the great train thundered on straight down through the heart of france. almost the length of it separated quixtus and clementina. they had seen each other only for a few moments amid the bustle of the hurrying platform—just long enough for her quick vision to perceive, in the uncertain blue light of the arc-lamps, a haunted look in his eyes that was absent when she had first met him that afternoon. he had spoken a few courteous phrases; he had inquired whether tommy and etta, who clung to her to the last, were to be fellow travellers, whereon clementina had very definitely informed him that etta was staying with friends in paris, while tommy had arranged to visit a painter chum at barbizon; he had expressed the hope that when they arrived at marseilles she would command his services, and, after a bareheaded leave-taking of the two ladies, which caused etta afterwards to remark that it was only her short skirt that had prevented her from making her court curtsey, he had gone in search of his own compartment.
etta had flung her arms round clementina’s neck.
“oh, clementina darling, do come back soon! the jacksons are kind, but, oh, so stuffy! and tommy is going to barbizon, and i shan’t see him, and if you don’t come back soon, he’ll have forgotten all about me.”
tommy had given her a great hug and kissed her.
“good-bye, dear. god bless you. come back soon. we can’t do without you.”
and clementina, pausing on the first step of the railway carriage, had turned and raised her hand—the unfilled finger-ends of her cotton gloves projecting comically—and cried:
“good-bye, you dear, selfish, detestable, beloved children!”
and neither of the twain had known what in the world she meant.
the great train thundered on through the country which clementina had traversed a month or so before with tommy—dijon, macon, lyons. . . . things had changed since then. then a sweet rejuvenescence had crept through her veins; then she had amused herself with the idea of being a lady. the towns, whose names shouted through the awful stillness of the stations otherwise only broken by the eerie clank of the wheel-testers’ hammers were now but abstract stages on her journey, then had a magical significance. . . . that must be vienne through which they were dashing. . . . if the bitter-sweet, the tragi-comedy, the cardiac surgery of vienne had not brought a smile to clementina’s lips in the dark solitude of her compartment, would she have been the sturdy, humorous clementina who had cried her farewell to the children? things had changed since then, she assured herself. she was just clementina again, fighting her battles alone, impatient, contemptuous, unfeeling; no longer a lady, merely a female dauber, ready once more to paint elderly magnates’ trousers at so much per leg. . . . she sighed and laughed. those had been pleasant times. . . . that she should be going over the same ground now with quixtus seemed a freakish trick of destiny.
at nine o’clock in the morning the train entered marseilles station. quixtus came speedily up to clementina as she stepped on to the platform, and offered his services. he trusted she had slept well and had a comfortable journey.
“didn’t sleep a wink,” said clementina. “did you?”
quixtus admitted broken slumbers. the strangeness of the adventure had kept him awake.
“you’re looking ill this morning,” said clementina, glancing at him sharply. “what’s the matter with you?”
he seemed careworn, feverish, and an unnatural glitter had replaced the haunted look in his eyes. clementina did not know how the approaching consummation of a deed of real wickedness terrified the mild and gentle-natured man. hitherto his evil doings had been fantastic, repaired almost at once as if mechanically by the underlying instinct of generosity; his visions of sin had been fantastic, too, harmless, unpractical; but this sin of vengeance which he had intellectually conceived and fostered loomed great and terrible. so does the braggart who has sworn to eat up a lion alive, totter at the knees when he hears the lion’s roar. his night had been that of a soul on fire.
“something’s wrong. what is it?” asked clementina.
he answered vaguely. this summons had upset him. it had set him thinking, a tiring mental process. he remembered, said he, how hammersley, when they were boys together, had called him to see a dying butterfly on a rose-bush. the yellow wings were still flapping languidly; then slower and slower; then strength gave out and they quivered in the last effort; and then the hold on the rose-bush relaxed and the butterfly fell to the earth—dead.
“what does monsieur wish done with the baggage?” asked the attendant porter, who had listened uncomprehendingly to the long and tragical tale.
quixtus passed his hand across his forehead and looked at the porter as if awakening out of a dream.
“what you like,” said he.
so forlorn and hag-ridden did he appear, that a wave of pity swept through clementina. the deadly phrase of the judge in the marrable trial occurred to her: “such men as you ought not to be allowed to go about loose.” the mothering instinct more than her natural forcefulness, made her take charge of the situation.
“the omnibus of the h?tel du louvre,” she said to the man, and taking quixtus by the arm, she led him like a child out of the station.
“get in,” she said with rough kindliness, pushing him towards the step of the omnibus. but he moved aside for her to precede him. clementina said “rubbish!” and entered the vehicle. she was no longer playing at being a lady. quixtus followed her, and the omnibus clattered down the steep streets and jolted and swayed through the traffic and between the myriad tramcars that deface and deafen the city. the morning sun shone fiercely. the pavements baked. the sun-drenched buildings burned hot to the eye and the very awnings in the front of shops and over stalls in the markets suggested heat rather than coolness. far away at the end of the cannebière, the strip of sea visible glittered like a steel blade.
“whew!” gasped clementina, “what heat!”
“i feel it rather chilly,” said quixtus.
she stared at him, wiping a damp forehead. what was the matter with the man?
when they entered the fairly cool vestibule of the hotel, the manager met them and assigned the rooms. they asked for hammersley. alas, said the manager, he was very ill. the doctor was with him even now. an elderly man in thin, sunstained tweeds, who had been sitting in a corner playing with a child of five or six in charge of a chinese nurse, came forward and greeted them.
“are you the friends mr. hammersley telegraphed for? miss wing and dr. quixtus? my name is poynter. i was a fellow passenger of mr. hammersley’s on the ‘moronia.’ he was a sick man when he started; and got worse on the voyage. impossible to land at brindisi. arrived here, he could go no further either by boat or train. he was quite helpless, so i stayed on till his friends could come. it was i who wrote out and sent the telegrams.”
“that was very good of you,” said clementina.
quixtus bowed vaguely, but spoke not a word. his lips were white. he held the front edges of his jacket crushed in a nervous grip. poynter’s voice sounded far away. he barely grasped the meaning of his words. a dynamo throbbed in his head instead of a brain.
“is he dying?” asked clementina.
mr. poynter made an expressive gesture. “i’m afraid so. he collapsed during the night and they’ve been giving him oxygen this morning. yesterday he was desperately anxious to see you both.”
“is it possible or judicious to go to him now?” asked clementina.
“you may inquire. if you will allow me, i’ll show you the way to his room.”
he led the way to the lift. they entered. for quixtus his companions had ceased to exist. he was conscious only of going to the dying man, and the dynamo throbbed, throbbed. during the ascent clementina said abruptly to poynter:
“how long is it since you’ve been home?”
“twenty-five years,” he replied with a grim smile. “and it has been the dream of my life for ten.”
“and you’ve stopped off in this hades of a place for the sake of a sick stranger? you must be a good sort.”
“you would have done the same,” said poynter.
“not i.”
he smiled again and looked at her with his calm, certain eyes. “a man does not live in the far orient for nothing. i know you would. this way,” he said, as the lift-door opened. he led them down a corridor, quixtus following, a step or two behind, like a man in a trance.
the awful moment was at hand, the moment which, in the tea-shop and in the hotel, had seemed far, far distant, hidden in the mists of some unreal devil-land; which at dinner had begun to loom through the mists; which all night long had seemed to grow nearer and nearer with every rhythmic thud of the thundering train, until, at times, it touched him like some material horror. the moment was at hand. at last he was about to fulfil his destiny of evil. his enemy lay dying, the spirit faintly flapping its wings like the butterfly. in a moment they would enter a room. he would behold the dying man. he would curse him and send a blackened, anguished soul into eternity.
the dynamo in his brain and the beating of his heart made him fancy that they were walking to the sound of muffled drums. nearer, nearer. this was real, actual. he was a devil walking to the sound of muffled drums.
poynter and clementina stopped before a door. quixtus stood still shaking all over, like a horse in front of a nameless terror.
“this is his room,” said poynter, grasping the handle.
quixtus gave a queer cry and suddenly threw himself forward and clutched poynter’s arm convulsively, his features distorted with terror.
“wait—wait! i can’t do it! i can’t do it! it’s monstrous!”
he leaned up against the wall and closed his eyes.
“overwrought nerves,” whispered poynter.
there happened to be a bench near by, placed for the convenience of the chambermaid of the floor. clementina made him sit down.
“i don’t think you’re quite up to seeing him just now,” she said.
he shook his head. “no. not just now. i feel faint. it’s death. i’m not used to death. you go in. give him my love. i’ll see him later. but give him my love.”
“very well,” said clementina.
she rapped gently at the door. it was opened and a sister of charity in a great white coif appeared on the threshold.
she looked at the visitors sadly.
“c’est fini,” she whispered.
quixtus staggered to his feet.
“dead?”
“oui, monsieur.”
the sweat broke out in great drops on his forehead.
“dead!” he repeated.
“vous pouvez entrer si vous voulez,” said the sister.
then quixtus reeled as if some one had dealt him a crushing blow. poynter saved him from falling and guided him to the seat. for a long, long second all was darkness. the dynamo stopped suddenly. then, as had happened once before, a little thread seemed to snap in his brain. he opened his eyes feeling sick and giddy. the sister quickly disappeared into the room, and returned with some brandy. the others stood anxiously by. presently the spirits took effect and enabled him to co-ordinate his faculties. with an effort of will he rose and straightened himself.
“i am better now. let us go in.”
“wiser not,” said clementina, a thousand miles from suspecting the psychological phenomenon that had occurred.
quixtus slightly raised a protesting hand.
“i assure you there is no reason why i should not go in,” he said in a shaky voice.
“all right,” said clementina. “but you can’t go tumbling all over the place.”
once more she took his arm in her strong grip, and, leaving poynter outside, they entered the death-chamber together. the windows were flung wide, but the outside shutters were closed, darkening the room and cooling it from the baking sun. a man in a frock coat and narrow black tie—the doctor—was aiding his assistant in the repacking of the oxygen apparatus. on the bed, gaunt, hollow-cheeked, and pinched, lay all that was left of hammersley. only his blonde hair and beard, with scarcely a touch of grey, remained of that which was familiar. the laughing eyes which had charmed men and women were hidden for ever beneath the lids. clementina’s hand crept half-mechanically downwards and clasped that of quixtus, which returned the pressure. so hand in hand they stood, in silence, by the death-bed.
at last clementina whispered:
“whatever may have been the misunderstanding between you, all is over now. may his sins be forgiven him.”
“amen,” said quixtus.
tears rolled down clementina’s cheeks and fell on her bodice. the dead man had belonged to her youth—the dreary youth that had taken itself for grim, grey eld. he had brought into it a little laughter, a little buoyancy, much strength, much comfort; all, so simply, so kindly. at first, in her fierce mood of revolt, she had rebuffed him and scorned his friendship. but he was one of the gifted ones who could divine a woman’s needs and minister to them; so he smiled at her rejection of his offerings, knowing that she craved them, and presented them again and again until at last, worn out with longing, she clutched at them frantically and hugged them to her bosom. a generous gentleman, a loyal friend, a very help in time of trouble, he lay there dead before her in the prime of his manhood. she let the tears fall unchecked, until they blinded her.
a dry, queer voice broke a long silence, whispering in her ear:
“i told you to give him my love, didn’t i?”
she nodded and squeezed quixtus’s hand.
the doctor stood by waiting till their scrutiny of the dead should be over. clementina was the first to turn to him and to ask for information as to the death. in a few words the doctor told her. when she entered the room he had been dead five minutes.
“who, madame, you or this gentleman, is responsible for what remains to be done?”
“i am. don’t you think so, ephraim?”
quixtus bowed his head.
“i sent him my love,” he murmured.
“and now,” said the sister of charity, “we must make the toilette du mort. will you have the kindness to retire?”
she smiled sadly and opened the door.
“there is a packet in the drawer for this lady and gentleman,” said poynter, who had stood waiting for them in the corridor.
“ah! bon,” said the sister. she crossed the room and returned with the packet, which she handed to clementina. it was sealed and addressed to them jointly. “to ephraim quixtus and clementina wing. to be opened after my death.” clementina stuffed it in the pocket of her skirt.
“we’ll open it together by-and-by. now we’d better go to our rooms and tidy up and have some food. only a fool goes through such a day as is before us on an empty stomach. what’s your number? i’ll tell them to send you up some coffee and rolls.”
he thanked her dreamily. she arranged a meeting at noon in order to go through the packet. they walked along the corridor, poynter accompanying them. he proposed, it being convenient to them, to take the night train to paris and home. in the meanwhile his services were at their disposal.
“i wish i could pack you off to piccadilly by hertzian wave, right away,” said clementina.
“it’s devonshire i’m longing for,” said he.
they arrived at the lift door.
“you’ll love it all the better for having played the angel in hades,” said clementina with moist eyes. “good-bye for the present.”
she extended her hand. he took it, held it in a hesitating way. an expression of puzzledom came over his tanned, lined features.
“are you going to your room now?”
“yes,” said clementina.
“pardon my presumption,” said he, “but—but aren’t you going to see the child?”
“child?” cried clementina. “what child?”
“why—mr. hammersley’s—didn’t you know? she’s here——”
“here?”
“when you came into the vestibule, didn’t you notice a little girl i was playing with—and a chinese nurse——”
“lord have mercy upon us!” exclaimed clementina. “do you hear that, ephraim?”
“yes, i hear,” said quixtus tonelessly. the conflict within him between mithra and ahriman had left him weak and non-recipient of new impressions. “hammersley has a little daughter. i wasn’t aware of it. i wonder how he got her. she must have a mother somewhere.”
“the mother’s dead,” said poynter. “from what i could gather from hammersley, the child has no kith or kin in the world. that was why he was so desperately anxious for you to come.”
clementina peered at him with screwed-up monkey face, as if he were sitting for his portrait.
“it’s the most amazing thing i’ve ever heard in my life!” she clapped her hand to her pocket. “and this sealed envelope? do you know anything about it?”
“i do,” said poynter. “it contains a letter and a will. i wrote them both at his dictation ten days ago. the will is a properly attested document appointing dr. quixtus and yourself his executors and joint trustees of the little girl. a dear little girl,” he added, with a touch of wistfulness. “you’ll love her.”
“god grant it!” cried clementina fervently. “but what an old maid like me and an old bachelor like him are going to do with a child between us, the lord almighty alone knows.”
yet, as she spoke, the picture of the child—in spite of her preoccupation on entering the hotel, her sharp vision had noted the fairy fragility of the english scrap contrasting with the picturesque materialism of the fat chinese nurse—the picture of the child enthroned on cushions (a feminine setting!) in the studio in romney place, flashed with acute distinctness before her mind, and some foolish thing within her leapt and stabbed her with a delicious pain.
quixtus brushed his thinning hair from his forehead.
“i understand,” said he faintly. “i understand that i am a trustee for hammersley’s daughter. i wasn’t expecting it. i hope you’ll not think it discourteous if i leave you? i’m not quite myself to-day. i’ll go and rest.”
he entered the lift which had been standing open for some time. there is not a feverish hurry in marseilles hotels between steamers in june. clementina with a gesture checked the lift-boy. the man must be looked after at once. she turned to poynter.
“like a dear good soul,” she said, in her frank way, “go down and prepare the child for such a rough-and-tumble stepmother as me. i’ll be with you in a few minutes. what’s your number, ephraim?” he showed her the ticket. “two hundred and seventy?”
“au troisième, madame.”
the lift gate clicked. they mounted a couple of floors. the chambermaid of the étage showed them into number two hundred and seventy. then clementina took command. in less than two minutes windows were opened and shutters adjusted, the waiter was despatched for coffee, the valet was unpacking and arranging quixtus’s personal belongings, and the chambermaid spreading the bed invitingly open. when clementina was a lady, she behaved in the most self-effacing and early victorian ladylike way in the world. but when she was clementina and wanted to do things, she would have ordered the devil about like a common lackey, and boxed the ears of any archangel who ventured to interfere with her.
quixtus, unprepared for this whirlwind ministration on the part of clementina, whom he had hitherto regarded rather as an antagonistic principle than as a sympathetic woman, sat bolt upright on the edge of the sofa and looked on with an air of mystification. yet, feeling weak and broken, he was content to let her tend him.
“take off your clothes and go to bed,” said clementina, standing, hands on hips, in front of him. “for two pins i’d undress you myself and put you to sleep like a baby.”
a wan smile flickered over his features.
“i’m very grateful to you for your kindness. perhaps a little rest will bring mental adjustment. that’s what i think i need—mental adjustment.”
he repeated the words several times, and sat staring in front of him.
on the threshold clementina turned and crossed the room again.
“ephraim,” she said, “i think if you and i had been better friends all these years, there wouldn’t have been so much of this adjusting necessary. it has been my fault. i’m sorry. but now that we have a child to bring up, i’ll look after you. you poor man,” she added, touching his arm very kindly and feeling ridiculously sentimental. “you must be the loneliest thing that ever happened.” she caught up his suit of pyjamas and threw them by his side on the sofa. “now for god’s sake stick on these things and go to bed.”
downstairs, in the vestibule, she found poynter with the little girl on his knees. the chinese nurse sat like a good-tempered idol a few feet away.
“this is your new auntie,” said poynter, as clementina approached.
the child slipped from his knees and looked up at her with timorous earnestness. she was fair, with the transparent pallor of most children born and bred in the east, a creature of delicate fragility and grace. clementina saw that she had her father’s frank hazel eyes. the child held out her hand.
“good morning, auntie,” she said in a curiously sweet contralto.
clementina took the seat vacated by poynter, and drew the child towards her.
“won’t you give me a kiss?”
“of course.”
she put up her little lips. the appeal to the woman was irresistible. she caught the child to her and clasped her to her bosom, and kissed her and said foolish things. when her embrace relaxed as abruptly as it had begun, the child said:
“i like that. do that again.”
“bless you, my darling, i could do it all day long,” cried clementina.
she held the child with one arm, the little face pillowed on her bosom, and with her free hand groped in her pocket for her handkerchief. this found, she blew her nose loudly and glanced at poynter who was surveying the pair with his grave, wise smile.
“i’m sure you don’t mind if i make a fool of myself,” she said. “and i’m sure i don’t.”
