Philip's pursuit of his wife came to have for him, before it was done,
something of the strangeness of a nightmare, one of those endless dreams
that come to fever patients, filled with confused, vague details of
places and persons among whom he passed, leaving nothing clear to the
memory afterwards except unhappiness.
And indeed the mental condition that urged him on was not unlike fever,
compounded as it was of passionate pity for Jacqueline, and white-hot
rage against the man who had taken his wife from him. He could not bear
to think of the frightened misery that must have driven the girl to such
a step, nor of the wretched disillusionment in store for her. Jacqueline
ashamed; his gallant, loyal, high-hearted little playmate cowering under
the whips of the world's scorn--it was a thought that drove all the
youth out of Philip's face, and left it so grim and fierce that many a
passing stranger stared at him covertly, wondering what tragedy lay
behind such a mask of pain.
Only once did the effect of Jacqueline's shame upon his own life occur
to Philip, and then he wrote a hasty line to the Bishop of his diocese,
offering to resign at once from the ministry. No other alternative
occurred to him. If Jacqueline had needed him when he married her, how
infinitely greater was her need of him now! What came to either of them
they would share together, he and his wife.
Nor was his decision entirely altruistic. Her going had already taught
him one thing. "We are so used to each other," the piteous little letter
had said. Yes, they were used to each other; so used that they would
never again be able to do without each other.
His search did not end in New York. He found there only the news,
gathered by James and Jemima Thorpe, that Channing had sailed a few
hours before for Europe, and not alone. The steamship office had
registered the name of a Mr. James Percival and wife, in whom it was not
difficult to recognize the author.
Philip followed by the next boat, but found some difficulty,
inexperienced traveler that he was, in coming upon traces of the pair,
who doubled and twisted upon their tracks as if conscious of pursuit. It
was some weeks before he ran his quarry to earth in Paris, having been
directed to one of those "coquettish apartments" known to experts in the
art of travel, who scorn the great, banal caravansaries of the ordinary
tourist.
Entering an unpretentious gate between an apothecary shop and a
_patisserie_, he found himself in one of the hidden court-yards of the
old city, where a placid, vine-covered mansion dozed in the sun, remote
from the rattle of cobblestones and the vulgar gaze of the passing
world. Doves preened themselves on the flagging, a cat occupied herself
maternally with her young on the doorstep, birds were busy in the ivy.
It was an ideal retreat for a honeymoon.
Philip, his jaw set and his heart pounding, jerked at the old-fashioned
bell-handle, and the door was presently opened by a mustachioed lady in
the dressing-sacque and heelless slippers which form the conventional
morning-wear of the lower bourgeoisie. But, yes; she admitted in answer
to his inquiry; the American Madame was _chez elle_. "Also Monsieur,"
she added, with smiling significance. "Ah, the devotion of _ces nouveaux
mariés_!"
She added that if Monsieur would attend but one moment, she would mount
to announce his arrival.
The clink of a coin arrested her. "If Madame will have the goodness to
permit," suggested Philip, in French as fluent and far more correct than
her own, "I prefer to announce my arrival in person."
She shrugged. "But perfectly! As Monsieur wishes. It is a little effect,
perhaps? Monsieur is the brother, possibly; the cousin?" she asked, with
the friendly curiosity of her kind.
"Monsieur is the husband," said Philip grimly, and passed.
The concierge gasped. "The husband! Name of a name!"
But seeing that he was already mounting the stairs, paying no attention
whatever to her virtuous horror, the French-woman followed him on
tiptoe, murmuring to herself, "_Mais comme c'est chic, ça_!" She had her
racial taste for the spectacular.
At first she was somewhat disappointed. Applying alternately eye and ear
to the keyhole, she detected none of the imprecations, the excited
chatter, the nose-tweaking, the calling down of the just wrath of
Heaven, which the occasion seemed to demand.
"Ah bah, these English!" she muttered scornfully, "If but my Henri were
to discover me in such a situation--la, la!"
Philip, entering without knocking, had begun quietly and methodically to
remove his coat before Channing was aware of his presence. The author
looked up from his desk, surprised, and jumped to his feet, with an
expression of pleasure in his face. Philip's brain registered that fact
without attempting to explain it. Channing was undoubtedly glad to see
him.
"Why, Benoix! Where have you dropped from? I did not hear you knock!
What in the name of all that's pleasant brings you to Paris?"
He advanced with outstretched hand. Just at that moment, a woman entered
from the room beyond.
Philip, bracing himself, turned to face his wife....
But it was not Jacqueline. It was a Titian-haired, lissome young woman
upon whom he had never laid eyes before, and who returned his stare with
self-possessed interest.
Philip gave a great gasp. "Channing! Who--who is this woman?"
"My wife," announced the author, with a laughing bow. "You seem
surprised. Hadn't you heard? But of course not--it was all so sudden.
And I'm glad to say the papers don't seem to have got hold of it yet,
thanks to my forethought in booking passage under only half my name.
Some time before I sailed, Fay and I decided to--to let matters rest as
they were, and--she came with me." He was a trifle embarrassed, but
carried off the introduction with an air. "Mrs. Channing--Mr. Benoix!"
Philip was utterly bewildered. "Do you mean to say you have not seen
Jacqueline?"
"Jacqueline Kildare?" Channing's smiling ease left him. "Yes, I did see
her in New York, the day I left. You didn't think--" An inkling of the
other's errand dawned on him. He was suddenly alarmed, and, as usual in
moments of emergency, burst into his unfortunate glibness of speech.
"Why, she came to see me about studying for opera, something of that
sort--that was all. I had promised her introductions. Unfortunately she
came just as I was preparing to leave, and I had no time to do much for
her. I gave her letters to several teachers, and got her the address of
a good boarding-place...."
Philip muttered an exclamation.
"Oh, and I did more than that," said Channing quickly. "I talked to her
like a Dutch uncle; advised her to go straight back to Kentucky, and not
to do anything without her mother's permission--a great woman, Mrs.
Kildare! I told her New York was no place for a young girl alone, and
that she had been most indiscreet to come to me. I told her about
my--er--my marriage, of course. I offered her money--"
"You did _what_?" asked Philip, suddenly.
"Why--er--yes!" Channing was taken aback by his tone. "Why not? You know
what an impulsive, reckless child she is--she might very well have run
off without any money in her pocket, and I should have been
uncomfortable, quite miserable, to think--"
Philip's fist stopped the flow of words upon his lips.
"Wh-what did you do that for?" stammered the author, backing away.
"Put up your fists, if you've got any," was the answer.
Channing defended himself wildly, but without hope. He felt that his
time had come. A certain conviction paralyzed his already sluggish
muscles, "He knows!" he thought. "She's told him!"
Various things swam into his dizzy memory--the business-like
punching-bag in the rectory at Storm, the pistol in Philip's
riding-breeches, the fact that his father had been a convicted "killer"
in the penitentiary. "He means to do for me!" thought Channing, and
looked desperately around for help.
But there was no help. The woman he had acknowledged as his wife stood
in a corner of the room, her skirts drawn fastidiously about her,
looking on with unmistakable and fascinated interest. At the keyhole
_Madame la concierge_ also looked on, unobserved, breathing hard and
thinking better thoughts of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Channing, his chin cut, his nose swollen to twice its natural size,
undertook a series of masterly retreats. It was then that Madame, at the
keyhole, began to fear for her furniture, and considered interference.
Chairs were overturned, the table went crashing. At last a foot-stool
completed what Philip's fists had begun. Channing tripped over it, fell
heavily for the third time, and lay without moving.
His utter panic had saved him. Philip was tired of knocking him down,
and jerking him to his feet, and knocking him down again. He let him lie
this time, turned him over with a contemptuous foot, and put on his
coat.
"It was like punching a meal-bag!" he muttered, and strode out of the
room without a glance for either the woman in the corner, or the one he
surprised on the threshold.
Madame had been of two minds, as to whether to shriek for the
_gendarmes_, now that all was safely over, or to fling herself upon the
bosom of this gallant defender of his marital honor. But Philip was too
quick for her. She did neither.
Presently Channing opened a puffy and wary eye. "Gone?" he asked
faintly. "Then for God's sake why don't you get me something to stop
this infernal nose-bleed?"
His wife brought him a towel and a basin of cold water, and presented
them to him rather absently.
"Good Heavens, _what_ an experience! Why, the brute might have killed
me!--it runs in his family. Why didn't you go for help?"
"I was too interested," explained Mrs. Channing. "I've never seen a
clergyman fight before." She added, with an impartiality unusual in a
bride of several weeks, "You're not much of a man, are you, Percival
dear?"
Out in the street Philip strode along buoyantly, his clerical collar
somewhat awry, a black eye making itself rapidly apparent, indifferent
to the curious glances of the people who passed. Now and then he stood
still and laughed aloud, while Paris gazed at him indulgently, always
sympathetic with madness.
To think that he had imagined Jacqueline capable of leaving him for a
creature like Channing, flabby, wordy, feebly vicious! Somewhere at home
she was waiting for him; lonely, perhaps, wondering why her husband did
not come to her, but safe and unashamed. Possibly her mother and Jemima
had already found her.
The thought reminded him of certain letters in his pocket, given him
that morning at the American Express, and unopened in the excitement of
at last running Channing to cover. He drew them out, hoping to find
among them one from Storm.
The first was from his bishop, pooh-poohing his offer to resign from the
ministry, and suggesting a long vacation. It ended with a sentence that
touched Philip deeply: "Assure your brave little wife of the lasting
friendship of an old man who collects rare virtues (other people's
virtues) as certain connoisseurs collect etchings, and who considers
moral courage the rarest of the lot."
Philip turned to his other letter. At sight of the hand-writing he
started, and looked quickly at the postmark. It was that of a little
town in the Kentucky mountains.
Lately he had thought very often of his father, as he always thought in
all the critical moments of his life. At such times the man whose face
he had forgotten seemed very near to him. The feeling of nearness
deepened as he opened his letter, the first from Jacques Benoix since he
had left prison. It was almost as if his father stood there beside him,
with a hand on his shoulder.
When he had finished reading, he turned blindly into a church he was
passing (it happened to be the cathedral of Notre Dame) and knelt with
hidden face before the statue of that coquettish, charming, typically
Parisienne madonna, who is not unaccustomed to the sight of men praying
with tears.