The Duke told his chauffeur outside Miss Lamb’s hotel that he would not
need him again that evening, he would walk. But he had not walked above
a dozen yards across the Place Vendôme, regardless of his direction,
regardless of the traffic, when the breathless voice of his valet
detained him. Stormily the Duke swung about.
“This telegram,” the valet panted, “came the minute after you had left
this afternoon. I feared, your Grace, it might be important, and took
the liberty to follow you.”
The Duke’s face paled as he read. The telegram was from the hall-porter
of his club in St. James’s Street. The valet, an old servant, was
concerned at his master’s pale looks: but he was even more concerned at
the sudden smile that twisted them.
“I hope I did right, your Grace.”
“Quite right, Martin.” And suddenly the young Duke smiled a happy smile.
“You have brought me this wire at just the right moment. I can’t,
Martin, thank you enough. Meanwhile, old friend, go back and pack.
Everything. We are for Mall to-night. Paris is no place for an
Englishman to die in. For pity’s sake, Martin, don’t look so _gaga_--but
go!”
Miss Lamb’s maid did not attempt to conceal her surprise at the Duke’s
quick reappearance at the door of the suite. But the young man’s face
was so strangely set that she had not the heart to deny him sight of her
mistress.
“I’ll be,” she sighed, “dismissed!”
The Duke smiled, and maybe he never was so handsome nor so gay as at
that moment.
The maid said: “My mistress still sleeps. It is when she is happy that
she sleeps.”
“Happy? Does it make a woman happy, then, to see a man destroyed by
love?”
“It is more comfortable, your Grace, to be loved than to love. But I
know nothing of my mistress’s heart. I came to her service only the
other day. Yes, she is asleep. And the room is dark.”
The Duke said: “Good! This is indeed my lucky day.”
“I leave you, your Grace. And if I am dismissed?”
“I count you as my friend. I do not forget my friends. Leave me now.”
But a few minutes before he had left that room in a storm of rage. Now,
a great peace was on him. He let the minutes pass by, standing there in
the soft darkness, a man condemned to death. His life behind him lay
like a soiled wilderness through which smirked and pirouetted an unclean
travesty of himself. The gates of death looked to him clean and
beautiful. He did not wish his life had been otherwise: he regretted not
a minute of waste, not one inconstancy, not one folly: he regretted not
a strand that had gone to the making of the mad silly tapestry of his
life, he was glad that all had been as it had been so that he could now
be as he was, a man who understood himself and could die with a heart
cleansed of folly and sacred to love.
To the windows of the quiet dark room rose the chatter of the lounging
traffic of the Place Vendôme. The Duke listened, and smiled. Brown eyes
and scarlet lips, blue eyes and scarlet lips, black hair and golden hair
and tawny hair, lazy smile and merry smile and greedy smile and bored
smile, little breathless laughs, little meaningless laughs and sharp
cries of pleasure, dresses of Chanel, Patou, Vionnet, Molyneux--round
and round the Place Vendôme they went, like automata on a bejewelled
merry-go-round. And the Duke saw himself sitting in motor-cars first
beside one and then beside another, talking, talking, whispering,
sighing, yawning....
As the minutes passed his sight began to distinguish the objects in the
room. On a table some roses were fainting in a bowl. He made obeisance
and kissed a rose, for kissing a rose will clean a man’s lips. Then he
knelt beside the still figure on the couch and he kissed her mouth.
“Oh!” she cried, and she cried: “You thief!”
He said: “Your voice is so cold that ice would seem like fire beside it.
But I don’t care.” And again he kissed her mouth. Then he said: “Your
lips are burning. That is very odd. Your voice is very cold, but your
lips are burning. Now why is that?”
“For shame,” she whispered. “They are burning for shame that you are so
little of a man.”
He laughed, his lips by her ear. “Beloved, do you think I would die
without kissing your lips? Honestly, beloved, could you expect it?”
In the darkness he could just see the pale mask of her face and the
shining, savage pools of her eyes, and he kissed first one and then the
other. She was very still.
“Die?” she whispered.
He would have laughed again, but he fancied that maybe too much laughter
would not become his situation, would appear like bravado. But he would
have liked to show her he was happy, and why he was happy. A vain man,
he had realised that he was contemptible: therefore it was good to die.
Loving as he had never loved before, he was unloved: therefore it was
good to die.
He told her how he had been warned that the cock on St. James’s tower
had crowed thrice that dawn. And then he was amazed, for as he made to
rise he could not. He cried out his wonder.
She said: “Be still!”
He cried out his despair.
She whispered: “Be still!”
Her arm was tight about his shoulder, and that was why his happiness had
left him like a startled bird. He sobbed: “Child, for pity’s sake! It’s
too late now. Let me die in peace. To have died without your love was
blessedly easy. A moment ago I was happy.”
“Die! You!” And, as she mocked him thus, the cold irony of the English
tongue tore aside the veil of the American accent, and when the Duke
stared into her eyes he had leapt up and run away for shame but that her
arm was still tight about his shoulder.
“You, Leonora, you! And so you have revenged yourself!”
She whispered: “Be still!”
And as he made to tear himself away, she said: “Yes, I wanted to be
revenged. I wanted you to fall in love with me. I wanted you to look a
fool.”
“Then you must be very content, Leonora! Let me go now.”
“Let you go?” she cried. “Let you _go_! But are you mad!”
“Oh, God,” he said pitifully, “what is this new mockery!”
“You see,” she sighed, “I’ve gone and fallen in love with you again!
That rather takes the edge off my joke, doesn’t it? Oh, dear!
Maximilian, I have waited to love you as I love you now ever since I
married you four years ago. But you never would let me. Be honest,
sweet--would you ever let me love you? You were always the world’s
spoilt darling, the brilliant and dashing and wealthy Duke of Mall--and
I your American wife! Darling, what a lot of trouble you give those who
love you! I have had to go through all the bother of divorcing you to
make you love me, and now I suppose I must go through all the bother of
marrying you again because you’ve made me love you----”
“Oh, but listen!” he made to protest.
“I certainly won’t!” she cried. “I must say, though, that you’ve made
love to me divinely these last few months, and the real Ava would have
fallen for you, I’m sure, if she hadn’t been in California all this
while. I dyed my hair a little, but the only real difference between me
and your wife was that I listened to you while you talked about
yourself. Darling,” said she, “kiss me, else how shall I know that we
are engaged to be married?”
He said desperately: “Leonora, what are you saying! Do you forget that I
am to die?”
“Not you, not you! You may be divorced for the time being, poor
Maximilian, but you’re not nearly dead yet. I sent that wire myself this
morning from Victoria Station--to mark the fact that the Duke of Mall is
dead! Long live the Duke of Mall!”
“Leonora, I can’t bear this happiness!”
“But you must learn to put up with it, sweet!”
“Leonora, how divine it is to be in love! I love you, Leonora!”
“My, how this British guy mocks a poor American girl!”
“But, Leonora, I adore you!”
“Words, words, words! Whereas, sweet, a little action would not come
amiss. You might for instance, kiss me. Max, how I’ve longed to be
kissed by you these last few months! Max darling, please kiss me at
once! I assure you it is quite usual between engaged couples.”
NOTE: _The legend of the Dukedom of Mall may not find a full measure of
credence owing to the fact_ (_only recently pointed out to the author_)
_that the weather-vane on the tower of St. James’s Palace is adorned,
not by a golden cock, but by a golden arrow. But have we not been warned
in letters of gold, that shall last so long as mankind lasts, not to put
our faith in the word of Princes? The author does in all humility
venture to suggest that the same must undoubtedly apply also to the word
of Dukes._