Part 12

When she awoke it was with a confused memory of a troubled night through which, as she dozed, she had known that Jim was often out of his bed, often walking up and down. She thought that she had once been worried lest he take cold, for he had been barefooted and without his dressing gown. She thought that she had sleepily asked him to be more careful, to return to rest. She thought that he had made a rather quick reply, bidding her sleep and not bother.

Now she saw him fully clothed and making stealthily for the door that opened on the hall. The morning light showed his face very grey; perhaps this was because he had not shaved, for clearly he had not shaved; but Muriel also noticed that the lines from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth seemed deeper than usual. She saw that he held his hat in his hand, that his coat was flung over his arm, and that the glance which he cast toward her, as he sought to determine whether the noise of the turned door knob had roused her, was the glance that might be expected of a thief leaving a room that he had robbed.

Then the thing that had happened came back to her. She closed her eyes and gladly let him go.

On his part, Stainton had guessed that she had sleepily seen him, but he was content because she refrained from questioning him, from any renewal of the enquiries that she had made when this new terror arose. He walked down the stairs, where scrubbing women shifted their pails of water that he might pass and smiled at him as old serving-women are accustomed to smile at the men they see leaving the hotel in the early morning. He knew what they thought, and he sickened at the contrast between their surmise and the truth.

He walked to the grands boulevards. It was too early to go to Boussingault's; he looked at the watch that he had been consulting every fifteen minutes for the past two hours, and he saw that for two hours more it would be too early to go. He stopped at a double row of round tables on the sidewalk outside a corner café. Only one of them was in use, and that by a haggard but nonchalant young man in a high hat and a closely buttoned overcoat that failed to conceal the fact that its owner was still in evening dress. The young man was drinking black coffee, and his hand trembled. Stainton sat at the table farthest from this other customer.

A dirty waiter appeared from the café and shuffled forward, adjusting his apron.

"_B'jour, monsieur_," the waiter mumbled.

Stainton did not return this salutation.

"_Une absinthe au sucre avec de l'eau_," he ordered.

He had tasted the stuff only once before, and that was thirty years ago. He had hesitated to order it now, because he feared that the waiter would show a superior wonder at any man's ordering absinthe on the boulevard at eight o'clock in the morning.

The waiter showed no surprise. He brought the tumbler, placed it on the little plate that bore the figures indicating the price of the drink, put the water bottle and the absinthe bottle beside it and held the glass dish full of lumps of dusty sugar. When Jim had served himself after the manner in which he had recently seen Frenchmen, of an afternoon, serving themselves, the waiter withdrew.

The sun emerged from the clouds that so often shroud its early progress toward the zenith on a day of that season in Paris and fell with unkind inquisitiveness upon the young man with the coffee and the old one with the wormwood. The street began to awake with shopgirls painted for their work as they had lately been painted for what they took to be their play, upon clerks going to their banks and offices, upon newsboys shrilly crying the titles of the morning journals. The boys annoyed Jim by the leer with which they accompanied the gesture that thrust the papers beneath his nose; the clerks annoyed him by their knowing smiles; the girls annoyed him most because they would call one another's attention to him, comment to one another about him, and laugh. Of these people the first two sorts envied him for what they thought he had been doing; the last sort saw in him a good fellow with a heart like their own hearts; but Jim hated them all.

He gulped the remainder of his absinthe and, hailing an open carriage, went for a drive in the Bois. He bade the coachman drive slowly, but, when he returned to the city and was left at the doctor's address, he found himself the first patient in the waiting-room.

Was _M. le médecin_ in? Yes, the grave manservant assured, but he doubted if _M. le médecin_ could as yet receive monsieur. It was early, and _M. le médecin_ rarely saw any patients before--

Stainton produced his card and a franc. He had not long to wait before the double-doors of the consulting room opened and Boussingault cheerily bade him enter.

"The good day, the good day!" Boussingault was as leathery of face and as voluble as he had been on the evening previous. He took both of Jim's hands and shook them. "It is the early bird that you are, _hein_? Did the dinner of last night not well digest? Sit. We shall see. It is not my specialty; I help for to eat: I do not help for to digest. But what is a specialty that one to it should confine one's self with a friend? Sit."

The room was lined by bookcases full of medical and social works and pamphlets in French, German, and English: Freud's "Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehr," Duclaux's "L'Hygiène Sociale," Solis-Cohen's "Therapeutics of Tuberculosis," Ducleaux, Fournier, Havelock Ellis, Forel, Buret, Neisser, Bloch. There were some portraits, there was a chair that looked as if it could be converted with appalling ease into an operating table, there was a large electric battery and there was a flat-topped desk covered with phials and loose leaves from a memorandum book. Boussingault seated himself, grunting, at his desk, his back to the window, and indicated a chair that faced him.

Stainton took the chair. He was still pale, and the corners of his ample mouth were contracted.

"My digestion is all right," he said. "What bothers me is something else. I dare say it's not--not much. I know that these things may be the merely temporary effect of some slight nervous depression, of physical weariness, or--or a great many minor things. Only, you know, one does like to have a physician's assurance."

Boussingault peered through his bar-bound _pince-nez_. He began to understand.

"Nervous depression," said he: "one does not benefit that by absinthe before the _déjeuner_."

Stainton tried to smile.

"That was my first absinthe in thirty years and the second in my life," he said; "but I dare say I am rather redolent of it, for the fact is I took it on an empty stomach."

The doctor leaned across the desk, his hands clasped on its surface.

"M. Stainton," he asked, "you come here to-day as a patient, is it not?"

"Well, I hope that I won't need any treatment, but----"

"But you do not come here to pass the time, _hein_?"

"No, doctor."

"Then," said Boussingault, spreading out his hands and shrugging his shoulders, "tell me why in the so early morning, not sick, you take absinthe for the second time in your life."

He was looking at Stainton in a manner that distinctly added to Jim's nervousness. The American was not a man to quail before most, and he had come here to get this expert's opinion on a vital matter; yet he feared to furnish the only data on which an opinion could, to have use, be founded.

"Well, doctor," he said, trying hard for the easiest words, "you--you met my wife last evening."

Boussingault's bullet head bobbed.

"What then?" he inquired.

"What do you think of her?"

"I think that she is very charming--and, M. Stainton, very young."

It struck Jim that the concluding phrase had been weighted with significance.

"I don't know just how to tell you," he resumed. "I don't like to talk even to my physician of--of certain intimate matters; but"--he glanced at the most conspicuous volumes on the nearest shelf--"from the titles of these books, I think that what I want to see you about falls within the limits of your specialty."

He stopped, gnawing his lower lip, his mind seeking phrases. Before he could find a suitable one, his vis-à-vis, looking him straight in the eyes, had settled the matter:

"My friend, there are but two reasons why one that is no fool should drink absinthe at an hour so greatly early: or he has been guilty of excess and regrets, or he has been unable to be guilty and regrets." He paused, his face thrust half across the desk. "Madame," he demanded, "she is how old?"

Stainton met him bravely now, but in a manner clearly showing his anxiety to protect himself.

"She is nearly nineteen."

"Eighteen, _bien_. And you?"

Jim drew back. He took a long breath; his fingers held tightly to the arms of his chair.

"Before I married," he said, "only a very short time before I married, I had myself looked over carefully by one of the most eminent physicians in New York. He assured me that I was in perfect physical condition, that I was not by any means an old man, that, as a matter of fact----"

Boussingault thumped the desk with his forefinger.

"Poof, poof! I do not ask of your heart, your liver, your _biceps flexor_. How many years are you alive?"

"Doctor," said Stainton, "I don't think you quite understand----"

"I understand well what I want to know. Are you married a long time?"

"On the contrary."

"And your age?"

Stainton realised that it must be foolishly feminine longer to fence.

"Fifty," he belligerently declared.

Dr. Boussingault leaned back, spread wide his arms, and smiled.

"_Vous voilà!_"

"But, doctor, wait a moment. You don't understand----"

"My friend, if you understand these things more well than do I, why is it that you come to me? A man of fifty, he but recently marries a girl of eighteen----"

"But I have lived a careful life!"

"We all do. I have never known a drunkard; all of my drunkards, they are moderate drinkers."

"I drink no more than you."

"I was not speaking literally, monsieur."

"I have lived in the open air," said Jim.

"La-la-la!"

"And I have been abstemious. You understand me now: absolutely abstemious."

It was obvious that Boussingault doubted this, but he made a valiant effort to speak as if he did not.

"If Jacques never has drunk," said he, "brandy will poison him."

Stainton rose.

"I am as sound as a bell," he vowed.

Boussingault did not rise. He only leaned back the farther and smiled the more knowingly.

"Yet you are here," said he.

Stainton took a turn of the room. When he had risen he had meant to leave, but he knew that such a course was folly. When he turned, he showed Boussingault a face distorted by anguish.

"What can I do?" he asked. His voice was low; his deportment was as restrained as he could make it. "She is a girl----"

"Were madame forty-five," said the physician, "you would not have come to consult me."

"Surely it's not fair, doctor. After all my repression--all my life of--of----"

Boussingault rose at last. He came round the desk and, with a touch of genuine affection in the movement, slipped an arm through one of Jim's.

"We every one feel that," said he. "It goes nothing. The pious man, he comes to me and says: 'It is not fair; I have been too good to deserve!' The old roué, he comes to me and says--the same thing. We all some day curse Nature; but Nature, she does not make exceptions for the reward of merit; she cares nothing for morals; she cares only for the excess on one side or other, and for the rest she lays down her law and follows it with regard to no man."

"At the worst," said Jim, his face averted, "I am only fifty."

"With a girl-wife," sighed Boussingault. "Name of God!"

"And I am in good shape," pleaded Jim.

The Frenchman's hand pressed Stainton's arm.

"Listen," he said, "listen, my friend, to me. I am Boussingault, but even Boussingault is not Joshua that he can turn back the sun or make him to stand still. If you were the Czar of the Russias or M. Roosevelt, I could not do for you that. You have taken this young girl from her young friends; you give her yourself in their stead, no one but yourself with whom to speak, to share her childish thoughts--you try to live downwards to her years with both your mind and your physique. It is not possible, my friend. But you have not come to a plight so bad. Nature is not cruel. It is not all worse yet. This is not the end, no. It is the beginning. You but must not try to be too young, and you have perhaps time left to you. It may be, much time. Who knows? You must remember your age and you must live in accord with your age. Now, just now--Poof! It goes nothing. You require more quiet, some rest. Find a reason for to quit madame for a week. Madame Boussingault, my wife, she will pay her respects to Madame Stainton and request that she come to stay with us. Make affairs call you from Paris. Rest. See. I give you this prescription, but it is nothing in itself. It will quiet you, no more. You must yourself rest."

He darted to the desk, fumbled among its papers, wrote upon one, and handed it to Jim. Then he continued for ten minutes to talk in the same strain, as before.

"Of course," said Jim, "in a little while it would all have been easier."

"In a little while?"

"There will be a child."

Boussingault's friendliness nearly vanished.

"What?" he said. "And you--you----Thousand thunders, these Americans here!"

At this Stainton himself grew angry.

"Do you think I am a brute?" he said. "It is far off."

"Hear him!" Dr. Boussingault appealed to the ceiling. "Hear him! 'It is far off!' Name of a name! Go you one day to the consulting room of the great Pinard at the Clinique Baudelocque and read the '_Avis Important_' he there has posted on the door."

It needed quite a quarter of an hour more for the physician to explain and for Stainton to recover his temper, which, generally gentle, had been tried by this new threat of evil and was now the more being tried by the reaction of his system against the absinthe. Then, after Madame Boussingault had been seen and the arrangements for Muriel's visit had been completed, the doctor sent him away with more advice and more exclamations against the ignorance of the average man and woman of maturity.

"A week," he said, patting Stainton's broad, straight back. "One little week. We must ourself sever from the so charming lady for so long, for we know that, ultimately, an absence will work for even her good. Is it not, _hein_? But the not-knowing profound of mankind! Incredible! Truly. Nine-tens of my women patients, they are married, who of themselves know not half so much as the savage little girl of ten years. And the men, they I think no more wise."

Stainton passed through the now crowded waiting-room and into the sunlit street in a mood that wavered between rebellion and submission. He walked to the Chatham and, once arrived, walked past the hotel. He did this twice, when, with the realisation that he hesitated from fear of Muriel, he mastered his timidity and entered.

His wife was still in bed. Her eyes were closed, but Stainton knew that she was not asleep. He went to her and kissed her.

"Muriel," he said, "I am going to Lyons."

She did not open her eyes.

"Yes," she said.

"I think that I ought to go," said Stainton, "and clean up this matter of the sale. I shall get the American consul there to recommend a good lawyer, and I'll complete the whole transaction as soon as I can."

"Yes."

"It will probably take an entire week," pursued Stainton. He waited. "I don't like to leave you alone in Paris, but you'd be frightfully lonely in Lyons, and I shall be busy--very busy. Now, I know you don't like Boussingault. I don't like his opinions myself, but he is a leading man in his specialty, and his wife is a good woman. She has said that she will call on you this afternoon and take you to stay with her."

Muriel was silent.

"That's all," said Stainton, "except that there is a train from the Gare de Lyon at noon, and I ought to take it."

"Then you have been to Dr. Boussingault?" asked Muriel.

"Yes, dear."

"And he----"

"He said the--the change was what I needed."

He busied himself packing a bag. At last he came again to the bed and bent over her.

"Good-bye," he said.

She raised her lips, and he strained her to him. He did not trust himself to say more, and he was grateful to her for her refusal to ask any further question. She kissed him, her eyes unopened. All that he knew was that she kissed him.

Muriel lay quiet for some time. Then she got up and dressed and shuddered when she looked at herself in the mirror, and tightened her stays. Yet she dressed carefully before going out for a long walk.

In the Tuileries Gardens she watched the gaily costumed maids and wet nurses with their little charges. She saw a woman of the working class, who was soon to be a mother. She looked away.

She hailed a passing cab.

"Drive me to the Boulevard Clichy," she said in French.

The driver nodded.

Muriel entered the cab. She had an important errand.

Late in the afternoon she returned to the Chatham and left it with a suitcase in her hand. She told the unsurprised clerk at the _bureau_ that her rooms were to be held for her, but that she would be absent for five days.

"If anyone calls," she said, "you will say that I have gone to Lyon with monsieur."

XIV

RUNAWAYS

Stainton returned to Paris at the end of eight days in far better spirits than he had been in when he left. He had sold the mine at nearly his own figure, and he had what he considered reasons for believing that Dr. Boussingault had exaggerated his condition. Muriel's letters had, to be sure, been unsatisfactory; they had been brief and hurried; far from congratulating him on the success of his business affairs when he announced it, they made no mention of it; but then, he had never before received any letters from Muriel, and doubtless these represented her normal method of correspondence. He concluded that if they were below the normal, that was due to the cares of her condition.

Their sitting-room at the Chatham was dim when he entered it, for the day was dull, and Muriel had several of the curtains drawn. She rose to meet him, and he embraced her warmly.

"Hello," he said. "You understood my wire, didn't you? I didn't want to have to say 'howdy' to my sweetheart at the Boussingaults'. Oh, but it's good to be with you again!"

"What wire?" asked Muriel.

"Why, didn't you get it?" said Stainton. "The wire telling you to come here."

"Oh," said Muriel, "that one? Yes."

"You see," explained Jim as he kissed her again and again, "I wanted to have you right away all to myself; that's why I asked you to come back here."

"Yes," said Muriel, "that was better. I didn't want to have you meet me before those strangers."

"Not exactly strangers, dear; but it's better to be together, just our two selves--just our one self, isn't it? And we'll be that always now," he continued joyously as he sat down in an arm-chair and drew her to his knee. "Just we two. No more business. Never again. I have earned my reward and got it. The blessed mine has served its turn and is gone--going, going, gone--and at a splendid figure. Sold to M. Henri Duperré Boussingault et Cie., for----I told you the figure, didn't I--_our_ figure? Isn't it splendid?"

"I am glad," said Muriel.

"You don't really object?" he asked.

"Why should I? Of course I am glad."

"But don't you remember? Once you said that you didn't want me to sell it."

"Did I? Oh, yes; I do remember--but you showed me how foolish that was."

He laughed happily.

"I am a great converter," he said. "If you could only have heard me converting those Frenchmen to my belief in the mine, Muriel--and mostly through interpreters, too; for only two of them spoke any English, and you know what my French is. But I wrote you all that."

"Yes," replied Muriel, "you wrote me all that."

"I can't say so much for your letters," Jim went on. "They were a little brief, dearie: brief and rather vague. Did you miss me?"

"Yes, Jim."

"Did you? Maybe I didn't miss you! Oh, how I wanted to be with you. On Wednesday, while they were thinking it over for the hundredth time and there was nothing for me to do but knock about Lyons, I nearly jumped on a train to come all the way here to see you. How would you have liked that?"

"I should----" She stopped and put her head on his shoulder.

"Poor dear," he said; "poor lonely girly! You did miss me, then? Were the Boussingaults kind? Of course they were; but how were they kind? Tell me all about your visit there. I was glad to get every line you wrote me; I kissed your signature every night and each morning; but you didn't tell me much news, dearest. Tell me now about your visit to the Boussingaults."

Muriel sat upon his knee.

"I didn't go to the Boussingaults," she said.

"What?" Stainton started so that he almost unseated her.

"I didn't go to the Boussingaults," she repeated.

"But, dearest, how--What?--Where were you? You mean to say that you stayed here, alone, in this hotel?"

She nodded.

Stainton was amazed; he was shocked that she could have deceived him and sorely troubled at the effect of this on the Boussingaults.

"You never told me," he said. "You might have told me, Muriel. Why did you do such a foolish thing? Why did you do it?"

Muriel stood up. She turned her back toward him.

"I don't know," she said. "I--Oh, you know I couldn't bear that man!"

"But you might have told me, dear. Why, all my letters went there! Then you never got my letters?"

She shook her head.

"Muriel! And you pretended--Didn't Madame Boussingault call for you? She said she would call the afternoon that I left."

"I suppose she did."

"Suppose! Don't you know?" Jim also was on his feet. "Didn't you see her? You don't mean to say that you didn't see her?"

"I didn't see her. I left word at the _bureau_ that I was out. I left word that I had gone to Lyons with you."

"Good heavens, Muriel! What will they think? What must they be thinking right now? My letters to you went there. I wrote every day. They would know from the arrival of those letters addressed to you from Lyons that you weren't with me."

She sank on a chair and began feebly to cry.

Jim knelt by her, his annoyance remaining, but his heart touched.

"There, there!" he said. "I understand. You wanted to go with me and were afraid to say so. I wish now that you had gone. That doctor is a fool. He must be a fool. And he isn't a pleasant man. I understand, dearie. Don't say any more. I was cruel----"

"No, no!" sobbed Muriel.

"I was. Yes, I was."

"You are the best man in the world, only--only----"

"I was the worst, the very worst. If you only had told me how you felt, dearest. If you only hadn't deceived me!"

"I had to."

"Out of consideration for me."

"No."

"It was. I understand. You thought the trip alone would do me good, and so you wouldn't say a word to change my plans." He had no thought for anything but contrition now. "And you stuck it out. My poor, brave, lonely darling! To think of me being so callous! How could I? And you in your condition!"

She drew from him.

"Jim----" she said.

"I won't hear you accuse yourself," he protested.

"But, Jim----"

"Not now. Not ever. Not another word. Never mind the Boussingaults. Boussingault is a physician, after all, and will understand when I tell him."

"Don't tell him, Jim."

"We'll see; we'll see."

"Please don't. I hate him so, I never want to have to think of him again."

"Don't you bother, dearie. You are the finest woman that ever lived."

"But, Jim, I'm not." She kept her head averted. "I am--I dare say I am as bad----"