When Joyselle came in at eight o'clock he went straight to his room to
dress. He was still very angry, but his anger was less poignant than his
sense of helpless defeat. Brigit's attitude was absolutely
incomprehensible to him, and hurt him in an almost unbearable degree.
That she should defy him, grow as angry as he himself, he had already
learned was not impossible; but the cruel hardness of her face as she
had sent him away had shocked him more than anything in his whole
experience.
He was a shrewd man, and his love for her had never blinded him as to
her faults; often he had corrected her for unfilial behaviour, for a too
sharp word, for selfishness. But the one quality which to a strong and
tender man is unendurable in the woman he loves, cruelty, he had never
before realised in the girl, and his discovery that it lay in her to
hurt him as she had done, had nearly broken his heart.
For hours he had walked rapidly through the streets, seeing no one,
avoiding being knocked down by a kind of subconscious attention and
alertness of mind, his brain struggling desperately with its problem.
In a few words, all life seemed to him to have reduced itself to the
question, "How could she?" As yet he had not got further than this, and
it did not occur to him to wonder whether or no her mental attitude was
definite or only temporary. "How could she? How could she so rend him?
Of what was her heart made that it could allow her so to wound his?"
When he reached home the incomprehensibility of this problem was fast
outweighing his anger, and Félicité, who came in as he stood in the
middle of the room brushing his hair, smiled at the misery in his face.
"So she was cruel, the little one?" she asked gently, sitting down and
folding her hands in her characteristic way.
"She was--abominable. But how did you know?"
"I found her in tears. You must be gentle with her, my man."
He stared. "Gentle? But she is a demon when she is angry. Tell me to be
gentle with an enraged lioness."
Félicité's smile was good to see. "She is not an enraged lioness,
Victor. She is--very unhappy, and we must help her."
He went to the dressing-table and put down his brushes. "I am tired,
wife," he said quietly; "let us talk of something else. Besides, it is
nearly half-past eight."
She nodded.
"Yes. But--Victor, you remember the Polish girl?"
"Franska? Yes."
"Well? And the pantomimiste, and Miss Belton, and Lady Paula----"
Joyselle started in the act of shaking scent on his handkerchief. "Of
course I remember them. But what have they to do with Brigitte?"
"Only this, Victor. The poor child is in love with you, _vieux vaurien_!
And that is why she is so savage."
She sat quite still, looking up at him with an indulgent smile, into
which the maternal element largely entered. He was a fatal person, this
great fiddler of hers; but to her he was also a child to be cared for,
and a not quite normal being, to whose absent mind much must be
explained.
Her charming face, almost old in spite of its fresh colour, was touched,
as she watched his back, with a flicker of kindly mischief.
"And to think that you did not know, blind one," she teased.
"It--it is your imagination," he returned with a slight stammer, turning
and facing her.
"No, no. Also I did not imagine that at first you, too, were a little
_épris_. It was most natural, my dear. She is so very beautiful. I was
glad when it passed. It was the day of the long discussion about the
wedding--the day of the letter from your mother--do you remember? When
you rushed away like a whirlwind?"
"Yes--I remember."
"Well, when you returned, you were quiet and a little pale, and I
understood. The talk about Théo's wedding had put things into their
right places in your mind, silly old child, _pas_? And then you brought
her back here after the dance, and--all was well."
Joyselle stood quite still. He was bitterly ashamed of himself for
deceiving this dear, good woman, who was so innocently believing in him,
but he could say nothing. All was well, she said, when he came home that
evening after Brigit had come to him in the studio. Yes, but it was
because he knew then that she loved him; because his scruples were for
the time overwhelmed by the irresistible force of their passion for each
other; because the glory of the present blinded his eyes to any
visualising of the future.
That love, like everything else, must go through a series of
mathematically exact evolutions, Joyselle of course, in his present
frame of mind, could not realise. To him, as to every lover, the
happenings and exigencies of his situation seemed those of pure hazard,
and this phase, as he listened to his wife's interpretation of it,
appeared to him absolutely the result of a chance quarrel with Brigit.
"She is distressed and very tragic about it all," continued Félicité.
"Of course she _would_ be tragic; it is her nature. She no doubt
believes that she will never get over it. It is a pity, isn't it?"
"_Oui, oui._" He had again turned away, and stood by the window
polishing his nails, of which he was very vain, in the palm of his hand.
"The only thing that troubles me is--Théo. It would break his heart,
poor child. He, too," she added, still with her kindly cynicism, "would
think she will never get over it. It is thus that all lovers think.
But--what are we to do, Victor? I have been thinking much about it.
Shall we try separation--from you--for her? Or would that make it worse?
She is not patient, and she has no discipline or self-control. She might
do something foolish."
"Why should she do something foolish, if it is only a--passionette?" he
asked harshly, for he did not enjoy his wife's hypothesis.
"It is not the greatest loves that are the most desperate, my dear. But
we must go down. Be kind to her. Remember that she is young, and that
her imagination has made a king of you."
Joyselle frowned ferociously as he followed his wife downstairs. He did
not like being taken into her confidence in this way, and her calm
assumption that he, too, regarded Brigit as a silly schoolgirl who must
be managed into giving up a childish fancy for an old man cut him to the
quick. When they reached his study they found Théo sitting at the piano
playing with the parrot, while Brigit stood, looking like a thunder
cloud, at an open window. Joyselle started as he saw her face. Surely
its expression must rouse even Félicité's slow suspicion!
And never, for his sins, he told himself grimly, had she been more
beautiful. Her storm of tears had left her eyes unswollen, but shadowy
and unusually melting, while her face, as white as paper, was the face
of one who had been face to face with a horrible death.
"I beg your pardon for having been--rude," she said to him sulkily,
holding out her hand, which was as cold as ice.
"But it is I," he murmured, touching his lips to her fingers and feeling
her quiver as he did so. "It is that we both have what you English call
bad tempers, _pas_?"
"You must have been very bad this time, papa," commented Théo, closing
the cage door on le Conquérant and joining them. "Brigit is very angry.
Look at her!"
"I am not angry, Théo. But--quarrelling is disgusting."
Why she had stayed the girl hardly knew. She had not forgiven Joyselle,
and her apology was a mere concession to the feelings of Félicité and
Théo.
Joyselle had hurt her, but her treatment of him had so wounded herself
that she could not forgive him. All of which is quite illogical and
quite feminine.
"I will go away--anywhere--to-morrow," she told herself as she ate her
supper. "Théo will not know why, and Félicité will not tell. This sort
of thing cannot go on. This is the fifth row in the last month. We are
both too pig-headed. It's no use trying to keep the peace. I suppose if
I were his mistress he would be easier to manage--or I should. The truth
is, we are both struggling for supremacy, and we can neither of us drive
the other."
Joyselle, with a great effort, chattered gaily throughout the meal. His
thoughts, too, were in a turmoil, for he knew that her apology had been
offered merely on Théo's account, and he also knew that something was
going to happen.
Félicité, sincerely sorry for Brigit and anxious anent Théo, talked more
than usual, so that the uncongenial gathering was more voluble and noisy
than usual.
At its close Félicité called her son to her room under some pretext or
other, and Joyselle and Brigit went alone to his study. He closed the
door very quietly, and then turning to her, caught her hands
threateningly.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Do?" She raised her eyebrows. "I am going, of course."
"Where?"
She smiled.
"_Sais pas._ Let go my hands, please; you hurt me--Beau-papa!"
He flung away from her and stood by the window, staring with blinded
eyes into the street.
"This is really no good, you know," she went on in a conversational
tone; "we quarrel and squabble and are no earthly use to each other--the
whole position is bad. I think I will tell Théo, and go."
He did not answer, and after a pause she added: "Or marry him by special
license the day after to-morrow, and make him take me--somewhere--for a
few months."
"A--ah!"
She smiled at his groan.
"You and I have made fools of ourselves, haven't we? But it was natural.
I am very beautiful, and you are a very great genius, so----"
Maddened at her tone of indifferent justice, he turned, his face drawn
with pain.
"So it was natural? A childish fancy on your part, a senile one on mine?
A thing to--laugh at already! Oh, how _can_ you torture me like this?
You--you----"
"Devil? Or demon?" Her voice was mocking, but her lips had paled, and
she gasped a little as if breathless.
"Let's not be melodramatic, _please_. Call it what you like. I was at
least perfectly sincere."
"You were sincere----"
"Yes. Listen." Advancing swiftly to where he stood, she had the amazing
courage to give a little laugh. Then she laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Seriously, let's be good friends and forget all--the rest. I have been
a fool, but you have not; for after all, I am fairly attractive, and you
are not the first! So let's make a bargain: I will never again attract
you; you will never again _play at me_. And then things will be quite
comfy. Shall we? I have been an awful pig to Théo, who is a darling, and
from now on I shall try to make up to him."
He shrank back from her.
"What are you?" he whispered painfully. "What are you made of? And do
you want to make me hate my own son?"
"_Eh, bien_, are things all right?"
Madame Joyselle had come in, followed by Théo. Joyselle, standing in the
shadow, did not answer, but Brigit laughed gaily, and her gaiety was
unfeigned, for she had assured herself, by watching him under torture,
of the strength of Joyselle's love for her.