Across twenty years a man made an obeisance to a woman for risking what
she had risked that she might comfort a boy's pain. Conrad got up from
the club chair and crossed over to the bookcase. He pulled out the
Post Office Directory--and it sprawled open on the top shelf. Would he
find the name under "A?" ... "Grice Ewart Adaile, M.P., 62 Norfolk
Street, Park Lane." And she? Was she alive? could she be there, so
close to him as that?
He mourned to think how different she must be to-day. The woman had
changed, and the boy had changed, and though he didn't know it, the
town had changed the most. The ubiquitous rush and whir of electric
trams, the ceaseless clangour of their bells beating through the brain,
had turned peace into a pandemonium. Rouen had acquired all the noise
of New York without any of its gaiety. Telegraph wires and telephone
wires spanned the tops of the churches, and a mesh-work of iron ropes
obscured the sky.
He strolled to Norfolk Street the next afternoon. There was a half
hope in his mind of finding a carriage at the door waiting to take the
lady for her drive. If Mrs. Adaile came out--Oh, if Mrs. Adaile came
out he would be well repaid; it would be exciting to recognise her,
although she wouldn't recognise him!
But she did not come out. The door was shut fast, and no familiar face
happened to gaze pensively over the window boxes. He was disappointed.
In the evening he went to another theatre. The hero of the comedy was
supposed to be a man of his own age, and talked about himself as if he
were a centenarian. He said he was thirty-seven and had "lived his
life," and he called the heroine "Child." His hair was silvered at the
temples, and he depressed Conrad exceedingly.
The situation of Norfolk Street was so convenient, however, that Conrad
took to passing through it rather often. And though he was old enough
to know better, he certainly looked young enough to be the hero's son.
One day he found the windows of No. 62 blank behind shutters. So the
family had left town! He sauntered on, and hesitated, and went back.
Here was an opportunity to ascertain what he wanted to know. He rang
the bell, and asked a solemn functionary when Mrs. Adaile was expected
home.
"I can't say, sir," said the man; "Mrs. Adaile is on the Continent."
"Oh," said Conrad, with a heart-prank. She did live! He
vacillated--and obeyed a second impulse; "Can you give me Mrs. Adaile's
address?"
The solemn person noted the pearl in the stranger's tie, the silk
lining of the coat he unbuttoned, and the direction in which his hand
was travelling. Mrs. Adaile was in Ostend. "Thenk you, sir." He
named the hotel, and Conrad proceeded to Piccadilly enamoured of
temptation. How tired he was of London! In any case he would go away;
why shouldn't he go to Ostend? He had never been there--and he might
sit next to her at dinner. It would be an absurdity of course, but----
The hero of thirty-seven with hair silvered at the temples, admonished
him from every hoarding and he took a hansom to avoid his sedate
contemporary's reproof. Entering the club, he walked through an avenue
of decorators' ladders; the smoking-room was full of paint and pails.
What could be more absurd than to remain in town?
He winced as it occurred to him that Adaile might have been married
twice. Supposing the "Mrs. Adaile" in Ostend proved to be a stranger,
an unfamiliar person profaning a hallowed name? How complete a fool he
would feel when he arrived! But he would not dwell on that
contingency. "Far fetched," he said. Even a fate that showered
disappointments as freely as if they were confetti must draw the line
somewhere.
He was among the tourists, and the luggage-thieves at Charing Cross by
ten o'clock next morning. When he reached Ostend it was a fine
afternoon, and the town was baking. By comparison London had been
pleasant, so a multitude of Londoners had flocked to Ostend. With
trepidation he beheld the hotel that sheltered her--what if he were
unable to obtain a room in it? But no--so far, so good. Fate was,
perhaps, napping in the heat--a room was to be had. He washed his face
in No. 17 victoriously, and overlooked the scarlet geraniums, and the
Faience fountain, glistening in a grass plot, and the red-striped
sun-umbrellas that sprouted through the little tables. Nobody was
visible among the basket chairs. A starling's twittering in a lilac
bush, was the only voice. The number of his room chimed with his
mood--a happy coincidence. To the manager's mind, at least, he was
"seventeen" again. Again he stood in an hotel bedroom preparing to
join her downstairs! Had she changed _very_ much?
Presently he wandered into the salon, and lounged round the
reading-room. Everywhere it was unpromisingly quiet. A hint of siesta
pervaded the hotel. Should he go out? He sauntered through the hall,
but the dazzle of the Plage blistering in the glare made his eyes ache.
He went back to the shade, and ruffled newspapers, and smoked
cigarettes. A child came into the scorching courtyard that was called
a "garden," and hopped round on one leg, and said to another child,
"Can you do that?" The starling twittered imperturbably. Who said
Ostend was gay?
Benighted male! the women weren't asleep, they were all changing their
frocks again. When he woke he had missed one of the sights of the
day--the "creations" that vie with another between five o'clock and
seven. A gong was booming. Only the first gong. Good! There was
time for him to dress before the room began to fill. He sought the
head-waiter, and inquired if a place facing the door could be arranged.
The headwaiter had house property, and two sons at college, but he was
the urbanest of head-waiters. A novice tips the servants when he
leaves an hotel, and, if he is a generous novice, pays for attention
which he hasn't received; a traveller of experience tips them when he
arrives, and gets the liver wing and a seat by the window.
The second gong was still reverberating when No. 17 descended to
dinner. The urbanest of head-waiters hovered on the threshold. For
scrutinising the company Conrad had scarcely time to glance at the
menu. The doorway was as dazzling as the Plage had been: a
cinematograph of toilettes, a succession of audacities--only clusters
of diamonds seemed to keep some of the bodices up. Man formed a
shifting background to an exhibition of jewels, a pageant of skirts and
breasts. Still more gowns. The humming room was the apotheosis of
Clothes--until the women sat down, and then it was the apotheosis of
Bosom.
She came in late. She wore white satin, embroidered in silver, and a
"collar" of emeralds. He recognised her at once. There was no
hesitation in his mind--he had expected to hesitate--he knew her the
instant she appeared. She had altered certainly--even pathetically;
the girl of twenty years ago was lost; but in the flash of the moment
the difference in her face startled him less than the difference in her
figure. A shade too stout. Yes, a shade too stout for his taste!
And--and _had_ her hair been copper colour in Rouen?
But a pretty woman, nobody could deny it. She didn't look a day more
than thirty-five--might pass for thirty now the rose glow of the lamps
was on her! ... Well--almost!
Her table was well in view. She was with another woman--perhaps
younger, a brunette, vivacious--and an elderly man with projecting
teeth, and eyes like a fish. Adaile? How grotesque he must have
looked making love! He had a nose as long as the one in Blake's
portrait of the man who built the Pyramids. And he used to be unkind
to her!--one could read that he was a cold-blooded, unappreciative
stick.... Now he was talking to her. On second thoughts, perhaps he
wasn't her husband--he displayed the projecting teeth to her in so many
smiles. The other woman's husband then! Quite a good chap in his way,
no doubt. He was doing them very well in the matter of wine.
Would there be a chance to speak to her to-night? Abominably hard
lines if he had to wait till to-morrow, but he wanted to find her
alone--in the garden, for preference, in the moonlight....
No--no--thirty-five; but no more, not an hour. How beautiful she _used
to be_! She didn't know she was sitting in the room with a man she had
kissed. Rather an amusing reflection that! ... Scores of men in the
room, though; perhaps she did. How sick he would have felt to think so
once! Where was the splendid jealousy he ought to feel this evening?
"'Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses
On the old banks of the Nile!'"
He made his coffee last till the party got up, and then followed them
to the salon. The salon did not keep them--they drifted to the hall.
They disappeared. The hall was a bevy of women who had been upstairs
to put on hats, and were desiring to be taken to the Kursaal. "Poppa"
was in constant demand. Conrad observed that all the family men seemed
inclined to loll where they were, and that all the unaccompanied men
made sprightly departures. In the concert-room he found her again, but
he didn't find his opportunity. To be sure, he had hardly expected one
there. Still he felt rather hipped the last thing at night as he sat
among a crowd, and the popping of champagne corks, in a buffet where
the casks were utilised as seats, and the ladies' toilettes were as
gorgeous--and as modest--as the ladies' toilettes in the hotel.
In the morning he met her coming back from the sands with an enormous
sunshade, in the "early bath" costume; and he met her later wearing a
picture hat in the "after bath" costume: also he saw her in the costume
she put on when _déjeuner_ was over--and still she was unapproachable.
If she proved too elusive, he'd be tempted to swim after her next day
and try his luck in the water. But could he be sentimental with his
hair dripping? And even in Ostend it wouldn't be--Oh, in the wrong key
altogether!
She was scribbling on a picture postcard at one of the little writing
tables, and there was nobody else there.
"May I remind Mrs. Adaile that I have had the happiness of being
presented to her?"
She turned her head, and there was approval in the lady's gaze. There
was, however, not a scintilla of recognition in it.
"My name is Warrener," he said.
"Oh yes," she murmured; "I'm so short-sighted----how d'ye do?" But he
saw that she was twenty years away from knowing who he was.
"This is tremendously nice of you," he exclaimed; "I was afraid you
wouldn't remember me."
"How absurd!" she said perfunctorily. "Why shouldn't I? We met
at----?"
"But so long ago. I _was_ afraid, really. I've been warning myself
that you couldn't be expected to remember--and yet I knew I should be
so pained if you forgot."
She made a little amiable movement of her hands. He understood it to
signify that his doubts had done injustice to them both. Inwardly he
laughed.
"Is your husband in Ostend, Mrs. Adaile?"
"No," she said, "no, he's in the Tyrol--Innsbruck. I'm here with my
sister and my brother-in-law. You know them, don't you?"
"No, I've never had the pleasure. They weren't with you there."
"Ah, no," she said, "no, they weren't.... Ostend is very dull this
year, don't you think?"
"I've found it very exciting; I saw you yesterday at dinner, and I've
been trying to meet your eyes ever since."
"Really?" said the lady. She allowed him to meet them, and looked
away, her expression vacillating between a pucker and a smile.
"My courage wasn't equal to risking a snub from you publicly, and you
were never alone. You balked me last night, you escaped me this
morning, and you drove me to desperation this afternoon. I ought to
have known you wouldn't forget, but I always had misgivings, hadn't I?"
"Had you?" she said. The pucker was getting the upper hand. She
played with the postcard.
"Confess!" said Conrad.
"I remember you perfectly," she insisted with transparent hypocrisy,
"but just for the moment I'm fogged where it was we met."
"Will it help me if I mention Normandy?"
"Normandy?" she echoed vaguely.
"Rouen--the Hôtel Britannique--a boy who was called 'Con.'"
"Con?" she cried. And the smile had things all its own way with her;
for an instant the spirit of his youth flashed so close that he nearly
captured it. "You are 'Con?'"
"Still," he affirmed earnestly. "And you are still--Mrs. Adaile."
"You are Con," she repeated, wondering, "that boy! And did you
remember me directly you saw me last night?"
"No--I've remembered you all the time."
"Ah," she laughed reproval, "what a long while ago that makes it
seem!--the boy never told me pretty falsehoods."
"The boy never told you half the truth; he was a very backward boy."
"If we are to be friends you mustn't run him down, Mr. Warrener," she
said; "I was very fond of Con.... 'Rouen!' Have you ever been there
since?"
"No; I was abroad for years--out of Europe, I mean."
"You were going to be an artist?"
"I hoped to be."
"Aren't you?"
"No; I haven't the artist's temperament--I'm too constant."
She regarded the postcard on the table again, and he did justice to her
eyelashes.
"Ostend is going down dreadfully, isn't it?" she remarked. "All the
ridiculous people who have just got titles have brought them here.
We're leaving on Thursday."
He sighed.
"Don't be foolish," she said, not too flippantly.
"Ah," said Conrad now, "what a long while ago that makes it seem!--the
boy was not told he was foolish."
"No one could be so unkind to him--and he wasn't."
"You'll make me jealous of that boy before you've done. Don't you
believe you could?"
"I don't know what you mean," she declared.
"You used to take _him_ seriously."
"Oh yes, we were capital friends."
"Did he deserve your friendship more than I?"
"You're absurd," she smiled. Her eyes were as blue as they had been in
the Solférino Garden. He looked into them, wishing he could feel the
despair that had been his that radiant morning.
"Is a wretched boy you only knew for a few weeks to be privileged above
a man who has thought of you for years?" Within an ace he had said
"for twenty years," but the blunder was nipped in time.
"You mean 'hours,'" she said. "We dined last night at eight
o'clock--it's just four now."
"You don't believe me--you think I'm making the most of a happy
accident? What if I gave you a conclusive, an overwhelming proof?"
"A proof of what?"
"Of what? That I am constancy itself! Supposing I told you that my
only reason for coming here was to see you again. What would you say
to that?"
"I hope I should answer quite politely," she murmured.
"Ah, you didn't doubt me once!" he exclaimed with grave reproach.
"You didn't tell such tarra-diddles once," she urged.
"I came here simply and solely to see you. Look at me. Will you give
me your hand?--I want to repeat it solemnly." She glanced at the door,
and yielded him her hand. It was very soft and agreeable to hold; he
continued with no undue haste: "Now, holding your hand, and with my
eyes meeting yours, I say that I came here to see you--for no one, and
nothing else--that I had no idea of coming to the place till I knew you
were here. That isn't all!" he detained her hand gently. "For an age
I have been trying to see you. I knew none of your friends--it was
awfully difficult for me. Could I call upon you and begin 'Once upon a
time?' Should I write to you? You might read my note in the wrong
mood. Oh, I tell you I racked my brains! That isn't all!"--her hand
had been retreating again. "The day before yesterday as I passed your
house--No. 62; you have window boxes, the flowers are calceolarias and
marguerites this season--the day before yesterday as I passed, I saw
the shutters were closed. I rang the bell. I deceived your servant, I
led him to imagine you--you would be glad to welcome me. I wormed your
address from him and threw myself onto the boat rejoicing. That isn't
all----"
She drew the hand free, nevertheless, and realising that it wasn't
coming back to him yet, he concluded, "But it is enough to show you
that you've been cruel."
At this moment they were interrupted, and she said, "Oh, let me--Mr.
Warrener, my sister, Lady Bletchworth."
"How d' ye do," said Lady Bletchworth. "Ostend is very dull this year,
don't you think?"
"I've just said that," Mrs. Adaile told her.
"It doesn't matter," said Lady Bletchworth. "It's a very good opening
remark, and I make it to everybody."
"Won't you put me up to the correct answer?" asked Conrad; "I've only
just come, and I should like to catch the tone."
"Most of them say, 'Oh, my _dear_!'" she replied; "but our latest
novelty is, '_South_end! What?'"
"Mr. Warrener's people and I used to be very chummy ages ago," said
Mrs. Adaile. "I am afraid to inquire, Mr. Warrener?"
"No," he said, "I--I am alone."
"He was quite nice in those days," she added to her sister.
"What has spoilt you, Mr. Warrener?"
"I find my world so sceptical, Lady Bletchworth."
"Not here," she said; "they can even believe Ostend is smart. Can you
do a sum? If 'it takes three generations to make a gentleman,' how
many shops does it take to make a knight?"
"One: England," said Conrad.
"I don't believe he's spoilt after all, Joan," said Lady Bletchworth.
"There's hope for him yet."
"It's much too early to say _that_," murmured Mrs. Adaile. But the
glance she cast at him was not discouraging.