Part 4

"For days I pondered what I should say. Arguments were plentiful, but the problem was how to present them forcefully enough to show her the wildness of her plan, and yet gently enough to avoid incensing her. Our future hung upon the scene, and I prayed to Heaven that not a tactless word should escape me. I knew that we had reached the crisis, that a mistaken adjective, even an impatient gesture, might be fatal. I considered and reconsidered that appeal with more tireless fervour than any lines that I have ever put into the mouth of a leading man. I thought about it so much that sometimes I was enraged to find the things I meant to say falling mentally into sentences too rhythmic and rounded, as if I had indeed been writing for the stage, and I damned my metier anew. You are an author yourself, my friend--you should understand: I longed to open my heart to her with all simplicity--never had any one sought to pour his heart out more earnestly, more freely, more unaffectedly than I--and it seemed to me in these moments that the artifices of the theatre were fighting against me to the very end. It was as if its influence were unconquerable--it had surmounted her love for me, and now it threatened even to mock my plea!

"Enfin, the opportunity came. She sat down on the couch--the ottoman of the stage situation--and I began to speak, with all the tenderness and gravity of the stage husband. Struggle as I would to banish the thought, I could not help being conscious of our resemblance to the hero and heroine of a thousand comedies in the last act. I say that I 'began' to speak, and that I felt constrained by a shoal of theatrical reminiscences, but our likeness to the hero and heroine was brief. She interrupted me, she defied the dramatic convention. In lieu of being moved to tears, she replied, with a world of dignity, that the faults were mine. She advised me, for my own sake, to try to attain a more unselfish view. With a flow of impromptu eloquence that I envied, she warned me that, though I was not intentionally unjust, I was allowing 'prejudice and egotism to warp my better nature.' Before I knew what had happened, I stood listening to a homily. The situation that meant my last hope had come out upside down!"

* * * * *

Aribaud paused again. On the little lawn the child had left the swing; the most devoted of wives and mothers was playing _chat perché_ with him now. They made a pretty picture, but my thoughts were with her predecessor; I was mourning the love-story that had begun like an idyll, and that seemed to have had so bad an end.

The man's voice brought me back. "Yes, the infallible situation had failed," he repeated. "What do you suppose was the sequel?"

"I suppose," I sighed, "she had her way?"

"No," said Aribaud; "she had her baby." He waved a triumphant hand towards the garden. "And from the first promise of that God-sent gift, the glamour of the theatre faded from her mind and me talked only of her home. From that day to this we have been as happy together as you see us now."

My exclamation was cut short by the hostess whose history I had been hearing.

"Messieurs, are you really sure we aren't laughing too much for you?" she pealed up to us again.

"Sure, sure! It is well--it is as it should be--we come to join you," shouted Aribaud. "Laugh loud, my love--laugh on!"

III

THAT VILLAIN HER FATHER

Henri Vauquelin was a widower with one daughter, to whom he had denied nothing from the time she used to whimper for his watch and drop it on the floor. So, after she left the convent where she had been educated, and told him how much she was missing her friend Georgette, he said gaily, "Mais, ma petite, invite mademoiselle--whatever her name may be, to come to Paris and stay with us for a month."

His gaiety was a trifle forced, however. Though he was happy to give his daughter a companion, he was pained to learn that his own companionship hadn't been enough. "For I have done all I could," he mused. "The fact is, that though I feel fairly young, I am elderly. That's the trouble. To a girl of twenty-one, a father of forty-five is an ancient for the chimney corner. I must see about finding her a husband--I shall have to talk to madame Daudenarde about her son the first time I am in the neighbourhood." And after Blanche had flung her arms round his neck, and darted forth to send the invitation to her friend, he surveyed his reflection in a glass pensively, and noted that his moustache was much greyer than he had thought.

When the indispensable Georgette arrived, in a costume that became her admirably, and sat at dinner, in a dress that became her more admirably still, replying to him with composure and point, he was surprised at the girls' attraction for each other--and his surprise did not diminish as the days passed. Though not actually more than two or three years older than Blanche, mademoiselle Paumelle was in tone much older. Blanche was an ingenue; Georgette was a woman. Excepting in moments, when she romped like a schoolgirl, all spontaneity and high spirits.

"She is a queer compound, your chum," he remarked when she had been with them for a fortnight. "Alternately thirty, and thirteen!"

"You don't like her, papa?"

"Oh, yes, she is well enough, and not bad-looking. I am relieved she did not turn out to be ugly--that would have depressed me. But it is a trifle confusing to be uncertain whether I am about to be addressed by a woman of the world or a madcap from a nursery."

"She used always to be a madcap till she lost her mother--you see, there are only her stepfather and his two sisters now. It is that that has changed her so dreadfully."

"I find nothing 'dreadful' about her," said Vauquelin a shade sharply. "On the contrary, it--I suppose some people might find it rather fascinating. I merely observe that she is different from any other girl that I have met. What's the matter with her stepfather?"

"She tells me he never stops talking."

"His topics must be pretty catholic. This jeune fille from the country appears to know more of politics, finance, society, and sport than I, who have lived in Paris forty-five years."

"How you do exaggerate, papa!" rippled Blanche reprovingly.

"At any rate, I do not exaggerate the years," sighed Vauquelin. "Well, if she is not happy at home, why not ask her to stay with us for _two_ months? She is not in my way, you know."

But mademoiselle Paumelle declared that it would be impossible for her to prolong her visit. Blanche reported this to him with wistful lips, and he said, "I'll see if _I_ can persuade her--I will speak to her about it in the morning when you go to take your music-lesson."

On the morrow, "Blanche tells me that she is greatly disappointed," he began. "She will miss you terribly when you leave us, mademoiselle. I wish you would think over your objection."

"It is infinitely kind of you, monsieur Vauquelin. I fear that a month is the very most I can manage."

"Even to do us a service?"

"Ah, a 'service'!" She smiled. "You will find plenty of people ready to do you such services."

"Not plenty of mesdemoiselles Paumelle. I am in earnest. It is dull here for Blanche, alone with me. I have done my best for her, I am not consciously selfish--I have sat at home when I wanted to go out, and gone out when I wanted to stop at home. I have taken her to the Français and pretended to enjoy myself, though I could have yawned my head off, and the question of her clothes has absorbed me more than the affairs of France. But I am old. All my tenderness for her cannot alter that."

"You do not seem to me old," said mademoiselle Paumelle.

"Don't I?" said Vauquelin, regarding her gratefully. "Look how grey my moustache is getting. And yet, do you know, when we're all laughing together I feel as young as ever I was."

"Your manner _is_ young. The face alters ever so long before the manner."

"I am forty-f--er--over forty, and Blanche is twenty-one. What will you? I must get her married soon. It is my paramount desire. I rather fancy that Daudenarde and she may not dislike each other--the gentleman you saw the other evening."

"She was doing her hair from seven o'clock till eight, and he sighed when he handed her the lemonade."

"Your observation is invaluable. I must have a chat with his mother soon. It would be an excellent match. In the meantime she stands in need of the companionship and counsel of a young lady like you; she needs it most urgently. If your stepfather can spare you----"

"Ah, my stepfather could spare me for ever," she put in; "there are others to listen to him."

"And if you are not bored here----"

"Bored? I am having the time of my life."

"Eh bien? Remain for two months, I beg. Be merciful to us. I need your advice, myself. There is a matter that is harassing me: I cannot determine whether her new jumper should be beaded, silk-broidered, or fringed."

"If it is telling on your health----" Her eyes laughed into his.

"You yield?"

"I weakly wobble."

"There is, further, the consuming question of a simple evening dress--what it should be made of."

"I succumb. Tulle would be all right, or Georgette."

"It shall be Georgette--we shall not lose you so utterly when you go."

"Oh, you _are_--priceless!" she pealed.

Vauquelin reflected, "She has three sterling qualities, this girl--she is pretty, she is nice, and she looks at me as if I were a young man."

During the next six weeks Vauquelin developed a zest for the Français that was astonishing. And not for the Français only, or for the Opéra Comique, and concerts, and kinemas. Blanche had never applauded her papa so ardently. He would be seized with captivating whims for expeditions, and picnics, and moonlight runs in the car. His frolicsomeness passed belief.

Not till the six weeks were over and mademoiselle Paumelle had departed, bearing Blanche with her, did his spirits fall. And then there would have been no buyers. The middle-aged gentleman was plunged into melancholy, the worse to bear from the fact that he was conscious of being comic. Trying to throw dust in his own eyes, "It is frightful how I miss Blanche," he would soliloquise at the elegiac dinner-table. But the eyes were fixed sentimentally on the place that had been Georgette's. And as the date approached for Blanche to return, and his heart sank before the necessity for resuming his capers, "It is clear," he told himself, "that the affection I entertained for that Georgette Paumelle was almost parental!"

The fatherliness of his feelings for her, however, did not avert increased regrets at the greying moustache; and he abandoned his shaving mirror, because it magnified the lines about his nose and mouth.

Blanche, on his knee again, had plenty to tell. She described the stepfather as a "trial," and his maiden sisters as "cats." She had enjoyed herself, because Georgette and she had been together all day, but it must be hideous there for Georgette alone. "She isn't going to stick it much longer. She is miserable with them."

"How distressing that is!" said Vauquelin. "To whom does she go?"

"Well, she has money of her own, you know--she can live where she likes."

"_Mais--Comment donc_? She cannot live by herself--une jeune fille, bien élevée! What an idea! Her people would never sanction it."

"I think they would be rather glad to get rid of her," said Blanche, choosing a chocolate with deliberation.

"But--but it is monstrous! To live like a bohemian, _she_! It is unheard of, terrible. Is she out of her mind? Listen, ma chérie, if her plight upsets you so violently, she can make her home with us."

"Ah, papa!" cried Blanche in ecstasy. "It is the very thing I thought of, but I was afraid it was too much to ask you."

"Now, when did I ever refuse you anything?"

"But such an enormous favour!"

"Not at all, not at all. I shall adapt myself to the arrangement well enough."

"But, papa, it might get on your nerves in time."

"Not at all, not at all. There is my study for me to retire to--I shall not see more of her than I want to."

"You promise that?"

"I can swear it."

"Oh, it will be adorable! I only wonder if I am being selfish to let you do it."

"I insist," said Vauquelin, with a noble gesture. "Say we entreat her to agree, that we shall be wounded if she declines. Say our flat is her home for as long as she will honour us--the longer, the better. _I_ will write a few lines to her, too. Be tranquil, my sweet child--I do not sacrifice myself. Is it not my highest joy to indulge you?"

After many letters had been indited to her, mademoiselle Paumelle was prevailed upon to come; and after many remonstrances had been made to her, she ceased to speak of going. But for the fact that her gifts to the girl were expensive, it was as if she were a member of the family. Blanche was relieved to note that her papa was not driven to the seclusion of his study often; and never did he withdraw to it when Blanche was absent, to take her music-lesson. As he had predicted, Vauquelin adapted himself to the arrangement plastically. He approved it so much, especially the tête-à-tête during the music-lessons, that when six months had flashed by, he resented an incident which reminded him that it couldn't be permanent. A monsieur Brigard, an old comrade, arrived to advocate nothing less than that Blanche should espouse Brigard's boy.

"My friend, I have other views for my daughter," replied Vauquelin firmly.

But the arrival dejected him, in the knowledge that when Blanche should marry, Georgette would have to go. And in their next hour alone together, Georgette asked him what his worry was.

"Nothing. I am a little--we must all think of the future, our children's future. A father has responsibilities."

"À propos de--what? Am I inquisitive?"

"Do I not confide everything to you? Some pest has made matrimonial overtures about his son. Preposterous."

"The young man's position is not good enough?"

"Ah, his position is first rate. I say nothing against his position."

"It is his character that displeases you?"

"No. As for that, he is steady, and not unamiable."

"But what do you complain of?"

Vauquelin waved his hand vaguely. "The proposal does not accord with my ideas. I have different intentions for her."

"Ah, yes, that monsieur Daudenarde! I thought perhaps that affair had faded out."

"By no means," affirmed Vauquelin, clutching at the excuse. "Precisely. I wish her to marry monsieur Daudenarde. And that is a sound and laudable reason why I should resent being badgered by Brigard. I find such intrusions on my routine very offensive. Daudenarde's mother and I are going to have a little talk together some time or other."

"But----"

"What?"

"You decided to have a little talk with her nine or ten months ago."

"I must avoid precipitance. In such matters a father cannot act with too much caution."

"Blanche is a darling. But there are other girls in Paris. If you desire the match, be careful you don't let him slip."

"Have no misgiving," said Vauquelin irritably. "I am quite content. Madame Daudenarde will receive a visit from me--when Blanche is older. And we shall see what we shall see."

The captivating Georgette looked thoughtful. The more so after a chat with Blanche had drawn forth the nervous confession that she "thought monsieur Daudenarde very nice."

And then, when the volatile father had banished the menace of the future from his mind, and was again basking in the sunshine of the present, what should happen but that madame Daudenarde inconsiderately broached the matter to him, instead of waiting for him to approach her.

"Dear lady, my daughter is too young," replied Vauquelin promptly.

"How, too young?" demurred madame Daudenarde. "She is one-and-twenty. I was but nineteen when I married."

"Yes," said Vauquelin, "but my sainted mother did not marry till she was thirty-two, and she always impressed upon me that it was the best age."

"Thirty-two?" cried madame Daudenarde shrilly. "Do you ask me to adjourn our conference for eleven years?"

"My honoured friend, I do not make it a hard-and-fast condition," stammered the unhappy man, struggling for coherence. "It is possible there may be something to be said against it. But your gratifying proposal is so sudden--I had not contemplated the alliance--I need time to balance my parental duties against my reverence for my mother's views."

Now, Georgette, who could put two and two together as accurately as the Minister of Finance, had not failed to remark that the interview took place privately in the study, and noted that her host was evasive when Blanche inquired why madame Daudenarde had "called at such a funny time." Feelers during the next music-lesson found him evasive also. In the days that followed, when Blanche developed a tendency to sigh plaintively, and turned against chocolates, it grew clear to Georgette that this father must be shown the error of his ways.

"May I say that I hope that conversation with madame Daudenarde contented you?" she ventured.

"Hein?" said Vauquelin, starting.

"That the engagement will soon be announced?"

"Mon Dieu, is it not extraordinary how people seek to rob me of my child?" he moaned.

"Does that mean that nothing is arranged yet?"

"Why not leave well alone? Are we not all comfortable as we are? I have made no definite reply to madame Daudenarde--I cannot be bustled. Have you ever thought that when I part from Blanche, I shall be left here by myself?"

"Yes. It has even occurred to me that you have thought of it, too."

"Naturally. It is not strange that I should tremble at such a prospect. To be solitary is a sad thing."

"It is for your own sake, then, not hers, that you delay?"

"For the first time I find you lacking!" he broke out. "You do not seem to comprehend the workings of a father's heart."

"I have never had one."

"Don't split straws! When I lose her I shall be alone. You do not require to be a father to know that."

"You could always go to see her."

"Flûte!"

"And your grandchildren. Respectful grandchildren that clustered at your knee."

"I will not anticipate grandchildren--I am not a hundred!" exclaimed Vauquelin angrily. "I repeat that the present conditions are entirely to my taste, and I desire to prolong them."

"It is also possible you might re-marry."

"At my age? Who would have me? Some ripe and ruddled widow."

"Girls, quite young, marry men much older than you."

"But not for love. Tell me, what would you put me down at? Without flattery."

"I should call you in the prime of life."

"The friendly phrase for 'senile.' Depend upon it, people said that to Methuselah. Supposing--a man is never too old to make a fool of himself, you know--supposing, for the sake of argument, I felt a tenderness, a devotion for a girl scarcely older than Blanche: a devotion which I strove to think platonic, even while I sighed under her window, and which revived in me unsought, the emotions--all the sentiment, the throes, the absurdities--of the youth that had gone from me before I knew how divine it was. Would it--could it--is it imaginable that she might not laugh?"

"She would not laugh if she were worth it all."

"To marry me for love--a girl? To see me romantic without thinking me ridiculous--to melt to my tears, not shrink from the crows'-feet round my eyes? I wonder!"

"If you choose wisely, you will not wonder."

"In love, who _chooses_? Fate decides. What would you call 'wisely'? She should be--how old?"

"Old enough to know her mind. Young enough to attract you."

"For the rest?"

"She should have means, that you might never fear it had been yours that won her. She should have affection for your child, that she might know no jealousy of yours. She should take interest in your child's future, that, if you were wilful, she might guide you.... To revert to madame Daudenarde, I counsel you to write to-day that you consent."

Vauquelin stood gazing at her incredulously.

"Georgette! Georgette!" he panted. "Do you know you have given me your own portrait?"

"With my love," she told him, smiling.

IV

THE STATUE

In the Square d'Iéna, which teems with little Parisians in charge of English nurses, Vera Simpson wheeled the baby-carriage to a bench on fine mornings, and exchanged patriotic sentiments with her compeers. When disparagement of France flagged, Vera Simpson occasionally observed. So as she always entered the square at the same end and nearly always chose the same bench, she observed the eccentric proceedings of a young man who took to coming every morning to stare at the statue on the opposite grass plot. After standing before it as if he were glued there, the young man would reverse one of the chairs that faced the path in an orderly line, and then sit mooning at the statue, with his back to everybody, for nearly an hour. It was, Miss Simpson surmised, a statue to a departed Frenchy. She had never approached it to ascertain what name it bore, and could see nothing about the thing to account for the fellow's taking such stock of it. Some time before he had appeared for nine days in succession, she and her circle had nicknamed him the "rum 'un."

On the tenth day, instead of the young man, a woman went to the statue, and stood before it just as stupidly and as long as the man had done. The most comical bit was that, when she turned away at last, it was seen that the statue had been making the woman cry. After that, neither of the funny pair came back to the Square d'Iéna; but as Vera Simpson chooses the same bench still, she sometimes recalls their queerness and, before her mind wanders, tries again to guess their game. This was the game that Vera Simpson tries to guess.

* * * * *

Gaby Dupuy was wishing that the summer were over; she was a model. Not one of the wretched models that wait at the corner of the boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse on Mondays, to crave the vote of students in academies; she went by appointment to the ateliers of the successful. But now the painters and the sculptors were all at the seaside, and her appointment book had shown no sitting for ever so long.

Gaby's qualities had never placed her among the stars of her profession. Nobody had ever said of her, as a great man said of one of the most celebrated of models, that he had only to reproduce her faithfully; still less could it be asserted that she had the genius to penetrate an artist's purport and present the pose that was eluding him. But if she had neither the beauty of a Sarah Brown, nor the intuition of a Dubosc, her face possessed a certain attractiveness, and she could achieve the expression demanded of her when it was laboriously explained.

Once upon a time her face had been more attractive still; Gaby wasn't so young as she used to be.

While the woman was regretting that her scanty provision for the dreaded summer would not allow her a more adequate menu, she received a letter. A stranger, who signed himself Jacques Launay, earnestly desired an interview. He wrote that, being unfamiliar with Paris, he had had great difficulty in ascertaining her address, and added that, as his stay in the capital was drawing to a close, he would deeply appreciate the favour of an early reply. Her eyebrows climbed as she saw that, in lieu of requiring her to betake herself to his studio, he "begged for the privilege of calling upon her at any hour that she might find convenient." Probably, though, as a provincial, he hadn't got a studio here. Still, what deference! he had written to her as if she were of the ancienne noblesse.