CHAPTER XVI

Their bills had been paid with such exceeding regularity up to the present that he decided to take the bolder course, distasteful as it was. He had been obliged to ask landladies to wait longer in his time, but it was one thing to be "disappointed" as a bachelor, and quite another when one had a wife, and baby, and nurse in the house. Madame Garin's countenance, moreover, was of a rather forbidding type, and did not suggest a yielding disposition in money matters. He was agreeably surprised to hear her say, after a scarcely perceptible pause, that it was of no consequence when he spoke to her in passing her little office in the hall on Monday morning. Cynthia's relief was immense; it had been a serious crisis to her, her earliest experience of having to ask for credit; and, to be on the safe side, he had not promised to pay before Thursday. Both trusted that the salary would be forthcoming on Wednesday, though, for if the nurse wanted anything bought in the meanwhile they would be obliged to temporise with her, and that would have its awkwardness.

Beaufort did not refer to the subject on Wednesday, and Kent went home with sixty-five centimes in his pocket. He got in late, and Cynthia was already at dinner. She glanced at him inquiringly as he took his seat, and he shook his head.

"Not yet," he murmured.

She disguised her feelings and continued to talk chiffons with the woman opposite; but when they mounted to their room and the proprietress looked out of the bureau at them with a greeting, she felt a shade uncomfortable, and hastened her steps.

"I hate that bureau," she said as soon as they had reached the haven of the first landing. "The Garins seem to live in it, and you can't get by without their seeing you! Well, he didn't give it to you, eh?"

"No; it'll be all right to-morrow, though. It's lucky I said 'Thursday' instead of to-day. Has Nurse been to you for anything?"

"Thank goodness, she hasn't! But Baby is bound to be out of something directly. You do think we are sure of it to-morrow, Humphrey, _don't_ you?"

He said there was no doubt about it, and they drew their chairs to the hearth. The night was cold, and presently he went out to a grocer's and spent sixty centimes on a bottle of the kind of red wine that the restaurants threw in with the cheapest meal, smuggling it upstairs under his overcoat. In madame Garin's wine-list it figured as "médoc" at two francs, and she would not have been pleased with him for getting it at a shop. They made it hot over their fire in one of the infant's saucepans; and, sweetened with sugar from the nursery cupboard, they found it comforting. Though their capital was now a son, they were not unhappy, in the prospect of a hundred and seventy-five francs in the course of twenty-four hours, and once Cynthia laughed so I gaily that the nurse came in and intimated that "the rooms opening into one another made the noise very disturbing to Baby."

Kent went to the office next day without a cigarette, for he had smoked his last, and he I awaited his chief's arrival with considerable impatience. The Editor had not been in when he returned to luncheon, but in reply to Cynthia's eager question he assured her that he was certain to have the money in his pocket when he saw her again in the evening. He wanted a cigarette by this time very badly indeed, and when the office clock struck three, he left his desk, and stood pulling his moustache at the window moodily. He began to fear that it was going to be one of the days when Billy Beaufort did not appear in the rue du Quatre Septembre at all.

His misgiving proved to be well founded, and dinner that night was agreeable neither to him nor the girl. She had been reluctant to go down to it, on hearing that madame Garin could not be paid, and, though he persuaded her to go down, she sped past the bureau with averted eyes. It was useless to go in search of Beaufort; the only thing of which one could be positive with regard to his movements at this hour was that he would not be at his hotel; but Kent promised; her to see him before commencing work in the morning, and said that the amount necessary should be sent round to her at once.

Beaufort was staying at the Grand, and he was; still in his room when Kent called there. He was found in bed, reading his letters. A suit of dress-clothes trailed disconsolately across a chair, and by the window a fur-coat and a hat-box had rolled on to the floor. He had not drunk his chocolate, but a tumbler of soda-water and something, and a syphon, stood on the table beside, him, surrounded by his watch and chain, some scattered cigarettes, and the bulk of his correspondence. He looked but half awake and cross.

"What's the matter?" he murmured. "Sit down. There's a seat there, if you move those things. Will you have anything to drink?"

"I won't have a drink, but I'll take one of those cigarettes, if I may," said Kent, sticking it in his mouth and inhaling gratefully. "I'm sorry to dun you, but you told me I could have the money 'Wednesday or Thursday,' and I'm pressed for it. I wish you would let me have it now; I want to send it up to my pension before going on to the shop."

Beaufort put out his tongue and drank some more of the contents of the tumbler thirstily.

"That'll be all right," he said, yawning; "don't you bother about that!"

"But the point is, that I want it now," said Kent. "I dare say it would be 'all right,' but I'm in need of it this morning. My bill came up on Monday, and I put the woman off till yesterday--I can't put her off any more."

"What? Is this the first week you owe her? My boy, a week! I haven't paid my bill here for eleven weeks. Let her wait."

"You haven't a wife," said Kent. "_I_ have. It's damned unpleasant for a girl, I can tell you!"

"How much does the old harpy want?" inquired the Editor, with resentment.

"A hundred and sixty, more or less, with extras. I have the interesting document with me, if you'd like to see it."

Billy gaped again.

"Oh, well," he said, "we'll engineer it. You--you tell your wife not to worry herself; and don't trouble any more. I'll see you through." He settled his head on the pillow, and appeared to be under the impression that the difficulty was disposed of.

"It's very good of you," answered Kent, as his tone seemed to call for gratitude. "I'm glad to hear you say so. But how soon can I have it?"

"Eh? Oh, I shall be able to draw to-morrow. You shall have a hundred and sixty to-morrow. I give you my word of honour on it. _I_'ll work it for you somehow. I won't see you in a hole."

Kent stared at him. On the morrow a second week's salary would be due--and on the next day but one, a second account from madame Garin. He pointed the fact out to Beaufort quietly, but with emphasis. He said that, if matters were financially complicated, it would be well for him to understand the position, in order that he might realise his outlook, and, if essential, make a temporary removal to a quarter where he could live more cheaply. He did not want to badger him, he explained, but Beaufort's programme was not capable of imitation in his own case, and, as a family man, he must cut his coat according to his cloth.

"If you want me to let part of my salary stand over for the next few weeks, and it's unavoidable, I suppose it is unavoidable," he said finally; "only, I can't be left in the dark about it. Am I to understand that you propose to pay me a hundred and sixty francs to-morrow, instead of three hundred and fifty? Or shall I have the lot?"

What he received was a peaceful snore, and he perceived that Billy Beaufort had fallen asleep. He contemplated him for a minute desperately, and lit another cigarette. The thought of Cynthia sitting at home in the bedroom, waiting in suspense for a messenger's knock at the door, nerved him to upset a chair, and Beaufort opened his eyes with a grunt.

"What can you do?" demanded Kent, briefly this time, lest slumber should overtake him again. "Can you give me any money before I go?"

"I've told you I'll do my utmost. You shall have a hundred and sixty francs to-morrow; I can't give it you now--I haven't got it. If I had, you may be sure you wouldn't have to ask twice for it. I'm not a chap of that sort, Kent. By George! I never desert a pal. I've my faults, but I never desert a pal.... If a louis on account is any good, I can let you have that."

"Well?" said Humphrey, seeing that there was no more to be done, "I rely on you. And--thanks--I'll take the louis to go on with."

He went down and out on to the Boulevard, and sent Cynthia a petit bleu, saying, "Got something. Balance to-morrow," and wondered gloomily whether madame Garin would continue complacent when she discovered that, after all, he suggested paying one week's bill instead of two. Perhaps it would be easier to arrange with the vivacious daughter?

He resolved to try, and the young lady was all smiles and "Mais parfaitement, monsieur," when he spoke to her. He congratulated himself on having had the idea; but, though Beaufort provided him with the sum agreed upon next day, and repeated that he "never deserted a pal" with an air of having achieved a triumph, he did not make up the deficit, and, instead of being able to square accounts with the Garins, the assistant-editor gradually found himself getting deeper into their debt. From its being a doubtful point whether he would receive his salary in full, it became a question whether he would get any of it at all; and when he obtained half, he learnt by degrees to esteem it a fortunate week. Beaufort overflowed with promises and protestations.

Everything was always "on the eve of being righted," but the day of righteousness never dawned. Mademoiselle Garin began to stop "monsieur Kent" in the hall and convey to him with firmness that her mother had very heavy obligations to meet, and Cynthia sat at the dinner-table in constant terror of the old woman coming in and publicly insulting them.

One morning, when the laundress brought back their linen, Humphrey had to feign to be asleep, while Cynthia explained that "monsieur had all the money and was so unwell that she did not like to wake him." The poor creature was sympathetic, and went away telling madame not to disquiet herself--it was doubtless only a passing indisposition. But after she had gone, the girl begged Humphrey to take a loan on her engagement-ring, and after some discussion he complied. Everything is more valuable in Paris than in London until one has occasion to pawn it, and then it is worth much less, especially jewellery. From the mont-de-piété Kent procured about forty per cent, of what a London pawn-broker would have lent him. However, the loan was useful. Though it did not clear them, it afforded temporary relief; and it paid the nurse's wages, which were due the same day. Cynthia said that she had become so "demoralised"--she used a happy term now with a frequency he would have found astonishing if he had recalled how she talked when they first met--that a substantial payment on account "made her feel quite meritorious"; and there was a week in which they went to the theatres again, and walked past the bureau with heads erect.

March had opened mildly, and people were once more beginning to sit outside the cafés; and Mrs. Deane-Pitt was returning to England. Kent had kept his resolution not to enter the yellow drawing-room in the avenue Wagram when it could be avoided--partly, no doubt, because of the anxieties he had had to occupy his mind, but partly also by force of will. When he heard that she was leaving, though, he could do no less--nor did he feel it necessary to do less--than call to bid her "au revoir," and he was conscious, as the servant replied that she was at home, that he would have been disappointed otherwise.

He gown betokened that visitors were expected; teacups demonstrated that visitors had been. She welcomed him languidly, and motioned him to a seat.

"I thought you must have gone to London, or to Paradise," she said. "What have you beer doing with yourself?"

"I've been so fearfully busy," he answered lamely.

"On the paper?"

"Of course."

"I don't hear good reports of the paper," she said. "I hope they aren't true?"

"The paper is as good as it always was," responded Kent--"neither better nor worse. May I ask what you hear?"

"I heard that Sir Charles Eames is getting tired of it. Says he is running a journal that nobody reads but himself, and _he_ 'don't read it much.' He informed a man in his club, who told it privately to another man, who told it in confidence to a woman who told me--I wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone myself--that 'if the price didn't improve soon he should scratch it.' What will the robin do then, Mr. Kent?"

Humphrey looked grave. This was the first plain intimation he had had that _The World and his Wife_ was likely to collapse, and badly as the post was paying him now, it was more lucrative than any that awaited him. He thought that Mrs. Deane-Pitt might have communicated her news more considerately.

"The robin will manage to find crumbs, I suppose," he said; "I wasn't born on _The World and his Wife_."

"May I offer you some tea and cake in the meantime?"

"No, thanks."

Her tone annoyed him this afternoon; it was hard and careless. He fancied at the moment that his only feeling for her was dislike, and sneered at the mental absurdities into which he had strayed. There was a lengthy pause--a thing that had seldom occurred between them--followed by platitudes.

"Well," he murmured, getting up, "I'm afraid I must go."

She did not press him to remain.

"Must you?" she said. "I dare say we shall meet again. It's a small world in every sense."

"I hope we shall. Au revoir, and bon voyage, Mrs. Deane-Pitt."

"If you should go back yourself, you'll come to see me? You know where I live."

"Thank you; I shall be very glad."

But as he went down the stairs Kent was surprised to perceive that he felt suddenly mournful. The noise of the door closing behind him was charged with ridiculous melancholy, and there appeared to him something sad in this conventional ending that had the semblance of estrangement. The sentiment and impression of the hour that he had spent in the room after the Variétés recurred to him, and contrasted with it their adieu became full of pathos. He questioned reproachfully if, in his determination not to be more than a friend, he might not have repaid her own friendship by ingratitude, and so have wounded her. He first decided that he would send her a letter, and then that he would not send her a letter. He made his way through the Champ Elysées reflectively, and once half obeyed a violent temptation to turn back. He would have obeyed it wholly but that he felt its indulgence would be laughable, or that Mrs. Deane-Pitt would be likely to look upon it in that light. So he restrained the impulse. But he could not laugh himself.