clementina motored to lyons by herself; dined in gaunt and lonely splendour at the grand hotel, and met etta concannon’s train very early the next morning. etta, dewy fresh after her all night train journey, threw her arms round her neck and kissed her effusively. she was a heaven-born darling, a priceless angel, and various other hyperbolical things. yes, she had had a comfortable journey; no trouble at all; all sorts of nice men had come to her aid at the various stages. she had been up since five standing in the corridor and looking at the country which was fascinating. she had no idea it was so full of interest.
“and did one of the nice men get up at five too, and stand in the corridor?” asked clementina.
the girl flushed and laughed. “how did you guess? i couldn’t help it. how could i? and it was quite safe. he was ever so old.”
“i’m glad i’ve got you in charge now,” said clementina.
“i’ll be so good, dear,” said the girl.
the luggage secured, they drove off. etta’s eyes sparkled, as they went through the ugly, monotonous, clattering streets of lyons.
“what an adorable town!”
as it was not even lit by the cheap glamour of the sun, for the sky was overcast and threatening, it looked peculiarly depressing to normal vision. but youth found it adorable. o thrice blessed blindness of youth!
“what has happened to mr. burgrave?” she asked, after a while, “i suppose his time was up and he had to go back.”
“oh, no,” said clementina coolly. “he’s at vienne.”
“oh-h!” said etta, with a little touch of reproach. “i thought it was just going to be you and i and us two.”
“we’ll put him in front next to johnson and have the back of the car all to ourselves. but i thought you liked tommy burgrave.”
“he’s quite harmless,” said etta carelessly.
“and he thinks of nothing in the world but his painting, so he won’t bother his head much about you,” said clementina.
etta fell at once into the trap. “i’m not going to let him treat me as if i didn’t exist,” she cried. “i’m afraid you’ve been spoiling him, darling. men ought to be shown their place and taught how to behave.”
his behaviour, however, on their first meeting was remarkably correct. the car, entering vienne, drew up by the side of the quay where he had pitched his easel. he rose and ran to greet its occupants with the most welcoming of smiles, which were not all directed at clementina. etta had her share. it is not in the nature of three-and-twenty to look morosely on so dainty a daughter of eve—all the daintier by contrast with the dowdy elder woman by her side. tommy had spoken truly when he had professed his downright honest affection for clementina; truly also when he had deprecated the summoning of the interloping damsel. but he had not counted on the effect of contrast. he had seen etta in his mind’s eye as just an ordinary young woman who would disturb that harmonious adjustment of artistic focus on whose discovery he had prided himself so greatly. now he realised her freshness and dewiness and goodness to look upon. she adorned the car; made quite a different vehicle of it. standing by the door he noticed how passers-by turned round and glanced at her with the frank admiration of their race. tommy at once felt himself to be an enviable fellow; he was going to take a great pride in her; at the lowest, as a mere travelling adjunct, she did him credit. clementina watched him shrewdly, and the corners of her mouth curled in an ironical twist.
“it isn’t my fault, miss concannon, that i didn’t come to lyons to meet you. clementina wouldn’t let me. you know what a martinet she is. so i was here all last evening simply languishing in loneliness.”
“why wouldn’t you let poor mr. burgrave come to lyons, clementina?” laughed etta.
“if you begin to pester me with questions,” replied clementina, “i’ll pack you off to england again.”
“all inquiries to be addressed to the courier,” said tommy.
“and you’ll answer them?”
“every one,” said tommy.
thus the freemasonry of youth was at once established between them. etta smiled sweetly on him as the car drove off to the hotel, and tommy returned to his easel with the happy impression that everything, especially the intervention of interloping damsels, was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
they met shortly afterwards at déjeuner, the brightest of meals, whereat etta talked her girlish nonsense, which tommy took for peculiarly sparkling discourse. clementina, wearing the mask of the indulgent chaperon, let the babble flow unchecked.
“do you think etta will spoil everything?” she asked him, as soon as they were alone for a moment.
“oh no,” cried the ingenuous tommy. “she’s going to be great fun.”
“h’m!” said clementina, feeling as though she might make the historic reply of the frog at whom the boys threw stones. but she had deliberately brought about the lapidation. she winced; but she could not complain.
it must not be imagined, however, that tommy transferred his allegiance in youth’s debonair, thoughtless way to the newer and prettier princess. on the contrary, in all the little outward shows of devotion he demonstrated himself more zealously than ever to be clementina’s vassal. in the excursions that they made during the next few days keeping vienne as a base—to la tour du pin, grenoble, saint-marcellin, mont-pilat—it was to clementina that he turned and pointed out the beauties of the road, and her unsteady footsteps that he guided over rough and declivitous paths. to her he also turned for serious conversation. the flowers and the new york herald came to her room as unfailingly as the morning coffee. he manifested the same tender solicitude as to her possible sufferings from hunger, drought, dust or fatigue. he paid her regal honour. in this he was aided and abetted by etta concannon, who had her own pretty ways of performing homage. in fact, the care of clementina soon became at once a rivalry and a bond between them, and clementina, so far from being neglected, found herself the victim of emulous and sometimes embarrassing ministrations. as she herself phrased it in a moment of bitter irony, they were making love over her live body.
they left vienne, tommy having made sufficient studies for immortal studio paintings, and took up their quarters at valence. there is a spaciousness about valence rare in provincial towns of france. you stand in the middle of wide boulevards, the long vista closed at one end by the far blue tops of the mountains of the vivarais, and at the other by the distant alps, and you think you are dwelling in some sweet city in the air. in the clear sunshine it is as bright and as crisp as a cameo.
“i love vienne, but i adore valence,” said etta concannon. “here i can breathe.”
they were sitting on the terrace of a café in the place de la république in front of the great monument to emile augier. it was the cool of the evening and a fresh breeze came from the mountains.
“i, too, am glad to get out of vienne,” said clementina.
tommy protested. “that’s treason, clementina. we had such ripping times there. do you remember the evening i fetched you out to see the temple of augustus and livia?”
clementina gave one of her non-committal grunts. she did indeed remember it. but for that night the three of them would not have been sitting together over coffee at valence.
“tommy’s so sentimental,” etta remarked.
“since when have you been calling him ‘tommy’?” asked clementina.
“we fixed that up this afternoon,” he said, cheerfully. ‘mr. burgrave’ suggests an afternoon party where one carts tea and food about—not a chummy motor tour.”
“we agreed to adopt each other as cousins,” said etta.
“we were kind of lonely, you know,” laughed tommy. “we happen to have no cousins of our own, and, besides, you deserted us to-day, and we felt like two abandoned babes in the car.”
“i don’t think you were much to be pitied,” said clementina.
in pursuance of her scheme of self-annihilation she had several times sent them out on jaunts together, while she herself went for a grim walk in the dust and heat. this afternoon etta had returned radiant. she had had the time of her life, and tommy was the dearest thing that ever happened. etta was addicted to the hyperbole of her generation. at dinner tommy had admitted the general amenity of their excursion to valence crest—and now came the avowal of the establishment of their cousinly and intimate relations. the scheme was succeeding admirably. how could it fail? throw together two bright, impressionable and innocent young humans of opposite sexes, and of the same social position, link them by a common tie, let them spend hours in each other’s company, withdraw the ordinary restrictions that limit the intercourse of such beings in everyday society, bathe them in sunshine and drench their souls with beauty, and you have the garden of eden over again, the serpent being replaced by his chubby and winged successor. the result is almost inevitable. but you can withdraw with certainty the qualifying adverb, when one of the potentially high contracting parties has been suffering from heart-scratch, and has announced her intention of becoming a hospital nurse.
i am quite aware that in the eyes of the world clementina’s conduct was outrageous. etta was the only child of a wealthy admiral; tommy, a penniless painter. admiral concannon had confidently entrusted his daughter to her care and had not the least idea of what was going on. when the disastrous story should reach his ears, he would foam righteously at the mouth, and use, with perfect justification, the most esoteric of quarter-deck language. i do not attempt to defend clementina. all the same, you must remember that in tommy burgrave she was giving to etta as a free gift her most priceless possession. tommy in her eyes was the real prince charming—at present, as often happens in fairy tales, under a cloud, but destined in real life, as in the fairy tales, to come, by a speedy wave of the magic wand, into his principality. as to the waving of the magic wand, she had her own ideas. she was quite prepared to weather the admiral’s storm.
“there was never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams,” is rosalind’s startling description of the courtship between oliver and celia. these lovers, however, were elizabethans who did things in a large, splendid and unhesitating way. the case with tommy and etta, who were moderns, governed by all kinds of subtleties and delicacies, three centuries’ growth, was not quite so instantaneous. the ordinary modern youth and maiden, of such clean upbringing, walk along together, hand in hand in perfect innocence, for a long time, never realising that they are in love with one another till something happens. the maiden may be sent into the country by an infuriated mother. hence revelation with anguish. the indiscreet jesting of a friend, a tragedy causing both to come hard against the bed-rock facts of life, may shatter the guileless shell of their love. i know of two young things who came by the knowledge through bumping their heads together beneath a table while searching for a fallen penny. a shock, a jar is all that is needed. but with tommy and etta nothing yet had happened. they walked along together sweetly imagining themselves to be fancy-free. if the truth were known it would be found that the main subject of their conversation was clementina.
when the time came for them to leave the café, tommy helped both ladies to put on their jackets. the human warmth of the crowded terrace sheltered from the mountain breeze by the awnings had rendered wraps unnecessary. but outside they discovered the air to be chill. clementina first was invested—with the slightest hint of hurry. she turned and saw tommy snatch etta’s jacket from a far too ready waiter’s hand. in his investiture of etta there was the slightest hint of lingering. in the nice adjustment of the collar their fingers touched. the girl raised laughing eyes which his met tenderly. a knife was thrust through clementina’s heart and she closed her thin lips tightly to dissimulate the pain.
etta came into her room that night under the vague pretence of playing maid and helping her to undress. her aid chiefly consisted in sitting on the bed and chattering out of a bird-like happiness.
“it’s all just heaven,” she declared. “i wish i could show you how grateful i am. i’ve had nothing like it all my life. when i get home i won’t rest till i’ve teased father into getting a car—he’s so old-fashioned you know, and thinks his fat old horses and the family omnibus make up the only equipage for a gentleman. but i’ll worry him into a car, and then we’ll go all over europe. but it won’t be quite the same without—without you, clementina, dear.”
clementina wriggled into an old flannel dressing jacket and began to roll a cigarette.
“i thought you were going to be a hospital nurse.”
“so did i,” said the girl, a shadow flitting swiftly over her face. “but i don’t seem to want to now, i should hate it.”
“what has made you change your mind?” asked clementina, after the first puff of smoke.
etta, on the bed, nursed her knee. her fair hair fell in a mass about her shoulders. she looked the picture of innocence—a female child samuel out of an illustrated family bible.
“the sight of you, darling, at lyons station.”
“little liar!” murmured clementina.
but she forebore to question the girl further. she had no intention of supplying the necessary shock above mentioned. the observance of the gradual absorption of these two young souls one in the other was far too delicious an agony to be wantonly broken. besides, it hardened her nature (so she fondly imagined), dried up the newly found well-head of passion, reduced the soft full woman back to the stony-hearted; wooden-faced, bitter-tongued, cynical, portrait-painting automaton, the enviable, self-mutilated clementina of a few months ago. when a woman wants to punish herself she does so conscientiously. the offending eve should be thoroughly whipped out of her.
the car of thirty-five million dove-power sped through the highways of sunny france—through enchanted forest glades, over mountains of the moon; through cities of wonderland, so, at least, it seemed to two young souls. for clementina, alas, the glamour of sky and sunshine and greenery had departed. for johnson, happy possessor of a carburation in lieu of a temperament it had never existed. from valence they struck north-west, though st. etienne, roanne, nevers, bourges. it was at bourges that she came upon the two young people unawares.
she had entered, not knowing where they were, for they had gone off together, the cloistered courtyard of the h?tel de jacques c?ur. now the cloister forms an arcaded gallery a few feet above the ground, which is reached by a flight of steps. she heard voices, approached hidden from them, beheld the pair sitting on the bottom step, in the cool shadow.
“i should never get the whole adorableness of this,” said tommy, “if i hadn’t you beside me. you and i seem to be like the two barrels of a field-glass—adjusted to one focus.”
clementina, hugging the wall, tip-toed out of the cloister. there was only one alternative, a whirlwind, a hurricane of a temptation which she was strong enough to resist: to descend then and there and box his ears soundly.
