'Mercy, after all your trouble! Because they weren't pleased, sir?'
'Yes; they weren't pleased.'
'Well, they must be very grand! Blessed if I would!'
'Have it chopped up; it will do to light fires,' Lyon said.
He returned to the country by the 3.30 and a few days later passed over
to France. During the two months that he was absent from England he
expected something--he could hardly have said what; a manifestation of
some sort on the Colonel's part. Wouldn't he write, wouldn't he explain,
wouldn't he take for granted Lyon had discovered the way he had, as the
cook said, served him and deem it only decent to take pity in some
fashion or other on his mystification? Would he plead guilty or would he
repudiate suspicion? The latter course would be difficult and make a
considerable draft upon his genius, in view of the certain testimony of
Lyon's housekeeper, who had admitted the visitors and would establish
the connection between their presence and the violence wrought. Would
the Colonel proffer some apology or some amends, or would any word from
him be only a further expression of that destructive petulance which our
friend had seen his wife so suddenly and so potently communicate to him?
He would have either to declare that he had not touched the picture or
to admit that he had, and in either case he would have to tell a fine
story. Lyon was impatient for the story and, as no letter came,
disappointed that it was not produced. His impatience however was much
greater in respect to Mrs. Capadose's version, if version there was to
be; for certainly that would be the real test, would show how far she
would go for her husband, on the one side, or for him, Oliver Lyon, on
the other. He could scarcely wait to see what line she would take;
whether she would simply adopt the Colonel's, whatever it might be. He
wanted to draw her out without waiting, to get an idea in advance. He
wrote to her, to this end, from Venice, in the tone of their
established friendship, asking for news, narrating his wanderings,
hoping they should soon meet in town and not saying a word about the
picture. Day followed day, after the time, and he received no answer;
upon which he reflected that she couldn't trust herself to write--was
still too much under the influence of the emotion produced by his
'betrayal.' Her husband had espoused that emotion and she had espoused
the action he had taken in consequence of it, and it was a complete
rupture and everything was at an end. Lyon considered this prospect
rather ruefully, at the same time that he thought it deplorable that
such charming people should have put themselves so grossly in the wrong.
He was at last cheered, though little further enlightened, by the
arrival of a letter, brief but breathing good-humour and hinting neither
at a grievance nor at a bad conscience. The most interesting part of it
to Lyon was the postscript, which consisted of these words: 'I have a
confession to make to you. We were in town for a couple of days, the 1st
of September, and I took the occasion to defy your authority--it was
very bad of me but I couldn't help it. I made Clement take me to your
studio--I wanted so dreadfully to see what you had done with him, your
wishes to the contrary notwithstanding. We made your servants let us in
and I took a good look at the picture. It is really wonderful!'
'Wonderful' was non-committal, but at least with this letter there was
no rupture.
The third day after Lyon's return to London was a Sunday, so that he
could go and ask Mrs. Capadose for luncheon. She had given him in the
spring a general invitation to do so and he had availed himself of it
several times. These had been the occasions (before he sat to him) when
he saw the Colonel most familiarly. Directly after the meal his host
disappeared (he went out, as he said, to call on _his_ women) and the
second half-hour was the best, even when there were other people. Now,
in the first days of December, Lyon had the luck to find the pair alone,
without even Amy, who appeared but little in public. They were in the
drawing-room, waiting for the repast to be announced, and as soon as he
came in the Colonel broke out, 'My dear fellow, I'm delighted to see
you! I'm so keen to begin again.'
'Oh, do go on, it's so beautiful,' Mrs. Capadose said, as she gave him
her hand.
Lyon looked from one to the other; he didn't know what he had expected,
but he had not expected this. 'Ah, then, you think I've got something?'
'You've got everything,' said Mrs. Capadose, smiling from her
golden-brown eyes.
'She wrote you of our little crime?' her husband asked. 'She dragged me
there--I had to go.' Lyon wondered for a moment whether he meant by
their little crime the assault on the canvas; but the Colonel's next
words didn't confirm this interpretation. 'You know I like to sit--it
gives such a chance to my _bavardise_. And just now I have time.'
'You must remember I had almost finished,' Lyon remarked.
'So you had. More's the pity. I should like you to begin again.'
'My dear fellow, I shall have to begin again!' said Oliver Lyon with a
laugh, looking at Mrs. Capadose. She did not meet his eyes--she had got
up to ring for luncheon. 'The picture has been smashed,' Lyon
continued.
'Smashed? Ah, what did you do that for?' Mrs. Capadose asked, standing
there before him in all her clear, rich beauty. Now that she looked at
him she was impenetrable.
'I didn't--I found it so--with a dozen holes punched in it!'
'I say!' cried the Colonel.