XX

Henri Graillot had made himself thoroughly comfortable. He was ensconced in the largest of John's easy chairs, his pipe in his mouth, a recently refilled teacup—Graillot was English in nothing except his predilection for tea—on the small table by his side. Through a little cloud of tobacco-smoke he was studying his host.

"So you call yourself a Londoner now, my young friend, I suppose," he remarked, taking pensive note of John's fashionable clothes. "It is a transformation, beyond a doubt! Is it, I wonder, upon the surface only, or have you indeed become heart and soul a son of this corrupt city?"

"Whatever I may have become," John grumbled, "it's meant three months of the hardest work I've ever done!"

Graillot held out his pipe in front of him and blew away a dense cloud of smoke.

"Explain yourself," he insisted.

John stood on the hearth-rug, with his hands in his pockets. His morning clothes were exceedingly well-cut, his tie and collar unexceptionable, his hair closely cropped according to the fashion of the moment. He had an extremely civilized air.

"Look here, Graillot," he said, "I'll tell you what I've done, although I don't suppose you would understand what it means to me. I've visited practically every theater in London."

"Alone?"

"Sometimes with Miss Maurel, sometimes with her little friend, Sophy Gerard, and sometimes alone," John replied. "I have bought a Baedeker, taken a taxicab by the day, and done all the sights. I've spent weeks in the National Gallery, picture-gazing, and I've done all those more modern shows up round Bond Street. I have bought a racing-car and learned to drive it. I have been to dinner parties that have bored me stiff. I have been introduced to crowds of people whom I never wish to see again, and made one or two friends," he added, smiling at his guest, "for whom I hope I am properly grateful."

"The prince has been showing you round a bit, hasn't he?" Graillot grunted.

"The prince has been extraordinarily kind to me," John admitted slowly, "for what reason I don't know. He has introduced me to a great many pleasant and interesting people, and a great many whom I suppose a young man in my position should be glad to know. He has shown me one side of London life pretty thoroughly."

"And what about it all?" Graillot demanded. "You find yourself something more of a citizen of the world, eh?"

"Not a bit," John answered simply. "The more I see of the life up here, the smaller it seems to me. I mean, of course, the ordinary life of pleasure, the life to be lived by a young man like myself, who hasn't any profession or work upon which he can concentrate his thoughts."

"Then why do you stay?"

John made no immediate reply. Instead, he walked to the window of his sitting room and stood looking out across the Thames with a discontented frown upon his face. Between him and the Frenchman a curious friendship had sprung up during the last few months.

"Tell me, then," Graillot continued, taking a bite from his piece of cake and shaking the crumbs from his waistcoat, "what do you find in London to compensate you for the things you miss? You are cooped up here in this little flat—you, who are used to large rooms and open spaces; you have given up your exercise, your sports—for what?"

"I get some exercise," John protested. "I play rackets at Ranelagh most mornings, and I bought a couple of hacks and ride occasionally in the park before you're out of bed."

"That's all right for exercise," Graillot observed. "What about amusements?"

"Well, I've joined a couple of clubs. One's rather a swagger sort of place—the prince got me in there; and then I belong to the Lambs, where you yourself go sometimes. I generally look in at one or the other of them during the evening."

"You see much of Miss Maurel?"

John shook his head gloomily.

"Not as much as I should like," he confessed. "She seems to think and dream of nothing but this play of yours. I am hoping that when it is once produced she will be more free."

"I gather," Graillot concluded, "that, to put it concisely and truthfully, you are the most bored man in London. There is something behind all this effort of yours, my friend, to fit yourself, the round human being, into the square place. Speak the truth, now! Treat me as a father confessor."

John swung round upon his heel. In the clear light it was obvious that he was a little thinner in the face and that some of the tan had gone from his complexion.

"I am staying up here, and going on with it," he announced doggedly, "because of a woman."

Graillot stopped eating, placed the remains of his cake in the saucer of his teacup, and laid it down. Then he leaned back in his chair and balanced his finger-tips one against the other.

"A woman!" he murmured. "How you astonish me!"

"Why?"

"Candor is so good," Graillot continued, "so stimulating to the moral system. It is absolute candor which has made friends of two people so far apart in most ways as you and myself. You surprise me simply because of your reputation."

"What about my reputation?"

Graillot smiled benignly.

"In France," he observed, "you would probably be offered your choice of lunatic asylums. Here your weakness seems to have made you rather the vogue."

"What weakness?"

"It is to a certain extent hearsay, I must admit," Graillot proceeded; "but the report about you is that, although you have had some of the most beautiful women in London almost offer themselves to you, you still remain without a mistress."

"What in the world do you mean?" John demanded.

"I mean," Graillot explained frankly, "that for a young man of your age, your wealth, and your appearance to remain free from any feminine entanglement is a thing unheard of in my country, and, I should imagine, rare in yours. It is not so that young men were made when I was young!"

"I don't happen to want a mistress," John remarked, lighting a cigarette. "I want a wife."

"But meanwhile—"

"You can call me a fool, if you like," John interrupted. "I may be one, I suppose, from your point of view. All I know is that I want to be able to offer the woman whom I marry, and who I hope will be the mother of my children, precisely what she offers me. I want a fair bargain, from her point of view as well as mine."

Graillot, who had been refilling his pipe, stopped and glowered at his host.

"What exactly do you mean?" he asked.

"Surely my meaning is plain enough," John replied. "We all have our peculiar tastes and our eccentricities. One of mine has to do with the other sex. I cannot make an amusement of them. It is against all my prejudices."

Graillot carefully completed the refilling of his pipe and lit it satisfactorily. Then he turned once more to John.

"Let us not be mistaken," he said. "You are a purist!"

"You can call me what you like," John retorted. "I do not believe in one law for the woman and another for the man. If a man wants a woman, and we all do more or less, it seems to me that he ought to wait until he finds one whom he is content to make the mother of his children."

Graillot nodded ponderously.

"Something like this I suspected," he admitted. "I felt that there was something extraordinary and unusual about you. If I dared, my young friend, I would write a play about you; but then no one would believe it. Now tell me something. I have heard your principles. We are face to face—men, brothers, and friends. Do you live up to them?"

"I have always done so," John declared.

Graillot was silent for several moments. Then he opened his lips to speak and abruptly closed them. His face suddenly underwent an extraordinary change. A few seconds ago his attitude had been that of a professor examining some favorite object of study; now a more personal note had humanized his expression. Whatever thought or reflection it was that had come into his mind, it had plainly startled him.

"Who is the woman?" he asked breathlessly.

"There is no secret about it, so far as I am concerned," John answered. "It is Louise Maurel. I thought you must have guessed."

The two men looked at each other in silence for some moments. Out on the river a little tug was hooting vigorously. The roar of the Strand came faintly into the room. Upon the mantelpiece a very ornate French clock was ticking lightly. All these sounds seemed suddenly accentuated. They beat time to a silence almost tragical in its intensity.

Graillot took out his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. He had written many plays, and the dramatic instinct was strongly developed in him.

"Louise!" he muttered under his breath.

"She is very different, I know," John went on, after a moment's hesitation. "She is very clever and a great artist, and she lives in an atmosphere of which, a few months ago, I knew nothing. I have come up here to try to understand, to try to get a little nearer to her."

There was another silence, this time almost an awkward one. Then Graillot rose suddenly to his feet.

"I will respect your confidence," he promised, holding out his hand. "Have no fear of that. I am due now at the theater. Your tea is excellent, and such little cakes I never tasted before."

"You will wish me good luck?"

"No!"

"Why not?" John demanded, a little startled.

"Because," Graillot pronounced, "from what I have seen and know of you both, there are no two people in this world less suitable for each other."

"Look here," John expostulated, "I don't want you to go away thinking so. You don't understand what this means to me."

"Perhaps not, my friend," Graillot replied, "but remember that it is at least my trade to understand men and women. I have known Louise Maurel since she was a child."

"Then it is I whom you don't understand."

"That may be so," Graillot confessed. "One makes mistakes. Let us leave it at that. You are a young man of undeveloped temperament. You may be capable of much which at present I do not find in you."

"Tell me the one quality in which you consider me most lacking," John begged. "You think that I am narrow, too old-fashioned in my views? Perhaps I am, but, on the other hand, I am very anxious to learn and absorb all that is best in this wider life. You can't really call me prejudiced. I hated the stage before I came to London, but during the last few months no one has been a more assiduous theatergoer. I understand better than I did, and my views are immensely modified. I admit that Louise is a great artist, I admit that she has wonderful talents. I am even willing, if she wished it, to allow her to remain for a time upon the stage. What could I say more? I want you on my side, Graillot."

"And I," Graillot replied, as he shook his friend's hand and hurried off, "want only to be on the side that will mean happiness for you both."

He left the room a little abruptly. John walked back to the window, oppressed with a sense of something almost ominous in the Frenchman's manner, something which he could not fathom, against which he struggled in vain. Side by side with it, there surged into his memory the disquietude which his present relations with Louise had developed. She was always charming when she had any time to spare—sometimes almost affectionate. On the other hand, he was profoundly conscious of her desire to keep him at arm's length for the present.

He had accepted her decision without a murmur. He made but few efforts to see her alone, and when they met he made no special claim upon her notice. He was serving his apprenticeship doggedly and faithfully. Yet there were times like the present when he found his task both hateful and difficult.

He walked aimlessly backward and forward, chafing against the restraint of the narrow walls and the low ceiling. A sudden desire had seized him to fly back to the hills, wreathed in mist though they might be; to struggle on his way through the blinding rain, to drink down long gulps of his own purer, less civilized atmosphere.

The telephone-bell rang. He placed the receiver to his ear almost mechanically.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Lady Hilda Mulloch is asking for you, sir," the hall-porter announced.

Lady Hilda peered around John's room through her lorgnette, and did not hesitate to express her dissatisfaction.

"My dear man," she exclaimed, "what makes you live in a hotel? Why don't you take rooms of your own and furnish them? Surroundings like these are destructive to one's individuality."

"Well, you see," John explained, as he drew an easy chair up to the fire for his guest, "my stay in London is only a temporary one, and it hasn't seemed worth while to settle anywhere."

She stretched out her graceful body in front of the fire and raised her veil. She was very smartly dressed, as usual. Her white-topped boots and white silk stockings, which she seemed to have no objection to displaying, were of the latest vogue. The chinchilla around her neck and in her little toque was most becoming. She seemed to bring with her an atmosphere indefinable, in its way, but distinctly attractive. Brisk in her speech, a little commanding in her manner, she was still essentially feminine.

John, at her direct invitation, had called upon her once or twice since their meeting at the opera, and he had found her, from the first, more attractive than any other society woman of his acquaintance. None the less, he was a little taken aback at her present visit.

"Exactly why are you here, anyhow?" she demanded. "I feel sure that Eugène told me the reason which had brought you from your wilds, but I have forgotten it."

"For one thing," John replied, "I have come because I don't want to appear prejudiced, and the fact that I had never spent a month in London, or even a week, seemed a little narrow-minded."

"What's the real attraction?" Lady Hilda asked. "It is a woman, isn't it?"

"I am very fond of a woman who is in London," John admitted. "Perhaps it is true that I am here on her account."

Lady Hilda withdrew from her muff a gold cigarette-case and a little box of matches.

"Order some mixed vermuth with lemon for me, please," she begged. "I have been shopping, and I hate tea. I don't know why I came to see you. I suddenly thought of it when I was in Bond Street."

"It was very kind of you," John said. "If I had known that you cared about seeing me, I would have come to you with pleasure."

"What does it matter?" she answered. "You are thinking, perhaps, that I risk my reputation in coming to a young man's rooms? Those things do not count for me. Ever since I was a child I have done exactly as I liked, and people have shrugged their shoulders and said, 'Ah, well, it is only Lady Hilda!' I have been six months away from civilization, big-game shooting, and haven't seen a white woman. It didn't matter, because it was I. I traveled around the world with a most delightful man who was writing a book, but it didn't affect my reputation in the slightest. I am quite convinced that if I chose to take you off to Monte Carlo with me next week and spend a month with you there, I should get my pass to the royal enclosure at Ascot when I returned, and my invitation to the next court ball, even in this era of starch. You see, they would say, 'It is only Lady Hilda!'"

The waiter brought the vermuth, which his visitor sipped contentedly.

"So there is a woman, is there?" she went on, looking across the room at her companion. "Have you committed yourself already, then? Don't you remember what I told you the first night we met after the opera—that it is well to wait?"

"Yes, I remember," John admitted.

"I meant it."

He laughed good-humoredly, yet not without some trace of self-consciousness.

"The mischief was done then," he said.

"Couldn't it be undone?" she asked lazily. "Or are you one of those tedious people who are faithful forever? Fidelity," she continued, knocking the ash from her cigarette, "is really, to my mind, the most bourgeois of vices. It comes from a want of elasticity in the emotional fibres. Nothing in life has bored me so much as the faithfulness of my lovers."

"You ought to put all this into one of your books," John suggested.

"I probably shall, when I write my reminiscences," she replied. "Tell me about this woman. And don't stand about in that restless way at the other end of the room. Bring a chair close to me—there, close to my side!"

John obeyed, and his visitor contemplated him thoughtfully through a little cloud of tobacco-smoke.

"Yes," she decided, "there is no use denying it. You are hatefully good-looking, and somehow or other I think your clothes have improved you. You have a little more air than when you first came to town. Are you quite sure that you haven't made up your mind about this woman in a hurry?"

"Quite sure," John laughed. "I suppose I am rather an idiot, but I am addicted to the vice of which you were speaking."

She nodded.

"I should imagine," she said, "that you were not an adept in the art of flirtation. Is it true that the woman is Louise Maurel?"

"Quite true," John replied.

"But don't you know—"

She broke off abruptly. She saw the face of the man by her side suddenly change, and her instinct warned her of the danger into which she was rushing.

"You surprise me very much," she said. "Louise Maurel is a very wonderful woman, but she seems to spend the whole of her time with my cousin, the prince."

"They are, without doubt, very friendly," John assented. "They have a good many interests in common, and the prince is connected with the syndicate which finances the theater. I do not imagine, however, that the prince wishes to marry her, or she him."

Lady Hilda began to laugh, softly, but as if genuinely amused. John sat and watched her in ominous silence. Not the flicker of a smile parted his set lips. His visitor, however, was undisturbed. She leaned over and patted his hand.

"Simple Simon!" she murmured, leaning a little toward him. "If you go looking like that, I shall pat your cheeks, too. You are really much too nice-looking to wear such thunderclouds!"

"Perhaps if we chose some other subject of conversation—" John said stiffly.

"Oh, dear me!" she interrupted. "Very well! You really are a most trying person, you know. I put up with a great deal from you."

John was silent. Her face darkened a little, and an angry light flashed in her eyes.

"Well, I'll leave you alone, if you like," she decided, tossing her cigarette into the grate. "If my friendship isn't worth having, let it go. It hasn't often been offered in vain. There are more men in London than I could count who would go down on their knees for such a visit as I am paying you. And you—you," she added, with a little tremble of real anger in her tone, "you're too hatefully polite and priggish! Come and ring the bell for the lift. I am going!"

She slid gracefully to her feet, shook the cigarette ash from her clothes, and picked up her muff.

"You really are an egregious, thick-headed, obstinate countryman," she declared, as she moved toward the door. "You haven't either manners or sensibility. I am a perfect idiot to waste my time upon you. I wouldn't have done it," she added, as he followed her dumbly down the corridor, "if I hadn't rather liked you!"

"I am very sorry," he declared. "I don't know quite what I have done. I do appreciate your friendship. You have been very kind to me indeed."

She hesitated as his finger touched the bell of the lift, and glanced at the watch on her wrist.

"Well," she said, "if you want to be friends, I will give you one last chance. I am doing what sounds rather a ghastly thing—I am having a little week-end party down at my cottage at Bourne End. It will be rather like camping out, but some interesting people are coming. Will you motor down on Saturday evening and stay till Sunday night or Monday?"

"I shall be very pleased indeed," John replied. "It is very good of you to ask me. When I come, I'd like, if I may," he went on, "to tell you about myself, and why I am here, and about Louise."

She sighed, and watched the top of the lift as it came up. Then she dropped her veil.

"You will find me," she assured him, as she gave him the tips of her fingers, "a most sympathetic listener."

Louise and Sophy came to dine that evening with John in the grill-room at the Milan. They arrived a little late and were still in morning clothes. Louise was looking pale and tired, and her greeting was almost listless.

"We are dead beat," Sophy exclaimed. "We've been having a secret rehearsal this afternoon without Graillot, and he came in just as we were finishing. He was perfectly furious!"

"He was here to tea with me," John remarked, as he led the way to their table.

"My dear man," Louise exclaimed, "if you could have kept him half an hour longer you'd have earned our undying gratitude! You see, there are several little things on which we shall never agree, he and myself and the rest of the company; so we decided to run over certain passages in the way we intend to do them, without him. Of course, he saw through it all when he arrived, tore up his manuscript on the stage, and generally behaved like a madman."

"I am sorry," John said, as they took their seats and he handed Louise the menu of the dinner that he had ordered. "Won't the play be produced to-morrow night, then?"

"Oh, it will be produced all right," Louise told him; "but you don't know how we've all worn ourselves out, trying to make that old bear see reason. We've had to give way on one scene, as it is. What a delightful little dinner, John! You're spoiling us. You know how I love that big white asparagus. And strawberries, too! Well, I think we've earned it anyhow, Sophy!"

"You have," the latter declared. "You were the only one who could soothe Graillot at all."

"I can get my way with most people," Louise remarked languidly; "but it simply means that the more difficult they are, the more you have to spend yourself in getting it. John," she went on, after a moment's pause, "you are coming to-morrow night, I suppose?"

"Of course. Didn't I take my box two months ago?"

"And now that my part after the first act has been cut out, I am coming with him," Sophy put in. "I may, mayn't I?"

"Of course," John assented.

Louise sighed dejectedly.

"I am not at all sure that I shall like having you there," she said. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if it made me nervous."

He laughed incredulously.

"It's all very well," she went on, watching the champagne poured in to her glass, "but you won't like the play, you know."

"Perhaps I sha'n't understand it altogether," John agreed. "It's very subtle, and, as you know, I don't find problem plays of that sort particularly attractive; but with you in it, you can't imagine that I sha'n't find it interesting!"

"We were talking about it, coming up in the taxi," Louise continued, "and we came to the conclusion that you'd hate it. We've had to give way to Graillot with regard to the last act. Of course, there is really nothing in it, but I don't know just what you will say."

"Well, you needn't be afraid that I shall stand up in my box and order the performance to cease," John assured them, smiling. "Besides, I am not quite such an idiot, Louise. I know very well that you may have to say and do things on the stage which in private life would offend your taste and your sense of dignity. I am quite reconciled to that. I am prepared to accept everything you do and everything that you say. There! I can't say more than that, can I?"

Louise smiled at him almost gratefully. She drew her hand over his, caressingly.

"You are a dear!" she declared. "You've really made me feel much more comfortable. Now please tell me what you have been doing all day."

"Well, Graillot came in and spent most of the afternoon," John answered. "Since then, Lady Hilda Mulloch has been here."

Louise looked up quickly.

"What, here in your rooms?"

"I didn't ask her," John said. "I have been to see her once or twice, and she has been very nice, but I never dreamed of her coming here."

"Shameless hussy!" Sophy exclaimed, as she set down her wine-glass. "Didn't you tell her that Louise and I are the only two women in London who have the entrée to your rooms?"

"I am afraid it didn't occur to me to tell her that," John confessed, smiling. "All the same, I was surprised to see her. It was just a whim, I think."

"She is a clever woman," Louise sighed. "She won't know me—I can't imagine why. She is a cousin of the prince, too, you know."

"She is very amusing," John agreed. "I have met some interesting people at her house, too. She has asked me down to Bourne End for this next week-end—the week-end you are spending with Mrs. Faraday," he continued, glancing toward Louise.

Louise nodded. She looked at John critically.

"Quite a success in town, isn't he?" she remarked to Sophy. "People tumble over one another to get invitations for her week-end parties in the season. I must say I never heard of going down to Bourne End in February, though."

"The idea seemed rather pleasant to me," John confessed. "So many of you people know nothing of the country except just in the summer!"

"If John gets talking about the country," Louise said, "we shall not be allowed our proper share in the conversation for the rest of the evening. The question is, are we to allow him to go down to Bourne End? Lady Hilda isn't exactly a Puritan where your sex is concerned, you know, John."

"She'll expect you to flirt with her," Sophy insisted.

"She won't," John replied. "I have told her that I am in love with Louise."

"Was there ever such a man in the world?" Louise exclaimed. "Tell me, what did Lady Hilda say to that?"

"Not much," he answered. "She suggested that her cousin had a prior claim on you."

Louise laid down her knife and fork. Her left hand clutched the piece of toast which was lying by her side. She began to crumble it up into small pieces.

"What did Lady Hilda say exactly?" she insisted.

"Nothing much," John replied. "She seemed surprised when I mentioned your name. I asked her why, and she told me, or rather she hinted, that you and the prince are very great friends."

"Anything more?"

"Nothing at all. I pointed out that the prince is interested in theatrical affairs, and that he is the chief member of the syndicate that runs the theaters. She seemed to understand."

There was a brief silence. Louise was once more looking a little tired. She changed the subject abruptly, and only returned to it when John was driving home with her.

"Do you know," she said, after a long silence, "I am not at all sure that I want you to go to Lady Hilda's!"

"Then I won't," he promised with alacrity. "I'll do just as you say."

Louise sat quite still, thinking, looking through the rain-splashed windows of the taxicab.

"You have only to say the word," John continued. "I should be flattered to think that you cared."

"It isn't that. Lady Hilda is very clever, and she is used to having her own way. I am afraid!"

"Afraid of what?"

"Of nothing," Louise declared suddenly. "Go, by all means, John. I am simply a little idiot when I give way for a moment to such poisonous thoughts. Lady Hilda can say what she likes about anybody or anything. It really doesn't matter at all whether you go to Bourne End or not."

"I don't quite understand you," John confessed; "but if you mean that you are afraid of anything Lady Hilda might say to me about you, why, I feel inclined to laugh at you. Lady Hilda," he added, with a touch of intuition, "is far too clever a woman to make such a mistake."

"I believe you are right," Louise agreed. "I shall pin my faith to Lady Hilda's cleverness and to your—fidelity. Go and spend your week-end there, by all means. I only wish I wasn't bound to go to the Faradays', but that can't possibly be helped. Come and lunch with me on Monday," she added impulsively. "It seems a long time since we had a little talk together."

He suddenly held her to him, and she met his lips unresistingly. It was the first time he had even attempted anything of the sort for months.

"You are a dear, John," she said, a little wistfully. "I am terribly divided in my thoughts about you. Just now I feel that I have only one wish—that I could give you all that you want, all that you deserve!"

He was very loverlike. She was once more a slight, quivering thing in his arms.

"Why need we wait any longer?" he begged. "If we told everyone to-night—to-morrow—the Faradays would not expect you to keep your engagement."

She shook herself free from him, but her smile was almost a compensation. The taxicab had stopped opposite her door, and her servant came hurrying out.

"Until Monday!" she murmured.