The Man with the Double Heart Part 23

"He was always very kind to me..."

"Kind?"--with those eyes!--He shuddered slightly, connecting the pair in his mind.

Poor little woman ... what a life!

It sobered him, bringing the best to the surface, and he turned with a very real affection on his handsome face as she opened the door.

But here was a new irresistible Fantine. With bright eyes, she danced toward him, mischief incarnate, her pale face laughing above a peignoir, diaphanous, intimate; showing gleams of silk-shod ankles through the daring draperies.

"You see! I make myself at home ... And now for supper." She laid down a silver tray with a plate and gla.s.s and arranged his knives and forks for him.

"Monsieur est servi." She caught up a napkin and threw it gaily over her arm.

"Monsieur will not forget the poor waiter--who--how absurd!--cannot open the wine!" She held out toward him a bottle of champagne.

"Vite, mon cher!--I die of thirst."

McTaggart felt suddenly relieved. He entered heartily into the sport.

"What would the poor waiter like for a tip? Furs perhaps, or a motor car?"

"I'll tell you later," she flashed him a glance as he cut the wire and extracted the cork.

He poured it foaming in the gla.s.ses.

"Here's to ... to-night!" He drank it off.

As supper proceeded the desire of adventure drowned all else in McTaggart's mind. A man can only be young once, he told himself, and refilled his gla.s.s.

And Fantine seemed to lay aside all thought of to-morrow, to drift content through this golden hour the G.o.ds vouchsafed, ignoring the loom where the Grey Fates spun.

When the last drop of wine was gone and satiety claimed them as willing victims, McTaggart dragged the table back and pulled the sofa near the fire.

"Now--come and talk to me, mon amie--here's a stool for those little feet. You really are a dream to-night!--I never saw you look so ...

tempting!"

She lay back against the cus.h.i.+ons, watching him stir the coals in the grate.

"Let's sit in the fire light," he suggested, and switched off the electricity.

Behind his back she stole a glance at the clock, and her face fell, then grew thoughtful.

"Another hour," she said to herself, with the odd sensation of a respite.

"A cigarette first--please, Pierrot."

"What nonsense! You've smoked enough." His voice was masterful and she pouted.

"Mechant! give me one, _at once_."

He lit it, somewhat grudgingly, watching the flame of the match spurt and illumine her piquante face in the semi-darkness of the room.

She drew the smoke in lazily, through the pursed-up, vivid lips.

"Have one too?" She handed the box--"and tell me ... all about yourself."

"That's clever..." McTaggart smiled. "You've hit upon my favorite subject. But I think to-night we'll talk of you. Tell me"--he paused--"of your life in Algiers." Strange, how that picture haunted him!

"That's long ago," she shrank slightly, then rallied herself to the task. "I went there as a bride, you see. My husband was head of a kind of syndicate. It's a nice place in the Winter-time--there's a large French Colony there. And plenty of English people too--it's quite gay--with music--and cards."

McTaggart smiled to himself. At the words he made a shrewd guess at Gustave's business in Algiers. But Fantine skillfully led the talk through devious channels back to himself. Once launched on the stream he told her of his early years, his parents' death, his college career, and the growing boredom of his days.

And between the lines Fantine gleaned all that she needed; his obvious means and that fastidiousness of his--an important factor in her game.

The clock ticked on and the fire died low. The little room seemed shut off from the world.

"It sounds lonely..." she said at last--"You poor boy!--I understan'."

"Do you?" he leaned eagerly nearer. "No one cares--that's about it!"

His arm stole round her. "Fantine ... _dear_, it's in your hands to cure, you know."

He stooped down and their lips met ...

The clock struck with a silver chime, ringing out the midnight hour; and Fantine, startled, drew away. Not yet--the warning rang in her ears.

But McTaggart, fired by that close embrace, stung too by her shrinking gesture, caught her roughly in his arms.

"Pierrot!"--she gasped--"wait ... wait! There's something--I must tell you--first..."

His strong young arms were like a vise, his eyes were brilliant, pleading for him.

"Fantine...?" he breathed.

"No! _no_!" She forced him back with all her strength, aware of his sudden loss of control, but perfect mistress of herself. Her hands, pressed against his chest, checked him for a fleeting moment. Within his coat that the struggle forced open, her eyes detected a note of white--the corner of an envelope, and in a flash her fingers sought and found the letter, purloining it.

She heard him give a little gasp, incredulous and vexed at once; his arms relaxed, the spell snapped, and twisting sidewards she slipped away out of his reach, breathless, triumphant.

Little she guessed what the trick cost her! For McTaggart in common with his kind was scrupulous toward correspondence. Nothing on earth would have induced him to trifle with another's letters.

And now as Fantine stood before him with a mocking smile, and in her grasp an envelope with his name upon it, in Jill's childish scrawling hand, it added the last fatal spark to resentment caused by baffled desire.

"That's mine, I think." His husky voice, almost rude in his sudden anger, proved to the woman she had found the right excuse to delay her surrender.

"Ah non, mon cher Pierrot!--I think I will keep your ... lettre d'amour. I'm very, ver-ry cross with you..." But her eyes belied the implied reproof. She stepped back, and the glow from the fire fell on her flushed and mischievous face, on the crumpled transparent peignoir that had fallen away from one bare shoulder.

And suddenly it came to McTaggart what she was ... and his own folly!

He saw that pa.s.sion swayed him alone without the redeeming touch of love.