CHAPTER VIII.
George Daintree had only spoken the truth when he told Elizabeth that he might possibly be called back to England. The bankers had forwarded to him that morning a letter from his uncle, saying that he had a fit of the gout, and was once more a prisoner to the house. Mr. Twisden wrote that, if he was not better in the course of a few days, he must ask George to return, and take the remainder of his holiday later.
The young man had meditated for several days letting his uncle know some portion of the truth as regarded himself. The whole truth, in its naked ugliness, he had no intention of revealing. But the wisdom of the serpent was his. He saw that if he did not present the truth to Mr. Twisden becomingly draped, he ran the risk of a discovery, which would greatly shock the old man, and destroy his confidence in his nephew for ever. The moment had come when he must speak, or run this risk. The events of that morning decided him. He did not think that Lord Robert would betray his secret, but it might ooze out. It was imperative, therefore, in writing to his uncle, to apprise him of his position relative to two persons in whom Mr. Twisden, he knew, was interested. On reaching home that afternoon he sat down at once, and this is what he wrote—
No —, Rue de ———, Paris, 6th October.
My dear Uncle,
"Your letter, which gave me real concern, reached me this morning; sooner, I fancy, than you anticipated, for I am, as you see, still in Paris. Before I explain to you how this has come about, let me say that I await your next with impatience, and shall be ready to return to Gray's Inn at a few hours' notice, if I hear that you are still incapacitated from going there. Indeed, whether or no, you have but to send me a wire, and I start at once.
"Painting, as you know, is my favourite pursuit; and I left London fully determined to work hard in Paris for a few weeks, by which I believed I could gain more than by mountaineering in Switzerland. I said nothing to you of my resolve, fearing that you would disapprove, and try to dissuade me. Accident led me, when looking for a room in the Artists' Quarter here, to a pension, where I found—whom do you think? No other than Miss Shaw. She did not remember my face (indeed, she only saw me once); but, as she might remember my name, and as I had no right, or desire, to disturb her tranquillity by revealing myself as your nephew, I called myself Mr. George, and as such she knows me. Your mind may be at ease about the young lady. She is well in health, much improved in looks, and seems perfectly happy in working hard every day. Her great friends in the pension are an American and his sister, named Baring. But a new inmate has arrived to-day, who, judging by the expression of Miss Shaw's face, when she first saw him in a picture-gallery this morning, is not very welcome. What do you say to Lord Robert Elton? How did he learn Miss Shaw was in Paris? For I feel confident it is in pursuit of her he is come. Chance has befriended him. He happened to meet her, and has now secured a room in this pension. I believe you support his suit; but, to tell you the truth, I do not think he has the ghost of a chance. I hope to have a much better report of you in reply to this. But, whether jou are better or not, let me repeat that I am ready to return at once, if you wire that you wish for me.
Your affectionate nephew,
"George Daintree."
And in this he was quite sincere. All that he had he owed to his uncle, and he was really fond of the old man. This did not prevent his hatching a plot which he knew Mr. Twisden would never sanction. But it impelled him to write as he now did, offering to return at onoe; though, if this offer had not been prompted by genuine feeling, in the first instance, the wisdom of the serpent once again would have suggested, as it now ratified, the propriety of the step. The capture of Elizabeth was only a possibility; he did not deceive himself on this head. The succession to Mr. Twisden was a certainty, if he and his uncle remained on the close terms they were now on.
Madame Martineau was in the seventh heaven at her last remaining room being taken. In honour of the new boarder she put a fresh mauve riband into her cap, and ordered an extra plat doux for dinner. Before that meal, the intelligence had penetrated every room in the house, and had aroused curiosity to know what the new inmate was like. The men were disappointed, first, that it was not a woman, in that over-manned establishment; secondly, that it was another Englishman, in which patriotic sentiment Madame de Belcour joined, with affected enthusiasm. In reality, she cared not from what seas were the fish that came to her net. She had not captured either of the two English-speaking men who were boarders at Madame Martineau's, one of whom conspicuously avoided her; the other, while generally polite and agreeable, did not offer up to her the exact sort of incense her vanity and her passions craved. The inhabitants of perfide Albion were all alike cold-blooded, she affirmed, while nourishing a secret hope that the new-comer might prove an exception to the rule. She put on her pale blue dress, trimmed with chiffon, which both Morin and Anatole Doncet had affirmed to be the most becoming of her many costumes. With the faintest touch of rouge (she was too clever to rouge persistently), and her keepsake air, she felt herself to be irresistible. But when Elton entered—mon Dieu! what a blow! She liked height and strength in a man. What pleasure could there be in enslaving a creature like this, with narrow shoulders and undecided legs, surmounted by a keen, ugly face, glazed in with a pince-nez? Not thus had she pictured the physical man of this son of Albion. Mr. George was a far more desirable possession; and as to America's red-bearded representative, he had every personal requisite for a hero, in the lady's eyes. But this Mr. Elton———!
He sat between her and Professor Genron, wlio ceded with cynical alacrity his place at the lady's right. Elizabeth, consequently, was directly opposite to him. Miss Baring was too tired to appear at dinner, bnt her brother occupied his usual seat. Elton spoke French admirably, and not being afflicted with shyness, sent his snap-shots in every direction across the table. He avoided, with commendable tact, making Elizabeth the direct recipient of most of these shots, though, by ricochet, many of them struck her.
Madame Martineau had asked him, with her sweetest smile, if he knew Paris well.
"Yes—the English quarter. Very little this side the river. Came here with a special object." Elizabeth winced inwardly, but he did not look at her, and turning to Genron, shot on rapidly, "You are a professor at the Sorbonne, I understand? I want to know something of French law. Any lectures there I can attend?"
Genron. "Certainly; but Monsieur Bertrand, the young man at the further end of the table, can tell you more about them. He is a law-student."
Elton (looking down the table and catching Bertrand's eye). "Perhaps you will be good enough to give me some information by-and-by. French oratory remarkable—Berryer unsurpassed. We English, with few exceptions, poor orators."
George (smiling as he leans forward). "We know exceptions, do we not, Miss Shaw?"
Genron (sarcastically). "The English are a silent people; their tongues seem mostly tied."
Elizabeth (colouring). "It is a pity that foreigners sometimes are not so."
Mdme. de Belcour (with a languid smile). "That is meant for you, Dr. Morin. The doctor is my favourite orator. So sympathetic!"
Elton. "You speak in public? Where can I hear you?"
Dr. Morin (laughing). "Nowhere, monsieur. It is only to tease me your fair neighbour says that. I never speak."
Mdme. Martineau. "He never speaks! Listen to him! He never speaks! Ho, ho!"
Morin. "I make myself understood, and you are good enough to listen; but as to oratory—bah!"
Mdme. Clinchaut. "Ah! oratory is not what it was. I heard Lamartine in the Chamber. Ah! it was poetical. There is nothing like it now—nothing!"
Doucet. "Pardon, madame. If you talk of poetical eloquence, allow me to say I gained the first prize for poetical oratory at college—an improvisation; the subject was 'Suicide.' And now, if there were a revolution, should I not be a Mirabeau, a Camille Desmoulins? I believe you. Talk of our oratory being deteriorated; it is only now we are awaking to what true oratory is!"
Mdme. Clinchaut (shaking her head sarcastically). "Lamartine was good enough for me."
Baring (who has caught Elton's eye, slowly, in English). "Some of our men in Congress would make them sit up here."
Elton. "Your Webster—a great orator! But these French—wonderful, wonderful! Such fluency!"
Baring. "And self-confidence." (In French) "Le Père Didon is the most eloquent man I have heard here."
Genron. "Bah! If you go to the churches" (with a shrug) "they will tickle your ears; they will make a picture for you with all their fluid colours. But of hard reason, of close, convincing argument—how much? The Greek orators carried their audience with them—an audience of men. Our Lacordaires and Didons carry away their churches full of women. But men—men with brains—how many? Bah!"
Mdme. Martineau. "Ah! Monsieur le Professeur, one must have a little religion in this world."
Mdme. de Belcour (softly). "For when one is old."
Elton (to Genron). "In our Church there is more latitude, more free play of thought. A dozen different doctrines in a dozen different churches—you choose the doctrine that suits you. All the world goes to hear a remarkable preacher, and he does carry away some men as well as women."
Genron (smiling ironically). "I spoke of men with brains, sir. Your Herbert Spencer, your Huxley, etc."
Eliza. (in English, speaking low to Baring through Genron's speech, which flows on). "I give you up that old atheist. Why will he insist that every one who has any faith is a fool? He is odious."
Baring (with a faint smile). "You are like the Russian traveller, obliged to fling out his children one by one to the wolves. Doucet and Narishkine are already devoured; now the old Voltairean is going. I am delighted."
Eliza. "Don't press the analogy too closely. Recollect it is to you I am flinging them." (Here she also smiles.)
Baring. "I think not. I can't flatter myself that you would throw me even a bone. I am glad to think it is voluntary, this throwing overboard of carrion."
Eliza. "Voluntary? Of course it is voluntary. I don't adopt other people's ready-made prejudices, Mr. Baring. I have never heard the professor scoff openly at religion before, and I can't bear it."
Elton (in French, continuing his discussion with the professor). "Quite a mistake, monsieur. In England, some of the greatest thinkers of every age have struggled for faith. Some have been men of real piety. Infidelity—rank, downright infidelity—a good deal played out. 'Very cheap,' as we say." (Trans. "Bon Marché" somewhat puzzled his hearers.)
Mdme. de Belcour (leaning across). "Cher docteur!"
Morin. "Madame?"
Mdme. de B. "Pray change the conversation! I feel as if it were Lent—as if I ought to fast—and I want to eat this fricandeau. Let us all agree to be religious by-and-by, and amuse ourselves now."
Morin (laughing). "Like Saint Augustine, who prayed to be made good—'but not to-day, O Lord!'"
Doucet (demoniacally). "What is 'good' and 'bad'? Who knows? To sin as Nature, the great mother, dictates, and then to bow down to the dust, and pray forgiveness with streaming eyes, and then to sin again—what is the good? what is the bad? To the poet, the two extremes are equally moving, and he knows not under which phase his soul———"
Morin. "Ah! talk about his body, mon petit Doucet. Leave his soul alone. You have studied that less than the other."
Doucet. "Not at all! The poet, who is inspired———"
But the poet's organ-pipe is here overpowered by the professor's sharp-pitched treble; and though Doucet retains an audience at the lower end of the table, the conversation is carried on at the upper end, independent of him.
Genron (to Elton). "Have you young decadent poets in England, monsieur?"
Elton. "A few, I am told. Not very poetical myself. No poetry like Pope, I think—so quotable. Don't you think so, Miss Shaw?"
Eliza. (smiling). "Is not that rather like saying, 'There is no painter like Hogarth'?"
Elton. "Well, to me there is none. Faithful mirror of his age. Sense, satire, moral sequence, cause and effect—what do you want more in a picture?"
Baring. "I want less, and I want more."
Elton. "Hm! I like truth. Suppose I have no imagination."
Genron. "The strong point of your nation. We have too much, and so we come to grief. Phlegm is the Englishman's force, and it is a great force in the conduct of human affairs."
Mdme. Martineau (fearing the cynical professor's speech is rude, throws herself into the breach). "But what a wise nation! So noble! No revolutions, like us! Ah, what a blessing!"
Elton. "Madame has known many English?"
Mdme. M. "No, monsieur, not many. I should have visited England once, but events———" (Here she throws up her expressive eyes.)
Morin. "We must be grateful to those events, madame. Had you gone, you would have stayed, and we should have been the losers. Mademoiselle comes here" (turning to Elizabeth with a smile), "and she likes us so much she means to remain."
Elton (with a sharp little laugh like a bark). "England may have a word to say to that, monsieur! We cannot allow yon to carry off all our prizes, as well as to retain your own."
Elizabeth sent one sharp glance at him across the table, and began folding up her napkin. The dinner was, indeed, over; the lamp was lit in the salon. Madame rose, and they all filed out. Once there, Elton cornered the object of his pursuit, and held her in conversation until she broke away, at the end of half an hour.
On these lines, and to this extent, more or less, was their intercourse twice every day daring the next week. Do what he would, Lord Robert could obtain no more. He was exasperated. George, on the other hand, played what I believe is called a "waiting game." He was satisfied that there was no danger to be apprehended from the enterprising young politician. If he had only time given him—time, without the introduction of any disturbing element—he was sanguine of success. But, unfortunately, time was just what he was not sure of. The accounts he received of his uncle were very much the same. He was no worse, but he was no better. If there was no improvement at the end of the week, Mr. Twisden would telegraph for his nephew.