The Orchard of Tears Part 26

The world had been discussing Paul Mario's New Gospel as enunciated in _The Gates_ for three weeks or more. On a bright morning when sunbeams filtered through the dust which partially curtained the windows of Guilder's, and painted golden squares and rectangles upon the floor, Flamby stood where the light touched her elfin hair into torch-like flame, removing a very smart studio smock preparatory to departing to Regali's for lunch. There was no one else in the small painting-room, except a wondrous-hued parrakeet upon a perch, from which he contemplated his portrait in oils, head knowingly tilted to one side, with solemn disapproval for Flamby had painted his bill too red and he knew it, apparently.

"Bad," he remarked. "d.a.m.n bad."

He belonged to Crozier, the artist famed for "sun-soaked flesh," and Crozier's pupils were all too familiar with this formula. It was so often upon Crozier's lips that Lorenzo the Magnificent (the parrakeet) had acquired it perfectly.

"Quite right, Lorenzo," said Flamby, throwing her smock on to a stool.

"It's blasted bad."

"d.a.m.n bad," corrected Lorenzo. "No guts."

"I don't agree with you there, Lorenzo. It's your nose that I hate."

"No sun!" screamed Lorenzo, excitedly. "The bloodsome thing never saw the sun!"

"Oh, please behave, Lorenzo, or I shall not share my sugar ration with you any more."

"Sugar?" inquired Lorenzo, head on one side again.

Flamby held up a lump of sugar upon her small pink palm, and a silence of contentment immediately descended upon Lorenzo, only broken by the sound of munching. Flamby was just going out to wash the paint from her hands, for she always contrived to get nearly as much upon her fingers as upon the canvas, when a cheery voice cried: "Ha! caught you. Thought I might be too late."

She turned, and there in the doorway stood Don. Less than three months had elapsed since his last leave and Flamby was intensely surprised to see him. She came forward with outstretched hands. "Oh, Don," she cried.

"How lovely! However did you manage it?"

An exquisite blush stained her cheeks, and her eyes lighted up happily.

Glad surprises made her blush, and she was very sincerely glad as well as surprised to see Don. She had not even heard him approach. She had been wondering what Devons.h.i.+re was like, for Paul was in Devons.h.i.+re. Now as Don took both her hands and smiled in the old joyous way she thought that he looked ill, almost cadaverous, in spite of the tan which clung to his skin.

"Craft, Flamby, guile and the subtlety of the serpent. The best men get the worst leave."

"I don't believe it," said Flamby, watching him in sudden anxiety. "You have been ill. Oh, don't think you can pretend to _me_; I can see you have."

"Bad," remarked Lorenzo in cordial agreement. He had finished the sugar.

"d.a.m.n bad."

"What!" cried Don--"have you got old Crozier's Lorenzo down here? Hullo!

let us see how you have 'percepted' him." He crossed to the easel, surveying Flamby's painting critically. "Does Hammett still talk about 'percepting the subject' and 'emerging the high-lights' and 'profunding the shadows'?"

"He does. You're mean not to tell me."

"What do you want me to tell you, Flamby?--that the drawing is magnificent and the painting brilliant except for the treatment of the bill, which is _too_ brilliant." He turned and met her reproachful gaze.

"Perhaps I _am_ mean, Flamby, to frighten you by not replying to your question, but really I am quite fit. I have had a touch of trench-fever or something, not enough to result in being sent home to hospital, and have now got a few days' sick-leave to pull round after a course of weak gruel."

"That's very unusual, isn't it?"

"What, Flamby?"

"To get home leave after treatment at a base hospital? I mean they might as well have sent you home in the first place."

Don stared at her long and seriously. "Flamby," he said, "you have been flirting with junior subalterns. No one above the rank of a second-lieutenant ever knew so much about King's Regulations."

"Own up, then."

Don continued the serious stare. "Flamby," he said, "your father would have been proud of you. You are a very clever girl. If art fails there is always the Bar. I am not advising you to take to drink; I refer to the law. Listen, Flamby, I was wrong to try to deceive you as well as the others. Besides, it is not necessary. You are unusual. I stopped a stray piece of shrapnel a fortnight after I went back and was sent to a hospital in Burton-on-Trent. The M.O.'s have a positive genius for sending men to spots remote from their homes and kindreds--appalling sentence. In this case it was a blessing in disguise. By some muddle or another my name was omitted from the casualty list, or rather it was printed as 'Norton,' and never corrected publicly. I accepted the kindness of the G.o.ds. Imagine my relief. I had pictured sisters and cousins and the dear old Aunt dragging themselves to Burton-on-Trent--and I am the only beer drinker in the family. I know you won't betray my gruesome secret, Flamby."

Flamby's eyes were so misty that she averted her face. "Oh, Don," she said unsteadily, "and I wrote to you only three days ago and thought you were safe."

Don unb.u.t.toned the left breast-pocket of his tunic and flourished a letter triumphantly. "Young Conroy has been forwarding all my mail," he explained, "and I have addressed my letters from nowhere in particular and sent them to him to be posted! Now, what about the guile and subtlety of the serpent! Let us take counsel with the great Severus Regali. I am allowed a little clear soup and an omelette, now."

Don and Flamby arrived late at Regali's and were compelled to wait for a time in the little inner room. There were many familiar faces around the tables. Chauvin was there with Madame Rilette, the human geranium, and Hammett; Wildrake, editor of the _Quartre d'Arts_ revue and the Baronne G., Paris's smartest and most up-to-date lady novelist. The Baronne had been married four times. Her latest hobby was libel actions. Archibald Forester, renowned as an explorer of the psychic borderland, and wearing green tabs and a crown upon his shoulder-strap, discussed matters Alpine with an Italian artillery officer. On the whole the atmosphere was distinctly Savage that day. Flamby accepted a cigarette from Don and sat for awhile, pensive. With a jade-green velvet tam-o'-shanter to set off the coppery high-lights of her hair she was a picture worthy of the admiration which was discernible in Don's eyes. Presently she said, "I found you out a long time ago."

"Found me out?"

"Yes, found you out. I don't know to this day how much I really receive from the War Office, because Mr. Nevin won't tell me. He just muddles me up with a lot of figures----"

"You have seen him, then?"

"Of course I have seen him. But one thing I do know. I owe you over a hundred pounds, and I am going to pay it!"

"But, Flamby," said Don, a startled expression appearing upon his face, "you don't owe it to me at all. You are wrong."

Flamby studied him carefully for awhile. "I am going to send it to Mr.

Nevin--I have told him so--and he can settle the matter." She laid her hand on Don's sleeve. "Don't think me silly, or an ungrateful little beast," she said, "but I can't talk about it any more; it makes me want to cry. Did you know that Chauvin got me a commission from the War Office propaganda people to do pictures of horses and mules and things?"

"Yes," replied Don, guiltily. But to his great relief Flamby did not accuse him of being concerned in the matter.

"I felt a rotten little slacker," explained Flamby; "I wrote and told you so. Did you get the letter?"

"Of course. Surely I replied?"

"I don't remember if you did, but I told Chauvin and he recommended my work to them and they said I could do twelve drawings. They accepted the first three I did, but rejected the fourth, which both Hammett and Chauvin thought the best."

"Probably it was. That was why they rejected it. But about this money----"

"Please," pleaded Flamby.

Don looked into her eyes and was silenced. He suppressed a sigh. "Have you seen Paul lately?" he asked.

"No. He is away. His book frightens me."

"Frightens you," said Don, staring curiously. "In what way?"

"I don't know that I can explain. I feel afraid for _him_."

"For Paul?"

"Yes."

"Because he has seen the truth?"