Part 7

The lady's camp-stool had been set down at the end of the street. Those who are not promenading opened little _chaises pliantes_ and watched from their little seats. Mrs. Falconer sat facing the ocean, or what was visible of it between the bathing tents. Pagodas gay with children's shovels and bright pails, striped bonbons and the sea of muslins, ribbons and feathers and sunshades of the midsummer crowd. All the capitals of Europe had poured themselves into Trouville, and the resort overflowed with beauty and fashion.

'"It's perfectly bewitching," Bulstrode said to her, "perfectly bewitching, and it makes one feel as though there were nothing but pleasure in the world."

She wore a white dress and her hat was bright with flowers. She opened her rose-lined parasol over her head.

"Jimmy," she said abruptly, and brought his eyes to hers like a flash, for he had been looking over the scene, "do you know I begin to see where the innkeeper found his rare treasures; _there are a great many other things_ that suggest them in this little street!"

Bulstrode replied, "You don't want him to take them away, do you?"

She shook her head. "No," she said slowly, "they have been a great pleasure, but I don't want to _buy_ them from him, either."

"I don't _think_ he'd sell them," Bulstrode was certain of it, "they're extremely precious in his eyes."

"I'm a good judge of works of art, however," she said after a moment, "that is to say, I know a good thing when I see it. There was a little picture in one of the shops back of me that I would have given a lot to own."

Her friend exclaimed: "Are you going to buy it! That is to say, will Falconer buy it for you?"

"My dear soul--with his horse running to-morrow! At any rate, the bijou is already bought above my head. I went in yesterday to see what was the least they would take for it, and found the Prince Pollona, the Englishman who buys for the Wallace Collection, and somebody who, they tell me, was the Rockefeller of St. Petersburg. Well, my little picture was what they all wanted, and you can imagine that _I_ retired from the running...! But I tell you this," she said, "only to show you how very good my taste is, and so that you may rely on my selections."

Bulstrode smiled in a way that said he thought he might rely on her, but still he asked rather quizzically, "Well, what are you going to recommend to me _now_?"

The lady at the moment, not having anything in mind, looked suddenly up, gave him whimsically:

"Molly and her Marquis."

The two young people with Jack Falconer were coming slowly along the Rue de Paris toward them. The grace of the girl, her freshness under her wide hat where flowers and ribbons danced and blended; the radiant pleasure she exhaled, the swing of her dress, her youth, expressed so happily the joy of life, recommended themselves easily in a flash....

"Oh, _Molly_--she's perfect!"

"And the Marquis?"

"He is perfectly in _love_," ... Bulstrode allowed him so much.

"My dear friend, remember I know my _objets d'art_."

"Oh, as an _objet d'art_...!"

Bulstrode took the young man in: his white immaculateness, his boutonnière, his panama--(not less than forty dollars a straw, as Jimmy knew) his monocle.

"As an _objet d'art_," he further conceded to her, "he's perfect, too!"

"As an _homme de race_," said the American lady eagerly, with the true Republican appreciation of blood and title, "as an _homme du monde_, as a..."

"Title?" he finished for her. "Oh, the Presle-Vaulx are all right! I'll grant him a perfect title, sound as a bell, first Crusade--_Léonce de Presle-Vaulx main droite, or sur azur--Pour toi seule_. It's a good old tradition--a good old name."

She scented his lack of sympathy. "Oh, I'll stand for him, Jimmy. I know the _pâte_, as they say. I know the ring and the tone; and you must, at my valuation, take him."

"Molly, dear lady, has done the taking." Bulstrode lifted his hat as the trio came up. "And what, after all, can we--the rest of us do?"

"The rest of them" watched the young couple with mingled emotions: Mary Falconer with all the romance in her, and in spite of unusual cool reasonableness she had a feminine share--Jimmy with the sympathy of a kindly nature, a certain sting of jealousy at the decidedly perfect completeness of young love, and with a singularly wide-awake practical common sense for an impulsive gentleman whose pleasure in life is to pour into people's hands the things they most long for and cannot without him ever hope to enjoy!

Bulstrode, although owning his share of horse-flesh and a proper number of automobiles and keeping, for the best part of the time, a yacht out of commission, was a sport only in a certain sense of the word. The people who liked him best and who were themselves able to judge, said he was a "dead game sport," but Jimmy smiled at this and knew that the human element interested him in life above all, and that he only cared for amusements as they helped others to enjoy. He was backing Falconer's horse, although he felt certain the winnings would go to the Rothschild's gelding. On the afternoon, however, when De Presle-Vaulx came up to him in the Casino and said: "On what are you going to put your money, Monsieur?" Bulstrode looked at him thoughtfully. He had stood by the young man the night before at baccarat and seen him lose enough to keep a little family of Trouville fisherfolk for a year.

"Are you going to play the races, Marquis?"

"But naturally!" ...

De Presle-Vaulx had an attractive frankness, and his smile was--Bulstrode understood what a girl would think about it!

"... But of course! One doesn't come to Trouville in _la grande semaine_ not to play!"

He put his hand cordially on Bulstrode's arm.

"Entre nous," he said, "I don't believe Falconer's horse has a chance against Rothschild's Grimace. And you?"

"Oh, I shall back Jack Falconer's mare," the older man replied.

The Marquis played with his moustache. "She doesn't stand a show."

Bulstrode was walking slowly down the grand staircase by his companion's side. "And you will back Grimace?" He ignored the young man's prognostication.

De Presle-Vaulx said ingenuously: "_I_? Oh, seriously, I'm not betting. I lost at baccarat last night, and I haven't a sou for the race."

He looked boyish and regretful. The American put his hand in his pocket and took out his portefeuille.

"Let me," he suggested pleasantly, "be your banker."

The light dry rustle of French bank-notes came agreeably from between his fingers.

The young man hesitated, then put out his hand.

"A thousand thanks, Monsieur, you are too good--I _will_ back Grimace, and after the race----"

Jimmy handed him the notes to choose from.

At the stair foot stood Molly and Mrs. Falconer.

"We went this afternoon to see Jack's horse," Miss Malines said to the Marquis. Whatever she said, no matter how general, she said to him--others might gather what they could. "Bon Jour's a beauty--a dear, and as fit as possible. Oh, she's in great form! Jack's crazy about her, and so is the jockey. I know Bon Jour will win! I'm going to put twenty-five francs on her to-morrow."

Mary Falconer smiled radiantly. "And you, Jimmy," she took for granted, "are of course betting on the favorite?"

"If you mean Grimace--" his tone was indifferent--"no, I shall back your husband's horse."

"_Jimmy_!" Her tone changed, and her expression as well.

De Presle-Vaulx saw it, and he knew what women's voices can mean. He was a Frenchman, and he understood what a slow, delicious flush, a darkening of the eyes, a sharp note in the voice can signify of feeling--as well as of gratitude, surprise and a little scorn. There was all this in Mary Falconer's exclamation and her face.

"And Maurice!" Molly said, "of course, you're doing the same?"

The Marquis met his fiancée's clear eyes, her girlish enthusiasm and her confidence. He bit his lip, shrugged, hesitated, looked at Bulstrode, at Molly, and laughed. The presence of the others and the custom of his country made it only a pretty courtesy--he lifted Molly's hand to his lips.

"Of course--_chère Mademoiselle_, I am backing Bon Jour with all my heart, _cela va sans dire_!"

Miss Malines regarded her friend with a pretty grimace and a smile.

As they walked along together all four, Bulstrode said to himself:

"He's a sport, a true sport--that's five thousand francs to the bad. He was game, however, he's a good sport and, better yet, he's a true lover!"

Whether or not Mary Falconer really had an exalted idea of the merits of Bon Jour, or whether she thoroughly understood the situation, how was her friend to know?

Falconer adored the horse, and the lady showed in the matter, as in everything else, a fine loyalty to her husband, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons why--but this is going too deeply into the domain of Bulstrode's feelings, which, since he keeps them honorably sealed, it is unworthy to surprise even in the interest of psychology.

Bulstrode saw that his friend was pleased: her color, her mounting spirits at dinner, showed it. She spoke with interest of the races, and with confidence greater than she had hitherto evinced in the fortunes of her husband's racer--indeed she talked horse to Molly's edification, her husband's delight, and Bulstrode's admiration. All this--the sense that the party was, so to speak, with him--put Jack Falconer in the best of spirits, and the unruffled course of the dinner, and, above all, the humor of the elder of the two ladies, quite repaid Jimmy Bulstrode for the sure loss of his stakes.

"Does she really think that I have faith in the horse?" he wondered---meeting her charming eyes over the glass of champagne she was drinking. They did not answer in text his question, but their glow and the light of content in them answered for him other questions which were perhaps of greater interest.

She was not unhappy. All his life, since his acquaintance with her, it had been his aim, in so far as he could aid it, that she should not be unhappy. His idea of affection was that in all cases it should bring to the object--joy. In his own life these things which brought him, no matter how pleasant they might be, the after taste of regret and misery he strove with all his manliness to tear out: "and surely," he so argued, "if my presence in her life cause her for one moment anything but peace, it would be better that we had never looked into each other's eyes."

There was nothing especially buoyant, in the attitude of the young Marquis! His inclination to feminine will had cost him--he was so familiar with the turf and the next day's programme to feel sure--five thousand francs, which he had not the means to pay.

Later in the evening, very much later, indeed well on to one o'clock, Bulstrode, wandering through the baccarat rooms--for no other purpose, it would be said from his indifferent air, than to study types--saw Maurice de Presle-Vaulx just leaving the Casino.

Bulstrode's air was as friendly and as naïve as though he had not a pretty clear idea of just how the tide of events was fluctuating toward misfortune in the case of this young nobleman.

"What do you say," he suggested, "to getting something to drink or eat? What do you say to a piece of _perdreau_ and some champagne?"

The Frenchman followed the older man, who in contrast to his pallor looked the picture of health and spirits. Bulstrode cheerily led him to a small table in the corner of the restaurant, where they sat opposite one another, and for a little time applied themselves in silence to the light supper served them.

The Marquis drank more than he ate, and Bulstrode dutifully finished the game and toast, quite glad, in truth, to break the fast of a long evening which he had spent in the close rooms: for no other reason than unseen, to befriend--and unasked, to chaperone Molly's lover. Finally, when he felt that the right moment to say something had come, he smiled at the young man, and said frankly:

"Voyons, mon ami, don't you feel that you can talk to me a little more freely than you could possibly to even so kind and charming a friend as Mrs. Falconer? We are not of the same race, perhaps, but then under certain circumstances such distinctions are not important. How do you"--he handled the words as though in presenting them to the young man he was afraid they might prick him--"How do _you_ now stand?--I mean to say, the luck has been rather against you, I'm afraid."

Bulstrode would never be so near forty again, and De Presle-Vaulx was a spoiled child--at all events, all that could be spoiled in him had been taken care of by his mother, and in his own way he had spoiled a large part of what remained. He looked up smartly, for he had been following the pattern of the table-cloth. If the frankness of the other threatened to offend him, as he met the kind eyes of the American he found nothing there that could do otherwise than please him. He shrugged with his national habit, then threw out his hands without making any verbal reply, but his smile and his gesture comprehended so much that Bulstrode intelligently exclaimed:

"Oh, but you don't mean to _say_----?"

"I have not, monsieur, much to lose," the scion of an old house replied simply. "We have the reputation of being poor; but to-night and last night have quite 'wiped me out,' as you say in America. Je suis ruiné."

Bulstrode lit his cigar. De Presle-Vaulx took from his pocket one of his own cigarettes and puffed at it gently. Bulstrode smoked silently, and thought of the young man without looking at him. He liked him, and did not understand him at all: not at all! He supposed, that with his different traditions, his Puritanism, his New World point of view, he could _never_ understand him, but he would enjoy trying to do so, for aside from the quality of spoiled boy, there was something of the man in De Presle-Vaulx to which the New Englander extremely responded.

His next remark was impersonal:

"Bon Jour, then, you think is not likely----?"

"_Mon cher Monsieur_! ... She is not even mentioned for place! Even in the event of her winning," De Presle-Vaulx was gloomy, "I should be able to discharge my debt to you and nothing more." Again he looked up quickly. "I shall, of course, be quite able to discharge _that_; I only mean to say that _en somme_, I am _roulé completément roulé_."

"What, then, are you going to do?"

De Presle-Vaulx looked at the end of his cigarette as though he took counsel from it, and said measuredly:

"There is, in my position, but one thing possible for a man to do."

"You mean to say, marry, make a rich marriage?"

The Marquis flashed at him:

"A month ago, yes! that would have been the one way out of my embarrassment: but I am no longer in the market. It is the other alternative."

Bulstrode in no case caring to hear put in words a tragically disagreeable means of solving the problems of debt and love, and having less faith in this extravagant, explosive alternative than in the _marriage de convenance_, did not urge the Frenchman further. He simply brought out--his quiet eyes fixed on the other:

"And the little girl?--Molly--Miss Malines?----"

He gave him three chances to think of the pretty child, and for the first De Presle-Vaulx's expression changed. He had with a nonchalance submitted to the discussion of his fortune and his fate, but now he distinctly showed dignity.

"Don't, I beg of you, _speak_ of Mademoiselle Malines!" and then he said more gently, "mille pardons, mon cher ami!"

Bulstrode smoked his Garcia meditatively. He had not attempted the solving of other people's questions, had not played the good fairy for a long time. He had the hazy feeling--such as he often experienced just before stepping into the mysterious excitement of doing some good deed, of undergoing the effects of a narcotic which put to sleep reason and practical common-sense, and left alive only a desire to befriend. In this case, determined not again to be the victim of sentimentality, determined for once to unite common sense and common humanity, he forcibly dissipated the haze and said:

"Your family! I have, as you know, understood from Mrs. Falconer, the facts of the case. You must not be formal with me." He smiled delightfully. "I am an American; you know we have all sorts of barbarous privileges. We rush in quite where the older races fear to tread ... and Molly Malines' father is an old friend of mine."

(Mr. Bulstrode did not say what kind of an old friend! or even allow himself to remember the I.O.U.s and loans that his bankers had made to the visionary, good-humored, sanguine, unfortunate stockbroker.)

"Your family--how do they take the idea of your marriage to a poor American?"

De Presle-Vaulx pushed his coffee cup aside, leaned his arms on the table, bent over, and said with more confidence:

"Oh, they are entirely opposed to it. That's one reason, to be quite frank with you, why I have been so reckless."

He added: "My mother has refused her consent, and I can never hope to alter my father's attitude. I have their letters to-day as well as telegrams from Presle-Vaulxoron--they bid me 'come home immediately,' and so far as my people are concerned, their refusal puts an end to the affair!"

There was a mixture of amusement and reproach in Bulstrode's tone--"and you have found nothing better to do than to throw away at baccarat what money you had, and have found no other solution for the future than to...?" he eyed the young man keenly, and a proper severity came into his expression. "Nonsense," he said, and repeated the word with more indulgence: "nonsense, _mon ami_!"

His reproof was borne:

"We are an old race, M. Bulstrode----"

Bulstrode had heard this allocution before. It gave lee-way to so much; permitted so much; excused so much!

"... I don't need to tell you our traditions, or recall our customs. You of course know them. If I marry without my parents' consent I shall probably, during my mother's lifetime, never see her again, and I am her only son. It means that I sever all relations with my people."

Bulstrode knocked the ash off his cigar and said thoughtfully:

"It's too bad! A choice, if there _is_ one, is always too bad. There should in real things _be_ no choice. As soon as such a contingent arises, it proves that neither thing is really worth while! When a man loves a woman there can be no choice. My dear friend, when a _man_"--he paused--"loves--there is nothing in the world _but the woman_."

The Marquis looked at the fine face of the elder man. Years had, with their gentle history, and kindly records, touched Jimmy Bulstrode lightly. Every experience made him better to look at; "like a good picture," Mrs. Falconer had said, "painted by a master, and only growing more splendid." Nothing of the worldliness of the roué marked his expression. His memories were clear and honorable, and the Frenchman experienced a sensation of surprise and also one of enlightenment as he looked at him and responded to his expression. He had never seen any one quite like this man of the world, could not think of his prototype in France.

He repeated:

"Nothing but the woman in the world--? Honor--" Bulstrode quickly added, "and the woman--they are synonymous."

In watching his companion he wondered in how much of a tangle the Frenchman's mind was, and just how deep his feet were sunk in the meshes of conventionality and tradition, and decided: "Oh, is it too much to believe that he could----!"

As if in answer to his thoughts, De Presle-Vaulx spoke in the simplest manner possible:

"J'aime Molly."

Quite surprised at the simplicity, Bulstrode beamed on him and waited.

Then the other added:

"But I can't ask any woman to share poverty and debts, and I have no way of making a living; I'm not bred for it."

"You are not an invalid?"

"On the contrary."

"You can work."

De Presle-Vaulx smiled: "I am afraid not! No De Presle-Vaulx has done a stroke of work in three hundred years."

"It's time, then"--Bulstrode was tart--"that you broke the record. Why don't you?" He said as though suddenly illumined--"make me your banker, draw on me for whatever sum you will, and since you have faith in her and are so well supported by the public opinion--bet on Grimace. I believe, with you, that he is sure to win. You would recoup much of your loss here."

De Presle-Vaulx pushed back his chair and exclaimed: "Monsieur!"

"Oh," shrugged Bulstrode, "a woman's caprice, my dear fellow! A foolish little whim of a girl! You can't be expected to mix sport and flirtation to the tune of two or three thousand dollars."

He smiled deceptively.

The young man laughed bitterly:

"So that is something of what you think of me? for I see you are not serious! It's a folly, of course, a sentimental folly," he met Bulstrode's eyes that silently accused him of a like--"but only a man in love knows what sentimental follies are worth! There is"--the young man was suddenly serious, "a sort of prodigality in love only understood by certain temperaments, certain races: it may be degenerate: I suppose it is, and to push it quite to the last phase, is, of course, cowardly, certainly very weak, and men like you, Monsieur, will deem it so."

"You mean--?" and now Bulstrode's tone urged him to make himself clear.

"I mean," said De Presle-Vaulx firmly, "rather than renounce this woman I adore I will without doubt--(given the tangle in which the whole matter is!...") and he could not for the life of him put his intention into words. He smiled nevertheless unmistakably. Bulstrode leaned across the table and put his hand on the other's arm.

"Then you don't love her well enough not to break her heart? Or well enough to live a commonplace life for her?"

"I don't know how to do it."

"Well," said Bulstrode, "I have run upon quite a good many hard moments, perhaps some, in their way, as difficult as this, and I have never thought of getting out of the muddle. Perhaps it _is_ a question, as you say, of temperament and race. I am inclined also to think, stubbornly, that it is a question of the quality of the love that one has for the woman. You won't think it impertinent of me, my dear friend,"--and his tone was such that no one could have thought it impertinent--"you won't, I am sure, take it amiss if we talk this over to-morrow, and if I try to show you something that means _life_, instead of what you plan."

"You know you as good as stood for De Presle-Vaulx."

Bulstrode held Mrs. Falconer's parasol, her fan, as well as a gold bag purse full of louis, a handkerchief and his own cane and field-glass. For the lady, standing on a chair the better to see the race-track, was applauding with enthusiasm the result of the first handicap. She had placed a bet on a horse called Plum-Branch "from a feeling of sentiment," as she said, because she had, that day, quite by chance, selected a hat with a decorative plum-branch amongst other garnitures.

"I am _standing_, certainly, Jimmy," she replied to his remark, "and to the peril of my high heels!-- _There_, I've won! and won't you, like an angel, go and cash my bets?--give me the purse, you might have your hand picked! You can put my winnings in your pocket; they're not so enormous."