In the Quarter, Clifford’s attitude became unbearable. Rumours were
afloat that he had outgrown the Quarter and its simple lurid pleasures;
that he had put away childish things; that he consorted exclusively with
the ostentatious great. When garden parties were given at the English
Embassy, Clifford’s name figured among the guests,—and the Quarter read
it in the Figaro and chafed.
Elliott, incredulous at first, observed the absence of Clifford from all
Quarter rites with astonishment and grief. The studio grew lonelier and
lonelier. Elliott drank cocktails and brooded.
“See here,” he blurted out, one day, “how long are you going to keep this
up?”
“What?” replied Clifford, placing violets in his buttonhole.
“This confounded pose of yours—this tolerating the Quarter—this Embassy
nonsense!”
“I prefer it to Bullier,” said Clifford—“or,” he added maliciously, “to
the ‘Bal à l’Hôtel-de-Ville.’”
Then he put on his gloves, humming:
“Des chapeaux melon et des chapeaux rond!
Dame! c’est pas d’la petite bière!—eu!
Tous ces gueux là
Ils ont pigé ça
A la Belle Jardinière!—eu!”
Elliott arose in fury.
“Very well,” he said, “go and eat thin bread-and-butter and talk to fat
princesses!—go and learn baccarat from that yellow mummy Fantozzi!—go and
play imbecile croquet games with his Excellency and marry his daughter
and live in the Parc Monçeaux. But you’ll regret it! oh yes, you’ll be
sorry. And you’ll think of the Luxembourg and of Jacquette and the old
studio, and you’ll hear a nursery full of babies squawling and you’ll see
Fantozzi leering at your wife and—”
Clifford looked around with gently raised eyebrows.
“I won’t be back to dinner,” he said amiably.
“Where are you going—dressed like that!” burst out Elliott with new
violence.
“Going to shoot pigeons in the Bois.”
They stood for a while in silence. Presently Elliott arose, went over to
his manikin, and began to dress it; the manikin at present was doing duty
as a French fireman for Elliott’s great picture, “Saved!”
He mechanically placed the brass pot-helmet on the manikin’s
papier-maché head, twisted the neck viciously, straightened out a sawdust
stuffed arm, placed a rope in the hand, and closed the jointed fingers.
Then he hauled out his easel, opened his colour box, and clattered the
brushes.
Clifford watched him.
Elliott set his palette rainbow fashion, touched the canvas with the tip
of his third finger, rolled a badger brush in rose-dorée, and began to
glaze.
“Don’t glaze yet,” said Clifford.
“Why?” snapped Elliott without turning.
“Because you make the flames too pink.”
“What do you know about flames or pictures or glazing?” said Elliott
bitterly. “Go and shoot pigeons and get married.”
Clifford went out haughtily; yet there was an unaccustomed pang in
his breast. He suddenly realised how utterly out of it he was; he
began to comprehend that he was afloat on the Rubicon in a very leaky
boat. There was nothing to warrant his hopes of Amyce except a superb
self-confidence. He saw he was alienating the Quarter;—he noticed it
now, as he walked, when Selby passed with a constrained smile, when
Lambert bowed to him with unaccustomed rigidity, when, as he crossed the
Luxembourg, Jacquette, passing with Marianne Dupoix, averted her pretty
eyes.
He knew that an announcement of his engagement would be followed by
excommunication from the Quarter. He had intended, in the event of
betrothal, to confine his Quarter visits to Elliott and Selby and
Rowden, but the prospect of involuntary exclusion had small attraction
for him. He thought of Jacquette; the odour of violets from a street
flower-stand recalled her.
He was in a bad humour when he reached the Tir aux Pigeons. Before he
entered he saw Captain Stanley laughing on the lawn with Amyce. That, and
the apparition of Fantozzi, completed his irritation and his score at the
traps was ridiculous.
“You play croquet better,” observed his Excellency, at his elbow.
That was the last straw, and Clifford forced a smile and went across the
lawn.
“What was your score?” asked Amyce, looking up at him from the shade of
her white parasol.
He was compelled to confess it.
Fantozzi, interrupted in the recountal of recent personal experience with
an electric tram-car, raised his eyebrows superciliously.
“Pooh,” said Captain Stanley, “everybody gets out of form at times.”
Clifford looked gratefully at his generous rival; Amyce also raised her
eyes to the well-knit military figure. Generosity is sometimes its own
reward—sometimes it even receives perquisites.
Fantozzi continued his dramatic recital of the discourteous tram-car.
“I would come in a tram electrique—Mademoiselle—behold me on the corner
street!—the tram approach!—I nod my head!—he do not hear me—”
“Couldn’t hear you nod your head?” inquired Stanley sympathetically.
“Wonder his brains didn’t rattle,” muttered Clifford to himself.
“I nod! I nod!” repeated Fantozzi with mercurial passion; “I permit
myself to make observation to stop! Cease! arrest ze tram! He regard me
insolent! the tram vanishes itself! I am left on the corner street! The
miserable laugh!”
“Are you sure you called to the motor-man to stop?” asked Stanley gravely.
“Parbleu! I did say stop! I said it! I did hear myself say it!”
“Mr. Clifford,” said Amyce, “who is shooting?” She raised her lorgnettes:
“Oh, Count Routier! Do you know I am not pleased to see little birds
shot. Captain Stanley, it is your turn next. Have you no pity for those
poor pigeons?”
“Monsieur Clifford had,” said Count Fantozzi.
Amyce frowned a little; Fantozzi, prepared to laugh at his own wit,
winced at the silence.
“Well,” said Stanley, “I must go and perform. Shall I miss every bird—is
it your pleasure?” he added, looking at Amyce.
Amyce smiled, her face was an enigma.
“Do as you please, I wish you good fortune in any event,” she said.
Fantozzi pretended to shudder for the pigeon victims; Stanley walked
thoughtfully across the lawn; Clifford, on fire with mixed emotions of
jealousy and love, pretended to be absorbed in the shooting. He glanced
indifferently at the gaily-dressed groups on the green, recognised some
people and bowed, returned the salutes of other people who recognised
him, and finally sat down on a camp-stool near Amyce.
Others were joining the group; a lieutenant of hussars, in sky-blue and
silver, a brilliant-eyed diplomatic group from Brazil, one or two tall
Englishmen, scrubbed pink, and finally his Excellency the United States
Ambassador.
Clifford loathed them all; yet, Amyce was very kind to him. While Captain
Stanley stood shooting, she scarcely glanced at the traps, and when that
sober-faced young cavalryman sauntered back and confessed he had killed
every bird, she scarcely raised her eyebrows. Was it displeasure?
“It is but a sport brutal,” whispered Fantozzi close behind her.
“Like your bull-fights,” said Clifford, seriously. He and Stanley were
quits. It was war with Fantozzi.
The Spanish attaché with the Italian name glared blankly at Clifford who
returned his glance wickedly.
“Croquet is better sport,” bleated his Excellency, accepting a glass of
champagne and a thin slice of bread-and-butter.
Clifford’s turn came again at the traps; he missed right and left. He
heard Fantozzi laugh. When he came back Amyce had gone away with his
Excellency and Captain Stanley. However, Fantozzi was there and Clifford
succeeded in picking a quarrel with him and followed it with a smile and
the slightest touch on the Count’s shirt front.
Fantozzi turned a delicate green, then crimson. Then he went away to the
club-house and called for a cab, and drove to his Embassy at a speed that
interested pedestrians along the Champs Elysée.
Clifford withdrew a little later to the Café Anglais where he sullenly
brooded and dined too freely. About nine o’clock, he went to see Stanley;
at half-past ten a handsome young Spaniard called to pay his respects and
bring courteous greetings from Fantozzi.
Clifford left the Spaniard and Stanley deeply interested in each
other’s society, and took a cab to the United States Embassy, where,
as an artist, he was to oversee the decorative preparations for next
evening’s garden-party. His Excellency had requested it; Amyce appeared
pleasantly cordial; so Clifford went to direct the hanging of lanterns
and gaily-coloured scarfs, and, incidentally to propose marriage to his
Excellency’s only daughter.
His Excellency was smoking a cigar on the lawn as Clifford entered,
mentally thanking all the saints that it was too late to play croquet.
Servants moved through the shrubbery; a few lanterns threw an orange
light among the chestnut branches.
His Excellency was in good humour; he pattered about, as though driven by
improved mechanism; he chuckled at times that irritating chuckle incident
to victory at croquet.
“We’ll have electric lights next week,” he said; “ever play croquet by
moonlight?”
“There is no moon to-night,” said Clifford, triumphantly.
“I know it,” sighed his Excellency.
Presently the Ambassador exhibited a desire to interfere with Clifford’s
directions to the servants; he insisted on mounting a ladder and
fussing with a string of crimson lanterns. The first, second, and third
Secretaries of the Embassy were summoned to steady the ladder; Clifford
saw an opportunity and seized it.
Amyce, who had been standing on the porch, observed Clifford’s advance
with mixed sentiments.
“Are all the lanterns hung?” she asked.
“No,” said Clifford, “his Excellency has proposed modifications.”
“Man proposes—” began Amyce, gaily, then stopped.
The silence was startling.
Presently Amyce picked a rose from the vine at her elbow.
“Is it mine?” asked Clifford.
“Yours? I—I don’t know.”
She held it a moment, then he took it.
“And the giver?” he whispered.
“I—I don’t know,” said Amyce.
“Then,” said Clifford, “I shall take her—as I took the rose;” and he
moved toward her up the steps.
At that moment Fate, who had been listening as usual, somewhere among
the shadows, took a hand in the proceedings; there was a crunch of
footsteps on the gravel walk, the dim glimmer of a cigar, and Captain
Stanley entered the house, bowing pleasantly to Amyce and casting a look
at Clifford that meant, “Follow me.”
Before Clifford could move, Amyce passed him with a pale smile and
crossed the lawn toward the lantern-hangers.
His emotions were indescribable; he damned Stanley, then, buoyed with the
intoxicating thought that Amyce had not refused him, he went into the
house and found Stanley waiting in the smoking-room.
“Well,” said Clifford ungraciously.
Stanley appeared a trifle surprised but said: “I’m sorry you are in this
mess, old fellow. Fantozzi naturally wants a shot at you.”
An unpleasant sensation passed through Clifford; Fantozzi and his shot
were repulsive at the moment.
“When?” asked Clifford.
“To-morrow at sunrise. I’ve notified Bull.”
Clifford grew angry: “Then he can have his shot,” he said savagely,
and sat down for a conference, interrupted about eleven o’clock by his
Excellency.
The Ambassador was in no mood for bed. Perhaps something in the lighted
lanterns had roused the long smouldering spark of revelry, dormant
in every masculine bosom. Being an Anglo-Saxon he knew of no lighter
gaiety than heavy drinking. He began to tell stories—quite pointless
tales—and he would not let Clifford go, and he spoke vaguely of wonderful
brands of whisky past and whisky to come. He sat there, his limpid
hazel eyes meeker than any lambkin’s, a carefully dressed lay-figure,
irresponsible to God and man, and for whom nobody was responsible except
his Constructor.
About midnight he became entirely automatic; his eyes seemed to plead for
somebody to wind him up and set him going again.
“When he gets this way he has a tendency to wander,” whispered Stanley;
“I usually lock him in his room; if I didn’t he’d be all over town—like
an escaped toy.”
Clifford went out on the porch; Stanley followed.
“At sunrise,” said Clifford soberly. “Will you call for me in a carriage?”
“At sunrise,” replied Stanley offering his hand.
Then Clifford went away, and Stanley, lingering to watch him to the gate,
walked slowly back to the smoking-room.
To his horror his Excellency had disappeared. The west porch door swung
wide open.
“He’ll be all over Paris!” groaned Stanley smiting his head with both
hands.