The Incomplete Amorist

He was not gone three. He came back and—till the doctor came, summoned by the concierge—he sat by her, holding her hands, covering her with furs from the wardrobe when she shivered, bathing her wrists with perfumed water when she threw off the furs and spoke of the fire that burned in her secret heart of cold clouds.

When the doctor came he went out by that excellent Irishman's direction and telegraphed for a nurse.

Then he waited in the cool shaded sitting-room, among the flowers. This was where he had hit her—as she said. There on the divan she had cried, leaning her head against his sleeve. Here, half-way to the door, they had kissed each other. No, he would certainly not go to England while she was ill. He felt sufficiently like a murderer already. But he would write. He glanced at her writing-table.

A little pang pricked him, and drove him to the balcony.

"No," he said, "if we are to hit people, at least let us hit them fairly." But all the same he found himself playing with the word-puzzle whose solution was the absolutely right letter to Betty's father, asking her hand in marriage.

"Well," he asked the doctor who closed softly the door of the bedroom and came forward, "is it brain-fever?"

"Holy Ann, no! Brain fever's a fell disease invented by novelists—I never met it in all my experience. The doctors in novels have special advantages. No, it's influenza—pretty severe touch too. She ought to have been in bed days ago. She'll want careful looking after."

"I see," said Vernon. "Any danger?"

"There's always danger, Lord—Saint-Croix isn't it?"

"I have not the honour to be Lady St. Craye's husband," said Vernon equably. "I was merely calling, and she seemed so ill that I took upon myself to—"

"I see—I see. Well, if you don't mind taking on yourself to let her husband know? It's a nasty case. Temperature 104. Perhaps her husband 'ud be as well here as anywhere."

"He's dead," said Vernon.

"Oh!" said the doctor with careful absence of expression. "Get some woman to put her to bed and to stay with her till the nurse comes. She's in a very excitable state. Good afternoon. I'll look in after dinner."

When Vernon had won the concierge to the desired service, had seen the nurse installed, had dined, called for news of Lady St. Craye, learned that she was "toujours très souffrante," he went home, pulled a table into the middle of his large, bare, hot studio, and sat down to write to the Reverend Cecil Underwood.

"I mean to do it," he told himself, "and it can't hurt her my doing it now instead of a month ahead, when she's well again. In fact, it's better for all of us to get it settled one way or another while she's not caring about anything."

So he wrote. And he wrote a great deal, though the letter that at last he signed was quite short:

My Dear Sir:

I have the honour to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage. When you asked me, most properly, my intentions, I told you that I was betrothed to another lady. This is not now the case. And I have found myself wholly unable to forget the impression made upon me last year by Miss Desmond. My income is about £1,700 a year, and increases yearly. I beg to apologise for anything which may have annoyed you in my conduct last year, and to assure you that my esteem and affection for Miss Desmond are lasting and profound, and that, should she do me the honour to accept my proposal, I shall devote my life's efforts to secure her happiness.

I am, my dear Sir, Your obedient servant,

Eustace Vernon.

"That ought to do the trick," he told himself. "Talk of old world courtesy and ceremonial! Anyhow, I shall know whether she's at Long Barton by the time it takes to get an answer. If it's two days, she's there. If it's longer she isn't. He'll send my letter on to her—unless he suppresses it. Your really pious people are so shockingly unscrupulous."

There is nothing so irretrievable as a posted letter. This came home to Vernon as the envelope dropped on the others in the box at the Café du Dóme—came home to him rather forlornly.

Next morning he called with more roses for Lady St. Craye, pinky ones this time.

"Milady was toujours très souffrante. It would be ten days, at the least, before Milady could receive, even a very old friend, like Monsieur."

The letter reached Long Barton between the Guardian and a catalogue of Some Rare Books. The Reverend Cecil read it four times. He was trying to be just. At first he thought he would write "No" and tell Betty years later. But the young man had seen the error of his ways. And £1,700 a year!—

The surprise visit with which the Reverend Cecil had always intended to charm his step-daughter suddenly found its date quite definitely fixed. This could not be written. He must go to the child and break it to her very gently, very tenderly—find out quite delicately and cleverly exactly what her real feelings were. Girls were so shy about those things.

Miss Julia Desmond had wired him from Suez that she would be in Paris next week—had astonishingly asked him to meet her there.

"Paris next Tuesday Gare St. Lazare 6:45. Come and see Betty via Dieppe," had been her odd message.

He had not meant to go—not next Tuesday. He was afraid of Miss Julia Desmond. He would rather have his Lizzie all to himself. But now—

He wrote a cablegram to Miss Julia Desmond: "Care Captain S.S. Urania, Brindisi: Will meet you in Paris." Then he thought that this might seem to the telegraph people not quite nice, so he changed it to: "Going to see Lizzie Tuesday."

The fates that had slept so long were indeed waking up and beginning to take notice of Betty. Destiny, like the most attractive of the porters at the Gare de Lyon, "s'occupait d'elle."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CONFESSIONAL

The concierge sat at her window under the arch of the porte-cochère at 57 Boulevard Montparnasse. She sat gazing across its black shade to the sunny street. She was thinking. The last twenty-four hours had given food for thought.

The trams passed and repassed, people in carriages, people on foot—the usual crowd—not interesting.

But the open carriage suddenly drawn up at the other side of the broad pavement was interesting, very. For it contained the lady who had given the 100 francs, and had promised another fifty on the first of the month. She had never come with that fifty, and the concierge having given up all hope of seeing her again, had acted accordingly.

Lady St. Craye, pale as the laces of her sea-green cambric gown, came slowly up the cobble-paved way and halted at the window.

"Good morning, Madame," she said. "I bring you the little present."

The concierge was genuinely annoyed. Why had she not waited a little longer? Still, all was not yet lost.

"Come in, Madame," she said. "Madame has the air very fatigued."

"I have been very ill," said Lady St. Craye.

"If Madame will give herself the trouble to go round by the other door—" The concierge went round and met her visitor in the hall, and brought her into the closely furnished little room with the high wooden bed, the round table, the rack for letters, and the big lamp.

"Will Madame give herself the trouble to sit down? Would it be permitted to offer Madame something—a little glass of sugared water? No? I regret infinitely not having known that Madame was suffering. I should have acted otherwise."

"What have you done?" she asked quickly. "You haven't told anyone that I was here that night?"

"Do not believe it for an instant," said the woman reassuringly. "'No—after Madame's goodness I held myself wholly at the disposition of Madame. But when the day appointed passed itself without your visit, I said to myself: 'The little affaire has ceased to interest this lady; she is weary of it!' My grateful heart found itself free to acknowledge the kindness of others."

"Tell me exactly," said Lady St. Craye, "what you have done."

"It was but last week," the concierge went on, rearranging a stiff bouquet in exactly the manner of an embarrassed ingénue on the stage, "but only last week that I received a letter from Mademoiselle Desmond. She sent me her address."

She paused. Lady St. Craye laid the bank note on the table.

"Madame wants the address?"

"I have the address. I want to know whether you have given it to anyone else."