“There is a nouveau here,” drawled Laffat, leaning around his easel and
addressing his friend Bowles, “there is a nouveau here who is so tender
and green and appetizing that Heaven help him if he should fall into a
salad bowl.”
“Hayseed?” inquired Bowles, plastering in a background with a broken
palette-knife and squinting at the effect with approval.
“Yes, Squeedunk or Oshkosh, and how he ever grew up among the daisies
and escaped the cows, Heaven alone knows!”
Bowles rubbed his thumb across the outlines of his study to “throw in a
little atmosphere,” as he said, glared at the model, pulled at his pipe
and finding it out struck a match on his neighbour’s back to relight it.
“His name,” continued Laffat, hurling a bit of bread at the hat-rack,
“his name is Hastings. He _is_ a berry. He knows no more about the
world,”—and here Mr. Laffat’s face spoke volumes for his own knowledge
of that planet,—“than a maiden cat on its first moonlight stroll.”
Bowles now having succeeded in lighting his pipe, repeated the thumb
touch on the other edge of the study and said, “Ah!”
“Yes,” continued his friend, “and would you imagine it, he seems to
think that everything here goes on as it does in his d——d little
backwoods ranch at home; talks about the pretty girls who walk alone
in the street; says how sensible it is; and how French parents are
misrepresented in America; says that for his part he finds French
girls,—and he confessed to only knowing one,—as jolly as American
girls. I tried to set him right, tried to give him a pointer as to what
sort of ladies walk about alone or with students, and he was either too
stupid or too innocent to catch on. Then I gave it to him straight, and
he said I was a vile-minded fool and marched off.”
“Did you assist him with your shoe?” inquired Bowles, languidly
interested.
“Well, no.”
“He called you a vile-minded fool.”
“He was correct,” said Clifford from his easel in front.
“What—what do you mean?” demanded Laffat, turning red.
“_That_,” replied Clifford.
“Who spoke to you? Is this your business?” sneered Bowles, but nearly
lost his balance as Clifford swung about and eyed him.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it’s my business.”
No one spoke for some time.
Then Clifford sang out, “I say, Hastings!”
And when Hastings left his easel and came around, he nodded toward the
astonished Laffat.
“This man has been disagreeable to you, and I want to tell you that
any time you feel inclined to kick him, why, I will hold the other
creature.”
Hastings, embarrassed, said, “Why no, I don’t agree with his ideas,
nothing more.”
Clifford said “Naturally,” and slipping his arm through Hastings’,
strolled about with him, and introduced him to several of his own
friends, at which all the nouveaux opened their eyes with envy, and the
studio were given to understand that Hastings, although prepared to
do menial work as the latest nouveau, was already within the charmed
circle of the old, respected and feared, the truly great.
The rest finished, the model resumed his place, and work went on in a
chorus of songs and yells and every ear-splitting noise which the art
student utters when studying the beautiful.
Five o’clock struck,—the model yawned, stretched and climbed into
his trousers, and the noisy contents of six studios crowded through
the hall and down into the street. Ten minutes later, Hastings found
himself on top of a Montrouge tram, and shortly afterward was joined by
Clifford.
They climbed down at the rue Gay Lussac.
“I always stop here,” observed Clifford, “I like the walk through the
Luxembourg.”
“By the way,” said Hastings, “how can I call on you when I don’t know
where you live?”
“Why, I live opposite you.”
“What—the studio in the garden where the almond trees are and the
blackbirds—”
“Exactly,” said Clifford. “I’m with my friend Elliott.”
Hastings thought of the description of the two American artists which
he had heard from Miss Susie Byng, and looked blank.
Clifford continued, “Perhaps you had better let me know when you think
of coming so,—so that I will be sure to—to be there,” he ended rather
lamely.
“I shouldn’t care to meet any of your model friends there,” said
Hastings, smiling. “You know—my ideas are rather straitlaced,—I
suppose you would say, Puritanical. I shouldn’t enjoy it and wouldn’t
know how to behave.”
“Oh, I understand,” said Clifford, but added with great
cordiality,—“I’m sure we’ll be friends although you may not approve
of me and my set, but you will like Severn and Selby because—because,
well, they are like yourself, old chap.”
After a moment he continued, “There is something I want to speak about.
You see, when I introduced you, last week, in the Luxembourg, to
Valentine—”
“Not a word!” cried Hastings, smiling; “you must not tell me a word of
her!”
“Why—”
“No—not a word!” he said gaily. “I insist,—promise me upon your
honour you will not speak of her until I give you permission; promise!”
“I promise,” said Clifford, amazed.
“She is a charming girl,—we had such a delightful chat after you left,
and I thank you for presenting me, but not another word about her until
I give you permission.”
“Oh,” murmured Clifford.
“Remember your promise,” he smiled, as he turned into his gateway.
Clifford strolled across the street and, traversing the ivy-covered
alley, entered his garden.
He felt for his studio key, muttering, “I wonder—I wonder,—but of
course he doesn’t!”
He entered the hallway, and fitting the key into the door, stood
staring at the two cards tacked over the panels.
+---------------------------+
| FOXHALL CLIFFORD |
+---------------------------+
+---------------------------+
| RICHARD OSBORNE ELLIOTT |
+---------------------------+
“Why the devil doesn’t he want me to speak of her?”
He opened the door, and, discouraging the caresses of two brindle
bull-dogs, sank down on the sofa.
Elliott sat smoking and sketching with a piece of charcoal by the
window.
“Hello,” he said without looking around.
Clifford gazed absently at the back of his head, murmuring, “I’m
afraid, I’m afraid that man is too innocent. I say, Elliott,” he said,
at last, “Hastings,—you know the chap that old Tabby Byram came around
here to tell us about—the day you had to hide Colette in the armoire—”
“Yes, what’s up?”
“Oh, nothing. He’s a brick.”
“Yes,” said Elliott, without enthusiasm.
“Don’t you think so?” demanded Clifford.
“Why yes, but he is going to have a tough time when some of his
illusions are dispelled.”
“More shame to those who dispel ’em!”
“Yes,—wait until he comes to pay his call on us, unexpectedly, of
course—”
Clifford looked virtuous and lighted a cigar.
“I was just going to say,” he observed, “that I have asked him not to
come without letting us know, so I can postpone any orgie you may have
intended—”
“Ah!” cried Elliott indignantly, “I suppose you put it to him in that
way.”
“Not exactly,” grinned Clifford. Then more seriously, “I don’t want
anything to occur here to bother him. He’s a brick, and it’s a pity we
can’t be more like him.”
“I am,” observed Elliott complacently, “only living with you—”
“Listen!” cried the other. “I have managed to put my foot in it in
great style. Do you know what I’ve done? Well—the first time I met him
in the street,—or rather, it was in the Luxembourg, I introduced him
to Valentine!”
“Did he object?”
“Believe me,” said Clifford, solemnly, “this rustic Hastings has no
more idea that Valentine is—is—in fact is Valentine, than he has
that he himself is a beautiful example of moral decency in a Quarter
where morals are as rare as elephants. I heard enough in a conversation
between that blackguard Loffat and the little immoral eruption, Bowles,
to open my eyes. I tell you Hastings is a trump! He’s a healthy,
clean-minded young fellow, bred in a small country village, brought up
with the idea that saloons are way-stations to hell—and as for women—”
“Well?” demanded Elliott.
“Well,” said Clifford, “his idea of the dangerous woman is probably a
painted Jezabel.”
“Probably,” replied the other.
“He’s a trump!” said Clifford, “and if he swears the world is as good
and pure as his own heart, I’ll swear he’s right.”
Elliott rubbed his charcoal on his file to get a point and turned to
his sketch saying, “He will never hear any pessimism from Richard
Osborne E.”
“He’s a lesson to me,” said Clifford. Then he unfolded a small perfumed
note, written on rose-coloured paper, which had been lying on the table
before him.
He read it, smiled, whistled a bar or two from “Miss Helyett,” and
sat down to answer it on his best cream-laid note-paper. When it was
written and sealed, he picked up his stick and marched up and down the
studio two or three times, whistling.
“Going out?” inquired the other, without turning.
“Yes,” he said, but lingered a moment over Elliott’s shoulder, watching
him pick out the lights in his sketch with a bit of bread.
“To-morrow is Sunday,” he observed after a moment’s silence.
“Well?” inquired Elliott.
“Have you seen Colette?”
“No, I will to-night. She and Rowden and Jacqueline are coming to
Boulant’s. I suppose you and Cécile will be there?”
“Well, no,” replied Clifford. “Cécile dines at home to-night, and I—I
had an idea of going to Mignon’s.”
Elliott looked at him with disapproval.
“You can make all the arrangements for La Roche without me,” he
continued, avoiding Elliott’s eyes.
“What are you up to now?”
“Nothing,” protested Clifford.
“Don’t tell me,” replied his chum, with scorn; “fellows don’t rush off
to Mignon’s when the set dine at Boulant’s. Who is it now?—but no,
I won’t ask that,—what’s the use!” Then he lifted up his voice in
complaint and beat upon the table with his pipe. “What’s the use of
ever trying to keep track of you? What will Cécile say,—oh, yes, what
will she say? It’s a pity you can’t be constant two months, yes, by
Jove! and the Quarter is indulgent, but you abuse its good nature and
mine too!”
Presently he arose, and jamming his hat on his head, marched to the
door.
“Heaven alone knows why any one puts up with your antics, but they all
do and so do I. If I were Cécile or any of the other pretty fools after
whom you have toddled and will, in all human probabilities, continue
to toddle, I say, if I were Cécile I’d spank you! Now I’m going to
Boulant’s, and as usual I shall make excuses for you and arrange the
affair, and I don’t care a continental where you are going, but, by the
skull of the studio skeleton! if you don’t turn up to-morrow with your
sketching-kit under one arm and Cécile under the other,—if you don’t
turn up in good shape, I’m done with you, and the rest can think what
they please. Good-night.”
Clifford said good-night with as pleasant a smile as he could muster,
and then sat down with his eyes on the door. He took out his watch and
gave Elliott ten minutes to vanish, then rang the concierge’s call,
murmuring, “Oh dear, oh dear, why the devil do I do it?”
“Alfred,” he said, as that gimlet-eyed person answered the call, “make
yourself clean and proper, Alfred, and replace your sabots with a
pair of shoes. Then put on your best hat and take this letter to the
big white house in the Rue de Dragon. There is no answer, _mon petit_
Alfred.”
The concierge departed with a snort in which unwillingness for the
errand and affection for M. Clifford were blended. Then with great
care the young fellow arrayed himself in all the beauties of his
and Elliott’s wardrobe. He took his time about it, and occasionally
interrupted his toilet to play his banjo or make pleasing diversion
for the bull-dogs by gambling about on all fours. “I’ve got two hours
before me,” he thought, and borrowed a pair of Elliott’s silken
foot-gear, with which he and the dogs played ball until he decided to
put them on. Then he lighted a cigarette and inspected his dress-coat.
When he had emptied it of four handkerchiefs, a fan, and a pair of
crumpled gloves as long as his arm, he decided it was not suited to
add _éclat_ to his charms and cast about in his mind for a substitute.
Elliott was too thin, and, anyway, his coats were now under lock and
key. Rowden probably was as badly off as himself. Hastings! Hastings
was the man! But when he threw on a smoking-jacket and sauntered over
to Hastings’ house, he was informed that he had been gone over an hour.
“Now, where in the name of all that’s reasonable could he have gone!”
muttered Clifford, looking down the street.
The maid didn’t know, so he bestowed upon her a fascinating smile and
lounged back to the studio.
Hastings was not far away. The Luxembourg is within five minutes’ walk
of the rue Notre Dame des Champs, and there he sat under the shadow
of a winged god, and there he had sat for an hour, poking holes in
the dust and watching the steps which lead from the northern terrace
to the fountain. The sun hung, a purple globe, above the misty hills
of Meudon. Long streamers of clouds touched with rose swept low on
the western sky, and the dome of the distant Invalides burned like an
opal through the haze. Behind the Palace the smoke from a high chimney
mounted straight into the air, purple until it crossed the sun, where
it changed to a bar of smouldering fire. High above the darkening
foliage of the chestnuts the twin towers of St. Sulpice rose, an
ever-deepening silhouette.
A sleepy blackbird was carolling in some near thicket, and pigeons
passed and repassed with the whisper of soft winds in their wings. The
light on the Palace windows had died away, and the dome of the Pantheon
swam aglow above the northern terrace, a fiery Valhalla in the sky;
while below in grim array, along the terrace ranged, the marble ranks
of queens looked out into the west.
From the end of the long walk by the northern façade of the Palace
came the noise of omnibuses and the cries of the street. Hastings
looked at the Palace clock. Six, and as his own watch agreed with it,
he fell to poking holes in the gravel again. A constant stream of
people passed between the Odéon and the fountain. Priests in black,
with silver-buckled shoes; line soldiers, slouchy and rakish; neat
girls without hats bearing milliners’ boxes, students with black
portfolios and high hats, students with bérets and big canes, nervous,
quick-stepping officers, symphonies in turquoise and silver; ponderous
jangling cavalrymen all over dust, pastry cooks’ boys skipping along
with utter disregard for the safety of the basket balanced on the
impish head, and then the lean outcast, the shambling Paris tramp,
slouching with shoulders bent and little eye furtively scanning the
ground for smokers’ refuse;—all these moved in a steady stream across
the fountain circle and out into the city by the Odeon, whose long
arcades were now beginning to flicker with gas-jets. The melancholy
bells of St Sulpice struck the hour and the clock-tower of the Palace
lighted up. Then hurried steps sounded across the gravel and Hastings
raised his head.
“How late you are,” he said, but his voice was hoarse and only his
flushed face told how long had seemed the waiting.
She said, “I was kept—indeed, I was so much annoyed—and—and I may
only stay a moment.”
She sat down beside him, casting a furtive glance over her shoulder at
the god upon his pedestal.
“What a nuisance, that intruding cupid still there?”
“Wings and arrows too,” said Hastings, unheeding her motion to be
seated.
“Wings,” she murmured, “oh, yes—to fly away with when he’s tired of
his play. Of course it was a man who conceived the idea of wings,
otherwise Cupid would have been insupportable.”
“Do you think so?”
“_Ma foi_, it’s what men think.”
“And women?”
“Oh,” she said, with a toss of her small head, “I really forget what we
were speaking of.”
“We were speaking of love,” said Hastings.
“_I_ was not,” said the girl. Then looking up at the marble god, “I
don’t care for this one at all. I don’t believe he knows how to shoot
his arrows—no, indeed, he is a coward;—he creeps up like an assassin
in the twilight. I don’t approve of cowardice,” she announced, and
turned her back on the statue.
“I think,” said Hastings quietly, “that he does shoot fairly—yes, and
even gives one warning.”
“Is it your experience, Monsieur Hastings?”
He looked straight into her eyes and said, “He is warning me.”
“Heed the warning then,” she cried, with a nervous laugh. As she spoke
she stripped off her gloves, and then carefully proceeded to draw them
on again. When this was accomplished she glanced at the Palace clock,
saying, “Oh dear, how late it is!” furled her umbrella, then unfurled
it, and finally looked at him.
“No,” he said, “I shall not heed his warning.”
“Oh dear,” she sighed again, “still talking about that tiresome
statue!” Then stealing a glance at his face, “I suppose—I suppose you
are in love.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered, “I suppose I am.”
She raised her head with a quick gesture. “You seem delighted at the
idea,” she said, but bit her lip and trembled as his eyes met hers.
Then sudden fear came over her and she sprang up, staring into the
gathering shadows.
“Are you cold?” he said.
But she only answered, “Oh dear, oh dear, it is late—so late! I must
go—good-night.”
She gave him her gloved hand a moment and then withdrew it with a start.
“What is it?” he insisted. “Are you frightened?”
She looked at him strangely.
“No—no—not frightened,—you are very good to me—”
“By Jove!” he burst out, “what do you mean by saying I’m good to you?
That’s at least the third time, and I don’t understand!”
The sound of a drum from the guard-house at the palace cut him short.
“Listen,” she whispered, “they are going to close. It’s late, oh, so
late!”
The rolling of the drum came nearer and nearer, and then the silhouette
of the drummer cut the sky above the eastern terrace. The fading light
lingered a moment on his belt and bayonet, then he passed into the
shadows, drumming the echoes awake. The roll became fainter along
the eastern terrace, then grew and grew and rattled with increasing
sharpness when he passed the avenue by the bronze lion and turned down
the western terrace walk. Louder and louder the drum sounded, and the
echoes struck back the notes from the grey palace wall; and now the
drummer loomed up before them—his red trousers a dull spot in the
gathering gloom, the brass of his drum and bayonet touched with a pale
spark, his epaulettes tossing on his shoulders. He passed leaving the
crash of the drum in their ears, and far into the alley of trees they
saw his little tin cup shining on his haversack. Then the sentinels
began the monotonous cry: “On ferme! on ferme!” and the bugle blew from
the barracks in the rue de Tournon.
“On ferme! on ferme!”
“Good-night,” she whispered, “I must return alone to-night.”
He watched her until she reached the northern terrace, and then sat
down on the marble seat until a hand on his shoulder and a glimmer of
bayonets warned him away.
She passed on through the grove, and turning into the rue de Medici,
traversed it to the Boulevard. At the corner she bought a bunch of
violets and walked on along the Boulevard to the rue des Écoles. A
cab was drawn up before Boulant’s, and a pretty girl aided by Elliott
jumped out.
“Valentine!” cried the girl, “come with us!”
“I can’t,” she said, stopping a moment—“I have a rendezvous at
Mignon’s.”
“Not Victor?” cried the girl, laughing, but she passed with a little
shiver, nodding good-night, then turning into the Boulevard St.
Germain, she walked a tittle faster to escape a gay party sitting
before the Café Cluny who called to her to join them. At the door of
the Restaurant Mignon stood a coal-black negro in buttons. He took off
his peaked cap as she mounted the carpeted stairs.
“Send Eugene to me,” she said at the office, and passing through
the hallway to the right of the dining-room stopped before a row of
panelled doors. A waiter passed and she repeated her demand for Eugene,
who presently appeared, noiselessly skipping, and bowed murmuring,
“Madame.”
“Who is here?”
“No one in the cabinets, madame; in the half Madame Madelon and
Monsieur Gay, Monsieur de Clamart, Monsieur Clisson, Madame Marie and
their set.” Then he looked around and bowing again murmured, “Monsieur
awaits madame since half an hour,” and he knocked at one of the
panelled doors bearing the number six.
Clifford opened the door and the girl entered.
The garçon bowed her in, and whispering, “Will Monsieur have the
goodness to ring?” vanished.
He helped her off with her jacket and took her hat and umbrella. When
she was seated at the little table with Clifford opposite she smiled
and leaned forward on both elbows looking him in the face.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Waiting,” he replied, in accents of adoration.
For an instant she turned and examined herself in the glass. The wide
blue eyes, the curling hair, the straight nose and short curled lip
flashed in the mirror an instant only, and then its depths reflected
her pretty neck and back. “Thus do I turn my back on vanity,” she said,
and then leaning forward again, “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” repeated Clifford, slightly troubled.
“And Cécile.”
“Now don’t, Valentine—”
“Do you know,” she said calmly, “I dislike your conduct?”
He was a little disconcerted, and rang for Eugene to cover his
confusion.
The soup was bisque, and the wine Pommery, and the courses followed
each other with the usual regularity until Eugene brought coffee, and
there was nothing left on the table but a small silver lamp.
“Valentine,” said Clifford, after having obtained permission to smoke,
“is it the Vaudeville or the Eldorado—or both, or the Nouveau Cirque,
or—”
“It is here,” said Valentine.
“Well,” he said, greatly flattered, “I’m afraid I couldn’t amuse you—”
“Oh, yes, you are funnier than the Eldorado.”
“Now see here, don’t guy me, Valentine. You always do, and, and,—you
know what they say,—a good laugh kills—”
“What?”
“Er—er—love and all that.”
She laughed until her eyes were moist with tears. “Tiens,” she cried,
“he is dead, then!”
Clifford eyed her with growing alarm.
“Do you know why I came?” she said.
“No,” he replied uneasily, “I don’t.”
“How long have you made love to me?”
“Well,” he admitted, somewhat startled,—“I should say,—for about a
year.”
“It is a year, I think. Are you not tired?”
He did not answer.
“Don’t you know that I like you too well to—to ever fall in love with
you?” she said. “Don’t you know that we are too good comrades,—too old
friends for that? And were we not,—do you think that I do not know
your history, Monsieur Clifford?”
“Don’t be—don’t be so sarcastic,” he urged; “don’t be unkind,
Valentine.”
“I’m not. I’m kind. I’m very kind,—to you and to Cécile.”
“Cécile is tired of me.”
“I hope she is,” said the girl, “for she deserves a better fate. Tiens,
do you know your reputation in the Quarter? Of the inconstant, the most
inconstant,—utterly incorrigible and no more serious than a gnat on a
summer night. Poor Cécile!”
Clifford looked so uncomfortable that she spoke more kindly.
“I like you. You know that. Everybody does. You are a spoiled child
here. Everything is permitted you and every one makes allowance, but
every one cannot be a victim to caprice.”
“Caprice!” he cried. “By Jove, if the girls of the Latin Quarter are
not capricious—”
“Never mind,—never mind about that! You must not sit in judgment—you
of all men. Why are you here to-night? Oh,” she cried, “I will tell
you why! Monsieur receives a little note; he sends a little answer; he
dresses in his conquering raiment—”
“I don’t,” said Clifford, very red.
“You do, and it becomes you,” she retorted with a faint smile. Then
again, very quietly, “I am in your power, but I know I am in the power
of a friend. I have come to acknowledge it to you here,—and it is
because of that that I am here to beg of you—a—a favour.”
Clifford opened his eyes, but said nothing.
“I am in—great distress of mind. It is Monsieur Hastings.”
“Well?” said Clifford, in some astonishment.
“I want to ask you,” she continued in a low voice, “I want to ask you
to—to—in case you should speak of me before him,—not to say,—not to
say,—”
“I shall not speak of you to him,” he said quietly.
“Can—can you prevent others?”
“I might if I was present. May I ask why?”
“That is not fair,” she murmured; “you know how—how he considers
me,—as he considers every woman. You know how different he is from
you and the rest. I have never seen a man,—such a man as Monsieur
Hastings.”
He let his cigarette go out unnoticed.
“I am almost afraid of him—afraid he should know—what we all are in
the Quarter. Oh, I do not wish him to know! I do not wish him to—to
turn from me—to cease from speaking to me as he does! You—you and the
rest cannot know what it has been to me. I could not believe him,—I
could not believe he was so good and—and noble. I do not wish him
to know—so soon. He will find out—sooner or later, he will find
out for himself, and then he will turn away from me. Why!” she cried
passionately, “why should he turn from me and not from _you_?”
Clifford, much embarrassed, eyed his cigarette.
The girl rose, very white. “He is your friend—you have a right to warn
him.”
“He is my friend,” he said at length.
They looked at each other in silence.
Then she cried, “By all that I hold to me most sacred, you need not
warn him!”
“I shall trust your word,” he said pleasantly.
V
The month passed quickly for Hastings, and left few definite
impressions after it. It did leave some, however. One was a painful
impression of meeting Mr. Bladen on the Boulevard des Capucines in
company with a very pronounced young person whose laugh dismayed him,
and when at last he escaped from the café where Mr. Bladen had hauled
him to join them in a _bock_ he felt as if the whole boulevard was
looking at him, and judging him by his company. Later, an instinctive
conviction regarding the young person with Mr. Bladen sent the hot
blood into his cheek, and he returned to the pension in such a
miserable state of mind that Miss Byng was alarmed and advised him to
conquer his homesickness at once.
Another impression was equally vivid. One Saturday morning, feeling
lonely, his wanderings about the city brought him to the Gare St.
Lazare. It was early for breakfast, but he entered the Hôtel Terminus
and took a table near the window. As he wheeled about to give his
order, a man passing rapidly along the aisle collided with his head,
and looking up to receive the expected apology, he was met instead by
a slap on the shoulder and a hearty, “What the deuce are you doing
here, old chap?” It was Rowden, who seized him and told him to come
along. So, mildly protesting, he was ushered into a private dining-room
where Clifford, rather red, jumped up from the table and welcomed
him with a startled air which was softened by the unaffected glee
of Rowden and the extreme courtesy of Elliott. The latter presented
him to three bewitching girls who welcomed him so charmingly and
seconded Rowden in his demand that Hastings should make one of the
party, that he consented at once. While Elliott briefly outlined the
projected excursion to La Roche, Hastings delightedly ate his omelet,
and returned the smiles of encouragement from Cécile and Colette and
Jacqueline. Meantime Clifford in a bland whisper was telling Rowden
what an ass he was. Poor Rowden looked miserable until Elliott,
divining how affairs were turning, frowned on Clifford and found a
moment to let Rowden know that they were all going to make the best of
it.
“You shut up,” he observed to Clifford, “it’s fate, and that settles
it.”
“It’s Rowden, and that settles it,” murmured Clifford, concealing a
grin. For after all he was not Hastings’ wet nurse. So it came about
that the train which left the Gare St. Lazare at 9.15 a.m. stopped a
moment in its career towards Havre and deposited at the red-roofed
station of La Roche a merry party, armed with sunshades, trout-rods,
and one cane, carried by the non-combatant, Hastings. Then, when they
had established their camp in a grove of sycamores which bordered
the little river Ept, Clifford, the acknowledged master of all that
pertained to sportsmanship, took command.
“You, Rowden,” he said, “divide your flies with Elliott and keep an eye
on him or else he’ll be trying to put on a float and sinker. Prevent
him by force from grubbing about for worms.”
Elliott protested, but was forced to smile in the general laugh.
“You make me ill,” he asserted; “do you think this is my first trout?”
“I shall be delighted to see your first trout,” said Clifford, and
dodging a fly hook, hurled with intent to hit, proceeded to sort and
equip three slender rods destined to bring joy and fish to Cécile,
Colette, and Jacqueline. With perfect gravity he ornamented each line
with four split shot, a small hook, and a brilliant quill float.
“_I_ shall never touch the worms,” announced Cécile with a shudder.
Jacqueline and Colette hastened to sustain her, and Hastings pleasantly
offered to act in the capacity of general baiter and taker-off of fish.
But Cécile, doubtless fascinated by the gaudy flies in Clifford’s book,
decided to accept lessons from him in the true art, and presently
disappeared up the Ept with Clifford in tow.
Elliott looked doubtfully at Colette.
“I prefer gudgeons,” said that damsel with decision, “and you and
Monsieur Rowden may go away when you please; may they not, Jacqueline?”
“Certainly,” responded Jacqueline.
Elliott, undecided, examined his rod and reel.
“You’ve got your reel on wrong side up,” observed Rowden.
Elliott wavered, and stole a glance at Colette.
“I—I—have almost decided to—er—not to flip the flies about just
now,” he began. “There’s the pole that Cécile left—”
“Don’t call it a pole,” corrected Rowden.
“_Rod_, then,” continued Elliott, and started off in the wake of the
two girls, but was promptly collared by Rowden.
“No, you don’t! Fancy a man fishing with a float and sinker when he has
a fly rod in his hand! You come along!”
Where the placid little Ept flows down between its thickets to the
Seine, a grassy bank shadows the haunt of the gudgeon, and on this bank
sat Colette and Jacqueline and chattered and laughed and watched the
swerving of the scarlet quills, while Hastings, his hat over his eyes,
his head on a bank of moss, listened to their soft voices and gallantly
unhooked the small and indignant gudgeon when a flash of a rod and
a half-suppressed scream announced a catch. The sunlight filtered
through the leafy thickets awaking to song the forest birds. Magpies
in spotless black and white flirted past, alighting near by with a hop
and bound and twitch of the tail. Blue and white jays with rosy breasts
shrieked through the trees, and a low-sailing hawk wheeled among the
fields of ripening wheat, putting to flight flocks of twittering hedge
birds.
Across the Seine a gull dropped on the water like a plume. The air was
pure and still. Scarcely a leaf moved. Sounds from a distant farm came
faintly, the shrill cock-crow and dull baying. Now and then a steam-tug
with big raking smoke-pipe, bearing the name “Guêpe 27,” ploughed up
the river dragging its interminable train of barges, or a sailboat
dropped down with the current toward sleepy Rouen.
A faint fresh odour of earth and water hung in the air, and through the
sunlight, orange-tipped butterflies danced above the marsh grass, soft
velvety butterflies flapped through the mossy woods.
Hastings was thinking of Valentine. It was two o’clock when Elliott
strolled back, and frankly admitting that he had eluded Rowden, sat
down beside Colette and prepared to doze with satisfaction.
“Where are your trout?” said Colette severely.
“They still live,” murmured Elliott, and went fast asleep.
Rowden returned shortly after, and casting a scornful glance at the
slumbering one, displayed three crimson-flecked trout.
“And that,” smiled Hastings lazily, “that is the holy end to which the
faithful plod,—the slaughter of these small fish with a bit of silk
and feather.”
Rowden disdained to answer him. Colette caught another gudgeon and
awoke Elliott, who protested and gazed about for the lunch baskets, as
Clifford and Cécile came up demanding instant refreshment. Cécile’s
skirts were soaked, and her gloves torn, but she was happy, and
Clifford, dragging out a two-pound trout, stood still to receive the
applause of the company.
“Where the deuce did you get that?” demanded Elliott.
Cécile, wet and enthusiastic, recounted the battle, and then Clifford
eulogized her powers with the fly, and, in proof, produced from his
creel a defunct chub, which, he observed, just missed being a trout.
They were all very happy at luncheon, and Hastings was voted
“charming.” He enjoyed it immensely,—only it seemed to him at moments
that flirtation went further in France than in Millbrook, Connecticut,
and he thought that Cécile might be a little less enthusiastic about
Clifford, that perhaps it would be quite as well if Jacqueline sat
further away from Rowden, and that possibly Colette could have, for a
moment at least, taken her eyes from Elliott’s face. Still he enjoyed
it—except when his thoughts drifted to Valentine, and then he felt
that he was very far away from her. La Roche is at least an hour and
a half from Paris. It is also true that he felt a happiness, a quick
heart-beat when, at eight o’clock that night the train which bore them
from La Roche rolled into the Gare St. Lazare and he was once more in
the city of Valentine.
“Good-night,” they said, pressing around him. “You must come with us
next time!”
He promised, and watched them, two by two, drift into the darkening
city, and stood so long that, when again he raised his eyes, the vast
Boulevard was twinkling with gas-jets through which the electric lights
stared like moons.