For she knew now that she would not break her engagement to-night. The
end was not yet. And by the strange laws that govern things emotional
between men and women, her self-control, hitherto utterly lamed by his
presence, was now, in face of his involuntary, as yet evidently
unconscious awakening, restored to her tenfold strong. She could have
spent weeks alone with the man without betraying her secret, now that
she had established her power over him. It had been his acceptance of
the fact of her future relationship to him, his unexpressed feeling that
she was a being of another generation, his tacit refusal to see in her
the woman _per se_, that had beaten her. Now she had, by the plain
assertion of her beauty, the enforcing of the appreciation of it as a
thing appertaining to her as a woman, not a daughter, got the reins--and
the whip--into her own hands.
"Where," she repeated, still smiling, "is Théo?"
"He is in his room; he will come--ah, _mon Dieu_!" Kneeling by his
violin, which luckily had fallen on a bearskin, he took it up and
looked at it shamefacedly. "See what you made me do," he said to Brigit,
"you and your golden dress! _Mon pauvre_ Amati."
She continued to look at him in silence, her instinct telling her that
the strange smile she had seen on the face of the woman in the glass
could not be beaten for purposes of subjugation. She continued to look
and smile, but she was sorry for him, even while every fibre in her
thrilled with triumph.
He realised her now; if she wanted him to love her, he would.
"Will you call Théo?" she asked as he rose. Without a word he left the
room, and a few moments later Théo's arms were around her, his fresh
lips on hers.
The boy was so happy, so incoherently, innocently jubilant, that if she
had in her room for another feeling, it would have been one of pity for
him. But there was no room. She was filled with triumph, and a full
vessel can contain not one drop more of however precious a liquid.
"_Ma Brigitte--mon adorée--que je t'ai desirée!_" stammered the boy.
"Why did you stay so long? Why was it so long? But, now, it is over and
you are here. You have come to me--you, a queen to her slave!"
His delightful face was wet with unconscious tears as they sat together,
and his voice trembled. For a moment she wished she could love him. It
would be so much more fitting, so much better--and then the demon in
her laughed. No. It was his father she loved, and who, if she chose,
should love her.
Madame Joyselle came in, splendid in a new brown silk dress that fitted
her as its skin fits a ripe grape, her face beaming with joy in her
son's joy. She gazed in amazement at Brigit before the younger woman
bent and kissed her, and then sat down and folded her hands, as was her
way.
"You look like a beautiful dragon--doesn't she, Théo?" she asked,
"doesn't she, Victor?"
Joyselle had returned with a look of having just brushed his hair. He
looked smoothed down in some way and was a little pale.
"My faith, she does, _ma vieille_," he returned. "When she opened the
door I was so startled that I--guess what I did, children? Dropped the
Amati!" When they had stopped exclaiming he went on, gradually, but with
a perceptible effort getting back his usual tone, "and stood and gasped
like a young prince in a fairy-tale, didn't I, Most Beautiful?"
She smiled, but she was not pleased. "You did--Beau-papa," she answered.
"I didn't know I was so beautiful. I have been dining out, hence the
dragon's skin. It is a nice frock, isn't it?" she ended, artistically
casual.
And then there were questions to be asked, stories to be told, and an
hour and a half passed like five minutes.
No more was said about the length of her untimely visit to Italy, but
much about the days in the near future. Would she go to see "Peter Pan"
the next night? And would she dine first at a little restaurant, where
the cooking was a thing to dream of?
And would she do several other things?
She would. She would do all these things. But--she would not go to a
certain little restaurant near Leicester Square, of which she had heard.
Joyselle blushed scarlet and for a moment looked as though he intended
to thunder out a severe reproof at her. Then she smiled at him with
narrowed eyes, and he said nothing.
At about half-past eleven an idea occurred to her. She wanted an omelet.
Like the first time. And she must borrow an apron and help make the
omelet; and it must be full of little savoury green things, and be
flopped in the long-handled frying-pan.
"But your dress!" cried Madame Joyselle, in horror.
"An apron, and I will twist up the tail of the dragon and pin it at the
waist, and--oh, come, come, come, it will be such fun!"
Down the stairs they ran, the three, leaving Madame Joyselle to turn out
all but one light, and to put another log on the dying fire.
Filled by the relentless spirit of coquetry that had suddenly awakened
in her, Brigit Mead danced about the great white kitchen, teasing
Joyselle, making love to his wife, laughing openly at Théo's admiration.
She, always so silent, chattered like a magpie; she, the uninterested,
flushed with intoxicating nonsense; the three people before her were her
audience, and she played to them individually, a different _rôle_ for
each; they were her slaves, and she piped her magic music to them until
they were literally dazed. Then, suddenly, she whisked off her blue
apron and unpinned the dragon's tail.
"The omelet was good," she said, "but it is eaten. And it is to-morrow
morning and the motor will be frozen. Come, _mon maître_, play one
beautiful thing to me before I fly away from you--something very
beautiful that I may dream of it."
And he played to her as she had never heard him. If the omelet had been
a magic wine, he could not have been more inspired!
His face took on the look it usually wore while he played, and solemnly
and reverently he stood, his eyes half shut, him mouth set in noble
lines. He had forgotten Brigit, but sub-consciously he was playing for
her, and she knew it, and appreciated the tribute, which was all the
greater because offered without intent.
She watched him unceasingly, and gradually, as the music went on, her
heart sank, and she realised that she had done a most unworthy thing.
The feeling she had had that last evening at home came back to her, the
feeling that he was a child in horrible danger. Only this time it was
she who had deliberately led him into the danger. And his
unconsciousness of his peril hurt her so, that as he stopped playing she
could have cried to him to go away, to run to the ends of the earth,
where she could not reach him.
"You liked it?" he asked gently, and the question seemed so
pathetically inadequate, and so plainly emphasised the innocence of his
mind, that tears came to her eyes.
"Yes," she said in a very quiet voice, "thank you, dear papa." But this
time there was no malice in the term, and when she said good-night to
him at the motor door, it was simply and filially. Then she turned to
Théo, and he, looking hastily up and down the quiet street, put his head
in at the window and kissed her.