Part 14

"And still more stupid of Jacques to talk about the story to him," he flung back, at white heat. "What possible interest could Jacques' difficulties have for Martime? Childish!"

"But--pardon me, it was you who first mentioned the matter," I said.

"Ah, don't split straws," he growled. Clearly, the incident disturbed him more than a little.

It was probably a week or ten days afterwards that Jacques came to me in great perturbation and volleyed, "What do you think? Henri has got his knife into me! It appears that Martime has returned the play, and Henri says it is my fault."

"Oh, nonsense!" I said. "How can he say that? Returned the play? I am dreadfully sorry."

"I too. But what have _I_ got to do with it? Did you ever hear anything more preposterous? To begin with, it is not likely that Martime would refuse the piece solely on account of what was said that day; and, even if he did so, it was not I who said it. It wasn't till yesterday I knew there was anything wrong. Blanche met Elise. Elise's manner was rather strange, and Blanche wondered. But she had no idea there was any ill-feeling. Naturally! She inquired if Henri had heard from Martime yet. Then it came out."

"That Henri held you responsible?"

"Blanche was condoling. She said, 'What a cruel disappointment for you both, dear!' And Elise said coldly, 'Yes, indeed; it is very unfortunate that Jacques discussed his affairs in front of Martime.' Blanche, poor girl, was thunder-struck. Of course, she explained to Elise exactly what had happened. But Elise replied with something very vague, and when I telephoned to Henri he was not himself with me at all--he was very brusque. He said,' I have no wish to talk about the matter.' There is not the least doubt that he is angry."

"I will have a chat with him," said I.

I went the following day. But he had gone to have a Turkish bath, and Elise, who received me, begged me not to mention the play when I saw him. "His finest work, that took him a year to do, practically wasted!" she said, in a stunned fashion. "It is frightful. He is stricken. It would be kinder of you not to say anything about it to him yet awhile. I'll tell him that you came."

"But 'practically wasted'?" I demurred. "He will be able to place it with some other management, will he not?"

"He may. But it is not the kind of play for every management. And, anyhow, we shall not get Martime in the part. It will never now be the immense success that it _would_ have been. What an idiot to reject a great part because his vanity was wounded!"

"You are certain that is the explanation?"

"There is no question about it. The script was returned in the most formal way--a line to say it was 'unsuitable.' Henri was prostrate. Prostrate. My poor Henri! You may realise what a blow it was. I am feeling very anxious about him. I have persuaded him to go away for a few months--I am taking him to Biarritz. What a calamity his meeting Jacques that afternoon!"

"Ah, but listen," I urged. "Jacques is terribly cut up that Henri is bitter against him. And, between ourselves, it is a shade unjust. It was not Jacques who affronted Martime, nor even Jacques who first referred to the subject. It was Henri himself."

"Henri made a passing allusion," she protested; "Jacques made an eternal discussion of it. He would never let it drop. Henri is never unjust, he is fairness itself; I have never known anyone who was as fair as Henri always is. Also, he is not 'bitter' against Jacques--we are not so small-minded that we forget old friendships because of an indiscretion. When we come back I shall, of course, go and see Jacques and Blanche as usual. I have nothing against Blanche--it was not _her_ fault that Jacques was so tactless."

Oh, well. Useless to try to convince people of what they don't want to believe! I told Jacques that she and Henri were going away, and predicted that he would find the unpleasantness over when they returned. And, as a matter of fact, I did not attach deep importance to it until a certain morning. The sight of a prospectus led me to inquire of Jacques if the shares he had been counting on were allotted to him. He answered passionately, "No."

At that I was startled. I asked if he had made an application for them.

"I did not see anything about it soon enough!" he raged. "Henri had told me to leave it all to him. And not a word have I had from him. Even if I _had_ applied, I should not have got them. What malice! Blanche is broken-hearted. I will never forgive him for her grief. It is not as if I had been seeking a gift at his hands--he could have made money for us without its costing him more than a postage stamp. An opportunity to do such a service for a friend comes to a man once in a lifetime. No; his spite against me for nothing is so intense that deliberately he turns his back on the chance! It is disgusting. We could not believe, we could not think it possible he had been such a swine, after all his promises. So I got his address from the bonne and telegraphed to him. You should see his answer--the letter of a stranger: 'On consideration, he had not cared to take the responsibility of recommending an investment to me.' Liar! Blanche cried the whole night through. I will never speak another word to him as long as I live. And I do not want to see Elise either. Blanche's own cousin, to show such animosity! What a despicable pair!"

"Words will not express my regret," I said. "And I am amazed at Henri's attitude. But you cannot be sure that Elise knows anything about it."

"Why should she not know?" he scoffed.

"I do not suppose that Henri can feel very proud of himself--he may not have confided in her. Besides, Elise said she meant to go on seeing you, the same as ever. That being so, she would hardly? encourage him to break his word to you in the meanwhile. I think you are being unfair to Elise."

"Henri has been more unfair to my poor Blanche," he bellowed. "I do not hear so much of your sympathy for _her_."

It was an infamous reply to make, but he was in the mood to quarrel with anyone that was handy, and I had the magnanimity to let it pass. I was sympathising sincerely with Blanche, and I sympathised even more when I saw her. She spoke with less vehemence than Jacques, but it was evident he had not exaggerated her dejection. "It seems incredible," she said. "It shows that you never really know anyone; nothing could have persuaded me that Henri had it in him to behave so badly. If you had heard him talking to us about the shares--what a benefit they would be to us! And now, to avenge himself for an imaginary wrong----" She gave a gulp. "You don't think Elise knows? Ah, yes; he and she are one in everything, I assure you! What it would have meant to us, to get dividends! However small the sums might have been, what a godsend to poor Jacques, driving his pen all day! He is working harder than ever to make up for lost time--he has had to put the thought of the pot of pansies aside for the present--and I could cry as I watch him. By the way, you were going to try to find a plot for that. Did you?"

"Nothing occurred to me," I said.

I could say nothing to cheer her, either then, or later, though I often looked in at the flat and did my best. And, to inflame the indignation, the shares rose. They rose, and went on rising. And Jacques, who had hitherto never so much as glanced at closing prices, developed a morbid interest in following their advance. I shall not forget the day, about three months after the issue, when I learnt that they were quoted at forty francs, and that, if Henri had kept his word, my host and hostess would have doubled their capital. I shall not forget it for two reasons. 1. The lamentations they gave way to were exceedingly trying to me. 2. On that very afternoon Elise walked in.

I had not known that she was back, else I should have prepared her for the situation. Blanche, ignoring the proffered embrace, tendered the tips of her fingers, and Jacques bowed, as to a woman he had never seen before. Elise turned very pale. Her scared eyes sought mine, and I tried by the warmth of my greeting to mitigate the moment for her.

"What is the matter?" she faltered of us all.

"It is only surprise at your visit," said Blanche sarcastically.

Impossible to avert it. The storm broke.

Just as I surmised, Elise had been unaware of Henri's misdeed. But though her consternation was only too apparent, Jacques and Blanche were in no mood to let it influence them. The tirade against Henri to which Jacques condemned her was bad to bear. She quivered under it. She could do nothing but stammer painfully, "I forbid you to insult my husband; I forbid you to insult my husband!" Blanche knew how to stab, too, in her pathetic voice.

"Ah, it is useless to talk, Elise," she sobbed. "As a rich woman, you do not understand what three thousand francs would have done for us! Three thousand francs! We have been scraping for eight years to put by as much as that, and if Henri had been fair to us we should have doubled our means already. Three thousand francs! To Jacques, who in all his life has never had a son that wasn't wrung out of his poor tired head! It is the wickedness towards _him_ that I resent--towards him, and our child. And what is the cause? That Henri is unmanly enough to hate another for his own mistake. Ah, it is too petty and contemptible of him for words!"

"But remember it is not Elise's fault," I begged. I saw that she could endure no more. "Say these things to Henri, both of you, if you must--not to her!"

"Blanche is in no need of your corrections," shouted Jacques hysterically. "Attend to your own affairs. My wife talks to her cousin as she thinks fit. It is always Elise you champion. If you feel so deeply for our enemies, I wonder that you come here."

I could scarcely credit my ears. But I said very quietly, with dignity, "Indeed? I shall not put you to the trouble of wondering twice."

And, as Blanche remained silent--for which she was very culpable, for I looked towards her as I moved--I offered my arm to Elise, who was so much deranged that she could hardly get down the interminable staircase, and took her home in a cab.

As will be readily understood, I had no ambition to assist at her next conversation with Henri, and I did not intend to enter the house. Unluckily, when the cab stopped, he was on the veranda, and he came to the gate.

"_Comment_? What is it?" he demanded, seeing her agitation.

"She is rather upset," I said. "I won't come in."

"Yes, yes, come in! Tell him what has happened," gasped Elise peremptorily. Whereby she, in her turn, committed a grave fault, for she made me witness matrimonial dissension of which I need otherwise have had no knowledge.

"She has been to see Jacques and Blanche," I said; following them into the salon.

"Ah?" said Henri, with reserve.

"Yes, I have been to see Jacques and Blanche," she panted, "and a nice time I have had there!"

He decided on hauteur. "I am quite at a loss. If one of you will explain?"

As she looked at me, I said: "They told her you had not done as they expected about the shares. I rather gathered that there was some tendency towards feeling hurt."

"Hurt? On reflection, I saw that I had not the right to advise Jacques to speculate. What of it?"

"They do not view it as a speculation," I said.

"They! Much they know of business!"

"Did you take shares yourself?" queried Elise.

"The cases are not parallel," he contended, his voice rising excitedly. "Jacques is a poor man; I did not feel justified in letting him risk money."

"Oh, Henri," she wailed, "you know very well that was not the reason. It was not loyal of you; it was very, very wrong. Already it would have been a little fortune for them. No wonder they are aggrieved. I cannot be surprised--much as I have suffered this afternoon, I cannot be surprised at what I have had to hear."

"What you have had to hear? You have heard that I did not choose to assume the responsibility of conducting another man's affairs. And then? Ah, je m'en fiche! I am fed up with Jacques."

"I have had to hear you broke a promise because you were mean-spirited enough to blame him for your own _gaffe_ to Martime," she cried. "Of my husband I have had to hear that! No, I cannot be surprised at what they said. They said it was petty and contemptible of you--_and so it was!_"

For an instant it was as if she had hurled a thunderbolt. Henri stood inarticulate, his eyes bulging from his head. Then, bringing his fist on to the table with a blow that made every ornament in the room jump, he roared:

"You dare to say it? To me, your husband, you dare to say such a thing? You shall ask pardon at once, in the presence of the friend who has heard the insult!" And, as it was obvious she would do nothing of the kind, he went on, without loss of time, "No! I forbid you to apologise--it is vain. There are insults that apologies cannot abate. A husband who is 'contemptible' to his wife is best apart from her--I can find comprehension elsewhere."

I was having a pleasant day--what with one ménage and the other, I was having a pleasant day. There ensued a quarrel the more harrowing from the fact that the recriminations poured from a pair whom I knew to be, at heart, lovers. And as often as I endeavoured to steal out, either Henri or Elise would pounce upon me to confirm some point that did not matter. When I got away at last my need of stimulant was insupportable.

I had, naturally, expected to receive a penitent missive from Jacques that night, and when there was a knocking at my door I did not doubt that he had come to beg forgiveness in person. But it was Henri who flung in, and dropped into a chair.

"Enfin, I go back no more," he groaned.

He took my breath away.

"You are mad," I stuttered. "What? You part from a wife you adore, and who adores you, because of a hasty word? Are you a boy, to behave so wildly? _C'est inoui!_"

"There are words, and words!" His face twitched and crumpled. "It is because I am not a boy that I see clearly we could never again be happy together. The madness would be to try! To sit, every day, opposite a woman who is thinking me contemptible? Merci! I could not endure it. Every meal, every moment would become a hell."

"Ah, if she were thinking it, really! But she spoke impetuously--she had had much to try her. She had only just left Jacques and----"

"Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what I owe to that man!" he vociferated. "What everlasting afflictions, his telling me of his accursed pansies! First, it annihilated my prospects, and now it rends me from my wife and children. I shall stipulate that they live with me for half the year; but what of the other half, while they are being taught that the father who loves them so dearly is a contemptible man, disgusting to their mother?" He rocked to and fro. "Also, how am I to make a home for them when they come? I leave the villa to Elise; I cannot afford two establishments--above all, now that I have lost the production by Martime, and may never see a son from work that has occupied me for a year. Malediction on that pot of pansies!"

"Now listen!" He had been to the last degree unreasonable, but he was suffering, and I have a good heart. "I guarantee that this separation will not last a week. I shall have a talk with Elise."

"With Elise? It is I who make the separation," he objected, with a piteous attempt at dignity. "And further, I have no hostility against you, but it is partly through your own talks with Elise that she is lost to me. Ah, yes!" I had stared at him, stupefied. "I understand that you said to her, at the time, that I was guilty of 'injustice' towards Jacques. I do not say you traduced me with any vicious motive, but, unquestionably, your irresponsible chatter paved the way to the catastrophe that wrecks my life."

My turpitude notwithstanding, he wept in my room till 3 a.m., keeping me up. And he, and Elise, too, proved very distressing to me during the days that followed. She was equally headstrong. I was surprised at her.

"You mean well, but pray say no more; it is inevitable," she answered me tremulously. "As for that stupid affair of Jacques and Blanche, I daresay I may have misjudged Henri. They don't understand. As a business man, no doubt he did what was really best in their own interests." I perceived that her commiseration for them had much decreased since it involved her in domestic strife. "But his conduct towards _me_--! I have done with him. I am not a fool, to imagine an honourable man would desert his wife for a reason like that. A performance. He did not even forget his razor strop. Let him go to her! He was not an angel--no writing man is--but I thought he loved me, and I never complained. Because I admired him, because he was the one man in the world to me. Behind the curtain it hung, not even in sight, and he did not forget it when he packed! Brute! You heard him say he could 'find comprehension elsewhere.' She will not keep his linen in such order as _I_ have done, that I'll swear. To pretend it was just because I believed what Jacques and Blanche had said! I believe nothing that they say. I detest them. Oh, they have made a pretty mess of my life, those two!"

She was illogical, but I was much displeased with Jacques and Blanche myself. The previous day I had seen them in the street. It is true that they cast ingratiating glances, but in the circumstances they should have done a good deal more. And I, very properly, looked away.

Yes, for fully three weeks the estrangement of Henri and Elise made demands on my time. And since each of them viewed the other as the aggressor, their criticisms of each other were not unduly diffident. Nevertheless I continued to do all in my power for them. I implored Henri to return, and I besought Elise to write to him, though it was no recreation to me to keep pressing counsel upon people who told me they did not want to hear it. When there were two consecutive days without Henri despairing in my chair, the lull was welcome.

I cannot depict my joyful surprise, the next evening, on seeing them issue radiantly from the Restaurant Noel Peters, arm in arm. I had had no news of the reconciliation. I rushed to them and clasped their hands.

"Hurrah!" I exclaimed. "Thank goodness! How delighted I am the trouble is over!"

Their greeting appeared to me a shade constrained.

"Oh, that didn't amount to much," Henri mumbled, brushing my reference aside.

"No one supposed it did," laughed Elise lightly. And as I found myself at a loss what to say next, there was a pause.

"We are going to a theatre," said Henri; "we are rather late." After a glance at his wife, he added, in flat tones, "You will dine with us one night, hein?"

"Ah, yes," said Elise perfunctorily. "Of course."

When I went, we did not allude to what had happened. Nor was the conversation on general topics as animated as when I had dined there hitherto. For the first time at their table I was depressed.

And it was the last invitation from them I received. Probably I was embarrassing to them, by reason of their having railed against each other to me while they thought they would never make it up. Also, though Henri could forgive his admiring wife for once calling him petty and contemptible, one may be sure it was bitter to him to remember I had been present when she humiliated him. That both he and Elise resented my sharing the secret of their separation was as clear as daylight. For some months afterwards, if I chanced to meet them, they would stop and exchange a few words with me, but by and by they contented themselves with smiling; and, finally, they preferred to pass without perceiving that I was there. When that play of Henri's was produced, two or three years later, he had become so alien to me that I should never have dreamed of going to see it, if I had not got in for nothing. The leading man was not capable of the part, and the run was short--by which Henri's enmity against Jacques was doubtless intensified.

The two couples that used to be so intimate remain at daggers drawn. And both couples are strangers to _me_. I do not think there is anything to add, excepting that the story of the pot of pansies has not been accomplished to this day. The tragic history that I have related is the story of the story that was never found.

XIV

FLOROMOND AND FRISONNETTE

Floromond and Frisonnette, who were giddy with a sense of wealth when they acquired three rooms, and had flowers growing on their own balcony, and sat upon chairs that they had actually bought and paid for, held a reception one fine day. The occasion was a christening. Floromond and Frisonnette were, of course, monsieur and madame Jolicoeur, and they dwelt in the part of Paris that was nearest to Arcadia. Among those present were monsieur Tricotrin, the unadmired poet, monsieur Pitou, the composer of no repute, monsieur Lajeunie, whose stirring romances so rarely reached a printing office, and monsieur Sanquereau, the equally distinguished sculptor.

Though the company were poor in pocket, they were rich in benevolence, and since the dearth of coppers forbade silver mugs, they modelled their gifts upon the example of the good fairies. Advancing graciously to the cradle, the bard bestowed upon the female infant the genius of poesy: "Epics, and odes," he declared, "shall fall from her lips like the gentle dew from Heaven." "And, symphonies," said the musician, "she shall drop as nimbly as the newly rich drop needy friends." That she might be equipped more fully yet for the stress of modern life, the novelist endowed her with the power of surpassing narrative, while the sculptor, in his turn, contributed to her quiver the pre-eminence of Praxiteles.

Then Frisonnette hung over her baby, saying, "And one boon, besides: let her marry her sweetheart and always remember that a husband's love is better than an ermine cloak!"--an allusion which moved Floromond to such tenderness that he forthwith took his wife in his arms, regardless of us all; and which reminded your obedient servant of their story.

* * * * *

When Floromond beheld her first, she was in a shop window--the most tempting exhibit that a shop window had displayed to him, in all his five-and-twenty years. If he had stayed in the quarter where he belonged, it would not have happened. It was early on a spring morning, and she was posing a hat, for the enticement of ladies who would tread the rue La Fayette later in the day. Floromond, sunning himself like a lord, though he was nothing better than a painter, went on to the Garden of the Tuileries, noting how nicely the birds sang, and thinking foolish thoughts. "Had I a thousand-franc note in my pocket, instead of an importunate note from a washer-woman," ran his reverie, "I would go back and buy that hat; and when she asked me where it was to be sent, I would say, 'I do not know your name and address, mademoiselle.' Then, having departed, without another word, leaving her speechless with amazement and delight, I should never see her any more--until, not too long afterwards, we found ourselves, by accident, in the same omnibus. Ciel! how blue her eyes were."

And, though he did not omit to reprove himself, in the most conscientious manner, and the weather changed for the worse, his admiration drew him to the rue La Fayette, at the same hour, every day.

Frisonnette's demeanour, behind the plate glass, was propriety itself. But she could not be unconscious that the young man's pace always slackened in the downpour, as he approached madame Aureole's--she could not be insensible of the homage of his gaze. That Tuesday morning, when, dripping, he bowed, his salutation was so respectful that she felt she would be inhuman to ignore it.

So the time came when they trod the rue La Fayette together, making confessions to each other, after the shop shut.