Читать книгу The Court of St. Simon - E. Phillips Oppenhein - Страница 10

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VALENTIN was dining with Mademoiselle Josephine a few nights later, at a restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, a miniature palace of glass and gilt and flowers.

"To-morrow," he announced towards the end of the meal, "I go to England."

She started. Her black eyes were full of concern.

"But, Monsieur," she exclaimed, "it is sudden, this! To England?"

Valentin assented. "For several days," he said, "I have felt inclined to take a change. To tell you the truth, Josephine, the affair of the Place Ceinture and that wretched boy's connection with it disgusted me. There is something very sordid, after all, in the passions and weaknesses that go unbridled."

"So Monsieur goes to England," she murmured.

Valentin selected a cigarette with care and lit it. "I shall go," said he, "to a little village in Somersetshire where my sister lives. Such a queer place, Josephine! All the pasture-land is cut up into small fields with high hedges, and the roads are like the country lanes in Normandy—they lose themselves every moment. All the houses in the village are covered with creepers or honeysuckle or roses, and the peasants are not in the least like ours. They have plenty of money, and they do not save, save, save till they seem to grind the very blood and bone of their body into gold."

"I should like to go to England," she declared. Valentin shook his head. "You wouldn't care for it. As a matter of fact, you would dislike it exceedingly. It has occurred to me very often, Josephine, since you became my companion in these little adventures, that you are entirely ill-placed."

Her silky eyebrows drew close together. She looked at him jealously. "What do you mean? You want some one else?"

"Not I!" he assured her. "But you—well, when I found you, you certainly were what you professed to be—a gutter child—with no instincts in the world save the instincts of robbery and cupidity. No one had given you anything, every one had taken what they could. Naturally, therefore, you were one of those who seem born into the world to take from others."

Her face looked very white and set in the artificial light, her eyes were fixed steadfastly upon his. Her lips seemed to move, but she said nothing.

"When I found you," he continued, "you were recommended to me as an expert thief, a trustworthy guide to the backwaters of gutterdom. And withal, one who might be trusted by her friends. It was a true character, Josephine. You are indeed trustworthy."

She laughed, not in the least naturally, but still a laugh. "This amuses you?" she demanded.

"Naturally," he replied. "It is a resume of our relations. To-night it seems fitting that we should speak of them for a moment."

She leaned a little forward; something of the tigress zealously repressed flashed in her eyes. "You are going to leave me!" she cried.

He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. She seemed to shrivel away back into her place.

"Ah, my God, what have I said!" she exclaimed. "I know very well that it is you who have the right to go when you will. There is nothing between us to hold."

"Our relations," he proceeded, looking at her thoughtfully, "have certainly been unique. The people who have seen us together in the cafés, in the restaurants, sometimes, even, on the race-course, can have had but one thought concerning us. It amuses me sometimes to reflect how wrong they are. And you, Josephine?"

She leaned back in her chair and laughed with all the abandon of the Frenchwoman. "A joke! A joke, indeed!"

"We have wandered from the subject, after all," he remarked. "We were speaking of you and your tendencies. I am not sure, even now, that you were not really meant to be the wife of some deserving young shopkeeper, to bring up his children, to sit with him on Sunday nights in the theatre, to eat your dinner four times a year in the country, to say your prayers, and live the estimable life."

"You mock me!" she muttered.

"No, I am in earnest."

There was a silence between them, a silence which lasted for several minutes. All the time she was watching him. Yes, there was a change in his face! There was something graver there, more thoughtful. Quick to study his every expression, she realized this, perhaps, more readily than any other person in the world could have done. A little of the sparkle had gone from his eyes, the curve of his lips lacked its accustomed cynicism. For a moment she wondered what it all could mean. He had the air of a man who has stopped to think. As she watched him, her heart sank.

"What your relations with my sex may have been before I came, Josephine," he went on, "I do not know. Since then I have always felt that you have respected a condition which I made. I have thought over this, Josephine. We make a jest of happiness in our wittier and saner moments, but after all it is there, and it is only the middle classes who really know how to seize it. Why shouldn't you start again, marry, live out the life which I honestly believe you were born for? Your dot is assured. I am not a rich man, but that is already deposited in your name."

"It is our farewell this, then," she gasped.

"Dear Josephine, yes," he replied, "chiefly," he added, lighting a cigarette, "for your sake. For myself, I am middle-aged, the fires of life have burned out in me, I have nothing to hope for."

She shook her head, but he continued, glancing away for a moment from her swimming eyes.

"You, on the other hand, have everything. When I found you, you called yourself a gutter brat. . I take some pride to myself that I have at least made you a striking and presentable figure in any society you care to frequent. Frankly, however, I do not consider the life which we have been leading, or rather that part of it which we have led together, advantageous for you. For me, whose life is finished, who must have amusement at any price, it is well enough, but you are young and I have noticed in you possibilities of other things. You have affections, I believe, although you do well to keep them so thoroughly under control. It is a great thing to have the power of caring. The next is to find some one worth caring about."

"Are you so sure that I have not found any one?" she murmured.

He shook his head. "It is my impression that you have not. You have spoken once or twice of an aunt who lives near Orleans, a worthy person, I should imagine. Take my advice, child. Go and pay her a visit, show her your bank-book. She will probably ask you to stay. There is no town in France where a young woman with your attractions, and a modest dowry, will not find eager suitors."

There was another short silence between them. The orchestra was playing some fragment of real harmony, and the room was hushed. The man's eyes passed over the heads of the people and rested on the waving green of the trees outside. The girl, too, turned her head away from the crowded restaurant with its brilliant groups of diners. There was a new pain at her heart, yet after all it was an old fear.

"It is for this, then," she said at last, "that you have asked me to dine with you to-night?"

"It is for this."

"Very well, pay your bill here and drive with me for a little time. Then I will tell you what I think."

They moved out into the perfumed twilight and took their places in the roomy automobile which presently came to the front.

"Tell the chauffeur," she begged, "to drive slowly in the Bois. One talks better so."

He nodded, and soon they were off. Bicycles with paper lanterns flitted about under the trees, merry groups of people sat before tables at the cheaper cafés, everywhere the air seemed full of music, of voices raised in laughter. Josephine sat looking steadfastly in front of her. For some few moments she was silent. Then she spoke.

"Listen," she began, "much of what you have said is true. I will tell you more. When you came, I was a wild cat. Perhaps no man wanted me. Certainly there was not one whose lips had ever touched mine. That is because I was ferocious, always in an evil temper, and I suppose my looks and my temperament went together. You wanted to make an experiment, and I suited your purpose. You established me in an apartment, you engaged masters to teach me, you sent me to the best dressmakers, you gave me jewels, gradually I became your companion. On the other hand, I suppose I was useful to you. I showed you the sort of life you wanted to know about, I took you where no one else would have dared to take you, you have learned from me as much of the underneath side of criminal life here as any one may know. You are tiring of it. Good God, I have been sick at heart of it since the first day I was able to live as a free woman! If your fancy for it has gone, so has mine long ago. I do not ask to be always your companion, I do not ask for your lips, for your love, even for the touch of your hands. Those things," she went on, leaning passionately towards him, "are for others worthier than I. Oh, I know that, for I have seen so much of you! I have seen the little things, I know that at heart you are what you profess to despise—a good man. I know that I am not worthy to touch you, and I know that there is nothing I have to hope for from you or from your affection. But if I could be—your servant—"

She stopped for a moment. The tears seemed to be in her throat as well as her eyes. She was shaking as though with cold. All the time she was watching him.

"I have had the most absurd ideas," she went on.

"If I could dress as a boy and go into whatever country you go, if I could be in the same town, even, I should expect so little. I want nothing more. Oh, you must understand!" she cried. "You must understand that you cut into my heart when you speak of a husband and children, and all those things. Do you suppose that one loves to order, even among my class? Do you suppose that after six months with you, even though your kisses have touched only my forehead, I could think of any other man?"

He moved a little in his seat. She clutched at his sleeve. "Do not be angry," she begged. "It is not that I expect anything more from you. I don't! I know that it would be useless. But I want to keep myself as I am, always, because I have known you. Is there anything wrong in that, anything to make you angry?"

He turned towards her. There was an unaccustomed softness in his tone. "Dear Josephine," he said, "I am sorry. My experiment has not been a success. I forgot that in every creature of your sex there is always the woman's heart to be reckoned with."

"If only men had hearts, too!" she moaned.

He looked away into the trees. "Are there any men who haven't?" he asked. "We do not carry them upon our sleeves, you know, Josephine. I speak to you now in return for your words. It is the only kindness I can show you. I speak to you as I have spoken to no other human being, not even my sister, who loved me. There was a time when I felt as you feel, but alas! towards no human being. You find me, Josephine, a little hard, unaffectionate. It seems strange to you, perhaps, that I have never desired the things which other men desire. I wonder if you will understand me when I say that it is not my fault. I have spent years of my life hoping that that thing would come to me which comes to most men. And it doesn't. It passes me by. I never learned the art of pretending to care, Josephine, and the real thing doesn't come. So I grow older every day. Other men are caught up into Heaven. I suppose to love in that way is a gift, a gift which has passed me by."

"You mean to say that you have never loved?" she whispered.

"Foolish child!" he answered. "To have once loved is to love for always." . . .

Presently they found themselves once more on the great highway to Paris.

"To-morrow I leave for England," he said, breaking a long pause.

She held out her hand. "To-night, then, we say farewell," she replied steadily. "I think that you have made it easier for me, somehow, because you have told me what I am sure you have never told any one else."

He handed her out.

"Josephine," he began—for there was something else which he would have said to her. She looked swiftly into his face and he was silent. She flitted away and was lost in the throng. Valentin stepped back into the automobile.