blue, and a little sad; perhaps you are right.” He hesitated.
“Just as any one else would be who contemplates a certain change in
existing circumstances.”
She was looking at him steadily, unswervingly, waitingly.
“When I told you a little while ago that I didn’t know as yet
exactly where I would spend the summer, I was speaking the truth. As
a matter of fact, I do not know yet _exactly_ where, but it will be
somewhere in Russia, probably at Tverna, and just ... on account of
this indecision on my part I was afraid you’d laugh at me as you so
often do!”
“The Russian conception of what is laughable differs by the whole
span of heaven from mine,” she said, with suspicious quietness. “The
point of interest is, however, whether you are going there a-Maying
in the mud, or ... whether ... well, whether you will be gone
long.... I mean after the Maying and the summering are both done
with.”
Reassured by her deceiving calm, he thought himself clever to seize
the moment when truth might be quite truthfully conveyed.
“That depends upon so many circumstances,” he explained. “It is
impossible to be precise, but I should say ... yes, I should
certainly say that it may take ... er ... a year, or even more, to
bring matters requiring my presence at home to a satisfactory
conclusion.”
Her pitiful little face had slowly whitened as he spoke, and suddenly
he felt her fingers desperately clutching his arm.
“A year or more ... oh! what shall I do without--!”
The rest was strangled by a will-power fifty years older than
herself. But for a second she stood shaking from head to foot, trying
vainly to master feelings too complex and difficult for her young
soul to understand; and he--well, he remained frozen to his place,
not daring to move, to say a word; absolutely terrified for the first
time in his brave, straight life.
From his high perch Bolingbroke watched the scene, half of his
biscuit still held firmly in one sharp claw, his brilliant head
inclined to one side critically, cynically--one would have sworn.
“What fools these mortals be!” he seemed to say, and doubtless to
create a diversion he dropped the remainder of his tidbit upon
Basil’s shoulder, and burst into a demoniacal yell, like that of a
Comanche Indian on the war-path.
The “Gamin” gave a little laugh so queer that it made its hearer
ready to cry, and she let go of his arm. “You wicked old witch-bird!”
she scolded. “What a fright you gave me!”
“He is a bit startling!” Basil assented, endeavoring to get control
of his voice.
“Yes, he makes one’s head ache,” she corroborated. “But just think
of it! Poor papa is still in the dust. Let’s go and sweep the
cobwebs off him. He must be covered with them!”
She made a swift move toward the flower-gallery’s jessamine-draped
doorway, and paused, holding lightly to a drooping branch.
“By the way,” she said, over her shoulder, “when do you go?”
“When do I--go? In a few days, but ... I’ll certainly come and say
farewell before I do,” he lamely replied.
“Thanks so much! Yes, I think it will be right to remember us on such
an occasion. Papa is so very punctilious about matters of etiquette,
you know!”
She again gave that queer little laugh that dismayed him, and
disappeared into the hall.
“Marguerite!” he called, hurriedly. “Next time it will be official,
and I will not be alone. Can’t you say _au revoir_ properly now?”
He knew he should not have said that as soon as he had done so.
Counting her steps mechanically, she came back, and here at last was
the doorway within which he stood. Sweet and serene she reached his
side. A little color had come back to her face.
“Of course I can,” she assented. “_Au revoir_, Cousin Basil! _Au
revoir_ and good-luck to you!”
Could he stand much more of this? His handsome features looked
suddenly wooden beneath their extreme pallor, but she was no longer
looking at him. For the fraction of a second he hesitated. Could he
venture to take her in his arms, just this once, like a child one has
known and cherished all one’s life? A shiver ran all over him. The
pause had been too short to attract her notice, but it had served its
turn. Summoning to his aid his last remnants of self-respect, he held
out both his hands, in which she put her own.
“_Au revoir_, and God keep you in His care!” he said, very low; then,
hastily, almost brusquely, he pressed his lips into the rosy hollow
of each little palm and dropped them.
“God bless you and keep you,” she whispered, and, turning quickly on
her pointed heels, she preceded him up-stairs to the dusty regions
where “Antinoüs” was so usefully occupied.