"I will not go to Kingsmead, Victor."
"Then," his anger now finally blazed up, "I can say only--good-bye."
Her face was as white and as hard as his own, and being a woman she
could even laugh.
"_Adieu, donc--Beau-père!_"
"What do you mean by that? You will not--surely you cannot mean that you
will----"
"But I do!" He himself had suggested a revenge to her. "If you and I
quarrel, I will most certainly not marry your son."
For a moment the father in him dominated the mere man, and his eloquence
was great as he reproached her.
"No--no, I am not cruel," she answered cruelly, her anger reinforced by
a wave of jealousy anent Théo, "but as I do not love him, why should I
marry him? And this kind of thing had far better cease. After all, you
care for him far more than you care for me."
"_Grand Dieu!_"
"Yes, of course you do," she went on in the tone of gentle,
unimpassioned reason that women sometimes use in violent anger, to the
utter amazement and undoing of their male opponents. "And moreover, I
daresay if I really loved you as much as I thought I did, I should be
unable to refuse to do what you wish about my mother."
Joyselle's face was very white.
"What do you mean? Do you mean that your love for me was a mere caprice,
and that--it has gone?"
His agony was unconcealed, and as she gazed she smiled, for her own
torture was nearly unbearable.
"I shouldn't like to say it was only a caprice----" She hesitated, and he
sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
Suddenly he rose and seizing her arm roughly, gave her another cue,
which she remorselessly and instantly took.
"There is someone else," he cried, utterly forgetting that the very day
before she had loved him madly, "you love some other man. Tell me who it
is!"
And with the extraordinary fortitude common to fanatics and furious
women, she smiled and answered:
"Perhaps! _Tout passe, mon cher._"
It was a cheap and melodramatic bit of acting, and any unprejudiced
onlooker must have seen the agony in her face, but Joyselle was blinded
by his own pain and fled from the room without another word.
She heard a door slam and knew that he had gone out. And the world came
to an end for her.
It was about six o'clock, and Tommy had gone out with Théo. They would
not be back until about eight.
Félicité, too, was out. She was alone. She saw Papillon, who was sitting
up, looking at her with a world of sympathy in the cock of his ear.
Suddenly Brigit burst into tears, nervous, hysterical, noisy sobbing, as
she had done that day in the olive grove at the Villa Arcadie. She had
been living under great nervous strain for months, and these breakdowns
were of appalling violence. She _could_ not stop crying, and she could
not reason and tell herself that he would come back and forgive her.
All she could realise was her hideous misery and sense of desolation.
She was utterly alone, she was hungry, she was cold, she was hopeless.
Presently someone touched her shoulder very gently. It was Félicité.
"What is it, my dear?" the elder woman asked. "What has happened?"
And Brigit, too unstrung to tell the usual conventional lies, simply
sobbed on, her whole body shaking with agony.
Madame Joyselle sat patiently by her, stroking her shoulders with a kind
hand, murmuring little broken phrases in French, patting her hair.
"_Oui, oui, ma mie--Pauvre petite, ça te soulagera--Pleures, ma cocotte,
pleures!_"
And at last the girl was quiet, and reached for her handkerchief.
"I--I am sorry to have been so idiotic, I don't know why I am such a
fool----"
Félicité smoothed back her wet hair and smiled at her.
"Poor child," she answered quietly. "I am so sorry. I have seen it for
some time----"
Brigit stared at her.
"Seen--?"
"That you have fallen in love with Victor. It is really too bad of him,
the old rascal."
Her gentle face was so undisturbed, so calmly acceptant of the heinous
fact that Brigit could do nothing but stare. "I am glad poor Théo does
not suspect," went on Félicité, untying the strings of her old-fashioned
bonnet, "we must not let him know, _n'est ce pas_?"
"I--I don't see----" stammered the girl, blankly.
"No, he must not know. Nor Victor either, if we can help it. Though he
is very vain, and vain men always see. On the whole," she added with a
kind of gentle amusement, "you have all been absurdly blind but me. And
I did not like to warn you."
"This is--very extraordinary," began Brigit, rising. "I don't quite
see----"
But Félicité drew her down to her chair again. "That is just it, _ma
pauvre petite_. I did see. I saw his little fancy for you, too. It began
the evening of the dragon-skin frock, and it lasted, oh--about a month.
And you never noticed it, poor child. And now you are miserable about
him. I am so sorry."
There was such convincing sincerity in her every tone that Brigit could
not even pretend to be angry.
"You must think me very silly," she murmured.
But the little woman shook her head, "_Non, non_, it is not silly to
love. It is unwise, or wrong, or heavenly, or mad, but silly, _non_. And
he is very attractive, _mon homme_." This tribute she added reluctantly,
as if from a sense of fairness. "And many have loved him."
Suddenly Brigit's anger flamed up.
"And--I am so insignificant that you are not afraid of me," she cried.
"What if he had _not_ got over it? What if he loved me as much--_more_
than I love him?"
Félicité smiled serenely and sweetly.
"No, I know him. I saw it come--and go. But do not be angry and proud,
my dear. I wish only to help you."
And Brigit, touched by her kindness as well as terrified by her own
indiscretion, sat down by her.