mrs. paul, as french had foreseen she would be, was late at their second appointment; later even than at the first. but what did french care? he could have waited contentedly for a week in that blatant drawing-room, with such hopes in his bosom and such a treasure already locked up in his portmanteau. and when at last she came she was just as cordial, as voluble and as unhelpful as ever.
the great difficulty, of course, was that she and her husband were leaving paris so soon, and that french, for his part, was under orders to return at once to america. “the things i could tell you if we only had the time!” she sighed regretfully. but this left french unmoved, for he knew by now how little she really had to tell. still, he had a good many more questions to ask, a good many more dates and facts to get at, than could be crowded into their confused hour over a laden tea-table, with belated parcels perpetually arriving, the telephone ringing, and the maid putting in her head to ask if the orange and silver brocade was to go to biarritz, or to be sent straight on with the furs and the sports clothes to st. moritz.
finally, in the hurried parenthesis between these weightier matters, he extracted from her the promise to meet him in paris in march — march at the latest — and give him a week, a whole week. “it will be so much easier, then, of course,” she agreed. “it’s the deadest season of the year in paris. there’ll be nobody to bother us, and we can really settle down to work — ” her lovely eyes kindled at the thought — “and i can give you all the papers you need, and tell you everything you want to know.”
with that he had to be content, and he could afford to be — now. he rose to take leave; but suddenly she rose also, a new eagerness in her eyes. she moved toward the door with him, and there her look detained him.
“and donald’s book too; you can get to work with donald at the same time, can’t you?” she smiled on him confidentially. “he’s told me that you’ve promised to help him out — it’s so angelically good of you! i do assure you he appreciates it immensely. perhaps he’s a little too modest about his own ability; but it is a terrible burden to have had imposed on him, isn’t it, just as he and i were having our first real holiday! it’s been a nightmare to him all these months. reading all those letters and manuscripts, and deciding — . why don’t authors do those things for themselves?” she appealed to french, half indignantly. “but after all,” she concluded, her smile deepening, “i understand that you should be willing to take the trouble, in return for the precious thing he’s given you.”
french’s heart gave a frightened thump: her smile had suddenly become too significant.
“the precious thing?”
she laughed. “do you mean to say you’ve forgotten it already? well, if you have, i don’t think you deserve it. the portrait of mrs. morland — the only one, apparently a signed drawing of horace’s; it’s something of a prize, you’ll admit. donald tells me that you and he made the discovery of the sketch-book together. i can’t for the life of me imagine how it ever escaped those harpies of dealers. you can fancy how they went through everything . . . like detectives after finger-prints, i used to say! poor me — they used to have me out of bed every day at daylight! how furious they’d be if they knew what they’ve missed!” she paused and laughed again, leaning in the doorway in one of her long artemis-attitudes.
french felt his head spinning. he dared not meet her eyes, for fear of discovering in them the unmasked cupidity he fancied he had once before detected there. he felt too sick for any thought but flight; but every nerve in him cried out: “whatever she says or does, she shall never never have that drawing back!”
she said and did nothing; which made it even more difficult for him. it gave him the feeling that if he moved she would move too — with a spring, as if she herself were a detective, and suspected him of having the treasure in his pocket (“thank god i haven’t!” he thought). and she had him so entirely at her mercy, with all the fingall dates and documents still in her hold; there was nothing he could do but go — pick up the portmanteau with the drawing in it, and fly by the next train, if need be!
the idea traversed him in a flash, and then gave way again to the desolating sense of who she was, and what it was that they were manoeuvring and watching each other about. that was the worst of all — worse even than giving up the drawing, or renouncing the book on fingall. he felt that he must get away at any cost, rather than prolong their silent duel; and, sick at heart, he reached out for the door-knob.
“oh, no!” she exclaimed, her hand coming down on his wrist.
he forced an answering smile. “no?”
she shook her head, her eyes still on his. “you’re not going like that.” though she held him playfully her long fine fingers seemed as strong as steel. “after all, business is business, isn’t it? we ordinary mortals, who don’t live in the clouds among the gods, can’t afford to give nothing for nothing . . . you don’t — so why should i?”
he had never seen her so close before, and as her face hovered over him, so warm, persuasive, confident, he noted in it, with a kind of savage satisfaction, the first faint lines of age.
“so why should i?” she repeated gaily. he stood silent, imprisoned; and she went on, throwing her head back a little, and letting her gaze filter down on him through her rich lowered lashes: “but i know you’ll agree with me that it’s only fair. after all, donald has set you the example. he’s given you something awfully valuable in return for the favour you’re going to do him — the immense favour. poor darling — there never was anybody as generous as donald! don’t be alarmed; i’m not going to ask you to give me a present on that scale.” she drew herself up and threw back her lids, as if challenging him. “you’d have difficulty in finding one — anybody would!”
french was still speechless, bewildered, not daring to think ahead, and all the while confusedly aware that his misery was feeding some obscure springs of amusement in her.
“in return for the equally immense favour i’m going to do you — coming back to paris in march, and giving you a whole week — what are you going to give me? have you ever thought about that?” she flung out at him; and then, before he could answer: “oh, don’t look so miserable — don’t rack your brains over it! i told you i wasn’t grasping — i’m not going to ask for anything unattainable. only, you see — ” she paused, her face grown suddenly tender and young again — “you see, donald wants so dreadfully to have a portrait of me, one for his very own, by a painter he really admires; a likeness, simply, you see, not one of those wild things poor horace used to do of me — and what i want is to beg and implore you to ask jolyesse if he’ll do me. i can’t ask him myself: horace despised his things, and was always ridiculing him, and jolyesse knew it. it’s all very well — but, as i used to tell horace, success does mean something after all, doesn’t it? and no one has been more of a success than jolyesse — i hear his prices have doubled again. well, that’s a proof, in a way . . . what’s the use of denying it? only it makes it more difficult for poor me, who can’t afford him, even if i dared to ask!” she wrinkled her perfect brows in mock distress. “but if you would — an old friend like you — if you’d ask it as a personal favour, and make him see that for the widow of a colleague he ought to make a reduction in his price — really a big reduction! — i’m sure he’d do it. after all, it’s not my fault if my husband didn’t like his pictures. and i should be so grateful to you, and so would donald.”
she dropped french’s arm and held out both her shining hands to him. “you will — you really will? oh, you dear good man, you!” he had slipped his hands out of hers, but she caught him again, this time not menacingly but exuberantly.
“if you could arrange it for when i’m here in march, that would be simply perfect, wouldn’t it? you can, you think? oh, bless you! and mind, he’s got to make it a full-length!” she called after him joyfully across the threshold.
