CHAPTER VIII.
I Find that I Care.
OR a moment I stood stock still, wishing to Heaven that I had not opened the door; for I could find now no excuse for my intrusion, and no reason why I should not have minded my own business. The impulse that had made the thing done was exhausted in the doing of it. Retreat became my sole object; and, drawing back, I pulled the door after me. But I had given Fortune a handle—very literally; for the handle of the door grated loud as I turned it. Despairing of escape, I stood still. Marie Delhasse looked up with a start.
“Who’s there?” she cried in frightened tones, hastily pressing her handkerchief to her eyes.
There was no help for it. I stepped inside, saying:
“I’m ashamed to say that I am.”
I deserved and expected an outburst of indignation. My surprise was great when she sank against the back of the chair with a sigh of relief. I lingered awkwardly just inside the threshold.
“What do you want? Why did you come in?” she asked, but rather in bewilderment than anger.
“I was passing on my way upstairs, and—and you seemed to be in distress.”
“Did I make such a noise as that?” said she. “I’m as bad as a child; but children cry because they mustn’t do things, and I because I must.”
We appeared to be going to talk. I shut the door.
“My intrusion is most impertinent,” said I. “You have every right to resent it.”
“Oh, have I the right to resent anything? Did you think so this morning?” she asked impetuously.
“The morning,” I observed, “is a terribly righteous time with me. I must beg your pardon for what I said.”
“You think the same still?” she retorted quickly.
“That is no excuse for having said it,” I returned. “It was not my affair.”
“It is nobody’s affair, I suppose, but mine.”
“Unless you allow it to be,” said I. I could not endure the desolation her words and tone implied.
She looked at me curiously.
“I don’t understand,” she said in a fretfully weary tone, “how you come to be mixed up in it at all.”
“It’s a long story.” Then I went on abruptly: “You thought it was someone else that had entered.”
“Well, if I did?”
“Someone returning,” said I stepping up to the table opposite her.
“What then?” she asked, but wearily and not in the defiant manner of the morning.
“Mme. Delhasse perhaps, or perhaps the Duke of Saint-Maclou?”
Marie Delhasse made no answer. She sat with her elbows on the table, and her chin resting on the support of her clenched hands; her lids drooped over her eyes; and I could not see the expression of her glance, which was, nevertheless, upon me.
“Well, well,” I continued, “we needn’t talk about him. Have you been doing some shopping?” And I pointed to the red leathern box.
For full half a minute she sat, without speech or movement. Then she said in answer to my question, which she could not take as an idle one:
“Yes, I have been doing some bargaining.”
“Is that the result?”
Again she paused long before she answered.
“That,” said she, “is a trifle—thrown in.”
“To bind the bargain?” I suggested.
“Yes, Mr. Aycon—to bind the bargain.”
“Is it allowed to look?”
“I think everything must be allowed to you. You would be so surprised if it were not.”
I understood that she was aiming a satirical remark at me: I did not mind that; she had better flay me alive than sit and cry.
“Then I may open the box?”
“The key is in it.”
I drew the box across, and I took a chair that stood by. I turned the key of the box. A glance showed me Marie’s drooped lids half raised and her eyes fixed on my face.
I opened the box: there lay in it, in sparkling coil on the blue velvet, a magnificent diamond necklace; one great stone formed a pendent, and it was on this stone that I fixed my regard. I took it up and looked at it closely; then I examined the necklace itself. Marie’s eyes followed my every motion.
“You like these trinkets?” I asked.
“Yes,” said she, in that tone in which “yes” is stronger than a thousand words of rapture; and the depths of her eyes caught fire from the stones, and gleamed.
“But you know nothing about them,” I pursued composedly.
“I suppose they are valuable,” said she, making an effort after nonchalance.
“They have some value,” I conceded, smiling. “But I mean about their history.”
“They are bought, I suppose—bought and sold.”
“I happen to know just a little about such things. In fact, I have a book at home in which there is a picture of this necklace. It is known as the Cardinal’s Necklace. The stones were collected by Cardinal Armand de Saint-Maclou, Archbishop of Caen, some thirty years ago. They were set by Lebeau of Paris, on the order of the cardinal, and were left by him to his nephew, our friend the duke. Since his marriage, the duchess has of course worn them.”
All this I said in a most matter-of-fact tone.
“Do you mean that they belong to her?” asked Marie, with a sudden lift of her eyes.
“I don’t know. Strictly, I should think not,” said I impassively.
Marie Delhasse stretched out her hand and began to finger the stones.
“She wore them, did she?”
“Certainly.”
“Ah! I supposed they had just been bought.” And she took her fingers off them.
“It would take a large sum to do that—to buy them en bloc,” I observed.
“How much?”
“Oh, I don’t know! The market varies so much: perhaps a million francs, perhaps more. You can’t tell how much people will give for such things.”
“No, it is difficult,” she assented, again fingering the necklace, “to say what people will give for them.”
I leaned back in my chair. There was a pause. Then her eyes suddenly met mine again, and she exclaimed defiantly:
“Oh, you know very well what it means! What’s the good of fencing about it?”
“Yes, I know what it means,” said I. “When have you promised to go?”
“To-morrow,” she answered.
“Because of this thing?” and I pointed to the necklace.
“Because of—— How dare you ask me such questions!”
I rose from my seat and bowed.
“You are going?” she asked, her fingers on the necklace, and her eyes avoiding mine.
“I have the honor,” said I, “to enjoy the friendship of the Duchess of Saint-Maclou.”
“And that forbids you to enjoy mine?”
I bowed assent to her inference. She sat still at the table, her chin on her hands. I was about to leave her, when it struck me all in a moment that leaving her was not exactly the best thing to do, although it might be much the easiest. I arrested my steps.
“Well,” she asked, “is not our acquaintance ended?”
And she suddenly opened her hands and hid her face in them. It was a strange conclusion to a speech so coldly and distantly begun.
“For God’s sake, don’t go!” said I, bending a little across the table toward her.
“What’s it to you? What’s it to anybody?” came from between her fingers.
“Your mother——” I began.
She dropped her hands from her face, and laughed. It was a laugh the like of which I hope not to hear again. Then she broke out:
“Why wouldn’t she have me in the house? Why did she run away? Am I unfit to touch her?”
“If she were wrong, you’re doing your best to make her right.”
“If everybody thinks one wicked, one may as well be wicked, and—and live in peace.”
“And get diamonds?” I added, “Weren’t you wicked?”
“No,” she said, looking me straight in the face. “But what difference did that make?”
“None at all, in one point of view,” said I. But to myself I was swearing that she should not go.
Then she said in a very low tone:
“He never leaves me. Ah! he makes everyone think——”
“Let ‘em think,” said I.
“If everyone thinks it——”
“Oh, come, nonsense!” said I.
“You know what you thought. What honest woman would have anything to do with me—or what honest man either?”
I had nothing to say about that; so I said again.
“Well, don’t go, anyhow.”
She spoke in lower tones, as she answered this appeal of mine:
“I daren’t refuse. He’ll be here again; and my mother——”
“Put it off a day or two,” said I. “And don’t take that thing.”
She looked at me, it seemed to me, in astonishment.
“Do you really care?” she asked, speaking very low.
I nodded. I did care, somehow.
“Enough to stand by me, if I don’t go?”
I nodded again.
“I daren’t refuse right out. My mother and he——”
She broke off.
“Have something the matter with you: flutters or something,” I suggested.
The ghost of a smile appeared on her face.
“You’ll stay?” she asked.
I had to stay, anyhow. Perhaps I ought to have said so, and not stolen credit; but all I did was to nod again.
“And, if I ask you, you’ll—you’ll stand between me and him?”
I hoped that my meeting with the duke would not be in a strong light; but I only said:
“Rather! I’ll do anything I can, of course.”
She did not thank me; she looked at me again. Then she observed.
“My mother will be back soon.”
“And I had better not be here?”
“No.”
I advanced to the table again, and laid my hand on the box containing the Cardinal’s necklace.
“And this?” I asked in a careless tone.
“Ought I to send them back?”
“You don’t want to?”
“What’s the use of saying I do? I love them. Besides, he’ll see through it. He’ll know that I mean I won’t come. I daren’t—I daren’t show him that!”
Then I made a little venture; for, fingering the box idly, I said:
“It would be uncommonly handsome of you to give ‘em to the duchess.”
“To the duchess?” she gasped in wondering tones.
“You see,” I remarked, “either they are the duchess’, in which case she ought to have them; or, if they were the duke’s, they’re yours now; and you can do what you like with them.”
“He gave them me on—on a condition.”
“A condition,” said I, “no gentleman could mention, and no law enforce.”
She blushed scarlet, but sat silent.
“Revenge is sweet,” said I. “She ran away rather than meet you. You send her her diamonds!”
A sudden gleam shot into Marie Delhasse’s eyes.
“Yes,” she said, “yes.” And stopped, thinking, with her hands clasped.
“You send them by me,” I pursued, delighted with the impression which my suggestion had made upon her.
“By you? You see her, then?” she asked quickly.
“Occasionally,” I answered. The duchess’ secret was not mine, and I did not say where I saw her.
“I’ll give them to you,” said Marie—“to you, not to the duchess.”
“I won’t have ‘em at any price,” said I. “Come, your mother will be back soon. I believe you want to keep ’em.” And I assumed a disgusted air.
“I don’t!” she flashed out passionately. “I don’t want to touch them! I wouldn’t keep them for the world!”
I looked at my watch. With a swift motion, Marie Delhasse leaped from her chair, dashed down the lid of the box, hiding the glitter of the stones, seized the box in her two hands and with eyes averted held it out to me.
“For the duchess?” I asked.
“Yes, for the duchess,” said Marie, with, averted eyes.
I took the box, and stowed it in the capacious pocket of the shooting-jacket which I was wearing.
“Go!” said Marie, pointing to the door.
I held out my hand. She caught it in hers. Upon my word, I thought she was going to kiss it. So strongly did I think it that, hating fuss of that sort, I made a half-motion to pull it away. However, I was wrong. She merely pressed it and let it drop.
“Cheer up! cheer up! I’ll turn up again soon,” said I, and I left the room.
And left in the nick of time; for at the very moment when I, hugging the lump in my coat which marked the position of the Cardinal’s Necklace, reached the foot of the stairs Mme. Delhasse appeared on her way up.
“Oh, you old viper!” I murmured thoughtlessly, in English.
“Pardon, monsieur?” said Mme. Delhasse.
“Forgive me: I spoke to myself—a foolish habit,” I rejoined, with a low bow and, I’m afraid, a rather malicious smile. The old lady glared at me, bobbed her head the slightest bit in the world, and passed me by.
I went out into the sunshine, whistling merrily. My good friend the waiter stood by the door. His eyes asked me a question.
“She is much better,” I said reassuringly. And I walked out, still whistling merrily.
In truth I was very pleased with myself. Every man likes to think that he understands women. I was under the impression that I had proved myself to possess a thorough and complete acquaintance with that intricate subject. I was soon to find that my knowledge had its limitations. In fact, I have been told more than once since that my plan was a most outrageous one. Perhaps it was; but it had the effect of wresting those dangerous stones from poor Marie’s regretful hands. A man need not mind having made a fool of himself once or twice on his way through the world, so he has done some good by the process. At the moment, however, I felt no need for any such apology.