CHAPTER XV

She was living in the avenue Wagram--she had taken a small furnished flat there for a few months--and when he saw her on the Boulevard, about a week afterwards, Kent was puzzled to discover the reason that he had not availed himself of her invitation. He called a day or two later, and found her cynical but stimulating. In recalling the visit, it appeared to him that she was more entertaining in conversation than in print, which suggested that her good things were not so good as they sounded, but while she talked he was amused. He left the flat with the consciousness of having spent a very agreeable half-hour, and was sorry that her "day," which she had mentioned to him, was a fortnight ahead. She seemed to know many persons in Paris whom he would be glad to meet, and apart from the hostess, with whom he had drunk "English tea" and smoked Egyptian cigarettes, the entree to the little yellow drawing-room promised to be enjoyable. That she was a widow he had taken for granted from the first, and his assumption had proved to be correct. She was a woman who struck one as born to be a widow; it was difficult to conceive her either with a husband or living in her parents' home. As to her children, she spoke of them frequently, and saw them seldom. Kent decided that she was too fashionable and a trifle hard, but this did not detract from the pleasure that the visits afforded him; perhaps his perception of her character was indeed responsible for much of the pleasure, for it rendered it more complimentary still that she was nice to him.

She was surprised to learn that he was married, and declared that she looked forward to knowing his wife. She did not, however, take any steps to gratify the desire, and Kent was not regretful. He felt that few things more productive of boredom for two could be devised than a tête-à-tête between Mrs. Deane-Pitt and Cynthia; and, though he was reluctant to acknowledge it to himself, he had a feeling also that, if it occurred, the lady would be a little contemptuous of him afterwards. He knew her opinion of young men's marriages in the majority of cases, and was uncomfortably conscious that she would not pronounce his own to be one of the exceptions.

Mrs. Walford's letters to her daughter had hitherto been in her most enthusiastic vein. Mr. McCullough had given the disappointed bass a berth in Berlin, and in her letters this was alluded to as a "position," upon which she showered her favourite adjectives of "jolly" and "extraordinary" and "immense." Cæsar was "McCullough's right hand," the "best houses in Berlin" were open to him, and his prospects, social and financial, were dazzling. Of late, however, he had been dwelt on less, and one morning there came a letter that contained a confession of personal anxiety. The recent heavy drop in American stocks, and the failure of two or three brokers, had seriously affected the jobber. They thought of trying to let The Hawthorns, which was much too large for them now, and moving out of the neighbourhood. Cæsar remained McCullough's "right hand," but briefly; and it was evident that the writer was in great distress.

Cynthia was terribly grieved and startled. She dashed off eight pages of love and inquiries by the evening mail, and when the news was confirmed, with more particulars, she felt that she could do no less than run over to utter her sympathy in person.

Kent agreed that it was perhaps advisable, and raised the money that was necessary cheerfully enough by pawning his watch and chain.

Only when she sent him a rather lengthy telegram from Streatham, detailing her mother's frame of mind, did he feel that she was exaggerating his share in her solicitude.

The chilly salon, where the ladies played forfeits after dinner, or where the vivacious daughter thumped the piano, was not attractive during Cynthia's absence. Neither was it lively to smoke alone in his room, or to go to a theatre or a music-hall by himself; and when, in calling on Mrs. Deane-Pitt, he mentioned his loneliness and she proposed that he should take her to the Variétés, he accepted the suggestion with alacrity.

As he obtained the tickets for nothing, his only expense was cabs, and the liqueurs between the facts; and it was so enjoyable, laughing with her on the lounge of the café, that the recollection of their being paid for out of the balance of his loan from the mont-de-piété was banished. Mrs. Deane-Pitt made some more of her happy remarks while they sipped the chartreuse, and her teeth and eyes flashed superbly. The piece was a great success, but Kent thought the entr'actes were even gayer. And when the curtain had fallen and they reached the avenue Wagram, she would not hear of his leaving her before going in and having some supper.

His liqueurs looked very paltry to him contrasted with the table that exhibited mayonnaise and champagne, and his exhilaration was momentarily damped by envy. Fiction meant a good deal when one was lucky; how jolly to be able to live as this woman did! Her maid took away her cloak and hat, and he opened the bottle. She drew off her long gloves, and patted her hair before the mirror with fingers on which some rings shone.

"Let's sit down! Am I all right?"

He thought he had never seen her look so charming or so young.

"You have a colour," he said.

"A proof it's natural; when we went out I was as pale as a ghost! I work too hard, I do--what are you smiling at?--I work horribly hard. Life's so dear--yes, 'expensive'--don't say it, it would be unworthy of you. And I can't do a fifth part of what's offered me, with all my fag."

"Am I supposed to sympathise with you for that?"

"Certainly you should sympathise; what de you suppose I tell you for--to be felicitated? Do you think it's agreeable to have to refuse work when one needs the money it would bring in? The trials of Tantalus were a joke to it. I had to let a twenty-thousand-word story for _The Metropolis_ slide only the other day, and I could place half a dozen shorter stories every week if I'd the time to write them."

"You do write a great many," said Kent, "and you seem fairly comfortable."

"'Wise judges are we of each other!' You ought to see my bills; that music-stand over there is full of them! That's the place I always keep them in--I'm naturally tidy, it's one of my virtues. I had to turn out Chopin's Mazurkas yesterday to make room for some more. I only came to Paris because people don't write you so many abusive letters when they have to pay two-pence-halfpenny postage. Oh, I'm comfortable enough in a fashion, but I've my worries like my neighbours. I suppose I'm extravagant, but I can't help it. Besides, I'm not! Do you think I'm extravagant?"

He looked at her, and nodded, smiling.

"No," she said, "not really? Why?"

"Heavens! you haven't the illusion that you're economical? I believe you spend a small fortune on cabs alone."

"I don't spend a solitary franc on one when I'm _not_ alone."

"You never walk, so far as I can ascertain----"

"No; not so far as that, but I toddle a bit."

"Your champagne is above criticism, and you dress like--like an angel. The simile is bad----"

"And improper. Go on; what other faults have I? I like to know my friends' opinion of me."

"'If to her share some human errors fall----'" he murmured.

"Don't look, then! Shall I hide it behind my table-napkin? That's sheer cowardice. Fill your glass, and mine, please. Go on; tell me how I strike you frankly! I know; you think I don't approach literature reverently enough and ought to devote twelve months to a book, and let my poor little children go barefoot in the meanwhile? Well, I did give twelve months to a book once; but I had a husband when I wrote _Two and a Passion_, and he provided the shoes. Now, if I didn't work as I do, I should have to live at Battersea, and buy my clothes at Brixton, and take my holidays at Southend. You wouldn't calmly condemn me to Southend? My income, apart from what I make, barely pays my rent."

"Your rent is somewhat heavy," suggested Kent, "with two flats going at once."

"Wretch! do you lecture me because I couldn't find a tenant for the Victoria Street place? He blames me for my misfortunes!"

She caught the long gloves up, and swirled them round on his cheek. Like the others, they were perfumed; but now their scent was in his face. They looked in each other's eyes an instant, smiling across the corner of the table. Then, as the smile died away, they remained looking in each other's eyes attentively. He drew the gloves from her hold, and played with them. Her hand lay upturned to take them back, and in restoring them his own rested on it. She averted her gaze, but her palm did not slip away so quickly as it might have done.

"You know you may smoke," she said, rising and going over to the fire. "I'll have one, too."

"Isn't it too late?" he asked, joining her.

His voice was not quite steady, and now he didn't look at her as he spoke.

"You can have one cigarette," she said, sinking into an armchair, and crossing her feet on the fender. "How's the paper going? Eclipsing _Le Petit Journal_?"

"Of course," he said. "Did you ever know anybody's paper that wasn't?"

"You count Paris your home, I suppose? You mean to stop here permanently? _I_ go back in March; the people are returning here then. I loathe London after Paris, but I shall have escaped most of the winter there, that's one thing. Where did you live in town?"

"_My_ neighbourhood _was_ Battersea, that is to say, it was suburban wilds. We had a villa at Streatham--have it now, in fact," he added, remembering with dismay that there was a quarter's rent due. "No, I'm afraid I can't condole with you, Mrs. Deane-Pitt."

"'Pride sleeps in a gilded crown, contentment in a cotton night-cap,'" she said. "An address is only skin-deep, after all; besides, Streatham is pretty."

"Pretty _well_. And it looks prettier out of a big house."

"Get money, my friend," she said languidly; "you are young enough, and I think you're clever enough. When all things were made, nothing was made better. And it's really very easy; as soon as you are popular, the editors will take anything."

"'First catch your hare,'" he observed. "I'm not popular."

The clock on the mantelshelf struck one, and he threw away his cigarette-end and got up.

"Good-night, Mrs. Deane-Pitt."

"Good-night," she said.

Her touch lingered again, and her personality dominated him as he walked back to the pension de famille through the silent streets. He was angry with himself to perceive that it was so. What the devil had he been about in that business with the gloves over the table? She had let him do it, too! Did she like him. He wouldn't go to see her any more! Well, that was absurd, but he would not go so frequently as he had. And he must keep a rein on himself. Nothing could come of it, he was convinced, even if he wished; and he did not wish. It would be too beastly to deceive a girl like Cynthia ... and their baby only a year old! He decided, as he mounted the stairs, to tell Cynthia when she came back that he had been to the Variétés with Mrs. Deane-Pitt. It would not disturb her to hear that, and, though it was juggling with his conscience, he would feel cleaner afterwards. There was a letter from her waiting for him on the bedroom table, and he washed his hands before he opened it.

Cynthia wrote to say that she should be home the next evening but one, and that her parents had been rejoiced to see her. On the whole, things did not seem to be so desperate as she had feared; but it was quite determined that The Hawthorns should be let, for, fortunately, there was a Peruvian family who were prepared to take it just as it stood, and mamma had already been to view a house at Strawberry Hill which was quite nice, and far cheaper. Whether Miss Wix would remove with them was doubtful.

"Mamma's temper is naturally not of the best just now, and I gather that the dissensions have been rather bad. Papa talks of allowing Aunt Emily a pound a week to live by herself, and really she seems to prefer it."

She added, underlined, that Cæsar was still "the right hand of McCullough." She had learnt to smile a little at Cæsar, and Kent winced as he came to that allusion to a mutual joke. And then there followed a dozen affectionate injunctions: he was not to be dull, "poor boy who had no watch and chain!" but to go somewhere every night; he was to hug baby for her, and to give and keep a score of kisses. She was "Always his loving wife." He read it under the paraffin lamp with his overcoat on, and wished that it hadn't arrived till the morning.

Mrs. Deane-Pitt's inquiry how _The World and his Wife_ was going had had more significance than Kent's careless reply. The band of Paris Correspondents in the vicinity of the boulevard Magenta and elsewhere were already beginning to talk about Billy Beaufort, for, not only was he neglecting the first chance of a competence that had fallen his way for years--he was squandering the whole of a very handsome salary, and getting into difficulties, besides. The amount of energy which this man, when in his deepest waters, expended upon a search for opportunities was equalled only by the abysmal folly by which he ruined all that he obtained. He was one of the fools who devote their lives to disproving the adage that experience teaches them. The circulation of the paper was purely nominal, and the Baronet had constantly to be applied to for further funds; indeed, the only work in connection with the journal which Billy did now was to write euphemistic reports to the proprietor. The money did not supply the journal's deficiencies alone. Card debts had to be settled somehow; and an ephemeral attachment to a girl who tied herself in knots at the Nouveau Cirque was responsible for some embarrassment.

Hitherto, however, Beaufort had always spared the hundred and seventy-five francs at the end of the week to his assistant-editor. But on the Saturday after Cynthia's return he asked him casually if he would mind waiting for it a few days.

"Sorry if it puts you out at all," he said. "I can't help myself. You shall have it for certain Wednesday or Thursday. I suppose you can finance matters in the meanwhile, eh?"

Kent could do no less than answer that he would try. On Monday morning, though, madame Garin's bill would come up with the first breakfast, and he saw that he would be compelled either to make an excuse to her, or to pretend to forget it till he could pay.