something was wrong with tommy burgrave. instead of flinging excited hands in the direction of splendid equipage or beautiful woman, he sat glum by clementina’s side, while the most dazzling procession in europe passed before his eyes. of course it was a little cockneyfied to sit on a public bench on the edge of the great avenue of the champs elysées; but clementina knew that consciousness of cockneydom would not disturb the serenity of tommy’s soul. something else was the matter. he was ill at ease. gloom darkened his brow and care perched on his shoulders.
the car of thirty-five million dove-power which had brought the wanderers, the day before, to paris, had deposited etta concannon at the house of some friends for a few hours’ visit, and tommy and clementina at ledoyen’s, where they had lunched. it was over the truite à la gelée that tommy’s conversation had begun to flag. his melancholy deepened as the meal proceeded. when they strolled, after lunch; across to the avenue, his face assumed an expression of acute misery. he sat forward, elbows on knees, and traced sad diagrams on the gravel with the point of his cane.
“my good tommy,” said clementina, at last—what on earth was the matter with the boy?—“you look as merry as a museum.”
he groaned. “i’m in a devil of a fix, clementina.”
“indeed?”
what could he be in a fix about? anything more aggravatingly, insolently, excruciatingly happy than the pair of young idiots whom she had accompanied in the thirty-five million dove-power car aforesaid, she had never beheld in her life. sometimes it was as much as she could do to restrain herself from stopping the car and dumping the pair of them down by the wayside and telling them to go and play daphnis and chloe by themselves in the sylvan solitudes of france, instead of conducting their antic gambols over her heartstrings. the air re-echoed deafeningly with cooings, and the sky grew sickly with smiles. what could a young man in love want more?
“it’s the biggest, awfullest mess that ever a fellow got into,” said tommy.
“well, i suppose it’s your own fault,” she remarked, with just a touch of the vindictive. she had emptied her heart of heaven and thrown it at the boy’s feet, and he had not so much as said “thank you.”
“i’m not so sure,” said tommy.
“that’s just like a man,” said clementina. “every one of you is ready enough to cry peccavi, but it’s invariably somebody else’s maxima culpa.”
“i didn’t cry peccavi at all,” said tommy. “i suppose i had better do so, though,” he added, after a gloomy pause. “i’ve been a cad. i’ve been abusing your hospitality. any man of honour would kick me all over the place. but i swear to you it was not my fault. how the deuce could i help it?”
“help what, my good tommy?”
tommy dug his stick fiercely in the gravel. “help falling in love with etta. there! now it’s out. of course you had no idea of it.”
“of course not,” said clementina; with a wry twist of her mouth, not knowing whether to shriek with insane laughter or with pain at the final cut of the whip with which she had flagellated the offending eve. but her grim sense of humour prevailed, though her strength allowed it to manifest itself only in the twinkling of her keen eyes.
“i don’t know what you can think of me,” said tommy.
she made no reply, reflecting on the success of her comedy. as she had planned, so had it fallen out. she had saved her own self-respect—more, her self-honour—and she had saved him from making muddy disaster of his own life. the simplicity of the boy touched her deeply. the dear, ostrich reasoning of youth! of course she had no idea of it! she looked at him, sitting there, as a man sometimes looks at a very pure woman—with a pitying reverence in her eyes. but tommy did not see the look, contemplating as he was the blackness of his turpitude. for each of them it was a wholesome moment.
“you see, not only was i your guest, but i held a kind of position of trust,” continued tommy. “she was, as it were, in my charge. if i had millions, i oughtn’t to have fallen in love with her. as i’m absolutely penniless, it’s a crime.”
“i don’t think falling in love with a sweet girl is a crime,” said clementina gently. “there’s one in that automobile”—she nodded in the direction of a rosebud piece of womanhood in a carriage that was held up by a block in the traffic, just in front of them. “if any man fell in love with her right off; as she sat there, not knowing her, it wouldn’t be a crime. it would be a divine adventure.”
“she’s not worth two penn’orth of paint,” said tommy disparagingly—now clementina has told me that this was a singularly beautiful girl—such are other women than his dulcinea in the eyes of the true lover—“she isn’t even doll-pretty. but suppose she were, for the sake of argument—it might be a divine adventure for the fool who fell in love with her and never told her; but for the penniless cad who went up and told her—and got her love in return—it would be a crime.”
now it must be remembered that tommy was entirely ignorant of the fact that a fortune of two thousand pounds, the spoils of old joe jenks, was coyly lying at his banker’s, who had made the usual acknowledgment to the payer-in and not to the payee.
“so you’ve told etta?” said clementina, feeling curiously remote from him and yet curiously drawn to him.
“this morning,” said tommy, glowering at the ground. “in the hall of the hotel, waiting for you to come down.”
“oh!” said clementina, who had deliberately lingered.
“it wasn’t your fault,” said tommy with dark magnanimity. “it was the fault of that damned glove. she asked me to button it for her. why do women wear gloves thirty sizes too small for them? why can’t they wear sensible easy things like a man? i was fussing over the infernal thing—i had somehow got her arm perpendicular in front of her face and i was bending down and she was looking up—oh, can’t you see?” he broke off impatiently.
“oh yes, i can see,” replied clementina. “and i suppose etta was utterly indignant?”
“that’s the devil of it,” said the conquering but miserable lover. “she wasn’t.”
“she wasn’t?” asked clementina.
“no,” said tommy.
“then i’m shocked at her,” said clementina. “she was in my charge, enjoying my hospitality. she had no business to fall in love with—with my—” she floundered for a second—“with my invalid guest.”
“pretty sort of invalid i am,” said tommy, who; through the masquerade of woe, appealed to passers-by, especially to those of the opposite sex, as the embodiment of fair anglo-saxon lustiness. “she isn’t to blame, poor dear. i am, and yet, confound it! i’m not—for how could i help it? but what the deuce there is in me, clementina dear, for the most exquisite thing god ever made to care for, god only knows.”
clementina put her hand—the glove on it, so different from etta’s, was thirty sizes too large; it was of white cotton, and new—she had sent the page-boy of the hotel that morning to buy her a pair—she put her gloved hand on his. at the touch he raised his eyes to hers. he saw in them something—he was too young and ingenuous to know what—but something he had not seen in clementina’s eyes before.
“you’re right, my dear boy,” she said. “god knows. that being so, it is up to him, as the americans say, to make good. and he’ll make good. that is, if you really love that little girl.”
“love her!” cried tommy. “why——”
“yes, yes,” clementina interrupted hastily. “i’m convinced of it. you needn’t go into raptures.” she had endured much the last few weeks. she felt now that the penance of listening to amatory dithyrambics was supererogatory. “all i want to know is that you love her like a man.”
“that i do,” said tommy.
“and she loves you?”
tommy nodded lugubriously. she loved him for nodding.
“then why the devil are you trying to make me miserable on this beautiful afternoon?”
he twisted round on the bench and faced her. “then you’re not angry with me—you don’t think i’ve been a blackguard?”
“i think the two of you are innocent lambs,” said clementina.
tommy grinned. he, the seasoned man of the world of twenty-three, to be called an innocent lamb! much clementina knew about it.
“all the same,” said he, reverting to his gloom, “you’re different from other people; you have your own way of looking at things. ordinary folk would say i had behaved abominably. admiral concannon would kick me out of the house if i went and asked him for his daughter. it’s gilbertian! there’s a bab ballad almost on the same theme,” he laughed. “i guess i’d better not speak to the admiral yet awhile.”
“i guess not,” said clementina. “leave well alone for the present.”
this advice she gave to etta when that young person, before going to bed, told her the marvellous news. but etta’s anxiety as to future ways and means was the least of her preoccupations, which consisted, in the main, of wonder at tommy’s transcendent perfections, and at her extraordinary good fortune in winning the favour of such a miracle of a man. clementina left her radiant and went to bed with a headache and a bit of a heartache. the one little elf of romance that had crossed her grey path she had snubbed unmercifully. would ever another chance come by? would he not go back and tell his congeners of the flinty-bosomed, sour-avised female who had nearly frightened him to death; and bid them all beware of her devastating presence? it was no use her saying that she loved the elf with all her heart, but had to dissemble her love, for the elf, like the lover in the poem, would naturally ask the historic question. yet she did love him, and in the secrecy of her soul longed for such another—but one perhaps who would put before her a less puckish proposition. how could she attract one? with what lure could she entice him?
“bosh!” she said, after a couple of sleepless hours. “it’s high time i was back at work again.”
now, be it here definitely stated that clementina misjudged the elf. he was mightily amused by her treatment of him, and ran away with his elfin thumb to his elfin nose in the most graceless and delicious manner possible. he swore revenge. in his cobweb seat he thought hard. then he slapped his thighs and laughed, and returned to elfland where he raised a prodigious commotion.
the result of this will be duly set forth in the following pages.
“we leave paris to-morrow,” said clementina; buttoning her cotton gloves. “i must work, and tommy must work, and etta must learn to cook and sew and scrub saucepans. the holiday is about to end.”
two sighs greeted the announcement.
“can’t we have one other day?” etta pleaded.
“you just need the extra day to make you quite fit again,” said tommy.
clementina, unmoved by pleading or sophistry, replied, “we start to-morrow.”
etta looked at tommy and sorrowfully licked from her finger-tips the squirted cream of an éclair. they had just finished tea at colombin’s, a form of amusement to which etta was addicted. she liked the crowded room, the band, the bustle of the waitresses and the warm smell of tea and chocolate and pastry. she also had the perverted craving of female youth to destroy its appetite for dinner. she looked at tommy and cleansed herself from éclair like a dainty kitten; but tommy’s eyes were fixed to the entrance of the tea-room. he half rose from his chair.
“lord almighty, if that isn’t uncle ephraim!”
“where?” cried clementina.
he nodded, and clementina, turning her head, saw quixtus, one of a party of four, two men and two ladies, threading their way between the chattering tables under the guidance of a waitress. they found places not far off. quixtus sat down with his back to clementina.
“i wonder whom he has got hold of,” said tommy.
“she’s awfully pretty,” said etta, glancing at mrs. fontaine.
“passable,” said tommy. “i don’t care for women who look like nuns.”
“she doesn’t look a bit like a nun,” she contradicted. “she’s talking and laughing like anything.”
clementina said nothing, but studied the woman’s face. the portrait painter’s instinct arose. she would like to get her in the sitter’s chair and see what sort of a thing would come out on the canvas. the woman seemed to be the mistress of the feast. it was she who apportioned the seats and gave the orders; also it was she who led the animated conversation. the party seemed to be intimate.
“whatever the crowd is, they’re having a good time,” said tommy, “an unusual thing for my uncle.”
“perhaps that’s because he’s crazy,” suggested etta.
“perhaps,” said tommy. “i should like to knock some sanity into him, though,” he added ruefully; “especially as things are at present.”
“so should i,” remarked clementina, and again she scrutinised the woman’s face.
“perhaps his reason will come back when he sees etta!” cried tommy, laughing boyishly. “i’ll go and present her.”
“you’ll do no such thing,” said clementina.
but clementina, when they had risen to leave the tea-room, found that she had counted without her hosts, who had arranged the crowded tables in such a manner that in order to reach the exit door, she and her charges had to pass immediately behind huckaby, who sat facing quixtus. chance had also caused a temporary blocking of the gangway a little further on. the trio came to a compulsory standstill beside the quartette. tommy stretched out a frank hand.
“hullo, uncle ephraim! what are you doing here?”
quixtus rose and took the proffered hand, but he did not answer the indiscreet question.
“how d’ye do, tommy? i hope i see you well.” then he became conscious of clementina, whom he greeted with stiff courtesy.
“i must present you to miss etta concannon,” said tommy. “this is my uncle, dr. quixtus. we’ve been motoring all over france with clementina. had a gorgeous time.”
again clementina looked at the woman with the nun’s face and the alluring eyes, and this time the woman looked at clementina. between the two pairs of eyes was a second’s invisible rapier play. mrs. fontaine broke into a laugh.
“won’t you introduce me, dr. quixtus?” and then, the introductions being effected—“i hope you’re staying a long while in paris.”
“we leave to-morrow,” snapped clementina. “and you?” she asked, turning to quixtus.
he made a vague gesture. a week’s seine water had flowed beneath the bridges since he had first walked up the rue de la paix with mrs. fontaine, and that week had been full of interest, morbid and otherwise. not only did he hug himself in his imaginary wrap of diabolical wickedness, but also—if he could admit the truth—he was enjoying himself enormously in the most blameless fashion. mrs. fontaine showing no particular desire to leave paris, he had adjourned his own departure sine die.
“i am remaining some time yet,” he replied.
“in the interests of prehistoric man?”
the implication was brutal. two little red spots rose to mrs. fontaine’s cheeks. she conceived a sudden hatred for the rough-voiced, keen-eyed creature with her untidy hair and caricature of a hat. a retort; containing the counter-implication of clementina’s resemblance to a prehistoric woman, was tempting. but it would lay herself open to obvious attack. she laughed.
“we are all helping dr. quixtus to recover from prehistoric man. he has just been attending an anthropological congress.”
“umph!” said clementina.
“where are you staying, uncle ephraim?” asked tommy.
“at the h?tel continental.”
“i’ll come and look you up—to-night or to-morrow morning.”
why should he not treat quixtus as hard-hearted uncles are treated in the story-books? videlicet, why should not etta and himself go hand in hand before him, tell him their tragic and romantic history, and, falling pathetically on their knees, beg for his blessing and subvention? to thrust so fair a flower as etta from him—surely he could not be as crazy as all that? but quixtus threw cold water on the ardent fancy.
“i’m sorry to say that both to-night and to-morrow morning i shall be engaged.”
“then i’ll look you up in london when you get back,” said tommy cheerfully.
a gangway to the door being now clear, clementina made perfunctory adieux to quixtus and his friends; and henlike, marshalling her two chickens in front of her, sailed out of the tea-room.
“he doesn’t look at all horrid,” said etta, when they reached the street. “i wonder what makes him behave so. and how generous of you, tommy, to be so sweet to him!”
tommy smiled as if he were compact of lofty qualities.
“i’ve been blessing him all the time,” he whispered in her ear, “for if it hadn’t been for his craziness i shouldn’t be here with you.”
clementina trudged on in silence until they turned into the rue saint-honoré, where their hotel was situated. then she said suddenly:
“i don’t like your uncle, and i don’t like his friends. i’m sorry we ran into them. if we stayed on in paris we should be running into them every day. i’m glad we’re clearing out to-morrow.”
whereupon the elf, who had returned from elfland to haunt her, laughed immoderately; for he knew that at the bureau of the hotel a telegram was awaiting her.
