FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS
Mr. Elias Cloudwater came up the steps of the Savoy Hotel at Carlsbad,
and called to the Arab who was waiting about:
"Has the Princess come in from her drive yet?"
He was informed that she had not, and he sat down in the verandah to
wait. He was both an American gentleman and an American father,
therefore he was accustomed to waiting for his women folk and did not
fidget. He read the _New York Herald_, and when he had devoured the
share list, he glanced at the society news and read that, among others
who were expected at the Bohemian health resort that day, was Lord
Fordyce, motoring, for a stay of three weeks for the cure.
He did not know this gentleman personally, and the fact would not have
arrested his attention at all only that he chanced to be interested in
English politics. He wondered vaguely if he would be an agreeable
acquisition to the place, and then turned to more thrilling things.
Presently a slender young woman came down the path through the woods and
leisurely entered the gate. Mr. Cloudwater watched her, and a kindly
smile lit his face. He thought how pretty she was, and how glad he was
that she had joined Moravia and himself again this summer. The months
when she went off by herself to her house in Brittany always seemed very
long. He saw her coming from far enough to be able to take in every
detail about her. Extreme slenderness and extreme grace were her
distinctive marks. The face was childish and rounded in outline, but
when you looked into the violet eyes there was some shadow of a story
hidden there. She was about twenty-two years old, and was certainly not
at Carlsbad for any reasons of cure, for her glowing complexion told a
tale of radiant health.
Her white clothes were absolutely perfect in their simplicity, and so
was her air of unconcern and indifference. "The enigma" her friends
often called her. She seemed so frank and simple, and no one ever got
beyond the wall of what she was really thinking--what did she do with
her life? It seemed ridiculous that any one so rich and attractive and
young should care to pass long periods of time at a wild spot near
Finisterre, in an old château perched upon the rocks, completely alone
but for an elderly female companion.
There was, of course, some hidden tragedy about her husband--who was a
raging lunatic or an inebriate shut up somewhere--perhaps there! They
had had to part at once--he had gone mad on the wedding journey, some
believed, but others said this was not at all the case, and that she had
married an Indian chief and then parted from him immediately in
America--finding out the horror of being wedded to a savage. No one knew
anything for a fact, only that when she did come into the civilized
world, it was always with the Princess Torniloni and her father, who, if
they knew the truth of Mrs. Howard's story, never gave it away. Men
swarmed around her, but she appeared completely unconcerned and friendly
with them all, and not even the most envious of the other Americans who
were trying to climb into Princess Torniloni's exclusive society had
ever been able to make up any scandals about her.
"I have had such an enchanting walk, Clowdy, dear," the slim young woman
said as she sat down in a basket-chair near Mr. Cloudwater. "I am so
glad we came here, aren't you?--and I am sure it will do Moravia no end
of good. She passed me as I was coming from the Aberg on her way to Hans
Heiling, so she will not be in yet. Let us have tea."
The Arab called the waiter, who brought it to them. One or two other
little groups were having some, too, but Mr. Cloudwater's party were
singularly ungregarious, and avoided making acquaintances in hotels. He
and Mrs. Howard chatted alone together over theirs for about half an
hour. Presently there was the noise of a motor arriving. It whirled into
the gate and stopped where they usually do, a little at one side. It
was very dusty and travel-stained, and beside the chauffeur there got
out a tall, fair Englishman. The personnel of the hotel came forward to
meet him with empressement, and as he passed where Mr. Cloudwater and
Mrs. Howard were sitting, they heard him say:
"My servant brought the luggage by train this morning, so I suppose the
rooms are ready."
"They are a wonderful race," Mr. Cloudwater remarked, "aren't they,
Sabine. I never can understand why you should so persistently avoid
them--they really have much more in common with ourselves than Latins."
"That is why perhaps--one likes contrasts--and French and Russians, or
Germans, are far more intelligent. Every one to his taste!" and Mrs.
Howard smiled.
The Englishman came out again in a few minutes, and sitting down lazily,
as though he were alone upon the balcony terrace, he ordered some tea.
Not the remotest scrap of interest in his surroundings or companions lit
up his face. He might have been forty or forty-two, perhaps, but being
so fair he looked a good deal younger, and had a peculiar distinction of
his own.
"That is what I object to about them," Mrs. Howard remarked presently,
"their abominable arrogance. Look at that man. It is just as though
there was no one else on this balcony but himself--no one else exists
for him!"
"Why, Sabine, you are severe! He looks to me to be a pretty
considerably nice man--and he is only reading the paper as I have been
doing myself," Mr. Cloudwater rejoined. "Perhaps he is the English
nobleman who I read was expected to-day--Lord Fordyce, the paper
said--and wasn't that the name of rather a prominent English politician
who had to go into the Upper House last year when his father died--and
it was considered he would be a loss to the Commons?"
"I really don't know. I don't take the slightest interest in them or
their politics. Ah! here is Moravia----" and both rose to meet a very
charming lady who drove up in a victoria and got out.
She had all the perfection of detail which characterizes the very
best-dressed American woman--and she had every attraction except,
perhaps, a voice--but even that she knew how to modulate and disguise,
so that it was no wonder that the Princess Torniloni passed for one of
the most beautiful women in Rome or Paris, or Cairo or New York,
whenever she graced any of the cities with her presence. She was a
widow, too, and very rich. The Prince, her husband, had been dead for
nearly two years, and she was wearing grays and whites and mauves.
He had been a brute, too, but unlike her friend, Mrs. Howard's husband,
he had had the good taste to be killed riding in a steeplechase, and so
all went well, and the pretty Princess was free to wander the world over
with her indulgent father.
"It is just too lovely for words up in those woods, papa," she said,
"and I have had my tea in a dear little châlet restaurant. You did not
wait for me, I hope?"
They assured her they had not done so, and she sat down in a comfortable
chair. Her arrival caused a flutter among the other occupants of the
terrace, and even the Englishman glanced up. This group had at last made
some impression it would seem upon the retina of his eye, for he looked
deliberately at them and realized that the two women were quite worthy
of his scrutiny.
"But I hate Americans," he said to himself. "They are such actresses,
you never know where you are with them--these two, though, appear some
of the best."
Presently they went into the hotel, passing him very closely--and for a
second his eyes met the violet ones of Sabine Howard, and he was
conscious that he felt distinctly interested, much to his disgust.
But, after all, he was here for a cure and a rest, and he had always
believed in women as recreations.
His solitary table was near theirs in the restaurant, and later he wrote
to his friend, Michael Arranstoun, loitering at Ostende:
The hotel is quite decent--and after your long sojourn in the
wilds, you will have an overdose of polo and expensive ladies and
baccarat. You had much better join me here at the end of the week.
There are two pretty women who would be quite your affair. They
have the next table, and neither of them can be taking the cure.
But Mr. Arranstoun, when he received this missive, had other things to
do. He had been out of England, and indeed Europe, for nearly five
years--having, in the summer of 1907, joined a friend to explore the
innermost borders of China and Tibet, and there the passion for this
kind of thing had overtaken him, and his own home knew him no more.
Now, however, he had announced that he had returned for good, and
intended to spend the rest of his days at Arranstoun as a model
landlord.
He started this by playing polo at Ostende, where he had run across
Henry Fordyce. They had cordially grasped each other's hands, their
estrangement forgotten when face to face; and the only mention there had
been of the circumstances which had caused their parting were in a few
sentences.
"By Jove, Henry, it is five whole years since you thundered morals at me
and shook the dust of Arranstoun from your feet!"
"You did behave abominably, Michael--but I am awfully glad to see
you--and the scene at Ebbsworth, when Violet Hatfield read the notice in
the Scotsman of your marriage, made me feel you had been almost
justified in taking any course you could to make yourself safe. But how
about your wife? Have you ever seen her again?"
"No. My lawyer tells me I can divorce her now for desertion. I should
have to make some pretence of asking her to return to me, he says, which
of course she would refuse to do--and then both can be free, but, for my
part, I am not hankering after freedom much--I do very well as I am--and
I always cherish a rather tender recollection of her."
[Illustration: "His solitary table was near theirs in the restaurant"]
Henry laughed.
"I have often pictured that wedding," he said, "and the little bride
going off with her certificate and your name all alone. No family turned
up awkwardly at the last moment to mar things; she left safely after the
ceremony, eh?"
Michael looked away suddenly, and then answered with overdone unconcern:
"Yes--soon after the ceremony."
"I do wonder you had no curiosity to investigate her character further!"
"I had--but she did not appreciate my interest--and--after she had
gone--I was rather in a bad temper, and I reasoned myself into believing
she was probably right--also just then I wanted to join Latimer
Berkeley's expedition to China. I remember, his letter about it came by
the next morning's post--so I went--but do you know, Henry, I believe
that little girl made some lasting impression upon me. I believe, if she
had stayed, I should have been frantically in love with her--but she
went, so there it is!"
"Why don't you try to find her?" Henry asked.
"Perhaps I mean to some day. I have thought of doing so often, but
first China, and then one thing and another have stopped me--besides,
she may have fancied some other fellow by this time--the whole thing was
one of those colossal mistakes. If we could only have met
ordinarily--and not married in a hurry and then parted--like that."
"Has it never struck you she was rather young to be left to drift by
herself?"
"Yes, often--" Then Michael grew a little constrained. "I believe I
behaved like the most impossible brute, Henry--in marrying her at all as
you said--but I would like to make it up to her some day--and I suppose
if, by chance, she has taken a fancy to someone else by this time and
wants to be free of me, I ought to divorce her--but, by Heaven, I
believe I should hate that!"
"You dog in the manger!"
"Yes, I am----"
And so the subject had ended.
And now Henry, third Lord Fordyce, was taking a mild cure at Carlsbad,
and had decided that in his leisure moments he would begin to write a
book--a project which had long simmered in his brain; but after two days
of sitting by the American party at each meal, a very strong desire to
converse with them--especially the one with the strange violet
eyes--overcame him; and with deliberate intention he scraped
acquaintance with Mr. Cloudwater in the exercise room of the Kaiserbad,
who, with polite ceremony, presented him that evening to his daughter
and her friend.
Sabine had been particularly silent and irritating, Moravia thought, and
as they went up to bed she scolded her about it.
"He is a perfect darling, Sabine," she declared, "and will do splendidly
to take walks with us and make the fourth. He is so lazy and English and
phlegmatic--I'd like to make him crazy with love--but he looked at you,
you little witch, not at me at all."
"You are welcome to him, Morri--I don't care for Englishmen. Good-night,
pet," and Mrs. Howard kissed her friend, and going in to her room, she
shut the door.