The first sign of commotion in the morning was a note from Bakkus, whose
turn it was to act as luncheon host. Our friends at Clermont-Ferrand, said
he, had cried off. They had also asked him to go over and see them. Would
I be so kind as to regard this as a _dies non_ in the rota of our
pleasant gatherings?
I dressed and bought some flowers, which I sent up to Lady Auriol with a
polite message. The chasseur returned saying that Miladi had gone out about
half an hour before.
"You don't mean that she has left the hotel with her luggage?"
The boy smiled reassurance. She had only gone for a walk. I breathed
freely. It would have been just like her to go off by the first train.
I suffered my treatment, drank my glasses of horrible water and again
enquired at the hotel for Lady Auriol. She had not yet returned. Having
nothing to do, I took my _Moniteur du Puy de Dôme_, which I had not
read, to the café which commands a view of the park gates and the general
going and coming of Royat. Presently, from the tram terminus I saw
advancing the familiar gaunt figure of Lackaday. I was glad, I scarcely
knew why, to note that he wore a grey soft felt instead of the awful straw
hat. I rose to greet him, and invited him to my table.
"I would join you with pleasure," said he, "but I am thinking of paying my
respects to Lady Auriol."
When I told him that he would not find her, he sat down. We could keep an
eye on the hotel entrance, I remarked.
"Our lunch with Bakkus is off," said I.
"Yes. I'm sorry. I rang him up early this morning. Elodie isn't quite
herself to-day."
"The thunder last night, perhaps."
He nodded. "Women have nerves."
That something had happened was obvious. I remembered last night's
half-hearted performance.
"By the way," said I, "Bakkus mentioned in his note that he was going over
to Clermont-Ferrand to see you."
"Yes," said Lackaday, "I left him there. He has marvellous tact and
influence when he chooses to exert them. A man thrown away on the
trivialities of life. He was born to be a Cardinal. I'm so glad you have
taken to him."
I murmured mild eulogy of Bakkus. We spoke idly of his beautiful voice.
Conversation languished, Lackaday's eyes being turned to the entrance of
the hotel some fifty yards away up the sloping street.
"I'm anxious not to miss Lady Auriol," he said at last. "It will be my only
chance of seeing her. We're off to-morrow."
"To-morrow?"
"Our engagement ends to-night. We're due at Vichy next week."
I had not realized the flight of the pleasant days. But yet--I was puzzled.
Yesterday there had been no talk of departure. I mentioned my surprise.
"I have ended the engagement of my own accord," said he. "The management
had engaged another star turn for to-day--overlapping mine. A breach of
contract which gave me the excuse for terminating it. I don't often stand
on the vain dignity of the so-called artist, but this time I've been glad
to do so."
"The atmosphere of the circus is scarcely congenial," said I.
"That's it. I'm too big for my boots, or my head's too big for my hat. And
the management are not sorry to save a few days' salary."
"But during these few days----?"
"We wait at Vichy."
He spoke woodenly, his lined face set hard.
"I shall miss you tremendously, my dear fellow," said I.
"I shall miss your company even more," said he.
"We won't, at any rate, say good-bye to-day," I ventured. "There are cars
to be hired, and Vichy from the car point of view is close by."
"You, my dear Hylton, I shall be delighted to see."
The emphasis on the pronoun would have rendered his meaning clear to even a
more obtuse man than myself. No Lady Auriols flaunting over to Vichy.
"May I ask when you came to this decision?" I enquired. "Bakkus's note
suggested only a postponement of our meeting."
"Last night," said he. "That's one reason why I sent for Bakkus."
"I see," said I. But I did not tell him what I saw. It looked as though the
gallant fellow were simply running away.
Soon afterwards, to my great relief, there came Lady Auriol swinging along
on the other side of the pavement. The café, you must know, forms a corner.
To the left, the park and the tram terminus; to the right, the street
leading to the post office and then dwindling away vaguely up the hill. It
was along this street that Lady Auriol came, short-skirted, flushed with
exercise, rather dusty and dishevelled. I stood and waved an arresting
hand. She hesitated for a second and then crossed the road and met us
outside the café. I offered a seat at our table within. She declined with a
gesture. We all stood for a while and then went diagonally over to the park
entrance.
"I've been such a walk," she declared. "Miles and miles--through beautiful
country and picturesque villages. You ought to explore. It's worth it."
"I know the district of old," said Lackaday.
"I'm tremendously struck with the beauty of the women of Auvergne."
"They're the pure type of old Gaul," said Lackaday.
She put up a hand to straying hair. "I'm falling to pieces. I have but two
desires in the world--a cold bath and food. Perhaps I shall see you later."
He stood unflinching, like a soldier condemned for crime. I wondered at her
indifference. He said:
"Unfortunately I can't have that pleasure. My engagements take up the rest
of the day, and tomorrow I leave Clermont-Ferrand. I shan't have another
opportunity of seeing you."
Their eyes met and his, calm yet full of pain, dominated. She thrust her
hand through my arm.
"Very well then, let us get into the shade."
We entered the park, found an empty bench beneath the trees and sat down,
Auriol between us. She said:
"Do you mean at Royat or in the world in general?"
"Perhaps the latter."
She laughed queerly. "As chance has thrown us together here, it will
possibly do the same somewhere else."
"My sphere isn't yours," said he. "If it hadn't been for the accident of
Hylton being here, we should not have met now."
"Captain Hylton had nothing to do with it," she said warmly. "I had no
notion that you were at Clermont-Ferrand."
"I'm quite aware of that, Lady Auriol."
She flushed, vexed at having said a foolish thing.
"And Captain Hylton had no notion that I was coming."
"Perfectly," said Lackaday.
"Well?" she said after a pause.
"I came over to Royat, this morning," said Lackaday, "to call on you and
bid you good-bye."
"Why?" she asked in a low voice.
"It appeared to be ordinary courtesy."
"Was there anything particular you wanted to say to me?"
"Perhaps to supplement just the little I could tell you yesterday
afternoon."
"Captain Hylton supplemented it after you left. Oh, he was very discreet.
But there were a few odds and ends that needed straightening out. If you
had been frank with me from the beginning, there would have been no need
of it. As it was, I had to clear everything up. If I had known exactly. I
should not have gone to the circus last night."
His eyelids fluttered like those of a man who has received a bullet through
him, and his mouth set grimly.
"You might have spared me that," said he. He bent forward. "Hylton, why did
you let her do it?"
"I might just as well have tried to stop the thunder," said I, seeing no
reason why this young woman should not bear the blame for her folly.
"A circus is a comfortless place of entertainment," he said, in the
familiar, even voice. "I wish it had been a proper theatre. What did you
think of the performance?"
She straightened herself upright, turned and looked at him; then looked
away in front of her: a sharp breath or two caused a little convulsive
heave of her bosom; to my astonishment I saw great tears run down her
cheeks on to her hands tightly clasped on her lap. As soon as she realized
it, she dashed her hands roughly over her eyes. Lackaday ventured the tip
of his finger on her sleeve.
"It's a sorry show, isn't it? I'm not very proud of myself. But perhaps you
understand now why I left you in ignorance."
"Yet you told Anthony. Why not me?"
I was about to rise, this being surely a matter for them to battle out
between themselves, but I at once felt her powerful grip on my arm. Whether
she was afraid of herself or of Lackaday, I did not know. Anyway, I seemed
to represent to her some kind of human dummy which could be used, at need,
as a sentimental buffer.
"I presume," she continued, "I was quite as intimate a friend as Anthony?"
"Quite," said he. "But Hylton's a man and you're a woman. There can be no
comparison. You are on different planes of sentiment. For instance, Hylton,
loyal friend as he is, has not to my knowledge done me the honour of
shedding tears over Petit Patou."
I felt horribly out of place on the bench in this public leafy park, beside
these two warring lovers. But it was most humanly interesting. Lackaday
seemed to be reinvested with the dignity of the man as I had first met him,
a year ago.
"Anthony--" I could not help feeling that her repeated change of her term
of reference to me, from the formal Captain Hylton to my Christian name,
sprang from an instinctive desire to put herself on more intimate terms
with Lackaday--"Anthony," she said in her defiant way, "would have cried,
if he could."
Lackaday's features relaxed into his childlike smile.
"Ah," said he, "'The little more and how much it is. The little less and
how far away.'"
She was silent. Although the situation was painful, I could not help
feeling the ironical satisfaction that she was getting the worst of the
encounter. I was glad, because I thought she had treated him cruelly. The
unprecedented tears, however, were signs of grace. Yet the devil in her
suggested a _riposte_.
"I hope Madame Patou is quite well."
Lackaday's smile faded into the mask.
"Last night's thunderstorm upset her a little--but otherwise--yes--she is
quite well."
He rose. Lady Auriol cried:
"You're not going already?"
His ear caught a new tone, for he smiled again.
"I must get back to Clermont-Ferrand. Goodbye, Hylton."
We shook hands.
"Good-bye, old chap," said I. "We'll meet soon."
Auriol rose and turned on me an ignoring back. As I did not seem to exist
any longer, I faded shadow-like away to the park gate, where I hung about
until Auriol should join me.
As to what happened between them then, I must rely on her own report,
which, as you shall learn, she gave me later.
They stood for a while after I had gone. Then he held out his hand.
"Good-bye, Lady Auriol," said he.
"No," she said. "There are things which we really ought to say to each
other. You do believe I wish I had never come?"
"I can quite understand," said he, stiffly.
"It hurts," she said.
"Why should it matter so much?" he asked.
"I don't know--but it does."
He drew himself up and his face grew stern.
"I don't cease to be an honourable man because of my profession; or to be
worthy of respect because I am loyal to sacred obligations."
"You put me in the wrong," she said. "And I deserve it. But it all hurts.
It hurts dreadfully. Can't you see? The awful pity of it? You of all men to
be condemned to a fife like this. And you suffer too. It all hurts."
"Remember," said he, "it was the life to which I was bred."
She felt hopeless. "It's my own fault for coming," she said. "I should have
left things as they were when we parted in April. There was beauty--you
made it quite clear that our parting was final. You couldn't have acted
otherwise. Forgive me for all I've said. I pride myself on being a
practical woman; but--for that reason perhaps--I'm unused to grappling with
emotional situations. If I've been unkind, it's because I've been stabbing
myself and forgetting I'm stabbing you at the same time."
He walked a pace or two further with her. For the first time he seemed to
recognize what he, Andrew Lackaday, had meant to her.
"I'm sorry," he said gravely. "I never dreamed that it was a matter of such
concern to you. If I had, I shouldn't have left you in any doubt. To me you
were the everything that man can conceive in woman. I wanted to remain in
your memory as the man the war had made me. Vanity or pride, I don't
know. We all have our failings. I worshipped you as the _Princesse
Loinlaine_. I never told you that I am a man who has learned to keep
himself under control. Perhaps under too much control. I shouldn't tell you
now, if----"
"You don't suppose I'm a fool," she interrupted. "I knew. And the
Verity-Stewarts knew. And even my little cousin Evadne knew."
They still strolled along the path under the trees. He said after a while:
"I'm afraid I have made things very difficult for you."
She was pierced with remorse. "Oh, how like you! Any other man would have
put it the other way round and accused me of making things difficult for
him. And he would have been right. For I did come here to get news of you
from Anthony Hylton. He was so discreet that I felt that he could tell me
something. And I came and found you and have made things difficult for
you."
He said in his sober way: "Perhaps it is for the best that we have met and
had this talk. We ought to have had it months ago, but--" he turned his
face wistfully on her--"we couldn't, because I didn't know. Anyhow, it's
all over."
"Yes," she sighed. "It's all over. We're up against the stone wall of
practical life."
"Quite so," said he. "I am Petit Patou, the mountebank; my partner is
Madame Patou, whom I have known since I was a boy of twenty, to whom I am
bound by indissoluble ties of mutual fidelity, loyalty and gratitude; and
you are the Lady Auriol Dayne. We live, as I said before, in different
spheres."
"That's quite true," she said. "We have had our queer romance. It won't
hurt us. It will sweeten our lives. But, as you say, it's over. It has to
be over."
"There's no way out," said he. "It's doubly locked. Good-bye."
He bent and kissed her hand. To the casual French valetudinarians sitting
and strolling in the park, it was nothing but a social formality. But to
Auriol the touch of his lips meant the final parting of their lives, the
consecrated burial of their love.
She lingered for a few moments watching his long, straight back disappear
round the corner of the path, and then turned and joined me by the park
gate. On our way to the hotel the only thing she said was:
"I don't seem to have much chance, do I, Tony?"
It was after lunch, while we sat, as the day before, at the end of the
terrace, that she told me of what had taken place between Lackaday and
herself, while I had been hanging about the gate. I must confess
to pressing her confidence. Since I was lugged, even as a sort of
_raisonneur_, into their little drama, I may be pardoned for some
curiosity as to development. I did not seem, however, to get much further.
They had parted for ever, last April, in a not unpoetic atmosphere. They
had parted for ever now in circumstances devoid of poetry. The only bit of
dramatic progress was the mutual avowal, apparently dragged out of them.
It was almost an anticlimax. And then dead stop. I put these points before
her. She agreed dismally. Bitterly reproached herself for giving way in
Paris to womanish folly; also for deliberately bringing about the morning's
explanation.
"You were cruel--which is utterly unlike you," I said, judicially.
"That horrible green, white and red thing haunted me all night--and that
fat woman bursting out of her clothes. I felt shrivelled up. If only I had
left things as they were!" She harped always on that note. "I thought I
could walk myself out of my morbid frame of mind. Oh yes--you're quite
right--morbid--unlike me. I walked miles and miles. I made up my mind to
return to Paris by the night train. I should never see him again. The whole
thing was dead. Killed. Washed out. I had got back some sense when I ran
into the two of you. It seemed so ghastly to go on talking in that cold,
dry way. I longed to goad him into some sort of expression of himself--to
find the man again. That's why I told him about going to the circus last
night."
She went on in this strain. Presently she said: "I could shed tears of
blood over him. Don't think I'm filled merely with selfish disgust. As
I told him--the pity of it--all that he must have suffered--for he has
suffered, hasn't he?"
"He has gone through Hell," said I.
She was silent for a few moments. Then she said: "What's the good of going
round and round in a circle? You either understand or you don't."
By way of consolation I mendaciously assured her that I understood. I
don't think I understand now. I doubt whether she understood herself.
Her emotions were literally going round and round in a circle, a hideous
merry-go-round with fixed staring features, to be passed and repassed in
the eternal gyration. Horror of Petit Patou. Her love for Lackaday. Madame
Patou. Hatred of Lacka-day. Scorching self-contempt for seeking him out.
Petit Patou and Madame Patou. Lackaday crucified. Infinite pity for
Lackaday. General Lackaday. Old dreams. The lost illusion. The tomb of
love. Horror of Petit Patou--and so _da capo_, endlessly round and
round.
At least, this figure gave me the only clue to her frame of mind. If she
went on gyrating in this way indefinitely, she must go mad. No human
consciousness could stand it. For sanity she must stop at some point. The
only rational halting-place was at the Tomb. If I knew my Auriol, she would
drop a flower and a tear on it, and then would start on a bee-line for
Central Tartary, or whatever expanse of the world's surface offered a
satisfactory field for her energies.
She swallowed the stone-cold, half-remaining coffee in her cup and rose and
stretched herself, arms and back and bust, like a magnificent animal, the
dark green, silken knitted jumper that she wore revealing all her great and
careless curves, and drew a long breath and smiled at me.
"I've not slept for two nights and I've walked twelve miles this morning.
I'll turn in till dinner." She yawned. "Poor old Tony," she laughed. "You
can have it at a Christian hour this evening."
"The one bright gleam in a hopeless day," said I.
She laughed again, blew me a kiss and went her way to necessary repose.
I remained on the terrace a while longer, in order to finish a long
corona-corona, forbidden by my doctors. But I reflected that as the showman
makes up on the swings what he loses on the roundabouts, so I made up on
the filthy water what I lost on the cigars. How I provided myself with
excellent corona-coronas in Royat, under the Paris price, I presume, of
ten francs apiece, wild reporters will never drag out of me. I mused,
therefore, over the last smokable half-inch, and at last, discarding it
reluctantly, I sought well-earned slumber in my room. But I could not
sleep. All this imbroglio kept me awake. Also the infernal band began to
play. I had not thought--indeed, I had had no time to think of the note
from Bakkus which I had received the first thing in the morning, and of
Lackaday's confirmation of the summons to the ailing Elodie. Women, said
he, had nerves. The thunder, of course. But, thought I, with elderly
sagacity, was it all thunder?
As far as I could gather, from Lackaday's confessions he had never given
Elodie cause for jealousy from the time they had become Les Petit Patou.
Her rout of the suggestive Ernestine proved her belief in his insensibility
to woman's attractions during the war. She had never heard of Lady Auriol.
Lady Auriol, therefore, must have bounded like a tiger into the placid
compound of her life. Reason enough for a _crise des nerfs_. Even I,
who had nothing to do with it, found my equilibrium disturbed.
Lady Auriol and I dined together. She declared herself rested and in her
right and prosaic mind.
"I have no desire to lose your company," said I, "so I hope there's no more
talk of an unbooked _strapontin_ on the midnight train."
"No need," she replied. "He's leaving Clermont-Ferrand tomorrow. I'll keep
to my original programme and enjoy fresh air until a wire summons me back
to Paris. That's to say if you can do with me."
"If you keep on looking as alluring as you are this evening," said I,
"perhaps I mayn't be able to do without you."
"I wonder why I've never been able to fall in love with a man of your type,
Tony," she remarked in her frank, detached way. "You--by which I mean
hundreds of men like you, much younger, of course--you are of my world,
you understand the half-said thing, your conduct during the war has been
irreproachable, you've got a heart beneath a cynical exterior, you've got
brains, you're as clean as a new pin, you're an agreeable companion, you
can turn a compliment in a way that even a savage like me can appreciate,
and yet----"
"And yet," I interrupted, "when you're presented with a whole paper, row on
row, of new pins, you're left cold because choice is impossible." I smiled
sadly and sipped my wine. "Now I know what I am, one of a row of nice,
clean, English-made pins."
"It's you that are being rude to yourself, not I," she laughed. "But you
are of a type typical, and in your heart you're very proud of it. You
wouldn't be different from what you are for anything in the world."
"I would give a good deal," said I, "to be different from what I
am--but--from the ideal of myself--no."
She was quite right. Although I may not have sound convictions, thank
Heaven I've sacred prejudices. They have kept me more or less straight in
my unimaginative British fashion during a respectable lifetime. So far am
I from being a Pharisee, that I exclaim: "Thank God I am as other decent
fellows are."
We circled pleasantly round the point until she returned to her original
proposition--her wonder that she had never been able to fall in love with a
man of my type.
"It's very simple," said I. "You distrust us. You know that if you suddenly
said to one of us, 'Let us go to Greenland and wear bearskins and eat
blubber'; or, 'Let us fit up the drawing-room with incubators for East-end
babies doomed otherwise to die,' he would vehemently object. And there
would be rows and the married life of cat and dog."
She said: "Am I really as bad as that, Tony?"
"You are," said I.
She shook her head. "No," she replied, after a pause. "In the depths of
myself I'm as conventional as you are. That's why I said I was puzzled to
know why I had never fallen in love with any one of you. I had my deep
reasons, my dear Tony, for saying it. I'm bound to my type and my order.
God knows I've seen enough and know enough to be free. But I'm not. Last
night showed me that I'm not."
"And that's final, my dear?" said I.
She helped herself to salad with an air of bravura. She helped herself, to
my surprise, to a prodigious amount of salad.
"As final as death," she replied.
* * * * *
There had been billed about the place a Grand Concert du Soir in the Casino
de Royat. The celebrated tenor, M. Horatio Bakkus. The Casino having been
burned down in 1918, the concerts took place under the bandstand in the
park.
After dinner we found places, among the multitude, on the Casino Cafe
Terrace overlooking the bandstand, and listened to Bakkus sing. I explained
Bakkus, more or less, to Auriol. Although she could not accept Lackaday
as Petit Patou, she seemed to accept Bakkus, without question, as a
professional singer. The concert over, he joined us at our little japanned
iron table, and acknowledged her well-merited compliments--I tell you, he
sang like a minor Canon in an angelic choir--with, well, with the well-bred
air of a minor Canon in an angelic choir. With easy grace he dismissed
himself and talked knowledgeably and informatively of the antiquities and
the beauties of Auvergne. To most English folk it was an undiscovered
country. We must steal a car and visit Orcival. Hadn't I heard of it?
France's gem of Romanesque churches? And the Château--ages old---with its
_charmille_--the towering maze-like walks of trees kept clipped
in scrupulous formality by an old gardener during the war--the
_charmille_ designed by no less a genius than Le Nôtre, who planned
the wonders of Versailles and the exquisite miniature of the garden of
Nîmes? To-morrow must we go.
This white-haired, luminous-eyed ascetic--he drank but an orangeade through
post-war straws--had kept us spellbound with his talk. I glanced at Auriol
and read compliance in her eye.
"Will you accompany us ignorant people and act as cicerone?"
"With all the pleasure in life," said Bakkus.
"What time shall we start?"
"Would ten be too early?"
"Lady Auriol and I are old campaigners."
"I call for you at ten. It is agreed?"
We made the compact. I lifted my glass. He sputtered response through the
post-war straws resting in the remains of his orangeade. He rose to
go, pleading much correspondence before going to bed. We rose too. He
accompanied us to the entrance to our hotel. At the lift, he said:
"Can you give me a minute?"
"As many as you like," said I, for it was still early.
We sped Lady Auriol upwards to her repose, and walked out through the hall
into the soft August moonlight.
"May I tread," said he, "on the most delicate of grounds?"
"It all depends," said I, "on how delicately you do it."
He made a courteous movement of his hand and smiled. "I'll do my best. I
take it that you're very fully admitted into Andrew Lackaday's confidence."
"To a great extent," I admitted.
"And--forgive me if I am impertinent--you have also that of the lady whom
we have just left?"
"Really, my dear Bakkus----" I began.
"It is indeed a matter of some importance," he interposed quickly. "It
concerns Madame Patou--Elodie. Rightly or wrongly, she received a certain
impression from your charming luncheon party of yesterday. Andrew, as you
are aware, is not the man with whom a woman can easily make a scene. There
was no scene. A hint. With that rat-trap air of finality with which I am,
for my many failings, much more familiar than yourself, he said: 'We will
cancel our engagement and go to Vichy.' This morning, as I wrote, I
was called to Clermont-Ferrand. Madame Patou, you understand, has the
temperament of the South. Its generosity is apt to step across the
boundaries of exaggeration. In my capacity of friend of the family, I had a
long interview with her. You have doubtless seen many such on the stage.
I must say that Andrew, to whom the whole affair appeared exceedingly
distasteful, had announced his intention of obeying the rules of common
good manners and leaving his farewell card on Lady Auriol. Towards the end
of our talk it entered the head of Madame Patou that she would do the same.
I pointed out the anomaly of the interval between the two visits. But the
head of a Marseillaise is an obstinate one. She dressed, put on her best
hat--there is much that is symbolical in a woman's best hat, as doubtless a
man of the world like yourself has observed--and took the tram with me to
Royat. We alighted at the further entrance to the park, and came plump
upon a leave-taking between Lackaday and Lady Auriol. You know there is a
turn--some masking shrubs--we couldn't help seeing through them. She was
for rushing forward. I restrained her. A second afterwards, Andrew ran into
us. For me, at any rate, it was a most unhappy situation. If he had fallen
into a rage, like ninety-nine men out of a hundred, and accused us of
spying, I should have known how to reply. But that's where you can never
get hold of Andrew Lackaday. He scorns such things. He said in his ramrod
fashion: 'It's good of you to come to meet me, Elodie. I was kept longer
than I anticipated.' He stopped the Clermont-Ferrand tram, nodded to me,
and, with his hand under Elodie's elbow, helped her in."
"May I ask why you tell me all this?" I asked.
"Certainly," said he, and his dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. "I give
the information for what it may be worth to you as a friend, perhaps as
adviser, of both parties."
"You are assuming, Mr. Bakkus," I answered rather stiffly, "that Madame
Patou's unfortunate impressions are in some way justified."
It was a most unpleasant conversation. I very much resented discussing Lady
Auriol with Horatio Bakkus.
"Not at all," said he. "But Fate has thrown you and me into analogous
positions--we are both elderly men--me as between Lackaday and Madame
Patou, you as between Lady Auriol and Lackaday."
"But, damn it all, man," I cried angrily, "what have I just been saying?
How dare you assume there's anything between them save the ordinary
friendship of a distinguished soldier and an English lady?"
"If you can only assure me that there is nothing but that ordinary
friendship, you will take a weight off my mind and relieve me of a great
responsibility."
"I can absolutely assure you," I cried hotly, "that by no remote
possibility can there be anything else between Lady Auriol Dayne and Petit
Patou."
He thrust out both his hands and fervently grasped the one I instinctively
put forward.
"Thank you, thank you, my dear Hylton. That's exactly what I wanted to
know. _Au revoir_. I think we said ten o'clock."
He marched away briskly. With his white hair gleaming between his
little black felt hat cocked at an angle and the collar of his flapping
old-fashioned opera-cloak, he looked like some weird bird of the night.
I entered the hotel feeling the hot and cold of the man who has said a
damnable thing. Through the action of what kinky cell of the brain I had
called the dear gallant fellow "Petit Patou," instead of "Lackaday," I was
unable to conjecture.
I hated myself. I could have kicked myself. I wallowed in the unreason of a
man vainly seeking to justify himself. The last thing in the world I wanted
to do was to see Horatio Bakkus again. I went to bed loathing the idea of
our appointment.