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The Mischief Maker, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 2 - Chapter 5. The First Article |
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_ BOOK TWO CHAPTER V. THE FIRST ARTICLE Julien found Lady Anne in a small, stuffy apartment on the third floor of the house in the Rue St. Antoine. Before her was a sewing-machine, and the floor of the room was littered with oddments of black calico. She herself was seated apparently deep in thought before an untrimmed hat. "What on earth, my dear Anne," he exclaimed, "are you doing?" She merely glanced up at his entrance. Her eyes were still far away. "Don't interrupt," she begged. "I am seeking for an inspiration. In my younger days I used to trim hats. I don't suppose anything I could do would be of any use here, but one must try everything." "But I thought," he protested, "that you were going to be a lady's secretary, or something of that sort?" "I have applied for a situation," she admitted. "I am not engaged yet. By the bye, I gave your name as a reference. I wonder if there is any chance for me." "As a matter of fact," he told her, "I have just left the lady whose advertisement you answered." "Madame Christophor?" "Madame Christophor. If you are really anxious for that post, I can assure you that it is yours." She flung the hat to the other end of the room. "Good!" she exclaimed. "I don't think this sort of thing is in my line at all. Tell me, is Madame Christophor half as charming as she looks?" "I have known her only a short time," Julien replied, "but she is certainly a very wonderful woman." "What does she do," Lady Anne asked, "to require a secretary?" "She is a woman of immense wealth, I believe," Julien answered, "and she has many charities. She is married, but separated from her husband. I think, on the whole, that she must have led a rather unhappy life." "I think it is very extraordinary," Lady Anne remarked, "that she should be willing to take a secretary who knows nothing of typewriting or shorthand. I told her how ignorant I was, but she didn't seem to mind much." Julien sat down by the side of the sewing-machine. "Anne," he began, "do you really think you're going to care for this sort of thing?" "What sort of thing?" she demanded. "Why, life on your own. You have been so independent always and a person of consequence. You know what it means to be a servant?" "Not yet," Lady Anne admitted. "I think, though, that it is quite time I did. I am rather looking forward to it." Julien was a little staggered. She looked over at him and laughed scornfully. "After all," she said, "I am not sure, Julien, whether you are a person of much understanding. You proposed to me because I happened to be the sort of girl you were looking for. My connections were excellent and my appearance, I suppose, satisfactory. You never thought of me myself, me as an independent person, in all your life. Do you believe that I am simply Lady Anne Clonarty, a reasonable puppet, a walking doll to receive some one's guests and further his social ambitions? Don't you think that I have the slightest idea of being a woman of my own? What's wrong with me, I wonder, Julien, that you should take me for something automatic?" "You acted the part," he reminded her. "With you, yes!" she replied scornfully. "I should like to know how much you encouraged me to be anything different. A sawdust man I used to think you. Oh, we matched all right! I am not denying that. I was what I had to be. I sometimes wonder if misfortune will not do you good." "Misfortune is lending you a tongue, at any rate," he retorted. "As yet," she objected, "I know nothing of misfortune. The impulse which led me to chuck things was just the most wonderful thing that ever came to me in life. I awoke this morning feeling like a freed woman. I sang while I got up. It seemed to me that I had never seen anything so beautiful as the view of Paris from my poky window. And I got up without a maid, too, Julien. I had no perfectly equipped bathroom to wander into. Not much luxury about these rooms of Janette's." He glanced at her admiringly. "You certainly look as though the life agreed with you," he answered. "Put on your hat and come out to dinner." She rose to her feet at once. "I have been praying for that," she confessed. "You know, Julien, I should starve badly. The one thing I can't get rid of is my appetite. You don't expect me to make a toilette, because I can't?" "Nothing of the sort," he assured her. "Come as you are." She kept him waiting barely five minutes. She was still wearing her smart traveling suit and the little toque which she had worn when she left home. She walked down the street with him, humming gayly. "Have you read the English papers this morning, Julien?" she asked. "Not thoroughly," he admitted. "Columns about me," she declared blithely. "The general idea is that I am suffering from a lapse of memory. They have found traces of me in every part of England. Not a word about Paris, thank goodness!" "But do you mean to say that no one has an idea of where you are? Won't your mother be anxious?" "Not a bit of it," Lady Anne laughed. "I left a note for her, just to say that she wasn't to worry. She knows I'll take care of myself all right. Julien, don't you love these streets and their crowds of people? Every one looks as though they were on a holiday." "So they are," Julien replied. "Life is only a holiday over here. In England we go about with our eyes fixed upon the deadliest thing in life we can imagine. Over here, depression is a crime. They call into their minds the most joyous thing they can think of. It becomes a habit. They think only of the pleasantness of life. They keep their troubles buried underneath." "It is the way to live," she murmured. "This, at any rate," he answered, leading the way into Henry's "is the place at which to dine. Just fancy, we were engaged for three months and not once did I dine with you alone! Now we are not engaged and we think nothing of it." "Less than nothing," she agreed, "except that I am frightfully hungry." They found a comfortable table. Julien took up the menu and wrote out the dinner carefully. "In this country," he said, leaning back, "we are spared the barbarity of table d'hote dinners. Therefore we must wait, but what does it matter? There is always something to talk about." "I am glad to hear that you feel like that, Julien. I remember sometimes when we were alone together in England, we seemed to find it a trifle difficult." "Since then," he replied, "we have both burst the bonds--I of necessity, you of choice." "I don't believe," she declared, helping herself to _hors d'oeuvres_, "that we are either of us going to be sorry for it." "One can never tell. So far as you are concerned, I haven't got over the wonder of it yet. You never showed me so much of the woman throughout our engagement as you have shown me during the last few days." "My dear Julien," she protested, "you didn't know where to look for it. Why does this funny little man with the mutton-chop whiskers hover around our table all the time?" "He is distressed," Julien explained, "to see you eating so much bread and butter. He fears that you will not have an appetite for the very excellent dinner which I have ordered." "He is right," she decided. "Never mind, I will leave the rolls alone. I am still, I can assure you, ravenous." She leaned back and, looking out into the room, began to laugh. People who passed never failed to notice her. She was certainly a striking-looking girl and she had, above all, the air. "Julien," she cried, "this is really too amusing! Did you see who went by just then? It was Lord Athlington--my venerable uncle--with the lady with the yellow hair. He saw you here with me--saw us sitting together alone, having dinner--me unchaperoned, a runaway! Isn't it delicious?" Julien looked after his companion's elderly relative with a smile. "I wonder," he remarked, "whether your uncle's magnificent unconsciousness is due to defective eyesight or nerve?" "Nerve, without a doubt," she insisted. "We all have it. Besides, don't you see he's changed their table so as to be out of sight? I wonder what he really thinks of me! If we'd belonged even to the really smart set in town, it wouldn't have been half so funny. They do so many things that seem wrong that people forget to be shocked." "I can conceive," he murmured, "that your mother's ambitions would scarcely lead her in that direction." Lady Anne shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think she could get in if she tried. The really disreputable people in Society are so exclusive. I wonder, Julien, if I shall be allowed to come out and dine with you when I am Madame Christophor's secretary?" "Once a week, perhaps," he suggested,--"scarcely oftener, I am afraid." "Ah! well," she declared, "I shall like work, I am convinced. Julien, you are spoiling me. I am sure this is a _cuisine de luxe_. I told you to take me to a cheap restaurant." "We will try them all in time," he answered. "I had to start by taking you to my favorite place." "You really mean, then," she asked, "that you are going on being nice to me? Of course, I haven't the slightest claim on you. I suppose, as a matter of fact, I treated you rather badly, didn't I?" "Not a bit of it," he assured her. "I was a failure, that was all. But of course I am going on being nice to you. There aren't too many people over here whom one cares to be with. There aren't very many just now," he continued, "who care to be with me." "Idiotic!" she replied. "Tell me about this work of yours?" He explained Kendricks' idea. Her eyes glistened. "It's really splendid," she declared. "How I should love to have seen your first article!" "You shall read it afterwards," he told her. "I have a copy of _Le Grand Journal_ in my overcoat pocket." She beckoned to the _vestiaire_. "I will not wait a moment," she insisted. "I shall read it while dinner is being served. It's a glorious idea, this, to fight your way back with your pen. There are those nowadays who tell us, you know, Julien, that there is more to be done through the Press than in Parliament. Your spoken words can influence only a small number of people. What you write the world reads." She explained what she desired to the _vestiaire_. He reappeared a minute or two later with the newspaper. She spread it out before her. Julien read it over her shoulder. He himself had seen it before, but his own eyes were the brighter as he reread it. When she had finished she said very little. They ate the first course of their dinner almost in silence. Then she laid her hand suddenly upon his. "Julien, dear," she said, "I have done you a wrong. I am sorry." "A wrong?" he repeated. She looked at him almost humbly. There was something new in her eyes, something new in her expression. "I am afraid," she continued, "that I never looked upon you as anything more than the ordinary stereotyped politician, a skilful debater, of course, and with the chessboard brains of diplomacy. This,"--she touched the newspaper with her forefinger--"this is something very different." "Do you like it, then?" "Like it!" she repeated scornfully. "Can't you feel yourself how different it is from those precise, cynical little speeches of yours? It is as though a smouldering bonfire had leapt suddenly into flame. There is genius in every line. Go on writing like that, Julien, and you will soon be more powerful than ever you were in the House of Commons." He laughed. It was absurd to admit it, but nothing had pleased him so much since the coming of his misfortune! She was thoughtful for some time, every now and then glancing back at the newspaper. Over their coffee she broke into a little reminiscent laugh. "Did I tell you about Mrs. Carraby?" she asked. "Mother and I met her at Wumbledon House, two or three days after her husband's appointment had been confirmed. I can see her now coming towards us. There were so many people around that she had to risk everything. Oh, it was a great moment for mother! She never troubled even to raise her lorgnettes. She never attempted any of that glaring-through-you sort of business. She just looked up at Mrs. Carraby's hand and looked up at her eyes and walked by without changing a muscle. Of course I did the same--very nearly as well, too, I believe. Cat!" Julien frowned slightly. "You can imagine," he said, "that I am not very keen about discussing Mrs. Carraby. Yet, after all, her husband and his career were, I suppose, the most important things in life to her." "Then she's going to have a pretty rocky time," Lady Anne decided. "I don't understand much about politics, but I know it's no use putting a tradesman into the Foreign Office. He's wobbly already, and as for Mrs. Carraby--well, I don't know if she ever went on with you like it, Julien, but you remember Bob Sutherland--the one in the Guards, I mean?--well, she's going an awful pace with him." "I think," he declared, "that Mrs. Carraby can take care of herself." "Perhaps," Lady Anne replied, looking thoughtfully at her cigarette. "You see, the woman knows in her heart that she's impossible. She copies all our bad tricks. She sees that we all flirt as a matter of course, and she tries to outdo us. It's the old story. What one person can do with impunity, another makes an awful hash of. We can go to the very gates because when we get there we know how to shrug our shoulders and turn away. I am not sure that Mrs. Carraby has breeding enough for that. She'll go through, if Bob has his way." "You are becoming rather an advanced young person," Julien remarked, as he paid the bill. "My dear Julien," she said, "I've told you before that you never knew me. If you had appreciated me as I deserved, when you came that cropper you wouldn't have called on me to say good-bye. You'd have left that red-headed friend of yours at home and told me that the empty place in the taxicab was mine." He laughed and then suddenly became grave. "Supposing I had?" he whispered. She looked at him, startled. In that moment he seemed to see a new thing in her face, a new and marvelous softness. It passed like a flash--so swiftly that it left him wondering whether it was not indeed a trick of his imagination. "Absurd!" she murmured. "Tell me, what is there we can do now? Must I go home?" "On the contrary," he declared, "you are engaged to me for the evening. Only I must call at my rooms. Do you mind?" "I mind nothing," she assured him. "Let us take a carriage and drive about the streets. Julien, what a yellow moon!" They clambered into a little _voiture_, and with a hoarse shout and a crack of the whip from the _cocher_, they started off. Lady Anne leaned back with an exclamation of content. "If only it weren't so theatrical!" she sighed. "The streets seem so clean and the buildings so white and the sky so blue and the people so gay. Yet I suppose the bitterness of life is here as in the other places. Why do you want to call at your rooms, Julien?" "There is just a chance," he explained, "that there may be a telegram from Kendricks. I want to know what they think of my article." She laughed scornfully. "I can tell you that. There is only one thing they can think. How these people will hate you who are trying to make mischief between France and England!" Julien smiled grimly. "I shouldn't be surprised," he admitted. "It may come to a tussle between us yet." They pulled up before the door of his rooms. She, too, alighted. "I want to see what your quarters are like," she said calmly. "I may come up, mayn't I?" "By all means," he assented. She followed him up the dark stairs and into his room. He turned on the lights. She looked around at his little salon, with its French furniture, its open windows with the lime trees only a few feet away, and threw herself into an easy-chair with a sigh of content. "Julien, how delightful!" she exclaimed. "Is there anything for you?" He walked to the mantelpiece. There was a telegram and a note for him. The former he tore open and his eyes sparkled as he read it aloud. Magnificent. Be careful. Am coming over at once. KENDRICKS. He passed it on to her. Then he opened the note. I am coming to your rooms for my answer to-night. CARL FREUDENBERG. Even as he read it there was a knocking at the door. She looked up doubtfully. "Who is that?" "It may be the man who writes me here," he told her. She rose softly to her feet and pointed to the door which divided the apartments. He nodded and she passed through into the inner room. Julien went to the outside door and threw it open. It was indeed Herr Freudenberg who stood there. "Come in," he invited. Herr Freudenberg removed his hat and entered. _ |
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