Why Minna sent the note of acquiescence she herself could not tell. Her
caprices were past accounting for. Vanity had its share. The man whom
she had regarded as the most contemptuous and remote of a priggish
society was now at her feet. Revenge prompted her to pay her ancient
grudge against that society by kicking him as he grovelled. Again,
desperate satiety drove her to new sensations. And lastly, a reaction
from her expansiveness of the night before set her obstinately counter
to Mrs. Delamere’s somewhat injudicious advice to remain within doors.
She kept him waiting in the loggia for half an hour, while the ponies
stamped and rattled their bits below. At last she appeared, dressed in
her flaring daffodil-yellow costume, which she had not worn since her
original encounter with him. She met him somewhat defiantly, without
apology for her delay.
“Do I look decent?” she enquired nonchalantly of Mrs. Delamere, who had
been keeping Gerard company.
“You look ripping,” said Gerard.
She signed to him that she was ready to start. He picked up his hat and
gloves from the balustrade and followed her downstairs, helped her into
the high phaeton, took the reins from the man at the horses’ heads, and
turned out of the front gate. Then a cut of the whip sent the ponies at
a dashing pace down the Cimiez Road, through the town, towards the sea.
“We will go Antibes way, along the coast,” said Gerard.
“Anywhere except the Corniche road,” replied Minna. “I am sick of it.”
“You seem to be sick of most things. Why so? You’ve got money and beauty
and independence. What more can you want?”
“Suppose I said I wanted somebody to understand me--some one whom I
could meet soul to soul?” she said sarcastically. “Don’t you ever
feel that?”
He laughed, as he piloted the ponies past a company of
bicyclists, at whose machines they seemed disposed to shy.
“I’ve heard too much of that jargon,” he answered. “I’ve been cured of a
belief in souls.”
“Or if they do exist,” said Minna, “people only talk of them as they do
of their livers--when they are diseased.”
“You began talking of yours. Is it out of order? You try it a bit, don’t
you?”
Hardened as Minna was, and readily as she would have laughed at the
speech coming from the lips of another man, yet in the remorseful
bitterness of her heart, which this sudden association with him seemed
to have swelled to sensitive tenseness, she felt his words jar through
her body.
“One’s own self-mockery is enough,” she replied, coldly.
“Oh, come,” he cried with a laugh, “we are not going to turn ourselves
inside out, as if we were at a London afternoon tea and anatomy crush.
It’s rough on the ponies. You haven’t even admired them.”
As they turned on to the smooth white road between the Public Gardens
and the sea, and dashed down the long Promenade des Anglais, with great
clatter of hoofs and tossing of impatient heads, Gerard felt the man’s
pride in association with respectable horseflesh. He was in luck. Such
a turn-out is not to be met with in every Riviera livery stable. And the
elemental pride in temporary possession of female beauty added to his
satisfaction. Yet the fact that he was driving the notorious Queen of
Sheba, before the eyes of all Nice, brought a satirical smile to his
lips.
“There would be a nice little scandal about, if either of us were
attached,” he said. “It is comfortable not to have to bother about the
proprieties.”
“I consider this Bayswatery in its conventionality,” replied Minna.
“If you look upon this as an adventure, I wonder what you’d think of
anything really audacious.”
“I am ready to commit any audacity. Name one.”
She leaned back and twirled her parasol languishly. To see her face he
had to turn his head.
“I will kiss you now if you like, _coram publico_. You’re bewitching
enough,” he said in his rough fashion.
“The idea is unimaginative and--repulsive,” replied Minna. And she began
to look idly at the sea.
It was at its loveliest that afternoon, melting through all gradations
from cobalt to pale turquoise, flecked with the rich tones of the brown
Mediterranean sails, and meeting far ahead in a sapphire haze the dreamy
stretch of the Cap d’Antibes. But Minna’s thoughts were far from its
intoxicating beauty. She wished she had not come for this drive. This
man was getting upon her nerves. She had half intended to lash him
with ridicule and set him adrift. But she lacked courage. In his last
admiring glance she had read that which made her fear. Her nervousness
began to grow hysterical, especially after the lapse of some minutes
during which he had not spoken.
“Do say something,” she said at last, irritably.
“I thought you were absorbed in the poetry of nature,” he replied.
“You Englishmen are so heavy. You were scandalised at meeting a crowd of
shady foreigners at my house last night. They can talk amusingly. That’s
why.”
“An Englishman generally acts, which is better,” said Gerard.
They pursued the theme for a while; then, piqued by her disadvantageous
comparison, he began to make love outright. As he proceeded, her sense
of loathing and of impotence increased. She scarcely spoke. Gerard took
her silence for assumption of modesty; the satirical smile deepened
about his lips.
The ponies went down the white road at a spanking pace. They had reached
the open country and traffic was scanty. The road undulated between
banks pungent with thyme and rosemary; now rose in full view of the sea
and the great sweep of coast, now skirted villas nestling in the slopes
that heave downwards to the shore from the cool grey Maritime Alps,
shimmering against the violet sky. Swarthy, barelegged children ran out
from the wayside cottages to stare at the wheels flashing amidst the
cloud of dust, and now and then a great shovel-hatted curé looked up
from his greasy breviary as the English couple dashed by. Suddenly at
the top of a steep incline a bicyclist whirred past them, and coasted
swiftly down. The ponies shied, plunged. The phaeton was not fitted
with a brake. Gerard, deep in amorous schemes and taken off his guard,
slashed the ponies, tried to pull them up, bungled, with the result that
they bolted furiously down the hill.
Minna, physically timid, shrieked and fastened a desperate clasp on
Gerard’s arm.
“All right! Hold on tight. Not my arm. Nothing will happen,” he said
reassuringly. The cyclist, hearing the frightened horses thundering
behind him, set his feet on the pedals, put on the brake, and drifted
into the hedge. The light carriage leapt and swung. Minna was terrified.
In her fright she had left her parasol to the winds, and clung to
Gerard’s body with both hands. She was very near him; for a second he
took his eyes from the tossing manes and kissed her on her open mouth.
She uttered a little cry and turned aside her head. But excitement had
warmed his blood. He kissed her again; she could not get beyond his
reach; dared not relax her grasp for fear of instant death. He had her
at his mercy. As soon as he became aware of regained control of the
animals, he let them follow, for a time, their foolish course, and
kissed the frenzied girl beside him over and over again, heedless of her
struggles and cries.
At last came a slight ascent and Gerard’s powerful arms brought the
ponies to their senses. They broke into a moderate pace, and, all danger
being over, Minna relaxed her hold and drew as far from Gerard as she
could.
“You brute!” she cried tempestuously. “You brute! You cowardly brute!”
With a mighty wrench he pulled up the ponies at the top of the rise, and
they stood trembling, spattering their chests with foam. He turned to
reply to Minna, but she rose suddenly and, before he could interfere,
was clambering out of the high phaeton.
“I shall not stay a moment longer with you. I shall walk back, if I die
from it.”
She missed the step, and fell heavily to the ground. A peasant in a blue
blouse, who was working in a little patch of garden by the side of the
road, ran up and assisted her to rise. Then hailed by Gerard, he went
to the horses’ heads, and Gerard sprang to Minna’s assistance.
“You haven’t hurt yourself?”
“I have twisted my foot,” she said sullenly, steadying herself by the
phaeton. She was pale with anger and pain. Her veil and hat were awry,
one of her gloves had split. The daffodil-yellow costume was white with
dust. The consciousness of her aspect incensed her further.
“You’re in a great mess,” he said. And clumsily he began to brush the
dust from her skirt. But she twitched it away from him with her free
hand.
“Don’t touch me,” she said angrily. He stood up, thrust his hands in his
pockets, and looked at her somewhat satirically.
“I am awfully sorry. But I’ll have to do something for you, if you have
twisted your foot. You can’t remain there all the afternoon.”
“It’s better,” she declared. “Leave me--go away--I can walk home.”
With the words she removed her supporting hand and put her weight upon
the sprained foot. But she uttered an involuntary little cry, and would
have fallen, had not Gerard sprang forward and caught her.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to accept my escort back,” he said.
For reply she called out in French to the man who was holding the
ponies.
“Is there an inn or café near by?”
The man broke into polite smiles, showing his white teeth. Effectively
there was an inn, just at the turn of the road. Many visitors from Nice
stopped there to eat fruit and drink coffee. Madame had hurt herself,
without doubt, and wanted to rest. She would find herself quite
comfortable there.
“I shall go to the inn,” she said, turning to Gerard. “Perhaps you’ll
leave word at my house to send me a comfortable carriage. You need not
come back with it.”
“Oh, nonsense,” he replied. “I can lift you into the phaeton and lift
you out again. It’s idiotic to make this fuss.”
“I’d sooner crawl than drive back with you,” she flashed, vindictively.
Two sturdy and swarthy peasants had meanwhile come up with the group,
and pausing by the horse-tender, received a voluble account of the
situation. Gerard shrugged his shoulders.
“How do you propose to get to the inn?”
“These creatures will carry me.”
“I suppose you know you’re making yourself supremely ridiculous?”
“I am accustomed to do what I choose,” retorted Minna. “_Dites donc,
vous_,” she said to the new arrivals.
They hastened to her side. Gerard moved off a few steps and lit a cigar.
She explained her desires. The inborn gallantry of the children of
the South manifested itself in expressions of delight. They made the
military ambulance seat for her with crossed hands, took her up and set
off at a brisk pace. Gerard marched behind them sardonically, cursing
under his breath, and signed to the third man to follow with the ponies
and phaeton. They formed a singular procession. At the turn of the road
the little inn came in sight, upon the brow of an embankment overlooking
the road. It was a squat white building with “_Au Séjour du Soleil_”
inscribed in enormous letters across its façade. In front of it stood a
ramshackle arbour of lattice work, covered with straggling vine, beneath
which were rough tables and benches blistered by the sun. Leaving the
carriage in the road below, Gerard followed the bearers up the steep
path to the door of the inn. The place was quite deserted, save for
some fowls, a goat tethered to a post, and the buxom _patronne_ who was
grinding coffee in the arbour.
The bearers put Minna to the ground, and she stood on one foot
supporting herself between them. The landlady left her coffee, and
rushed out to meet her.
“I want a room for an hour or two, where I can lie down until a carriage
comes to me from Nice. This gentleman will fetch it,” said Minna.
An interval of explanation and enquiry followed. Then the _patronne_
entered the house to look after the room.
“You need not wait,” said Minna to Gerard, coldly.
“I want to satisfy myself that you are comfortable,” he replied, sitting
down on one of the benches.
The landlady reappeared in smiling bustle. The room was quite ready,
if Madame would deign to enter and occupy it. The two peasants took up
their charming daffodil bundle and vanished into the house, from which
they emerged a moment or two afterwards with glowing faces. Gerard
responded to their low bows and profuse acknowledgments of Monsieur and
Madame’s generosity, with an Englishman’s impatient nod, and continued
to swear softly to himself as he smoked. He rose and walked to and fro
before the inn, chafing at the ignominious position in which Minna had
placed him. Like most men of somewhat flaccid fibre he cursed, now that
it was too late, his folly in yielding to her caprice. If he had taken
her up bodily and set her in the phaeton and driven off with her, this
tomfoolery would have been avoided. As for tamely going back for the
carriage, it was out of the question. He would see her, at any rate,
before he started, and try to bring her to a state of reason. He was
not the man to slink off with his tail between his legs, after a slapped
face, like a certain little cur of a Frenchman whom he remembered. Her
tantrums were preposterous. She, the Queen of Sheba, to put on the prude
for a few snatched kisses! He laughed disagreeably. His pride and his
passions were armed allies. But he was not free from some pricks of
compunction with regard to her accident. He had not intended to behave
brutally, and yet his solicitude had not been very tenderly manifested.
“But, confound it, it’s her own fault,” he exclaimed, with a stamp of
his foot.
Ten minutes passed. He waited for a glimpse of the _patronne_. At last
he caught sight of her in the public room of the inn. She came, at his
summons, to the door. In his bad French, he explained his desire to see
the invalid. Nothing doubting as to his right, the woman bustled before
him, and throwing open the door of a room, bade him enter. He strode
boldly in. The chamber was rather dark, owing to the shutters being
closed against the westering sun. A wooden table, a huge press, and a
great four-post bed with white curtains took up most of the space. On
the bed lay Minna, with rumpled hair, her feet covered with a shawl. A
shoe and a stocking lying on the table by her hat, showed that her
hurt had been tended. She rose, indignantly, to a sitting posture as he
entered..
“What have you come here for? Why haven’t you gone for the carriage? I
can’t stay here all night.”
“I want to make friends first,” he said mildly. “Come, let us forget
this little episode. You are angry with me for kissing you. Well, you
know, Minna, I wouldn’t have kissed you if I hadn’t cared for you, and
if you hadn’t been so lovely and so near to me.”
“Oh, go, for goodness’ sake,” she said, twining her fingers together,
nervously. His presence seemed to suffocate her.
“No, I am not going,” he answered, with sudden temper. “I am not the
sort of man to be ordered about. I am not going to stir a foot until we
literally kiss and make friends. You know perfectly well I have fallen
in love with you. I wanted to have you all by yourself to-day to tell
you so. So I tell you. I love you, and I insist on being heard.”
“_You_ love me?” she said with great contempt. “You look like it!”
She jerked herself backwards so as to find support against the pillows
as she sat.
“What do you propose to do?” she asked him, with an ugly look on her
face.
As a matter of fact, he had made no plans whatever, the role of
theatrical libertine never having come within his experience. But her
question gave an opening for the brute that necessarily lingers in most
men.
“I’ll stay here all night, until you kiss me of your own free will.”
“I have always thought of you as a coward,” she said. “I suppose that’s
a threat to compromise me. It won’t do me much harm, I assure you.”
He threw his hat and gloves on the table and came close to the bedside.
The brute led him on. Her beauty had captivated him. Her scorn angered
him. His shifty blue eyes gleamed.
“If you don’t do what I ask--it’s a very small thing--I’ll take it by
force and I’ll stay here all night, and I’ll follow you wherever you go
and see you every day, until you come to your senses. I love you and
I’m not going to be trifled with. And I’m damned if you can say you have
given me no encouragement.” He bent forward. She thought he was going
to throw his arms round her. All the pent-up hatred of him, all the
fermenting elements of self-loathing, remorse, and despair, all the
agonising recrudescence of hopeless, passionate love for the man that
was and was not her husband, found vent in a hoarse inarticulate
cry. And then she lost control of reason, and burst into passionate
invective.
“You love me! You! You think a woman who knows what you are would have
anything to do with you, save fool you and throw you aside. You who
threw away a wife that was worth ten million of me, and a friend that
was worth twenty million of you. I hate you. I despise you. I despise
you as much as I despise myself, and that’s saying a good deal.” She
spat the words at him: “When you were living smugly with your wife, you
looked down upon me. Now you have got rid of her, you come to me like a
brute and a coward.”
“You’ll kindly leave Mrs. Merriam out of the discussion,” said Gerard
sardonically.
“She’s the whole question,” cried Minna. “She and nothing else--she
who has been my burning torture and shame for four years. Do you
think, because I live recklessly like a wanton woman, that I can’t feel
degradation? And you shall feel it too. You fool! You worse than
fool! She was as pure as a saint--as one of your Christian saints in
heaven--and I was jealous of her--I didn’t know her then--but you----
Do you know where Hugh Colman was that night of the murder? He was with
me--all night. The thieves came in by the window I had unbolted for him.
He had been married to me for nearly a year. We had quarrelled. It was
my fault. I thought I hated him. Oh, God, if you knew how I love him
now! Then you would know what love is!”
She paused for breath, which came pantingly. Gerard stood stiff, his
eyes fixed upon her, unmoving, as if turned to stone. He passed his
tongue over his lips. The enormity of his folly paralysed him. At last
words came.
“What kept him silent then?”
“As if you could understand,” she cried in her passionate scorn. “The
honour of the bravest man that ever lived. That night--he had seen my
father’s will--all my money to go if I married a Christian--we swore to
part for ever and keep our marriage secret. I kept him to his promise. I
let him go through all that horror--I was coming to tell you that awful
night--I was taken ill. _Your_ wife saved his life, not his. And I have
been in hell fire ever since.”
“And there I hope to God you’ll remain,” said Gerard in a low voice.
“You shall taste some of it with me. Go to her now and ask her to
forgive you.”
“I shall order the carriage for you,” said Gerard. And without another
word he turned and walked out of the room.
“He will order the carriage for me. Ha! Ha!” cried Minna.
The buxom _patronne_ heard the laugh, pricked up her ears, and flew to
the beautiful lady’s assistance.