"There's not a crime
But takes its proper change out still in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world."
E. B. BROWNING.
There is in Paris, just out of the Rue du Bac, a certain old-fashioned
hotel, the name of which I forget, with a little _cour_ in the middle of
the rambling old building, and a thin fountain perennially plashing
therein, adorned by a few pigeons and feathers on the brink. It had been
a very fashionable hotel in the days when Madame Mohl held her _salon_
near at hand. But the old order changes. It was superseded now. Why
John often went there I don't know. He probably did not know himself,
unless it was for the sake of quiet. Anyhow, he and Archie arrived there
together that morning; for it is needless to say that, having determined
to get Archie at any cost out of London, John had carried his point, as
he had done on previous occasions, to the disgust of the sulky young
man, who had proved anything but a pleasant travelling companion, and
who, late in the afternoon, was still invisible behind the white
curtains in one of the two little bedrooms that opened out of the
sitting-room in which John was walking up and down.
He had put several questions to Archie respecting the state of his
father's health, and that gentleman had assured him he was all right,
quite able to look after himself; no need for him to remain with him.
"Of course not," said John, "or you would not have left him. But is he
able to attend to business?"
"Rather," said Archie, with the emphasis of ignorance.
As long as Archie was in the next room, out of harm's way, John did not
want his company. He knew that when he did appear he had to tell him
that for eight and twenty years he had lived on Colonel Tempest's
substance; and then he must post the letter lying ready written on the
table to Colonel Tempest, only needing the address.
After that life was a blank. Archie would rush home, of course. John did
not know where he should go, except that it would not be with Archie.
Back to Overleigh? No. And with a sudden choking sensation he realized
that he should not see Overleigh again. He wondered what Mitty was doing
at that moment, and whether the horse-chestnut against the nursery
window would ever burst to leaf. Here in Paris they were out. He had
noticed them as he returned from an interview with Lord ----. That
gentleman had been much pressed for time, but had nevertheless accorded
him a quarter of an hour. He was genuinely perturbed by the disclosure
the young man made to him, deplored the event as it affected John, but
after the first moment was obviously more concerned about the seat, and
the loss of the Tempest support, than the wreck of John's career. After
a decorous interval, Lord ---- had put a few questions to him about
Colonel Tempest, his age, political views, etc. John perceived with what
intentions those questions were put, and they made it the harder for him
to ask the great man to help him to a livelihood.
As John spoke, and the elder man's eye sought his watch, John
experienced for the first time the truth of the saying that the highest
price that can be paid for anything is to have to ask for it. If it had
not been for Mitty he could not have forced himself to do it.
"But my dear--er--Tempest," said Lord ----, "surely we need not
anticipate that--er--your uncle--er--that Colonel Tempest will fail to
make a suitable provision for one--who--who----"
"He may offer to do so," replied John; "but if he did, I should not take
it. He is not the kind of man from whom it is possible to accept money."
"Still, under the circumstances, the extraordinary combination of
circumstances, I should advise you to--my time is so circumscribed--I
should certainly advise you to--you see, Tempest, with every feeling of
regard for yourself and your father--ahem--Mr. Tempest before you, it is
difficult for a person situated as I am at the present moment, to offer
you, on the eve of the general election, any position at all adequate
to your undeniably great abilities."
"We shall not hear much more of my great abilities now that I am
penniless," said John, with bitterness. "If I can get any kind of
employment by which I can support myself and an old servant, I shall be
thankful."
Lord ---- promised to do his best. He felt obliged to add that he could
do but little, but he would do what he could. John might rest assured of
that. In the meantime---- He looked anxiously at the watch on the table.
John understood, and took his leave. Lord ---- pressed him warmly by the
hand, commended his conduct, once more deplored the turn events had
taken, which he should consider as strictly private until they had been
publicly announced, and assured him he would keep him in his mind, and
communicate with him immediately should any vacancy occur that, etc.,
etc.
John retraced his steps wearily to the hotel. The loss of his career had
stung him yesterday. How to keep Mitty in comfort seemed of far greater
importance to-day--how to provide a home for her with a little kitchen
in it. John wondered whether he and Mitty could live on a hundred a
year. He knew a good deal about the ways and means of the working
classes, but of how the poor of his own class lived he knew nothing.
But even the thought of Mitty could not hold him long. His mind ever
went back to Di with an agony of despair and rapture. During these
three interminable months during which he had not seen her, he had
pictured her to himself as taking life as usual, wondering perhaps
sometimes--yes, certainly wondering--why he did not come; but it had
never struck him that she would be unhappy. When he saw her he had
suddenly realized that the same emotions which had rent his soul had
left their imprint on her face. Could women really love like men? Could
Di actually, after her own fashion, feel towards him one tithe of the
love he felt for her? John recognized with an exaltation, which for the
moment transfigured as by fire the empty desolation of his heart, that
the change which had been wrought in Di was his own work. Her cheek had
grown pale for him, her eyes had wept for him, her very beauty had
become dimmed for his sake.
"I shall go mad," said John, starting to his feet. "Why is that damned
letter still unposted?"
Purpose was melting within him. The irrevocable step even now had not
been taken. Lord ---- and his own lawyer would say nothing if at the
eleventh hour he drew back. He must act finally this instant, or he
would never act at all.
He went into the next room, where Archie was languidly shaving himself
in a pink silk _peignoir_, and obtained from him Colonel Tempest's
address. He addressed the letter, and took his hat and stick.
"I will post it myself this instant," he said to himself.
He went quickly downstairs and across the little court, scattering the
pigeons. His face looked worn and ravaged in the vivid sunshine.
He passed under the archway into the street, and as he did so two
well-dressed men came out of a _cafe_ on the opposite side. Before he
had gone many steps one of them crossed the road, and raised his hat,
holding out a card.
"Mr. Tempest of Overleigh, I think," he said respectfully.
John stopped and looked at the man. He did not know him. The decisive
moment had come even before posting the letter.
"Now or never," whispered conscience.
"My name is Fane," he said, and passed on.
The man fell back at once and rejoined his companion.
"I told you so," he said. "That man is a deal too old, and he said his
name was Fane. It's the other one in the tow wig, as I said from the
first. That ain't real hair. It's the wig as alters him."
John posted his letter, saw it slide past recall, and then walked back
to the hotel, found Archie in the sitting-room reading the playbills for
the evening, and told him.
Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of our fellow-creatures than the
manner in which they bear unexpected reverses of fortune. Archie had
some of the callousness of feeling for others which accompanies lack of
imagination. He had never put himself in the place of others. He was not
likely to begin now. He had no intention of hurting John by setting his
iron heel on his face. He had no idea people minded being trodden on.
And, indeed, as John stood by the window with his hands clasped behind
his back, he was as indifferent as he appeared to be to anything that
Archie, pacing up and down the room with flashing eyes, could say. He
had at last closed the iron gates of the irrevocable behind himself, and
he was at first too much stunned by the clang even to hear what the
excited young man was talking about. Perhaps it was just as well.
"By Jove!" Archie was saying, as John's attention came slowly back. "To
think of the old governor at Overleigh, poor old chap! He has missed it
all his best years, but I hope he'll live to enjoy it yet. I do indeed."
Archie felt he could afford to be generous. "And Di, John, dear old Di,
shall come and queen it at Overleigh. And she shall have a suitable
fortune. I'll make father do the right thing by Di. He won't want to do
more than he can help, because she has never been much of a daughter to
him; but he shall. And when it's known, she'll marry off quick enough;
and I'll see it gets about. And don't you be down-hearted, John. We'll
do the right thing by you. You know you never cared for the money when
you had it. You were always a bit of a screw, to yourself as well as to
others--I will say that for you; but--let me see--you allowed me three
hundred a year. Don't you wish now it had been four? for you shall have
the same, if the old guv. agrees. And I dare say I shall be a bit freer
with a ten-pound note now and then than ever you were to me."
"There will be no necessity for this reckless generosity," said John,
wondering why he did not writhe, as a man might who watches a knife cut
into his benumbed limb. It gave him no pain.
"And you shall have a hunter," continued Archie. "By Jove, what hunting
_I_ shall have! I shall get the governor to add another wing to the
stables; and I will keep Quicksilver for you, John. You mustn't turn
rusty because the luck has come to us at last. You know I knew all along
I ought to have been the heir, and I put up with your being there, and
never raised a dust."
"I think I can promise I shall not raise a dust," said John,
dispassionately, watching the knife turn in his flesh.
"And--and," continued Archie--"why, I need not marry money now. I can
take my pick." New vistas seemed to open at every turn. His weak mouth
fell ajar. "My word, John, times are changed. And--my debts; I can pay
them off."
"And run up more," said John. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any
good."
"I don't call it much of an ill wind," said Archie, chuckling; "not much
of an ill wind."
In spite of himself, John laughed aloud at the _naivete_ of Archie's
remark. That it was an ill wind to John had not even crossed his mind.
It would cross Di's, John thought. She would do him justice. But, alas!
from the few who will do us justice we always want so much more,
something infinitely greater than justice--at least, John did.
The early _table d'hote_ dinner broke in on Archie's soliloquy, and,
much to John's relief, that favoured young gentleman discovered that a
lady of his acquaintance was dancing at one of the theatres that
evening, and he determined to go and see her. He could not persuade John
to accompany him, even though he offered, with the utmost generosity,
to introduce him to her.
"Well, if you won't, you won't," said Archie, seeing his persuasions did
nought avail, and much preferring to go by himself. "If you would rather
sit over the fire in the dumps, that's your affair, not mine. Ta-ta. I
expect you will have turned in before I'm back. By-the-by, can you lend
me five thick 'uns?"
John was on the point of refusing when he remembered that the actual
money he had with him was more Archie's than his.
"Thank'ee," said Archie. "You part easier than you used to do. I expect
it'll be the last time I shall borrow of you--eh, John? It will be the
other way about in future."
"Will it?" said John, as he put back his pocket-book.
Archie laughed and went out.
Oh! it is good to be young and handsome and admired. The dancers
pirouetted in the intense electric light, and the music played on every
chord of Archie's light pleasure-loving soul. And he clapped and
applauded with the rest, his pulse leaping high and higher. A sense of
triumph possessed him. His one thorn in the flesh was gone for ever. He
rode on the top of the wave. He had had all else before, and now the one
thing that was lacking to him had come. He was rich, rich, rich. There
was much goods laid up for many years of pleasure.
Archie touched the zenith.
* * * * *
It was very late, or rather it was very early, when he walked home
through the deserted streets. A great mental exaltation was still upon
him, but his body was exhausted, and the cool night air and the
silence, after the babel of tongues, and the shrieking choruses, and the
flaring lights of the last few hours, were pleasant to his aching eyes
and head.
The dawn stretched like a drawn sword behind the city. The Seine lay, a
long line of winding mist under its many bridges. The ruins of the
scorched Tuileries pushed up against the sky. Archie leant a moment on
the parapet, and looked down to the Seine below whispering in its
shroud. He took off his hat and pushed back the light curling hair from
his forehead, laughing softly to himself.
An invisible boat, with a red blur coming down-stream, was making a low
continuous warning sound.
A hand came suddenly over his shoulder, and was pressed upon his mouth,
and at the same instant something exceeding sharp and swift, pointed
with death, pierced his back, once and again. Archie saw his hat drop
over the parapet into the mist.
He tried to struggle, but in vain. He was choking.
"It is a dream," he said. "I shall wake. I have dreamt it before."
He looked wildly round him.
The steadfast dawn was witness from afar. There was the boat still
passing down-stream. There was the city before him, with its spires
piercing the mist. _Was_ it a dream?
The hot blood rushed up into his mouth. The drenched hand released its
pressure.
"I shall wake," he said, and he fell forward on his face.