“On ferme! on ferme!”
“Good-night,” she whispered, “I must return alone to-night.”
He watched her until she reached the northern terrace, and then sat down on the marble seat until a hand on his shoulder and a glimmer of bayonets warned him away.
She passed on through the grove, and turning into the rue de Medici, traversed it to the Boulevard. At the corner she bought a bunch of violets and walked on along the Boulevard to the rue des Écoles. A cab was drawn up before Boulant’s, and a pretty girl aided by Elliott jumped out.
“Valentine!” cried the girl, “come with us!”
“I can’t,” she said, stopping a moment—“I have a rendezvous at Mignon’s.”
“Not Victor?” cried the girl, laughing, but she passed with a little shiver, nodding good-night, then turning into the Boulevard St. Germain, she walked a tittle faster to escape a gay party sitting before the Café Cluny who called to her to join them. At the door of the Restaurant Mignon stood a coal-black negro in buttons. He took off his peaked cap as she mounted the carpeted stairs.
“Send Eugene to me,” she said at the office, and passing through the hallway to the right of the dining-room stopped before a row of panelled doors. A waiter passed and she repeated her demand for Eugene, who presently appeared, noiselessly skipping, and bowed murmuring, “Madame.”
“Who is here?”
“No one in the cabinets, madame; in the half Madame Madelon and Monsieur Gay, Monsieur de Clamart, Monsieur Clisson, Madame Marie and their set.” Then he looked around and bowing again murmured, “Monsieur awaits madame since half an hour,” and he knocked at one of the panelled doors bearing the number six.
Clifford opened the door and the girl entered.
The garçon bowed her in, and whispering, “Will Monsieur have the goodness to ring?” vanished.
He helped her off with her jacket and took her hat and umbrella. When she was seated at the little table with Clifford opposite she smiled and leaned forward on both elbows looking him in the face.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Waiting,” he replied, in accents of adoration.
For an instant she turned and examined herself in the glass. The wide blue eyes, the curling hair, the straight nose and short curled lip flashed in the mirror an instant only, and then its depths reflected her pretty neck and back. “Thus do I turn my back on vanity,” she said, and then leaning forward again, “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” repeated Clifford, slightly troubled.
“And Cécile.”
“Now don’t, Valentine—”
“Do you know,” she said calmly, “I dislike your conduct?”
He was a little disconcerted, and rang for Eugene to cover his confusion.
The soup was bisque, and the wine Pommery, and the courses followed each other with the usual regularity until Eugene brought coffee, and there was nothing left on the table but a small silver lamp.
“Valentine,” said Clifford, after having obtained permission to smoke, “is it the Vaudeville or the Eldorado—or both, or the Nouveau Cirque, or—”
“It is here,” said Valentine.
“Well,” he said, greatly flattered, “I’m afraid I couldn’t amuse you—”
“Oh, yes, you are funnier than the Eldorado.”
“Now see here, don’t guy me, Valentine. You always do, and, and,—you know what they say,—a good laugh kills—”
“What?”
“Er—er—love and all that.”
She laughed until her eyes were moist with tears. “Tiens,” she cried, “he is dead, then!”
Clifford eyed her with growing alarm.
“Do you know why I came?” she said.
“No,” he replied uneasily, “I don’t.”
“How long have you made love to me?”
“Well,” he admitted, somewhat startled,—“I should say,—for about a year.”
“It is a year, I think. Are you not tired?”
He did not answer.
“Don’t you know that I like you too well to—to ever fall in love with you?” she said. “Don’t you know that we are too good comrades,—too old friends for that? And were we not,—do you think that I do not know your history, Monsieur Clifford?”
“Don’t be—don’t be so sarcastic,” he urged; “don’t be unkind, Valentine.”
“I’m not. I’m kind. I’m very kind,—to you and to Cécile.”
“Cécile is tired of me.”
“I hope she is,” said the girl, “for she deserves a better fate. Tiens, do you know your reputation in the Quarter? Of the inconstant, the most inconstant,—utterly incorrigible and no more serious than a gnat on a summer night. Poor Cécile!”
Clifford looked so uncomfortable that she spoke more kindly.
“I like you. You know that. Everybody does. You are a spoiled child here. Everything is permitted you and every one makes allowance, but every one cannot be a victim to caprice.”
“Caprice!” he cried. “By Jove, if the girls of the Latin Quarter are not capricious—”
“Never mind,—never mind about that! You must not sit in judgment—you of all men. Why are you here to-night? Oh,” she cried, “I will tell you why! Monsieur receives a little note; he sends a little answer; he dresses in his conquering raiment—”
“I don’t,” said Clifford, very red.
“You do, and it becomes you,” she retorted with a faint smile. Then again, very quietly, “I am in your power, but I know I am in the power of a friend. I have come to acknowledge it to you here,—and it is because of that that I am here to beg of you—a—a favour.”
Clifford opened his eyes, but said nothing.
“I am in—great distress of mind. It is Monsieur Hastings.”
“Well?” said Clifford, in some astonishment.
“I want to ask you,” she continued in a low voice, “I want to ask you to—to—in case you should speak of me before him,—not to say,—not to say,—”
“I shall not speak of you to him,” he said quietly.
“Can—can you prevent others?”
“I might if I was present. May I ask why?”
“That is not fair,” she murmured; “you know how—how he considers me,—as he considers every woman. You know how different he is from you and the rest. I have never seen a man,—such a man as Monsieur Hastings.”
He let his cigarette go out unnoticed.
“I am almost afraid of him—afraid he should know—what we all are in the Quarter. Oh, I do not wish him to know! I do not wish him to—to turn from me—to cease from speaking to me as he does! You—you and the rest cannot know what it has been to me. I could not believe him,—I could not believe he was so good and—and noble. I do not wish him to know—so soon. He will find out—sooner or later, he will find out for himself, and then he will turn away from me. Why!” she cried passionately, “why should he turn from me and not from _you_?”
Clifford, much embarrassed, eyed his cigarette.
The girl rose, very white. “He is your friend—you have a right to warn him.”
“He is my friend,” he said at length.
They looked at each other in silence.
Then she cried, “By all that I hold to me most sacred, you need not warn him!”
“I shall trust your word,” he said pleasantly.
V
The month passed quickly for Hastings, and left few definite impressions after it. It did leave some, however. One was a painful impression of meeting Mr. Bladen on the Boulevard des Capucines in company with a very pronounced young person whose laugh dismayed him, and when at last he escaped from the café where Mr. Bladen had hauled him to join them in a _bock_ he felt as if the whole boulevard was looking at him, and judging him by his company. Later, an instinctive conviction regarding the young person with Mr. Bladen sent the hot blood into his cheek, and he returned to the pension in such a miserable state of mind that Miss Byng was alarmed and advised him to conquer his homesickness at once.
Another impression was equally vivid. One Saturday morning, feeling lonely, his wanderings about the city brought him to the Gare St. Lazare. It was early for breakfast, but he entered the Hôtel Terminus and took a table near the window. As he wheeled about to give his order, a man passing rapidly along the aisle collided with his head, and looking up to receive the expected apology, he was met instead by a slap on the shoulder and a hearty, “What the deuce are you doing here, old chap?” It was Rowden, who seized him and told him to come along. So, mildly protesting, he was ushered into a private dining-room where Clifford, rather red, jumped up from the table and welcomed him with a startled air which was softened by the unaffected glee of Rowden and the extreme courtesy of Elliott. The latter presented him to three bewitching girls who welcomed him so charmingly and seconded Rowden in his demand that Hastings should make one of the party, that he consented at once. While Elliott briefly outlined the projected excursion to La Roche, Hastings delightedly ate his omelet, and returned the smiles of encouragement from Cécile and Colette and Jacqueline. Meantime Clifford in a bland whisper was telling Rowden what an ass he was. Poor Rowden looked miserable until Elliott, divining how affairs were turning, frowned on Clifford and found a moment to let Rowden know that they were all going to make the best of it.
“You shut up,” he observed to Clifford, “it’s fate, and that settles it.”
“It’s Rowden, and that settles it,” murmured Clifford, concealing a grin. For after all he was not Hastings’ wet nurse. So it came about that the train which left the Gare St. Lazare at 9.15 a.m. stopped a moment in its career towards Havre and deposited at the red-roofed station of La Roche a merry party, armed with sunshades, trout-rods, and one cane, carried by the non-combatant, Hastings. Then, when they had established their camp in a grove of sycamores which bordered the little river Ept, Clifford, the acknowledged master of all that pertained to sportsmanship, took command.