Dross Part 25

On returning to London I found letters from Madame de Clericy explaining this change of residence, and in the same envelope a note from Isabella (her letters were always kinder than her speech), inviting me to stay in Hyde Park Street.

"We are sufficiently old friends," she wrote, "to allow thus of a general invitation, and if it shares the usual fate of such, the fault will be yours, and not mine."

The letter was awaiting me at the club, and I deemed it allowable to call in response the same afternoon. The news of Lucille's engagement to Alphonse Giraud was ever dangling before my eyes, and I wished to get the announcement swallowed without further suspense.

Alphonse, a perfect squire of dames, was engaged in dispensing thin bread and b.u.t.ter when I entered the room, feeling, as I feel to this day, somewhat out of place and heavy amid the delicate ornaments and flowers of a lady's drawing-room. My reception was not exactly warm, and I was struck by the pallor of Isabella's face, which, however, gave place to a more natural colour before long. Madame alone showed gladness at the sight of me, and held out both her hands in a welcome full of affection. I thought Lucille's black dress very becoming to her slim form.

We talked, of course, of the war, before which all other topics faded into insignificance at that time--and I had but disquieting news from France. The siege had now lasted seven weeks, and none knew what the end might be. The opportunity awaited the Frenchman, but none rose to meet it. France blundered on in the hands of political mediocrities, as she has done ever since.

I gathered that Alphonse was staying in the house, and wondered at the news, considering that Isabella knew him but slightly. It was the Vicomtesse who gave me the information, with one of her quiet glances that might mean much or nothing. For myself, I confess they usually possessed but small significance--men being of a denser (though perhaps deeper) comprehension than women, who catch on the wing a thought that flies past such as myself, and is lost.

I could only conclude that Isabella was seeking the happiness of her new-found friend in thus offering Giraud an opportunity, which he doubtless seized with avidity.

Isabella was kind enough to repeat her invitation, which, however, I declined with Madame's eye upon me and Lucille's back suddenly turned in my direction. Lucille, in truth, was talking to Alphonse, and gaily enough. He had the power of amusing her, in which I was deficient, and she was always merry.

While we were thus engaged, a second visitor was announced, but I did not hear his name. His face was unknown to me--a narrow, foxy face it was--and the man's perfect self-a.s.surance had something offensive in it, as all shams have. I did not care for his manner towards Isabella--which is, however, as I understand, quite _a la mode d'aujourd'hui_--a sort of careless, patronising admiration, with no touch of respect in it.

He made it quite apparent that he had come to see the young mistress of the house, and no one else, acknowledging the introductions to the remainder of the company with a scant courtesy. He talked to Isabella with a confidential inclination of his body towards her as they sat on low chairs with a small table between them, and it was easy to see that she appreciated the attention of this middle-aged man of the world.

"You see, Miss Gayerson," I heard him say with a bold glance, for he was one of those fine fellows who can look straight enough at a woman, but do not care to meet the eye of a man. "You see, I have taken you at your word. I wonder if you meant me to."

"I always mean what I say," answered Isabella; and I thought she glanced in my direction to see whether I was listening.

"A privilege of your s.e.x--also to mean what you don't say."

At this moment Madame spoke to me, and I heard no more, but we may be sure that his further conversation was of a like intellectual and noteworthy standard. There was something in the man's lowered tone and insinuating manner that made me set him down as a lawyer.

"Do you notice," said Madame to me, "that Lucille is in better spirits?"

"Yes--I notice it with pleasure. Good spirits are for the young--and the old."

"I suppose you are right," said Madame. "Before the business of life begins, and after it is over."

Apropos of business, I gave the Vicomtesse at this time an account of my journey to Audierne, and was able to inform her that I had brought back money with me sufficient for her present wants.

While I was thus talking I heard, through my own speech, that Isabella invited the stranger to dine on the following Thursday.

"I have another engagement," he answered, consulting a small note-book. "But that can be conveniently forgotten."

Isabella seemed to like such exceedingly small social change, for she smiled brightly as he rose to take his leave.

To the Vicomtesse he paid a pretty little compliment in French, antic.i.p.ating much enjoyment on the following Thursday in improving upon his slight acquaintance. He shook hands with me, his gaze fixed on my necktie. He then bowed to Lucille and Alphonse, who were talking together at the end of the room, and made a self-possessed exit.

"Who is your friend?" I asked Isabella bluntly, when the door was closed.

"A Mr. Devar. Does he interest you?"

There was something in Isabella's tone that betokened a readiness, or perhaps a desire, to fight Mr. Devar's battles. Had I been a woman, or wiser than I have ever proved myself, I should, no doubt, have ignored this challenge instead of promptly meeting it by my answer:

"I cannot say he does."

"You seem to object to him," she said sharply. "Please remember that he is a friend of mine."

"He cannot be one of long standing," I was foolish enough to answer.

"For he is not an East Country man, and I never heard of him before."

"As a matter of fact," said Isabella, "I met him at a ball in town last week, and he asked permission to call."

I gave a short laugh, and Isabella looked at me with calm defiance in her eyes. It was, of course, no business of mine, which knowledge probably urged me on to further blunders.

Isabella's mental att.i.tude was a puzzle to me. She was ready enough to supply information respecting Mr. Devar, whose progress towards intimacy had, to say the least of it, been rapid. But she supplied, as I thought, from a small store. She alternately allayed and aroused an anxiety which was natural enough in so old a friend, and to a man who had moved among adventurers nearly all his life. Alfred Gayerson, her brother and my earliest friend, was now in Vienna. Isabella had no one to advise her. She was, I suppose, a forerunner of the advanced young women of to-day, who, with a diminutive knowledge of the world culled from the imaginative writings of females as ignorant, are pleased to consider themselves competent to steer a clean course over the shoals of life.

Isabella had had, as I understood, a certain experience of the ordinary fortune-hunters of society--pleasant enough fellows, no doubt, but lacking self-respect and manhood--and it seemed extraordinary that her eyes should be closed to Mr. Devar's manifold qualifications to the t.i.tle.

"Perhaps," she said at length, "you also will do us the pleasure of dining with us on Thursday, as you appear to be so deeply interested in Mr. Devar despite your a.s.surances to the contrary."

"I shall be most happy to do so," answered I--ungraciously, I fear--and there arose a sudden light, almost of triumph, to her usually repressed glance.

Alphonse Giraud acceded to my suggestion that he should walk with me towards my club. His manner towards me had been reserved and unnatural, and I wished to get to the bottom of his feeling in respect to one whom he had always treated as a friend. Isabella was the only person to suggest an objection to my proposal, reminding Alphonse, rather pointedly, that he had but time to dress for dinner.

"Well," I said, when we were turning into Piccadilly, "Miste has begun to give us a scent at last."

"It is not so much in Monsieur Miste as in the money that I am interested," answered Giraud, swinging his cane, and looking about him with a simulated interest in his surroundings.

"Ah!"

"Yes; and I am beginning to be convinced that I shall never see either."

"Indeed."

"Let us quit an unpleasant subject," said the Frenchman, after a pause, and in the manner of one seeking to avoid an impending quarrel.

"What splendid horses you have in England! See that pair in the victoria? one could not tell them apart. And what action!"

"Yes," I answered, lamely enough; "we have good enough horses."

And before I could return to the subject, which no longer drew us together, but separated us, he dragged out his watch and hurriedly turned back, leaving me with a foolish and inexplicable sense of guilt.

Chapter XIX

Sport

"L'amour du mieux t'aura interdit le bien."

"Do I look as if I had come out of Paris in a balloon?" said John Turner, in answer to my suggestion that he had made use of a method of escape at that time popular. "No, I left by the Creteil gate, without drum or trumpet, or anything more romantic than a _laissez-pa.s.ser_ signed by Favre. There will be the devil to pay in Paris before another week has pa.s.sed, and I am not going to disburse."