CHAPTER XXIV IN WHICH MATTERS ASSUME A VERY COMPLEX ASPECT

I started to walk along the Boulevard towards the Opera. To that woman with the tow-coloured hair, the blue eyes and pink cheeks—the woman who had replaced me in his affections—Ernest had written that strange message in cipher, a message of warning it might be. I hated her. I really believe that if ever the spirit of murder has entered my heart, it was at that moment. I could have sprung upon her and killed her as she stepped into the carriage.

She had said no word to her coachman. He apparently knew where to drive. That cipher was perhaps an appointment which he had gone forward to keep, while she was now following. The thought convulsed me with anger. This man, Ernest Cameron, the man who had once held me in his arms and declared that he loved me, was, upon his own admission, an assassin.

I had somehow ceased to think of the old millionaire and the chattering woman whom he had concealed on board the Vispera. All my thoughts were of the man who had, until then, held me as his helpless slave.

It may have been jealousy, or it may possibly have been the revulsion of feeling that had seized me on becoming aware of the terrible truth of his guilt, that caused me to vow to leave no stone unturned to secure his arrest and condemnation. I would follow her. She, that slim woman with the fair hair, had stolen him from me, but I determined that she should not be allowed to enjoy his society much longer. I had discovered the truth, and the blow that I intended to deal would be fatal to the happiness of both of them.

I laughed within myself as I got into a fiacre, and told the driver to keep her carriage in sight. I was not impatient. I would wait and watch until I had secured ample proof. Then I had but to apply to the police, and the arrest would be made. He, Ernest Cameron, had murdered and robbed the poor boy who had admired me, and with whom I had so foolishly flirted. It was the attention I had allowed him to pay to me that was primarily the cause of his assassination. Of that I had always been convinced. The moral responsibility rested upon myself.

I followed her straight up the Rue Lafayette to the Gare du Nord, where she alighted, and after speaking a moment with her coachman, dismissed her carriage. She evidently intended to leave Paris. I crept up quickly behind her in the long booking-office, and followed her in order to overhear her destination.

"First-class return to Enghien, please," she asked the girl who sold the tickets.

Enghien! I had heard of the place as being a popular resort near Paris, famous for its sulphur baths; but in what direction it lay, I had not the slightest idea. Nevertheless, the fact of her taking a return ticket, and having no baggage, showed that she did not intend to make a protracted stay. Therefore, when she was out of hearing, I took a ticket for the same destination; the price showed me that the distance could not be very great.

Secretly following her, I entered a train, and in half-an-hour alighted at a small suburban station, which was rather dimly lit. Outside, she entered a fiacre. Following her quickly, I drove through the narrow street of the little French town to the shore of a small lake, from which arose a strong and disagreeable odour of sulphur. She disappeared into the gaily-lit entrance of an illuminated garden, which I discovered to be the Casino of Enghien, an establishment where public gambling was permitted, and where there was a celebrated so-called cercle for baccarat. The place consisted of a garden extending along the shore of the lake, together with a large open-air café, a big theatre—where a variety performance was in progress—and beyond, the public gaming-room, play in which proved to be of the usual kind permitted at French and Belgian resorts.

It was a decidedly pretty place. The long festoons of coloured lights were reflected in the lake, while out towards the pine-covered island were many small boats decorated with paper lanterns. In the garden there was quite a crowd of Parisians, who had gone there in the evening to lounge in the fresh air, or to stake their francs upon the little horses or upon the miniature railway. The band was playing, and the smart pleasure-seekers were promenading over the gravelled walks, laughing gaily, and chatting merrily.

The woman upon whom I was keeping such a close watch strolled through the gardens, peering hither and thither, as though in search of someone. It was the entr'acte, and the theatre, one side of which was open towards the garden, had emptied. At Enghien the entr'actes are long, in order to allow people to go to the gaming-room. Two men I recognised as habitués at Monte Carlo, one of them middle-aged, well-dressed and black-bearded, who invariably wore white kid gloves. He was half bald, and his face showed marks of premature age brought on by dissipation. The other, who was younger, was his partner. They were well-known figures at Monte Carlo, and had evidently left there and come north, now that, the season being over, there were no more pigeons to be plucked in the private gaming-rooms of the Riviera.

The woman at length took a seat at one of the café tables, deep in the shadow of a tree, and ordered a consommation. I suspected that she had an appointment with someone, and therefore resolved to watch. As far as I could observe, she had never once detected my presence, and if she did now, she most probably would not recognise me, dressed as I was in an old stuff gown. She had seen me, I recollected, in the smart Monte Carlo toilettes, in which I presented such a different appearance. I took up a position on one of the seats by the lakeside, opposite the café, a spot from which I could see all that might come to pass.

I must here admit that my continual search was growing terribly wearisome. Unused to acting the spy, my nerves had been during those days of travel and adventure strained to their utmost tension. For five nights sleep had scarcely come to my eyes, so constant was the vigil I had kept, and for five days I had existed in feverish anxiety on the very horns of a dilemma. I sat there watching the passing crowd of gay Parisiennes, and breathing the fresh evening air from across the lake. On the other shore were large mansions, with their lawns sloping down to the water, reminding me of English houses on the upper reaches of the Thames. From time to time a night-bird skimmed the placid water, causing it to eddy in the starlight. From across the water came feminine laughter from a passing boat, and a girl's voice reached me from far away, trilling the refrain of Paulette Darty's "romance-waltz," which I supposed had just been sung in the café-concert:

"Donne-moi ta lèvre, ta lèvre rose,
Qu'amoureusement ma lèvre s'y pose
Et qu'étroitement tous deux enlacés
Nos querelles soient querelles de baisers."

Yes, the scene was certainly charmfxing. I, like thousands of the people who go to Paris, and who know the Rue Rivoli better than they do Oxford Street, had never troubled to spend an evening at Enghien. The Casino would really be a delightful one were it not for the presence of that curse to French and Belgian popular resorts—the tapis vert. Dozens of similar places are spoilt by the introduction of those tables, for play and the demi-monde are inseparable, just as are baccarat and blackguards.

The electric bells had rung to announce that the variety entertainment was about to be resumed, and the crowd from the gaming-room and from the garden was making its way back to the theatre, to be entertained by the drolleries of Paulus and the risky chansons of Liane de Vries, when, of a sudden, I noticed that the woman who had stolen my lover's heart had half-risen and given her hand to a stranger, evidently the man she had been expecting.

He was short of stature, and well-dressed, for in the shadow where he stood I could see the wide expanse of starched shirt-front displayed by his open overcoat, and could tell that he wore an opera-hat.

She re-seated herself, evidently pleased by his arrival, while he stood for a moment bending towards her and speaking earnestly. Then he drew back, laughed merrily, and seated himself opposite her.

He sat back in the half-darkness, so that I was unable to distinguish his face. But his presence there was sufficient to tell me that this woman, by whom Ernest had been fascinated, was a worthless person, who made secret assignations unknown to the unfortunate man, who probably believed her to be the very paragon of all the virtues.

How would Ernest act if he were aware of the actual truth? I wondered. Would he still have confidence in his pink-and-white doll?

Perhaps. Men are incomprehensible creatures where their love is concerned. When fascinated by a woman's smile, they will lick the hand that cuffs them; they will allow Aspasia to drench them with vin mousseux, to smother them with chiffons, to stifle them with mots, and to sell them for rouleaux, and yet make no audible complaint.

To love and to hate seem to be the two things which it is most natural and most easy for women to do. In these two principles how many of the actions of our lives originate. How important is it, therefore, that we should learn early in life to love and hate aright. Most women believe that they love virtue and hate vice. But have the majority of them clearly ascertained what virtue and vice are? Have they examined the meaning of these important words? Have they listened to the plausible reasoning of what we call Society, where things are spoken of by false names, and where vice is vulgar in the common herd, but sanctioned as chic among the select few? Or have they gone directly to the eternal and immutable principles of good and evil?

I must confess that, tutored by Ulrica, I had long ago listened to Society's reasonings, and had thus become a worldly woman. Now a worldly woman is necessarily a woman possessing tact, and able at the same time to tell untruths with grace, and successfully to act a part whenever necessary.

Woman is gifted by nature with a remarkable quickness of perception, by means of which she is able to detect the earliest approach of aught tending to destroy that high-toned purity of character for which, even in the days of chivalry, she was more reverenced and adored than for her beauty itself. This quickness of perception in minute and delicate points, with the power which woman also possesses of acting upon it instantaneously, has, in familiar phraseology, obtained the name of tact; and when this natural gift is added to good taste, the two combined are of more value to a woman in the social and domestic affairs of every-day life than the most brilliant and intellectual endowments could be without them.

You, my friend and confidante, know well that when a woman is possessed of a high degree of tact, she sees, as if by a kind of second sight, when any little emergency is likely to occur; or when, to use a more familiar expression, things do not seem likely to go right. She is thus aware of any sudden turn in conversation, and prepared for what it may lead to; but above all, she can penetrate into the state of mind of those with whom she is placed in contact, so as to detect the gathering gloom upon another's brow, before the mental storm shall have reached any formidable height; to know when the tone of voice has altered, when an unwelcome thought has presented itself, and when the pulse of feeling is beating higher or lower in consequence of some apparently trifling circumstance which has just come to pass.

Most women flatter themselves upon this valuable acquirement, and the scandal-monger most of all. In the life of every woman there have been critical moments, when this natural intuition has led her into a knowledge of the truth. During the days when I was acting as a spy, my quickness of perception was put to the test times without number, and again there, in the Casino of Enghien-les-Bains, I was compelled to exercise all my woman's cunning.

The man who had just joined the fair lounger beneath the tree was, I judged, much beneath middle height, but in the darkness height is always deceptive. All I could see distinctly was that he wore a black overcoat, a black tie, and either white or lavender gloves. Evidently he was of that type of male elegant commonly to be seen in the neighbourhood of public gaming-tables. Men of this type are usually hard-up, live by sponging on friends, affect a rather select circle, and are the leaders of masculine fashion. The Italians call a man belonging to this class a duca senza ducati.

He was leaning his elbows upon the table, and had entered into an earnest conversation. Both heads were bent together, and he was apparently relating some facts which were, to her, of the utmost interest, for now and then she shrugged her narrow shoulders, and gesticulated with not a little vivacity. I was, however, too far off to overhear a single syllable of the conversation.

The man, I saw, had taken from his pocket some letters, one of which she held in her hand, bending forward into the light so as to read it. What she read apparently angered her, for she tossed it back to him in disgust, and struck her hand upon the table with a quick ejaculation. This caused some words between them. I imagined that, in her outburst of temper, she had made some charge against him which he now stoutly denied, for of a sudden both were gesticulating violently. As most of the promenaders had entered the theatre, the garden was at that moment practically deserted; but the orchestra in the illuminated bandstand was playing, drowning all their words, and preventing attention being directed to their altercation.

I sat there by the lake-side, watching with breathless interest. What would I not have given to be sufficiently near to catch the drift of their conversation!

Presently, in the height of their argument, he pushed a second letter before her face roughly, as though to convince her of his words; but she, seeing in his action a desire to insult her, snatched the letter from his hands, tore it into fragments, and cast them in his face.

It was done in an instant, and sitting as they were in that secluded corner in the shadow, none witnessed the incident save myself.

The man rose quickly, with an air of fierce resentment, bowed to her with mock courtesy, and strode off. But as he passed out into the gaslight, I saw his face, and recognising it, could not suppress a cry of amazement.

He was not young, as I had supposed, but old and decrepit. The countenance was the ugly, sinister one of Branca, the queer old fellow with whom I had had such a strange interview in Leghorn only a few days before.