Jacques Rouelle still struggled as a writer of short stories, and Henri
Dufour was already succeeding as a playwright, but they remained as
cordial as ever. No jealousy on the one side, nor pomposity on the
other. Their wives, too, were on affectionate terms; in fact, the women
were cousins. As for me, I was the comrade of them all. In their modest
flat--a great name for two rooms--Jacques and Blanche Rouelle would
read to me manuscripts, and bewail the terms Jacques got for them; and
in their little villa, off the rue Pergolese, Henri and Elise Dufour
would talk to me of some comedy that Henri was perpending, and even
confide to me their discomfiture when he had one declined. Two devoted
couples; five ardent friends. And then, by a stroke of fate, Jacques
discovered the pot of pansies!
I had gone to see him one day, and found that he was out. Blanche,
however, was at home, and Elise had just dropped in, bringing a toy
or something for the child. Very charming and fashionable she looked,
though I knew her well enough to be sure she had put on one of her
shabbiest costumes for the visit. She told us that Henri had begun the
penultimate act of the play on which he had been at work ever since the
spring, and that he had talked of it recently to Martime, who was much
attracted by the thesis. She was in high feather, and her elation was
natural. Martime had produced an earlier piece of Henri's, but that had
been no guarantee that he would like this one, and I knew that Henri's
heart was set on his playing the leading part.
"Mind you don't forget to send Jacques and me tickets for the dress
rehearsal," said Blanche blithely.
"As if we were likely to forget you! Or Pierre either," said the other,
smiling to me. "Of course we don't know yet that Martime will do the
piece, but he was so enthusiastic about the theme, and his part is so
good, that we're pretty confident. I daresay he will want some silly
alterations made, but I don't think there's much doubt about his taking
it, when it's ready."
"How lovely to be able to write for the theatre!" Blanche exclaimed.
"Think, all the money Jacques has had from editors, with his royalties
from _Contes du Quartier_ as well, is not anything like as much as
Henri can make with a single play!" And, as if fearing that her cousin
might misconstrue her plaint, she added emotionally, "Not that I grudge
him his good fortune, Heaven knows!"
"I know it, too, chérie," responded Elise, squeezing her hand.
"Jacques' innings will come. I am very sure it will come. It is
atrocious that Henri and I should have all the luck in the meantime."
The vivacity seemed to be taking a solemn turn, so I put in, "And what
about _me_? For me both your households are too wealthy--I blunder in
knowing either of you. A pauper should never have rich friends."
"Tiens! That is a novel philosophy," said Elise inquiringly.
"It is sound. What do they yield him? At best, an invitation to dinner.
Which does not compensate for the despondence he suffers in contrasting
their grandeur with his garret. The poor devil of discretion associates
with people even worse off than himself--and by comparison feels
prosperous."
"You old humbug!" they laughed at me. And addressing Blanche again,
Elise Dufour said, "Wait till those dividends come rolling in! He will
gnash his teeth more than ever, won't he?"
"Dividends?" said I. "What dividends? Who dares to mention dividends in
front of me?"
"Ah! he hasn't heard," cried Blanche, recovering her buoyancy. "Henri
is going to get a hundred shares for Jacques in a company that is
coming out. We should not be able to get them ourselves, but the
man is a friend of Henri's. What do you think of it, our making
investments? Isn't it great?"
"It is true," said Elise, nodding. "It will be a very good thing. Henri
means to apply for quite a lot."
I could guess what it was, though, not being a capitalist, I paid no
heed to the Bourse and was absolutely ignorant whether Amalgamated
Pancakes were heavy, or Funded Fireworks had gone up. Henri had chanced
to speak of it to me. I had no doubt that Jacques might do much worse
than hold a hundred shares in that concern.
"What do you think of it?" repeated Blanche. "We have been working
eight years to save three thousand francs--won't it seem wonderful to
have a few francs that we haven't worked for at all coming in every
year?"
She went on talking about it after Elise had gone. "It will be like
something in a fairy tale, to have a little money falling regularly to
us from the skies, as it were. What it will mean! Even Henri and Elise
do not know. We shall be in a position to indulge in pleasures that
sound fantastic now. For instance, if Jacques is out of sorts, I shall
be able to pack him off to the country to get well. To-day he would not
hear of such a thing--he would not touch our nest-egg if he were on his
last legs. And the little one! What joy to buy Baby's clothes without
dipping into that! To buy him perhaps a little fur coat out of money
that poor Jacques has not had to whip his brains for. Won't he look
sweet, the pet, dressed in dividends? I wish that _you_ could take some
shares, Pierre. But I know."
Then Jacques returned, seemingly deep in thought, and I said: "Come in
and make yourself at home. Congratulations, my financial magnate!"
"Hein?" he queried. "What? Oh, that! Yes. It had slipped my mind for
the moment." He went over to his wife and kissed her tenderly. It
appeared that he had been out for two or three hours, and he demanded,
with deep anxiety, if the child still thrived.
"Mais oui, goose. He sleeps in there," said Blanche. "The shares
had slipped thy mind? Ah, but listen, thou dwellest overmuch on thy
work--in the end thou wilt have a breakdown."
"But no, but no, little woman. On the contrary, never have I felt
more fit. I have just seen something that is positively inspiring,"
he announced. "I have seen a suggestion for a short story that is
exquisite."
"So?" We were all attention.
"Quite by accident. I had been walking aimlessly, wandering without
noting where I turned, when in the twilight I found myself in a long
street of decay that struck a chill to my heart. The slatternly,
forbidding houses had an air of hopelessness, of evil that made me
shudder. I tried to classify the denizens, but well as I know Paris, I
was baffled. I had the impression of entering a street of mysteries.
It was as if, behind each of those morose, darkling windows, lowering
upon me in their hundreds, there lurked gruesome things. Suddenly,
on the foul ledge of a ground-floor window, dim with dirt, behind
which some nameless stuff was looped, further to hide the secrets
of the room, I saw blooming?--a pot of pansies! I cannot tell you
how infinitely fresh its fairness looked in these surroundings, how
divinely incongruous! I stood gazing at it a full minute, lost in
conjecture. Who, in that sinister house, retained the sensibility to
tend a pot of pansies? What message did it yield her? How did she
come to be there? 'Mon Dieu,' I said, 'a story! A great story!' I was
enraptured. When I reached a decent quarter, I sat down on a bench,
and lit a cigarette, and prepared to welcome the delicious plot that I
foresaw emerging from my reverie."
"Tell it to us," we begged him.
The fervour of Jacques' tones abated. They were flat when he replied.
"Strange to say, it did not emerge," he said. "I have not been able to
find it yet."
"It will arrive," we cried, with conviction. "There should be an
excellent story in that."
"Ah, certainly it will arrive. My only misgiving is that I am not
worthy to treat it. It should be a gem, that story, a masterpiece. It
should be a story that will live.... All the same, it piques me that,
with such a stimulus to write, I should have to wait, even for an hour.
I am athirst to begin."
"You will strike the idea before you go to bed," I assured him. "Even
I, though fiction is not my line, can see a story there."
"You can see it?" he inquired eagerly.
"I do not mean that I see the plot. But I see the prospects."
"Ah, yes, that is how it is with _me_," he said. "The prospects are
magnificent, aren't they? What delight I shall take in this! I may not
be capable of handling it as well as it deserves, but you are going to
see the best short story I have ever done, mon vieux."
Well, changes in the staff transferred me abruptly to London soon after
that, and I had no further conversation on the subject with Jacques
till nearly five months had passed. The interval had threatened to be
longer still, but one must eat. Why can't you cut an English cook's
throat? If you don't know the answer you are unaware that in England
they placidly consume anything that is put on their plates. Because
there are no English cooks. I should like frequently to sojourn in the
beautiful countryside of England, if it were not so painful to see
vegetables growing there. When I looked at those verdant young things,
so full of flavour and nutriment, and thought of the fate before
them--reflected that they were destined to be drowned in hogsheads
of water, and served as an unpalatable pulp, the sight of them used
to wring my heart. I overtook Jacques in the Champs Élysées one day,
as I was on my way to call on Henri and Elise, and we strolled along
together. I said: "I rather thought you would send me a copy of that
story you were speaking of before I went. What paper was it published
in?"
To my amazement, he replied gloomily: "It is not written. I am seeking
the plot for it."
"What?" I exclaimed. "Not written? After five months? If you could turn
out other stories in the meantime, why not that one?"
"I have not turned out other stories in the meantime," he told me. "I
am concentrating my imagination on the pot of pansies."
I stopped and stared at him. "Ah, ça! Are you in earnest? Mon Dieu! It
looked very promising, but if you mean to spend the rest of your life
trying to write it, the promise will cost you dear."
"I know it is unpractical of me," he owned distressfully. "I have
eaten up a pretty penny. I reproach myself. But the fascination is
overwhelming. I cannot withstand it. The thing has become an obsession.
I have been back a dozen times, in all weathers, to look at the house
again. But the course has not advanced me. In desperation, I even rang
the bell and asked to see the occupant of that room, but the crone who
opened the street-door was either so deaf, or so artful, that it was
impossible to make her understand what I said. Let us talk about it!
There are only three points to resolve. Who, in a house like that, has
still the sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? What does it say to
her? By what circumstances is she there?"
"I remember, I remember," I said. "I am not provided with answers to
such conundrums at any moment of the day. But I could have answered
them in less than five months, I'll swear." I added, "If you like, I
will find the plot for you, in a quarter of an hour, some time, when
I have nothing else to do." I did not mean it very seriously, and, of
course, I am a busy man.
At this juncture, we saw Henri approaching--a deuce of a swell in
his frock-overcoat and chamois gloves, though his figure was more
protruberant than it had been in the period when he was among the Great
Unacted. He hailed us with: "You rascals, you negligent knaves! If you
greet me once in a century, it is by chance. How are you, darlings?"
"We meant to honour you with a visit now," I said. "As it is, we will
go on and see Elise. Come back and see her too."
"Elise has gone to a matinée," said Henri. "You shall take a little
ta-ta with me, instead. I am on topping terms with myself, and need
someone to listen to my boasts. I read my play to Martime this week.
All is well. When I finished, tears were in his eyes."
"Good business!" We exulted hardly less than he.
"When will it be seen?" asked Jacques. "Will he make it his next
production?"
"Ah, that is not settled. For that matter, he has not actually agreed
to take it. But he has got the script, and he is to write to me in a
few days. I know well enough what is going to happen; I shall have to
agree that the leading woman's part ought to be less strong. And then
he will tell me the play is flawless."
"You do not mind sacrificing her?"
"If I mind? Well, naturally I mind. Mais que voulez-vous? My primary
desire is Martime. His vanity is colossal, but it is a man's play,
and no other actor on the stage could do what _he_ will do with it.
I constructed it for him from the start. You may be sure I will make
concessions rather than lose Martime. Ah, we are rejoicing! This piece
means a great deal to us, you know--it is ambitious work. With this, if
it succeeds, I--en effet, I am promoted to the front rank."
"You are not at the foot of the class now," I said.
"Ah! But I have written for fees rather than for fame. It was not
good enough to clothe my wife and children in rags because I aspired
to wear laurels. The day I entreated Elise to marry a boy who had not
five hundred francs, I was guilty of a crime. I have never forgotten
the confidence she showed in me that day--nor her unwavering belief in
me while times were bad. In truth, my wife has but one failing--she
admires me to excess. According to her, every word I write, or speak,
is inspired. But it is not odious to be worshipped. She is adorable.
I ask myself what I should do without her. They may say some of the
pieces I have done so far are of no account; I assure you I have had
far more joy from scribbling a farce that bought smart costumes or a
bracelet for Elise than I could have had from evolving classics that
left her worried about the washing bill. Enfin, everything comes at
last to him who waits--even a fine day in London, hein?--and now I
have felt entitled to devote twelve months to a grand attempt. And, if
it is well received--I do not romance when I say that, if it is well
received, the thing that will make me proudest will be the admiration
of my dear wife."
While he talked on, opening his heart to us, we strode towards
the Boulevard; and as we proceeded to the Boulevard, with never a
premonition of disaster, it is not hyperbolic to affirm that all Paris
would have failed to display a trio more united.
Presently he inquired of Jacques: "Anything wrong with you? You are
very quiet."
"I search for a plot," sighed our friend; and was long-winded.
"He has been able to think of nothing but the enchanting story that
ought to blossom from that flower-pot, and doesn't," I explained. "By
this time he might have----"
"The points I ponder are three," Jacques broke in strenuously. "Who,
in such environment, has the fingering sensibility to tend a pot of
pansies? What does it express to her? How does it happen that she is
there?"
"I do not see anything in it," said Henri. "It has no action."
"How the devil can it have action before there is a plot?" screamed
Jacques. "I tell you, the atmosphere is superb."
"It is a picture, not a story. There is no material in it," complained
Henri. "You have everything to create, except the scene. The scene is
good, but----"
We were still discussing the question, sipping vermouth at a café, when
someone exclaimed: "Ah, you! How goes it?" And, looking up, I saw that
the cordial hand upon the dramatist's shoulder pertained to no less
eminent a person than Martime himself.
"Numa!" Henri was delighted; the more so when Martime consented to sit
down at our table and sip an apéritif, too.
"Permettez. Two of my oldest friends--monsieur Camus, of _L'Elan_;
monsieur Rouelle, romancier."
The actor-manager did not allow us to imagine we met upon terms of
equality, but his greetings were gracious. To be candid, I had been
somewhat impressed to hear our chum call him by his Christian name.
I knew, of course, that Henri was agog to learn whether a decision
had been reached about his play, and I mentally applauded his air of
absorption while Martime expatiated upon his performance in the present
piece. After some minutes I glanced at Jacques, with a view to our
leaving the pair together, but before we could move, Henri, desirous no
doubt of cloaking his eagerness, said lightly:
"As you arrived, we were in the midst of a literary controversy.
Monsieur Rouelle detects promise of a great story where I see none. The
point is not uninteresting." Whereupon he launched into a description
of the street, and did justice to the pansies, though Jacques did not
look as if he thought so.
"C'est très bien, ça," said Martime, with weighty nods. "It is very
fine, that. Let me tell you that you have there a poem." In no more
authoritative a tone could the Academy have spoken.
"Ah!" cried Jacques. "You feel it, monsieur? There, in that vile spot,
the fairness and fragrance of those pansies----"
"Not 'fragrance,'" said Henri; "pansies have no smell."
"----struck a note sensationally virginal," continued Jacques, with
defiance.
"Oui, oui," concurred Martime. I suppose it was no trouble to him to
do these things, but the ideality he threw into his eyes was worth
money to see. We all regarded him intently, and I think he liked the
situation. Even more ideality flooded his gaze, and he propped a temple
with two fingers. "I am not of your opinion, mon cher," he told Henri
profoundly. "I find it admirable."
"The three questions that besiege one, monsieur," burst forth
Jacques--and I shuddered--"are, who, biding amid decay, has the
imperishable sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? Of what does it
speak to her? How comes it that she is there?"
And now it was that the famous man was tempted to a fall.
"Tout à fait admirable," he repeated. "But"--he displayed a cautionary
palm--"above all, no melodrama! The keynote is simplicity. Simplicity
and tenderness. For example, in the squalid room sits a young girl,
refined though poor--a sempstress. She dreams always of the sylvan
vales that she has left, and the lover who is seeking for her. And--it
would be very charming--one day the lover passes the window while she
waters the pansies."
"Oh, my dear Numa, bosh!" exclaimed Henri genially.
No sooner had he said it than he recognised his error, I am sure.
Martime's eyes flashed poniards, and his face turned turnip colour with
offence. Perceiving his indignation, Jacques began to stammer hasty
insincerities, and Henri also did his utmost to palliate the affront,
but I could not persuade myself that their efforts were successful. For
a minute or two Martime remained stiff and monosyllabic, and then, with
a few formal words, got up and went.
"I fear he was annoyed," murmured Jacques.
"You 'fear'!" said Henri irascibly. I was dismayed to hear resentment
in his tone.
Though Martime had gone the constraint continued; and it was not long
before we rose.
As Henri and I walked on, after Jacques had parted from us, I said:
"Very stupid of Martime. You spoke in quite a friendly way."
"And still more stupid of Jacques to talk about the story to him,"
he flung back, at white heat. "What possible interest could Jacques'
difficulties have for Martime? Childish!"
"But--pardon me, it was you who first mentioned the matter," I said.
"Ah, don't split straws," he growled. Clearly, the incident disturbed
him more than a little.
It was probably a week or ten days afterwards that Jacques came to me
in great perturbation and volleyed, "What do you think? Henri has got
his knife into me! It appears that Martime has returned the play, and
Henri says it is my fault."
"Oh, nonsense!" I said. "How can he say that? Returned the play? I am
dreadfully sorry."
"I too. But what have _I_ got to do with it? Did you ever hear anything
more preposterous? To begin with, it is not likely that Martime would
refuse the piece solely on account of what was said that day; and,
even if he did so, it was not I who said it. It wasn't till yesterday
I knew there was anything wrong. Blanche met Elise. Elise's manner was
rather strange, and Blanche wondered. But she had no idea there was any
ill-feeling. Naturally! She inquired if Henri had heard from Martime
yet. Then it came out."
"That Henri held you responsible?"
"Blanche was condoling. She said, 'What a cruel disappointment for
you both, dear!' And Elise said coldly, 'Yes, indeed; it is very
unfortunate that Jacques discussed his affairs in front of Martime.'
Blanche, poor girl, was thunder-struck. Of course, she explained to
Elise exactly what had happened. But Elise replied with something very
vague, and when I telephoned to Henri he was not himself with me at
all--he was very brusque. He said,' I have no wish to talk about the
matter.' There is not the least doubt that he is angry."
"I will have a chat with him," said I.
I went the following day. But he had gone to have a Turkish bath, and
Elise, who received me, begged me not to mention the play when I saw
him. "His finest work, that took him a year to do, practically wasted!"
she said, in a stunned fashion. "It is frightful. He is stricken. It
would be kinder of you not to say anything about it to him yet awhile.
I'll tell him that you came."
"But 'practically wasted'?" I demurred. "He will be able to place it
with some other management, will he not?"
"He may. But it is not the kind of play for every management. And,
anyhow, we shall not get Martime in the part. It will never now be the
immense success that it _would_ have been. What an idiot to reject a
great part because his vanity was wounded!"
"You are certain that is the explanation?"
"There is no question about it. The script was returned in the most
formal way--a line to say it was 'unsuitable.' Henri was prostrate.
Prostrate. My poor Henri! You may realise what a blow it was. I am
feeling very anxious about him. I have persuaded him to go away for a
few months--I am taking him to Biarritz. What a calamity his meeting
Jacques that afternoon!"
"Ah, but listen," I urged. "Jacques is terribly cut up that Henri
is bitter against him. And, between ourselves, it is a shade unjust.
It was not Jacques who affronted Martime, nor even Jacques who first
referred to the subject. It was Henri himself."
"Henri made a passing allusion," she protested; "Jacques made an
eternal discussion of it. He would never let it drop. Henri is never
unjust, he is fairness itself; I have never known anyone who was as
fair as Henri always is. Also, he is not 'bitter' against Jacques--we
are not so small-minded that we forget old friendships because of an
indiscretion. When we come back I shall, of course, go and see Jacques
and Blanche as usual. I have nothing against Blanche--it was not _her_
fault that Jacques was so tactless."
Oh, well. Useless to try to convince people of what they don't want
to believe! I told Jacques that she and Henri were going away, and
predicted that he would find the unpleasantness over when they
returned. And, as a matter of fact, I did not attach deep importance to
it until a certain morning. The sight of a prospectus led me to inquire
of Jacques if the shares he had been counting on were allotted to him.
He answered passionately, "No."
At that I was startled. I asked if he had made an application for them.
"I did not see anything about it soon enough!" he raged. "Henri had
told me to leave it all to him. And not a word have I had from him.
Even if I _had_ applied, I should not have got them. What malice!
Blanche is broken-hearted. I will never forgive him for her grief.
It is not as if I had been seeking a gift at his hands--he could
have made money for us without its costing him more than a postage
stamp. An opportunity to do such a service for a friend comes to a
man once in a lifetime. No; his spite against me for nothing is so
intense that deliberately he turns his back on the chance! It is
disgusting. We could not believe, we could not think it possible he
had been such a swine, after all his promises. So I got his address
from the bonne and telegraphed to him. You should see his answer--the
letter of a stranger: 'On consideration, he had not cared to take the
responsibility of recommending an investment to me.' Liar! Blanche
cried the whole night through. I will never speak another word to him
as long as I live. And I do not want to see Elise either. Blanche's own
cousin, to show such animosity! What a despicable pair!"
"Words will not express my regret," I said. "And I am amazed at Henri's
attitude. But you cannot be sure that Elise knows anything about it."
"Why should she not know?" he scoffed.
"I do not suppose that Henri can feel very proud of himself--he may not
have confided in her. Besides, Elise said she meant to go on seeing
you, the same as ever. That being so, she would hardly? encourage him
to break his word to you in the meanwhile. I think you are being unfair
to Elise."
"Henri has been more unfair to my poor Blanche," he bellowed. "I do
not hear so much of your sympathy for _her_."
It was an infamous reply to make, but he was in the mood to quarrel
with anyone that was handy, and I had the magnanimity to let it pass.
I was sympathising sincerely with Blanche, and I sympathised even more
when I saw her. She spoke with less vehemence than Jacques, but it was
evident he had not exaggerated her dejection. "It seems incredible,"
she said. "It shows that you never really know anyone; nothing could
have persuaded me that Henri had it in him to behave so badly. If you
had heard him talking to us about the shares--what a benefit they would
be to us! And now, to avenge himself for an imaginary wrong----" She
gave a gulp. "You don't think Elise knows? Ah, yes; he and she are one
in everything, I assure you! What it would have meant to us, to get
dividends! However small the sums might have been, what a godsend to
poor Jacques, driving his pen all day! He is working harder than ever
to make up for lost time--he has had to put the thought of the pot of
pansies aside for the present--and I could cry as I watch him. By the
way, you were going to try to find a plot for that. Did you?"
"Nothing occurred to me," I said.
I could say nothing to cheer her, either then, or later, though I often
looked in at the flat and did my best. And, to inflame the indignation,
the shares rose. They rose, and went on rising. And Jacques, who had
hitherto never so much as glanced at closing prices, developed a
morbid interest in following their advance. I shall not forget the day,
about three months after the issue, when I learnt that they were quoted
at forty francs, and that, if Henri had kept his word, my host and
hostess would have doubled their capital. I shall not forget it for two
reasons. 1. The lamentations they gave way to were exceedingly trying
to me. 2. On that very afternoon Elise walked in.
I had not known that she was back, else I should have prepared her for
the situation. Blanche, ignoring the proffered embrace, tendered the
tips of her fingers, and Jacques bowed, as to a woman he had never seen
before. Elise turned very pale. Her scared eyes sought mine, and I
tried by the warmth of my greeting to mitigate the moment for her.
"What is the matter?" she faltered of us all.
"It is only surprise at your visit," said Blanche sarcastically.
Impossible to avert it. The storm broke.
Just as I surmised, Elise had been unaware of Henri's misdeed. But
though her consternation was only too apparent, Jacques and Blanche
were in no mood to let it influence them. The tirade against Henri to
which Jacques condemned her was bad to bear. She quivered under it.
She could do nothing but stammer painfully, "I forbid you to insult my
husband; I forbid you to insult my husband!" Blanche knew how to stab,
too, in her pathetic voice.
"Ah, it is useless to talk, Elise," she sobbed. "As a rich woman, you
do not understand what three thousand francs would have done for us!
Three thousand francs! We have been scraping for eight years to put
by as much as that, and if Henri had been fair to us we should have
doubled our means already. Three thousand francs! To Jacques, who in
all his life has never had a son that wasn't wrung out of his poor
tired head! It is the wickedness towards _him_ that I resent--towards
him, and our child. And what is the cause? That Henri is unmanly
enough to hate another for his own mistake. Ah, it is too petty and
contemptible of him for words!"
"But remember it is not Elise's fault," I begged. I saw that she
could endure no more. "Say these things to Henri, both of you, if you
must--not to her!"
"Blanche is in no need of your corrections," shouted Jacques
hysterically. "Attend to your own affairs. My wife talks to her cousin
as she thinks fit. It is always Elise you champion. If you feel so
deeply for our enemies, I wonder that you come here."
I could scarcely credit my ears. But I said very quietly, with dignity,
"Indeed? I shall not put you to the trouble of wondering twice."
And, as Blanche remained silent--for which she was very culpable,
for I looked towards her as I moved--I offered my arm to Elise, who
was so much deranged that she could hardly get down the interminable
staircase, and took her home in a cab.
As will be readily understood, I had no ambition to assist at her
next conversation with Henri, and I did not intend to enter the house.
Unluckily, when the cab stopped, he was on the veranda, and he came to
the gate.
"_Comment_? What is it?" he demanded, seeing her agitation.
"She is rather upset," I said. "I won't come in."
"Yes, yes, come in! Tell him what has happened," gasped Elise
peremptorily. Whereby she, in her turn, committed a grave fault, for
she made me witness matrimonial dissension of which I need otherwise
have had no knowledge.
"She has been to see Jacques and Blanche," I said; following them into
the salon.
"Ah?" said Henri, with reserve.
"Yes, I have been to see Jacques and Blanche," she panted, "and a nice
time I have had there!"
He decided on hauteur. "I am quite at a loss. If one of you will
explain?"
As she looked at me, I said: "They told her you had not done as they
expected about the shares. I rather gathered that there was some
tendency towards feeling hurt."
"Hurt? On reflection, I saw that I had not the right to advise Jacques
to speculate. What of it?"
"They do not view it as a speculation," I said.
"They! Much they know of business!"
"Did you take shares yourself?" queried Elise.
"The cases are not parallel," he contended, his voice rising excitedly.
"Jacques is a poor man; I did not feel justified in letting him risk
money."
"Oh, Henri," she wailed, "you know very well that was not the reason.
It was not loyal of you; it was very, very wrong. Already it would have
been a little fortune for them. No wonder they are aggrieved. I cannot
be surprised--much as I have suffered this afternoon, I cannot be
surprised at what I have had to hear."
"What you have had to hear? You have heard that I did not choose to
assume the responsibility of conducting another man's affairs. And
then? Ah, je m'en fiche! I am fed up with Jacques."
"I have had to hear you broke a promise because you were mean-spirited
enough to blame him for your own _gaffe_ to Martime," she cried. "Of my
husband I have had to hear that! No, I cannot be surprised at what they
said. They said it was petty and contemptible of you--_and so it was!_"
For an instant it was as if she had hurled a thunderbolt. Henri stood
inarticulate, his eyes bulging from his head. Then, bringing his fist
on to the table with a blow that made every ornament in the room jump,
he roared:
"You dare to say it? To me, your husband, you dare to say such a
thing? You shall ask pardon at once, in the presence of the friend who
has heard the insult!" And, as it was obvious she would do nothing
of the kind, he went on, without loss of time, "No! I forbid you to
apologise--it is vain. There are insults that apologies cannot abate. A
husband who is 'contemptible' to his wife is best apart from her--I can
find comprehension elsewhere."
I was having a pleasant day--what with one ménage and the other, I was
having a pleasant day. There ensued a quarrel the more harrowing from
the fact that the recriminations poured from a pair whom I knew to be,
at heart, lovers. And as often as I endeavoured to steal out, either
Henri or Elise would pounce upon me to confirm some point that did not
matter. When I got away at last my need of stimulant was insupportable.
I had, naturally, expected to receive a penitent missive from Jacques
that night, and when there was a knocking at my door I did not doubt
that he had come to beg forgiveness in person. But it was Henri who
flung in, and dropped into a chair.
"Enfin, I go back no more," he groaned.
He took my breath away.
"You are mad," I stuttered. "What? You part from a wife you adore, and
who adores you, because of a hasty word? Are you a boy, to behave so
wildly? _C'est inoui!_"
"There are words, and words!" His face twitched and crumpled. "It is
because I am not a boy that I see clearly we could never again be happy
together. The madness would be to try! To sit, every day, opposite a
woman who is thinking me contemptible? Merci! I could not endure it.
Every meal, every moment would become a hell."
"Ah, if she were thinking it, really! But she spoke impetuously--she
had had much to try her. She had only just left Jacques and----"
"Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what I owe to that man!" he vociferated.
"What everlasting afflictions, his telling me of his accursed pansies!
First, it annihilated my prospects, and now it rends me from my wife
and children. I shall stipulate that they live with me for half the
year; but what of the other half, while they are being taught that the
father who loves them so dearly is a contemptible man, disgusting to
their mother?" He rocked to and fro. "Also, how am I to make a home
for them when they come? I leave the villa to Elise; I cannot afford
two establishments--above all, now that I have lost the production by
Martime, and may never see a son from work that has occupied me for a
year. Malediction on that pot of pansies!"
"Now listen!" He had been to the last degree unreasonable, but he was
suffering, and I have a good heart. "I guarantee that this separation
will not last a week. I shall have a talk with Elise."
"With Elise? It is I who make the separation," he objected, with a
piteous attempt at dignity. "And further, I have no hostility against
you, but it is partly through your own talks with Elise that she is
lost to me. Ah, yes!" I had stared at him, stupefied. "I understand
that you said to her, at the time, that I was guilty of 'injustice'
towards Jacques. I do not say you traduced me with any vicious motive,
but, unquestionably, your irresponsible chatter paved the way to the
catastrophe that wrecks my life."
My turpitude notwithstanding, he wept in my room till 3 a.m., keeping
me up. And he, and Elise, too, proved very distressing to me during the
days that followed. She was equally headstrong. I was surprised at her.
"You mean well, but pray say no more; it is inevitable," she answered
me tremulously. "As for that stupid affair of Jacques and Blanche,
I daresay I may have misjudged Henri. They don't understand. As a
business man, no doubt he did what was really best in their own
interests." I perceived that her commiseration for them had much
decreased since it involved her in domestic strife. "But his conduct
towards _me_--! I have done with him. I am not a fool, to imagine
an honourable man would desert his wife for a reason like that. A
performance. He did not even forget his razor strop. Let him go to her!
He was not an angel--no writing man is--but I thought he loved me, and
I never complained. Because I admired him, because he was the one man
in the world to me. Behind the curtain it hung, not even in sight, and
he did not forget it when he packed! Brute! You heard him say he could
'find comprehension elsewhere.' She will not keep his linen in such
order as _I_ have done, that I'll swear. To pretend it was just because
I believed what Jacques and Blanche had said! I believe nothing that
they say. I detest them. Oh, they have made a pretty mess of my life,
those two!"
She was illogical, but I was much displeased with Jacques and Blanche
myself. The previous day I had seen them in the street. It is true
that they cast ingratiating glances, but in the circumstances they
should have done a good deal more. And I, very properly, looked away.
Yes, for fully three weeks the estrangement of Henri and Elise made
demands on my time. And since each of them viewed the other as the
aggressor, their criticisms of each other were not unduly diffident.
Nevertheless I continued to do all in my power for them. I implored
Henri to return, and I besought Elise to write to him, though it was no
recreation to me to keep pressing counsel upon people who told me they
did not want to hear it. When there were two consecutive days without
Henri despairing in my chair, the lull was welcome.
I cannot depict my joyful surprise, the next evening, on seeing them
issue radiantly from the Restaurant Noel Peters, arm in arm. I had had
no news of the reconciliation. I rushed to them and clasped their hands.
"Hurrah!" I exclaimed. "Thank goodness! How delighted I am the trouble
is over!"
Their greeting appeared to me a shade constrained.
"Oh, that didn't amount to much," Henri mumbled, brushing my reference
aside.
"No one supposed it did," laughed Elise lightly. And as I found myself
at a loss what to say next, there was a pause.
"We are going to a theatre," said Henri; "we are rather late." After a
glance at his wife, he added, in flat tones, "You will dine with us
one night, hein?"
"Ah, yes," said Elise perfunctorily. "Of course."
When I went, we did not allude to what had happened. Nor was the
conversation on general topics as animated as when I had dined there
hitherto. For the first time at their table I was depressed.
And it was the last invitation from them I received. Probably I was
embarrassing to them, by reason of their having railed against each
other to me while they thought they would never make it up. Also,
though Henri could forgive his admiring wife for once calling him petty
and contemptible, one may be sure it was bitter to him to remember
I had been present when she humiliated him. That both he and Elise
resented my sharing the secret of their separation was as clear as
daylight. For some months afterwards, if I chanced to meet them,
they would stop and exchange a few words with me, but by and by they
contented themselves with smiling; and, finally, they preferred to
pass without perceiving that I was there. When that play of Henri's
was produced, two or three years later, he had become so alien to me
that I should never have dreamed of going to see it, if I had not got
in for nothing. The leading man was not capable of the part, and the
run was short--by which Henri's enmity against Jacques was doubtless
intensified.
The two couples that used to be so intimate remain at daggers drawn.
And both couples are strangers to _me_. I do not think there is
anything to add, excepting that the story of the pot of pansies has not
been accomplished to this day. The tragic history that I have related
is the story of the story that was never found.