Within the charmed circle to which he was introduced by Ponto,
Gavrolles was popular in the extreme. He possessed all the enthusiasm
of the aesthetics, combined with an impudence and a knowledge of the
world--especially of the gay world of Paris--which were exquisitely
charming. He knew all the wits and poets of the Empire, and his
acquaintance with _scabreux_ literature was profound; yet he had sat
at the feet of Victor Hugo, and was a Republican by profession. His own
verses had been praised by the impeccable Gautier. He could talk glibly
of Art for Art’s sake, of the heresy of instruction, of Villon and
Bohemia, and of the Renaissance. He wore his hair long, had a willowy
droop of the shoulders, and adored the _culte_ of the lily. He had
a shrill style, a shrill voice, a shrill disposition. Inspired young
ladies found him charming, feeble young gentlemen paid him the homage of
imitation.
On his return to London, Gavrolles took rooms in one of the bye-streets
near Portland Place. They were rather high up, but he had them furnished
in the best æsthetic style, with a few risky pictures and a small
collection of books. ‘Come and see me,’ he would say; ‘I am only a poor
artiste, but I have my books, and in these I live.’ On the whole they
were not nice books--a Philistine might have even called them nasty;
but many of them bore the autographs of the writers, and were priceless
accordingly.
About this time the name of Gavrolles began to be a good deal talked
about, as that of a young Frenchman with Communist views who had written
some delightfully wicked volumes of verse. The ‘Megatherium,’ inspired
by Ponto, had a good deal to say about him, classing him in the great
bagnio of Art somewhere by the side of Gautier and Baudelaire; and
taking occasion at the same time to express its horror of realists like
Zola, who called a spade a spade, and reduced the fair features of vice
to a _caput mortuum_.
One night, Crieff, who knew everybody, took Sutherland to the lodgings
of Gavrolles, and introduced him. Quite a little symposium was there,
including Ponto the fatuous; Cassius Gass, a lean and limp critic from
Cambridge; Blanco Serena, and several other painters; young Botticelli
Jones, and one or two more callow poets, not to speak of Wallace
MacNeill, the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’
Sutherland sat very silent. After the first, quick look at Gavrolles,
and a second shock of recognition, he remained quiescent, but quietly
observant.
The talk was of ‘Lily and Rue,’ an anonymous poem which had just
appeared, and which Ponto had just criticised with admiration.
‘I wonder who is the writer?’ said Botticelli Jones. ‘There are passages
in it which are worthy of Byron.’
‘Byron was a Philistine,’ cried Ponto; ‘he could never have written
a piece of this kind. Look at the technique of his verse! It would
disgrace a schoolboy! No, this is a cameo cut by an artist.’
‘Shall I confess it!’ observed Gavrolles, smiling languidly. ‘I am of
Henri Taine’s opinion, and prefer to your Byron our Alfred de Musset.’
Here Crieff, who was puffing carelessly at a briar-root pipe, threw
himself back in his chair and laughed loudly.
‘I say! Is it possible you don’t know?’
‘What?’ cried several voices.
‘That MacAlpine----’
A shudder ran through the assemblage at the mention of the hated name.
‘That MacAlpine has acknowledged the authorship of this poem.’
‘What poem?’ demanded Ponto, trembling and turning pale.
‘Why, of “Lily and Eue.” Go and buy the third edition--you’ll find his
name on the title-page.’
A terrible silence followed. The men looked in horror at one another.
One man rose, livid and ghastly, put his hand to his head and left
without a word. It was the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’
‘Poor MacNeill,’ cried Crieff, with another laugh. ‘This is the second
trick of the kind that MacAlpine has played him; this is the second time
that he has devoted columns of praise to an author whom he would gladly
see handed over, like the old heretics, to the secular arm. It only
shows what humbug criticism is!’
‘Excuse me,’ said Gass the critic, hysterically, ‘criticism is not
humbug. It would be easy to show, on a profounder examination of
this disagreeable work, that it is the work of a Philistine. The
over-accentuation of the sensuous passages (which, by the way, are
not sensuous, but prurient and ponderous), the want of finish in the
trochaic couplets, the crudeness of the poetic terminology--’
‘Would all have been evident enough,’ interrupted Crieff, dryly,
‘if MacAlpine’s name had been on the title-page. Without that, even
superhuman insight, like yours, could not detect them.’
And he laughed again; but no one joined in the laugh except Blanco
Serena, who was not a little amused. There was a general feeling of
discomfort, to relieve which Gavrolles went to his bookcase, and took
down several new importations from France. Passed from hand to hand,
these works were freely and generally discussed; but when they reached
Crieff, that rude person again shocked the sensibilities of his
companions.
‘The literature of the Lollipop,’ he said with a grin. ‘Somehow I never
touch any of it without feeling nasty; “sticky” all over, as it were.’
‘To the mind of a Philistine,’ observed the critic Gass, severely, ‘such
things do not appeal. I regret to see that a certain person, who shall
be nameless, is drifting more and more into moral Philistinism. Well,
he will at least be able to say, “Et ego in Arcadia fui,” when it is too
late to return.’
Crieff laughed good-humouredly.
‘I dare say it is my early training,’ he said, ‘and the fact that I was
taught to respect all women in the person of my mother. But here is my
friend Sutherland, who is a Philistine of Philistines, for he actually
believes, with St. Benedict, that the law of purity is binding upon both
sexes alike, and in his benighted eyes your Gautier, your Baudelaire,
and “hoc genus omne” are simply dirty descendants of Sir Pandarus of
Troy.’
‘I sincerely hope you are libelling your friend,’ observed the critic,
glancing at Sutherland. ‘Personal purity, as you call it, is simply a
reminiscence of asceticism, and one of the many fallacies we owe to the
mediaeval perversions of Christianity.’
‘Bosh,’ returned Crieff, bluntly.
Sutherland, who throughout the conversation had scarcely taken his eyes
off Gavrolles, now spoke.
‘I am neither an ascetic nor a Puritan, but I must frankly confess
that the literature you are discussing excites my strongest abhorrence.
Whatever is unfit for a pure woman to read is unfit to be read by a pure
man. Would you give these books to your wives and sisters--that is the
question?’
‘Certainly,’ cried Ponto from the other side of the room. ‘Provided
their aesthetic education had been complete, they would find nothing but
pleasure from the perusal. Why in Heaven’s name should Woman remain
for ever the slave of Virtue? I would make her the archpriestess of the
Beautiful, ministering to mortals in all the passionate nudity of Art.’
‘And you, monsieur?’ said Sutherland, turning suddenly to Gavrolles.
‘What is your opinion?’
‘Oh, I am an artiste,’ answered the Frenchman, with a shrug of the
shoulders and an unpleasant smile. ‘I, too, would make woman the
priestess of Beauty. Ah, yes, with the greatest of possible pleasure!’
The words were of little meaning, but the tone was significant, and a
titter went round the room. Sutherland’s face darkened.
‘I presume that your experience of the sex is large?’ he asked in a low
voice. ‘Gentlemen of your nation are generally fortunate-----’
‘I am no exception to the rule,’ answered Gavrolles. ‘My whole life has
been _une bonne fortune!_ But look you, as I say, I am an artiste--in
affairs of gallantry as in all others. I do not suffer these things
to cloud the equanimity of my artiste’s soul. When I have plucked a
rose--observe! I smell it; I wear it a little while; then I take it from
my button-hole and throw it away. You understand?’
‘I think so,’ said Sutherland, rising to his feet. ‘Pray does it ever
occur to you what becomes of the rose afterwards! If it is trampled
underfoot, who is responsible?’
‘Pardon me, that is the rose’s affair, not mine. _Au reste_, roses must
bloom and fade; Art, Art--for which I live--is imperishable and divine.’
It was hard to say whether he was jesting or in earnest, for his manner
was peculiar, a combination of mock-enthusiasm and flippant audacity.
But despite his appearance of _sang-froid_, something in the face and
manner of Sutherland thrilled him, and reminded him of an unpleasant
meeting many years before.
He bowed profoundly as Sutherland prepared to go, and held out his
hand--which the other did not seem to notice.
‘_Au revoir!_‘he said gaily; ‘and _au revoir_, Monsieur Crieff. My
friend Ponto will convert you presently; ah, yes!’
In another minute Crieff and Sutherland were in the street. The latter
was very pale, and trembled violently.
‘My dear Sutherland, what is the matter?’
‘Nothing; only that man’s face and his talk have upset me. I could have
strangled him.’
‘What an excitable fellow you are!’ said Crieff, taking his arm. ‘Upon
my life, you take these things far too seriously. The other day you were
seriously angry with Lagardère, and here you are actually distressing
yourself over the prattle of a child like Gavrolles.’
‘You do not understand. I know the man, and have reason to remember
him.’
‘That alters the case. Where did you meet?’
‘In France--some years ago.’
Crieff listened for further explanations, but none came. Pressed to
say more, Sutherland shook his head, and relapsed into silence; so the
little journalist proceeded to give his muscular friend a lesson in
social philosophy.
‘You are too thoroughly in earnest, and in company your earnestness
makes other people uncomfortable. Life would be impossible if every bit
of idle chit-chat or _ad captandum_ argument were taken _au sérieux_.
Looked at in the proper light, Gavrolles is charming--a droll creature
with a touch of genius. To you he is merely a dissolute young man, who
reads improper books.’
‘To me,’ returned Sutherland, fiercely, ‘he is a thorough scoundrel,
whom I should like to choke.’
Crieff soon perceived that remonstrance was useless, and, mentally
determining not to introduce his companion to any more choice spirits,
he changed the subject. The pair soon parted, Crieff to stroll down to
the gallery of the House of Commons, Sutherland to pace the solitary
streets, full of the troubled recollections awakened by that chance
encounter.
*****
Later on that evening Gavrolles sat alone in his lodgings. He now
recollected Sutherland perfectly, and roundly cursed the unlucky chance
which had occasioned a second meeting. On reflection, however, he felt
confident that the Englishman could do him no serious damage in the
eyes of his new acquaintances, even if he attempted to do so, which was
doubtful.
When the clock struck eight he lit a cigar and strolled out into the
streets. As he walked along, his attention was attracted by a theatre
bill in one of the shop windows. One of the names struck him immediately
as that of the young actress whose portrait he had seen in the studio of
Blanco Serena. He looked at the name of the theatre; it was the Theatre
Royal Parthenon. He strolled away in the direction of that building.
On arriving at the theatre, however, he found the doors closed,
and discovered that the theatrical season had ended on the previous
Saturday.
Strolling carelessly along, he entered one of the smaller theatres in
the Strand, a house devoted to opera bouffe. He paid his money and got a
seat in the back row of the pit. There, perspiring and half-suffocated,
he was listening to the hideous din and watching the insane performance
upon the stage, when his attention was attracted by a movement in a box
above him, and glancing up he beheld a face he knew.
The face of a woman, young and very beautiful, though trifle pale and
sad. She was plainly clad in black satin, with an opera cloak of snowy
white, with fringe of down encircling her white neck. No ornaments in
her hair, no jewels on her person, and surely she needed neither, for her
simple pathetic beauty was better unadorned.
With her was a gentleman, not young, but with the fresh face and manners
of a boy. He looked very happy and proud, and gazed less at the stage
than at his companion, as, indeed, was natural.
These two were our heroine and her husband, James Forster.
A child might have gathered, from the man’s looks of pleasure and
admiration, that Forster loved the beautiful creature by his side. His
eyes scarcely left her, he was eager to respond to her slightest look or
word. When she talked, he hung upon her speech; and when she was silent
he waited for her to speak again.
Gavrolles comprehended the situation directly--almost as rapidly as he
recognised Madeline. For the rest of the evening he occupied himself in
looking up, with a keen and cat-like gaze. How beautiful she seemed!
How much fairer and riper than when he had seen her last, in her wild
girlish _gaucherie! Pardieu_, she was a child then; but _now!_
As he gazed his thoughts went back to the days when he had seen her
first, a giddy schoolgirl, a very will-o’-the-wisp among the decorous
young French damsels of the ladies’ seminary. He remembered her wild
ways, her odd sayings in schoolgirl’s French, her pretty fits of
petulance, her innocent entanglement with him, the ever-seductive
Gavrolles--or Belleisle, as he then called himself. He thought of the
mad elopement, and the strange days that followed, when the fluttering
bird was in his power.
‘After all,’ he reflected, ‘I was a fool to let her go.’
And the man with her, who seemed so greatly to adore her, who was
he? Surely her lover; perhaps her husband--but no, that was scarcely
possible. A rich man, certainly; yes, with all the style and manner of a
rich man. She, too, with her popular fame, her great artistic position,
was no longer poor. Perhaps, after all, it was for the best that he had
let her go, since fortune had been kind to her, and what was lost could
be easily regained.
Gavrolles smiled. Once, when the audience was busy applauding the
actors, his exhilaration was so great that he impulsively kissed his
hand in the direction of the box. The action was unnoticed, of course,
but it seemed to place him _en rapport_ with his old love.
‘Courage, Gavrolles!’ he said to himself. ‘You are Fortune’s favourite,
after all. Just when you were in despair, just when your purse was empty
and your great soul in despair, the cards befriend you, and a good angel
appears in the distance. Madeline, _mon ange_, I greet you. You will be
my guardian spirit after all.’
When the opera was over, Gavrolles stood in the corner of the box lobby,
and watched Madeline go past on Forster’s arm. He kept his face well
averted, for he did not wish to be recognised, just yet. Then, following
the pair to the theatre door, he saw a brougham draw up, smiled upon the
pair as they entered and gaily lit a cigar as they drove away.