Part 4

There was no need to search for the exact amount. Cazeby spun his fifty-centime piece upon the marble, added his remaining two sous by way of pourboire, and disposed of the brandy at a gulp.

"Have you also need of a cigarette?" he inquired, politely, tendering the other his case.

For some minutes, as they smoked, the diplomat and the vagabond took stock of each other in silence. In many ways they were singularly alike. There was in both the same irony of lip line, the same fair chiseling of chin and nostril and brow, the same weariness of eye. The difference was one of dress and bearing alone, and, in those first moments of mutual analysis, Cazeby realized that there was about this street-lounger a vague air of the gentleman, a subtle suggestion of good birth and breeding, which even his slouching manner and coarse speech were not wholly able to conceal: and his guest was conscious that in Cazeby he had to deal with no mere society puppet, but with one in whom the limitations of position had never wholly subdued the devil-may-care instincts of the vagabond. The one was a finished model of a man of the world, the other a caricature, but the clay was the same.

"I am also hungry," said the latter suddenly.

"In that respect," responded Cazeby, in the same tone of even politeness, "I am, unfortunately, unable to assist you, unless you will accept the hospitality of my apartment. It is but a step, and I am rather an expert on bacon and eggs. Also," he added, falling into the idiom of the faubourgs, "there is a means there of remedying the dryness of the sponge in one's throat. My name is Antoine."

"I am Bibi-la-Raie," said the other shortly. Then he continued, with instinctive suspicion, "It is a strange fashion thou hast of introducing a type to these gentlemen."

"As a matter of fact," said Cazeby, "I do not live over a poste. But whether or not you will come is something for you to decide. It is less trouble to cook eggs for one than for two."

Bibi-la-Raie reflected briefly. Finally he had recourse to his characteristic shrug.

"After all, what difference?" he said. "As well now as another time. I follow thee!"

The strangely assorted companions entered Cazeby's apartment as the clock was striking one, and pressure of an electric button, flooding the salon with light, revealed a little tea-table furnished with cigarettes and cigars, decanters of Scotch whiskey and liqueurs, and Venetian goblets of oddly tinted glass. Cazeby shot a swift glance at his guest as this array sprang into view, and was curiously content to observe that he manifested no surprise. Bibi-la-Raie had flung himself into a great leather chair with an air of being entirely at ease.

"Not bad, thy little box," he observed. "Is it permitted?"

He indicated the table with a nod.

"Assuredly," said Cazeby. "Do as if you were at home. I shall be but a moment with the supper."

When he returned from the kitchen, bearing a smoking dish of bacon and eggs, butter, rye bread, and Swiss cheese, Bibi-la-Raie was standing in rapt contemplation before an etching of the "Last Judgment."

"What a genius, this animal of a Michel Ange!" he said.

"Rather deft at times," replied Cazeby, arranging the dishes on the larger table.

"Je te crois!" said Bibi, enthusiastically. "Without him--what? Evidently, it was not Léon Treize who built Saint Pierre!"

The eggs had been peculiarly obstinate, as it happened, and a growing irritability had taken possession of Anthony. As they ate in silence, the full force of his tragic position returned to him. Even the unwontedness of his chance encounter with Bibi-la-Raie had not wholly dispelled the cloud that had been gradually settling around him since he emerged from the Automobile Club, and, as they finished the little repast, he turned suddenly upon his guest, in a burst of irritation.

"Who are you?" he said. "And what does all this mean? Was I mistaken, when you first spoke to me, in thinking you a mere voyou? Surely not! You meant to rob me. You speak the argot of the fortifications. Yet here I find you discoursing on Michel Angelo as though you were the conservateur of the Uffizzi! What am I to think?"

Bibi-la-Raie lit another cigarette, blew forth the smoke in a thin, gray wisp, and thrust his thumbs into the arm-holes of his velveteen waistcoat.

"And _you_," he said, slowly, abandoning the familiar address he had been using, "who are _you_? No, you were not mistaken in thinking I meant to rob you. Such is my profession. But does a gentleman reply, in ordinary, to the summons of a thief by paying that thief a drink? Does he invite him to his apartment and cook a supper for him? What am _I_ to think?"

There was a brief pause, and then he faced his host squarely.

"Are you absolutely resolved to put an end to it all to-night?" he demanded.

Cazeby made a small sign of bewilderment.

"Ah, mon vieux," continued the other. "That, you know, is of no use with me. You ask me who I am. For one thing, I am one who has lived too long in touch with desperate men not to know the look in the eyes when the end has come. You think you are going to blow out your brains to-night."

"Your wits are wandering; that's all," said Cazeby, compassionately.

"Oh, far from it!" said Bibi-la-Raie, with a short laugh. "But one does not fondle one's revolver in the daytime without a good reason, nor does one leave it _on top_ of letters postmarked this morning unless one has been fondling it--quoi?"

Cazeby was at the marqueterie desk in two strides, tugging at the upper right hand drawer. It was locked. He turned about slowly, and, half seating himself on the edge of the desk, surveyed his guest coolly.

"The revolver is in your pocket," he said.

"No," answered Bibi, with an air of cheerfulness. "I have one of my own. But the key is."

"Why?" said Cazeby.

Bibi helped himself to yellow chartreuse, and appeared to reflect.

"I am not sure that I know why, myself," he said finally. "Perhaps, because you have done me a kindness and I would not like to have you burn your fingers in a moment of absent-mindedness. Perhaps, because we might disagree, and I should not care to take the chance of your shooting first!"

He squinted at the liqueur, swallowed it slowly and with extreme appreciation, smacked his lips, and then, cocking his feet up on Cazeby's brass club fender, began to smoke again, staring into the dwindling fire. His host watched him in silence, until he should be ready to speak, which he presently began to do, with his cigarette drooping from the corner of his month and moving in time to his words. He had suddenly and curiously become a man of the world--of the grand monde--and his speech had shaken off all trace of slang, and was tinged instead with the faint club sarcasm which one hears in the glass card-room of the Volney or over coffee on the roof of the Automobile. Moreover, it was beautiful French. Not Mounet himself could have done better.

"The only man to whom one should confide personal secrets," said Bibi-la-Raie, "is he whom one has never seen before and will, as is probable, never see again. I could tell you many things, Monsieur Cazeby, since that is your name,--I have seen your morning's mail, you know!--but, for the moment, let it suffice to say that the voyou who accosted you this evening is of birth as good as yours--pardon, but probably better! _Wein, weib, und gesang_--you know the saying. Add cards and the race-course, and you have, complete, the short ladder of five rungs down which I have been successful in climbing. I shall presume to the extent of supposing that you have just accomplished the same descent. One learns much thereby, but more after one has reached the ground. In many ways I am afraid experience has made me cynical, but in one it has taught me optimism. I have found, and I think I shall continue to find, that there is always something worth looking into around the next corner of even the darkest street. The rue des Sablons, for instance. It was very dark to-night, very damp, and very cold. Assuredly, as I turned into the avenue d'Eylau I had no reason to foresee a supper, Russian cigarettes, and chartreuse jaune. And yet, me voilà! Now what most of us lack--what you, in particular, seem to lack, Monsieur Cazeby--is the tenacity needful if one is to get to that next turning."

"There are streets darker than the rue des Sablons," put in Anthony, falling in with the other's whimsical humor, "and that have no turning."

"You speak from conjecture, not experience," said Bibi-la-Raie. "You can never have seen one."

He glanced about the room, with the air of one making a mental inventory.

"First," he added, "there come the pawnshop, the exterior boulevards, the somewhat insufficient shelter of the Pont Royal. No, you have not come to the last corner."

"All that," said Cazeby, "is simply a matter of philosophy. Each of us has his own idea of what makes life worth the while. When that is no longer procurable, then that is the last corner."

"For instance--?"

"For instance, my own case. You have analyzed my situation sufficiently well--though when you said I was about to blow out my brains"--

"It was a mere guess," interrupted Bibi, "founded on circumstantial evidence. Then I _thought_ so. Now I _know_ it."

"Let us grant you are right," continued Cazeby, with a smile. "I have my own conception of what I require to make existence tolerable. It includes this apartment, or its equivalent, a horse, two servants, two clubs, and a sufficient income to dress, eat, entertain, and amuse myself in the manner of my class,--an extravagant and unreasonable standard, if you will, but such is my conviction. Now, granted that the moment has come when it is no longer possible for me to have these things, and when there is no prospect of my situation being bettered, I cannot conceive what advantage there can be in continuing to live."

"I perceive you are a philosopher," said the other. "How about the religious view?"

Cazeby shrugged his shoulders.

"As to that," he said, "my religious views are, so far as I know, stored away in the little church which I was forced to attend three times on every Sunday of my boyhood. They did not come out with me on the last occasion, and I have never met them since."

"Excellent!" said Bibi. "It is the same with me. But I think you are mistaken in your conviction of what makes life worth living. I had my own delusions in the time. But I have had a deal of schooling since then. There are many things as amusing as luxury--even on the exterior boulevards. Of course, actual experience is essential. One never knows what one would do under given conditions."

He turned suddenly, and looked Cazeby in the eye.

"What, for example, would you do if you were in my place?" he asked.

"As you say, one never knows," said his host. "I _think_ that, in your place, I should improve the opportunity you find open, and carry out your late and laudable intention of robbing Monsieur Antoine Cazeby. I may be influenced by my knowledge that such a proceeding would not irritate or incommode him in the least, but that is what I think I should do.

"I shall not need these things to-morrow," he added, indicating his surroundings with a gesture. "You were quite right about the pistol. As to your prospective booty, I regret to say that I spent my last sixty centimes on our cognac, but there is a remarkably fine scarf-pin on the table in my dressing-room."

"A sapphire, surrounded by black pearls," put in the other. "You were rather long in cooking those eggs."

"A sapphire, surrounded by black pearls," agreed Cazeby. "Yes, upon reflection, I am quite sure that that is what I should do."

Bibi-la-Raie smiled pleasantly.

"I am glad to find we are of one mind," he said. "Of course, mine was made up, but it is more agreeable to know that I am causing you no inconvenience. I suppose it is unnecessary to add that resistance will be quite useless. I have the only available revolver, and, moreover, I propose to tie you into this extremely comfortable chair. It is not," he added, "that I do not trust you, although our acquaintance is, unfortunately, too recent to inspire complete confidence. No, I have my convictions as well as you, Monsieur Cazeby, and one of them, curiously enough, is that, in spite of appearances, I am doing you a kindness in putting it out of your power, for tonight, at least, to do yourself an injury. Who knows? Perhaps, in the morning, you may find that there is something around the next corner, after all. If not, there is no harm done. Your servants come in early?"

"At seven o'clock," said Anthony, briefly.

"Exactly. And I will leave the key in the drawer."

Bibi was expeditious. When he had bound Cazeby firmly, and with an art that showed practice, he disappeared into the dressing-room, returning in less than a minute with the sapphire scarf-pin and several other articles of jewelry in his hand.

"I should like to add to these," he said, going to the book-case, "this little copy of Omar Khayyám. He is a favorite of mine. There is something about his philosophy which seems to accord with our own. But--'the bird of time has but a little way to flutter'"--He paused at the door.

"Can I do anything for you before I go?" he inquired politely.

"Be good enough to turn off the light," said the other. "The button is on the right of the door."

"Good-night," said Bibi-la-Raie.

"Good-night,--brother!" said Cazeby.

Then he heard the door of the apartment close softly.

Anthony was awakened from a restless sleep by the sound of its opening. Through the gap between the window draperies the gray light of the winter morning was creeping in. His wrists and ankles were aching from the pressure of the curtain cords with which he had been bound, and he was gratified when, after a brief interval, the salon door was opened in its turn and the invaluable Jules came in, in shirt-sleeves and long white apron, carrying a handful of letters.

That impassive person was probably never nearer to being visibly surprised. For a breath he stopped, and the pupils of his round eyes dilated like those of a cat in a dim light. But his training stood him in good stead, and when he spoke his voice was as innocent of emotion as if he had been announcing dinner.

"Monsieur desires to be untied?"

Left to himself, Cazeby turned his attention to his letters, and from the top of the pile picked up a cablegram. He was still reflecting upon the singular experience of the night, in an attempt to analyze his present emotions. Was he in any whit changed by his enforced reprieve? He was glad to think not. Above all minor faults he abhorred vacillation of purpose. No, his situation and his purpose remained unaltered. But he was conscious, nevertheless, of an unwonted thrill at the thought that, but for the merest chance, it would have been for others to open the envelope he was even now fingering. Jules would already have found him--he wondered, with the shadow of a smile, whether Jules would still have been unsurprised!--and would have brought up the concierge and the police--

Suddenly the cable message jumped at him through his revery as if, at that moment, the words had been instantaneously printed on what was before blank paper, and he realized that it was from his father's solicitor.

Mr. Cazeby died eight o'clock this evening after making will your favor whole property. Waiting instructions.

MILLIKEN.

Anthony straightened himself with a long sigh, and, putting aside the curtain, looked out across the mansardes, wet and gleaming under a thin rain. His hand trembled a little on the heavy velvet, and he frowned at it, and, going across to the table, poured himself out a swallow of brandy.

With the glass at his lips he paused, his eyes upon the chair where Bibi-la-Raie had sat and wherein he himself had passed five hours. Then, very ceremoniously, he bowed and dipped his glass toward an imaginary occupant.

"Merci, monsieur!" he said.

The Only Son of His Mother

IN the limited understanding of Pépin dwelt one great Fact, in the shadow of which all else shrank to insignificance, and that Fact was the existence of Comte Victor de Villersexel, the extremely tall and extraordinarily imposing person who was, first of all, Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, second, Membre de l'Académie Française, and, lastly, father to Pépin himself. It must be acknowledged that to the more observing of his limited kinsfolk and extensive acquaintance the clay feet of Pépin's idol were distinctly in evidence. How he had contrived to attain to the proud eminence which he occupied was, in the earlier days of his publicity, a matter of curious conjecture and not over-plausible explanation. Certainly no inherent merit or ability it was which formed the first step of the stairway he had climbed. In diplomacy the Comte de Villersexel had never bettered his first appointment as second secretary of legation at Belgrade; in literature his achievements were limited to one ponderous work on feudalism, remarkable chiefly for its surpassing futility; and in society his sole claim to consideration lay in his marriage to a Brazilian heiress, who had died within the year, leaving her husband an income of two hundred thousand francs--and Pépin. In all this it was difficult to find a sufficient reason for the crimson button and the green embroidered coat, unless it was that the family of de Villersexel went back to the Crusades. That is not always a prudent thing for a family to do, but the present instance was an exception.

Born to the heritage of a name which his predecessors had made notable, Comte Victor was one of those whose greatness is thrust upon them rather than achieved, one of the bubbles in the ferment of Paris which their very levity brings to the top, to show rainbow tints in the sunlight of publicity. It is probable that no one was more surprised than de Villersexel himself at the honors which fell to his share, but one thing even the most contemptuous had, perforce, to concede. Once secure of his laurels, he wore them with a confidence that was akin to conviction. His reserve was iron-clad, his dignity stupendous. It required considerable time for new acquaintances to probe the secret of his insufficiency. Victor de Villersexel was, as the irreverent young military attaché at the American Embassy once said of him, "a dazzling imitation of the real thing."

But to Pépin the idol was an idol without flaw. Through what shrewd appreciation of occasional words and chance comments he had contrived to grasp the significance of that speck of scarlet upon the Count's lapel and that apparently simple phrase, "de l'Académie Française," which, in formal introductions, was wont to follow his father's name, must be numbered among childhood's mysteries. But before he was seven, Pépin had solved these problems for himself, and the results of his reasoning were awestruck admiration and blind allegiance to the will of this wonderful creature who never smiled. His own small individuality was so completely overshadowed by that of his father that in the latter's presence the child was scarcely noticeable, dressed in his sober blouses, and creeping about the stately rooms of the great apartment in the avenue d'Iéna with an absolutely noiseless step. He was all brown, was Pépin: brown bare legs, and brown hands, very small and slender, brown hair, cropped short and primly parted, and deep brown eyes, eloquent of unspoken and unspeakable things. He was earnest, his tutor said, earnest and willing, but not bright, poor Pépin! He spoke English, to be sure, with a curious accent caught from his Cornish nurse, but that was due not so much to ability as to enforced association. In his French grammar and such simple arithmetic as was required of him he was slow and often stupid. But he was rarely scolded, and never punished. Once, indeed, the Comte had been about to strike him for some trifling fault, but somehow the blow, for which Pépin stood waiting, never fell.

"He is like his mother," the légionnaire had muttered, as he turned away, "an imbecile--but"--

Pépin, catching the unfinished phrase, grew sick with a great discouragement, mingled with profound pity for the man before him. It must be a dreadful thing for one so famous to be the father of an imbecile! From that day on the child was more inconspicuous than before.

Deliberately affected in the first instance, what was known in society as de Villersexel's "academic manner" came in course of time to be second nature. Practice made perfect the chill reserve which was originally assumed as a precaution against possible discovery of his vapidity; and as the image of what the academician had been, before his election, grew dimmer in society's recollection, his impressive solemnity, barely disguised by a veneer of superficial courtesy, did not fail of its effect. He was spoken of as a man in whom much lay below the surface, and his more recent acquaintances coupled their estimate of his character with the proverbial profundity of still waters, and the familiar gloved fist of steel. Others, more observant, smiled at the similes, but did not go to the pains of proving them ill applied. One of the most characteristic things about the Comte de Villersexel was that he inspired neither championship nor antagonism.

With all this, he was consistent, with that curious obstinacy which is sometimes made manifest in the shallowest natures. His rôle, once assumed, was, as we have said, played to perfection and never laid aside. The domestic threshold, which is, for the majority of men, a kind of uncloaking room, saw never an alteration, even of voice or expression, in his pose. The household affairs were regulated with almost military precision, and once a day, at noon, Pépin and his father met in the large salon,--the Comte in his tall satin stock and frock coat, and Pépin fresh from the careful hands of his nurse. They shook hands gravely, and then waited in silence, until the maître d'hôtel announced breakfast,--

"Ces messieurs sont servis!"

What meals they were, to be sure, those déjeuners, solemnly served, and more solemnly eaten, under the rigid observation of three menservants; de Villersexel, with his thin lips, his cold eyes, and his finely pointed gray mustache, barely moving save to raise his fork or break a morsel from his roll, and Pépin, all brown, perched like a mouse on the edge of a great chair, and nibbling at tiny scraps of food with downcast eyes!

At the very end, as the Comte was about to push back his chair, he would invariably raise his glass of champagne and Pépin his, wherein a few drops of red wine turned the Evian to a pale heliotrope, and together they would glance toward the full-length portrait which hung above the mantel.

"Ta mère!" said the Comte.

"Maman!" replied Pépin.

And so they drank the toast of tribute to the dead.

After breakfast, the father would read for an hour to the child, and Pépin, seated on another large chair, would listen, perfectly motionless, striving desperately to understand the long sentences which fell in flawlessly pronounced succession from the Academician's lips. De Villersexel had a fairly clear recollection of what books had been the companions of his childhood, and these he purchased in the rarest editions, and clothed in the richest bindings, and read to Pépin: only his remembrance did not extend to a very distinct differentiation between seven and fifteen, for it was at the latter age that he read "Télémaque" to himself, and at the former that he read "Télémaque" to his son.

Then would come a second formal handshake, and Pépin, pausing an instant at the door to make a slow, stiff bow, would creep off down the long corridor to the nursery, and the Comte turn again to his papers with a consciousness of paternal duty done.