Book 1 - Chapter 10. Better Acquaintance

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_ BOOK ONE CHAPTER X. BETTER ACQUAINTANCE

The gardens of the Maison Leon d'Or were, in their way, unique. There was no extent of open space, but the walks threaded everywhere a large shrubbery, and in all sorts of corners and quiet places little dining tables had been placed. Scarcely any one was in sight of any other person, although they were so close together that all the time there was a hum of voices. In the distance, down by the river, a large gondola was passing slowly backwards and forwards, on which an orchestra played soft music. Julien and Madame Christophor crossed the narrow strip of lawn together and followed Monsieur Leon into the graveled path bordered with fairy lamps.

"I have arranged for madame and monsieur," he announced, looking backwards, "a table near the lilac tree of which madame is so fond. The perfume, indeed, is exquisite. If madame pleases!"

They turned from the path on to another strip of lawn, which they gained by rounding a large lilac bush. Here a small table was laid with the whitest of cloths and the most dazzling of silver. An attentive waiter was already arranging an ice-pail in a convenient spot. From here the gardens sloped gently to the river, which was barely forty yards distant. Although it was scarcely twilight, the men on the gondola were lighting the lamps.

"Madame and monsieur will find this table removed from all chance visitors," the proprietor declared. "If the dinner is not perfect, permit that I wait upon you again. A word to the waiter and I arrive. Madame! Monsieur!"

He retreated, with a bow to each. Julien, with a little laugh, took his place at the table.

"Madame," he said, "your entertainment is charming."

"The entertainment is nothing," Madame replied, "but here at least is one advantage--we are really alone. I do not know how you feel, but the greatest rest in life to me is sometimes the solitude. There is no one overlooking us, there is no one likely to pass whom we know. We are virtually cut off from all those who know us or whom we know. My friend, I would like you to remember this our first evening. Talk, if you will, or be silent. For me it is equal. I, too, have thoughts which I can summon at any time to bear me company. And there is the river. Do you hear the soft flow of it, and the rustle of the breeze in the shrubs, the perfumes, and--listen--the music? Ah! Sir Julien, I think that we give you over here some things which you do not easily find in your own country."

"You are right," he agreed slowly. "You give us a better climate, more sympathetic companionship, a tenderer chicken, a more artistic salad."

"At heart you are a materialist, I perceive," she declared.

"We all are," he admitted. "Everything depends upon our power of concealment."

The service of dinner commenced almost at once. There was something excessively peaceful in the scene. The tables were so arranged that one heard nothing of the clatter of crockery. The murmur of voices came like a pleasant undernote. They talked lightly for some time of the English theatres, of the stage generally, some recent memoirs--anything that came into their heads. Then Julien was silent for several minutes. He leaned slightly across the table. Their own lamp was lit now and through the velvety dusk her eyes seemed to glow with a new beauty.

"Tell me," he begged, "you spoke of yourself a little time ago as though you might have a personality at which I ought to have guessed. Are you a woman of Society, or an artist, or merely an idler?"

"I have known something of Society," she replied. "I believe I may say that I am something of an artist. It is very certain that I am not an idler. Why ask me these questions? Let us forget to be serious tonight. Let us remember only that we are companions, and that the hours, as they pass, are pleasant."

"It is a philosophy," he murmured, "which brings its own retribution."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"All happiness is lost," she declared, "the moment you begin to try and define it. It is a sensation, not a state of being. Let us drift. The waters are not dangerous for you or for me."

Her words chilled him with a sudden memory. Then, in the act of helping himself to wine, he paused. Some one had taken the table nearest to them, dimly visible through the laurel bushes. He heard the voice of the man who had been with Foster, giving the orders.

"Listen!"

There was no need for him to have spoken. Curiously enough, Madame

Christophor seemed also to have recognized the voice. Her hand fell upon Julien's. He looked at her in surprise. Her cheeks were blanched, her eyes blazing.

"You hear that voice?" she whispered.

Julien nodded.

"It is the voice of the only person in the world," she continued, "whom I absolutely hate."

"You know whose it is, then?"

"Of course!" she replied.

"So do I," he muttered. "I have never seen the man's face, but I know a little about him."

She shivered.

"Come," she said, "let us have our coffee later. We have finished dinner and the moon is coming up. If we walk to the bottom there, we shall see it from the bend of the river, and we shall escape from those men."

He rose hastily to his feet. She led the way down the path. Here and there they caught a glimpse of other tables as they passed--little parties of two or four, all very gay. Madame breathed more freely as they progressed. Presently they passed through an iron gate into a field, already half-mown. The perfume of the fresh-cut grass came to them with an almost overpowering sweetness. Her hand fell upon his arm.

"Forgive me," she begged, "I am not really a weak woman. I do not think that there is any other sound in life which I hate so much as the sound of that voice."

They walked in silence along the narrow path. Soon they reached the edge of the river. A few steps further on was a seat, of which they took possession. In the distance the gondola, on fire now with lamps, was playing a waltz. A bat flew for a moment about their heads. Somewhere in the woods a long way down the river a nightingale was singing.

"I am not often so foolish," she murmured. "Once--let me tell you this--once I had a dear little friend. She was very sweet, but a little too trusting, too simple for the life here. She found a lover. She thought she had found the happiness of her life. Poor child! For a month, perhaps, she was happy. Then he forced her to give up her little home and her savings and go upon the stage. He preferred a mistress from the theatres. She worked hard, but, sweetly pretty though she was, she was not very successful. Then she caught cold. She began to lose her health--and she lost her lover."

"Brute!"

"The child got worse," madame went on. "Presently they told her that it was consumption. She went to a hospital and she wrote a pathetic little note to the man. He tore it up. There had been an article in the papers a few weeks before proving that consumption was among the diseases which were more or less infectious. He sent her a few brutal lines and a trifle of money, with a warning that there was to be no more. He never went to see her. The child grew worse. I used to sit with her sometimes. I saw her look down upon the river, almost as we are looking now, and her eyes would grow soft and wet with tears, and she would tell me in whispers of the evenings she had spent with him, when the love had first come, and how sweet and tender he was. There must be something wrong, she was sure. He did not understand, he could not know how ill she really was. She prayed for the sight of him. I put her off with one excuse after another, but one day the fear of death was in her eyes, the terror came to her, she was afraid. She was afraid of dying alone, of going into a strange country, no one to hold her. I went to the man, I begged him to come and see her. He scoffed at me. If she had consumption, she was better dead. He would have flirted with me if I had let him. I can hear his voice now--brutal, jeering, hideous! It was the voice, Sir Julien, which we heard ten minutes ago at the next table. Do you wonder that I hate it?"

"And the little girl?" he asked.

"When I returned without him," she answered, "the little girl was dead."

They were both silent, listening to the splash of the water and to the distant music.

"Life is like that," she went on. "We pass through it lightly enough, but Heaven only knows the number of little tragedies against which our skirts must brush. Sometimes they leave impressions, sometimes we grow callous, but the horror of that man's voice will stay with me always.... Shall we go back now? You would like your coffee."

"Sit here for five minutes more," he begged. "Tell me, did you know that the man was a spy?"

She looked at him curiously.

"How is it that you know so much about him?"

"He is sitting there with an Englishman who comes from our Intelligence Department," Julien explained. "They were speaking together of some one--I believe it was myself--speaking in none too friendly terms. There was a woman, too, whose name they coupled with mine, but I could not hear that. I made some inquiries about the man. I was told that he was in the suite of the German Ambassador."

She nodded.

"Whoever or whatever he is," she said, "he is something to be abhorred. Hush! There is some one coming down the footpath."

They sat quite silent. Some instinct seemed to tell them who it was. Suddenly they heard the voice--rasping, unpleasant.

"You have bungled the affair, Foster. It is not well-managed; it is not clever. You were to have brought him to me, to have let me know the instant he reached Paris. I would have seen him. Just as he was, I should have succeeded. Now it may be that this woman has warned him already. She is very clever. If she has him, he will not escape."

Foster's voice was inaudible, but whatever he said seemed to anger his companion.

"Thunder and lightning!" they heard the man exclaim. "Am I a fool that you talk to me like this? Yes, I go to him--I go to him to-night, but I tell you that it is too late! If it is too late, there is but one thing to be done. You are a coward, Foster!"

They came out into the open, on the path which fringed the river, and they were immediately silent. They came strolling along and noticed for the first time the two figures upon the seat. Instantly they began to talk upon some local subject. No escape was possible. In a few minutes they were opposite the bench. Foster started a little. The other man's face darkened. He ventured upon a bow. Madame Christophor looked at him as one might look upon some strange animal. Foster hesitated for a moment, but his companion pushed him along.

"I think," she whispered, "that that man would like to do me an injury."

Julien was watching their retreating forms.

"I don't understand what Foster is doing there, or what the dickens they were talking about," he said thoughtfully. "I think if you don't mind," he added, "we will return."

"Why are you so suddenly uneasy?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Apparently," he answered, "you know who I am and everything about me. I, on the other hand, am ignorant almost of your very name. There are certain circumstances connected with my late career which make it inadvisable--"

"Oh, I know all that you are going to say!" she interrupted. "But ask yourself. Have I made any attempt whatever to ask you a single unbecoming question?"

"You certainly have not," he confessed.

"Your little friend returns," she whispered. "See!"

Foster came back to them, slowly, with reluctant footsteps. He had the appearance of a man bent upon a mission which he dislikes.

"Sir Julien," he said, as he drew near, "would you grant me a moment's interview?"

Julien looked at him.

"You probably know my address," he replied coldly. "You can call there and see me. At present I am engaged."

"Sir Julien, the matter is of some importance," Foster persisted. "I have a friend who is anxious to meet you. It would be an affair of a few words only, and perhaps an appointment afterwards."

"Is the friend to whom you refer the person with whom you were walking just now?" Julien inquired.

"Yes!" Foster admitted. "If you can spare me a moment I can explain--"

"You need explain nothing," Julien interrupted. "Understand, please, that I decline absolutely to make that person's acquaintance."

Foster looked away from Sir Julien to the woman who stood by his side.

"Am I to take this as final?" he asked.

Julien turned on his heel.

"Absolutely," he said. "The little I know of the person with whom you seem to be spending the evening makes me feel more inclined to pitch him into the river than to make his acquaintance. As a matter of fact, Foster, I don't know, of course, under what instructions you are acting over here, but I should not have considered him exactly a companion for you."

Foster started. A new fear had suddenly broken in upon him.

"I am doing my best to carry out instructions, sir," he declared. "I do not understand why you should take so prejudiced a view of my friend."

"It is, perhaps," Julien replied, "because I know more about him than you seem to. Good night!"

They walked slowly back to the gardens. The woman was thoughtful.

"I am sorry," she said, "that those people came along to spoil our first evening together. I am glad, though, that you refused to meet the German. All that he would have done would have been to try and fill your mind with suspicions of me. Haven't you found me harmless?"

"I am not sure," he answered.

She laughed softly.

"Ah, me!" she exclaimed, "I gave you an opening, didn't I, and one must remember that of late years the men of your nation have established a reputation over here for gallantry. Harmless, at least, so far as regards tearing political secrets from your bosom?"

"As a matter of fact," Julien remarked, "there are not so many secrets between France and England, are there?"

"Thanks in some measure to you," she reminded him. "You take it for granted, I notice, that I am a Frenchwoman."

He looked at her in great surprise.

"Why, indeed, yes! Is there any doubt about it?"

"My mother was an American," she told him.

"Tell me your real name?" he asked suddenly.

"On the contrary, I am going to beg you not to try and discover it. Let us remain as we are for a little time. You are lonely here and you need companionship, and I am very much in the same position. You are a hater of women and I have sworn eternal enmity against all men. We are so safe, and solitude is bad for us."

He smiled.

"You are very kind," he said, "but as for me, I am only starting my wanderings. I want to go on through Algiers to Morocco, to Egypt, and later to the east. I never meant to stay long in Paris."

"I do not blame you," she declared. "Sooner or later you must find your way where the battle is. Paris is not a city for men. One loiters here for a time, but one passes on always. Never mind, while you stay here I shall claim you."

They drove back to Paris through the perfumed stillness of the long spring night. Madame had instructed her chauffeur to drive slowly, and more than one automobile rushed past them, with flaring lights and sounding horn. In one they caught a glimpse of Foster and his companion, whispering together as they raced by. Madame half closed her eyes with a little shiver.

"Those men again!" she exclaimed, "They say that Estermen never abandons a chase. You may still find him waiting for you in your hotel!" _

Read next: Book 1: Chapter 11. The Toymaker From Leipzig

Read previous: Book 1: Chapter 9. Madame Christophor

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