Chapter 6

But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old gentleman--a reasonable enough hypothesis--and that Captain Stewart must have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation.

"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it."

He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste. Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude; it seemed to him such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff glass of absinthe--it was between five and six o'clock.

"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled and set at hand--"now, having congratulated you and--ah, welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family--I turn to the other feature of the affair."

He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment, turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him without expression.

"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for poor Arthur. Good! Good! I welcome you there, also."

Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.

"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me; but I think, if you don't mind--of course, I know it's very presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us--but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work independently. You see--well, I can't quite put it into words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."

Captain Stewart looked disappointed.

"Oh, I think--" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go over all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could save you that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over, a hundred clews that on the surface looked quite possible of success. You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."

He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam in strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.

"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by, but--I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in other people--young people who are simple and earnest, and who--and who are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not, though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking. Who knows? You may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault--such a way of overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth! Youth! Eh, my God," said he, "to be young again, just for a little while! To feel the blood beat strong and eager! Never to be tired! Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley! There's so little left for people when youth is gone!"

He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to break.

"Don't refuse a helping hand," said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. "Don't be over-proud. I may be able to set you upon the right path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon--I haven't, alas! But each day new clews turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never knows."

Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was blowing smoke-rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes regarded him, smiling a little wistfully, he thought. Ste. Marie scowled out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.

"I hardly know," said he. "Of course, I sound a braying ass in hesitating even a moment; but, in a way, you understand, I'm so anxious to do this or to fail in it quite on my own. You're--so tremendously kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very ungrateful, I know; but I'm not."

"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your feeling--but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."

For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.

"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you don't mind my saying so, sir--I don't want to seem rude--your trained detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"

Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.

"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have accomplished much--except to prove that there are a great many places poor Arthur has _not_ been to and a great many people who have _not_ seen him. After all, that is something--the elimination of ground that need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had been drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution. Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be managed--by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends and searching his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of events, before we began to search for him, and, of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as yet--nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is alive."

"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"

"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time should be past. He--you must know that he went away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather? My father is not a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy."

"Ah, yes," said Hartley; "but no boy, however young or angry, would be foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut off altogether."

"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father, sir, may die at any time--any hour. And he's very angry at his grandson. He may have cut him off already."

Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the glass in his hand.

"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.

"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it. That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time."

But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.

"Pray don't apologize," said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly together! And, frankly, I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No, I am sure he wouldn't cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond--as we all were."

Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.

"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must get home to change. There is a cabstand near you?" He looked out of the window. "Ah, yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens."

He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He said:

"You refuse to join forces with us, then? Well, I'm sorry. But, for all that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an incompetent bungler."

He gave a little kindly laugh, and Ste. Marie tried to protest.

"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen upon what seems to be a promising clew come and talk it over with me. Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I sha'n't spoil your game."

"Ah, now, that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for information."

The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.

"An idea!" he said, quickly. "You have an idea? What--May I ask what sort of an idea?"

"Oh, it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that I should learn something from him."

"Ah!" said Captain Stewart, slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you thought you saw him in the Champs-Elysées; and he couldn't very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly worth following up."

"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah, well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."

"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you! Good-day, Hartley. Come and see me, both of you. You know where I live."

He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres there and drive away.

Ste. Marie laughed aloud.

"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't found Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris--publicly, that is--at about the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact, he remains, or at least for a time remained, in the city without letting his friends know, because I made no mistake about seeing him in the Champs-Elysées. All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth investigation. Of course," he admitted, doubtfully--"of course, I'm no detective; but that's how it looks to me."

"I don't believe Stewart is any detective, either," said Richard Hartley. "He's altogether too cocksure. That sort of man would rather die than admit he is wrong about anything. He's a good old chap, though, isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I thought he was rather pathetic when he went on about his age."

"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would have thought I was a presumptuous ass, and would have behaved accordingly."

Ste. Marie took a turn about the room, and his face began to light up with its new excitement and exaltation.

"And to-morrow!" he cried--"to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out into the world and the Adventure is on foot! God send it success!"

He laughed across at the other man; but it was a laugh of eagerness, not of mirth.

"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."

"Y-e-s," said the other man, a little dryly--"yes, perhaps. I don't want to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"

"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"

"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.

* * * * *

VIII

JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM

So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer determination to succeed. To put it fancifully, they burned their tower behind them, for to one of them, at least--to him who led--there was no going back.

But, after all, they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident had befallen--a singularly unfortunate incident.

It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting upon Armenonville or the Madrid, in the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these would be full of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some quiet place in the Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening perforce to loud music. In the end, for no particular reason, they compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in the rue Helder. They went there about eight o'clock, without dressing, for it is a very quiet place which the world does not visit, and they had a sopa de yerbas, and some langostinos, which are shrimps, and a heavenly arroz, with fowl in it, and many tender, succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad made out of a little of everything that grows green, with the true Spanish oil, which has a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the Philistine; and then they had a strange pastry and some cheese and green almonds. And to make then glad, they drank a bottle of old red Valdepenas, and afterward a glass each of a special Manzanilla, upon which the restaurant very justly prides itself.

It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year, but the two men were hungry and sat at table, almost alone in the upper room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers. When at last they came out into the narrow street, and thence to the thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They stood for a little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the boulevard to where the Place de l'Opéra opened wide and the lights of the Café de la Paix shone garish in the night. And Ste. Marie said:

"There's a street fête in Montmartre. We might drive home that way."

"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And after that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in the wrong direction. Lead on!"

So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep, stone-paved hill to the heights, where La Bohême still reigns, though the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed and the trail of the tourist is over all. They found Montmartre very much en fête. In the Place Blanche were two of the enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds, which only Paris knows--one furnished with stolid cattle, theatrical-looking horses, and Russian sleighs; the other with the ever-popular galloping pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation, mechanical organs, concealed somewhere in their bowels, emitted hideous brays and shrieks which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon the galloping pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.

The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the Parisian street fête gathers together, but it was, for the most part, a well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful, harmless Latin fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way through the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone and glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune, the huge, pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the platform upon which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little group of American trippers, sight-seeing with a guide, stood near by, and one of the group, a pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively of the friend upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think momma would be shocked if we took a ride? Wouldn't I love to!"

Hartley turned, laughing, from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He was wondering, with mild amusement, why anybody should wish to do such a foolish thing; but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs, and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth, it was impossible for him to look on at any form of active amusement without thirsting to join it. A joyous and carefree lady in a blue hat, who was mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper serpentine at him and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat off.

"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the basket!"

A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and when the lady with the blue hat came round, on the next turn, lassoed her neatly about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke. Then he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his steed's neck, in the ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed aloud.

"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride--just one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years."

Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it and mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round the pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to revolve.

At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making her way along the platform toward where Ste. Marie sat hurling serpentines in the face of the world. By the next time round she had come to where he was, mounted astride behind him, and was holding herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other she rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines until they were hung with many-colored ribbons like a Christmas-tree. Even Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with which his race is cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and the lady in the blue hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.

But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward away from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry toward him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He caught Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying, in a low voice:

"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I want to get away at once!"

"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game you might as well play it."

"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of two motor-cars to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come from dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."

"The devil!" said Hartley, under his breath. Then he gave a shout of laughter, demanding: "Well, what of it? You weren't committing any crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a silly pig in a silly merry-go-round. Everybody does it in these fête things." But even as he spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting was, and the laughter went out of his voice.

"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humor of it. Good God, what a thing to happen! _You_ know well enough what she'll think of me. At five o'clock this afternoon," he said, bitterly, "I left her with a great many fine, high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my days and nights to--for her sake. I went away from her like a--knight going into battle--consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes when I went. And _now_--now, at midnight--she sees me riding a galloping pig in a street fête with a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig with me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What will she think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I know well enough! I saw her face before she turned away. And," he cried, "I can't even go to her and explain--if there's anything to explain, and I suppose there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see her."

"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at it."

But Ste. Marie shook his head.

"No, she won't," said he.

And Hartley could say no more; for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very much afraid that she would not laugh.

They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove home at once. They were almost entirely silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or twice to cheer him up, realized that he was best left to himself just then, and so held his tongue. But in the rue d'Assas, as Ste. Marie was getting down--Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in the Avenue de l'Observatoire--he made a last attempt to lighten the man's depression. He said: