THE dawn of a new day possesses a curious potency of readjustment. It
is as though Dame Nature, like some autocratic old nurse, wakes us up
and washes and dresses our minds afresh for us each morning, so that
they come to the renewed consideration of the affairs of life freed from
the influences and emotions which were clogging their pores when we
went asleep. Not infrequently, in the course of this species of mental
ablution, a good deal of the glamour which invested the doings of the
previous day gets scrubbed off, and a new and not altogether pleasing
aspect of affairs presents itself.
This was somewhat Jean’s experience when she woke on the morning
following that of the fancy-dress ball. Looking back upon the events of
the previous day, it seemed to her newly-tubbed, matutinal mind almost
incredible that they should have occurred. It was like a dream--life
itself tricked out in fancy dress.
Stripped of the glamour of romance and adventure with which the unknown
Englishman had contrived to clothe it, the whole episode of their day
together presented itself as disagreeably open to criticism, and the
memory of that final scene in the alcove sent the blood flying into her
cheeks. She asked herself in mute amazement how it was possible that
such a thing should have happened to her,--to “our chaste Diana,” as
her father used laughingly to call her in recognition of the instinctive
little air of aloofness with which she had been wont to keep men at a
distance.
Of course, the Englishman had taken her by surprise, but Jean was
too honest, even in her dealings with herself, to shelter behind this
excuse.
She knew that she had yielded to his kiss--and knew, too, that the
bare memory of it sent her heart throbbing in an inexplicable tumult of
emotion.
The stolen day, that day embarked upon so unconcernedly, in a gay spirit
of adventure, had flamed up at its ending into something altogether
different from the light-hearted companionship with which it had begun.
Then her conscience, recreated and vigorous from its morning toilet,
presented another facet of the affair for her inspection. With officious
detail it marshalled the whole series of events before her, dwelling
particularly on the fact that, with hut very slight demur, she had
consented to abrogate the accepted conventions of her class--conventions
designed to safeguard people from just such consequences as had
ensued--and winding up triumphantly with the corollary that although,
like most men in similar circumstances, the Englishman had not scrupled
to avail himself of the advantages the occasion offered, he had
probably, none the less, thought rather cheaply of her for permitting
him to do so.
This reflection stung her pride--exactly as Conscience had intended it
should, without doubt. Last night there had seemed to her no question
about the quality of that farewell in the little screened-off alcove.
There had been nothing common or “cheap” about it. The gathering
incidents of the whole day, the fight through the storm, the prelude of
_Valse Triste_, all seemed to have led her by imperceptible degrees to a
point where she and the Englishman could kiss at parting without shame.
And now, with the morning, the delicate rainbow veiling woven by romance
was rudely torn asunder, and the word “cheap” dinned in her ears like
the clapper of a bell.
The appearance of her _premier dejeuner_ came as a web come distraction
from her thoughts, and with the consumption of _café au lait_ and the
crisp little rolls, hot from the oven, accompanying it, the whole matter
began to assume a less heinous aspect. After all, argued Jean’s weak
human nature, the unconventionality of the affair had been considerably
tempered by the fact that the Englishman had practically saved her
life during the course of the day. Alone, she would undoubtedly have
foundered in the drifting snow; and when a man has rescued you from an
early and unpleasantly chilly grave, it certainly sets the acquaintance
between you, however short its duration, on a new and more intimate
plane.
“Good-bye, little comrade; thank you for my magic moment.”
The words, and the manner of their utterance, came back to Jean,
bringing with them a warm and comforting reassurance. The man who
had thus spoken had not thought her cheap; he was too fine in his
perceptions to have misunderstood like that. She felt suddenly certain
of it. And the pendulum of self-respect swung back into its place once
more.
*****
Presently she caught herself wondering whether she would see him again
before she left Montavan. True, he had told her he was going away
the next day. But had he actually gone? Somewhere within her lurked a
fugitive, half-formed hope that he might have altered his intention.
She tried to brush the thought aside, refusing to recognise it and
determinedly maintaining that it mattered nothing to her whether he
stayed or went. Nevertheless, throughout the whole day--in the morning
when she made a pretence of enjoying the skating on the rink, and
again in the afternoon when she walked through the pine-woods with the
Varignys--she was subconsciously alert for any glimpse of the lean,
supple figure which a single day had sufficed to mate so acutely
familiar.
But by evening she was driven into accepting the fact that he had
quitted the mountains, and of a sudden Montavan ceased to interest her;
the magic that had disguised it yesterday was gone. It had become merely
a dull little village where she was awaiting Lady Anne Brennan’s answer
to her father’s letter, and she grew restlessly impatient for that
answer to arrive.
It came at last, during the afternoon of the following day, in the form
of a telegram: “_Delighted to welcome you. Letter follows._”
The letter followed in due course, two days later, the tardiness of its
arrival accounted for by the fact that the writer had been moving about
from place to place, and that Peterson’s own letter, after pursuing her
for days, had only just caught up with her.
“I cannot tell you,” wrote Lady Anne in her squarish, characteristic
hand, “how delighted I shall be to have the daughter of Glyn and
Jacqueline with me for a time. Although Glyn with a grown-up daughter
sounds quite improbable; he never really grew up himself. So you must
come and convince me that the unexpected has happened.”
*****
Jean liked the warm-hearted, unconventional tone of the letter, and the
knowledge that she would so soon be leaving Montavan filled her with a
sense of relief.
During the four days which had elapsed since the Englishman’s departure
her restlessness had grown on her. Montavan had become too vividly
reminiscent of the hours which they had shared together for her peace
of mind. She wanted to forget that stolen day--thrust it away into the
background of her thoughts.
Unfortunately for the success of her efforts in this direction, the
element of the unknown which surrounded the Englishman, quite apart from
anything else, would have tended to keep him in the forefront of her
mind. It was only now, surveying their acquaintance in retrospect, that
she fully realised how complete had been his reticence. True his figure
dominated her thoughts, but it was a figure devoid of any background
of home, or friends, or profession. He might be a king or a
crossing-sweeper, for all she knew to the contrary--only that neither
the members of the one nor the other profession are usually addicted to
sojourning at Swiss chalets and forming promiscuous friendships on the
ice.
There were moments when she felt that she detested this man from nowhere
who had contrived to break through her feminine guard of aloofness
merely to gratify his whim to spend a day in her company.
But there were other moments when the memory of that stolen day glowed
and pulsed like some rare gem against the even, grey monotony of all the
days that had preceded it--and of those which must come after. She could
not have analysed, even to herself, the emotions it had wakened in her.
They were too complex, too fluctuating.
*****
As she packed her trunks in preparation for an early start the following
day, Jean recalled with satisfaction the genuine ring of welcome which
had sounded through the letter that had come from England. Until she
had received it, she had been the prey of an increasing diffidence with
regard to suddenly billeting herself for an indefinite period upon even
such an old friend of her father’s as Lady Anne--a timidity Peterson
himself had certainly not shared when he penned his request.
“Give my little girl house-room, will you, Anne?” he had written with
that candid and charming simplicity which had made and kept for him
a host of friends through all the vicissitudes of his varied and
irresponsible career. “I am off once more on a wander-year, and I can’t
be tripped up by a petticoat--certainly not my own daughter’s--at every
yard. This isn’t quite as cynical as it sounds. You’ll understand, I
know. Frankly, a man whose life, to all intents and purposes, is ended,
is not fit company for youth and beauty standing palpitating on the edge
of the world. By the way, did I tell you that Jean is rather beautiful?
I forget. Let her see England--that little corner where you live, down
Devonshire way, always means England to my mind. And let her learn to
love Englishwomen--if there are any more there like you.”
And, having accomplished this characteristic, if somewhat; sketchy
provision for his daughter’s welfare, Peterson had gone cheerfully on
his way, convinced that he had done all that was paternally encumbent on
him.
Madame de Varigny was voluble in her regrets at the prospect of losing
her “_chère Mademoiselle Peterson_,” yet in spite of her protestations
of dismay Jean was conscious of an impression that the Countess derived
some kind of satisfaction from the imminence of her departure.
She could not reconcile the contradiction, and it worried her a little.
She believed--quite justly--that Madame de Varigny had conceived a real
affection for her, and, as far as she herself was concerned, she had
considerably revised her first impressions of the other, finding more
to like in her than she had anticipated, noticeably a genuine warmth and
fervour of nature, and a certain kind-hearted capacity for interesting
herself in other people.
And, liking her so much better than she had at first conceived possible,
Jean resented the sudden recurrence of her original distrust produced
by the suggestion of insincerity which she thought she detected in the
Countess’s expressions of regret.
On the face of it the thing seemed absurd. She could imagine no
conceivable reason why her departure should give Madame de Varigny any
particular cause for complacency, which only made the more perplexing
her impression that this was the actual feeling underlying the latter’s
cordial interest in her projected visit to England.
On the morning of her departure, Jean’s mind was too preoccupied with
the small details attendant upon starting off on a journey dwell upon
the matter. But, as she shook bands with Madame de Varigny for the last
time, the recollection surged over her afresh, and she was strongly
conscious that beneath the other woman’s pleasant, “_Adieu,
mademoiselle! Bon voyage!_” something stirred that was less
pleasant--even inimical--just as some slimy and repulsive form of life
may stir amid the ooze at the bottom of a sunlit stream.